Trump Lashes Out at Paul Ryan as ‘Poor Leader’ and ‘Lame Duck Failure’ Who ‘Didn’t Know How to Win’

President Donald Trump, apparently stung by unflattering quotes from former Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan in a just released book, publicly lashed out at the ex-House Speaker in a series of vicious Tweets, saying Ryan had a “record of achievement that was atrocious,” “quit Congress because he didn’t know how to win,” and suffered from “poor leadership and bad timing.”

Subtle, it was not.

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

The trigger for Trump’s intra-party broadsides against the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee seemed to be disparaging comments that Ryan made about Trump not long after he arrived in the Oval Office. The quotes appear in conservative reporter Tim Alberta’s new book, American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.

In it, Alberta reports that the former Speaker was aghast at the new president’s ignorance about his job and that Ryan saw his rather abrupt retirement from Congress as an “escape hatch” that would let him avoid dealing with the president.

“I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right,” Alberta quotes Ryan saying. “Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government . . . I wanted to scold him all the time.”

Ryan was famously slow to endorse Trump in 2o16, even after the latter had the GOP presidential nomination all but sewn up. And the pair were known to have a fractious relationship during the first two years of the Trump’s presidency, one that devolved into presidential sniping as Ryan’s tenure in Congress drew to a close.

Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018

But still, this latest fusillade by Trump stands out as a withering rebuke to someone who was for many years seen as one of the leaders of the Republican Party opposition during President Barack Obama’s administration.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

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