professor corey robin, welcome to democracy now!ou just came from giving a speech at harvard law school on the united states under president trump. you then get this announcement that the house speaker paul ryan is leaving, is retiring, not only leaving the house speaker ship, but retiring the house. what does this mean? >> i think it means two things. first of all, we have seen these wave of retirement announcement that you have mentioned. i think the statistic is you haven't seen this many number of republicans retiring from congress, announcing retirement from congress, since the 1930's. amy: we're talking 41. you're pushing 50. it is an extraordinary amount, re than double the nber of mocrats. what that first means is the parties that are either into senate seat or firmly and confidently in power, you don't tend to see the most powerful elected leadership resigning their seats of power after a mere three years in office, which is what is the case with paul ryan. i think the first thing is he a seen the writing on the wall. over

professor corey robin, welcome to democracy now!ou just came from giving a speech at harvard law school on the united states under president trump. you then get this announcement that the house speaker paul ryan is leaving, is retiring, not only leaving the house speaker ship, but retiring the house. what does this mean? >> i think it means two things. first of all, we have seen these wave of retirement announcement that you have mentioned. i think the statistic is you haven't seen this many number of republicans retiring from congress, announcing retirement from congress, since the 1930's. amy: we're talking 41. >> you're pushing 50. it is an extraordinary amount, more than double the number of democrats. what that first means is the parties that are either into senate seat or firmly and confidently in power, you don't tend to see the most powerful elected leadership resigning their seats of power after a mere three years in office, which is what is the case with paul ryan. i think the first thing is he a seen the writing on the wa