Donovan Slack

USA TODAY

House Speaker Paul Ryan, peppered with questions about Donald Trump on Thursday, continued the tenuous balancing act of supporting the Republican presidential nominee while not necessarily agreeing with what he says.

Ryan, asked about Trump calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a better leader than President Obama, said he had read a snippet of Trump’s comments, made Wednesday night at a candidate forum.

”Let me say this about Vladimir Putin: Vladimir Putin is an aggressor that does not share our interests,” he said. “Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of a neighboring country.”

Ryan went on to criticize Putin for cyberattacks on the U.S. political system. U.S. officials have said they believe Russia is behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s email system and they are investigating other potential cyber attacks.

“That is not acting in our interests and that is an adversarial stance and he’s acting like an adversary,” Ryan said.

When pressed on whether that means he disagrees with Trump and whether he still supports him as the nominee, Ryan got frustrated, saying he’s got other things to do besides being an election year pundit.

“He’s the nominee of our party because he won our nomination fair and square,” he said. “I’m not going to sit up here and do the tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night or the night before in Hillary vs Donald. That is not my job, and I’m not going to be the election year pundit.”

It was Ryan’s first weekly press conference on Capitol Hill since Congress returned from summer recess. With three more weeks until the next recess and at the height of the presidential race, the Trump questions will likely continue.

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