Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on Saturday expressed his confidence in the US electoral system, an implicit rebuke to his party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
“Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” said Ashlee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan.
Trump, whose poll numbers have dropped in recent weeks, has repeatedly suggested that the election is “rigged.” The statement from Ryan’s office did not refer to Trump by name. Ryan earned the GOP nominee’s enmity earlier this week when he said he would no longer defend Trump.
“Remember this, it’s a rigged election because you have phony people coming up with phony allegations with no witnesses whatsoever,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her (Clinton) president.”
