U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is refusing to support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president, insisting Thursday that the businessman must do more to unify the GOP.
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The speaker said he wants to endorse his party’s nominee, but that more needs to be done to unify the GOP before he can do so. “I think he has to do more to unify this party”.
These were Ryan’s first public remarks about the front-runner since Trump’s last two Republican rivals withdrew, making him the presumptive GOP nominee.
Ryan replied, “To be perfectly candid with you, Jake, I’m just not ready to do that at this point”, Ryan said.
Trump dismissed Clinton’s criticism along with concerns about his unfavorability ratings, saying his campaign had attracted millions of supporters to the Republican Party. I clearly had an excess of confidence that Ted Cruz could rally anti-Trump voters and thought a series of wildly outrageous Trump statements would do more harm to his candidacy than they did.
But McCain still expressed unease over a backlash Trump could provoke among Hispanic voters, who also make up significant chunks of the electorate in states like Florida, Nevada and Colorado – all of which host key Senate contests this year.
“These are the issues I want to talk about”. The Republican civil war won’t end with the November election. “I think what a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards”. Last year, Ryan blasted Trump’s controversial ban on Muslims entering the USA, saying that “is not what this party stands for”.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are being tipped as possible Trump running mates.
“Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people”, Trump said in the statement.
But presumptive nominee Donald Trump has split the party, with some senior figures declining to give him their endorsement. Conservative opposition could deepen a popular revulsion against Trump that in turn could help Democrats take over the Senate and gain House seats.
Scott Walker, who endorsed Cruz, told reporters Wednesday that Trump was preferable to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
“I’m not there yet” added Ryan, who is in Burlington, Wisconsin. “It doesn’t mean I support Hillary Clinton”.
The state’s current lone Republican statewide elected official, Secretary of State Kim Wyman, says that because of the responsibilities of her role in overseeing elections, she won’t be weighing in one way or another on the presidential race.
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“I can actually straighten out the country without having people come-special interests and everything else come-and say, ‘No, no, no, you can’t do that because so-and-so supported you, ‘” Trump said in September.
