Thursday has been a really weird, eventful day for the 24-hour political news cycle in the United States. And yes, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is mostly to blame for this. Yet it was his ongoing fight with former Republican nominee Mitt Romney that spurred the first of Thursday’s three main events — a speech the latter gave at the University of Utah, during which he condemned Trump’s campaign and chastised the Republican party. Trump promised an official response to Romney’s comments at 1:30 p.m. ET, and true to form, he was around a half hour late.
After a few comments and an endorsement from Maine’s Republican Governor Paul LePage, himself a wonderful character, Trump took the stage in Portland and didn’t wait too long before bringing up Romney’s speech. What the New York real estate mogul had to say about his political predecessor did not disappoint, not by a long shot.
For starters, Trump didn’t think Romney’s speech was all that important because it was “irrelevant,” but he still took some time to “address it quickly.” And by “address it quickly,” I mean return to the subject again and again throughout the hour-long rally.
“Mitt is a failed candidate. He failed. He failed horribly… That was a race, I have to say folks, that should have been won. That was a race that absolutely should have been won, and I don’t know what happened to him. He disappeared. He disappeared, and I wasn’t happy about it. I’ll be honest because I am not a fan of Barack Obama. That was a race in which I backed Mitt Romney.”
Back Romney he did, as the businessman endorsed the then-Republican presidential candidate at a press conference in Las Vegas. However, as the Donald went on to suggest, Romney’s need for his official support at the time was quite strong.
“You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. I could’ve said, ‘Mitt, drop to your knees,’ and he would’ve dropped to his knees. He was begging.”
Yes, that is a thing that Trump actually said about Romney during his Portland speech on Thursday. Don’t believe me? Then check out the video clip below.
If that’s not enough, here are a bunch of news outlets and reporters’ live tweets who were covering Trump’s remarks.
"I could've said, 'Mitt drop to your knees,' and he would've dropped to his knees," Donald Trump said of Mitt Romney.
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) March 3, 2016
Trump: "You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. i could have said Mitt, drop to your knees."
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 3, 2016
https://twitter.com/davidgregory/status/705472736446038018
https://twitter.com/steveannear/status/705472773385232384
Trump: I could have said, Mitt drop to your knees. He would have dropped to his knees.
— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) March 3, 2016
Of course, we can’t include Twitter in “kneegate” without sourcing the social media platform for far less serious (but far more enjoyable) reactions. Some of them are blatantly obvious, while others are a bit more clever.
https://twitter.com/jesseberney/status/705473202294820865
Right now Mitt could absolutely end the Trump campaign once & for all if he admitted that he DID drop to his knees & blew Trump in 2012.
— Bilge Ebiri (@BilgeEbiri) March 3, 2016
https://twitter.com/BenariLee/status/705484121313771520
https://twitter.com/NoahCRothman/status/705472977287188480
For his part, Romney didn’t respond directly to Trump’s “drop to your knees” comment. Yet he did tweet about how, if the current Republican front-runner had said any of the hateful, controversial things he’s said in this election, he never would have accepted the businessman’s endorsement.
If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 3, 2016