'A drag on our ticket': Paul Ryan torches Donald Trump following the GOP's fizzled midterm 'red rave'

10 November 2022

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) believes former President Donald Trump may be part of the reason why Republican Party candidates did not fair as well as expected for the 2022 midterm elections.

On Wednesday, November 9, Ryan attended an event in Janesville, Wisc., held in honor of Gen. Andrew Poppas who was recently appointed as the 24th commander of the United States Army Forces Command in Fort Bragg, N.C.

During the event, he took a moment to speak with WISN-12's Caroline Reinwald where he weighed in on the election results. "Republicans didn't see that red wave like they were predicting," Reinwald pointed out. "Why do you think that is and what kind of lessons do you think Republican leadership should be taking away from that?"

According to Ryan, the party has a lot of work ahead.

"I think we're going to have to do a lot of soul searching and head scratching, looking through and parsing the numbers as to why we didn't perform as well as we would have liked to," Ryan said. "Ron got re-elected, I'm very happy to see that. It was a mixed blessing night, but we should have done better than we did."

The former top-ranking lawmaker also shared his opinion of Trump's influence over the political party. Although Trump's influence appears to have waned, Ryan argues that he still has a negative impact on the party.

"I think Trump's kind of a drag on our ticket. I think Donald Trump gives us problems, politically. We lost the House, the Senate and the White House in two years when Trump was on the ballot, or in office," Ryan said. "I think we just have some Trump hangover. I think he's a drag on our office, on our races."

Reinwald went on to ask Ryan about the possibility of Trump announcing another presidential bid and how that could impact the party. "What do you think's going to happen if Donald Trump announces he's going to run for president again?" she asked.

According to Ryan, a Trump run might not lead to history repeating itself

"I mean, I assume he's going to announce, but I honestly don't think he'll get the nomination at the end of the day," Ryan said. "We want to win. We want to win the White House and we know with Trump we're so much more likely to lose. Just look at the difference between votes, between Trump candidates and non-Trump aligned candidates."

"It's really clear to me and the evidence is pretty stark that if we have a nominee not named Trump, we're so much more likely to win the White House than if our candidate's named Trump," Ryan said.

"We have to offer the country a better way forward. I think we have to offer the country solutions," Ryan said. "We have to offer the country a really clear and compelling choice as to how our party is ripe and ready to solve big problems confronting the country and that we're putting leaders forward that people can vote for that they want to vote for."

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