Wisconsin GOP Kicks Out Paul Ryan’s Challenger From Trump Rally
Wisconsin GOP Kicks Out Paul Ryan’s Challenger From Trump Rally
SCOTT GREER
Deputy Editor
1:52 AM 08/06/2016ar
Paul Nehlen, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Republican primary challenger, was ejected by Wisconsin GOP staffers from a Donald Trump rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin Friday night.
Nehlen was able to enter the premises of the rally before being urged to leave by individuals affiliated with the state party organization, according to his campaign. A Nehlen spokesman told The Daily Caller the Trump campaign had reached out and invited the congressional candidate to attend the rally earlier Friday.
Trump went on to endorse Speaker Ryan at the rally, as well as Arizona Sen. John McCain and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte in their respective primaries. The move is seen as a reversal from Trump’s comments Tuesday in which he praised Nehlen and refused to endorse Ryan in the Wisconsin congressional primary.
While Nehlen was not allowed to remain at the event, Ryan had made it known he would not be attending the Green Bay rally earlier in the week. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson — who’s currently in a bitter general election — also did not attend the event with Trump.
Nehlen issued a statement to The Daily Caller late Friday on his ejection from the rally, which he blames on Ryan’s campaign and Wisconsin GOP leaders.
Today I was extended an invitation by the Donald Trump campaign to join his team in the VIP room prior to Mr. Trump’s rally. I accepted the campaign’s invitation and drove to Green Bay.
Just like any member of the public invited to the Trump rally, I also had a ticket I registered for online which granted me access to the rally.
I was happy to attend the rally, even in the face of reports that Mr. Trump would endorse Speaker Ryan, because I believe Mr. Trump understands that we must have all hands on deck in order to roll back 8 years of Barack Obama and prevent Hillary from continuing his legacy.
Sadly, it quickly became apparent that Speaker Ryan and the Wisconsin GOP are not the least bit interested in party unity, or, it seems, defeating Hillary Clinton, but rather, are focused on maintaining their iron-grip on power for power’s sake.
To that point, Speaker Ryan and Wisconsin GOP leaders loudly refused to attend Mr. Trump’s rally!
Upon arriving at the rally, my team and I were intercepted by a phalanx of Wisconsin GOP staffers working on behalf of Speaker Ryan and Reince Priebus.
I made it through security when one of the GOP phalanx wearing loafers and a blazer chased me down and informed the police that I was not allowed into the rally.
The GOP staffer then escorted me back outside the security perimeter to the lobby, where another Republican staffer told me and the officers I was to wait for one of their fellow GOP staffers to come and tell me what was going on.
It quickly became clear they were never going to send another staffer to tell me what was going on.
The obvious reality was that they just didn’t want Speaker Ryan’s challenger to be seen in the building supporting Mr. Trump.
I was then told by the staffers that I was going to have to exit the building.
My takeaway from this experience was this: The Wisconsin GOP is petrified.
They are petrified that 83 percent of the vote in the presidential primary went to the two outsider candidates. They’re petrified that the people in Wisconsin have had enough of their corruption and cronyism – of the GOP selling Wisconsin’s future across the Pacific.
Paul Ryan and his Wisconsin GOP henchmen don’t want the good people of Wisconsin to know they have a choice in the primary in Wisconsin’s first Congressional District, and they will do anything to hold onto their levers of power so they can continue to enrich themselves and their donor-class friends by shipping Wisconsin’s jobs overseas and inviting a constant stream of low-paid labor across the border.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/06/wi...m-trump-rally/
Despite Claim, Trump Campaign Says It Barred Ryan Challenger From Rally
AUG 6 2016, 8:46 PM ET
by ALEXANDRA JAFFE
GREEN BAY, Wisc. — Donald Trump's campaign said Friday it barred House Speaker Paul Ryan's primary challenger Paul Nehlen from entering the candidate's Wisconsin rally because the candidate didn't show a ticket, refuting Nehlen's charges that the Wisconsin Republican Party was working to keep him away.
It's another setback for Nehlen's long-shot bid, which briefly gained some momentum this week when Trump praised his campaign while refusing to endorse Ryan in an interview with the Washington Post.
But by Friday, the latest spat between Trump and Ryan seemed to be over — and Ryan headed toward an easy primary win — when Trump endorsed the Speaker at a Green Bay rally.
Nehlen tried to attend the rally as a spectator, but told reporters after a Saturday-afternoon rally in Kenosha, that he was barred entry by the state party in an attempt to keep him out of the public eye.
"The Wisconsin GOP is doing everything they can to keep my name out of anywhere. They don't want their own constituents to know that, that there's an option out there. They want Speaker Ryan to be the only game in town. That's how the Wisconsin machine works," Nehlen told NBC News in an interview.
But a Wisconsin GOP staffer pushed back Nehlen's comments, telling NBC News that the Wisconsin GOP staff at the rally were acting as volunteers, and only the Trump campaign had the discretion to decide who to bar from entering the rally. And Trump Campaign Communications Director Jason Miller said that it was the campaign's decision to turn Nehlen away from the Green Bay rally.
"A Trump campaign representative was the person who turned away Mr. Nehlen, because he didn't have a ticket for the event. I'm looking into the matter further. Our events are always open to the public if you're a ticketed attendee," Miller said in an interview.
In response, the Nehlen campaign produced copies of two tickets to the Green Bay rally they say they tried to use to get in to the event. Asked about the tickets, the Trump campaign reiterated that no ticket was presented at the door, without clearing up the discrepancy between the two.
It's another odd twist to a race that's gained outsized media coverage in the wake of Trump's brief, and ultimately inconsequential, foray into the primary. Nehlen's framed himself as the anti-establishment, populist alternative to Ryan, in the same vein as Trump, but with Trump endorsing Ryan Friday that argument lost much of its resonance heading into the final days before the primary.
Nehlen has insisted the endorsement was meaningless and that it doesn't reflect agreement with Ryan's policies, only a show of leadership by Trump in attempting to unify the party. He's instead focused his ire on the Wisconsin GOP, looking to gin up anti-establishment fervor behind his campaign by routinely charging the state party has meddled in the primary on Ryan's behalf.
But with surveys out this past week showing Ryan leading Nehlen by a huge double-digit margin and enjoying strong popularity in his district, the Green Bay rally incident may simply be a small controversy on the way to a resounding Tuesday win for Ryan
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016...-rally-n624561