Free Republic

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan weighed in on the current struggle for the Republican conference to elect a new speaker of the House following the historic ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Of the publicly fractured House Republicans, he said the conference is "basically a bifurcated coalition government,” referencing the growing division and significantly differing factions within the party. “This is a political-leaning conference right now, not a policy-leaning conference,” he said in an interview with Politico. He explained this resulted because “our party is a populist-leaning party right now, not a policy-leaning party.” During his time in office,...

Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday that former President Trump is a “proven loser” after a string of Republican election losses in recent years. “He’s fading fast,” Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper Thursday. “He is 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.” Ryan said he does not believe Trump will get the party nomination as Republicans begin to focus more on issues like fiscal responsibility and less on personalities. “I think we are moving past Trump,” he added. “I...

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said he is a "never-again Trumper" less than a week after former President Donald Trump announced a third White House run. In his assessment of Republicans' weak performance in the midterm elections, he pointed to what he called the "Trump factor" and highlighted the difference in the performance of Trump-backed candidates versus non-Trump Republicans. "It's pretty clear with Trump we lose. So I don't mean this personally. It's just evidence. We lost the House in '18. We lost the presidency in '20, we lost the Senate in '20, and now, in 2022, we should have...

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan complained that Trump didn't act on a top conservative priority. "He and I fought about Medicare and entitlement reform all the time," Ryan said Wednesday. Trump largely ditched the GOP goal of safety-net cuts, but some conservatives still float the move. Paul Ryan has one big complaint about former President Donald Trump: He wasn't willing to pursue cuts to the safety-net programs Ryan had championed for years. "He and I fought about Medicare and entitlement reform all the time," the former GOP House speaker said Wednesday at a book event at the American Enterprise Institute,...

Paul Ryan says Trump will not be 2024 nominee Paul Ryan said he does not believe former president Donald Trump would be the GOP’s 2024 nominee for president. The one-time Republican House speaker — who has had an acrimonious relationship with Trump — offered a blistering assessment Thursday during an interview with Teneo, a D.C. consulting shop where he serves as a vice-chairman. “We all know he will lose, or let me put it this way: we all know he’s much more likely to lose the White House than anybody else running for president on our side of the aisle....

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that more House Republicans would've voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot if they'd had the "guts" to do so. Ryan made the remarks at a small reception at a hotel in Florence, South Carolina while campaigning for Republican Rep. Tom Rice, one of ten House Republicans that voted to impeach Trump.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan told WISN 12 News on Monday there should be no question that President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. "President Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election," Ryan said to WISN 12 News reporter Kent Wainscott during a rare interview. Even as Wisconsin Republican lawmakers launch a forensic audit of the 2020 election, Ryan believes it is time for his party to move past the false claim that the election was stolen from Trump. "President Trump continues to insist that the 2020 election was rigged and that he in fact won," Wainscott...

Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is slated to host a virtual fundraiser for House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) amid backlash she received for speaking out against former President Trump. To co-host, donors have been asked to pay $5,800, and $2,900 to attend the event, according to an invitation first obtained by Politico. The fundraiser comes as Cheney will face two primary challengers — Wyoming state Rep. Chuck Gray (R) and State Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R) — after the Wyoming representative voted to impeach Trump

Last week found Republicans in Congress complaining loud and long that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, along with the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, all bipartisan and under the leadership of Rep. Adam Schiff, were violating the rules of the House of Representatives by interviewing witnesses about impeachment behind closed doors. They derided Schiff's hearings as a "secret impeachment." President Trump called the hearings a hoax. When some pointed out that the initial round of government interviews of witnesses is always conducted behind closed doors to facilitate candor, Senate Republicans supported the president and condemned the House...

This week on Fox News, host Neil Cavuto blasted President Donald Trump‘s criticism of the network in a monologue dubbed “Common Sense” that he delivered on Thursday. Cavuto claims that the president makes clear that “to fact check him is to be all but dead to him” and that “my job is to cover you, not fawn over you.” The host of the right-leaning network seemed to have had enough of Trump’s backsliding every time the network reports on something negative. “First of all, Mr. President, we don’t work for you.” he declared. “I don’t work for you.”

Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) told a local news station that there is a “rumor” that Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will resign soon, stepping up speculation about the Speaker’s political future. “The rumor mill is that Paul Ryan is getting ready to resign in the next 30 to 60 days and that Steve Scalise will be the new Speaker,”

WASHINGTON — Speaker Paul D. Ryan faced a backlash on Saturday after he pointed to a secretary’s $1.50 weekly increase in take-home pay as a sign of the Republican tax plan’s success.“A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week ... she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year,” Mr. Ryan posted on Twitter, sharing an Associated Press report about paycheck increases under the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul.The article describes a high school secretary, Julia Ketchum, as “pleasantly surprised” that her pay...

Donald Trump cited sudden interest in debate-prep Friday night when he confirmed what House Speaker Paul Ryan announced minutes earlier: that the GOP nominee, subject of a freshly released lewd video, would no longer appear with Ryan at a highly anticipated joint event on Saturday. Amid recent backlash, Trump, 70, has chosen to have his running mate take his place. “Governor Mike Pence will be representing me tomorrow in Wisconsin,” Trump said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “I will be spending the day in New York in debate prep with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, Gov. Chris Christie and Sen....

1st CD, Republican: Incumbent Paul Ryan, of Janesville, and Paul Nehlen, of Williams Bay. I absolutely have nothing on this election, so I thought I'd start a thread, and we can add to it as information comes in. Some polls have Ryan way ahead, and a few find it less certain. On the other hand, wasn't this the climate before the Cantor election? He was sitting fat dumb and happy with a big lead in the polls? If I were a betting man, I'd have to put my money on Ryan and by all counts, he's a very popular guy...

Just nine months on the job as Speaker, Ryan and his campaign team are trying to avoid the mistakes made by Virginia Republican Eric Cantor, the House majority leader and fellow “Young Gun” who two years ago saw his political career abruptly ended by a little-known Tea Party challenger named Dave Brat.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan endorsed Donald J. Trump for president on Thursday, finally giving his backing after weeks of reluctance to the man who ran against the party’s establishment, of which Mr. Ryan is the titular leader. In a column on GazetteXtra.com, Mr. Ryan made clear he believed that Mr. Trump was the best candidate to help establish the agenda that he himself wants to get through Congress. A spokesman for Mr. Ryan, Brendan Buck, wrote on Twitter that the column constituted an endorsement. He has spoken to Mr. Trump numerous times, Mr. Ryan wrote in the column, and they...

DONALD J. TRUMP RESPONDS TO SPEAKER PAUL RYAN "I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!" Donald J. Trump

And then there’s this other guy named Paul Ryan. Over on Capitol Hill, far from the madding crowd of rallies and racehorses, the newest speaker of the House of Representatives has been quietly reinventing the Republican Party by creating a new governing template. snip With a jaundiced eye, one notes that Ryan’s pro-people template seems rather well-timed for a contested convention and perhaps for unifying the party given the divisiveness and repulsion posed by Trump and, almost equally, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Plainly, it would be dicey for party leaders to bypass Cruz or Kasich, but Cruz will lose in...

Speaker Paul Ryan was booed Tuesday after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump mentioned him during a rally in his hometown in Wisconsin. "How do you like Paul Ryan?" Trump asked supporters at a rally in Janesville, The Hill reports. "You like him?" The boos overtook the cheers inside the Janesville Conference Center. "I was told to be nice to Paul Ryan," the developer added. "He's the speaker, he's a nice guy. "He called me the other day. He was very nice." Trump then asked the crowd whether they were Republicans and conservative. The supporters cheered in response to both questions,...

In a Tuesday morning interview with radio host Bill Bennett, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his omnibus bill’s controversial expansion in the H-2B visa program, which would allow foreign workers to fill blue-collar American jobs, by arguing that if the provision were not included, American companies would be forced to shut their doors. Bennett pressed Ryan on the details of the H-2B visa expansion, slipped 700-pages into Ryan’s 2,009-page omnibus spending bill—asking Ryan directly, “Do you believe there are not enough Americans to fill these jobs?” In response, Ryan described the H-2B visa expansion as “a very small, discrete provision.”...