Since becoming the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump has struggled to get the highest ranking Republican in the country fully on board.
On the first day of the Republican National Convention, Speaker Paul Ryan spoke to Wisconsinites at an early morning breakfast and failed to mention the party’s nominee even once. Just a few hours later at a luncheon, Ryan described Trump as “not my kind of conservative.”
Speaker Ryan may technically have endorsed Trump, but that endorsement has come with a lot of nose holding and criticizing Trump on a regular basis for his divisive comments and dangerous ideas.
Trump started a firestorm with his dangerous idea to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Ryan responded to Trump’s outlandish and offensive proposal saying, “I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country’s interest. I do not think it is reflective of our principles, not just as a party but as a country.”
When Trump attacked Judge Curiel last month, Paul Ryan called it the textbook definition of a racist comment.
And just a few weeks ago, in the wake of Trump’s anti-semitic tweets attacking Sec. Hillary Clinton, Ryan said, “Look, anti-Semitic images, they’ve got no place in presidential campaigns. Candidates should know that.”
“It’s more than telling when the highest ranking Republican in the entire nation cannot fully endorse the platform of his party’s own presidential nominee,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesman Brandon Weathersby said on Tuesday. “Donald Trump and his ideas are so incredibly dangerous that not even Paul Ryan could keep up a brave face at his own convention.”
