Trump, eyeing campaign reset, backs House Speaker Ryan
Sports Page 23
WASHINGTON (AFP)-Donald Trump reversed course and endorsed House Speaker Paul Ryan for re-election, as he sought to stop his presidential campaign's bleeding after several self-inflicted wounds and relentless criticism from his own Republican Party.
Facing sinking poll numbers and desperate to reset a campaign that has perhaps reached its lowest point of the year, Trump made a bald plea for www. sundaytimes. lk
Trump has suffered a brutal campaign week that included his refusal to back down in a confrontation with the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq
unity and pledged to work with the very party leaders he had earlier dismissed as Washington's ineffective establishment figures.
“We need unity. We have to win this election,” Trump told a rally in Ryan's state of Wisconsin, as he stressed a “big tent” Republican Party is the only way to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in November's election.
“In our shared mission to make America great again, I support and endorse our Speaker of the House Paul Ryan,” he said, to cheers from the Green Bay crowd.
He also announced support for senators John McCain and Kelly Ayotte, two lawmakers facing tough re-election fights.
Trump has suffered a brutal campaign week that included his refusal to back down in a confrontation with the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq.
Ryan, McCain and Ayotte had all assailed Trump for his disparaging remarks.
It got worse Friday with criticism from Michael Morell, a 33-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency who served presidents of both parties and helmed the agency in 2011, but announced his support for Clinton.
Trump “may well pose a threat to our national security,” he wrote in a New York Times column.
Morell said that as Russian President Vladimir Putin “played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.” Trump has praised Putin as a great leader, and taken policy positions “consist- ent with Russian, not American, interests,” including endorsing Russian espionage against US figures like Clinton, Morell said.
“In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation,” he added.
Clinton endured tests of her own Friday, as she took the rare step of facing reporters at a Washington conference of journalists where she was pressed on her recent comments that she has been truthful about her private email account while she was secretary of state.
The Democrat had told Fox News Sunday that FBI director James Comey said her “answers were truthful” about whether she sent or received classified material via private email.