President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed Fox News Channel board member and former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) for the network’s negative coverage of his debate performances during the 2016 presidential campaign.
President Trump tweeted:
Could somebody at @foxnews please explain to Trump hater A.B. Stoddard (zero talent!) and @TeamCavuto, that I won every one of my debates, from beginning to end. Check the polls taken immediately after the debates. The debates got me elected. Must be Fox Board Member Paul Ryan!
The president’s criticism came in response to associate editor and columnist at RealClearPolitics A.B. Stoddard, who called the president’s past debate performances “disastrous” during an appearance on the Fox Business Network.
“I think that Donald Trump had disastrous debate performances,” Stoddard said in a panel discussion hosted by Neil Cavuto. “Many answers were so cringeworthy. You just couldn’t even believe that he was standing on the stage. And he’s president.”
Ryan, who joined Fox Corp.’s board in March 2019, has reportedly suggested to CEO Lachlan Murdoch that “Fox should decisively break with the president” as the media executive holds “strategy conversations with Fox executives and anchors about how Fox News should prepare for life after Trump.”
Vanity Fair, citing “an executive who’s spoken with Ryan,” reported that “Paul is embarrassed about Trump and now he has the power to do something about it.”
Since resigning from Congress last January, Ryan told American Carnage author Tim Alberta that he wanted to “scold [the president] all the time” because he “didn’t know anything about government.”
Ryan also took aim at President Trump over allegations of infidelity and labeling pornstar Stormy Daniels “horse face,” and claimed he and the others prevented the president “from making bad decisions. All the time.”
“We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was,” Ryan reportedly said. “Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.”
President Trump hit back at Ryan over the reported remarks, branding him “Weak, ineffective & stupid” and accused the retired lawmaker of nearly destroying the Republican Party when he was in Congress.
The president began on Twitter:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is a far superior leader than was Lame Duck Speaker Paul Ryan. Tougher, smarter and a far better fundraiser, Kevin is already closing in on 44 Million Dollars. Paul’s final year numbers were, according to Breitbart, ‘abysmal.’
People like….Paul Ryan almost killed the Republican Party. Weak, ineffective & stupid are not exactly the qualities that Republicans, or the CITIZENS of our Country, were looking for.
He added, “Right now our spirit is at an all time high, far better than the Radical Left Dems. You’ll see next year!”