WASHINGTON – US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump ratcheted up tensions in his party on Tuesday by denying two leading figures, House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan and senator John McCain, support in their re-election bids.
Trump told The Washington Post in an interview that he could endorse neither Ryan, the top US elected Republican, nor McCain, a US senator from Arizona and a former Republican presidential nominee, as they face challenges in their states’ primary contests ahead of the 8 November general election.
Both Ryan and McCain had criticised Trump’s feud with the family of army captain Humayun Khan, who died in the line of duty in Iraq in 2004, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for bravery after his death.
The discord comes just two weeks after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland which formally nominated Trump for president.
It is the latest rift in a party already frayed by internal dissent over its standard-bearer, seen in stark relief at the convention, where McCain was among high-level party members who essentially snubbed Trump by choosing not to attend.
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, and former presidents George H W Bush and George W Bush also did not attend the convention.
Trump has had a running dispute with Khizr and Ghazala Khan since they took the stage at last week’s Democratic convention to cite their son’s sacrifice and criticise Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States.
The uproar has led many Republicans to distance themselves from Trump, and voice support for the Khan family.
Trump, mirroring the language Ryan used about supporting the nominee before his eventual endorsement, told the newspaper he was “not quite there yet” on endorsing Ryan in next Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, and that he had “never been there” with McCain, who will be on the ballot in primary elections in Arizona later this month.
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