House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Tuesday evening brushed off a tape leaked by Breitbart News revealing him discussing in October how he would not defend President Donald Trump.
“This is ancient history,” Ryan told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum on Tuesday. “It’s no secret Donald and I had our ups and downs— the President and I had our ups and downs during the campaign. But we merged forces at the end of the campaign.”
Ryan said he is “surprised it’s even a story.”
The leaked call took place just after Trump’s vulgar comments on the “Access Hollywood” tape were revealed, according to Breitbart News.
“There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your speaker. I am not going to defend Donald Trump, not now, not in the future,” Ryan can be heard saying in the leaked audio. “As you probably heard, I dis-invited him from my first congressional district GOP event this weekend, a thing I do every year. And I’m not going to be campaigning with him over the next 30 days.”
Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck told Breitbart that Ryan’s comments were specifically made about the “Access Hollywood” tape.
