His Favorite Punching Bag

Paul Ryan has spent more time with Donald Trump than any Republican leader in Washington discussing the Republican agenda in 2017. He’s met with Trump three times and communicated with him many more, endorsed him, invited him to address the 246 members of the House GOP caucus, and called at the Republican convention for party unity behind Trump as presidential nominee.

What has Ryan gotten in return? Trump now attacks Ryan routinely, even though turning the speaker into his Washington punching bag doesn’t improve his chances of winning the White House. Rather, his digs at Ryan are irrational and may hurt his prospects.

That’s not all. Trump’s campaign manager Steve Bannon is a vehement critic of Ryan. As head of the Breitbart News website, Bannon told his employees he wants to “destroy” Ryan, according to the Hill. Last week, Breitbart ran a story with this headline: “He’s With Her: Inside Paul Ryan’s Months-Long Campaign to Elect Hillary Clinton President.” It wasn’t a gag.

Trump has his reason—one reason, singular, not plural—for going after Ryan. On October 10, Ryan spoke to House Republicans in a conference call. It was three days after the video with Trump’s lewd comments about women had been leaked. Ryan told the House members he would no longer defend Trump or campaign with him. This leaked too.

Ryan, by the way, didn’t revoke his endorsement of Trump, despite pressure from advisers to do so. Now he simply ignores Trump. In speeches, he attacks Hillary Clinton without mentioning Trump. While Trump sees Ryan as his enemy, Ryan treats him merely as a nonperson.

But Ryan is hardly idle. His task is bigger than touting a Republican nominee who’s likely to lose. Ryan is focused on preserving the GOP majority in the House, speaking at fundraisers for House members, and funding much of the Republican effort nationally. He’s appeared with roughly 100 members and helped them raise $10 million. From his own PAC, he’s transferred nearly $35 million to the House GOP campaign committee.

If Republicans keep control of the House, Ryan will deserve a large share of the credit. In addition to fundraising, he’s given Republicans allergic to Trump something to talk about: an agenda of tax cuts, anti-poverty ideas, a health insurance plan to replace Obamacare, and other reforms.

And yet for all Ryan has done to reelect Republicans, his split with Trump has had a bigger impact on him personally and on his political future. That impact has been largely detrimental.

For example, a small number of conservative House members are talking up a challenge to Ryan’s speakership. They lack a credible opponent to replace Ryan, but it wouldn’t take many defections on the House floor to prevent Ryan from getting the 218 votes needed for reelection as speaker.

Nine conservative GOP members declined to vote for Ryan a year ago and eight of them are sure to be back for the new session of Congress. Subtracting those 8 reduces the Ryan vote to 238. Republicans are also likely to lose 10 to 20 seats in the election as a result of natural attrition and the Trump drag. Splitting the difference, 15 fewer Republicans would leave 225. That’s a small margin for error for Ryan, assuming he runs again for speaker.

Even Ryan allies believe, as one told me, “he hurt himself with his own caucus [by] the way he went out of his way to criticize Trump. This was a total unforced error and unnecessary.” Given Trump’s ego, there was no possibility he would let Ryan’s words pass without responding. What’s surprising, however, is that Trump would still be responding more than two weeks later. That’s a vendetta.

Trump has accused Ryan of everything from disloyalty to hoping Trump will lose the election. “Maybe [Ryan] wants to run in four years and maybe he doesn’t know how to win,” Trump told ABC News correspond-ent Tom Llamas. “I mean, who can really know?”

In a tweet, he called Ryan “our very weak and ineffective leader” and referred to “a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty.” In another tweet, Trump said, “Disloyal R’s are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides.”

Trump has unleashed his followers to come at Ryan from all sides. And guess what? In a YouGov/Economist poll of Trump partisans, 64 percent had an unfavorable view of Ryan. A Bloomberg poll of Republicans found 51 percent feel Trump better represents their view of the GOP than does Ryan, who was backed by 33 percent.

Numbers like those indicate Trump’s attacks have affected Ryan’s prospects for running for president in 2020, a Ryan-friendly strategist says. “I’m afraid he has by turning his large following of Republican primary voters against Ryan.”

Trump’s wrath is out of proportion with Ryan’s offense. It was a small mistake. The fact that Ryan wouldn’t join Trump at rallies or defend him was not earth-rattling. It was newsworthy because the media hates Trump, and Ryan is the top-ranking Republican in D.C.

In Ryan’s case, time will heal his wound. In Trump’s, his tribe will begin to unravel if he loses. Even if he wins, he should be wary of standing in Ryan’s way. Ryan is the party’s ideological and political strength, its path to victory. Trump is an interlude—better than Hillary Clinton but still an interlude.

Fred Barnes is an executive editor at The Weekly Standard.