The Republican candidate described his party as disloyal and unable to win and labeled Paul Ryan as ‘very weak’ in a Twitter outburst on Tuesday

Donald Trump railed against his fellow Republicans on Twitter on Tuesday morning, after a week in which many in the party have deserted him following the release of a tape of him boasting about groping women.

The move came as prominent Republicans Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both reaffirmed that they were standing by the nominee.

Trump described his party – which he first joined in 1987 before several years as a Democrat and an independent – as disloyal and unable to win, while labeling the House speaker, Paul Ryan, the most senior Republican in Congress, “very weak and ineffective”. Ryan has been a vocal critic of Trump’s and this week announced he would no longer defend Trump or campaign with him, although he stopped short of formally unendorsing him.

Trump’s outburst marked yet another sign of the growing divisions between the candidate and the rest of his party, and the candidate’s willingness to throw political prudence to the wind to attack any dissenter. “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to,” he tweeted.



His tirade came days after dozens of elected Republicans abandoned Trump in the wake of leaked video where he bragged about groping women. The backlash culminated in a conference call on Monday with House Republicans at which Ryan essentially cut Trump loose and seemed to acknowledge that Hillary Clinton would win the election.

Shortly after landing in San Antonio for a closed press fundraiser, Trump extended his attacks, railing against the 2008 GOP nominee, John McCain, for withdrawing his endorsement. “The very foul mouthed Sen John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won), then dropped me over locker room remarks!” Trump tweeted. McCain issued a statement that he was unable to even offer his party’s nominee “conditional support” on Saturday in the wake of what the Arizona senator called Trump’s “boasts about sexual assaults”.

Trump had previously mocked McCain, a decorated war hero, for being captured during the Vietnam war after his plane was shot down.



Rubio, who ran against Trump in the presidential primary, said his position had not changed in a statement on Tuesday after facing mounting pressure from his opponent in the Florida Senate race to dump Trump.

“I disagree with him on many things, but I disagree with his opponent on virtually everything,” Rubio said. “I wish we had better choices for president. But I do not want Hillary Clinton to be our next president.

“While I respect that voters chose him as the GOP nominee, I have never hesitated to oppose his policies I disagree with,” he added of Trump. “And I have consistently rejected his offensive rhetoric and behavior.”

Rubio did not specifically address in his statement the tape in which Trump bragged about assaulting women. The senator’s only remark on its content was a tweet late on Friday, in which he said Trump’s comments were “vulgar, egregious [and] impossible to justify”.

The senator was trounced by his former rival by 20 points in the Florida primary, and needs Trump’s base of support to be re-elected in his home state next month.

His statement came shortly after Ted Cruz, another 2016 contender expected to seek the presidency again, also reaffirmed his support for Trump.

“I am supporting the Republican nominee because I think Hillary Clinton is an absolute disaster,” Cruz said in an interview with a local Texas station.

“Now my differences with Donald, I have articulated at great length during the campaign,” he added. “This is an election unlike any other but I’ll tell you, Hillary Clinton, I think, is manifestly unfit to be president.”

Trump attacked Ryan with his first tweet this morning, writing: “Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when Paul Ryan and others give zero support!” and then continuing “our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty”.

Polls conducted using more rigorous methodology – rather than the self-selecting online polls Trump has highlighted – have ruled that Clinton “won” the second debate on Sunday night.

Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) Politico poll too finds Hillary won the debate.



Politico - Clinton 42 / Trump 28

CNN - Clinton 57 / Trump 24

YouGov - Clinton 47 / Trump 42

Trump then boasted that “the shackles have been taken off me” before attacking fellow Republicans for perceived disloyalty.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don’t know how to win - I will teach them!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans!

A spokesperson for Ryan shrugged off the comments, saying in a statement: “Paul Ryan is focusing the next month on defeating Democrats, and all Republicans running for office should probably do the same.”

However, Trump’s criticisms come at a time of growing schism between the nominee’s supporters and other Republicans. Trump supporters rallied outside the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Monday in protest against what they saw as the national party’s anti-Trump bias.

The protest was organized by the Trump campaign’s Virginia state chairman, who was fired for what the deputy campaign manager, David Bossie, called “a stunt in front of the RNC without the knowledge or the approval of the Trump campaign”. Meanwhile Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson bragged on Twitter on Monday about the number of people who were voting for Trump but not voting for Republican candidates for the Senate and the House.

Earlier this year, while the primary process was still taking place, Trump renounced a pledge he had made to support the GOP nominee whoever he or she was because “I have been treated very unfairly”.

Before his 2016 run for the White House, Trump, who most recently registered as a Republican in April 2012, had donated to a number of Democratic politicians and flirted with a third-party campaign for the presidency in 2000.