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Donald Trump frees himself from 'shackles' in morning tweetstorm

A day after House Speaker Paul Ryan told Republican members of Congress he would no longer defend or campaign for Donald Trump, the Republican nominee turned to his favorite form of counterpunching — Twitter — to denounce Ryan as “weak” and “ineffective.” Trump’s Tuesday-morning tweetstorm comes as he copes with the political fallout from the release of an 11-year-old tape that records him bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy” regardless of whether they consented.

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Dozens of Republican lawmakers have since declared they will not vote for their party’s nominee. Trump managed to stop the stream of turncoats with his debate performance Sunday evening but has taken the defection as a license to attack Democrat Hillary Clinton without restraint. On Sunday night, he said Clinton would be in jail if he were president and echoed chants from a crowd in Pennsylvania on Monday night, saying, “Yeah, ‘Lock her up’ is right.”

Two weeks ago, Trump’s campaign withdrew the candidate’s tweeted invitation to Gennifer Flowers — a former mistress of Bill Clinton — to attend the first presidential debate. But on Sunday night, Trump invited several women who have accused the former president of sexual impropriety and gave them seats at the second presidential debate. His campaign also tried to orchestrate a face-to-face confrontation inside the debate hall with President.

More brutal tactics like this are likely coming in the final weeks of the campaign as Trump tweeted that the “shackles” have come off. Ryan’s “disloyalty,” as Trump called it, has clearly irritated him, but it also allows him to campaign “the way I want to,” he tweeted. Get ready for Trump unleashed.

Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when Paul Ryan and others give zero support!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2016