In her new bestselling history of the conservative-populist movement, Fox News primetime host Laura Ingraham declares Willard “Mitt” Romney’s 2016 speech against Donald Trump “one of the most scathing and controversial speeches in modern presidential politics.”
As Ingraham explains in Billionaire at the Barricade: The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump, Mitt Romney’s March 3, 2016, address at the University of Utah was “unprecedented in its viciousness; never had a party’s previous presidential nominee gone after his party’s leading presidential contender so aggressively and personally.”
Ingraham then offers a blow-by-blow recounting of Romney’s anti-Trump screed:
Romney called Trump dumb: “Donald Trump tells us that he is very, very smart. I’m afraid that when it comes to foreign policy his is very, very not smart.”
Romney called Trump a business idiot: “His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create it. And what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage? A business genius he is not.”
Romney called Trump a hater of women: “Think of Donald Trump’s personal qualities, the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics.”
Romney called Trump a liar: “Dishonesty is Donald Trump’s hallmark.”
Romney called Trump a con man and worked in a KKK reference: “There’s plenty of evidence that Mr. Trump is a con man, a fake. Mr. Trump has changed his positions not just over the years, but over the course of the campaign. And on the Ku Klux Klan, daily for three days in a row.”
Romney claimed there were “bombshells” in Trump’s taxes.
Romney called Trump a bigot: He creates scapegoats of Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists.”
After all that, Romney got to the really bad stuff.
“Here’s what I know. Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University,” said Romney. “He’s playing the members of the American public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.”
Ingraham says she, like all conservatives, was livid after Romney’s attempt to torpedo his own party’s leading presidential candidate.
“The guy who wrote off 47 percent of the country is now attacking the guy who is broadening the reach of the party?” she tweeted after Romney’s speech. “It’s good to see Romney really fighting for something. If only he had cared this much about stopping Obama.”
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