Donald Trump has formally endorsed House Speaker Paul Ryan, after saying he wasn’t ready to do so earlier this week.
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Although Trump essentially clinched the nomination in early May when rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz dropped out of the running for the GOP’s presidential nomination, Ryan waited until June to offer his endorsement of Trump.
Another rally Friday night in Wisconsin, Trump alleged that Clinton is a monster. He also endorsed senators John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, calling Ayotte a “rising star”.
“In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation”, wrote Morell, who was CIA director in the Obama administration and now works for a firm run by one of Clinton’s closest advisers.
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a campaign event at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine August 4, 2016.
Trump had told The Washington Post in an interview earlier this week that he was “just not quite there yet” when it came to backing Ryan – language that echoed the words used by Ryan as he weighed whether to endorse the party’s nominee. “We are Ryan Republicans here in Wisconsin, not Trump Republicans”. So extending an olive branch to Paul Ryan – the popular Republican representative of the 1st District of Wisconsin – looks like a strategic move for Trump if he wants the support of fellow Republicans hoping for a strong challenger to defeat Hillary Clinton come November.
In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday, Ms Clinton’s lead over Mr Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, down from almost 8 points on Monday.
The New York businessman announced he was setting up an economic advisory team to help guide him on economic policy. The group relies heavily on hedge fund managers and investment bankers, a group Trump has railed against.
At a rally in Des Moines, Mr Trump showed new-found discipline, mostly sticking to his central charge that Ms Clinton is the “queen of corruption”.
“All my life I’ve been told, “You have the greatest temperament”, he said.
Sen. Ron Johnson and House Speaker Paul Ryan citied scheduling conflicts, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he’ll attend an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner instead of appearing with his party’s standard bearer. And polls suggest that most voters don’t trust the former secretary of state, who faces lingering questions about her record on foreign policy and her use of a private email server as the nation’s top diplomat.
Ms 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 she had been truthful in her statements about use of the private server.
“I may have short-circuited, and for that I will try to clarify”, Mrs Clinton said, though still insisting she “never sent or received anything that was marked classified”.
Republicans have repeatedly charged that Clinton endangered national security with her handling of classified material.
“It doesn’t make me feel good when people say those things, and I recognise that I have work to do”, Mrs Clinton said. Still, as she has often done during her career, Clinton attributed much of her low standing on this issue to attacks from republicans.
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Since then, Trump has engaged in a days-long feud with the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq and squabbled with the Republican leadership over his comments and leadership turmoil within his campaign. Trump could lose all those states, along with Nevada, where a Democratic-held seat is vacant; if Republicans can’t prevail in Senate races nonetheless, they will lose their Senate majority. Many Republicans, including Ryan, McCain and Ayotte, were critical of Trump’s insistent attacks on the parents.
