Former Speaker Paul Ryan brands Trump a ‘proven loser’

Former Speaker takes shot at ex-president in CNN interview

Former Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has hit out at former President Donald Trump as a “proven loser” in an interview on CNN.

“He’s fading fast,” Mr Ryan said of Mr Trump to the network’s Jake Tapper. “He’s a proven loser. He cost us the House in ‘18, he cost us the White House in ‘20, he cost us the Senate again and again, and I think we all know that and I think we’re moving past Trump. I really think that’s the case. I can’t imagine him getting the nomination, frankly.”

Mr Ryan, who was Speaker of the House when Mr Trump entered the White House in 2017 and left politics entirely shortly thereafter, didn’t have such a sterling record of political success himself. He was Senator Mitt Romney’s running mate when Mr Romney lost the race to the White House to Barack Obama.

Since leaving Congress four years ago, Mr Ryan has sat on corporate boards and surfaced in the media as an opponent of the Trump wing of the party. At the same time, he has been a booster of the same hardline neoliberal fiscal politics he espoused when he caught Mr Romney’s attention as a House member from Wisconsin at the beginning of the last decade.

Mr Ryan was on Tapper’s CNN show on Thursday to comment on his former colleague Kevin McCarthy’s painful ascension to the Speakership last week — a drama he claimed was a result of serious policy differences between Republicans and not any of the other issues like election denialism that appeared to unite the group of roughly 20 members who opposed Mr McCarthy.

“Most of that wasn’t personal, most of that was around fiscal responsibility,” Mr Ryan said. “Most of that was about a concern about spending, inflation, and debt. That’s great. I think you need to persuade the country as to the solutions and the problem, and I don’t think brinksmanship solves those things, but what’s behind that is a good thing which is Republicans finally reacquiring their moorings on the party of fiscal responsibility and limited government.”

“That’s a very positive interpretation,” Tapper responded.

Mr Ryan’s politics of so-called fiscal responsibility have seemingly gone out of style in a Republican Party responsible for slashing taxes for the wealthy and inflating the federal deficit during Mr Trump’s term in office.

Mr Ryan also said on the show that embattled Rep George Santos of New York should resign, echoing the calls of an increasing number of Republicans struggling to justify Mr Santos’ lies about his background and other issues surrounding his campaign.