Trump lashes out at Paul Ryan after ex-House speaker declares he ‘lacks character’ for being president

Donald Trump has branded Paul Ryan, as the “most incompetent” speaker of the House of Representatives in US history after Mr Ryan said that Trump won’t get his vote in this year’s presidential election.

Mr Ryan, 54, doubled-down on his belief that Trump is the wrong choice of canditate for the Republicans, stating he has no interest in giving him another shot in the White House, as Trump gets set for a rematch against his successor, Joe Biden.

His rationale, it appears, is simple: Trump lacks the temperament required to lead the US for a second term.

The former vice presidential nominee said he’d write in another Republican’s name as he said he did in 2020, although he claimed he doesn’t “know who yet”. Mr Ryan also said that he disagrees with Biden on policy.

“Character is too important for me,” he said at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Tuesday. “It’s a job that requires the kind of character he just doesn’t have,” he added.

Following a four year stint as House speaker between 2015 and 2019, Mr Ryan was appointed to the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox Corporation’s board of directors in March 2019.

Trump responded using his typically explosive rhetoric and a flurry of capital letters in an early morning outburst on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“Rupert Murdoch should fire pathetic RINO [Republican in Name Only] Paul Ryan from the Board of Fox. Ryan is a loser, always has been, and always will be,” the 77-year-old GOP presidential candidate wrote on Thursday.

“He was the weakest & most incompetent in Speaker of the House in its History. Fox will sink to the absolute bottom of the pack if Paul Ryan has anything to do with it,” he added.

It’s not the first time that Mr Ryan, who was elected to serve Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District in 1998, has criticised Trump’s attempts to return to the White House.

His latest comments come more than a year after declaring that he would not support Trump’s bid for US presidency in February, 2023.

“There are too many people like me in the Republican Party who would not support him if he were the nominee, and that is why I don’t think he’ll be the nominee,” Mr Ryan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Mr Ryan speculated that the Republicans will “lose the election if we nominate this guy again”. In 2022, he blamed Trump for his party’s poor midterm performance that gave a slim majority to the House.