“I don’t think Wisconsinites take kindly to this,” he said. | AP Photo Ryan dismisses Trump's non-endorsement 'The only endorsements I want are the ones of my own employers in the 1st Congressional District,' he told a Wisconsin radio show.

JANESVILLE, Wis. — House Speaker Paul Ryan swiped back at Donald Trump on Thursday, suggesting he doesn't need the GOP nominee's endorsement to win his primary and saying Trump has "had a pretty strange run since the convention."

On a Wisconsin radio talk show, the Wisconsin Republican dismissed Trump’s recent refusal to endorse him as no big deal.


“The only endorsements I want are the ones of my own employers in the 1st Congressional District,” he told WTAQ's "The Jerry Bader Show."

Pressed how he could continue to support a candidate he has to call out often, Ryan again criticized Trump for his feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, a Muslim couple who lost their son in the Iraq War, saying it was “beyond the pale.”

“You don’t do that to Gold Star families,” he said of the Khan feud. “You honor Gold Star families. … Those comments were beyond the pale, so I called it out.”

Ryan said he doesn’t like checking Trump but will do it to protect the party: “I don’t want to do this, but I will do this in order to defend Republican principals so people don’t think we think like that."

After largely ignoring his long-shot primary challenger Paul Nehlen, who fashions himself as a mini-Donald Trump, Ryan essentially called him a liar buoyed by out-of-state interests that do not represent Wisconsin.

“The guy who is running against me is making this stuff up … trying to make it stick,” Ryan said. “I feel very good where we are, and the fact that he has to make this stuff up and embellish like this shows desperation.”

Nehlen has accused Ryan of being “more aligned with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama” than Republican values and is trying to paint him as soft on immigration.

But Nehlen’s supporters, Ryan said, are not from the area. The speaker was quick to point out his Janesville roots — while noting that Nehlen “moved to the state two years ago.”

“I don’t think Wisconsinites take kindly to this,” he said. “He’s making it up as he goes.”

