Nearly all the oxygen and outrage in DC is being sucked up by Donald Trump and his outrageous executive orders. But let’s not forget about the man without whom Trump could not accomplish his larger agenda: the spineless speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, Trump’s mainstream defender and apologist at every turn.

Ryan, who has cultivated a sham image as the “reasonable” Republican for years, has backed virtually all of Trump’s most controversial and cruel policies. Ryan manages to never buck Trump on anything of significance, while getting publicity for meaningless, quasi-critical statements. He is the biggest fraud in American politics.

That much was clear yet again over the weekend, as the New York Times’ Jim Rotenberg reported that Ryan’s office “declined to engage” with him on any questions about Trump’s despicable war on the press, which even Republicans who haven’t dared to break with Trump on much of anything decried as a move befitting a dictator. Instead, Rotenberg wrote, Ryan’s office said it “disputed the premise of the question”.

It’s just one in a long line of cowardly and slimy moves by Ryan, who is really just Trump in a more aesthetically appealing wrapper.

Commentators fell over themselves to heap praise on him back in May 2016 when he hesitated for a few days to endorse Trump after it became clear the controversial Republican candidate would become the party’s nominee. Ryan was portrayed as brave and courageous, when it was blindingly obvious at the time that he would quickly find an excuse to back Trump, which he did only a few days later.

After his endorsement, Ryan received more plaudits by calling Trump’s comments about a judge of Mexican heritage overseeing the lawsuit against Trump University “racist”. Of course Trump being racist didn’t change any of Ryan’s actual actions, and in his next breath explained he continued to support Trump’s candidacy over that of Hillary Clinton. Then, when Trump attacked the legitimacy of another judge after he assumed office – this time over her ruling against the Muslim ban – guess who came to his defense? Paul Ryan.

Again, to great praise during the campaign, Ryan claimed he “rejected” Trump’s controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Yet as soon as Trump banned all refugees from around the world and all immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries – clearly the “Muslim ban” he had promised – Paul Ryan was one of the first Republicans to defend it. Similarly, the supposedly “fiscally conservative” Ryan, who always managed to sound “reasonable” when talking about the rights of immigrants, immediately promised to pay for Trump’s ridiculous waste-of-money border wall as soon as he was sworn into office.

The examples are limitless. When Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign after lying to the public and the vice-president two weeks ago, it was Paul Ryan who stepped in and said there was no need for Congress to investigate the incident or provide any more transparency. No matter the controversy, it is virtually guaranteed that telegenic and slippery Ryan will be there, using his clean-cut image to tamp down criticism of the increasingly unstable president.

Make no mistake: there is no daylight between Ryan and Trump. They are one and the same. The question is, when will everyone stop falling for his act?