Mitt Romney said the promises from the GOP front runner Donald Trump are worthless, and he doesn't have the temperament to be president. However, some argue Romney's words will not have any influence on Trump's momentum.
In 2012, Donald Trump stood at Mitt Romney's side, endorsing him for president. Now the two are going back and forth, after Romney bashed the White House hopeful on Thursday.
"Here's what I know," Romney said. "Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud."
Trump then responded to Romney's accusations.
"I backed Mitt Romney, I backed him," Trump said. "You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement."
Romney said that Trump's promises are worthless and he is playing the American public. He believes that Trump's domestic policies would lead to a recession and his foreign policies would make America and the world less safe.
"See, you help somebody and then he turns," Trump said. "Now I will say this - he probably had a right to turn because nobody could have been nastier than me in getting him not to run by saying he's a choke artist."
Lubbock County GOP Chairman Carl Tepper said Romney is irrelevant and that his speech will work in Trump's favor. He said if former president George W. Bush would have spoken out against Trump, then that would have had more of an impact.
"If you are a group that is trying to stop Donald Trump," Tepper said, "you might want to try to find someone who has been more successful in politics - won a winning campaign. Some of the early response I have gotten from Mitt Romney's speech is it is having an opposite effect."
South Plains College Assistant Professor of Government Drew Landry agrees that Romney's speech will have no effect.
"The Trump supporters are very different," Landry said. "They are going to be emboldened by this. Every attempt the establishment has had to stop Trump hasn't worked at all. This effort from Romney on saying 'no don't vote for him' is really not going to matter much to the Trump supporters."
Landry said Romney's speech could be an indication of a divide in the GOP during the summer's convention.
"If we get a brokered convention, that might be what the party leaders would want," Landry said, "or coalesce around one particular candidate, but I don't think they want a Trump candidacy. When it comes down to the convention floor fight, this might be a prelude to what we could see on there."
Tepper said the Republican party is resilient, and that Trump is resonating with the blue collar workers.
"They are looking at a guy like Donald Trump who is speaking to them directly, in their language and their tone, and they like it," Tepper said. "It is reverberating with them and it is probably going to propel him into the presidency."
