Paul Ryan griped that Trump didn't pursue cuts to Medicare and other safety-net programs since they were too unpopular

• Former House Speaker Paul Ryan complained that Trump didn't act on a top conservative priority.
• "He and I fought about Medicare and entitlement reform all the time," Ryan said Wednesday.

Paul Ryan has one big complaint about former President Donald Trump: He wasn't willing to pursue cuts to the safety-net programs Ryan had championed for years.

"He and I fought about Medicare and entitlement reform all the time," the former GOP House speaker said Wednesday at a book event at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "It became clear to me there was no way he wanted to embrace that."

Ryan, now a visiting fellow at AEI, added: "It wasn't popular in his mind, and therefore it wasn't going to be pursued. That was always really frustrating to me."

Ryan was later asked about the unpopularity among voters of cuts Social Security and Medicare, a pair of safety-net programs that provide health and retirement benefits to older Americans. Conservatives like Ryan had long proposed shrinking federal spending on the programs by taking steps like raising the retirement age or privatizing large parts of them.

He defended the ideas and labeled them "radical pragmatism." Ryan said the moves were pivotal to reining in the growing national debt.

But Ryan said conservatives had a big task ahead of them.

"You have to win majorities, and you have to have a president willing to stick his or her neck out to get this done," he said. "I think that's the key task of the conservative movement for the moment right now."

Trump largely pushed the GOP away from pursuing cuts to Social Security and Medicare during his 2016 run, instead vowing to preserve the programs. That didn't keep Trump from floating cuts during his 2020 reelection campaign, long after Ryan gave up the speaker's gavel.

"At the right time, we will take a look at that. That's actually the easiest of all things, if you look," Trump said in February 2020.

Ryan and Trump don't seem to share a close relationship, despite Ryan playing a major role in the failed GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in 2017. The Wisconsin Republican delivered a scathing speech last year in which he said Republicans weren't "going anywhere" if the party stood by Trump. The former president later heaped criticism on Ryan and assailed him as "a curse" to the GOP.

The concept of repealing Social Security and Medicare hasn't fully faded among conservatives. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida released a policy agenda in March that included a measure urging lawmakers to reauthorize all federal laws every five years. That may imperil Social Security and Medicare if a future Congress can't agree to renew the programs.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly tried distancing the GOP conference from Scott's proposal, saying it wouldn't be part of Republicans' agenda if they retook power.

Scott said he released it as a rank-and-file Republican and not in his role as leader of the Senate Republican campaign-financing arm. But Democrats are pummeling Republicans at large over the plan.