INTERVENTION

Report: Paul Ryan Spent 30 Minutes Explaining Difference Between Foreign and Domestic Surveillance to Trump

After president “freaked out” lawmakers by condemning program WH had just asked them to vote for.

House Speaker Paul Ryan had to spend 30 minutes on the phone Thursday explaining the difference between domestic and foreign surveillance to President Trump after he appeared to confuse the two on Twitter, The Washington Post reports. Ryan’s intervention came after Trump “freaked out” House Republican lawmakers with his public condemnation of part of a surveillance program the White House had just urged Congress to preserve. Trump claimed Section 702 of the FISA law—the reauthorization of which the House was due to vote on—was used to “so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign.” The president’s outrage at the surveillance law came less than an hour after a Fox News personality condemned it on Fox & Friends, and he reportedly quoted the Fox News chyron verbatim in his tweet. Trump only reversed his stance on the FISA law after Ryan and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly explained to him that the section of the law in question pertains to foreign surveillance.