Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the indictment of former President Trump on federal charges last week will make him unelectable in 2024 if he wins the GOP’s primary election.
“If we nominate anybody not named Donald Trump, we’re going to beat Joe Biden,” Ryan said Tuesday during an appearance on CBS This Morning, noting the former president had plenty of “baggage” before last week’s indictment was handed down.
“He’s got a great core of support, and in a primary that’s what you build off of. So it does matter,” Ryan said. “But I think the electability argument is going to become more salient with this event and whatever happens in the future … it’s going to make it easier to make the argument to his supporters he’s not electable.”
“He’s going to cost us the Senate again, he’s going to cost us House seats, and we want to win,” he added.
Trump is slated to be arraigned in Miami on Tuesday afternoon on 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021. Federal prosecutors have alleged Trump put national security at risk and is in violation of the Espionage Act.
The former president has dismissed the accusations against him as political and told his supporters President Biden is “weaponizing” the Justice Department against him to keep him from claiming the White House again.
Trump and Ryan are frequent foes.
The former president has repeatedly attacked the former lawmaker over his seat on the board of Fox Corp., which owns and operates Fox News, an outlet Trump has grown increasingly sour on since his 2020 election loss.