Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) warned against ousting then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) in 2018, saying that doing so would fracture and weaken the Republican Party.
The clip of Gaetz&#8217;s past remarks gained traction online after he filed a motion this week to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the speakership in what many Republicans say is a personal vendetta against McCarthy.
“Here’s the problem: If we take Paul Ryan off the field right now, instead of being able to finish strong in 115th Congress, we will shatter into a bunch of factions fighting against each other for power,&#8221; Gaetz said. &#8220;We’ve got enough of that in Washington already. Paul Ryan can be a caretaker of the speakership. We can have a leadership election. We could go into the midterms strong. And I don’t think they’re pushing him out early if he doesn’t want to go, is in any way advantageous.”
Fox’s Lisa Kennedy Montgomery rejected Gaetz&#8217;s remarks, saying that if Ryan did such a great job the Republican Conference would not be divided.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe that the Houses lacks unity,&#8221; Gaetz said. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s the Senate that&#8217;s been the problem. We&#8217;ve passed funding for the wall, we&#8217;ve passed a removal of sanctuary cities, we&#8217;ve passed a repeal of Obamacare.&#8221;
&#8220;The Senate can’t do anything,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And so I don’t think that it’s Paul Ryan’s fault that we’ve had a less than productive 115th Congress. I think it’s Mitch McConnell’s fault.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Gaetz in 2018: &quot;If we talk Paul Ryan off the field right now, instead of being able to finish strong, we will shatter into a bunch of factions fighting against each other for power.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/1yOxe3GhML">pic.twitter.com/1yOxe3GhML</a>
&mdash; Caleb Smith (@CalebJSmith) <a href="https://twitter.com/CalebJSmith/status/1709166242957857188?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

House Lawmakers Work On Funding Deal As Possible Government Shutdown Looms

FLASHBACK: Matt Gaetz Warned Against Removing Paul Ryan As Speaker Because It Would Hurt GOP

Congress

Kevin McCarthy

Matt Gaetz

Paul Ryan

Politics

Former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he would refuse to attend the Republican National Convention in his home state of Wisconsin if former President Donald Trump is the GOP&#8217;s 2024 nominee.
In a Friday <a href="https://twitter.com/mattsmith_news/status/1629147406020272128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1629147406020272128%7Ctwgr%5E172da508e2c8663cf955cf280515fa0cb5243ead%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2F2024-election%2F2023%2F02%2F25%2Fpaul-ryan-will-skip-republican-national-convention-if-trump-wins-primary%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with Milwaukee&#8217;s ABC News affiliate, Ryan was clear that he would not support Trump under any circumstances and would only attend the convention if “somebody not named Trump” emerged as the top Republican. The former speaker predicted that the GOP would lose the general election if Trump is the party&#8217;s choice. 
“Come 2024, the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where will you be?” the journalist asked Ryan. 
“It depends on who the nominee is,” Ryan answered. “I’ll be here if it’s somebody not named Trump,” he said, adding that he is “not interested in participating in that.”
“Even in Wisconsin?” the reporter asked. 
“Even in Wisconsin,” Ryan confirmed. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan from Wisconsin says he won&#39;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..<a href="https://twitter.com/WISN12News?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WISN12News</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wispolitics?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wispolitics</a> <a href="https://t.co/wp9ysKkwsC">pic.twitter.com/wp9ysKkwsC</a>
&mdash; Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattsmith_news/status/1629147406020272128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Republican National Convention is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/21/politics/republican-national-convention-2024-dates/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scheduled</a> for July 15-18, 2024, in Milwaukee. Former President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/wisconsin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">won</a> the state of Wisconsin in 2016 with 47.2% of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton’s 46.5% but narrowly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/wisconsin/president" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lost</a> the state in 2020 to Joe Biden. Republicans will <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republicans-hold-their-first-presidential-debate-wisconsin-2023-02-23/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hold</a> their first debate in Wisconsin in August, showing the importance of the battleground state in 2024. 
The former speaker <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/paul-ryan-calls-himself-a-never-again-trumper-says-it-will-be-really-hard-to-govern-with-thin-majority" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> himself a “never-again Trumper” in November, shortly after Trump announced his third bid for the White House. He blamed previous Republican election losses on the former president, attributing them to what he called the “Trump factor.” Ryan <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCBDakM4rsg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">echoed</a> these statements in the Friday interview, saying Republicans “lost with him in ‘18, in ‘20, and ‘22,” warning that “he will cost us another election.” 
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A Harvard CAPS-Harris <a href="https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-february-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poll</a> released on February 17 tells another <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3863637-trump-beats-biden-harris-in-2024-matchups-poll/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">story</a>, showing Trump garnering the support of 46% of respondents, beating out President Biden’s 41% with 13% unsure in a head-to-head race. In the same poll, Trump beats out Vice President Kamala Harris 49% to 39%. That poll also shows the former president coming out on top in a hypothetical eight-way Republican primary with 37%, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ 19%. Also included in the matchup is Nikki Haley, who has formally announced her campaign, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). 
“I’m just excited about somebody not named Trump,” Ryan <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCBDakM4rsg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> of the Republican field. “There are great people running, I know them all, they’re all pretty decent friends of mine,” he added.

President Trump Meets With Republican Congressional Leadership

Paul Ryan Says He’ll Attend RNC Only If ‘Somebody Not Named Trump’ Is The Nominee

2024 Election

2024 Primaries

Donald Trump

Elections

Former Republican Speaker of the House <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/paul-ryan">Paul Ryan</a> called himself a “never-again-Trumper” and blamed former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> for the GOP&#8217;s lackluster performance in the midterm elections.
Appearing on ABC’s &#8220;This Week&#8221; with co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday, Ryan reflected on his tenure as speaker and his relationship with then-President Trump. He also warned that Republicans would have to work with Democrats in order to pass legislation, given the GOP’s thin majority.
“I’m proud of the accomplishments [during the Trump administration] – of the tax reform, the deregulation and criminal justice reform. I’m really excited about the judges we got on the bench, not just the Supreme Court, but throughout the judiciary,” Ryan told Karl. “But I am a never-again-Trumper. Why? Because I want to win, and we lose with Trump.” 
Ryan blamed Trump for several of the Republican election losses, including losing seats in the House in 2018, the presidency and Senate in 2020, and the failure to win the Senate in 2022, which he says Republicans “should have and could have won.” The former speaker attributed the losses to what he called the “Trump factor.” 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
EXCLUSIVE: Just days after Donald Trump announces his third bid for the White House, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan calls himself a &quot;Never-Again-Trumper.&quot;
The full interview with <a href="https://twitter.com/jonkarl?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JonKarl</a>: <a href="https://t.co/v2FLG9cPFm">https://t.co/v2FLG9cPFm</a> <a href="https://t.co/lyCGUCZD6X">pic.twitter.com/lyCGUCZD6X</a>
&mdash; This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1594374381014118400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Ryan claimed that Trump was able to get his base to turn out for the primaries, delivering some Trump-endorsed candidates to victory, but that it wasn’t enough for general elections. He said he believed the Republican voter would “move on” in their support for Trump. 
“That’s why I don’t think he ends up winning the nomination at the end of the day,” Ryan said. “I think we have a great stable of good, capable conservatives who are more than capable of winning this primary for presidency and winning the election, and I think Republican voters know that. So that’s why I think our voters, ultimately who really want to win, are going to give us candidates who can win,” he said. 
Karl asked what it would mean if Trump were to win the Republican nomination for president again, to which Ryan said that “we probably, likely lose the White House. We just did in ‘20, so I think we probably lose the White House with Trump, and if there’s someone not named Trump, my guess is we win the White House,&#8221; he said, adding that he believed the former president was “unelectable.”  
When asked about the thin Republican majority in the House, Ryan said, “no matter what bill you’re gonna bring to the floor, it is almost impossible with that tight a majority to have just only your party passing legislation.” 
“If you have such a narrow majority, it’s going to be really hard,” he continued. “Having said that, there’s nothing as unifying as a really razor-thin majority,’ Ryan continued, explaining that Republicans must work with Democrats to pass legislation. 
Republicans clinched a majority in the House early last week, but the current projection by Decision Desk HQ shows a slim one, with Republicans controlling 219 seats to the Democrats 211, beating the 218-seat threshold for a majority. Some races have yet to be decided, but the majority will be slim regardless of races not yet called.

Paul Ryan Calls Himself A ‘Never-Again-Trumper,’ Says It Will Be ‘Really Hard’ To Govern With Thin Majority

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-nancy-pelosi-will-not-seek-job-as-top-house-democrat" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that she will not seek re-election to Democratic leadership in the new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-republicans-win-majority-in-house-projection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Congress</a>. This can only mean that the 82 year old is one step closer to retirement.
Good riddance.
Since she was elected into office, America has been ruthlessly gutted of blue-collar jobs, strong borders, and precious life spanning all ages.
This, of course, was not solely her fault. It takes two to tango in Washington, D.C., and her team was aided and abetted by a Republican Party that often seemed to pass Democrat-lite policies.
It was no surprise then that former GOP Speakers of the House John Boehner and Paul Ryan wished Pelosi well as she stepped down from leadership.
&#8220;Congratulations @SpeakerPelosi on a remarkable, historic run of service in the People&#8217;s House,&#8221; Boehner <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerBoehner/status/1593352550828412930?s=20&amp;t=SnPmL48Eh5s0gxqKFx9XIg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> Thursday. &#8220;We were able to disagree without being disagreeable. You&#8217;ve been unfailingly gracious to me and my family.&#8221;
Ryan welcomed her arrival in a special D.C. &#8220;club.&#8221;
&#8220;I tip my cap as I welcome @speakerpelosi to the former speaker’s club and congratulate her on a historic career in the House,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan/status/1593296461172817920?s=20&amp;t=SnPmL48Eh5s0gxqKFx9XIg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a>.
Pelosi, elected in 1987, Boehner, elected in 1990, and Ryan, elected in 1998, were intimately involved in either creating a dismal America riddled with social ailments or allowing it to happen.
In other words, their legacy has consisted of constantly putting Americans last, especially those most vulnerable among us.
For example, since 1987, nearly 40 million babies have been aborted in the womb, <a href="https://nrlc.org/uploads/factsheets/FS01AbortionintheUS.pdf">according</a> to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.
Pelosi has constantly championed a woman&#8217;s so-called right to choose while also claiming that she is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-abortion-pelosi-describes-herself-as-devout-practicing-catholic-jokes-pro-lifers-would-like-to-throw-me-out" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devout Catholic</a>.
Her support for the &#8220;right&#8221; to kill children has been so profound that her own bishop has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bishop-who-denied-pelosi-communion-said-biden-brings-about-pain-and-death-elected-leader-of-pro-life-committee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">barred</a> priests from allowing her to receive the Eucharist — the source and summit of the faith, reserved for those in a state of grace (without mortal sin).
On the spiritual side, her anti-life stance has been a source of confusion and scandal for millions of Catholics, adding to her egregious behavior.
Boehner and Ryan are also Catholic, but evidently thought she was still worthy of praise.
Beyond fatalities in the womb, deaths from drug overdoses — preventable and otherwise — have skyrocketed. &#8220;In 2020, 83,558 people died from preventable drug overdoses – an increase of 649% since 1999,&#8221; <a href="https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/drugoverdoses/data-details/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%2083%2C558%20people%20died,%2C%20homicide%2C%20and%20undetermined%20intents." target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2021, more than 100,000 people <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/202205.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">died</a> of a drug overdose. Many of those deaths involved fentanyl.
Similarly, America has lost millions of manufacturing jobs over the past three decades. The nation has <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/beyond-bls/the-fall-of-employment-in-the-manufacturing-sector.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seen</a> 5.5 million of those positions cease to exist since the year 2000.
Except, those jobs didn&#8217;t simply go away. D.C. policies often encouraged companies to create their products in far-off countries. Cheaper products would benefit the American people. In 2016, folks like Ryan were still <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/politics/paul-ryan-free-trade-koch-brothers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arguing</a> that virtually unlimited free trade was a good thing, pushing back against policies he deemed &#8220;protectionist.&#8221;
To her credit, Pelosi spoke out against trade deals with China in the 1990s but was ultimately unable to stop the bleeding.
In the end, the evidence shows that the loss of jobs is partly <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6606896/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responsible</a> for increased drug use since social degradation and loss of purpose lead to finding fulfillment in vices like drugs. In turn, a government <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6606896/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">focused</a> on creating as cheap a product as possible with little regard for the country’s social fabric, turns out, is a bad thing.
Now, despite hundreds dying each day, there does not seem to be a concern for the matter stemming from Washington. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45, yet that was barely mentioned during the midterm campaigns by either party.
Where do those narcotics come from?
According to a <a href="https://trone.house.gov/2022/02/08/cnn-commission-report-fentanyl/#:~:text=Fentanyl%20is%20trafficked%20principally%20by,Postal%20Service%2C%20the%20report%20said." target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, the &#8220;dominant&#8221; source of fentanyl in the U.S. is Mexico.
Pounds upon pounds of the deadly substance are stopped by border patrol every year, but the numbers have gone up dramatically under Biden.
All three — Pelosi, Boehner, and Ryan — opposed varying degrees of tighter border security and often worked for some <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/boehner-gop-immigration-plan-not-amnesty-msna261096" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amnesty</a> for illegal immigrants.
That porous border has undoubtedly contributed to the epidemic of drug overdoses, a report from the federal Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking <a href="https://trone.house.gov/2022/02/08/cnn-commission-report-fentanyl/#:~:text=Fentanyl%20is%20trafficked%20principally%20by,Postal%20Service%2C%20the%20report%20said." target="_blank" rel="noopener">indicated</a>.
On that note, according to a 2018 Yale study, as many as 29 million illegal aliens have <a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/yale-study-finds-twice-as-many-undocumented-immigrants-as-previous-estimates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">entered</a> the country since 1987. Our sovereignty has taken a dramatic hit since the 1986 amnesty bill heralded by then-Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
In recent years, Biden&#8217;s policies, supported by Pelosi, have created a tsunami of illegal immigration.
Again, how is that worthy of praise from former GOP elected officials like Boehner and Ryan?
Through it all, federal spending has also <a href="https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/federal-spending-per-person-is-skyrocketing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">soared</a>, as has the size of government, yet when real conservative opposition formed in reaction to that reality — The Tea Party — Boehner, Ryan, and Pelosi threw them under the bus.
In 2021, Boehner <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/open/2021/04/john-boehners-political-memoir-disses-trump-and-tea-party-but-avoids-ohio-controversies.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in his memoir, &#8220;What Nancy Pelosi and other sane Democrats — the ones who’ve been around long enough to know how things work — are dealing with from AOC and her Squad reminds me a lot of what I had to deal with during my days as Speaker from the far-right kooks of the Tea Party or the Freedom Caucus or whatever they were calling themselves.&#8221;
The Tea Party and Freedom Caucus simply wanted a government that stayed within its budget, returned power back to the states, defunded Planned Parenthood, and secured the border among other things that Republicans such as Boehner and Ryan had been promising to do for years.
To put into context how unbelievable Boehner’s remark is, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus — which would mean that Boehner thinks of him as a &#8220;kook&#8221; as well.
The trio&#8217;s gripes with former President Donald Trump are well known, yet none of them seem to realize that their failure on matters discussed in this column can explain his rise and why Americans flocked to him.
Boehner resigned as speaker in 2015 after his apparent life goal of getting the pope to speak before Congress was accomplished. There was <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/john-boehner-resigned-after-the-popes-visit-there-was-nothing-left-for-the-house-speaker-to-achieve.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nothing</a> left for him to do, he has implied numerous times. A pope speaking before Congress is nice, but it doesn’t really do anything for the American people.
Ryan decided against seeking re-election during the Trump administration and slinked away for a few years only to return in recent months to castigate Trump. Ryan is still arguing that Republicans <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-plan-to-save-americas-finances-fiscal-monetary-policy-debt-deficits-social-contract-midterm-election-healthcare-11668638378" target="_blank" rel="noopener">need</a> to focus mostly on economic issues and the threat of government in order to win big.
He says this despite social issue victories in states like Virginia and Florida. Trump’s policies, which Ryan has warned against, grew the party in ways Ryan only dreamed of. Now DeSantis and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) are expanding on Trumpism.
Yet oddly enough, Boehner and Ryan have kinder words for Pelosi than they ever have had for Trump or the Tea Party.
Sure, she held her left-wing socialists at bay in recent years, but Pelosi also enriched herself with all-too-timely stock trades that have raised eyebrows.
Americans, meanwhile, have suffered under the Swamp as multiple generations of politicians from both parties have focused on all the wrong problems as they silence any true grassroots movements to shake up the system.
She scored wins for the Democratic Party, but those don&#8217;t translate into victories for the voters.
Why the praise, unless your worldview aligns more with the Democrats than the conservative base?
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi,  John Boehner

Pelosi And The Swamp: Millions Of Babies Killed, Record Overdoses, Job Loss, And Open Borders

Pelosi And The Swamp: Millions Of Babies Killed, Record Overdoses, And Open Borders

John Boehner

Nancy Pelosi

The Swamp

After Paul Ryan criticized the Republican Party for supposedly being too devoted to former President Donald Trump, multiple legacy news anchors called on Ryan to use his position on the board of Fox News’ parent company to muzzle the network’s “extremism.” One of Ryan’s former colleagues, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), went on the network to say, “I hope he uses that position” to “start deplatforming some of these nuts that they put on.”
Dent’s remarks came shortly after Ryan gave a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qo65lZNuek">25-minute</a> speech at the Reagan Library Thursday night saying the GOP cannot depend on “the populist appeal of one personality, or of second-rate imitations.”
Ryan, who held a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/paul-ryan-to-host-fundraiser-for-liz-cheney-amid-backlash-over-her-trump-criticism">fundraiser</a> for Rep. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cnn-talked-about-liz-cheney-four-times-more-than-the-israel-hamas-conflict">Liz Cheney</a> (R-WY) after the first interparty skirmishes this winter, also warned conservatives “not to get caught up in every little cultural battle,” because they are sometimes “just creations of outrage peddlers detached from reality.”
Ryan “sits on the board of Fox Corporation, which has as its subsidiary Fox News,” said Chris Cuomo. “If he really cared about the integrity of his party, and staying away from the culture wars, and focusing on your real principles, what&#8217;s he doing sitting on that board?”
Dent replied, “I hope he uses that position, to try to get Fox into a better place when it comes to these types of incendiary stories that they too often broadcast, particularly under opinion shows.”
“He can make a difference,” <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2105/27/CPT.01.html">said</a> Dent, a liberal Republican who voted <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2015/09/18/six-party-defections-in-vote-to-defund-planned-parenthood/">against</a> defunding Planned Parenthood. “He can start deplatforming some of these nuts that they put on, on the shows there that we all know, are causing problems.”
“We&#8217;ll see if he does,” Cuomo <a href="https://youtu.be/-CMvmOJa758?t=1356">responded</a>.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="CNN News Chris Cuomo Primetime Thursday 5/27/21" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-CMvmOJa758?start=1356&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The calls to muzzle the top-rated network on cable continued Friday morning, as CNN’s Jim Acosta said, “If he wants to stop extremism or do something about extremism in America, he sits on the board of Fox News. He can do something about it right now.”
FNC is “becoming a dangerous haven for extremist ideas,” Acosta said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“If Paul Ryan wants to do something,” Acosta said, “please give a speech over on the Avenue of the Americas over in midtown Manhattan” — where Fox News is <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/closed-captioning">headquartered</a> — “because that&#8217;s where he could do some good right now.”
Acosta earlier in the month called Fox News “a bulls**t factory” that is “just demolishing what was left of a civil discourse in this country.”
Acosta became one of several legacy media personalities to savage Ryan and highlight his ties to their more successful cable news competitor.
Anderson Cooper <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2105/27/acd.01.html">noted</a> that Paul Ryan “sits on the board of Fox” before asking, “Does he have the moral high ground here?”
CNN’s political director, David Cahlian said “it&#8217;s a fair question” whether Ryan is “taking that same message inside the FOX Boardroom.”
“Obviously,” he continued, “in terms of outrage peddling, they&#8217;ve cornered the market in many ways.”
MSNBC also got in on the act, as guest Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark called Ryan’s speech “a very, very tiny step.”
“He’s talking about the future of the conservative movement, but he’s not addressing the cancer of the Big Lie,” “the purges in the House of Representatives,” or “the contagion of crazy and conspiracy theories that’s plaguing the Republican Party,” Sykes continued.
He added that Ryan did not “address the role of Fox News in the future of the conservative movement or the Republican Party — which is interesting because, of course, Paul Ryan sits on the board of directors of the Fox Corporation.”
“I’m tired of being disappointed by Paul Ryan,” Sykes said.
Others believe Ryan has already made his influence felt at the network. Former President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-ghrgbxyk8u/">wrote</a> Friday morning that “the day that Ryan went on the board of Fox,” the network “totally lost its way and became a much different place, with millions of its greatest supporters fleeing for good.”
“Fox will never be the same!” Trump added.
Fox briefly lost its first-in-cable status to CNN on January 6 but has since rebounded, winning the coveted spot for the last 14 weeks.

House Speaker Paul Ryan Holds Weekly News Conference At The Capitol

CNN To Paul Ryan: Start ‘Deplatforming’ Fox News Hosts

Chris Cuomo

Fox News

Former GOP House speaker Paul Ryan will host a fundraising event for Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is facing backlash over her criticism of former President Trump in the wake of the Capitol riot and her vote to impeach him.
Ryan will host the virtual fundraising event for Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, at 11a.m. on March 25. Donors have been asked to contribute $5,800 to co-host and $2,900 to attend, according to the <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm">invite</a> obtained by Politico.
Since her vote to impeach Trump during his second impeachment trial last month, Cheney is now facing two Republican primary challengers, Wyoming State Representative Chuck Gray and State Senator Anthony Bouchard. Cheney is up for reelection in 2022.
“It’s time for a leader who actually listens to the hard-working people of Wyoming, and not to the D.C. elitists,” Gray wrote in a Thursday tweet.
“The oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment. And it doesn’t bend to partisanship; it doesn’t bend to political pressure. It’s the most important oath that we take,” Cheney said of her decision to break from the party line and join Democrats and nine other Republicans in voting for impeachment.
“We should not be embracing the former president,” she said when asked whether Trump should be a standard-bearer for the GOP.
The Wyoming Republican Party early last month voted to censure Cheney over her impeachment vote. Also last month, House Republicans voted to keep Cheney as House Republican Conference chair in a 145–61 vote, overcoming a push by some House Republicans to oust her from her role as the third-ranking member of House GOP leadership.
Paul, who represented Wisconsin in the House for two decades, initially criticized Trump fiercely while he was running for president, but the two later developed a largely cooperative relationship, working to enact Trump&#8217;s agenda.
When Ryan announced in April 2018 that he would not seek reelection, he received generous praise from Trump, who called him a “truly good man” with a “legacy of achievement that nobody can question.”
However, Trump&#8217;s tone later soured when Ryan was quoted in a book deriding the president, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-book-details-how-republican-leaders-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-trump/2019/07/10/be75eff8-a27d-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html?_view=prod&amp;utm_term=.8be39e9bcacb&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_4">saying</a> that Trump &#8220;didn’t know anything about government&#8221; and that he &#8220;wanted to scold him all the time.&#8221;
Trump subsequently declared that Ryan had &#8220;poor leadership&#8221; and called his achievement record &#8220;atrocious.&#8221;
Ryan&#8217;s successor, GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), has since attempted to placate all sides, visiting Trump at his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago at the end of January in an attempt to persuade the former president not to take revenge on the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated incorrectly that Wyoming State Senator Anthony Bouchard announced his primary challenge against Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday, March 4. Bouchard announced his candidacy in January.

Paul Ryan To Host Fundraiser For Liz Cheney Amid Backlash Over Her Trump Criticism

Liz Cheney

<a href="https://twitter.com/benjaminpenn">Ben Penn</a> of <a href="https://muckrack.com/ben-penn/bio">Bloomberg</a> is a Very Intrepid Journalist™. Ben Penn, you see, is committed to Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing. And because Ben Penn is a Very Intrepid Journalist™ committed to Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing, he decided to launch today a Very Intrepid Piece Of Journalism™ at <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/trump-labor-aide-quits-after-anti-semitic-facebook-posts-surface">Bloomberg Law</a> that regales the reader with the courageous tale of Penn&#8217;s exhumation of a recent U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) political appointee&#8217;s three-year-old &#8220;anti-Semitic&#8221; Facebook post. The oh-so-valiant unearthing of that hitherto buried Facebook post led, you see, to the DOL appointee&#8217;s resignation after less than a month on the job. Surely, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Swamp, Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn is now celebrating his day of Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing.
The careful reader — or, rather, any reader with more than one functioning brain cell — will note that the preceding paragraph utilizes a literary device commonly referred to as sarcasm. We here at The Daily Wire are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50382/walsh-i-disavow-daily-wire-matt-walsh">rather familiar</a> with that literary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47579/last-season-democracy-not-good-others-satire-andrew-klavan">device</a>. But Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn seems less familiar with the literay device of sarcasm than <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43796/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">communist</a> Bernie Sanders is with the economic concept of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45542/watch-hammer-fox-friends-start-educating-american-daily-wire">supply and demand</a>.
Leif Olson, a years-long personal friend of your humble columnist and a principled conservative who had recently uprooted his family from the Lone Star State to the nation&#8217;s capital in order to humbly serve in the Trump administration, was forced to resign last Friday after Penn flagged for DOL a transparently sarcastic Facebook post of Olson&#8217;s dating back to the much-ballyhooed August 2016 Paul Ryan/Paul Nehlen Republican primary race in Wisconsin&#8217;s 1st Congressional District. Let us consider Olson&#8217;s underlying satirical post, as well as the leading subsequent sardonic comment that Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn deemed sufficient grist for purposes of nabbing a cheap scalp.
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Paul Nehlen, the reader may recall, was a vile <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/paul-nehlen/551312/">alt-right anti-Semite</a> whose failed insurgent bid to supplant Paul Ryan was vociferously backed by Breitbart and other nationalist populist figures. Prior to his later being banned outright from Twitter in 2018 due to serial peddling of Jew-hatred, Nehlen became notorious for promoting on the platform a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-supremacist-paul-nehlen-loses-gop-house-primary-but-garners-11-of-vote/">list of Jewish journalistic conspiracists</a> against him. I would know because, along with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and other prominent Jewish journalists such as CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper, I personally appeared on Nehlen&#8217;s list.
Paul Ryan ended up walloping Paul Nehlen in the August 2016 GOP primary for Wisconsin&#8217;s 1st Congressional District by an utterly embarrassing margin of 84% – 16%. Cue Olson, then a civilian, who took to his personal Facebook page to mock Nehlen and his buffoonish alt-right supporters in emphatically sarcastic fashion. As Philip Klein <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/shameful-trump-labor-appointee-forced-to-resign-after-bloomberg-portrays-sarcastic-facebook-post-as-anti-semitic">observes</a> today at the Washington Examiner, it ought to take a complete lack of human sentience to miss the obvious sarcasm here: &#8220;If the over-the-top language isn&#8217;t a tip off, it&#8217;s a fairly dead giveaway that Olson refers to Ryan having &#8216;suffered a massive, historic, emasculating 70-point victory.'&#8221; And as Yair Rosenberg <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/290615/how-the-media-turned-a-trump-appointee-who-mocked-alt-right-anti-semites-into-an-anti-semite">details</a> today at Tablet, Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn &#8220;selectively cropped&#8221; out of his calumnious screed &#8220;relevant omitted portions&#8221; and &#8220;essential context&#8221; that makes it entirely clear that Olson — who I personally know to have a very dry sense of humor — was being sarcastic. In response to one Facebook commenter&#8217;s opining that the Ryan/Nehlen race was &#8220;[n]ot Breitbart&#8217;s best day,&#8221; Olson chimed in: &#8220;Not breitbart-dot-com&#8217;s best series of months, I think you mean.&#8221;
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
That is the entire &#8220;story&#8221; here. And for this, Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn managed to besmirch a good (if perhaps too sarcastic) man as an ignominious Jew-hater — something he manifestly is not. And what of the Labor Department? The cowardly apparatchiks at DOL who folded like a cheap suit and capitulated to Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn&#8217;s disgraceful attempt to claim a political appointee&#8217;s scalp ought to be brought to task and disciplined. This saga does not merely reveal Ben Penn as an opportunistic blunderbuss; it also reveals a truly shameful look for DOL. Conservatives ought to be up in arms that DOL, a prominent department of the Trump administration, is so unwilling to defend its own appointees against manufactured smear campaigns.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Related: What the heck happened at <a href="https://twitter.com/USDOL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USDOL</a> to accept this resignation? Push back against such obviously disingenuous hatchet jobs from journalistic bottom-feeders and defend your political appointees.
Terrible look for the Trump administration.
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1168879269344362496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
But don&#8217;t take the outrage just from me or from <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1168893306471931910">Ben</a>. Take it instead from some of the most prominent blue checkmark left-leaning commentators on Twitter:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Ryan is right about this &#8212; this is actually the rarest of things, a case where someone is unfairly fired for remarks that weren&#8217;t bigoted but interpreted as such. <a href="https://t.co/ilzlBE4ihU">https://t.co/ilzlBE4ihU</a>
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) <a href="https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1168907822161158145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I know little about Leif Olson and probably strongly disagree with his policy goals, but it seems highly dubious to report his sarcasm as actual antisemitism—again, the context makes it overwhelmingly clear that he was ridiculing antisemites.
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) <a href="https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1168881139433398272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Trump Labor official Leif Olson has resigned due to a putatively anti-Semitic Facebook post. But if you read the post, it appears to be mocking anti-Semitic conspiracy theories: <a href="https://t.co/C9UPvhKbzz">https://t.co/C9UPvhKbzz</a>
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/1168860047029538822?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">It’s pretty clear based on the context that he was being sarcastic.
— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) <a href="https://twitter.com/cjane87/status/1168878615632629760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Anti-Semitism in America is, harrowingly, <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/430477/no-one-cares-about-attacks-against-the-orthodox-because-youve-been/">very much</a> on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44424/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">rise</a>. It is, increasingly, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46528/hammer-jews-simply-must-arm-themselves-now-josh-hammer">dangerous time</a> to be a Jew — especially a more public-facing Orthodox Jew — in these United States. As a proud Jew and Zionist, I take anti-Semitism as seriously as anyone else. But it is affirmatively harmful to the cause of raising awareness of actual, genuine rises in anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence when tendentious muckrakers like Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn embark on rogue crusades to smear innocent men as Jew-haters for the sake of claiming the scalp of a political opponent. Penn, via his Very Intrepid Journalism™-ing, has tragically undermined the cause of extirpating Jew-hatred in America. Ditto the <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-shame-of-the-anti-defamation-league/">farcical leftist leadership</a> of the Anti-Defamation League, whose spokesperson was quoted by Penn as referring to Olson&#8217;s comments as &#8220;clearly anti-Semitic&#8221; before the organization, tail between its legs, <a href="https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1168960242765484032">apparently came around to feeling contrite and expressed a willingness to retract</a> such a mendacity.
There are no actors who escape from this saga looking clean. Shame on Ben Penn. Shame on Ben Penn&#8217;s editors at Bloomberg. Shame on the U.S. Department of Labor. Shame on the Anti-Defamation League. Shame, indeed, on all those actors who are complicit in the false maligning of an upstanding man and the concomitant harm that such maligning has wrought upon the cause of hunting down and excising real, genuine Jew-hatred in America.
DOL must rehire Leif Olson — and it ought to do so as soon as humanly possible. Indeed, if anyone ought to be fired as a result of this imbroglio, it ought to be Very Intrepid Journalist™ Ben Penn.

Cyber Attacks

HAMMER: DISGRACEFUL: Reporter Files Ridiculous Hit Piece Against Trump Department Of Labor Appointee. Administration Dumps Him.

Anti-Semitism

Facebook

Media Bias

Paul Nehlen

Trump Administration

Former White House communications aide Cliff Sims is releasing a book called &#8220;Team of Vipers&#8221; next week which chronicles his time in the White House. According to The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/absolutely-out-of-control-cliff-simss-book-depicts-life-in-trumps-white-house/2019/01/21/883d2412-1d92-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html?utm_term=.7c4d877856eb&amp;noredirect=on">Washington Post</a>, which received an advance copy, the book highlights several rifts between President Donald Trump and officials, including former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Although books have been released by former White House officials like Omarosa Manigault Newman and George Papadopoulos, The Washington Post claims the book is unlike the others because it is &#8220;neither a sycophantic portrayal of the president nor a blistering account written to settle scores.&#8221;
The Washington Post reports:
<blockquote>
The author presents himself as a true believer in Trump and his agenda, and even writes whimsically of the president, but still is critical of him, especially his morality. Sims also finds fault in himself, a rarity in Trump World, writing that at times he was &#8220;selfish,&#8221; &#8220;nakedly ambitious&#8221; and &#8220;a coward.&#8221;
</blockquote>
The book reportedly covers everything from the crowd size controversy from Trump&#8217;s inauguration to Kelly&#8217;s unhappiness with his role.
According to Sims, Kelly said he was serving his &#8220;country first, POTUS second.&#8221; Sims claims that Kelly told him, &#8220;This is the worst [expletive] job I&#8217;ve ever had. People apparently think that I care when they write that I might be fired. If that ever happened, it would be the best day I&#8217;ve had since I walked into this place.&#8221;
Sims reportedly tells another story about Ryan visiting the Oval Office to discuss healthcare, waiting for several minutes before the president walked out of the room and down the hallway. Sims wrote that Vice President Pence had to convince Trump to return to the office.
&#8220;It&#8217;s impossible to deny how absolutely out of control the White House staff &#8212; again, myself included &#8212; was at times,&#8221; Sims wrote.
Sims claims that Trump was very suspicious of his aides, eventually leading him to make a list of enemies within his administration on White House stationary. 
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to get rid of all of the snakes, even the bottom-feeders,&#8221; Trump said, according to Sims.
Sims also reportedly called counselor Kellyanne Conway &#8220;the American Sniper of West Wing marksmen&#8221; and said her agenda was &#8220;survival over all others, including the president.&#8221;
The book&#8217;s description on the publisher&#8217;s website <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250223890">says</a> Sims took notes in real time and was standing at Trump&#8217;s side on election night and in Trump&#8217;s inner circle as &#8220;a confidante, an errand boy, an advisor, a punching bag, and a friend. Sometimes all in the same conversation.&#8221;
&#8220;For five hundred days, Sims also witnessed first-hand the infighting and the leaking, the anger, joy, and recriminations,&#8221; the description says. &#8220;He had a role in some of the President&#8217;s biggest successes, and he shared the blame for some of his administration&#8217;s worst disasters. He gained key, often surprising insights into the players of the Trump West Wing, from Jared Kushner and John Kelly to Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.&#8221;
Sims worked on Trump&#8217;s campaign and then went on to to be a special assistant to the president and White House director of message strategy.

‘Pro-Trump’ Former Aide Writes Book About ‘Absolutely Out Of Control’ White House

John Kelly

Kellyanne Conway

Mike Pence

Everyone thought the government was going to avoid a shutdown, until President Trump decided to put his foot down, to the delight of The Daily Wire&#8217;s own Michael Knowles. He explained why Trump&#8217;s decision to stand firm over the border wall is the right move on Thursday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show.&#8221;
&#8220;President Trump, he was just going to have this perfunctory meeting today with House Republicans at the White House, and they&#8217;re going to get the continuing resolution, they&#8217;re going to keep funding the government until February eight,&#8221; Knowles said.
After playing a clip of outgoing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan explaining that Trump would not sign the Senate&#8217;s bill without more funding for border security, Knowles could not help but say, &#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t tell me Christmas came early. It&#8217;s only the 20th! Christmas isn&#8217;t supposed to happen for five days.&#8221;
Knowles broke down how Republicans were disappointed in Trump for seemingly caving on his signature campaign promise to &#8220;build the wall.&#8221;
&#8220;I mean, we were pretty tough on him on this show yesterday,&#8221; Knowles said. &#8220;At the same time that the signature campaign promise you&#8217;re caving on and not delivering on, you&#8217;re choosing instead to free thousands of prisoners from the clink through this first step act prison reform bill. It&#8217;s just a horrible moment, just a really low point for the Trump presidency. Especially as the economy starts tanking. I don&#8217;t know who it was exactly who was whispering in his ear, but today he totally turns around and says that we&#8217;re going to do it. He says he&#8217;s going to build the wall in a very specific way.&#8221;
Knowles referenced a Trump tweet from Thursday that said, &#8220;The Democrats, who know Steel Slats (Wall) are necessary for Border Security, are putting politics over Country. What they are just beginning to realize is that I will not sign any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it was perfect Border Security. U.S.A. WINS!&#8221; 
&#8220;Now, you&#8217;ll notice in that tweet, the &#8216;Wall&#8217; is in parentheses,&#8221; Knowles said. &#8220;The new phrase is &#8216;Steel Slats.&#8217; Okay, so what do we mean by steel slats? You&#8217;ve probably seen a number of prototypes of this wall, one of them is these slats up and down. Conservatives are a little upset about this. I think the left is actually trying to pretend conservatives are a little more upset about steel slats versus the wall than they really are.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t care what the wall looks like. I don&#8217;t care if it has graffiti all over it. I don&#8217;t care if it&#8217;s made of steel or marble or concrete. I just want the thing to be built,&#8221; Knowles said.
Video and transcript below:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/akGZLIZEPUI?start=281" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div>
<blockquote>
President Trump, he was just going to have this perfunctory meeting today with House Republicans at the White House, and they&#8217;re going to get the continuing resolution, they&#8217;re going to keep funding the government until February eight. Is that what happened Paul Ryan?
Paul Ryan: &#8220;We just had a very long, productive meeting with the president. The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concern for border security. So what we&#8217;re going to do is go back to the House and work with the members. We want to keep the government open, but we also want to see an agreement that protects the border. We have very serious concerns about securing our border. The President said he will not sign this bill, so we&#8217;re going to go back and work on adding border security to this.&#8221;
Oh don&#8217;t tell me Christmas came early. It&#8217;s only the twentieth! Christmas isn&#8217;t supposed to happen for five days. I told you, all I want for Christmas is five-billion dollars and a big, big beautiful wall and Paul Ryan is announcing this, that President Trump is delivering. We should have seen this coming. Yesterday, and you know that broadly I&#8217;m quite supportive of the administration, they&#8217;ve done excellent work, they&#8217;ve done so much better than everyone expected, but I was really upset yesterday and I was not alone in this. Ann Coulter was on a podcast at the Daily Caller and she said that President Trump, if he did not get the wall, that his presidency would be a joke, that there would be no reason to support him. She was really brutal toward him. She was so brutal that President Trump actually unfollowed her on twitter. Apparently, there&#8217;s a twitter bot that monitors the Trump family accounts and who they&#8217;re following. He actually unfollowed Ann. Ann Coulter has been pretty tough on Trump the whole time. She&#8217;s been tough on him in a way, to push him to do better. To push him to not alienate his base. To push him so that he doesn&#8217;t lose in 2020. I think she&#8217;s tried to maintain this tension where she wants to really really push him, but not so much that he&#8217;ll unfollow her. So, he did unfollow her, but then he listened to her as well. I mean, we were pretty tough on him on this show yesterday. At the same time that the signature campaign promise you&#8217;re caving on and not delivering on, you&#8217;re choosing instead to free thousands of prisoners from the clink through this first step act prison reform bill. It&#8217;s just a horrible moment, just a really low point for the Trump presidency. Especially as the economy starts tanking. I don&#8217;t know who it was exactly who was whispering in his ear, but today he totally turns around and says that we&#8217;re going to do it. He says he&#8217;s going to build the wall in a very specific way. He sent out this tweet and wrote:
President Trump: &#8220;The Democrats, who know Steel Slats (Wall) are necessary for Border Security, are putting politics over Country. What they are just beginning to realize is that I will not sign any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it was perfect Border Security. U.S.A. WINS!&#8221;Now, you&#8217;ll notice in that tweet, the &#8220;Wall&#8221; is in parentheses. The new phrase is &#8220; Steel Slats&#8221;. Okay, so what do we mean by steel slats? You&#8217;ve probably seen a number of prototypes of this wall, one of them is these slats up and down. Conservatives are a little upset about this. I think the left is actually trying to pretend conservatives are a little more upset about steel slats vs the wall than they really are. I don&#8217;t care what the wall looks like. I don&#8217;t care if it has graffiti all over it. I don&#8217;t care if it&#8217;s made of steel or marble or concrete. I just want the thing to be built.
President Trump also went on, he wrote:
President Trump: &#8220;When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership. Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn&#8217;t happen! We foolishly fight for Border Security for other countries &#8211; but not for our beloved U.S.A. Not good!&#8221;
Absolutely right. This is totally right.
</blockquote>
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt%3D2&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1545488998187000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH88eFUfyM8DTlOEYCH5Mxqn4c_uw" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Listen to The Michael Knowles Show on iTunes</a>
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</div>

Knowles: Who Cares If The Wall Is Built With Steel Slats?

Conservatism

Democratic Party

Michael Knowles

Republican Party

Southern Border

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) gave his farewell speech on the floor of Congress. Ryan has come in for incredible levels of criticism over his handling of the House and his off-again, on-again relationship with President Trump &#8212; but his farewell speech addressed themes that have run throughout his tenure in the House of Representatives: the lack of seriousness in addressing policy issues, the unwillingness to stare real problems in the face, and the substitution of political partisanship for problem-solving. Ryan was always miscast as Speaker of the House; indeed, he was miscast as a member of Congress in the first place. Congress is a place for bargaining, not for ideas. That is, in and of itself, somewhat tragic. And the obvious tension in Ryan&#8217;s career was exposed by the fact that Congress it itself nearly unworkable.
In his farewell address, Ryan focused on a few themes. First, the greatness of America. Ryan stated:
<blockquote>
What a country, where someone of an unassuming Midwest upbringing gets the chance to be a part of all of this. Where you can pursue whatever your passion is, wherever it takes you. That&#8217;s the American Idea, isn&#8217;t it? The condition of your birth isn&#8217;t your destiny. Your struggle isn&#8217;t your destiny. It is part of our journey.
</blockquote>
Then Ryan moved onto the heart of his speech: the disconnect between what politics should be and what it has become. Labeling himself a &#8220;policy&#8221; guy, Ryan stated that he had advanced some key policies in his role as Speaker: economic growth, military restoration, sanctions on our enemies, regulatory reform, criminal justice reform. Ryan rightly pointed out that the House had passed 1,175 bills, &#8220;more than half of them with bipartisan support.&#8221; But in an implicit rebuke to our current politics, Ryan explained that criticism has taken the place of problem-solving:
<blockquote>
The state of politics these days, though, is another question, and frankly one I don&#8217;t have an answer for. We have a good sense of what our politics should look like. A great clash of ideas. A civil, passionate discourse through which we debate and resolve our differences. &#8230; But today, too often, genuine disagreement quickly gives way to intense distrust. We spend far more time trying to convict one another than we do developing our own convictions. Being against someone has more currency than being for anything. Each of us has found ourselves operating on the wrong side of this equation from time to time. &#8230; We default to lazy litmus tests and shopworn denunciations. It is just emotional pabulum fed from a trough of outrage. It is exhausting. It saps meaning from our politics. And it discourages good people from pursuing public service.
</blockquote>
All of this is eminently correct. And Ryan correctly diagnosed the problem, too: a lack of social fabric. The thinning of that social fabric, Ryan states, has &#8220;deep roots.&#8221; But Ryan properly recognized that politics offers no real solutions to the restoration of that fabric:
<blockquote>
So &#8230; how do we get back to aspiration and inclusion, where we start with humility, and seek to build on that? I don&#8217;t know the answer to that. What I offer today instead is something to keep in mind as we all try to navigate through this moment. Our culture is meant to be shaped not by our political institutions, but by the mediating institutions of civil society, of the community. These are the places where we come together with people of different backgrounds &#8212; churches, charities, teams, PTA meetings. It is where we build up our social capital, that currency which keeps us rooted to where we live, and how we live with one another. Rediscovering that human connection is one lane on the road back to aspiration and inclusion as the guiding influences in public life.
</blockquote>
Ryan returned to themes that have animated his career &#8212; focus on reduction of poverty through rethinking how we fight poverty (&#8220;It begins with realizing that the best results come from within communities, where solutions are tailored and targeted for people&#8217;s needs. This battle will be won soul-to-soul and eye-to-eye&#8221;); focus on entitlement reform (&#8220;I acknowledge plainly that my ambitions for entitlement reform have outpaced the political reality and I consider this our greatest unfinished business &#8230; Ultimately, solving this problem will require a greater degree of political will than exists today. I regret that&#8221;); fixing immigration (&#8220;The right mix of solutions is there. Border security and interior enforcement, for starters. But also a modernization of our visa system&#8221;).
In the end, the way we view Ryan is an indicator of all that is broken in our politics. There simply shouldn&#8217;t be such a stark division between idea men and policy implementation. But there is. And that gap will widen as the social fabric crumbles, and as it becomes more and more lucrative to attribute the worst motives to our ideological opponents, rather than seeking to win them over. Ryan concluded:
<blockquote>
For each of the challenges I have discussed here today, there are people of goodwill in both parties who are ready and willing to take action. Everyone doesn&#8217;t need to agree on everything, and everyone doesn&#8217;t need to disagree on everything, either. All you need is enough people of good faith willing to take up an idea. That&#8217;s a good start. &#8230; Hone your ability to advance ideas. Sit down with people who know more about something than you do, listen, keep at it. Invest in the process.
</blockquote>
Will Ryan&#8217;s words hit home? Only if we, as a broader society, attempt to reinvigorate our sense of the eternal values that brought us together as a nation in the first place. And that work starts outside Congress. It starts with us.

Paul Ryan Just Gave His Farewell Address. It’s A Must-Read.

On Sunday&#8217;s &#8220;Face the Nation,&#8221; host John Dickerson played a clip from an interview he conducted with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) on October 16.
During the interview, several interesting topics were discussed, including bipartisanship as it pertains to the media, as well as how identity politics has infected the Republican Party.
<blockquote>
DICKERSON: Why do you think there&#8217;s not much talk about bipartisanship in the coverage?
RYAN: You know, I don&#8217;t think it sells for you guys, for the media. You take a look at the bills we pass out of the House &#8211; about a thousand bills. It&#8217;s been one of the most productive sessions of Congress in a generation. And of those roughly thousand bills, over 80% of them are bipartisan bills. So, we&#8217;ve tackled opioids; we&#8217;ve tackled human trafficking; we&#8217;ve rebuilt the military. All of those are bipartisan, but they don&#8217;t get reported. It doesn&#8217;t sell. So, I honestly think, John, it&#8217;s the hits and the clicks, and it&#8217;s the ratings chase that&#8217;s on display in America today that says when they&#8217;re fighting each other, that&#8217;s when you cover it.
DICKERSON: So if we accept some portion of responsibility for that, you&#8217;ve seen some of President Trump&#8217;s rallies. Do those rallies accentuate the things that unite us &#8211; the bipartisan achievements? Or do they do something very successful in politics&#8230;which is sow division in the country?
RYAN: Yeah.
DICKERSON: Do you see that happening at his rallies?
</blockquote>
Ryan replied that he does sometimes see divisive behavior at President Trump&#8217;s rallies, but that such behavior is not always present. When Dickerson pressed Ryan, the Speaker began to talk about the dangers of identity politics:
<blockquote>
I worry about tribal identity politics becoming the new norm of how politics is waged. As conservatives, we always thought this was sort of a Left-wing, Alinsky thing. Unfortunately, the Right practices identity politics now as well. It&#8217;s the day and age, it&#8217;s technology and everything else &#8211; identity politics, which is now being practiced on both sides of the aisle, is, unfortunately, working. And I think we, as leaders, we gotta figure out how do we make inclusive, aspirational politics strategically valuable again?
</blockquote>
Dickerson once again brought the subject back to the president, asking Ryan: &#8220;Does President Trump practice those kind of politics?&#8221; Paul replied that &#8220;sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn&#8217;t.&#8221;
Dickerson reacted incredulously, but Paul stated:
<blockquote>
Look&#8230;on economic growth, on tax reform, on getting the military, and helping veterans &#8211; those are things that he has led us to that have really brought people together. And he talks about these at his rally, and that is inclusive.
</blockquote>
Dickerson then asked if one should start on one&#8217;s &#8220;own team&#8221; when attempting to combat tribalism, noting, however, that the president has been incredibly successful playing hard politics:
<blockquote>
President Trump has been very effective practicing the politics as they are, not as like some, you know, grad school idea of how they should be. But he&#8217;s gotten two Supreme Court nominees confirmed; he got the tax cut bill through. So tribalism is working out just fine if it&#8217;s getting points on the board.
</blockquote>
Ryan explained that from his perspective, Trump&#8217;s leadership has achieved some great, unifying things:
<blockquote>
Look, take the tax bill, for example, what is that going to do? That&#8217;s going to create economic growth and opportunity. It&#8217;s creating more investment. This company right here &#8211; thirty more jobs and higher wages, more investment in their factory to hire even more people. So, what does that do? That helps reduce economic anxiety. So, to me, the best way to combat tribalism is to starve it of its oxygen, which is anxiety &#8211; economic anxiety, security anxiety. And if we can pass policies that help improve people&#8217;s lives, make them more confident about the future, then they&#8217;ll be less prone to be swayed by the kind of tribalism identity politics we see these days.
</blockquote>
When Dickerson stated that another way to avoid tribalism is to stay above the fray, Paul replied:
<blockquote>
But what can we do? &#8230;I can control what I say. She [Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY)] and I don&#8217;t tweet these things. We say what we say. But also we pass policies that we believe are going to be good for this country, and are going to address people&#8217;s concerns and fears, and make them more secure in their lives.
</blockquote>
Check out the full video here:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sD1ZI2Bs2yA" width="720"></iframe></div>

WATCH: Paul Ryan Calls Out The Media For Only Covering Political ‘Fighting’

A leading online betting site, Bettingonline.com, has <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/2020-odds-trump-favored-more-than-every-other-challenger-combined">ranked the odds</a> of various political figures being elected president in 2020. As expected, President Trump leads the way; his odds are 3-2. Among Republicans, the first three places are what you&#8217;d expect: Mike Pence&#8217;s odds are 16-1 and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan&#8217;s are 40-1.
But in fourth place, tied with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch at 50-1, is Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro. That places him well above 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whose odds are 66-1, where she joins Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Other notable Republicans are Senator Rand Paul at 100-1, and Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio at 125-1.
On the Democrat side, California Senator Kamala Harris has odds of 10-1; Senator Bernie Sanders&#8217; odds are 14-1, and former Vice-President Joe Biden has odds of 16-1.

2020 Odds, GOP Style: There’s Trump, Pence, Ryan And … Shapiro

Ben Shapiro

Hillary Clinton

Kamala Harris

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