House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke out against Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday night, labeling him “menacing,” and declined to discuss the dossier that emerged Tuesday night containing unsubstantiated claims that the Russians have compromising information about Trump that could leave him open to blackmail.
Ryan, who was appearing at a CNN town hall, told a questioner that Russia overall is a “menace,” adding that democracy is not something that is part of Putin’s interests.
“Russia is a menace, led by a man who is menacing. Vladimir Putin does not share our interests. He frustrates our interests,” Ryan said. “He violates his neighbors. He does all those things you say on free speech.”
“He is not democratic. I really think a lot of the things he’s doing is to try and delegitimize the other democracies so that his illegitimate democracy doesn’t look as illegitimate by comparison.”
Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he did not “want to confer anymore legitimacy” on the dossier, reiterating multiple times that it is not a product of U.S. intelligence and rather is an unverified opposition research document.
The Wisconsin Republican also called on the U.S. to “step up its game” with the Russians, especially in the wake of their attempts to “meddle” in the November election. He also called for more sanctions.
“I think we have to step our game on Russia. I think we have to step up our game with respect to confronting Russia when they act like this, when they frustrate our interests,” Ryan said. “I do believe that they tried to affect our elections by meddling in our elections. If you’re going to meddle in elections, you’re trying to affect it. There’s no place for that. Having said that, I think it had no bearing on the election. Donald Trump won it fair and square, clearly and convincingly.”
“But the fact that a foreign government tried to meddle in another government’s elections is wrong. So I do think sanctions are called for,” Ryan said. “Frankly, the current president put sanctions that I think were a little late.”
