Establishment Republicans like Paul Ryan are always looking for a way to torpedo Donald Trump’s Presidency.
They are thwarting his agenda in Congress and running to the media after every controversy to publically rebuke the President.
Now Ryan went on national TV and betrayed the President in one awful way.
Ryan appeared on a CNN’s town hall where he was interviewed by Jake Tapper and questioned by his Wisconsin constituents.
The fact that the town hall was staged by CNN should have been the first clue it was going to turn into a Trump bashing fest.
And Tapper didn’t disappoint.
Even though the town hall followed a prime time address where Trump announced the controversial decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, the start of the event focused on Trump’s response to Charlottesville.
Tapper and Ryan both forcefully condemned Trump’s accurate remarks that there was violence on both sides and made the false claim that Trump gave aid and comfort to white supremacists.
Ryan repeatedly attacked Trump for his comments in a stunning criticism.
The Daily Caller reports:
“House Speaker Paul Ryan said he believes President Donald Trump “messed up” his comments on the recent violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Monday evening.
The Wisconsin Republican said the president’s remarks were “pitch perfect” on Monday, but he believes Trump made a mistake in saying both sides were responsible for the violent outbreak at his press conference the following day.
“I think he made comments [Tuesday] that were much more morally ambiguous, much more confusing, and I do think he could have done better — I think he needed to do better,” Ryan said during a CNN town hall in Racine, Wis. “I actually think what he did two days ago in commending the peaceful protests against the hate in Boston was a good start. What I heard 25 minutes ago was exactly what a president needs to say — what we needed to hear. So I do believe that he messed up in his comments on Tuesday when it sounded like a moral equivocation, or at the very least moral ambiguity.”
Ryan – and other Republicans who parrot this line – are wrong.
Trump forcefully condemned the hatred and bigotry of white supremacists.
But violent members of the left-wing group Antifa were also in Charlottesville and they were there to cause trouble.
In fact, their whole platform is to implement violence to fight what they call “fascists.”
You can speak out against both Antifa and the prejudice and hatred of white supremacists.
And Trump did that.
What CNN was pushing for – and what Ryan gladly agreed to – was to cover-over the left’s violence as a way to attack Trump.
Trump wasn’t comparing peaceful protesters to Nazis.
But speaking out against evil means speaking out against evil in all its forms.
Antifa is a violent anarchist group that wants to overthrow capitalism and use fists, bats, and clubs as their preferred means of political expression.
Nazis and white supremacists are evil and deserve to be condemned in the harshest of terms.
But so should left-wing groups like Antifa that believe violence is a legitimate means of political expression.
Ryan – who played to the false media narrative that Trump didn’t condemn the Nazis and white supremacists and then failed to speak out against Antifa – used the town hall as another opportunity for the GOP elite to try and drag down Trump’s Presidency.