WASHINGTON — When House Speaker Paul Ryan told fellow House Republicans that he would no longer campaign with or defend GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, he may have felt it was the obvious, principled position to take.
Speaker Ryan is a straight-shooting family man and devout Roman Catholic, and after the release of a lewd 2005 video showing Mr. Trump bragging about sexually aggressive treatment of women, Ryan said he was “disgusted.”
Ryan’s goal in distancing himself from Trump, he told House GOP lawmakers on a conference call Monday, was to focus on saving the GOP majority in the House, potentially imperiled by Trump’s decline in polls. But Ryan’s new posture may already have backfired. Some fellow GOP House members are furious. And national party chairman Reince Priebus pointedly has not abandoned Trump, pledging to keep spending party money on the nominee’s campaign. – READ MORE
