Donald Trump again criticized Paul Ryan today, complaining that “there’s a whole sinister deal going on” and specifically faulting Ryan for not calling him up to congratulate him on winning the debate. (He didn’t win the debate, by the way.)

I don’t think either Paul Ryan or Donald Trump has been handling their relationship well this week.

I don’t fault the Speaker for placing a higher priority on congressional elections than on the presidential election–that’s the right call for him and for most Republicans. As I wrote here yesterday, Republicans should direct their time and money toward helping congressional Republicans and those congressional Republicans should start arguing that voters need them in D.C. as a check on Hillary Clinton. But Ryan did not need to say what he said in a conference call with Republican congressmen–that he wouldn’t appear with or defend Trump, and that congressional Republicans should feel free to rescind their endorsements–for those things to happen. He could have just gone forward without defending or appearing with Trump. And it’s not as though congressional Republicans were previously feeling pressure from Ryan to support Trump. At the very least, Ryan could have minimized the newsworthiness of what he was saying: by, for example, noting that he had already made a practice of talking about his own agenda rather than defending Trump, or noting that he had always maintained that whether to support him was a matter for each congressman to decide on his own.

Given that Ryan said what he said, it would seem to be in Trump’s interest to minimize it as well–to say that he appreciates Ryan’s support and can defend himself just fine–or, at least, not to do more to elevate and prolong the news story of an intra-Republican war. But either Trump thinks that blasting Ryan will boost his campaign, or he can’t help himself.

P.S. Also, it’s pathetic for Trump to complain about not getting a congratulatory call from Ryan.