After days of Donald Trump’s public hesitation in backing House Speaker Paul Ryan during his Wisconsin primary race, the Republican presidential nominee endorsed Ryan Friday evening at a rally in Green Bay. Ryan believes North Atlantic Treaty Organisation “is as important now as I would say it’s been in my lifetime”, while Trump recently suggested the United States would only come to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies’ defense if “they fulfill their obligations to us”. He said “Donald Trump and I are standing shoulder to shoulder to say to the American people, ‘We can be strong again'”. We need very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. “I’m not quite there yet”, Trump said in the Post interview. If Trump does something out of line, Ryan says he could withdraw his endorsement.
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“We need unity. We have to win this election”, Trump told a rally in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, as he stressed that an inclusive, “big tent” Republican Party is the only way to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in November’s general election. “I’m not there right now”.
Mr Ryan and San McCain had both criticised Mr Trump’s attacks on the bereaved parents of a US Muslim soldier killed in Iraq. “Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire”.
The move comes just days ahead of Ryan’s Tuesday primary matchup with challenger Paul Nehlen, who has played up Trump’s refusal to back the speaker – as well as Ryan’s tepid support for Trump. This is the same Sarah Palin that gave an incoherent, rambling endorsement of Trump earlier this year.
On Friday, however, Trump said he held McCain “in the highest esteem” and “I fully support and endorse his re-election”.
It is impossible to know whether Trump made a decision to tone down the foot-stomping petulance because someone passed along this week’s poll numbers or because he has merely found a new tantrum, but every little bit helps at this point.
The Republican nominee tried to stay on message, hammering his opponent Hillary Clinton. Earlier, in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump called Clinton such choice words as “unbalanced”, “unstable”, and “dangerous”, warning that if she’s elected it would lead to “the destruction of this country from within”. Priebus, a fellow Wisconsinite and close ally of Ryan, has fought hard to unite a party fractured by its nominee.
“In one way, she’s a monster”, he said in Wisconsin.
“All my life I’ve been told, ‘You have the greatest temperament, ‘” he said.
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Trump has said positive things about aspects of Ryan’s agenda, like the poverty plank, but still has not explicitly offered his commitment to helping House Republicans implement it in 2017.
