Stephen King Using Republican’s Words Against Donald Trump Takes Off Online

Author Stephen King using Republican Paul Ryan’s words that he will not vote for former President Donald Trump in this year’s election in a social media post on Saturday has taken off online.
Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, is set to face off against Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, in November.
King, a vocal Trump critic, has made several warnings about the former president on social media as he previously described him as “dangerous” and a “horrible” person and president.
In his latest X, formerly Twitter, post, the author used former House Speaker Ryan’s words that he would not be voting for Trump.
“Republican Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the House, says he won’t be voting for Donald Trump. ‘Character means too much to me,'” King wrote on Saturday evening.
The post has since garnered over 257,000 views and over 8,300 likes with over 1,200 reposts as of Sunday morning.
Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who led the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019, has long had a rocky relationship with the former president despite working closely together during the first two years of the Trump administration. Ryan is one of several Republicans who has advocated for the GOP to move away from Trump leading into the 2024 presidential race, despite Trump remaining popular with large swaths of Republican voters.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for comment.
As this year’s election draws closer, Ryan said in May that he would not vote for Trump and instead he would be writing in a Republican candidate, according to Yahoo Finance.
“Character is too important for me,” he told Yahoo Finance at the Milken Institute Global Conference. “And it’s a job that requires the kind of character he doesn’t have.”
Trump and Ryan have previously feuded after Ryan spoke out against the former president following the end of his presidency, specifically after a mob of Trump supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol building in a failed effort to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory on January 6, 2021. Ryan also criticized members of his party who “didn’t have the guts to impeach Trump” following the insurrection.
Trump, meanwhile, has called Ryan a “RINO,” the acronym for Republican in Name Only, for opposing his leadership. Last year, Ryan said that while he may be seen as a “RINO” in the contemporary GOP, he maintains that he is conservative on important issues.
“Back in my day a ‘RINO was somebody who was more moderate versus conservative. I’m a conservative. Today, a RINO is how much fealty you pledge to Donald Trump. I’m very low on that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Saturday’s post is the latest from King, who joined the Democratic Party in 1970, attacking the former president.
Following the ABC News debate between Harris and Trump earlier this month, King’s X post calling the former president “barking mad” went viral.
In another post about the debate, the author wrote: “Politics aside, America saw a man who has no business being near the levers of power. Simply put, he’s crazy.”