JANESVILLE, Wisconsin — House Speaker Paul Ryan “appreciates the gesture” from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump for endorsing Ryan in Green Bay on Friday night, a spokesman told Breitbart News.
“He appreciates the gesture and is going to continue to focus on earning the endorsement of the voters in Southern Wisconsin,” a Ryan aide told Breitbart News in response to Trump’s endorsement.
After previously refusing to endorse Ryan for Congress in his race against Republican businessman Paul Nehlen, saying he wasn’t ready to do so, Trump endorsed Ryan in Green Bay on Saturday.
“We will have disagreements, but we will disagree as friends and never stop working together toward victory. And very importantly, toward real change,” Trump said. “So in our shared mission, to make America great again, I support and endorse our speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.”
Ryan himself has yet to respond to Trump’s endorsement, which his team previously said he had not asked for when Trump refused to endorse him.
Nehlen, despite Trump’s endorsement of Ryan, is still barnstorming the district over the final few days. On Saturday he is holding two rallies with conservative columnist Ann Coulter in Janesville and Kenosha and now has the support of Diamond and Silk, conservative black YouTube celebrities who have backed Trump.
Nehlen has forced Ryan to flip-flop on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, which he previously supported but now opposes, and has forced Ryan for the first time in over a decade to campaign and respond to criticisms in his district. The fact that Nehlen has achieved that–and put Ryan on his heels politically–has shocked the political establishment around the country.