C-SPANIn a blistering speech this morning, Mitt Romney, the Republican party’s 2012 presidential nominee, attacked Donald Trump-currently the frontrunner to win the nomination in 2016-as a “fraud”, a “phony”, and a poor businessman who lacks both the qualifications and character to be the GOP’s presidential nominee.
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“If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospect for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished”, he said, adding the country will sink into a deep prolonged recession, ballooning the deficit and national debt.
Romney called Trump a childlish liar who would hurt the Republican brand and help Democrat Hillary Clinton become president.
“If you’re Trump, this is like getting the good kind of Kryptonite”, Republican strategist Doug Heye said. Pundits point out that the former presidential candidate represents the Republican establishment Trump’s “self-funded candidate” speeches and populist rhetoric have played so well against.
“Given the current delegate selection process, this means that I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in OH and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state”, Mr. Romney said.
Additionally, Romney released excerpts from his remarks prior to the speech, undercutting the surprise factor that has so successfully captivated headlines in Trump’s hands. But on Thursday, Romney did everything in his power to evict the Donald from the GOP tent, going so far as to suggest that Trump should be denied the nomination, even if he enters the convention with a plurality of delegates. “No, he isn’t”, Romney said. But as top Republicans increasingly lose hope that anyone can beat Trump outright, the remaining scenarios for stopping him are necessarily fanciful and unprecedented. And as the former GOP nominee spoke in Utah, his 2012 running mate, House Speaker Paul Ryan, charged during a Capitol Hill press conference that “conservatism is being disfigured” by some of Trump’s ideas and statements.
Romney instead said Republicans should back any one of that trio, raising the possibility that anti-Trump voters will continue to split their votes. It’s not just the fact that Trump businesses went bankrupt; the issue is that he has walked out on several businesses and ventures that weren’t going his way.
Trump was very much the elephant in the room at the outset of this year’s edition of CPAC, a massive annual gathering of conservative activists, media, and politicians outside of Washington. He was unwilling to endorse one of Trump’s rivals and encourage the party to rally around either Texas Sen.
In a normal race, a person like Romney would be giving a speech urging other Republicans to fall in line behind the person who has won two thirds of the primaries and is the presumptive nominee.
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“I actually watched it live, I was sitting in my office watching it live, and I just laughed out loud”. “Mitt Romney is a stiff”, he said, in his trademark name-calling style.
