Will Mitt Romney attend the GOP convention this summer?
Mitt Romney will skip the Republican National Convention this July in Cleveland, a Romney aide confirmed to CBS News on Thursday.
"Governor Romney has no plans to attend the convention," the aide said.
The 2012 GOP presidential nominee has repeatedly blasted Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee now that his remaining rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, suspended their campaigns this week.
"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 a speech at the University of Utah in early March.
At the time, Romney, who ruled out running for president in January 2015, said the other remaining GOP presidential candidates were the only qualified contenders.
"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," he said. "One of these men should be our nominee."
He also called Trump "very, very not smart."
Romney's decision, which was first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, comes after former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush said they have no plans to endorse Trump.
At the same time, Romney's decision may not be entirely unexpected. In 2012, George W. Bush, the last Republican president, skipped the GOP's convention that summer.
But Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, also plans to skip the convention this summer, according to a recent report in Politico. The senator from Arizona, who faces reelection this year, told reporters at the Capitol last month that he might forgo attending in order to focus on his Senate campaign.
"I have to campaign for reelection, and I have always done that when I'm up," McCain said, according to the report.
