House Speaker Paul Ryan rebuked Donald Trump Friday night for Trump’s lewd and offensive comments about women that occurred in 2005, but were surfaced by the Washington Post Friday.
Ryan was supposed to stand side by side with Trump at a campaign event in Wisconsin Saturday. It was going to be the first time that Ryan campaigned with Trump since Trump became the nominee.
That is no longer happening.
“I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified,” Ryan said. “I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests. In the meantime, he is no longer attending tomorrow’s event in Wisconsin.”
Since the beginning, Trump and Ryan’s arrangement was fraught with tension. Initially, Ryan held off on endorsing his nominee, saying he needed some time to evaluate if he and Trump could work together on conservative agenda items. Even once Ryan did endorse, he spent an agonizing summer on Capitol Hill trying to awkwardly dance between calling out Trump’s comments against a “Mexican” judge and Gold Star family and repeating that he did support his nominee. Ryan criticized Trump for not clearly rebuking former KKK leader David Duke. And in a visit to the hill, Trump worried many of Ryan’s rank and file members with his lack of clarity on some key issues.
Trump responded by refusing to initially endorse Ryan in his primary in Wisconsin.
But Ryan had – until this point– shown very little sign of outright distancing himself from Trump. Ryan spoke at Trump’s convention and continued to voice his support for his nominee.
This is the strongest admonishment Ryan has given yet, however, he hasn’t pulled his endorsement. The question of whether Ryan is finished with Trump is still to be determined.
