Donald Trump: GOP "really should get their act together"
Launching into an extended rant against prominent Republican Party leaders during a Florida rally Saturday, Donald Trump seemed to dash the hopes many in the GOP had for a more matured and composed candidate ahead of November's general election.
Rather than sticking to a script like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged, Trump, in Tampa, Florida, instead railed extemporaneously at the Republican Party and some of its most well-known figures.
Responding to an interview where former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared Trump a "misogynist," the billionaire said he "watched this poor sad Mitt Romney this morning."
"I don't think he knows what misogynist is. And he's sitting like a real stiff," Trump said, before adding that the former Massachusetts governor "choked" and "let us down" in the 2012 election.
"When I heard he was gonna run again, and I was thinking about running, I let him know," Trump went on. "I said, the guy's a stone cold loser and he choked and when you're a choker, you can never give a choker a second chance. A choker is a choker."
This was on top of Trump's earlier Twitter attack on Romney, who he said "choked like a dog."
Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president but he choked like a dog. Now he calls me racist-but I am least racist person there is
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2016
Don King, and so many other African Americans who know me well and endorsed me, would not have done so if they thought I was a racist!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2016
Romney, for his part, has also suggested that Trump could be the cause for "trickle-down racism."
"I don't want to see trickle-down racism," Romney told CNN in an interview broadcast Saturday. "I don't want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following. Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation, and trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America."
He further criticized Trump during his annual conservative summit in Park City, Utah, saying that seeing the Republican Party torn apart "is breaking my heart."
But Trump reiterated his defense against accusations of racism in his Tampa speech, saying "I am the least racist person you've ever met, believe me."
Trump also disparaged former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on his home turf, calling him "Jebba" and dismissing his one-time primary rival's political clout.
"I don't think he will endorse me," he said, pointing out that Bush had signed the party's loyalty pledge last year. "Who the hell cares?"
More broadly, Trump targeted the whole of the GOP, urging them to stop labeling him a racist and to put "their act together."
"We have a war to win against a very crooked politician," Trump said, referring to the Democrats' presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. "The Republican Party really should get their act together. They have to come together. We gotta win."
He dismissed, however, any backlash he faced from GOP lawmakers, saying that he didn't much care if senators refused to endorse him.
"That's fine," Trump said, just a few days after Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, seemed to rescind his support of Trump after the candidate's racially charged comments against a Hispanic federal judge. "I'm not going to campaign [for them]."
Further flouting party loyalty, Trump even conceded that Democrats as a whole had positive attributes.
"I'll say one thing about the Democratic Party," Trump observed. "At least they stick together."
The comments come just a day after Trump reportedly stopped at a Williamsburg, Virginia, golf tournament to woo several Republican legislators participating.
According to a Politico report, Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Rand Paul of Kentucky (a one-time primary opponent to Trump) and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania were all in attendance.