Over the weekend, Sarah Palin reiterated her support for Paul Ryan’s primary challenger Friday night immediately after her political ally, Donald Trump, endorsed the House speaker. Now, ostensibly in a bid to try to unite the party, Trump has officially-albeit belatedly-endorsed the re-elections of Speaker Paul Ryan and senators John McCain and Kelly Ayotte.
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Ryan and many other Trump supporters have criticized the NY businessman for attacking the parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain killed in the Iraq war, after the father denounced Trump at the Democratic convention.
Speaking in Green Bay, Wis., on Friday, Trump cited exactly that – party unity – as his reason for endorsing Ryan, albeit belatedly.
Ryan, however, isn’t scheduled to join Trump when he speaks at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Friday.
Is Trump saying all of the election process is rigged, or just that the part he might not win is rigged?
The Midwest unrest highlighted Mr Trump’s mounting challenges during one of the most tumultuous weeks of his unorthodox campaign for the White House.
Many Republicans, including Mr Ryan, Mr McCain and Ms Ayotte, were critical of Mr Trump’s insistent attacks on the parents.
On the one hand, Zogby says Ryan has to back the man who clearly won his party’s primary “because once you go down the road to dissing democracy, oh my God!”
Trump, 70, has embraced her phrasing as a line of attack.
Trump’s reversal came amid a decline in his poll ratings both nationally and in crucial battleground states, with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton establishing a solid lead in the aftermath of the party conventions. “I also fully support and endorse Sen”.
“But I need a Republican Senate and a House to accomplish all of the changes that we have to make”, Trump told supporters.
“If Hillary Clinton becomes president”, he said at an earlier rally in Iowa, “you will have really, in my opinion, the destruction of this country from within”. The phrase echoed Ryan’s own words in May, when he demurred on Trump, saying “I’m not there right now”, before eventually going on to support him.
The Republican presidential nominee says he is on board and gave his support to Paul Ryan and John McCain.
Trump’s approach to national security came under fire Friday as well, with former CIA Director Michael Morell contending the Republican nominee would make “a poor, even risky commander in chief”.
He also called Ayotte “weak” and claimed to be beating her in polls, although the two are not competing and the senator has higher favorable numbers than Trump.
Clinton conceded that she had “short-circuited” earlier in the week in interviews when she had asserted that Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey had concluded that she had been truthful in her statements about use of the private server.
A new Washington Post-ABC News opinion poll on Sunday showed Trump trailing Clinton by 8 percentage points after her party’s convention in Philadelphia.
As for Trump’s own fortunes in Wisconsin, “it didn’t help” him, said Thompson, who issued an endorsement of Ryan Saturday.
Such margins would be enough to put the first female president in the White House.
Asked by WISN’s Jay Weber whether his differences with Trump were going to linger, Ryan said, “Heck if I know…”
“All my life I’ve been told, ‘You have the greatest temperament, ‘” he said in Des Moines.
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She also acknowledged that many people don’t trust her.
