- Former House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan believes his new job as a board member of Fox Corporation will finally allow him to "do something" about President Donald Trump, according to a new report in Vanity Fair.
- "Paul is embarrassed about Trump, and now he has the power to do something about it," a Fox executive told Vanity Fair.
- Ryan has been openly critical of Trump ever since leaving Congress. In several on-the-record interviews for Politico correspondent Tim Alberta's book "American Carnage," Ryan didn't mince words about Trump, saying he wanted to "scold" Trump "all the time."
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Former Rep. Paul Ryan was the Speaker of the House for the first two years of the Trump administration, but he believes his new job as a board member of Fox Corporation will finally allow him to "do something" about President Donald Trump, according to a new report in Vanity Fair.
Ryan, who joined the Fox Corporation board in August, is now reportedly one of the most important voices pushing Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch to transition Fox New and pivot away from Trump, according to Vanity Fair.
"Paul is embarrassed about Trump and now he has the power to do something about it," a Fox executive told Vanity Fair. Fox Corporation did not immediately respond to a phone call or emailed request for comment on the Vanity Fair piece.
Ryan often gave into Trump's demands as House Speaker, even as he privately disapproved of his bombastic, tweet-first-and-think-later governing style.
Ryan has been openly critical of Trump ever since leaving Congress. In several on-the-record interviews for Politico correspondent Tim Alberta's book "American Carnage," Ryan didn't mince words about Trump.
"I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right," Ryan told Alberta. "Because, I'm telling you, he didn't know anything about government ... I wanted to scold him all the time."
In one instance recounted in the book, Trump was displeased that a 2018 spending package didn't include funding for his desired border wall. He signed it only on the condition that Ryan allow him some time to generate suspense for the bill on Twitter.
Ryan explained, "we helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he's making some of these knee-jerk reactions."
On September 24, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House would be launching the impeachment inquiry after news of an explosive intelligence whistleblower complaint that accused Trump of pressuring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation that would hurt one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden. The now-declassified complaint was made public on Thursday.
"For the past several months, we have been investigating in the committees and litigating in the courts whether Congress can exercise its full Article I power, including the constitutional power of approval of articles of impeachment," Pelosi said at the press conference.
Pelosi decried Trump's actions as having "revealed the dishonorable fact of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections" in getting behind a formal impeachment inquiry.
On Fox News the coverage of the complaint has varied. Shep Smith, a straight-news correspondent has gained attention for being one of the few to publicly push back on Trump and the GOP. Smith's defense of Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano's comments on the whistleblower complaint led to on-air ire from Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson.