Romney: It’s Ryan’s turn to run for president

Mitt Romney on Thursday night said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) should make his own run for president in 2016. 

“He’s very generous. But I had my turn. It’s his turn now,” Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, said about his former vice presidential running mate. 

{mosads}Romney made the comments during a joint interview with Ryan on Fox News — their first since the failed campaign. The two later appeared at an event in Chicago, where Romney quizzed Ryan about his new book, The Way Forward.

During the interview, they were asked who would make a better president. 

“I’ll give it to him,” Ryan said. Ryan has asserted he would like to see Romney run for president a third time, something the former Massachusetts governor has continually ruled out. 

The interview also touched on President Obama’s foreign policy and the events taking place in Ferguson, Mo. 

Romney pointed to Hillary Clinton’s disagreement with Obama about not arming Syrian rebels soon enough and her criticism that: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

Clinton later called Obama to assure him the comments were not an attack on his administration. 

“I think Hillary Clinton tried to explain it by saying there wasn’t a foreign policy in effect,” Romney said. “And rarely did I agree with what Hillary Clinton had to say, but on that topic I think we agreed.”

He said it is strange that Clinton, a likely candidate for president, is now trying to distance herself from the administration after serving as secretary of State for four years.  

He also called the administration’s attempted reset with Russia during Obama’s first term “one of the most embarrassing incidents in American foreign policy.”

On the protests in Ferguson following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Romney said the Justice Department has had an “appropriate level of involvement.”

“I think that the federal government needed to communicate that this is a high priority and provide confidence to the people in the community that this was not going to be swept under the rug,” he said. 

Ryan agreed, saying, “We all have to take a deep breath, not prejudge this situation and make sure that the truth comes out so that justice can be served.”