Paul Ryan says he won’t attend RNC if Trump nominated in 2024

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he will not attend the Republican National Conference (RNC) if former President Trump wins the party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

In an interview with WISN-TV, Ryan said that he would only attend the RNC, which will be held in Ryan’s home state in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, if someone other than Trump was nominated.

“It depends on who the nominee is. I’ll be here if it’s someone not named Trump,” he told WISN-TV on Saturday, adding he would even skip the event if it was in his home state.

“I’m not interested in participating in that, no. Even in Wisconsin,” he added.

Ryan announced the results naming Trump as the Republican nominee in 2016, when he was the chair of the RNC convention.

Ryan, a former vice presidential candidate for now-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), also said Saturday that he does not think Trump will be the nominee in 2024.

“The reason I don’t think he’ll be our nominee is because we now we’re going to lose with him,” he said. “He cost us the House in ’18, he lost the White House in ’20, he cost us the Senate in ’20, he cost us the Senate again in 2022, and he cost us probably a good dozen House seats in 2022. This is a lesson we don’t need to repeat again.”

Ryan declined to back any of the other potential contenders, but said he believed Republicans could win back the White House with a non-Trump nominee.

Trump ripped Ryan in a social media post on Sunday.

“Paul Ryan is a loser, Mitt Romney could have won without him. I won twice, did much better the second time, and was 233 Wins out of 253 Races in the Midterms. Paul Ryan is destroying Fox, and couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in the Republican Party!” he posted.

Since leaving Congress in 2019, Ryan has been a consistent critic of Trump, while also serving on the board of Fox News’ parent company and as vice chairman of Teneo, a public relations and CEO advisory firm.

In October, Ryan said Trump’s “unelectability will be palpable” before the 2024 presidential election, predicting that Republicans would choose a different nominee.