Whoops Paul Manafort "Paul Ryan Will Be A Presidential Candidate Next Week" Is Trump Out?
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Published on Aug 4, 2016
Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, accidentally endorsed Paul Ryan for president on Thursday. "Look. I support the speaker and I know after next week, I'm supporting him as a candidate for president, too," Manafort said before quickly correcting himself. "So Donald Trump is getting out of the election and Paul Ryan is jumping in?"
Can panicked Republicans rid themselves of Trump? Here are 7 options.
Spoiler alert: None of those options are good.
Updated by Dara Lind on August 3, 2016, 1:50 p.m. ET @DLind dara@vox.com
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The head of the Republican National Committee is “apoplectic” with Donald Trump. Senior party officials are “frustrated — and confused — by Donald Trump’s erratic behavior.” Even Trump’s ally Newt Gingrich says that he’s being “very self-destructive.”
Republicans have good reason to be upset. Over the past week, their nominee for president has appeared to invite Russia to engage in espionage against his opponent; picked a fight with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a Muslim American soldier who was killed in Iraq; been rumored to have asked a foreign policy adviser multiple times in a single meeting why the US couldn’t use nuclear weapons; and pointedly refused to endorse Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain in their upcoming Republican primaries.
Republicans are used to being put on the defensive after Trump says or does something ridiculous. But it looks like he might have gone too far this week: Rumors are bubbling up that some Republicans are considering a mass defection from Trump, or even trying to get him out of the race entirely.
So what could Republicans panicking over Trump actually do at this point? Here’s the full menu of options left. Spoiler alert: None of them are terribly good.
1) Kick Trump off the ticket and find another candidate