Hours after the failed vote to elect the next speaker of the House of Representatives, former House Speaker Paul Ryan discussed the deadlock among Republicans in the search for a successor to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at a Policy Institute forum Tuesday night. .
During the event, which was moderated by Harvard Kennedy School and Economics Professor Karen E. Dynan, Ryan criticized the current state of national politics in relation to the economy and the growing national debt.
“You have unserious policy that is incapable of addressing the drivers of our debt, which are basically our entitlement programs,” Ryan said.
“It’s all populism and personality, and that’s one of the reasons people have trouble getting everyone on the same page,” he added.
Earlier Tuesday, House Republican Conference speaker nominee Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) suffered his first defeat at the polls.
Jordan — who was endorsed by Trump — lost by a wider margin than McCarthy did on his first ballot in January, making Jordan’s path to the hammer unclear.
“Jim’s the next guy in line and he’s trying it out right now,” Ryan said. “I don’t think it’s going to go to 15 rounds,” he added, referring to McCarthy’s lengthy election process.
“It’s harder to climb a hill. I think so [Jordan] he can do it, but he has to turn 17 people,” he said.
The House has been deadlocked without a speaker for more than two weeks since eight House Republicans were joined by all House Democrats to pass a motion to remove McCarthy from office. During the forum, Ryan criticized the evacuation proposal, which was filed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
“Kevin was evacuated by Gaetz and seven other nihilists who are just burning the place down, for no reason really,” he said.
Without a speaker, House legislation has stalled, even as the Middle East crisis escalates and a government shutdown looms. In an interview with The Crimson after the forum, Ryan rejected the idea of a bipartisan solution. Instead, he advocated for interim Speaker Patrick McHenry (RN.C.) to be given “enhanced powers” to allow the legislature to resume its duties.
“The last, last, last resort is a coalition government because that means the majority giving up their power to be the majority,” Ryan said. “I think they’re going to go to McHenry as speaker in charge as a last resort before they do that.”
Ryan also discussed the crowded Republican primary field and last week’s Utah summit he co-hosted with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) that brought together the Republican presidential candidates.
“Mitt and I believe we need to rally around a person who is not Trump because two-thirds of our party wants someone other than Donald Trump to be our running mate,” Ryan told The Crimson.
“Our goal is to try to condense the field as quickly as possible around one person. We all have our different favourites, but that’s not as important as narrowing down the field quickly enough,” he added.
Reflecting on his political career, Ryan — who was Romney’s running mate in the 2012 presidential election — said he never sought the political spotlight and “just wanted to be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.”
But he said he was enjoying his “exciting” three months on the campaign trail with Romney.
“I recommend it to everyone. Everyone should run for vice president. It’s really fun,” added Ryan.
— Staff writer Thomas J. Mete can be reached at thomas.mete@thecrimson.com. Follow him to X @thomasjmete.