Paul Ryan said there would be a point that he would unendorse Donald Trump. | Getty Ryan: Trump endorsement not irreversible He wouldn't speculate on what his breaking point might be.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Friday that “of course” there is a point at which he could rescind his endorsement of Donald Trump, but stopped short of saying where that yet-uncrossed line is.

Ryan has thus far stuck by his endorsement of Trump, even as he has repeatedly criticized the nominee, including after Trump's war of words with Gold Star parents who criticized him at the Democratic National Convention and his refusal to endorse the House speaker in his upcoming primary. But Ryan also said that his endorsements are never a “blank check,” leaving open the possibility that the Wisconsin Republican could pull his stamp of approval from Trump’s campaign.


“With any endorsement of anybody, there’s never a blank check, and you know that and that’s how I’ve always felt,” Ryan said in an interview with host Charlie Sykes on Milwaukee’s WTMJ radio. “I see no purpose in doing this tit-for-tat, petty back-and-forth with Donald Trump, because it serves no good purpose in my mind.”

Ryan said he had not spoken with Trump since the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month and has no current plans to do so.

Asked by Sykes what it would take for him to pull his endorsement, Ryan said he would not deal in hypotheticals, nor would he “go down the road of litigating past comments.” Instead, the speaker reiterated the pledge he made when he officially endorsed Trump, that he would always speak up when serious differences arose between them.

“I did say very clearly, privately and publicly, that if I hear things that I think distort conservatism, that disfigure our principles and our values as Republicans, I’m going to speak out and defend ourselves so that people in this country don’t get a mixed perception about who we are and what we believe in,” Ryan said. “And I’ve had to do that from time to time, more than I certainly wanted to, like attacking Gold Star parents. So obviously, I’ve done that and I’m going to continue to do that if necessary. Where that line gets crossed, I don’t know where that is, if that is.”