What Donald Trump says about the new Mitt Romney biography
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As a candid biography on Mitt Romney hits store shelves Tuesday, former President Donald Trump called the Utah Republican senator a “total loser that only a mother could love.”
Trump went off Monday on Romney apparently in response to recently released excerpts from McKay Coppins’ new book “Romney: A Reckoning” and an interview the senator and his wife, Ann, did with CBS News that aired Sunday.
It was Romney’s first extended TV interview since announcing last month he would not seek reelection to a second term, something Trump takes credit for on his social media site, Truth Social.
“I am very proud to be the one who forced this Left Leaning RINO out of politics. He wanted to run sooo badly, but knew he couldn’t win in the great State of Utah without my Endorsement and Support, so he QUIT,” Trump wrote.
Trump endorsed Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign.
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The former president called the new book “crummy” and says much like Romney, it’s “boring, horrible, and totally predictable,” though it’s unclear and unlikely that Trump actually read it.
In the book, Romney offers unvarnished opinions about what goes on behind closed doors in the Senate.
“I don’t think I’ve heard a single member of my caucus, Republicans in the Senate, say, ‘You know, Donald Trump is great. Aren’t we lucky to have him as our leader?’” Romney told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in the interview. “Donald Trump represents a failure of character, which is changing, I think in many respects, the psyche of our nation and the heart of our nation. And that’s something which takes a long time, if ever, to repair.”
Trump asks in his social media post whether the book includes his dinner with Romney at the Trump International Hotel in New York when he “begged” to be secretary of state and then spoke highly of the then president-elect in a news conference afterward. Romney praised Trump as the “very man who can lead us to that better future.”
“I didn’t give him the job, nor did I ever intend to. I just wanted to prove a point, that Mitt Romney is, & always has been, a lightweight joke!” Trump wrote, much of it in capital letters, on Monday.
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Earlier in 2016, Romney blistered Trump as a “fraud” and “phony,” and painted a picture of a dark future with him as president in a speech at the University of Utah. After being elected to the Senate in 2018, Romney continued to call out Trump over matters of character and leadership. Romney also voted to remove Trump from office.
The book reveals that although Romney was reticent about Trump dating back to the mid-1990s, during the 2012 presidential campaign Romney actually came to enjoy Trump’s company, even though they later became bitter political adversaries. Trump also reportedly offered Romney an ambassadorship to Russia, which Romney turned down.
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Romney is quoted in the book as saying a large portion of the Republican Party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution, and pointed directly at Trump.
“When former President Trump said we should set aside the Constitution and reappoint him as president, you had Republicans cheer that,” Romney said. “It’s like, ‘Wait a second: This is the leader of our party saying we should put aside the Constitution? How can you believe you’re following the Constitution if that’s the case?’”
