Paul Ryan Bails on Donald Trump Print
Elections, Elected Officials, Political Parties
Written by GBP Staff   
Monday, 10 October 2016 10:42

trump-clinton-debateHouse Speaker caught in the middle as Trump's aggressive deflections of scandalsĀ on Sunday night threaten party loyalty.


MADISON - According to news breaking now on the Wisconsin State Journal online, House Speaker Paul Ryan told Congressional Republicans on Monday he will not campaign with or defend his party's presidential nominee Donald Trump through the Nov. 8 election.

paul_ryan"The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities," Ryan spokesman Zack Roday said. Roday said there is no update "at this time" on whether he will maintain his endorsement of Trump.

The news comes following Trump's disastrous performance in Sunday's Presidential Town Hall debate with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The debate capped a tumultuous weekend for Trump that began with the release of an 11-year-old recording showing him describe his interactions with women in lewd and predatory language and ended with a performance in which he threatened to jail Clinton if elected because of her handling of confidential State Department emails.

Ryan is caught between the traditional conservative voters of the Republican right and Trump's more rabid anti-Hillary followers as the two sides fight for the future of the party. Since Richard Nixon's so-called "Southern Strategy" in the 1970s, Republicans have courted the votes of blue collar whites and Christian conservatives to supplement their long time suburban country club base. Now the strategy seems to be coming apart at the seams.

So far no Wisconsin Republicans have announced they are withdrawing their support, though Ryan has gone the furthest, disinviting Trump from an event in Elkhorn on Saturday and his statements to House members Monday. At the Elkhorn event almost of the state Republican leaders who spoke didn't mention Trump and some audience members expressed anger at their leaders abandoning him, the WSJ reports.