ImageAFPImagePaul Ryan said he would no longer defend Donald Trump
Republican nominee Donald Trump has ripped into House Speaker Paul Ryan as a "weak and ineffective" leader.
Mr Trump unleashed an attack on Mr Ryan after the highest-ranking Republican said he would not defend the candidate.
Mr Ryan is the latest Republican not to back Mr Trump after a 2005 video emerged showing him making obscene comments about groping women.
Renewed party divisions over Mr Trump come as a new poll shows him 11 points behind his rival Hillary Clinton.
The PRRI/Atlantic poll released two days after the second US presidential debate suggested Mrs Clinton holds a 49-38 lead over her opponent.
A video released on Friday revealed Mr Trump describing how he had sought to have sex with a married woman and making other sexually aggressive comments about women.
The controversy prompted dozens of Republican lawmakers to rescind their support for Mr Trump less than a month before election day.
On Monday, Mr Ryan told fellow House Republicans he would focus on congressional elections to ensure Republicans could maintain legislative control.
Mr Trump fired back in a string of tweets, saying the "shackles" had been removed, allowing him to "fight for America the way I want to".
He also attacked Senator John McCain, who has denounced Trump's conduct and faces a close re-election battle, as "foul-mouthed"
Though the latest revelation underscores a widening divide within the Republican Party, some members insist they are sticking by Mr Trump.
A campaign unmoored - Anthony Zurcher, BBC News
Donald Trump isn't going gently into that good night.
If the Republican Party, led by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, follows through with its promise to abandon his campaign in hopes of preserving its congressional majority, he appears willing to burn it to the ground and salt the earth.
That was the takeaway from the Republican standard-bearer's unprecedented Tuesday morning Twitter storm. Reportedly delivered from the confines of his eponymous tower in New York, Mr Trump lashed out at a party establishment that never really wanted him as its nominee and only grudgingly backed him in the hopes that he was a force they could control.
That was a misguided belief.
Mr Trump sees himself as bigger than the party whose primary voters he courted, and now he will open fire on perceived enemies who surround him. Democrat Hillary Clinton, in a new television advert, lacks the "stamina" to lead. Mr Ryan, he tweeted, is "weak and ineffective".
Mr Trump, in his own words, is "unshackled" at last. In 2008 Republicans fretted that their vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, had "gone rogue" and was woefully off-message. Eight years later, an entire presidential campaign has become unmoored and is threatening to rage against the fabric of their party.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he was "really disturbed" by Mr Trump's comments about women on the leaked footage, but still planned to support the Republican nominee.
"It's completely indefensible and I won't defend it and haven't defended it," Governor Christie said. "That kind of talk and conversation even in private is just unacceptable."
"I'm really upset about what I heard but in the end this election is about bigger issues than that," he added.
Source;BBC
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