"Many of our fellow citizens feel alienated and have lost faith in our core institutions. They don't feel heard, and they don't feel represented by those in office. But Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard."

House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke those words Wednesday, a day after Trump's momentous upset victory in the presidential election.

But the speaker is wrong to suggest Trump heard a voice no one else did, contends Paul Nehlen, the man who challenged Ryan in his GOP congressional primary this year.

"We've all been screaming it," Nehlen told WND in an interview. "Paul Ryan heard us. Mitch McConnell heard us. They've ignored us, and they in fact worked against us. And that is the reason for the rise of Donald Trump. This race was not about Donald Trump; this race was about not being listened to."

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Ryan also credited Trump's "strong coattails" with helping Republicans hold onto the House and Senate. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was one of the Republican incumbents thought to be vulnerable who nevertheless hung onto his seat.

Nehlen doesn't necessarily believe anyone was riding Trump's coattails; he just thinks some Republicans realized America was speaking and it was finally time to listen. But Ryan was not one of those who listened, he contended.

"Paul Ryan actually was the Quisling leader on Capitol Hill," Nehlen charged. "He was leading the 'NeverTrump' charge behind the scenes, and not even so much behind the scenes a lot of the time. And so I nicknamed him the Quisling of Capitol Hill."

The term "Quisling" comes from the World War II-era Norwegian leader Vidkun Quisling, who ran a pro-Nazi puppet government during wartime. After the war, he was found guilty of high treason and executed by firing squad.

Nehlen believes Ryan similarly collaborated with the enemy against his own party's presidential nominee.

"Paul Ryan would have handed over the country to Hillary Clinton if he had the opportunity," the businessman asserted.

Nehlen said Ryan "waged a battle to tear down Donald Trump every opportunity he got."

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The speaker did it, Nehlen said, by criticizing Trump's comments about Hispanic Judge Gonzalo Curiel, criticizing Trump's proposed Muslim ban and his comments on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, and telling House members they were free to cut themselves loose from Trump after the 2005 "Access Hollywood" video was leaked.

What's more, not only was Ryan adviser Dan Senor widely accused of leaking the video, but on Oct. 10 he also tweeted out instructions for the media to grill Trump surrogates about the video while ignoring the previous night's presidential debate.

"Paul Ryan's own team was working on getting the media on point to attack Donald Trump," Nehlen said. "Think about that for a minute. I had a guy in Turkey tweet Dan Senor's tweet at me to make me aware of that situation. People around the world were watching for this type of duplicity, and Paul Ryan has been Brutus to Mr. Trump's Caesar this whole way."

In winning Wisconsin on Tuesday night, Trump did what Paul Ryan could not do as Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012. Exit polls showed Trump won 59 percent of the vote among Wisconsinites who made their decision in the final week before the election, versus 30 percent for Clinton. Among Wisconsin voters who made their decision before the final week, Clinton held a narrow 49 percent to 47 percent edge.

Nehlen thinks the reopened FBI investigation into Clinton's emails, the WikiLeaks revelations and the undercover Project Veritas videos likely swayed the late-deciding voters who threw his state into Trump’s column.

Addressing the Project Veritas videos of Scott Foval, the former national field director for Americans United for Change, Nehlen remarked: "That's not America. That's not the America that we hope for and that we aspire to. Scott Foval's right in Madison, for God's sake. He's a Wisconsin guy in Madison paying people to go out and start fights. That's not how we expect America to be governed, that's not how we expect American politics to be waged."

When asked what aspect of a Trump presidency he is most looking forward to, Nehlen brought up the two main issues on which he based his primary campaign against Paul Ryan: trade and security.

"We need bilateral trade deals only, because as soon as you start adding a multitude of countries to trade deals, it dilutes America's power," said the businessman. "So getting rid of TPP is Job One."

He also trusts that Trump will take border security and national security seriously.

"We cannot let people in this country who we don't know who they are," he declared. "You wouldn't leave your door unlocked at night and just let anybody walk into your house, but that's what we’re doing in this country right now, and I firmly believe that Mr. Trump is going to put some process in place that is going to speak to our security issues."

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