Speaker of the House Paul Ryan knows how he wants his memoirs to be written. He wants America to remember him as a high-minded policy wonk who sought to heal our broken politics, lift up the downtrodden and save the nation from debt. We know this, because these themes were on full display during Ryan’s farewell address this week at the Library of Congress.
But throughout his career, neither Ryan’s words nor his results have lined up with this image — and the Trump era in particular has stripped them bare. It is thus fitting that Ryan’s final act in Congress is capitulating to President Donald Trump and joining in the president’s destructive strategy to shut down much of the government in a misbegotten effort to obtain taxpayer funds for a southern border wall.
The above excerpt was originally published in NBC News.
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