Joe Kernen Mocks Paul Ryan to His Face for Sounding ‘Like a Democrat’: ‘A Vote Not for Trump Was a Vote for Kamala Harris!’

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan joined Squawk Box on Wednesday for a segment in which he was ruthlessly mocked by host Joe Kernen.

As the interview kicked off, Ryan addressed the impending expiration of the Trump tax cuts that he shepherded through the House and urged Republicans to “stay unified” and work together to extend them.

After Ryan finished analyzing Republicans’ prospects of passing bills in the coming months, Kernen jumped in.

“You know I love you, and I like to needle you-,” he began before Ryan interjected to predict that there was a “but,” coming.

“You know I love you, comma, comma, so now you’re calling for unity?” asked Kernen facetiously.

Here’s how the conversation proceeded from there:

RYAN: I am calling for unity.

KERNEN: Well that’s nice.

RYAN: Yeah.

KERNEN: It would have been nice before the election.

RYAN: He won. Look, he won-

KERNEN: And the other thing I thought was funny that you said was when you said, “Hey, look, I want Trump to succeed.” You who who that sounds like? It sounds like a Democrat! It sounded like a Democrat saying, “You know what?-”

RYAN: Democrats sound like that?

KERNEN: Well, of course you want Trump to succeed. You’re a Republican!

RYAN: Look, I’m a conservative Republican. I’m a free market, limited government, constiutional-

KERNEN: I know. But you know what I’m saying. That’s who I hear saying-

RYAN: But my brand of conservatism doesn’t always overlap with Trump populism.

KERNEN: I understand, I understand, but it was binary, but you know we argued about that. Binary all along! It was always binary. And a vote not for Trump was a vote for Kamala Harris! Can you imagine?

RYAN: I know you want to get back to this. Here’s the point: A lot of this agenda, my kind of conservatism, Trump populism, it overlaps. We disagree on trade and things like that — not with trade fights on China, but I’m not a big fan of all the tariffs on our allies. But the point is, all this other stuff, the tax policy, the border policy, the deregulatory policy: Very good for America, very good for the economy-

KERNEN: Don’t sacrifice the good for for the perfect, don’t sacrifice the good for the perfect.

RYAN: I think it’s important that Republicans stay unified.

Watch above via CNBC.