Donald
Trump declines to endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain for re-election
House
speaker and Arizona senator have endorsed Trump for presidency
Republican
nominee says of Ryan: ‘I’m just not quite there yet’
Ben Jacobs in
Washington
Tuesday 2 August
2016 23.01 BST
The Republican
nominee, Donald Trump, declined on Tuesday to endorse the re-election
campaign of the House speaker, Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking member
of his party in Washington.
“I like Paul, but
these are horrible times for our country,” Trump said in an
interview with the Washington Post, a publication that is still
banned from Trump’s campaign events.
“We need very,
very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not
quite there yet.”
The Republican
nominee also refused to back Senator John McCain, the party’s 2008
nominee, in his bid for re-election in addition to Ryan, the most
powerful elected Republican in the country.
Both Ryan and McCain
are longtime critics of many of Trump’s remarks, but both have said
they would support the Republican nominee in the general election.
Ryan, in particular, needed coaxing to eventually support Trump,
citing his concerns about the candidate’s proposed ban on Muslims
entering the United States. Eventually Ryan not only endorsed Trump
but presided over his nomination at the Republican national
convention in Cleveland.
Ryan’s campaign
responded through a spokesman, Zack Roday, who said: “Neither
Speaker Ryan nor anyone on his team has ever asked for Donald Trump’s
endorsement. And we are confident in a victory next week regardless.”
The pair of senior
Republicans have been critical of Trump in recent months following a
string of increasingly racially and religiously charged statements.
In June, Ryan described Trump’s attacks on a federal judge, Gustavo
Curiel, as “the textbook definition of a racist comment”, and
McCain issued a strong rebuke of Trump’s remarks about the Muslim
family of a killed army captain on Monday.
“I cannot
emphasize how deeply I disagree with Mr Trump’s statement,”
McCain said in a statement, referring to Trump’s claim that the
Khans had “no right” to criticize him and were motivated by
opposition to the ban. “I hope Americans understand that the
remarks do not represent the views of our Republican party, its
officers or candidates,” McCain said.
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Ryan also criticized
Trump for his comments, saying: “Many Muslim Americans have served
valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice.”
“Captain Khan was
one such brave example,” he added. “His sacrifice – and that of
Khizr and Ghazala Khan – should always be honored. Period.”
Trump’s refusal to
support members of his own party comes exactly one week before Ryan
faces a primary challenge from businessman Paul Nehlen, a candidate
who has sought to emulate Trump’s rhetoric and policies. Nehlen,
who Trump personally thanked on Twitter last night, has branded Ryan
“a soulless globalist” and attacked him as the candidate of open
borders.
McCain is also
facing a primary challenge at the end of August from Kelli Ward, a
former Arizona state senator who has accused the 2008 Republican
nominee of being “directly responsible for Isis”. If the
five-term senator manages to fend off the primary challenge, he still
faces a competitive general election against Representative Ann
Kirkpatrick, in what McCain has described as “the race of my life”.
Although Arizona was
once solidly Republican, the heavily Latino state is now considered
an electoral tossup because of Trump’s unpredictable effect on
candidates whose names follow his own on the ballot. For over a year,
McCain has also called on Trump to apologize for saying he prefers
“people who weren’t captured” to prisoners of war, like the
senator was himself in Vietnam. Trump has not apologized.
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