Mitt Romney tells Donald Trump voters they’re ‘suckers’

(Photo: Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

Donald Trump has run an unapologetically coarse, give-the-elites-the-finger presidential campaign, ruthlessly mocking his rivals, attacking Latinos and Muslims, trampling long-held conservative ideas and bluntly dismissing the Republican establishment. The tinsel-haired showman has promised delighted supporters that he will take on the politicians who have betrayed them and lead Americans to victory over the global forces that have crushed their hopes of living the American dream.

On Thursday, twice-failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney — the living, breathing, immaculately coiffed human embodiment of the same Republican establishment that Trump publicly reviles and of the economic currents that he exploits but claims to despise — tried to convince the reality star’s supporters that they are “suckers” being taken in by a dangerous con man.

“Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,” the millionaire investor told a friendly audience at the Hinckley Institute of Politics in Salt Lake City. “He’s playing the American people for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.”

Romney, who was referring to the red baseball caps bearing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, did not endorse any individual Republican candidate for president in 2016 and sharply attacked Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton as unfit for office. The result was a campaign-style speech that the former Massachusetts governor might have given had he run.

It was a litany of attacks, personal and policy-based, reaching as far back as the failure of vanity projects like Trump Vodka and as close as Trump’s ugly tangle with Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly.

Romney notably led an all-out attack on what is arguably Trump’s biggest strength: his reputation as a savvy and hugely successful businessman. But what about Trump Airlines? Trump University? Trump Mortgage? Trump Vodka?

“A business genius, he is not,” the former Massachusetts governor said.

And Romney previewed what strategists in both parties have suggested could be the best line of attack against Trump: that his missteps cost others dearly.

“His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them,” he said.

Romney repeatedly returned to sharp assaults on Trump’s temperament and his judgment.

“Donald Trump says he admires Vladimir Putin; at the same time, he’s called George W. Bush a liar,” Romney said. “That is a twisted example of evil trumping good.”


Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney criticizes current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the state of the 2016 campaign during a speech at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Thursday.

Romney’s broadside came as part of an escalating and increasingly desperate-feeling GOP establishment attack on Trump, whose Super Tuesday romp left him the party’s 2016 frontrunner. The effort includes ramped-up efforts by the anti-Trump Our Principles super-PAC.

It’s not clear whether any of this will work. It’s late in the cycle. Trump voters seem to regard even accurate media coverage as an illegitimate attack on their guy. And his opponents have yet to catch fire with Republican primary voters or do much to take down Trump, who has also shrugged off campaign trail criticisms from former President George W. Bush. Meanwhile, in Washington, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has scolded Trump for failing to denounce the KKK sufficiently loudly — and drew a threat in response.


By Olivier Knox.
Culled from Yahoo News.