Trump is a ‘populist, authoritarian narcissist’, says ex-speaker Paul Ryan

Donald Trump is “not a conservative”, the former Republican House speaker Paul Ryan said, but “a populist, authoritarian narcissist”.

The former vice-presidential pick, who led the House majority for two years when Trump was president, also praised the Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for opposing Trump to the cost of their congressional careers.


Ryan, from Wisconsin, left Congress in 2019 and now sits on the board of Fox Corp, parent company of Fox News. He was speaking to Kevin Kajiwara, co-president of Teneo Political Risk Advisory, in a podcast interview recorded in November but widely noticed this week.

Voices on both sides of the main political aisle have criticised Ryan for not strongly opposing Trump when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2016, or through four chaotic years in the White House that ended in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.