Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who headed the Republican House majority during former President Trump’s first two years in office, says that Trump is not conservative but instead an authoritarian narcissist whose guiding principle is to aggrandize himself.  

Ryan defended former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for standing up to Trump and said many Republican lawmakers probably now regret not voting for impeachment charges and missing their chance to remove him from the political stage.  

“Trump’s not a conservative, he’s an authoritarian narcissist. So I think they basically called him out for that,” Ryan told Teneo Political Risk Advisory Co-President Kevin Kajiwara during a video conference interview when asked about Cheney and Kinzinger.  

Ryan said Trump is “a populist authoritarian narcissist.” 

“Historically speaking, all of his tendencies are basically where narcissism takes him, which is whatever makes him popular, makes him feel good in any given moment,” Ryan added. “He doesn’t think in classical liberal conservative terms. 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.” 

Ryan said Cheney and Kinzinger “stepped out of the flow” of many other Republicans falling into lockstep with Trump “and called it out.” 

He said they “paid for it with [their] careers” but made the right move.  

“There has to be some line, some principle that is so important to you that you’re not going to cross so that when you’re brushing in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror, you like what you see. I think Adam and Liz are brushing their teeth, liking what they see,” he said.  

Ryan said many Republicans in Congress are likely regretting that they didn’t stand up to Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election and didn’t vote to impeach or convict him on impeachment charges when they had the chance to end his political career.  

“I think there are a lot of people in Congress, good friends of mine, who would take [their] vote back if they could, because I think a lot of these members of Congress — like on the second impeachment — they thought Trump was dead. They thought after Jan. 6 he wasn’t going to have a comeback, he was dead,” he said.  

“So they figured, ‘I’m not going to take this heat, I’m going to vote against this impeachment because he’s gone anyway.’ But what’s happened is he’s been resurrected,” Ryan added. “So I think there are a lot of people who already regret not getting him out of the way when they could have.” 

He said that “history will be kind” to Trump critics such as Cheney and Kinzinger.  

Ryan announced he would retire from Congress in April 2018, less than two years into Trump’s first term in office. He said at the time that he wanted to spend more time with his family and not be a “weekend dad.”  

At the time of his announced retirement, he cited Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a highlight of his time as Speaker.