Awkward: ‘Phony’ Trump considers ‘loser’ Mitt Romney as secretary of state, ahead of meeting

US President-elect Donald Trump planned a Saturday meeting with Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and fierce Trump critic, and may discuss whether he should be a candidate for secretary of state, a source familiar with the meeting said on Thursday.

Trump already has a lengthy list of potential candidates for the post of top US diplomat, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, US Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who met Trump on Thursday.

Trump, a former reality TV star, has shown a flair for the dramatic in his deliberations over his Cabinet, saying only he knows who “the finalists” are.

Corker told CNN on Wednesday he was “in the mix” for the position but that Trump might pick someone who was closer to him during the presidential campaign. He met on Thursday in Washington with Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Trump’s potentially awkward meeting with Romney amounts to an olive branch of sorts to one of his sharpest critics. Romney, who in a speech in March called Trump “a phony, a fraud”, urged Republicans to vote for anyone but the New York real estate magnate while the party was picking its presidential nominee.

In turn, Trump - who endorsed Romney in 2012 - called him a “stone cold loser”, “sad and pathetic”, and added that Romney begged for his endorsement and “would’ve dropped to his knees” for it. He has also said that he “choked like a dog” during his 2012 presidential campaign against President Barack Obama.