Book: Paul Ryan wanted to 'escape' from Trump and to 'scold him all the time'

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A new book claims that former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., continued to dislike President Trump after calling for his ouster before the 2016 election and saw retirement as a route to escape his leadership.

"American Carnage," written by Politico's Tim Alberta and set for release on Tuesday, reportedly describes Ryan as allergic to the idea of spending another two years with the president but willing to spend the time he had with Trump in order to "get his mind right."

“Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government . . . I wanted to scold him all the time," Ryan said, according to Alberta.

Ryan reportedly said that while he was in office, he and others helped Trump avoid making poor decisions. That seemed to be changing, Ryan said, noting that Trump was increasingly willing to reject Republican calls for moderation.

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“Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time,” Ryan said.

"We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.”

Ryan, who announced his retirement in 2018, was widely suspected to have a negative view of Trump at the beginning of his administration. As Alberta noted in another article, Ryan was one of several Republicans to turn their backs on Trump after the infamous Access Hollywood Tape surfaced before the 2016 election.

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"This is fatal,” Ryan reportedly told former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Reince Preibus at the time. “How can you get him out of the race?”

Alberta also shed light on Ryan's time in office after Trump's election. Ryan, for example, reportedly brokered a deal with Trump to get a spending package through even without border wall funding -- apparently in exchange for Trump being able to build suspense for the law on Twitter. He also supposedly burst into "maniacal, punch-drunk laughter" after Priebus sent Ryan the president's tweet about  former President Obama tapping his phones.