Paul Ryan: Trump 'didn't know anything about government' and 'I wanted to scold him all the time'
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan in a new book says President Trump knows almost nothing about government and had to constantly be prevented from making bad decisions.
Ryan spoke to Politico's Tim Alberta for his new book American Carnage, excerpts of which were published by The Washington Post on Thursday.
"I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right,” Ryan says in the book, per the Post. “Because, I'm telling you, he didn't know anything about government ... I wanted to scold him all the time."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Ryan reportedly claims that he and others around Trump "really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time." Now, he argues that Trump is "making some of these knee-jerk reactions" that he was prevented from making before." Ryan further criticizes Trump's behavior by saying "don't call a woman a 'horse face'" and "don't cheat on your wife" while bemoaning the fact that we've "gotten so numbed by it all." He's referring to the fact that in October 2018, Trump on Twitter called Stormy Daniels, the porn star who says she had an affair with him before he became president, "horseface." Ryan at the time said there is "no place for that kind of language."
Alberta's book also describes a day in 2017 when Trump famously tweeted a claim that the Obama administration wiretapped him, with Ryan reportedly bursting out laughing after reading the tweet and with then Chief of Staff Reince Priebus frantically calling Ryan to ask, "What the hell is he talking about?" Ryan, who earlier this year said Trump will not win re-election if the race is about "his personality" retired in January, and according to Alberta's description, he did so because he couldn't imagine continuing to work with Trump and saw leaving Congress as his "escape hatch." Read more at The Washington Post.
-
The environmental cost of GLP-1sThe explainer Producing the drugs is a dirty process
-
Greenland’s capital becomes ground zero for the country’s diplomatic straitsIN THE SPOTLIGHT A flurry of new consular activity in Nuuk shows how important Greenland has become to Europeans’ anxiety about American imperialism
-
‘This is something that happens all too often’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
House votes to end Trump’s Canada tariffsSpeed Read Six Republicans joined with Democrats to repeal the president’s tariffs
-
Bondi, Democrats clash over Epstein in hearingSpeed Read Attorney General Pam Bondi ignored survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and demanded that Democrats apologize to Trump
-
El Paso airspace closure tied to FAA-Pentagon standoffSpeed Read The closure in the Texas border city stemmed from disagreements between the Federal Aviation Administration and Pentagon officials over drone-related tests
-
Judge blocks Trump suit for Michigan voter rollsSpeed Read A Trump-appointed federal judge rejected the administration’s demand for voters’ personal data
-
US to send 200 troops to Nigeria to train armySpeed Read Trump has accused the West African government of failing to protect Christians from terrorist attacks
-
Grand jury rejects charging 6 Democrats for ‘orders’ videoSpeed Read The jury refused to indict Democratic lawmakers for a video in which they urged military members to resist illegal orders
-
Judge rejects California’s ICE mask ban, OKs ID lawSpeed Read Federal law enforcement agents can wear masks but must display clear identification
-
Lawmakers say Epstein files implicate 6 more menSpeed Read The Trump department apparently blacked out the names of several people who should have been identified
