Paul Ryan calls former President Donald Trump 'drag on our ticket'

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https://www.wisn.com/article/paul-ryan- ... t/41917724

Paul Ryan calls former President Donald Trump 'drag on our ticket'
The former House speaker told WISN 12 News he thinks Republicans would have had better results on Election Day if Donald Trump wasn't involved.

JANESVILLE, Wis. —
The day after Election Day, WISN 12 News caught up with former speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, at an event in his hometown Janesville.

Ryan said he spent Tuesday night at home with his family watching the results on TV.

"Republicans didn't see that red wave like they were predicting," said WISN 12 News reporter Caroline Reinwald. "Why do you think that is and what kind of lessons do you think Republican leadership should be taking away from that?"

"I think we're going to have to do a lot of soul searching and head scratching, looking through and parsing the numbers as to why we didn't perform as well as we would have liked to," Ryan said. "Ron got re-elected, I'm very happy to see that. It was a mixed blessing night, but we should have done better than we did."

Ryan pointed to former president Donald Trump as one reason why Republicans may not have performed as well at the polls.

"I think Trump's kind of a drag on our ticket. I think Donald Trump gives us problems, politically. We lost the House, the Senate and the White House in two years when Trump was on the ballot, or in office," Ryan said. "I think we just have some Trump hangover. I think he's a drag on our office, on our races."

"What do you think's going to happen if Donald Trump announces he's going to run for president again?" Reinwald asked.

"I mean, I assume he's going to announce, but I honestly don't think he'll get the nomination at the end of the day," Ryan said. "We want to win. We want to win the White House and we know with Trump we're so much more likely to lose. Just look at the difference between votes, between Trump candidates and non-Trump aligned candidates."

"It's really clear to me and the evidence is pretty stark that if we have a nominee not named Trump, we're so much more likely to win the White House than if our candidate's named Trump," Ryan said.

"We have to offer the country a better way forward. I think we have to offer the country solutions," Ryan said. "We have to offer the country a really clear and compelling choice as to how our party is ripe and ready to solve big problems confronting the country and that we're putting leaders forward that people can vote for that they want to vote for."

Ryan was in Janesville Wednesday night for an event honoring his longtime friend, Gen. Andrew Poppas. In July, Poppas became the 24th commander of the United States Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Both Poppas and Ryan grew up together in Janesville. Wednesday's event was an annual fundraiser for Janesville, put on by its chamber of commerce, Forward Janesville.