If Donald Trump is going down, he’s going down fighting. That’s the main takeaway not only from Sunday night’s debate with Hillary Clinton but also in his reaction to the wave of mainstream Republicans who are abandoning him in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape that came out last week. Trump is firing back at those Republicans who have decided to give up on his candidacy. While it’s not clear that there’s anything Trump can say to keep them in line the real point of these exchanges isn’t about what will happen on Election Day. Rather, these are the first shots being fired in the civil war that is looming between Trump and his supporters and mainstream Republicans and conservatives who are hoping to pick up the pieces of the GOP if the election proves to be a debacle for their party.

One of the focal points of Trump’s anger is House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump let loose with a sarcastic tweet at Ryan today after reports that he told fellow House Republicans he can’t defend the nominee’s behavior and to concentrate on ensuring that Hillary Clinton doesn’t enter the White House with a Democratic-controlled Congress. Trump wrote, “Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs, and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee.” A day earlier, Trump had tweeted that “self-righteous hypocrites” who disavowed him would be defeated at the ballot box and sent his surrogates instructions to attack such Republicans for being “more concerned with their political future than they are about the country.” Trump’s mention of “country” was, of course, synonymous with his personal political future.