• Ryan said "entertainers" in Congress in recent years have received outsized attention.
  • The ex-Speaker said that members used to adhere to a "meritocracy" to achieve legislative success.
  • "That's not necessarily what motivates people anymore," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said "entertainers" have become successful at gaining traction in Congress, a departure from the "meritocracy" that he felt was in place for much of his tenure in office.

Ryan made the remarks during a conversation on CNBC's "Squawk Box" last Thursday, adding that the drive to legislate is no longer the goal of some of the most high-profile members.

"In the old days, like 10 years ago, if you wanted to do really well in Congress, if you wanted to succeed, you climbed a meritocracy. The measurement of success was policy and persuasion," he told host Becky Quick.

He continued: "That's not necessarily what motivates people anymore. There's a lot of entertainers in Congress from both parties. We have an entertainment wing of the Republican and Democratic parties."

Ryan did not cite specific names during the interview, but while serving as speaker from 2015 to 2019, the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus became a driving force in seeking to push House GOP leadership to the right.

Ryan represented a southern Wisconsin House district from 1999 to 2019 and along the way served as the chairman of the powerful Budget and Ways and Means Committees, in addition to being tapped as the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2012.

Paul argued that members have become more well-known for their Twitter habits than for pursuing meaningful legislation.

"The old meritocracy that takes 10, 20 years to climb, of being a good policymaker, you can just leapfrog that whole process, be a really good entertainer, have an incredible [digital] presence and forget about policymaking and curate a brand for yourself," he said.

Ryan argued that the rise in "entertainer" lawmakers has been detrimental to crafting major bipartisan deals, as such efforts often go against the "brand" of some members.

"You have entertainers in Congress now that eschew the policymaking process. Our system is designed for compromise," the former lawmaker told Quick during the interview.

He continued: "When I decided to become speaker, which actually wasn't my goal, I knew I was capping myself politically, but that was fine. I was ok with that because I knew the job requires consensus, dealmaking ... I was going to have to do deals with Nancy [Pelosi], Chuck [Schumer], and Mitch [McConnell] to prevent shutdowns and defaults and get things done and get half a loaf."

Ryan during the CNBC interview openly wondered whether lawmakers can return to a more "unifying" form of politics.

"What happens today in America is people get their device, they get their cable, they get their website that algorithmically tells them what they want to hear that self-reinforces, and that divides us," he said. "So the question is, can we get our politics back to a sort of a unifying politics?"

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