Republicans Run From Donald Trump's Orlando Response - NBC News

"WASHINGTON — Top Democrats, including President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, challenged Republican lawmakers on Tuesday to defend Donald Trump's response to the terrorist attack on Orlando Sunday morning that claimed 49 lives.



Few took up the call.



Instead, GOP lawmakers in Washington jumped, ducked and crawled through yet another obstacle course laid by Trump as reporters peppered them with questions about the candidate's proposed ban on Muslim travel, his suggestions that President Obama sympathizes with radical Islamists and should resign and his threat of "big consequences" for Muslim communities in America who he says are harboring terrorists.



"I'm not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said after receiving a question about Trump's accusations against the president.



House Speaker Paul Ryan, who lambasted Trump's Muslim ban when it was first proposed in December, said that he still disagreed with the candidate. Asked about Trump's repeated suggestion that "there's something going on" with Obama that prevents him from confronting terrorism, however, he drew the line.

"I am not going to spend my time commenting about the ups and downs and the in-betweens of comments," he said.



That was a popular reaction among Republicans, some of whom looked like they would rather be anywhere else doing anything but taking a question on Trump.

Jostling to get onto an elevator, Senator Pat Toomey, R-Penn., told reporters inquiring about Trump's Monday speech that he "didn't follow it closely."

Republicans Run From Donald Trump's Orlando Response - NBC News