Former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has trashed President Donald Trump during a speech in South Carolina while supporting a GOP congressional candidate.
Ryan, currently a Fox News board member, endorsed U.S. Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) for re-election during an event at Hotel Florence, in Florence.
While speaking in support of Rice, Ryan took a few swipes at Trump.
Trump and Rice are not on good terms.
Rice is among a small number of Republicans to join Democrats in their anti-Trump Jan. 6 campaign.
Trump has endorsed Rice’s primary challenger Russell Fry for the midterm election race.
“There were a lot of people who wanted to vote like Tom but who just didn’t have the guts to do it,” Ryan said.
“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.
“Tom Rice is a man of conviction.
“Tom Rice is the kind of person you want in Congress.
“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.
“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.
“We’re going through growing pains, that’s going to happen.
“But if you become a majority party you have to be a big tent party that can accommodate all different kinds of conservatives.
“I am here because this man is a workhorse.
“I am here because Tom Rice is a loyal man.
“He is loyal to his constituents, he is loyal to his conscious, he is loyal to our founding principles and he is loyal to the Constitution.”
Former House @SpeakerRyan ripped brand-focused "entertainers" posing as lawmakers who are preoccupied with their careers rather than their constituents during a campaign stop for embattled @RepTomRice, whom he called a "workhorse."https://t.co/OEYbeQhDYP
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 1, 2022
“This guy right here, he’s a nerd like me,” Rice said.
“He wants to solve problems.”
Trump said of Rice earlier:
“Right here in the 7th Congressional District, Tom Rice, a disaster.
“He’s respected by no one, he’s laughed at in Washington, he was never thought highly of in Washington.
“And he was just censured by your great South Carolina GOP.”
“Trump is here because, like no one else I’ve ever met, he is consumed by spite,” Rice said when the 45th president campaigned against him.
“I took one vote he didn’t like and now he’s chosen to support a yes man candidate who has and will bow to anything he says, no matter what.”
“You have with you a congressman who is at this key juncture on this key committee, with this wealth of knowledge representing your interests,” Ryan told local business leaders. “So I’m just here to say ‘thank you’ for sending this man to Congress.”https://t.co/5zohLtZ9rP
— Nick Reynolds (@IAmNickReynolds) June 1, 2022
