Less than 24 hours after Trump secured the endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan, the speaker on Thursday disavowed the presumptive GOP nominee’s latest controversial comments about a federal judge overseeing a fraud lawsuit against Trump University.
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Ryan was referring to Trump’s remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel this week, calling out his “Mexican heritage” and saying he has “an absolute conflict” in the class-action case whose trial is slated for after the presidential election.
Some GOP leaders have vowed not to support Trump, including 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who tapped Ryan as his running mate. How will they feel about the fact that Trump questioned a federal judge’s neutrality due to the judge “being Mexican” (he’s not-he was born in Indiana) last week and offered a similar analysis of Muslim judges over the weekend?
McConnell said Trump’s comments about Martinez, the nation’s only Latina governor, was “a big mistake” that could permanently wreck the GOP’s ability to draw the Latino vote.
“I told Donald Trump I thought we ought not to have a fight over the platform, that he wasn’t going to change what we think Republicans are”, McConnell said.
Trump, coarsely but unsparingly, has given voice to the extreme hopelessness that has gripped such a broad swath of the Republican electorate – egged on in its anxieties by its more conventional leaders.
“Look, the comment about the judge the other day just was out of left field for my mind”, Ryan told WISN radio host Vicki McKenna.
It’s a powerful sentiment in a year where conservatives fear their core principles will suffer because of a presidential candidate for whom “angry” might be a compliment.
Earnest also suggested that the American people will pay attention to the positions of Republicans in light of Trump’s statements on Curiel as well as the nominee’s statements. “If you sign up with Trump, you get unadulterated Donald and all the bad that comes with it”.
Still, it’s a tall order for Republicans on Capitol Hill to distance themselves completely for Trump, given that many have endorsed their party’s presumptive nominee and that their fortunes could depend on how well he does against the Democrats’ expected candidate, Hillary Clinton.
In Trump, though, local Democratic chairmen see a candidate their party can portray as nonsensical and immoral.
Violent scenes The businessman praised the supporters who attended his rally in San José, California on Thursday night and made no reference to the violent scenes between Trump protesters and supporters afterwards. “And I’ve had to speak up on time to time when that has occurred, and I’ll continue to do that if that’s necessary”.
If Clinton can turn this into a more conventional race of herself standing up for the little guy and Trump enriching himself at the expense of average people, it moves the campaign onto more familiar turf for her and Democrats in general, West said.
Trump won 69.69 percent, 60.78 percent and 62.01 percent of the Republican primary vote in Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties respectively, and he garnered more primary votes than Hillary Clinton in Washington and Westmoreland.
Ryan couched his endorsement around what he called an increased comfort level with Trump’s approach toward Ryan’s policy priorities, including halting overreach of the president and executive branch.
“I mean, to be honest, we’ve spoken about it very briefly”.
“Yes, this has been more of a personality contest election”. To that end, next week he said the House Republicans will unveil a multi-point agenda that they’ll be advocating.
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In a video released by his office today, Ryan teased the unveiling of the agenda, titled “A Better Way”.
