I guess he finally saw those Ryan comments that I wrote about last night.
We’re all guilty of a little projection from time to time, but good lord. Ryan’s a “baby” who “didn’t know what he was doing” — coming from Trump?
That’s like Obama complaining that another person talks about himself too much.
President Trump: "Paul Ryan was a terrible Speaker frankly. He was a baby. He didn't know what the hell he was doing." https://t.co/d9blgbi0Nm pic.twitter.com/dJhta3zFvK
— The Hill (@thehill) July 12, 2019
He didn’t hold back on Twitter this morning either:
Paul Ryan, the failed V.P. candidate & former Speaker of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious (except during my first two years as President), ultimately became a long running lame duck failure, leaving his Party in the lurch both as a fundraiser & leader……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2019
….When Mitt chose Paul I told people that’s the end of that Presidential run. He quit Congress because he didn’t know how to Win. They gave me standing O’s in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage. He promised me the Wall, & failed (happening anyway!)……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2019
….He had the Majority & blew it away with his poor leadership and bad timing. Never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us. Couldn’t get him out of Congress fast enough!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2019
It’s well known that congressional majorities tend to be lost in midterm elections due to a voter backlash against the … Speaker of the House?
This is a rare occasion in which the balance of media opinion is on Trump’s side in a dispute with another politician, I think, not because they agree with the substance of his criticism but because they disdain Ryan for their own reasons. Thanks to his halting work on entitlement reform he became the embodiment of an out-of-touch “small government Republican” to his critics over the past decade, never mind whether his voting record actually supported that reputation or not. The fact that his only major legislative achievement during Trump’s presidency was a tax cut whose benefits flowed mainly to the upper class cemented his reputation to liberals (and many righty populists) as a business-class Republican whose only true ideological commitment was to trickle-down economics. The left went from disliking him to despising him after Trump’s election for his habit of holding his tongue about the president’s excesses; although Ryan was never a Trump toady on the order of Lindsey Graham, his deference to Trump symbolized the cooptation of the entire Republican establishment by Trump and Trumpism. He’s getting ripped today even by Trump-hating outlets like “Morning Joe” for finally mustering the courage to criticize Trump at length only after he’d finally left office, when no one cared what he had to say anymore.
Well, almost no one:
His selfless leadership and lifelong policy work were critical to the tax and regulatory reform that have helped propel the economy. A man like Paul Ryan does not often come along.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) July 12, 2019
It doesn’t surprise me that Ryan spent two years biting his tongue working with Trump. It does surprise me that he unburdened himself so soon afterward, just because I always assumed he’d return to politics eventually in Wisconsin — maybe in a run for governor, probably in a run for senator. He’d be a top top top recruit for someone like McConnell. But now he’s made an enemy of Trump and, more importantly, of Trumpers. Granted, he was already their enemy by dint of his softness on immigration, but righties will put aside a lot of hard feelings in the name of winning a Senate seat (they’ll certainly turn out for Mitch McConnell in Kentucky next year) unless you go out of your way to antagonize them. That’s what Ryan did by badmouthing their idol. They’re destined to hold it against him and he must know that. Either he really is done with elected office or he has a funny idea in his head that nationalist fever will pass in a few years and Ryanism will be newly viable again within the GOP.
He can’t be that out of touch, can he?
In lieu of an exit question, here’s Trump in 2012 celebrating Ryan’s nomination as VP and, in so doing, exposing this morning’s presidential tweets as yet another lie. He’s trying the same move with the idea of VP Ryan as he did with the interventions in Iraq and Libya, pretending long after the fact that he was against it all along when the record at the time shows he wasn’t.
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) July 12, 2019
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