Speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview broadcast Sunday that President Trump was disappointed to learn that the Wisconsin Republican had decided not to run for reelection.
“When you called President Trump, what’d he say?” NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Ryan on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“He was disappointed. But he understood. He understood,” Ryan replied.
When Todd asked if Trump tried to talk Ryan out of retiring, Ryan repeated that the president was “disappointed.”
“We have a good relationship. We’ve gotten a lot done together,” Ryan said. {mosads}
“I basically explained to him my whole family dynamic. The thing is, I feel content because I’ve actually gotten a lot done. And I’ve gotten much of what I came here to do done. Not everything, but much of what I wanted to do. And, you know, I feel like I’ve accomplished great things,” he added.
“And my kids aren’t getting any younger. And I kind of just walked him through my thinking. And he said, ‘Well, I can’t argue with that.’ “
Ryan said during a news conference last week that he would serve out his term and retire from Congress in January.
“If I am here for one more term my kids will only have ever known me as a weekend dad. I just can’t let that happen,” he said at the time. “So I will be setting new priorities in my life.”
Ryan on Sunday again stressed his focus on his family.
“So now I’m down to like, Sundays and mass and dinners. And frankly, that’s just not enough.”
Ryan, who clashed with Trump during the campaign, also pushed back on the notion that historians will write of the “triumph of Trumpism over Ryanism.”
“I just don’t see it like that,” he said.