Romney, McCain: Trump is unfit, endangers nation, GOP

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY

In an extraordinary display of Republican chaos, the party’s most-recent presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, lambasted current front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday, calling him unfit for office and a danger for the nation and the GOP.

“His is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader,” Romney declared. He called Trump “a phony” who is “playing the American public for suckers,” a man whose “imagination must not be married to real power.”

Hours later, Trump lashed back, calling Romney “a choke artist” who lost to Barack Obama four years ago only because he was such a poor candidate.

The vicious feud marked a near-unprecedented scenario pitting the Republican Party’s most-prominent leaders, past and present, against one another as Democrats begin to unite around Hillary Clinton.

Underlying the clash is a bleak reality for panicking Republican officials: Beyond harsh words, there is little they see to stop Trump’s march toward the presidential nomination. Party leaders are poring over complicated delegate math, outlining hazy scenarios for a contested national convention and even flirting with the idea of a third-party effort.

Romney confidant Ron Kaufman, a senior member of the Republican National Committee, openly embraced the possibility of a contested convention: “If that’s the only way to stop Trump, it makes sense,” he told The Associated Press.

In the most-notable verbal attacks against Trump to date, Romney and his 2012 running mate, House Speaker Paul Ryan, urged voters in the strongest terms to shun the former reality- television star for the good of country and party.

The GOP’s 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. McCain, joined in, raising “many concerns about Mr. Trump’s uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national-security issues.” That echoes the worries of dozens of leading conservative defense and foreign- policy officials.

As Kaufman suggested, Romney embraced what might seem a long-shot approach to deny Trump the delegates necessary to secure the nomination, though he did not call on Republicans to unify behind a single alternative.

“Given the current delegate-selection process, this means that I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state,” Romney said.

Another idea rumbling through power corridors in Washington was the prospect of a late third-party candidate to represent more-mainstream conservatives.

Suggesting that Romney may continue to have 2016 ambitions of his own, Trump said the 2012 nominee had “chickened out” earlier when he understood he’d be going up against Trump.