Ryan: Kaine was ‘rude’ in VP debate

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) offered a blunt assessment of Democrat Tim Kaine’s performance in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate: “Rude.”

In a Thursday radio interview on “Turning Point with Frank MacKay,” Ryan said Kaine’s frequent interruptions of GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence came off badly.

“I think Tim Kaine, trying to jab him and cut him off all the time, it just came across just frankly rude, in my opinion,” Ryan said.

{mosads}Kaine interrupted Pence 70 times during Tuesday’s VP debate, according to a count by ABC News. Pence interrupted Kaine 40 times.

At the first presidential debate a week earlier, the party roles were reversed when GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton 51 times. She only interrupted him 17 times.

Ryan described Pence, the Indiana governor and former House member, as “a very close friend of mine.”

“I think it just showed that Donald Trump made a really good decision picking and surrounding himself with good people in the form of Mike Pence,” the Speaker said. 

“I think what Americans got was a sense that this ticket, especially with Mike Pence being on it, really shows a clear difference.”

In contrast to his warm relationship with Pence, Ryan has made his disagreements with Trump known over the last year. Ryan pointedly withheld an endorsement from Trump for weeks after he won the GOP nomination this summer. Trump later dragged out endorsing Ryan in his House district primary as payback.

Ryan and Trump are slated to make their first joint campaign appearance on Saturday in the Speaker’s southeastern Wisconsin district. 

A source familiar with the planning said that Trump had expressed interest in doing an event with Ryan, who invited him to an annual “Fall Fest” he and other Wisconsin officials regularly attend.