Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are back on the campaign trail after an eventful few days that included a vicious debate, lewd Trump comments about women, a major split among Republicans and leaked emails showing a private Clinton versus a public one.
Both candidates are struggling to overcome voter mistrust with less than a month before the presidential election.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan told fellow Republicans in a conference call Monday that he will no longer campaign for Trump or defend his often harsh comments that have offended many voters.
Ryan said he will instead focus his efforts on getting Republicans elected to the House so the party will keep its hold on Congress. Republicans currently control both the House and Senate.
One person on the conference call said Ryan did not withdraw his support for Trump, but simply will not campaign for him. Ryan told other Republican House members “to do what’s best for you in your district.”
A Clinton campaign spokesperson called Ryan’s decision not to stump for Trump “pretty stunning.” Trump criticized the speaker, saying he “should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting [the] Republican nominee.
Clinton said Monday that Trump spent Sunday’s presidential debate attacking when he should have been apologizing.
She was talking about a Trump’s comments on a leaked 2005 in which he boasted to a TV personality that could grope women because he is a “star.”
Clinton told a crowd in Detroit that Trump “doubled down” on his explanation that the comments were just locker room talk between men. She called it “a really weak excuse for behaving badly and mistreating people.”
Moments later, Trump appeared in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, saying all Clinton could talk about in the debate was “small petty things.”
Trump said at the debate he was “very embarrassed” by his remarks and hated them.
But he tore into the media Monday for “beating me up” for 72 hours while ignoring allegations that Clinton threatened women who Trump says were raped and sexually assaulted by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Meanwhile, Clinton campaign emails released by WikiLeaks showed Clinton made private remarks about Wall Street and her relations with the middle class that differ from what she has said on the campaign trail.
She has publicly called for tougher rules for big banks and investment houses, while in paid speeches to financial firms expressed a willingness to make deals and let Wall Street put together some of those regulations.
Clinton has also spoken of how she and Bill Clinton were “broke” when they left the White House in 2001. But she apparently said in 2014 that she is now “far removed” from those struggles because of “the fortunes” they now enjoy.
When asked in Sunday’s debate to reconcile her public and private comments, Clinton cited President Abraham Lincoln, saying he used different arguments with different people to get things done.
Source-VOA
