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In Longshot Primary Bid, Challenger Hits Paul Ryan On Trade, Immigration

Paul Nehlen Seeks To Unseat House Speaker In 1st Congressional District Race

By
Chuck Quirmbach/WPR

An outspoken business executive from Delavan is challenging U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan in Tuesday’s Republican primary for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District seat, which stretches from Janesville to Racine.

Ryann picked up a belated endorsement from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday at a rally in Green Bay after Trump praised Nehlen and refused to endorse Ryan earlier in the week, much to the annoyance of Republican party leaders. Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, endorsed Ryan on Wednesday.

Despite Trump’s and Pence’s public endorsements of Ryan, Nehlen continued to campaign over the weekend and insists he has a chance at winning the primary.

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“Donald Trump was not endorsing Paul Ryan’s policies,” Nehlen said at a rally Saturday in Janesville. “He was merely trying to bring some party unity and take the focus off all the fighting that’s going on right now.”

Nehlen has been hammering Ryan from the right, as well as on some issues that are traditionally associated with the left, like opposition to free trade agreements. But Nehlen has been especially critical of Ryan on the issue of illegal immigration, which he says Ryan hasn’t done enough to stop.

“Pence endorsed his friend,” Nehlen said. “I doubt very much that he endorsed his open borders policy or his policy of Americans being killed by murderous illegal aliens.”

The anti-immigration theme continued at the Janesville rally where the featured speaker was conservative pundit Ann Coulter. Coulter was introduced by the emcee as “one of the most intelligent women in the United States of America and — my wife said I could say this — she’s also incredibly attractive.” Coulter took the stage to add to the criticism of Ryan, contending the House speaker’s brand of Republicanism is bad for the U.S.

“When Paul Ryan and the Paul Ryan Republicans win an election, you don’t win,” Coulter said. “We don’t win. Your job still gets outsourced. There’s still foreigners coming in and taking … your job. Your kids are still blocked out of college by affirmative action for immigrants.”

Ryan appears well ahead in the polls for the 1st Congressional District primary. He hasn’t debated Nehlen, hasn’t been inviting Wisconsin news media to many recent campaign events and has largely stuck to running TV ads and appearing on radio talk shows.

Last Friday on the Milwaukee radio station WTMJ, Ryan said he supports strengthening border security.

“We added more than 1,000 border patrol agents to the border,” Ryan said. “As you know, I was a big supporter of (Wisconsin U.S. Rep. James) Sensenbrenner’s illegal immigration legislation, including the fence. I’m not for an open border.”

Ryan also blasted Nehlen’s idea to “have a discussion” about deporting all Muslims from the U.S., calling the challenger’s words “dark, grim and indefensible.”

Nehlen has claimed the major international trade deals Ryan has supported are bad for the U.S.

“Paul Ryan thinks that’s his job. It’s his job to work on behalf of foreigners, before Americans,” Nehlen said.

But Ryan has been ramping up his criticism of a current trade proposal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Last week, Ryan said that he doesn’t plan to vote on the deal during this fall’s lame-duck session of Congress.

“We don’t have the votes, so as long as (we) don’t have the votes, I see no point in bringing up an agreement, only to defeat it,” Ryan said.

Voters in the southern Wisconsin district will get a chance to weigh in on those issues on Aug. 9.