Thursday on his radio show, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh speculated on what former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, was attempting to accomplish when claimed there was a “bombshell” in Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s taxes on Fox News Channel a day earlier.
According to Limbaugh, it’s possible Romney was trying to prevent any “Republican establishment types” from endorsing Trump.
Partial transcript as follows:
So everybody’s saying, “What is Romney doing? What is Romney thinking?” Romney has launched his own version of a Dingy Harry attack on Trump about taxes. I’m gonna tell you what Romney’s doing, and then we’ll get some detail on this. What I think Romney’s doing, is I think Romney is freezing endorsements for Trump. I think that in the bowels of the Republican establishment they’re very worried that a bunch of Republicans are on the verge of endorsing Trump.
And I think Romney goes out there and starts attacking Trump on his taxes to freeze any of that, to stop endorsements for Trump. There may be something to it, too, for all I know. There are people that don’t believe Trump’s worth what he says he’s worth. There are people that don’t believe Trump has accomplished half of what he says he accomplished in business. There are people that think that he’s done all this — his lifestyle and business — on a wing and a prayer, and that the only reason he gets away with it is the banks are so invested in him by way of loans that they can’t foreclose on him without taking themselves down.
There’s all kinds of people who have thinking that for years about Trump. Romney’s point is, “Hey, you know what?” Romney’s trying to make it look like he’s seen Trump’s taxes, and he’s trying to make it look like Trump’s taxes are not the taxes of a billionaire. I mean, he’s not paying very much. This is what is being insinuated. It’s what being implied. And you’re supposed to infer that, “Well, he’s not paying nearly enough taxes for a billionaire, so either he’s not a billionaire or he’s cheating or maybe he’s not donating all that money to charity that he says he is.”
All of this… People say, “Why would Romney do this?” Because he’s learned how effective it is, probably. This is exactly what Dingy Harry did to him, and Romney didn’t exactly handle it very well when it happened to him. So I think maybe it’s just an attempt… I think he’s trying to freeze Trump where he is on this possibility there might be Republican establishment types on the verge of endorsing Trump.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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