Donald Trump has responded with his usual vitriol to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, slamming the former Massachusetts governor’s "failed" candidacy. Romney urged his fellow Republicans to actively "divide the electorate" during a speech centered on Trump’s dangers to the GOP early Thursday morning, the Associated Press reports. "His is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader," said Romney, calling Trump a "phony" who is simply "playing" the general public. Trump, of course, sees things a bit differently.
"When Mitt started raising his head a few months ago, I was very strong," Trump told a campaign rally audience in Maine on Thursday afternoon. "I said, Mitt Romney should not run. He's a choke artist." According to Trump, however, Romney didn’t back away from another presidential campaign solely due to his desire to give others a shot. "I’ll tell you the real reason he chickened out," Trump said in his signature fourth-grade-reading-level tone. "It was me. I know this from people close to him."
In fact, Trump argues, Romney practically begged for his endorsement back in 2012. "You can see how loyal he is," Trump said. "He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, 'Mitt, drop to your knees.' He would have dropped to his knees. He was begging." Coming to Romney's defense, AP reports that fellow Republican (and 2008 GOP nominee) John McCain expressed the party's concerns regarding "Trump's uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues."
Speaking of endorsements, Trump recently scored yet another co-sign from former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and active white supremacist David Duke. "Voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage," Duke told listeners of his radio program, according to BuzzFeed News. After briefly refusing to outright condemn Duke and related KKK rhetoric, Trump later blamed that hesitance on a "very bad earpiece." Trump's oldest son, Donald Trump. Jr, then granted an interview to a separate white supremacist radio program before later alleging to Bloomberg that the interview was deceptively conducted without his knowledge.
