THE WEEKLY STANDARD's online editor Mike Warren said Wednesday that Donald Trump is refusing to endorse House speaker Paul Ryan and Arizona senator John McCain in order to provoke his fellow Republicans and manipulate the Republican party's power dynamic.

"[Trump is] ultimately trying to send a message that, look, nobody in this party owns me. I have no loyalty to the party," Warren said during an appearance on CNN. "He doesn't really have any reason to be loyal to the Republican party, except for the fact they gave him his nomination."

The notion that Trump is refusing to endorse Ryan and McCain out of "some convention of political decorum," he said, was "ludicrous," given the businessman's tendency to provoke.

Warren said that it is in Trump's interest to endorse Ryan, since the Wisconsin congressman would keep the House "in Republican hands."

"[Paul Nehlen is] not going to be House Speaker, I'll tell you that," he said. Nehlen is challenging Ryan in this year's Wisconsin primary.

A question that remains, Warren said, is why top Republican lawmakers are holding fast to their endorsement of Trump.

"Why do these other republicans, John McCain, Paul Ryan, others who have supported him that Trump continues to denigrate or slough off, continue to support him as well?" he said. "It makes no sense from their perspective. What are they getting out of it?"

Trump told the Washington Post Tuesday that he was "not quite there yet," on endorsing Ryan. His comment mirrored the phrasing Ryan used during his weeks-long hesitation to endorse the businessman.

Trump also tweeted at Ryan's primary opponent Monday, thanking him for his "kind words."

McCain has criticized Trump in recent days for his attacks on the parents of a Muslim-American soldier who was killed in Iraq in 2004. Khizr Khan and his wife appeared at the Democratic National Convention and denounced the businessman's immigration platform.