Former House Speaker Paul Ryan slapped down assertions that former President Donald Trump lost in a fraudulent election, saying it is “really clear” President Joe Biden beat him fairly.
“President Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election,” Ryan said in an interview with Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN. “It was not rigged. It was not stolen. Donald Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election. It’s really clear.”
Ryan, who left Congress in 2019 and has been vocally critical of Trump, pointed to the flurry of unsuccessful attempts Trump’s legal team raised to try discrediting the election.
“He exhausted his cases,” Ryan said. “He exhausted the court challenges. None of them went his way, so he legitimately lost.”
ELECTION REFORM GROUP SEEKS BAN ON DOMINION VOTING TECHNOLOGY IN GEORGIA
Some leading Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, asserted in the weeks after the 2020 election that Trump had a right to take his claims about the election to court. But over time, the legal fights were exhausted without major victories as judges, including some Trump appointees in lower federal courts and those sitting on the Supreme Court, dismissed claims brought on Trump’s behalf or declined to consider them.
Ryan acknowledged there were beliefs about “mischief” and “organized shenanigans” in elections, as well as fraud, but he discounted the notion that such incidents cost Trump the election.
Trump remains supportive of efforts to investigate 2020 election results on the state level, and investigations are underway in multiple states, including in Ryan’s native Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, whom Trump had previously criticized for not adequately probing last fall’s contest, recently promised to keep the former president “updated” on the status of an investigation he ordered into the election.
Separately, the chairwoman of the Republican-led State Assembly’s elections committee, Janel Brandtjen, announced subpoenas earlier this month issued to two Wisconsin counties for the purpose of performing a “top-to-bottom” investigation into the election. Brandtjen announced her intent to investigate after traveling to Arizona in June and observing the 2020 election audit that was happening there.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Ryan went on to entreat Republicans not to be captive to Trump going forward, issuing a common refrain among Republican Trump critics that the party has become all about him.
“I think we’ll just keep losing if we wrap ourselves around one person,” Ryan said.
