Speaker of the House Paul Ryan spoke at an event in Wisconsin on Saturday in which he did not renounce his support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Ryan’s continued decision to stick with Trump, which came less than 24 hours after the release of a 2005 video tape in which the GOP nominee can be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women, stands in contrast to the position of several members of his party who on Saturday either called on Trump to step down or at least took back their support.
“There is a bit of an elephant in the room,” said Ryan, who represents Racine County in Congress and backs Donald Trump for president. “It is a troubling situation. I’m serious, it is. I put out a statement about this last night. I meant what I said, and it’s still how I feel.”
“But that is not what we are hear to talk about today,” continued Ryan, who on Friday issued the aforementioned statement saying he was “sickened” by the behavior of the man he is continuing to support in his bid for president.
“You know what we do here at Fall Fest? We talk about our ideas,” added Ryan, one of whose ideas is that Donald Trump should be president.
“We talk about our solutions. We talk about our conservative principles,” said Ryan, whose solution to what ails America is for Donald Trump to be the most powerful man in the world.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Ryan was booed and heckled throughout his seven-minute speech for his lukewarm, though apparently unwavering, support of Trump. The Republican nominee had been disinvited from the event, at which Ryan never mentioned the name of the man who he thinks—as of Saturday—should be the next president of the United States of America.
“We promote our candidates right here in Wisconsin that are fighting for us, candidates like our Sen. Ron Johnson,” said Ryan, who has explicitly promoted Donald Trump for president.
“You know what matters in elections is, are we giving people real choices?” added Ryan, whose choice for the White House is still Donald Trump.
Despite Ryan’s decision to stand by Trump—a man who is alleged to have groped a woman in precisely the way described in the leaked video—in his candidacy for the country’s highest office, the attendees of the Wisconsin rally still felt as if it wasn’t enough. According to the Journal Sentinel, Ryan left the stage to shouts of “Shame on you!” and a smattering of boos, and throughout was interrupted by crowd members yelling “Donald Trump,” who is someone Ryan plans to vote for on Nov. 8.
“Hillary is laughing at Paul Ryan right now. Laughing at him,” said one of Ryan’s fellow Donald Trump supporters. “But what do we know, we’re just conspiracy theorists. We’re just tin-foil hat wearers.”
