Paul Ryan said President-elect Donald Trump, who has trashed American intelligence and sent tweets highlighting Julian Assange, will be "better informed" after he is briefed. | Getty Ryan: Trump will 'be better informed' after Russia briefing

House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed confidence Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump will be “better informed” on Russian hacking after he’s briefed by the intelligence community.

“I think he has not received his Russia briefing yet. I believe that’s scheduled for Friday,” the Wisconsin Republican told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday morning. “So hopefully, he’ll get up to speed on what, you know, has been happening and what Russia has or has not done. And he’ll be better informed on that.”


Trump has for months rejected the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled in the presidential election, including reports that the CIA, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence are in agreement that the Kremlin conducted cyberattacks with the aim of installing Trump as president.

The president-elect announced last week that he would meet with leaders of the intelligence community this week, the first time he had shown any willingness to potentially accept the intelligence agencies’ consensus.

But he expressed more skepticism Tuesday and Wednesday. “The ’Intelligence’ briefing on so-called Russian hacking was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” he tweeted Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday morning, he quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who said “a 14-year-old could have hacked” Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal email account.

“[W]hy was DNC so careless?” Trump asked in a tweet. “Also said Russians did not give him the info!”

He later quoted a Fox News tweet in which the network cited Assange calling American media coverage “very dishonest” during his interview with host Sean Hannity. Trump added, “More dishonest than anyone knows.”

Ryan refused to answer for Trump’s tweets during his interview with Hewitt. “The last thing I’m gonna do is start commenting on every little tweet or Facebook post,” he said. “That is just not what I do with the president-elect or when he’s president.”

He said he had no opinion of Assange, “other than I think the guy’s a sycophant for Russia” who leaks information, steals data and compromises national security.”

The House speaker also broke with the president-elect on a number of policy issues, including immigration reform, tariffs and possibly Trump’s proposed spending level for an infrastructure bill.

“That’s not part of our plan,” Ryan said of an immigration overhaul. “We wanna focus on securing the border. And that’s what the president-elect has asked us to focus on.” (Trump lists immigration reform on his campaign website.)

He said flatly that House Republicans won’t raise tariffs as Trump has vowed to do as retribution for businesses that leave the country but still try to sell their products within the U.S.

“We think tax reform is the better way of addressing imbalances, leveling the playing field — without starting trade wars, without having the adverse effects that you get with protectionism or trade wars,” he said.

Ryan, who once laughed when asked about an infrastructure spending bill of $550 billion or more (Trump has proposed as much as $1 trillion on infrastructure spending), demurred when asked how large an infrastructure bill the House would put on the table.

“I don’t know the answer to that yet. No one knows the answer to that yet,” he said. “That deals with how our budget will work in our spring budget.”