The Hill reports: Speaker Paul Ryan’s handling of Donald Trump is coming under criticism from Senate Republicans, many of whom prefer the way their leader, Mitch McConnell, deals with the unconventional candidate.

McConnell, the Senate majority leader from Kentucky, has steadfastly declined to call Trump’s criticism of a federal judge “racist,” a term that Ryan pointedly deployed.

“It sets up journalists to ask, ‘Do you agree with Paul Ryan that it was racist?” said an aide to a vulnerable GOP senator
Trump set off a firestorm last week by claiming that a Mexican-American federal judge handling a lawsuit against Trump University was biased because of his heritage.

Republican lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol swiftly expressed strong disapproval but Ryan ratcheted up the criticism significantly by calling it “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

Ryan’s remarks quickly became a Democratic talking point used to batter vulnerable Senate Republican incumbents. [Continue reading…]