Later on Tuesday afternoon, Mark Kirk became the first Republican senator to withdraw his previous support for Trump as the Republican nominee. “The Caligulan malice with which Donald Trump administered Paul Ryan’s degradation is an object lesson in the price of abject capitulation to power,” he wrote. Kirk told reporters that instead he would cast a write-in vote for the retired Gen David Petraeus in November. But questions inevitably focused on Trump, to the irritation of Ryan’s press secretary, AshLee Strong, who tweeted: “Way to go reporters: first question at a poverty forum: Trump. Meanwhile Jeff Flake, who has yet to endorse Trump, suggested that the presumptive nominee should still be challenged at the Republican convention in Cleveland next month.

Source: The Guardian June 07, 2016 19:18 UTC