Mitt Romney is no longer trying to recruit a
third-party candidate to challenge Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump,
Yahoo News reports.
The news site, quoting an unnamed source, reports Wednesday the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP nominee remains "motivated to help the 'stop Trump' cause," but is not calling or emailing any people still considering a run.
A few potential candidates remain, but none are currently "live prospects," Yahoo news reports, quoting the source.
"He thinks someone should run. That's his role. That's the beginning and end of it," an unnamed Romney adviser tells the site. "Is he organizing it? No. But he has talked to people who have thought about it."
According to Yahoo News, the effort to persuade Romney himself to launch a bid "never went anywhere seriously this year for the same reasons others do not want to run: Any independent candidate would almost certainly be blamed for electing [Hillary] Clinton."
"Those close to Romney did not want to be responsible for laying that burden on his shoulders," Yahoo News reports.
According to the news site, Romney's high-profile
speech in March condemning Trump as "a phony" and "a fraud" who was "playing the American public for suckers" was prompted, in part at least, by the real estate billionaire's February interview with CNN in which he claimed he didn't know who white supremacist
David Duke was and declined to reject political support from him and the Ku Klux Klan.
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