Over the weekend it was reported in the Washington Post that the Reagan Foundation was asking the RNC to stop using Reagan’s image in support of President Trump. It was quickly noted by Larry Sabato that Fred Ryan, who chairs the Reagan Foundation, is also the CEO of the Washington Post:
Hmmm…"Frederick J. Ryan Jr., who chairs the Reagan Foundation board, is also publisher and CEO of The Washington Post. He declined to offer a comment for this column."
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) July 25, 2020
That ‘Hmmm…’ is right, because it makes zero sense why Ryan would offer no comment when he runs the foundation!
Trump responded, noting that the Washington Post is now running the Reagan foundation:
So the Washington Post is running the Reagan Foundation, and RINO Paul Ryan is on the Board of Fox, which has been terrible. We will win anyway, even with the phony @FoxNews suppression polls (which have been seriously wrong for 5 years)! https://t.co/fOi3AROxuz
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2020
Mark Levin, who loves the Reagan Library and has done multiple book signings there over the years, took to Facebook to call Fred Ryan out for this publicity stunt and his conflict of interest running both the Washington Post and the Reagan Foundation:
I campaigned for Ronald Reagan in 1976 and 1980. I worked in President Reagan’s administration for 8 years. I did not realize that Fred Ryan, who is now the publisher and CEO of the Washington Post is also the chairman of the Reagan Library & Foundation board. Now, given the Washington Post’s leftist agenda, and the conservative legacy of the great Ronald Reagan, this appears to me to be a huge conflict.
And it also explains why the Washington Post ran a story about the Reagan Library objecting to President Trump’s use of the Reagan name for fundraising — that means Fred Ryan objected. And then I read, toward the end of the Post article, that Ryan would not comment for the article his paper wrote about the library he runs. Well, I have spent many, many years promoting the Reagan Library and Foundation, I have had many very successful book signings there, and I revere the Reagan Library.
As I said, I also spent 8 years of my life supporting President Reagan and his policies, of which I am deeply proud and honored, as did thousands of others. And the purpose of the Library is to enshrine President Reagan’s fabulous conservative legacy for all time.
Consequently, I am appalled that the Fred Ryan’s Washington Post and the Reagan Library under Fred Ryan’s chairmanship, would pull this publicity stunt on President Trump. And I expect the thousands of Reagan alumni who worked for President Reagan share my concern. Mr. Ryan, decide who and what you want to be, but it’s obvious you cannot be both the Washington Post publisher/CEO and the Reagan Library board chairman when there’s a clear conflict.
Levin notes that the objection in the WAPO by the Reagan Library IS the objection by Fred Ryan himself. Which means that what we’re really talking about here is one man who has a hate-on for President Trump, using the Washington Post, which he also runs, to blast his objection everywhere so the MSM can use it to bludgeon Trump and the RNC. It’s really nothing more than that, but it shows that the enemies of Trump are really pulling out all the stops to try and keep him from winning in November.