Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan communicated with medical professionals and researched how to approach people who have narcissistic personality disorder after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a new book from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reveals.
The book entitled Peril alleges Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton dumbfounded Ryan. Acknowledging that as House Speaker, he’d be forced to interact with the former reality television star, he began investigating how to collaborate with someone the book describes as “amoral and transactional.”
Shortly after, the book claims a Republican donor and New York physician reached out to Ryan to help him “understand what narcissistic personality disorder is” and “how to best deal with a person with anti-social personality disorder.” The doctor also sent Ryan links to peer-reviewed studies in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Ryan studied them for weeks, convinced Trump had the personality disorder,” Woodward and Costa wrote, according to Business Insider, which read an advance copy.
After the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, the former president defended neo-Nazis, claiming there were “very fine people on both sides.” Ryan condemned those remarks on Twitter, calling white supremacy repulsive and declaring there can be no moral ambiguity.
The book said Trump was livid at his tweets and called Ryan.
“You’re not in the foxhole with me!” Trump reportedly yelled.
“Are you finished?” Ryan clapped back according to the book. “May I have some time to speak now? You’re the president of the United States. You have a moral leadership obligation to get this right and not declare there is a moral equivalency here.”
“These people love me. These are my people. I can’t backstab the people who support me,” the book quotes the former president.
Peril hits bookstore shelves next week.
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