'He’s Not Smart': New Book Reveals Mitt Romney’s Blunt Assessment Of Trump
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A new book details how Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) concluded that Donald Trump isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed despite efforts by some in the former president’s circle seeking to convince him otherwise, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee initially “vacillated on the subject of the president’s intelligence,” author McKay Coppins wrote in “Romney: A Reckoning,” per an excerpt of the forthcoming book obtained by HuffPost.
Kushner had once told Romney that his father-in-law was being strategic by acting obscenely because it drew attention to his message and helped rally supporters to his side. But Romney eventually concluded Trump’s wildest claims weren’t the product of some master scheme, but rather the mind of a third grader.
“I think he’s not smart. I mean, really not smart,” Romney said of Trump at one point, according to the book.
“It’s like, how is that possible for someone over the second or third grade to think that?” he said after Trump suggested that Americans inject themselves with bleach as a treatment for COVID-19 during a White House press briefing in the early days of the 2020 pandemic.
“Reckoning” is based on dozens of interviews Coppins conducted with Romney, who recently announced he won’t be seeking reelection next year. In it, the senator unleashes on Trump and other members of his own party, including fellow GOP senators, for putting their political ambitions ahead of the best interests of the nation.
The book also details a phone call Trump made to Romney after he announced his campaign for Senate in 2018. (Trump endorsed Romney’s bid at the time despite Romney’s criticisms of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Romney had accepted the endorsement, but their relationship soured soon after, with the senator ultimately voting to boot Trump from office twice.)
On the call, Romney and a campaign aide stifled in laughter as Trump boasted about his follower count on Twitter, now rebranded as X, and mixed up units of measurement in bragging about his administration’s rollback of a public lands declaration in Utah.
Romney isn’t the first Republican who holds a dim view of Trump’s mind. Many of Trump’s own administration members have spoken out about their former boss’s intelligence: White House chief of staff John Kelly reportedly called Trump “an idiot,” former economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump was “dumb as shit,” and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in July 2017 called Trump a “moron.”
Trump is the undisputed front-runner in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Coppins’ book, “Reckoning,” hits stores Oct. 24.
