Paul Ryan, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, said former President Donald Trump is an “authoritarian narcissist.”

“Trump’s not a conservative,” the former speaker told a virtual event hosted by the consulting firm Teneo. “He’s a populist, authoritarian narcissist. So, historically speaking, all of his tendencies are basically where narcissism takes him, which is whatever makes him popular, makes him feel good at any given moment.”

“He thinks in an authoritarian way, and he’s been able to get a big chunk of the Republican base to follow him because he’s the culture warrior,” he continued.

Ryan’s latest comments about Trump are now part of a series of occasions in which he spoke out against him.

In addition to calling Trump out, Ryan praised former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) for opposing Trump, thereby costing them their political careers.

“And so I think Adam and Liz stepped out of the flow and called it out and, you know, paid for it,” he claimed. “Paid for it with their careers. But I think, again, back to my earlier point, I don’t think he is really very good at these jobs unless you’re willing to lose these jobs. And there has to be some line, some principle that is so important to you that you’re just not going to cross so that when you’re brushing your teeth in the morning, look yourself in the mirror. You like what you see.”

“I think Adam and Liz are brushing their teeth, liking what they see. And I think a lot of people in Congress are good friends of mine who would take the vote back if they could, because I think a lot of these members of Congress, on the second impeachment, they thought Trump was dead,” he added. “They thought after January 6th, he wasn’t going to have a comeback. He was dead, so they figured, ‘I’m not going to take this heat, vote against this impeachment because he’s gone anyway.'”

“But what’s happened is he’s been resurrected. There’s lots of reasons for that. But he has been. So I think there’s a lot of people who already regret not getting him out of the way when they could have,” Ryan stated. “So I think history will be kind to those people who saw what was happening and called it out, even though it was at the expense of their personal well-being.”

Cheney, in her new book, Oath and Honor, revealed that Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee) called Donald Trump “Orange Jesus” when House members were asked to sign electoral vote objection sheets. Green denied making this comment.

Cheney recently said “there’s no question” that Trump would refuse to leave office if he’s reelected.

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