Now you tell us, Mr. Speaker.
The former speaker of the U.S. House, Paul Ryan, has revealed why he left public life. He couldn’t stand working with Donald J. Trump.
Ryan is quoted in a new book about his time as speaker during the Trump Era. He says in Tim Alberta’s book, “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the rise of President Trump,” that he sought to protect the president from his “knee-jerk” policy making instincts.
According to the Washington Post: “We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.”
Of course, Trump’s reaction was his normal way of responding to such criticism. He flew into a Twitter rage. He called Ryan a “lame duck.” He launched a series of tweets calling Ryan an ineffective speaker who lost Republican control of the House.
Again, as the Post reported: “We’ve gotten so numbed by it all,” Ryan said. “Not in government, but where we live our lives, we have a responsibility to try and rebuild. Don’t call a woman a ‘horse face.’ Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t cheat on anything. Be a good person. Set a good example.”
Yes, that is the kind of individual the nation elected as president. Ryan — a man I do not necessarily support on a policy basis — nonetheless is a man of moral character.
Donald Trump is hardly a “good person,” which I am certain is what rankled Ryan from the outset of the men’s professional relationship.
I guess what makes me angry is that it took Ryan this long to acknowledge what many of us already knew or believed about Trump. He maintained a mostly silent posture while Trump was hurling insults at foes and behaving boorishly on the world’s most public and visible stage.
I’ll give Ryan credit for this, though: He disinvited Trump while the 2016 Republican nominee was campaigning for the presidency in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump revealed how would grab women by their “pu***.”
But then Trump got elected. Ryan had to work with the new president. Oh, but it got to be too much, according to what we have learned.
Trump’s reaction to Ryan’s candor seems to validate the former speaker’s frustrations. Imagine that.