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"A phony, a fraud" - it's panic stations for the Republicans as Mitt Romney takes a major pop at Donald Trump

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee’s outburst is being seen as a sign that the Republican party is deeply concerned about Trump’s meteoric rise.

photojoiner Mitt Romney and Donald Trump PA PA

FORMER REPUBLICAN WHITE House nominee Mitt Romney excoriated Donald Trump as unfit to be president this afternoon, in a deeply personal attack that exposed party panic at the billionaire’s political success.

Baldly stating that “Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud” Romney said his party’s frontrunner “has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president”.

Romney offered a litany of pejorative descriptions of Trump, saying he was greedy, dishonest, bullying and misogynistic.

His outburst is highly unusual in a party that has long sworn by Ronald Reagan’s ’11th commandment’: “thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”.

But Trump’s shock electoral success has provoked utter panic among the Republican establishment, who believe he will destroy the party if he wins the nomination.

Warning of “profound consequences for the Republican Party” Romney said that “if we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished”.

Presidential Campaign Trump and Romney pictured together in 2012 when Romney was the Republican nominee for the presidency AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Grassroots anger

It’s as yet unclear what effect Romney’s intervention will have on Trump’s meteoric rise.

The real estate mogul has defied expectations in winning nine of the 15 state-wide primary contests held so far, garnering more than three million votes.

Using seemingly unlimited free media coverage, Trump has tapped into deeply felt grassroots anger at the party leadership.

Romney was quick to scotch suggestions he may use the speech to back a rival or throw his hat into the ring.

“I am not here to announce my candidacy for office,” he said.

I am not going to endorse a candidate today.

Romney heavily lost the 2012 election to incumbent president Barack Obama.

Diplomatically, he listed Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich and said “one of these men should be our nominee”.

© – AFP, 2016

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    Mute Gavin Scott
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:02 PM

    I never did invest in a blackberry. I never had that 5 minutes to spare to send a text, or the navigational skills requires to change a setting. Totally unnatural computing…

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    Mute Lára de Siúin
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 7:47 PM

    Bye bye Blackberry!!

    57
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    Mute Rúairí O’ Sullivan
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 7:56 PM

    Oh how the mighty have fallen. First Nokia and now BBY, the two biggest companies at a time….

    See what happens if you keep dishing out the same products year after year..

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    Mute Paul Nolan
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:00 PM

    Eh… Apple same shit different advert and same idiots buying it up

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    Mute Paddy Murphy
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:00 PM

    That’s lego fu@#ed so

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    Mute Gavin Scott
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:07 PM

    Same what???

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    Mute Enola Straight
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 9:40 PM

    Amazing the morons who are obsessed with Apple buyers.

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    Mute Stephen
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:11 PM

    Putting it away with my Betamax Video recorder.

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    Mute Michael Russell
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:19 PM

    I imagined Microsoft were eyeing them up. Combine them with Nokia, and you have a great army of hardware engineers …. Combine that with the software expertise and they can bring out a true end to end experience that could compete with apple and the Samsung/android devices.

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    Mute Gavin Scott
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:27 PM

    Two bits of poo does not maketh a cutting edge byte

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    Mute Cpm
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:33 PM

    Earth calling Michael

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    Mute Michael Russell
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:55 PM

    Just to be clear, I hate blackberry products, and similarly dislike the Nokia ones- but they have some good hardware features (and engineers) as do Nokia. Windows are clawing desperately to find a decent hardware software offering. Seems like a triple win for the right price.

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    Mute Little Jim
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:55 PM

    It’s no use, he’s on his BlackBerry.

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    Mute Michael Russell
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:57 PM

    Hahaha nope- I’m an apple freak. Closer to queuing up for the iPhone like the lads in the other article, than ever using anything else!

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    Mute Enola Straight
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 9:41 PM

    I have an iPhone. I use a blackberry in work. The BB is a solid device but it will never compete with real smartphones.

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    Mute Pauliebhoy
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:14 PM

    Playbook tablet is top quality however they abandoned it recently, let them rot

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    Mute John king
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 8:41 PM

    Ah, just sell it to the Chinese and let them strip the company appart and transfer all the knowledge and jobs to China…

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    Mute James Buchanan
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 10:52 PM

    Theres no beating the samsungs.

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    Mute Emily Elephant
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 10:20 PM

    BlackBerry is fooked, so someone pays $4.7B for it. In a couple of years they’ll sell it to someone else for another few billion. The bankers get to keep the coins which stick to the shovel, probably about 100M. Wall Street, man.

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    Mute Paul Jacob
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    Sep 24th 2013, 8:33 AM

    struggling blackberry sold for $4.3billion! I have one and was going to let it go for a tenner ! Will have to change my done deal add!

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    Mute Denzil
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    Sep 23rd 2013, 11:10 PM

    Tumbleweed

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