Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said he will not attend the Republican National Conference (RNC) if former President Donald Trump is the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2024.
“It depends on who the nominee is,” Ryan told Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN-TV on Saturday. “I’ll be here if it’s someone not named Trump.”
Ryan also made clear he would not endorse Trump, who he earlier this year described as a “proven loser.”
“Anybody but Trump,” he told WISN.
The 2024 Republican convention is scheduled to be held in Milwaukee, in Ryan’s home state, but the former house speaker said he nevertheless wouldn’t attend the event with Trump as nominee.
“I’m not interested in participating in that, no. Even in Wisconsin,” he said.
Ryan, who was Mitt Romney’s vice presidential candidate in the 2012 elections, also added that he does not think Trump will become the nominee.
“The reason I don’t think he’ll be our nominee is because we know we’re going to lose with him,” he said. “He cost us the House in ’18, he lost the White House in ’20, he cost us the Senate in ’20, he cost us the Senate again in 2022, and he cost us probably a good dozen House seats in 2022. This is a lesson we don’t need to repeat again.”
Ryan didn’t say who he will be endorsing but emphasized that Republicans could win back the White House with a nominee other than Trump.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the former president spent Sunday attacking Ryan and continuing to spread election lies on his bootleg Twitter platform, Truth Social, taking particular exception to Ryan’s description of him as a loser.
“Paul Ryan is a loser, Mitt Romney could have won without him. I won twice, did much better the second time, and was 233 Wins out of 253 Races in the Midterms. Paul Ryan is destroying Fox, and couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in the Republican Party!” Trump said in a Sunday post.
