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It’s been a long time since former House Speaker Paul Ryan had any relevance to the base of the Republican Party.
He’s long since been dismissed. But that hasn’t stopped him from thinking that, somehow, what he says holds some sway.
Ryan sat down with WITI Milwaukee’s Jason Calvi, and he said that he would not be attending the upcoming 2024 Republican National Convention if President Donald Trump was the nominee. “It depends on who the nominee is. I’ll be here [in Milwaukee at the convention] if it’s someone not named Trump.”
Former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan from Wisconsin says he won’t show up at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee if former President Donald Trump is the nominee
Much more of our conversation Sunday on UPFRONT..@WISN12News @wispolitics pic.twitter.com/wp9ysKkwsC
— Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) February 24, 2023
“You won’t show up if it’s Trump?” Calvi asked.
“I’m not interested in participating in that, no,” Ryan responded. He claimed that Trump cost the Republicans seats in the last few elections and that if he ran again, Republicans would lose.
“There are great people running. I know them all. They’re all pretty decent friends of mine, and so I think any one of these candidates that are thinking about getting in the race, if they get in the race, would be a great candidate.”
“I think we’re going to beat Joe Biden if we don’t run Donald Trump,” he added.
Now, the funny thing about that is that he thinks he has some influence and is trying to get people to move away from Trump through his comments. But people have so moved on from Ryan, it was having the opposite effect—in reactions on Twitter from the base. Ryan’s remarks prompted people to say how this was moving them back toward Trump, not at all what he would appear to want.
I was kinda on the fence about who I supported until that ringing endorsement for Trump.
There are few I despise more than Ryan.
— JT (@DesertRatJT) February 25, 2023
Man, every time I start moving away from Trump, the world throws me one more reason to stick with him…
— MikeGranby (@MikeGranby) February 25, 2023
Twitter users were not shy about saying “good riddance” to Ryan if he skipped the event.
This wasn’t lost on people in the Trump team, like Dan Scavino.
A Complete & Total Endorsement of @realDonaldTrump, love it!
— Dan Scavino Jr.??? (@DanScavino) February 25, 2023
It also doesn’t help the other candidates, that he effectively endorse the other folks who may be running and said they are friends of his. That immediately makes people rethink supporting any of those people.
Ryan ran a bad campaign with Mitt Romney, and they lost to Obama/Biden. He’s the last person who can comment on how the race will turn out, and he doesn’t seem to understand that Trump is leading in the polls against Joe Biden. Americans want someone who is going to care about Americans and issues like East Palestine—not someone who is going to blow that off and be incoherent as we saw with Biden again on Saturday.
As an ABC News/Washington Post poll discovered, “[R]egistered voters chose President Donald Trump over Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election, with Trump garnering 48 percent support compared to Biden at 45 percent and Independents favoring Trump by 50 percent, 9 points over Biden at 41 percent.”
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