PORTLAND, Maine -- Back on the defensive Thursday, Donald Trump's campaign chief acknowledged conflict inside the Trump camp as Republicans struggled to shift voters' attention to Hillary Clinton's record on foreign policy.

The dispute between the GOP's presidential nominee and House Speaker Paul Ryan continued to overshadow fresh attacks on Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and underscored rising concern from GOP leaders over Trump's unorthodox candidacy and its impact on the future of the Republican Party.

At the same time, President Barack Obama dismissed as "ridiculous" Trump's recent comment that if he loses the Nov. 8 election, it might be because the election was "rigged."

"My suggestion would be: Go out there and try to win the election," Obama said during a Thursday news conference.

Trump refused for another day to endorse Ryan for re-election in Wisconsin's primary next week, though Trump said the Republican speaker is "a good guy."

Ryan, meanwhile, publicly declared his support for Trump but said such endorsements aren't "blank checks," and he pledged to speak out against Trump's divisive positions if necessary. Most recently, that means Trump's sustained criticism of an American Muslim family whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq.

On a Wisconsin radio station, Ryan said of his public disagreement with Trump: "I don't like doing this. I don't want to do this, but I will do this because I feel I have to in order to defend Republicans and our principles, so that people don't make the mistake of thinking we think like that."

He made clear that he is deeply uncomfortable with Trump's performance since becoming the party nominee and that Trump's comments about the Khan family "were beyond the pale."

Trump has criticized Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son was killed by a suicide bomber on June 8, 2004.

Khizr Khan, with his wife standing beside him, spoke last week during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia against Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric. In Khan's speech, he questioned whether Trump has read the U.S. Constitution and, in remembering his late son, said of Trump: "You have sacrificed nothing."

Trump disputed their right to question his grasp of the Constitution and said he has "made a lot of sacrifices." He stoked public anger over those comments by suggesting that the reason Ghazala Khan did not speak while standing beside her husband at the convention was because of their Muslim faith.

Ryan said, "You don't do that to Gold Star families," referring to families that have lost loved ones in military service.

"If anyone has earned the right to say whatever they want, it is Gold Star families," Ryan said.

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort insisted that Trump will work with Ryan if Trump is elected. He conceded that the endorsement question has sparked tension inside Trump's New York campaign headquarters. The day before, Trump's vice presidential running mate Mike Pence broke with Trump and endorsed Ryan.

"There's a conflict within the Trump campaign," Manafort said on ABC's Good Morning America. As for Ryan's endorsement, he said, "We've sort of had a rule of not getting involved in primaries because it's usually not a good situation for the presidential candidate."

Manafort said Trump has discussed his endorsement decisions with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. Multiple people familiar with the events have described Priebus as "very frustrated" and disturbed by Trump's behavior over the past week.

"Reince Priebus is a strong supporter of Donald Trump and a good friend and supporter of Paul Ryan," Manafort said, stumbling over the pronunciation of Priebus' name. "And he's been a bridge between the party and the campaign since Mr. Trump became the presumptive nominee in April. They've spoken several times in the last two days -- they're very good friends, we're doing a lot of things together."

Facing Maine voters Thursday, Trump said he gave Pence permission to endorse Ryan.

"I say, 'Mike, you like him? Yes. Go ahead and do it, 100 percent,'" Trump recalled of his conversation the day before, interrupting his audience when they began to boo Ryan.

"Paul Ryan's a good guy, actually," Trump said.

Foreign-policy matters

Trump and his Republican allies lashed out Thursday at Clinton's foreign-policy record.

Specifically, they contended that Clinton was responsible for negotiations that led to a $400 million U.S. payment to Iran earlier in the year. Trump and some other Republicans have described the money as a ransom payment for the release of four Americans detained in Iran until days before the money was delivered.

"It's so sad, so disgusting," Trump said of the payment as he campaigned in Maine.

At a news conference Thursday, Obama strongly rejected the idea that the $400 million was ransom.

"This wasn't some nefarious deal," Obama said of the payment, which was part of a decades-old dispute over a failed military-equipment deal with Iran.

As Trump used the issue to assail Clinton, he faced new questions about his description Wednesday, and again Thursday, of video that he suggested was taken by Iranian forces removing bags of money from a plane.

It's unclear to what footage Trump was referring.

Several senior U.S. officials involved in the Iran negotiations said they weren't aware of any such video. Trump's campaign said the GOP nominee had not seen a tape as part of any security briefing.

In an email, a campaign spokesman said Trump was simply referring to video aired on television this week, although no such footage of payment to Iranians was shown.

Trump's missteps have caused widening ripples of anxiety among Republican officials with the election just three months away.

Concerned congressional Republicans are asking about Trump "hourly and daily," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a leading Trump emissary on Capitol Hill.

"What the heck's going on? Why aren't we focused here? ... Why are we caught up in these sideshows?" Hunter said, describing the questions raised by his colleagues.

Hunter said he's not concerned: "It is what it is. There's no reassuring. Trump is Trump."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Thursday dismissed reports that he was planning an "intervention" with top Trump allies, including Priebus and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to urge Trump to abandon tactics that have triggered sinking poll numbers and low campaign morale.

"I meet with Donald Trump all the time," Giuliani told the Fox Business Network, suggesting that Gingrich used the word "intervention" in a recent memo.

"He is a new candidate," Giuliani said of Trump. "That adds ... more of a learning curve than would normally be the case."

Pence, as Trump's pick for vice president, has the task of damage control, such as defending Trump over the weekend for his statements regarding the Khan family.

Pence caught some flak Thursday for his deviations from Trump's policy.

He was taken to task by 11-year-old Matthew Schricker, who asked Pence at a Raleigh, N.C., town-hall meeting why he's been "softening up on Mr. Trump's policies and words."

Apparently alluding to some comments by Trump, Pence said "sometimes things don't always come out like you mean."

Pence added that he and Trump "have different styles," which shouldn't be "confused with differences in conviction."

Pence and Trump first split noticeably last week, when Trump encouraged Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Clinton from the private servers she used while secretary of state.

At roughly the same time, Pence blasted Russia in a statement issued by the campaign that said "the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences" if Russia is "interfering in our elections."

Clinton, meanwhile, criticized Trump for his companies' outsourcing of the very jobs he's promising to create back home.

"Everything he's made he's made somewhere else," Clinton said as she toured a Las Vegas electrical contracting facility Thursday afternoon. "I've met people who were destroyed by Donald Trump, so take a look at what he's done, not what he says."

Clinton courts Republicans

A Clinton campaign push to win over prominent Republicans, who may be primed to support her, is accelerating in the wake of Trump's repeated missteps and continued intraparty contention, a campaign aide said.

Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, have been involved in reaching out to potential Republican recruits, as has Leslie Dach, a former Wal-Mart executive who held positions in the past two Democratic administrations and is involved in contacting business leaders.

The effort is in its early stages and not yet fully structured, but it now is drawing more resources from Clinton's staff, according to a campaign official who would discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity. The communications team has assigned staff members to monitor news accounts of Republicans who say they cannot support Trump or may support Clinton.

Some Republicans who've made the switch say they've been consulted for their views on how to make the outreach effective. The aide said the campaign expects to have a more formal operation up and running after Labor Day, when voters begin paying more attention to the general election race.

The prospects of a meaningful Republicans for Hillary movement have increased greatly in the past week as, in addition to refusing to endorse Ryan and criticizing the Khan family, Trump suggested that he might recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and tangled with a respected retired Marine Corps general.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman is so far the most prominent Republican to say she will back Clinton and help Clinton raise money. Whitman was the Republican nominee for California governor in 2010 and is a longtime party fundraiser who was finance co-chairman of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's bid for the presidential nomination earlier this year. She told The New York Times that Clinton had contacted her a month ago.

Sally Bradshaw, a former adviser to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; and former Christie aide Maria Comella also announced their support for Clinton this week, as did retiring U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna of upstate New York, who was the first Republican congressman to endorse Clinton.

"This is a real effort, and they have the resources and the manpower and determination to do it," said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist who opposes Trump but hasn't endorsed Clinton. "She has been given an enormous gift by Trump."

Priorities USA Action, the largest super political action committee backing Clinton, plans to raise and spend $200 million, largely on advertising.

Many of its ads target independents and Republicans, including one released Wednesday featuring clips of Republicans Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee; and U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who both sought the nomination this year, expressing concerns about Trump's fitness to serve as president.

Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples, Jill Colvin, Lisa Lerer and Brian Slodysko of The Associated Press; by Jennifer Epstein and Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News; and by Jenna Johnson and Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post.

A Section on 08/05/2016