Getty Breitbart posts October audio of Ryan disavowing Trump

Breitbart News posted audio Monday night of Paul Ryan's October conference call with Republican lawmakers in which the House speaker disavowed Donald Trump.

“I am not going to defend Donald Trump — not now, not in the future,” Ryan said, according to the recording. The conference call came on the heels of the airing of the "Access Hollywood" video of Trump bragging about his sexual exploits and grabbing women.


Ryan's conference call was widely reported at the time, though the audio adds a more vivid dimension to his break with Trump during the home stretch of the presidential campaign.

“The world is well aware of this history," Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck told Breitbart in response. “And obviously a lot has happened since then. As everyone knows.” He noted that Ryan campaigned with Mike Pence toward the end of the campaign.

It's unclear when Breitbart obtained the audio.

Though the president is known to value loyalty and remember who was or wasn't with him during the campaign, Trump and Ryan have mended fences since the election. The two are now working together to repeal and replace Obamacare. Breitbart has come out strongly against the House Republican bill and accused Ryan of misleading Trump about it.

In the audio, Ryan goes on to tell House Republicans that Trump's comments on the "Access Hollywood" video "are not anywhere in keeping with our party’s principles and values.”

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“There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your speaker," Ryan added. "I am not going to defend Donald Trump — not now, not in the future. As you probably heard, I disinvited him from my first congressional district GOP event this weekend — a thing I do every year. And I’m not going to be campaigning with him over the next 30 days.”

The speaker told members that they need to decide for themselves how to handle the situation, and that the "last thing" he wanted to do was see Hillary Clinton win the presidency.

Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was executive chairman of Breitbart prior to joining the White House.

