MILWAUKEE- Former House Speaker Paul Ryan isn’t planning on re-boarding the Trump train.
During an interview Thursday morning with WTMJ’s Steve Scaffidi, Ryan doubled down on his reluctance to support former President Donald Trump’s bid for the White House.
“People think of me as a never-Trumper,” Ryan said. “I actually was not a never-Trumper, I’m very happy and pleased and thankful for the policy achievements we got during the first two years of his administration.”
“I am a never again Trumper,” Ryan went on to say as he placed his party’s underachievement in last week’s midterm elections squarely at the feet of the former President.
“Largely because of him we lost the House in ’18, we lost the Presidency in ’20, we lost the Senate in ’20, and now in 2022 we didn’t get the Senate where we should have and we have a much lower majority in the House than we would have otherwise had, Ryan said. “I think it’s really, really, really clear that with Trump we’re much more likely to lose, we’ve been stringing up a lot of losses because of him and we’re much more likely to win with someone not named Trump.”
Ryan went on to name Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who’s been reportedly eying a Presidential run in 2024, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin as two examples of up-and-coming Republican leaders he’d rather see head up a Presidential ticket.
The Associated Press reporting Thursday morning that Republicans had secured at least 218 House seats, which gives them control of Congress even with a handful of seats left to be decided in key races in states such as Arizona, California, & Nevada.
The former Speaker also downplayed, but did not rule out, a return to public office. Ryan has worked in the private sector since deciding against running for reelection in 2018.
“I don’t rule it out but it’s nowhere near my mind,” Ryan told Scaffidi. “It’s just not where I am.”
