Obama dismisses Trump’s comments of rigged election
PORTLAND, Maine — Donald Trump’s warning that the November election might be rigged is “ridiculous,” President Barack Obama declared on Thursday. Anxious Republicans, meanwhile, struggled to move attention from their own infighting to Democratic foe Hillary Clinton.
The feud between the GOP’s presidential nominee and Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan again overshadowed Trump’s Clinton criticism, underscoring the rising concerns from party leaders over the billionaire’s unorthodox candidacy and its impact on the future of the party.
Facing sinking poll numbers and campaign morale, Trump has questioned the integrity of the nation’s election system in recent days.
“I never heard of somebody complaining about being cheated before the game is over,” Obama said during a Thursday news conference.
“My suggestion would be: Go out there and try to win the election.”
Trump, meanwhile, refused for another day to endorse Ryan, his party’s top elected official.
The Republican speaker has declared his support for Trump, but he said such endorsements aren’t “blank checks” and pledged to speak out against the businessman’s divisive positions if necessary. Most recently, that means Trump’s sustained criticism of an American Muslim family whose son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq.
“I don’t like doing this,” Ryan told a Wisconsin radio station. “I don’t want to do this, but I will do this because I feel I have to in order to defend Republicans, and our principles, so that people don’t make the mistake of thinking we think like that.”
Campaign chairman Paul Manafort insisted Trump would work with Ryan if elected, but he conceded the endorsement question had sparked tension inside Trump’s New York campaign headquarters.
The day before, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence broke with Trump and endorsed Ryan. A Pence spokesman on Thursday issued a blanket endorsement for all GOP congressional incumbents seeking re-election, even as Trump withheld endorsements for Arizona Sen. John McCain and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte as well as Ryan.
Addressing Maine voters later in the day, Trump was repeatedly interrupted by protesters, including some who were ejected after waving copies of the U.S. Constitution in the air — a reminder of Trump’s criticism of Khan’s father, who waved his own copy of the Constitution as he criticized Trump at last week’s Democratic National Convention.
The businessman directed his own criticism at Clinton on Thursday, while briefly addressing the tension with Ryan.
He said he had given Pence permission to endorse the speaker the day before.
“I say, ‘Mike, you like him? Yes. Go ahead and do it, 100 percent,’ ” Trump recalled of his conversation, interrupting his audience when they began to boo Ryan.
“Paul Ryan’s a good guy, actually,” he said.