Paul Ryan Calls Republicans Craven, Lying Hypocrites Over Impeachment, So There's That!

Mmmhmmm.

Paul Ryan is back, baby, and just as useless as ever. The former Republican House Speaker noped out of Congress in 2018 to whore himself out in the private sector. Because at least Rupert Murdoch won't shit tweet about you, and that guy pays for a lay .

Ryan spent 2017 and 2018 pretending not to have heard about Trump's daily outrages. But like Ariel, the congressman has rediscovered his voice now that he's back in the warm waters of civilian life. He's currently stumping for Rep. Tom Rice, an incumbent Gipper from South Carolina whom no one ever heard of until he became one of only 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol Riot.

"I was on the floor of the House of Representatives when the rioters were beating on the door with tear gas, zip tie restraints, and pipe bombs in their possession. It is only by the grace of God and the blood of the Capitol Police that the death toll was not much, much higher," Rice said at the time, adding that "I have backed this President through thick and thin for four years. I campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable."

Obviously this aggression will not stand, man! Trump vowed to seek revenge.

"Congressman Tom Rice of South Carolina, the coward who abandoned his constituents by caving to Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left, and who actually voted against me on Impeachment Hoax #2, must be thrown out of office ASAP," he said, announcing his endorsement of South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry, a proponent of the Big Lie about stolen elections.

In advance of the June 14 Republican primary, Insider flagged Ryan's appearance at a campaign lunch in Florence, South Carolina, on Wednesday.

"This is just such a crystal clear case where you have a hard working, effective, senior member of Congress who deserves reelection vs. people who are just trying to be celebrities who may be trying to help Trump with his vengeance," the Myrtle Beach Sun News reported Ryan saying. "That's not who voters want, voters want people focused on their solutions not on Trump's vengeance and that to me is a really clear cut case here."

"There were a lot of people who wanted to vote like Tom but who just didn't have the guts to do it," Ryan told the small gathering of Rice supporters. "There are a lot of people who say they're going to vote their conscience, they're going to vote for the Constitution, they're going to vote for their convictions but when it gets hard to do that they don't do it."

Which is a pretty weird thing to say about the party he recently led in Congress. Try to imagine a universe in which Nancy Pelosi retires and two short years later is telling donors that Democrats are a bunch of craven hypocrites with no convictions. It's a stinging indictment of his former colleagues, whom he describes as knowing full well that Trump caused the Capitol Riot with his lies and incitement, but being too weak to do more than clap like trained seals.

And since Paul Ryan spent two years as a cheerleader for Trump, refusing to call him out on his blatant racism, corruption, and lawlessness, it's perhaps fitting that, now he's had a road to Damascus conversion, it won't make a damn bit of difference. Because despite a massive fundraising advantage, Rice is pretty clearly headed for a primary defeat. As Insider notes, the latest polling from Trafalgar (take it with a huge grain of salt), has Fry 19 points ahead of Rice. Apparently, it's a "really clear cut case" for South Carolina Republicans, too.

Ryan, once the most powerful man in the House, traded in the speaker's gavel for a pair of sensible loafers and an eternity of rubber chicken lunches where he addresses an audience of dozens. And unlike Rep. Rice, he doesn't even get to claim he did the hard thing and showed his integrity when it would actually have cost him something.

Slow fuckin' clap for Paul Ryan, who knows what's right and does it ... eventually. When it no longer matters at all.

[ Insider ]