The Story:
In an interview Monday, August 30, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R – Wis.) said that there is no question but that Joseph Biden won the presidential election in 2020 and Donald Trump lost it. “It was not rigged. It was not stolen….It’s really clear.”
Background:
Ryan was speaking in response to the recent decision by many Wisconsin Republicans, led by the speaker of the state assembly, Robin Vos, to launch a “forensic audit” of the 2020 vote on the model of the ongoing audit in Arizona.
Wisconsin is one of the swing states, one that voted narrowly for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 but that voted for Biden over Trump four years later.
Ryan, as one of the most important of Wisconsin’s Republicans on the national scene, as the man who ran for Vice President on the Republican ticket in 2012, is making an important point when he says it is time for Republicans, of that state in particular, to move on from the ever-lasting re-litigation of last year’s vote.
The Thing to Know:
This is not the first time Ryan has challenged Trumpian orthodoxy within the Republican Party. In June this year, he said that Donald Trump had brought his own presidency to a “disgraceful and dishonorable end.”
