Paul Ryan was the Republican Speaker of the House during Donald Trump’s presidency, CNN notes, though he retired in 2018. In the book “Peril,” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, the journalists explain that in order to work with Trump, Ryan sought professional help on dealing with an individual with narcissistic personality disorder, via CNN.
Considering Mary Trump’s education and background, she was invited to MSNBC’s show with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss this detail from the book. “I’m eager to get your reaction to the [Bob] Woodward and [Robert] Costa account of Paul Ryan doing his psychiatric homework on narcissistic personality disorder during the presidential transition as he was trying to figure out President-elect Donald Trump,” O’Donnell told her.
Mary called the news “shocking but not surprising” and said: “One of the things that’s shocking about it is that Paul Ryan was allegedly found flat-footed after the election when anybody who was paying attention, anybody with some modicum of intelligence and insight who had met Donald for five minutes would have known what a deeply psychologically disordered person he was.” Mary added to her scathing review of Ryan: “So for Paul Ryan to have waited for Donald to be in the Oval Office before doing his homework and attempting to put up safeguards, long after he actually could have done something to make a difference is, I think, testament to how we got where we are.”