Mitt Romney criticized the waste and cost overruns for countries which host Olympics, even as he endorsed Boston's bid to host an edition of the games on Sunday.
The former Massachusetts governor appeared to give his blessing to an effort by Boston organizers to bid for the Summer Olympic games in 2024."It's a great, unifying thing," Romney, who headed up the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, said of the worthiness of hosting the Olympics. "Boston would love it if the games came home."
Romney's backing for another American Olympics came after he criticized the record $51 billion price tag of the Winter Olympics this year in Sochi, and the costly Olympics in China before that. Romney called the heavy spending on producing the Olympics "very distasteful," and suggested the funds could be better used toward alleviating poverty and disease.
The former GOP presidential nominee — who had called Russia the No. 1 geopolitical foe of the United States during the 2012 campaign — otherwise said that Russia had so far demonstrated its ability to keep the Olympics safe from the threat of the attack.
"I think at this stage people feel pretty comfortable that they'll be able to keep the games safe," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."