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IPFS News Link • Politics

Romney Tries to Slow Trump's March, Drawing Billionaire's Wrath

• http://www.bloomberg.com

Donald Trump took to the airwaves Thursday with a barrage of name-calling in response to news that the Republican Party's last presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, was trying to torpedo the billionaire real-estate developer's chances in this year's contest.

"Mitt Romney is a stiff," Trump said on NBC's "Today Show." "He got killed, he got decimated in the election."

The public bickering forced Republicans to choose sides between their past nominee and the leading candidate to be their next one. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Romney's 2012 running mate, came to Romney's defense Thursday, while maintaining that he would stay neutral.

"Mitt's one of our leaders, he's a principled conservative," Ryan said on Fox New's "Fox and Friends" show. "He's worried about the future of our party."

Romney planned a speech later Thursday in a bid to dislodge Trump from leading the party's presidential nominating race, branding the New York mogul as untrustworthy and saying he'd be a boon to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

"Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud," Romney planned to say at the University of Utah, according to a transcript provided to Bloomberg News by a person familiar with his remarks. "He's playing the American public for suckers."

The attempt by the party's last nominee to take down his presumptive successor is an unprecedented escalation in Republican infighting. The criticism marks the bluntest attempt so far by the Republican establishment to slow Trump's momentum after his victories on Tuesday in the single biggest day of voting in the Republican race.

Responding Thursday on MSNBC, Trump said Romney was "a disaster" who failed to inspire voters in 2012. "He was a catastrophe," Trump said on MSNBC. "He ran one of the worst campaigns, as you know, in presidential history."

Predicting Recession

Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is expected to make a case that Trump as U.S. president would damage the country at home and abroad.

"His domestic policies would lead to recession," Romney will say. "His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president."

As Clinton moves closer to becoming the Democratic nominee for November's presidential election, Romney planned to say that any decision to make Trump the Republican counterpart would bolster Clinton's chances of succeeding President Barack Obama.

"A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president," Romney is due to say. "But a Trump nomination enables her victory."

Trump planned to hold a campaign rally in Maine on Thursday afternoon before participating in a televised Republican candidate debate on Thursday night in Detroit, where Romney has roots as son of a former Michigan governor and auto executive.

Full Circle

It was only four years ago that Romney and his wife, Ann, traveled to Las Vegas to accept Trump's endorsement at a news conference where Romney praised Trump -- who had taken to questioning Obama's birthplace and eligibility -- for "an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works and to create jobs."

Trump didn't hesitate to point that out in a Twitter post Thursday: "Why did Mitt Romney BEG me for my endorsement four years ago?"

The 2012 endorsement threatens to undermine Romney's anti-Trump message today. Ryan said he wasn't "going to get into who endorsed who in 2012. If you're the nominee of the party you want everybody's endorsement. That's just how it works."

2 Comments in Response to

Comment by 63 Marine
Entered on:

Romney was a loser in 2012 and he is still a loser. All he is doing is flap his lips trying to gain points for himself. He needs to crawl back under the rock he came from and shut up....

Comment by 63 Marine
Entered on:

Romney was a loser in 2012 and he's still a loser. All he is doing is flapping his lips trying to gain points when all he is doing is to show that he is an idiot.