Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Tuesday on “CBS Mornings” that he believed the indictment of former President Donald Trump on federal charges would make him unelectable in 2024.
Co-host Gayle King asked, “He’s getting support from a lot of fellow Republicans. Are you one of those going Trump is my guy?”
Ryan said, “No, I’ve been a never Trumper for some time. We’re not going to win if we nominate Trump, we’re going to lose. He hasn’t won since 2016. We lost the House in 2018. We lost the presidency in ’20. We lost the Senate. We would have won the Senate this time in ’22 had it not been for Trump and some of his nominees in key elections. My guess is we probably would have picked up 10, 15 seats in the House were it not for his involvement.”
King asked, “Marco Rubio was here yesterday. He said something very interesting. Even if Trump did something wrong, you have to weigh that against the harm indicting him could already cause a divided country. What do you think about that?”
Ryan said, “I think this one’s different. I think you could make that case for the New York prosecutor. ”
He continued, “This one is national security. This one is diffrent. I used to have these same documents myself as Speaker of the House. This goes beyond some petty thing.”
Ryan added, “I think the electability becomes more salient with this indictment and in the future. With all the exhaustion and Trump baggage is going to make it easier now to make the argument to his core supporters he’s not electable. He’s going to cost us the Senate again, cost us the House seats and the White House.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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