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Trump Unloads on Paul Ryan After 'American Carnage' Excerpts

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump unloaded via Twitter on Republican
   former House Speaker Paul Ryan after Ryan's comments critical of Trump
   appeared in excerpts from a new book.

   Ryan condemns Trump in "American Carnage," by Tim Alberta of Politico,
   in excerpts running in various publications. Alberta wrote the former
   speaker, who retired from Congress in 2018, could not stand the idea of
   another two years with the Republican president and saw retirement as
   the "escape hatch," according to The Washington Post. Ryan is quoted
   saying: "I'm telling you, he didn't know anything about government. I
   wanted to scold him all the time."

   Trump blasted Ryan as a "lame duck failure."

   "He had the Majority & blew it away with his poor leadership and bad
   timing," Trump tweeted late Thursday. "Never knew how to go after the
   Dems like they go after us. Couldn't get him out of Congress fast
   enough!"

   Ryan had no comment Friday on the president's tweets about him, his
   spokesman Brendan Buck said.

   Trump may have been angered by various revelations in the book,
   including accounts recalling widespread negative GOP reactions to his
   off-color videotaped comments in the "Access Hollywood" scandal in the
   closing weeks of the 2016 election campaign. Ryan's reaction was
   particularly harsh.

   The book recounted Ryan, who served in Congress for 20 years, saying
   Trump's presidency was slipping as he was less willing to accept advice
   from Republicans to moderate his approach.

   "Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad
   decisions. All the time," Ryan said. "We helped him make much better
   decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction
   was. Now I think he's making some of these knee-jerk reactions."

   And Ryan, who often was Trump's wing man on some congressional issues
   but had a strained relationship with him, was the main focus of Trump's
   Twitter rage.

   "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,"
   Trump tweeted.

   Trump tweeted that when presidential candidate Mitt Romney chose Ryan
   as a running mate "I told people that's the end of that Presidential
   run."

   "He quit Congress because he didn't know how to Win," Trump tweeted.
   "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!)..."