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Trump Attacks Key Republican for Abandoning Him, Concedes Campaign Faltering

by Ken Bredemeier

   U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday
   at the party's top elected official for abandoning his campaign, while
   acknowledging that his run for the White House is struggling.

   Trump, in a posting on his Twitter account, attacked House of
   Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan as a "very weak and ineffective
   leader" after Ryan told other Republicans Monday he would no longer
   campaign for Trump or defend his offensive comments that have turned
   voters against the brash real estate mogul.

   With Ryan's retreat, Trump said, "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 said Democrats "have always proven to be far more loyal to each
   other than the Republicans!"

   Ryan, while still endorsing Trump, all but conceded that Democrat
   Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump in the November 8 election. Ryan
   said he would campaign for Republican colleagues, to try to maintain
   the Republican House majority, rather than see a Democratic takeover
   giving Clinton a "blank check" for legislative action.

   FILE - Paul Ryan.

   In one tweet, Trump said he won Sunday's second debate with Clinton, a
   former U.S. secretary of state, but said,"It is hard to do well when
   Paul Ryan and others give zero support!"

   In another, he said, "Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan,
   had a conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty."
   Some conservative House members supporting Trump protested Ryan's
   abandonment of the Republican standard bearer, saying there was no
   reason to quit on him four weeks from Election Day.

   Numerous Republican elected officials, including the party's 2008
   presidential candidate, Arizona Senator John McCain, have retracted
   their support for Trump in recent days or implored him to drop out of
   the race after a 2005 tape surfaced last week in which Trump made crude
   comments about women and bragged that he could grope them with impunity
   because he was a celebrity. Trump says there is "zero chance" he will
   quit.

   Trump, making his first run for elected office, has apologized for the
   lewd remarks made to a television personality on a live mic while
   riding on a bus on a Hollywood back lot as he prepared to make a cameo
   appearance on a television soap opera. At Sunday's debate, he described
   them as "locker room talk."

   WATCH: Trump Apologizes for Lewd Comments About Women

   Trump was losing ground to Clinton, looking to become the country's
   first female president, before the existence of the tape was disclosed
   by The Washington Post. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted
   after the tape was unearthed showed her surging to a 46-to-35 percent
   advantage. Other polling that encompassed the days before and after the
   tape was aired widely on U.S. news shows also showed Clinton gaining
   ground nationally and in battleground election states where the
   Trump-Clinton race will be determined.

   Trump acknowledged his uphill fight in a campaign appearance late
   Monday in the eastern state of Pennsylvania, one of the key states
   where he is trailing but likely must overcome Clinton's edge to have a
   chance yet to win the election.

   "I may be limping across that finish line, but we're going to get
   across," Trump told supporters.

   He vowed to make six campaign stops a day in the last week of the
   campaign to try to overtake Clinton, the wife of former President Bill
   Clinton.

   Trump said that if more damaging tapes emerge from the many years
   during which he regularly discussed his sexual exploits on radio shows,
   then he would continue "to talk about Bill and Hillary doing
   inappropriate things."

   At Sunday's debate, he said Hillary Clinton "viciously" disparaged
   women who alleged that her husband had made unwanted sexual advances on
   them in a series of encounters two decades ago. Trump positioned three
   of the women in front row seats to watch the debate.

   Watch video report from VOA's Jim Malone.

   Clinton, campaigning in the large midwestern state of Ohio, mocked
   Trump's one-time career as the host of a television reality show while
   she served as the country's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013 and his
   claim that she has nothing to show for 30 years in American public
   life.

   "On the day that I was in the Situation Room watching the raid that
   brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting 'Celebrity
   Apprentice,'" she said. "So if you want to talk about what we've been
   doing the last 30 years: Bring. It. On."