Story highlights Donald Trump's Republican endorsers range from the enthusiastic to the halfhearted

"His comments are offensive and wrong, and he should retract them," Ayotte said.

Washington (CNN) Donald Trump's Republican endorsers -- ranging from the enthusiastic to the halfhearted to the come-lately -- together staked out a freshly warped position Monday: I'll take the candidate, but not his fights.

A battery of Republican officials have sharply distanced themselves from their presumptive nominee, with figures across the ideological spectrum calling his latest comments unacceptable. But no Republican endorser has drawn the ultimate distance -- disavowing the candidate making those provocative claims.

Republicans have expressed a deep desire for "party unity," but on Monday and Tuesday they largely refused to stand beside him and take the heat.

"I'm not even going to pretend to defend them," House Speaker Paul Ryan said a Washington news conference Tuesday, adding that Trump's remarks resembled "the textbook definition of a racist comment."

Trump's mission to discredit the federal judge overseeing the Trump University case is throwing the GOP into choppier waters each time he assails the Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel as a "Mexican." While it was not unprecedented for Trump surrogates to sometimes struggle to defend the candidate of their choice during the primary, Monday was the first day in Trump's campaign when a wide range of GOP party elders -- not just the few who endorsed him in the primary -- had to go to bat for him.

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