Costello expected Ryan would retire

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s decision not to seek re-election this year will have “zero” impact on the coming November congressional elections, U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6, of West Goshen, a friend and admirer of the Wisconsin Republican, predicted Thursday.

“I don’t think it will have any impact at all,” said Costello in an interview a day after Ryan dropped the bombshell announcement, even though he said he believes that Ryan is “the most effective spokesperson for our party.”

Voters, Costello said, are not likely to go to the ballot booth in November and make a deci-

sion on who to vote for or against while thinking of Ryan, who in 2016 campaigned for Costello in his first re-election race. “It is going to be a decision between two candidates. If there are voters who favor one candidate over another for other reasons than their positions, it is going to be (President Donald Trump), for better or worse. Some that will help, some not.”

Costello, in the telephone interview, said he was not entirely unsurprised to hear that Ryan had decided to step aside. The move had been discussed recently in Washington, D.C. circles, although many believed that the speaker would seek re-election but step aside before taking office if he was successful.

“I somewhat expected it,” he said. “There is a shelf life to this job. It’s a very intense job to be a member of Congress. If you are speaker, you have additional responsibilities.”

Ryan told reporters Wednesday that he had tired of being a “weekend dad” to his children, who live at home in Wisconsin. “But he had duties on Saturdays,” noted Costello, “so in a sense he was not even a weekend dad but a Sunday dad.”

Costello announced his own decision not to run for re-election last month, giving the two men another thing in common beyond a shared name and a similar workout routine at the Capitol gym. He said that he had discussed his own decision to step aside with Ryan before going public with it, and mentioned the role his concern about his own family issues played.

“He said, ‘I get it,’” Costello recalled.

Ryan’s retirement will create a vacuum at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, according to political observers. It will leave congressional Republicans without a measured voice to talk Presidential Trump away from what some see as damaging impulses, and it will rob Trump of an influential steward to shepherd his more ambitious ideas into legislation.

It’s unusual for a House speaker, third in line to succeed the president, to turn himself into a lame duck, especially so for Ryan, a once-rising GOP star who is only 48 and was the party’s vice presidential candidate in 2012. His decision fueled fresh doubts about the party’s ability to fend off a potential Democratic wave, fed by opposition to Trump, in November. And it threw the House into a leadership battle that could end up pushing Ryan aside sooner than he intended and crush any hopes for significant legislation before the election.

Ryan, though, said he had no regrets after having accomplished “a heckuva lot” during his time in a job he never really wanted. He said fellow Republicans have plenty of achievements to run on this fall, including the tax cuts Congress delivered, which have been his personal cause and the centerpiece of his smallgovernment agenda, even though they helped skyrocket projected annual deficits toward $1 trillion.

“I have given this job everything I have,” Ryan said.

Speculation over Ryan’s future had been swirling for months, but as he dialed up colleagues and spoke by phone with Trump early Wednesday, the news stunned even top allies.

Ryan announced his plans at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans. U.S. Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina said an emotional Ryan “choked up a few times trying to get through” his remarks and received three standing ovations.

He later briefly thanked Trump in public for giving him the chance to move GOP ideas ahead.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Californian known to be tighter with Trump, is expected to again seek the top leadership post that slipped from his reach in 2015. He will likely compete with Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both men spoke at the closed-door meeting Wednesday, delivering tributes to Ryan, and both attended a GOP leadership dinner Wednesday night with Trump at the White House.

Another potential rival, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, demurred when asked if he’d pursue the speaker’s job. “Leadership has never been on my bucket list, and it’s not on my bucket list today,” he said.

Ryan’s announcement came as Republicans are bracing for a potential blue wave of voter enthusiasm for Democrats, who need to flip at least 24 GOP-held seats in November to regain the majority.

As the House GOP’s top fundraiser, Ryan’s lameduck status could send shockwaves through donor circles that are relying on his leadership at the helm of the House majority. He has hauled in $54 million so far this election cycle.

“It injects some more uncertainty to be sure,” said the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas. “It’s just another issue that’s floating out there, and obviously there’s going to be some competition for his successor.”

But a top GOP fundraiser, Eric Tanenblatt, expects Ryan to remain a force in a tough cycle.

Costello, in the interview Thursday, said that he believed that what had changed between the time when Ryan campaigned for him in Uwchlan in October 2016 and Wednesday was the deepening of the political divide.

“There has been a tremendous rise in identity politics,” in the last two years, he said. “It is hard to get people to hear your voice.” He contended that even when trying to interact civilly with opponents, he would later be faced with “dishonest and vicious statements anyway. I think there is a lot of poison out there. Hopefully, that will cycle back.”