WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump unloaded via Twitter on former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan, calling him a "lame duck failure."
Ryan is very critical of Trump in the book "American Carnage" by Tim Alberta of Politico, in excerpts running in various publications. Alberta wrote the former speaker could not stand the idea of another two years with the president and saw retirement as the "escape hatch," according to The Washington Post.
Ryan is quoted saying: "I'm telling you, he didn't know anything about government. I wanted to scold him all the time."
Trump tweeted late Thursday: "He had the Majority & blew it away with his poor leadership and bad timing. Never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us. Couldn't get him out of Congress fast enough!"
Trump may have been angered by various revelations in the book, including accounts recalling widespread negative GOP reactions to his off-color videotaped comments in the "Access Hollywood" scandal in the closing weeks of the election campaign.
But Ryan was the main focus of his Twitter rage.
"Paul Ryan, the failed V.P. candidate & former Speaker of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious (except during my first two years as President), ultimately became a long running lame duck failure, leaving his Party in the lurch both as a fundraiser & leader," Trump began his tweetstorm.