Mitt Romney to speak on ‘state of the 2016 presidential race’
Published at | Updated at
Eric Bradner, CNN Newswire
(CNN) — Mitt Romney will speak Thursday on “the state of the 2016 presidential race,” he said in a press release.
The 2012 Republican nominee will speak at 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics Forum, the same day that the remaining GOP presidential candidates are schedule to debate in Detroit.
Romney’s remarks come at a time of deep soul-searching for the Republican establishment as they consider ways to take on front-runner Donald Trump, who dominated yesterday’s Super Tuesday contests. Romney has been especially vocal in criticizing Trump in recent days, raising the possibility that the billionaire’s tax returns could contain a “bombshell” and slamming him for not disavowing white supremacists in an interview Sunday with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Trump later said he’d had a faulty earpiece, and noted he’d condemned former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke — who Tapper had asked about — both before and after that interview.
Still, Romney hit him on Twitter the following day, saying: “A disqualifying & disgusting response by @realDonaldTrump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.”