House Speaker Paul Ryan’s endorsement of Donald Trump Thursday commits him to five months of supporting a Republican presidential candidate who he's spent a great deal of time condemning.
Not 24 hours had passed after Ryan finally said he'd vote for the businessman, following weeks of holding out, before he found himself in a position he'll surely come to find familiar: Trump said something offensive -- and Ryan had to find some way to distance himself from it without being seen to go against the candidate.
U.S. federal judge Gonzalo Curiel is handling two lawsuits against the for-profit Trump University. Trump has doubled down on the idea that Curiel's Mexican heritage makes the judge biased against him.
“He’s a Mexican,” Trump told CNN of Curiel. “We’re building a wall between here and Mexico. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings -- rulings that people can’t even believe.”
Ryan reacted said during a radio interview Friday that the reality TV personality's comments were "out of left field."
“It’s reasoning I don’t relate to. I completely disagree with the thinking behind that," Ryan said. "And so, he clearly says and does things I don’t agree with, and I’ve had to speak up on time to time when that has occurred, and I’ll continue to do that if it’s necessary. I hope it’s not.”
But the comments aren't "out of left field." Building a "great, great wall" has been a cornerstone of Trump's platform since he announced his candidacy, during which he has branded Mexicans and Latino immigrants as "criminals," "killers" and "rapists" and treated racial and ethnic groups as monoliths.
Tough to stomach, maybe, but Trump's comments are surely nothing "out of left field."
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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