As the Republican Party runs away from Donald Trump as if he were holding a skunk on a dance floor, the GOP presidential nominee is getting mad. And he's expressing that anger by lashing out at the man who's trying to keep the party afloat in the long run: House Speaker Paul Ryan.
On Tuesday morning, Trump went on Twitter — one of his safe spaces — to unleash his wrath on Ryan, who's trying to keep his party's House majority intact come Nov. 9. Trump called Ryan "weak and ineffective," as well as disloyal.
Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when Paul Ryan and others give zero support!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Oct. 11, 2016
Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Oct. 11, 2016
EDIT 11:15 a.m.: He also added this:
Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don’t know how to win - I will teach them!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2016
This is amazing. Attacking members your own party's leadership is something that just doesn't happen, especially if you expect them to follow you. The tweets come after a wild Monday, in which a fenced-in Ryan, who couldn't completely sever ties with Trump the day after a terrible-but-not-atrocious presidential debate.
Not only is Donald Trump very, very wrong about saying he won "every poll," he's also turning a growing battle between the Republican Party's leadership and the Molotov cocktail-toting wing — led by Trump's campaign CEO, Steve Bannon — into an all-out war. As Politico noted on Tuesday morning, in a report that likely set off Trump's fury:
Inside Trump Tower, the candidate’s team is girding itself for more and possibly even more damaging opposition dumps. And there is consensus within the candidate’s roguish inner circle of Steve Bannon, the Breitbart CEO who’s long had House Speaker Paul Ryan in his cross hairs, and David Bossie, who spent decades attacking the Clintons, to fight fire — be it from the media, Democrats or from Ryan and fellow Republicans — with a blowtorch. . . .
Trump spent the weekend in seclusion, bearing the brunt of nationwide criticism and watching Republicans desert him en masse, some withdrawing their endorsements and others calling for him to step aside after his lewd comments caught on video capped a two-week slide in the polls. He emerged to deliver a more pugilistic, no-holds-barred performance on the debate stage Sunday, with women who have accused Bill Clinton (who is not running for president) of sexual abuse or harassment.
Let's unpack the disloyalty claim here. Since he accepted the nomination, Trump expected rank-and-file Republicans to fall in line behind him, even as he marches blindly off a cliff. And he's mad that they're not doing that.
Said a GOP strategist to Politico:
“He's picking fights because he does not like it when anyone questions him, whether it be Rick Perry in the primary, Susana Martinez in the primary, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan — he doesn't like when anyone questions him. He handles that very poorly, and that's what he's doing right now.”
This is what happens when you nominate an egotistical blowhard with no political experience. But at least he didn't make his tweetstorm worse somehow.
Oh.
It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Oct. 11, 2016
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