House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) told USA Today on Wednesday that he thought President Barack Obama talking about the 2016 election in his State of the Union address “degrades the presidency.”
“I think it sort of degrades the presidency to then talk about primary politics in the other party, during primaries. That’s not what presidents ought to be talking about in State of the Union addresses,” Ryan said. “Speaking up for our values and speaking up for our beliefs is one thing. But kind of wading into the primary politics of the other party is just not really what presidents ought to do.”
Obama didn’t mention Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by name in his Tuesday address, but took several thinly-veiled jabs at the real estate mogul. He also criticized the rhetoric coming out of the GOP primary race, saying that “we need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion.”
Ryan said he agreed with the President in that one sense.
“Putting a religious test on anybody coming to this country is wrong,” Ryan said, as quoted by USA Today. “We ought to have a security test, not a religious test. That’s who we are.”
