Paul Ryan Blasts Trump In Leaked Recording

Republican Speaker Paul Ryan caught on tape trashing Trump during conference call with fellow Republicans.

It is no great secret that there is no love lost between Trump advisor and current White House strategist Steve Bannon and Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI).

The Hill reported last October that “Steve Bannon, the chairman of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart who became CEO of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, gave explicit orders to his staff to destroy Speaker Paul Ryan,” adding that Bannon would frequently tell Breitbart staffers that “Paul Ryan is the enemy.”

The Hill goes on to report that “In December 2015, weeks after Ryan became Speaker, Bannon wrote in an internal Breitbart email obtained by The Hill that the ‘long game’ for his news site was for Ryan to be ‘gone’ by the spring.”

So, it comes as no surprise that Breitbart seems to be escalating its war on Ryan in the wake of the chaos surrounding the release of the House Republican replacement plan for Obamacare – dubbed Trumpcare by liberals and “House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare 2.0 plan,” by Breitbart.

This Monday, Breitbart released a recording of a portion of a private phone call between Speaker Ryan and House Republicans shortly after the release of the Access Hollywood recording in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women by the p*ssy.

Breitbart reports that “Ryan’s comments on this Oct. 10 call came after a female voice—it’s unclear if the woman was a House member or not—opened up the call. He called Trump’s Access Hollywood comments indefensible and said they do not fit with the Republican Party’s ‘principles and values.’ Ryan also told House members on the call that he would not be campaigning with Trump, and that each member should make their own decision with regards to Trump over the next several weeks.”

“His comments are not anywhere in keeping with our party’s principles and values,” Ryan says on the recording, adding: “There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your Speaker. I am not going to defend Donald Trump—not now, not in the future. As you probably heard, I dis-invited him from my first congressional district GOP event this weekend—a thing I do every year. And I’m not going to be campaigning with him over the next 30 days.”

Ryan goes on to explain that his emphasis is to focus his attention on retaining control of the House and encouraged other Republicans to do what they thought was best for their own political campaigns:

Look, you guys know I have real concerns with our nominee. I hope you appreciate that I’m doing what I think is best for you, the members, not what’s best for me. So, I want to do what’s best for our members, and I think this is the right thing to do. I’m going to focus my time on campaigning for House Republicans. I talked to a bunch of you over the last 72 hours and here is basically my takeaway. To everyone on this call, this is going to be a turbulent month. Many of you on this call are facing tough reelections. Some of you are not. But with respect to Donald Trump, I would encourage you to do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do. Personally, you need to decide what’s best for you. And you all know what’s best for you where you are.

Ryan goes on to explain that the last thing he wants is to “help Hillary Clinton get the presidency,” and he closes the meeting saying that he is “not going to defend Donald Trump, not now, not in the future.”

His comments are indefensible, they’re not in keeping with our principles, so I’m not going to try to defend him. I’m going to focus on Congress, I’m going to focus on upholding our values. We have a great, great policy agenda—A Better Way—that we need to take to voters and show what our party actually stands for and what it’s stood for for generations.

You can listen to the recording, below:

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