This post has been updated.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Wednesday suggested that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) does not want to be speaker and crafted a list of purposely unreasonable demands in order to sabotage his own leadership bid.
“You know, I’m not sure he wants the job. His list of demands were so bold, they pass into almost the unreasonable,” Massie said when asked on CNN whether he would back Ryan for speaker.
When asked later if he thinks Ryan will win the speaker’s race despite some lingering opposition among Republican members, Massie said that Ryan’s conditions for running for speaker are simply a way for him to avoid the job.
“I’m not sure he wants the job. I think this might have been a good way that he’s turning down the job,” he said.
Massie reiterated his theory about Ryan later in the interview when asked if Ryan was trying to “demand his way out of contention” by asking to spend more time at home with his family than past speakers.
“That’s what I think,” Massie said. “And look, I’m sympathetic to his demands. If you say that the speaker’s job now includes getting to go home every weekend to your family, I expect we’d have 50 more people that would take the job under those conditions.”
During the CNN interview, Massie also said that he still supports the House Freedom Caucus’ original choice for speaker, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL).
“I’m going to vote for Daniel Webster for speaker. They both want to bring the conference together. They just disagree on how it should be done,” he said. “Paul Ryan thinks the speaker needs more power, and Daniel Webster thinks that the members need more power. So we all have the same goal here. It’s just sort of a difference of opinion on how to get there.”
The congressman also indicated that other Republican members are also wary of Ryan.
“He said that he wanted every caucus in the GOP to be for him,” Massie said of Ryan. “But I’d like to remind him the chairman of the Tea Party Caucus and the chairman of the Liberty Caucus are two guys he kicked off the budget committee. So it could be tough to get unanimity.”
Watch part of Massie’s interview on CNN:
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Massie is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
You know how sometimes you see somebody else’s children and you think, “man, I’m glad I’m not their parents”?
It’s like that.
And the clusterf*ck continues…
Setting aside that Ryan probably DOESN’T want to be Speaker, if he really wanted to impress his children years from now, he could form a coalition between those Republicans and Democrats who are interested in getting things done and push through whatever they could agree on.
The Freedom Caucus would still be free to do whatever they want. Who cares?
“GOP Rep.: Ryan’s List Of Demands Shows He Doesn’t Want Speakership”
GOP Rep: Ryan’s List of Demands Show He Doesn’t Want to Cater to the Adolescent Freak Show.
There, FIFY.
I agree with him. Ryan was full of it. Ryan knew he would never get 32 out of 40 of the craziest of the crazy to back him so this way he can just pretend that he was willing to do the job.