Remember Paul Ryan? Well, apparently, he’s going to be very angry if the GOP nominates Donald Trump again in 2024.
In an interview that aired Sunday with Milwaukee’s WISN-TV, the former Republican House speaker and Wisconsin resident said he would not even attend the Republican convention in Milwaukee next year if Trump is the party’s nominee.
In a video posted to his Instagram account after the announcement, Donald Trump Jr. pointed out the obvious: Outside of the Beltway, no one cares. However, inside the Beltway the former GOP House speaker holds a certain amount of power — enough, Trump Jr. alleged, that Ryan has been keeping him off of Fox News.
In a video posted to his Rumble account on Monday, Trump Jr. said “no one gives a crap” that Ryan had announced he wouldn’t attend the convention if the elder Trump was nominated again.
“Literally no one!” Trump Jr. emphasized.
In the interview with WISN political director Matt Smith, Ryan was asked directly if he would be at the convention in his home state.
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
“It depends on who the nominee is,” Ryan responded.
“I’ll be here if it’s somebody not named Trump.”
“You won’t show up if it’s Trump?” Smith asked.
“No I’m not interested in participating in that, no,” Ryan responded.
“Even in Wisconsin,” Smith pressed.
“Even in Wisconsin,” Ryan said.
Ryan, who retired from Congress in January 2019, had a contentious relationship with Trump — and, according to Trump Jr., that’s bled over to their relationship, as well. Ryan was appointed to the Fox Corporation board of directors in March 2019.
“This guy is the guy on the board of Fox News, which also explains a lot about the direction and some of the content I’m seeing out there, folks,” Trump Jr. said in the Monday video.
Trump Jr. also claimed Ryan is keeping him from appearing on Fox News.
“This explains, to me, almost everything, frankly. I know I haven’t been invited on in six months, so I’m sure that’s him, pushing his RINO, America Last, war-forever garbage, fold-to-the-Democrats’ agenda.”
He branded Ryan “the biggest RINO ever.”
“Maybe that explains why we’re getting what we’re getting,” he said.
Ryan’s contentious relationship with Donald Trump — and Ryan’s place within Rupert Murdoch’s empire — was also name-checked by the former president as one of the potential pitfalls of replacing Kevin McCarthy as party leader in the House of Representatives in the battle over who would take the speaker’s gavel in the House last month.
“It’s a very dangerous game. Some bad things could happen,” Trump said in an interview with Breitbart.
“Look, we had [former Speaker John] Boehner and he was a strange person, but we ended up with Paul Ryan who was 10 times worse. Paul Ryan was an incompetent speaker. I think he goes down as the worst speaker in history …
“Boehner wasn’t perfect — nobody’s perfect — but Paul Ryan was a disaster for the Republican Party. That’s what we got. Now we have to live with him,” he continued, before also claiming Ryan’s role with Fox Corp. gives him influence over at News Corp., a separate Murdoch entity that owns the New York Post.
The Post, a newspaper that strongly supported Trump in the 2016 election and in his years in the White House, has taken on an anti-Trump tone.
When Trump announced his third run for the presidency in November, the Post noted it at the bottom of its front page with the headline “Florida man makes announcement.” It then ran a short article on page 26 that was openly mocking, under the headline “Been there, Don that.”
The New York Post buried Trump’s 2024 campaign launch on page 26: “Florida Man Makes Announcement.” pic.twitter.com/EfWVQmNWyN
— Dylan Stableford (@stableford) November 16, 2022
“He’s destroying Fox and he’s destroying the New York Post. We got to live with this maniac. This guy, Paul Ryan, couldn’t have gotten elected in his own area of Wisconsin,” Trump told Breitbart.
“I went with him after I won the election and we had a tremendous crowd of people and they booed him off the stage. You remember that? They booed him off the stage. This guy is now telling Fox what to do.”
According to the RealClearPolitics average, Trump is favored by a plurality of GOP voters over other contenders or potential contenders for the 2024 GOP nomination, with a 16-point lead as of Feb. 25.
The former president sits at 45.2 percent of the vote, vs. 29.2 for GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 6.8 percent for former Vice President Mike Pence and 5.3 percent for former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Thus, the chance that Paul Ryan won’t be in Milwaukee for the GOP convention in the summer of 2024 is a definite possibility.
But will anyone care? Don Jr. doesn’t seem to think so — and if his father’s the nominee, it’ll be a very difficult task for the former speaker to keep the president’s oldest son off of Fox News, regardless of whether he’s actually responsible for the recent lack of invitations.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
