‘We stick with Trump, we keep losing elections’: Former House Speaker Paul Ryan l This Week

On Friday I sat down with

former

House Speaker and

former

vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan for his first interview on the Sunday Show since leaving office. Ryan now publishes a new book. American Renewal, a conservative plan to strengthen the social contract and save the country's finances, also happens to be the last Republican to serve as

speaker

of the House. We begin by discussing the legacy of his successor Nancy Pelosi. It is an impressive legacy. I mean, obviously, she and I generally disagree on some things, but she's the first female

speaker

in a race. I'm proud and, frankly, I think a lot about her husband Paul these days.

I feel so bad for what happened to them. She has an incredible legacy and career. You know, she looks back at midterms. I think I saw you had. they predicted that at least 15 seats would probably get at least 15 and what happened was a couple of factors but I personally think the evidence is very clear the biggest factor was the Trump factor just look at how Christian and Irena had a bulldog on against. in New Hampshire, look where Kemp ran ahead of Walker in Georgia, so I think we clearly would have won the Senate if we had traditional Republicans in the general election like these governors.

I think we would have won places like Arizona, places like Pennsylvania New Hampshire if we had a typical traditional conservative Republican, not a Trump Republican, so I think now we know it's pretty clear that with Trump we lose, so I'm not talking about

this

personally it's just evidence that we lost the

house

in 18, we lost the presidency in 20 we lost the senate in 20 and now in 2022 we should and could have won the senate but we didn't and we have a much lower majority in the

house

because to that Trump factor, so I think it's palpable right now.

If we beat Trump, we start winning

elections

, we stay with Trump, we still lose

elections

, that's how I see it, but he had incredible power in the primaries. I mean, his candidates won the Republican primaries almost across the board, that's the point. he can get his people through the primaries but they can't win the general election, so what's really clear is that I think the Republican voter will move on, which is why I don't think he ends up winning the nomination at the end of the day. . I think we have a great group of good, capable conservatives who are more than capable of winning these presidential primaries by winning the election and I think Republican voters know that, which is why I think our voters who ultimately really want to win are going To give us candidates who can win, what will it mean for the Republican Party if he actually wins the nomination again?

We'll probably lose the White House that we just had in 20. So I think we'll probably lose the White House with Trump and if anyone. My name is not Trump, I assume we will win the White House, but if I say that if he wins the general election, if he becomes president again, I mean the way Liz Cheney has put it, it is like an existential threat to the country, just no. I don't think he's going to do it. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think he'll win. I think he's in the elections because that suburban voter.

Do you think he's more popular since the '28 election with the undecided voter in the United States or less? There's no evidence of that at all, but he seems to have control over a good portion of the Republican Party, whether it's a majority or not, you'll see that's correct, but I think he's going to continue to lose altitude because we want to win and we know with him we lose, we have a series of defeats to prove that point and there are a lot of really good and capable conservatives who, I think, are more than capable of not only being good conservatives in office, but also winning elections, as you know. that the Republicans have had and

this

goes back to 2015 when he first announced that the fear they have is that Donald Trump will lose the primaries but then cross the street and declare that he is an independent candidate, then hit the left of the country and I think he wouldn't want to be blamed for doing that, so you think he has the ability to talk to him, so I don't know what's going on in his mind.

See, that's how I. I was not an Ever Trumper. You worked with a speaker, I mean. It was I who ruled with them and I am very proud of those days. I'm proud of the accomplishments of tax reform, deregulation, criminal justice reform. I am very excited about the judges we have on the bench, not only the Supreme Court but throughout the judicial branch, but I am never a Trumper again, because I want to win and we lose with Trump, we were very clear about it in 18 in 20 and now in 2022. A few

week

s before the election you said, uh, a single-digit majority. in the House would be inoperative, in other words, a speaker that you couldn't need, well, you couldn't run the place with just your party, you couldn't run the place with your votes because now McCarthy will have maybe three or four, yeah.

There are always leaks, no matter what bill you are going to present, it is almost impossible for with that tight majority only your party to approve legislation when I was president we had better majorities, larger majorities we could approve bills ours, but if you have Such a narrow majority is going to be very difficult, since I have said that there is nothing as unifying as a very narrow majority, which is something unifying in itself. I've been in the house where we've had pretty slim majorities, not this kind, I mean, you had double digits today, I was double digits when I was there, but you know, we, in the rush days, we had a couple of very slim majorities. and that brings people together, makes people take notice.

I can't get everything I want. I have to be part of a team, but having said that, it is going to be very difficult, day in and day out, for only your party to contribute votes, but you already have them, I mean McCarthy. He hasn't been elected speaker yet, he already has two members who came out and said no, I will never vote for him, he may have a 3C majority. I mean, I think I lost like eight votes the first time, and then one vote the second time I found it. yeah, yeah, but you had 200, yeah, so that's to be expected, what happens if you can't get to 18.

I think you'll get 218, but what if you can't, it breaks, I mean if you don't get 218, we have a president-elect and there is no one better prepared to lead this conference than Kevin McCarthy. Frankly, he's been good for conservatives, but he's also a person who really understands how to run a conference, um, Adam. Kinzinger said that if McCarthy becomes president, Marjorie Taylor Green and members of the freedom group will put him on a leash. I mean, that's a vivid analogy, but this is, I mean, it's going to be hard, he has to do it, he won't do it.

It's going to take them to run a coalition government when you're speaker of the house within your own party and there's a large group of new people just elected from New York and California from what I would call more centrist moderate leadership districts those are the creators. of the majority Kevin understands that, so you have to lead a coalition, but is it easy for you when you see Margaret Taylor green over your shoulder when she announced the commitment to the United States? Look, she's running a coalition government. everyone needs what he needs, he needs the whole conference to work with him and he needs to motivate the whole conference, so you have this book published that looks at the financial problems facing the country, which are immense, they obviously weren't part of it. of this campaign and when I look at what the Republicans have done so far as they prepare to get the majority is talk about investigations, we've seen them come out, talk about Hunter Biden, there are a number of impeachment resolutions that were already introduced even before . the election, uh, not just Biden but members of his cabinet would not be a mistake for the Republicans instead of getting into the ideas that you're talking about, getting into a very intense investigation, investing, no, they need to supervise, I mean to what normally happens. when you have one party government all over Washington between the White House and Congress, there's not enough oversight and accountability, but there's oversight, but Hunt's dragon in Hunter Biden, you know that's not, I think there's some things there. at the Department of Justice. and Hunter that they should probably have some accountability and some research, but that's no substitute for an agenda, so the purpose of presenting an idea and I'm glad you mentioned the book.

I wasn't sure you were going to introduce us. I have the book, so the purpose of this is to offer a conservative plan to help this country overcome its enormous challenges in the 21st century if we have unsustainable debt and we are on an unsustainable debt trajectory, but we are going to make these programs work better, we're going to reform them so that you and I in the next generation going forward have something that's the kind of conversation that we had to elevate our debate to, I think, in our federal national policy and I think we can because you know the United States will always He got it right at the end of the process, but we went through a lot of political imagination.

Are you ever an optimist, an optimistic person, yes, so finally you have put forward the ideas that I have talked about about the direction of the party, the direction of the country, will we ever see you again in politics? I like doing it the way I'm doing it now. Could you see yourself running for no? I mean, I'm definitely not running. in 2024 and I don't think it's just that I have a president-sized political ambition, but I don't really have a president-sized personal ambition, so I don't see myself doing that right, so we can take it as it may be, no .

I don't know okay Paul Ryan thank you so much it's a pleasure to be with you man thank you a pleasure hello everyone George Stephanopoulos thank you for visiting the ABC News YouTube channel if you want to get more videos show what highlights and watch live event coverage. Click right here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app to receive breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.