Newt Gingrich took aim at former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, saying his anti-Donald Trump speech all but ruled him out as a consensus party choice at a hypothetical brokered GOP convention.
“If Mitt had really wanted to maneuver for the nomination, he wouldn’t have given the speech he gave,” Gingrich said on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning, referring to Romney’s speech at the University of Utah in which he blasted Trump as “a fraud” and “a phony.”
The speech, the former speaker of the House said, means that Romney would never be the Republican Party’s candidate, even with Trump support.
“It may have been courageous on his part, it certainly [is] what I think he believes, but it was such a vitriolic and nasty speech that it guaranteed that the guy who currently has the most votes and the most momentum would never accept Romney as sort of the draft at the convention,” Gingrich said.
Romney, who urged American voters to not nominate Trump as the GOP’s nominee, spent the past week ruling out running for president.
However, speculation has been flying that Trump, the front-runner, will not be able to earn enough delegates before the GOP’s July convention to secure the nomination.
