Trump Slams Romney as 'Failed Candidate' and 'Irrelevant'

Donald Trump slammed Mitt Romney's attack on his run for the Republican nomination Thursday, dismissing the former Massachusetts governor as "a failed candidate," a "lightweight," and a "chicken"  who should have won the 2012 presidential election and that he was only speaking now because he sees Democrat Hillary Clinton as vulnerable.

"Mitt is a failed candidate," Trump told supporters in Portland, Maine. "He failed. He failed horribly. He failed badly. That was a race — I have to say, folks — that should have been won.

"I was so disappointed in him," he added. "He let us down. He should have won. Something happened. He was gone."

Trump says he was "not happy" with Romney's free-ride in the 2012 campaign.

"He was begging for my endorsement I could have said, 'Mitt, drop to your knees.' He would've dropped to his knees."

"Mitt ran a horrible campaign… he demeaned 47 percent of people in our country… once that was said, a lot of people thought he was done… Mitt was a disaster."

The front-runner's speech came after Romney earlier Thursday attacked Trump as a fraud who is playing the American public for suckers.

"Dishonesty is Trump's hallmark," Romney said, though the former governor declared at the start of his speech that he was not running for the president. He is the chairman of Solamere Capital in Lexington, Mass.

"Let me put it plainly, if we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished," Romney said in Salt Lake City.

Trump hit back by charging that Romney "begged" for his support in 2012 against President Barack Obama — and said that former 2016 rival Jeb Bush persuaded him not to run.
Romney also "chickened out" because he was afraid of him, Trump said.

"The real reason he chickened out, it wasn't Jeb, it was me," Trump said. "If you remember, Mitt was all set to run.

"I think he probably still has a desire, maybe at the convention to try and get some kind of thing.

"Hillary Clinton will destroy him in the election."