Trump re-ups Romney attack amid reports on Ukraine phone call
Trump and Romney are at it again.
President Donald Trump on Monday reshared a video of Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat to President Barack Obama after the Utah Republican senator called for more information on Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president.
Following reports that Trump pressured President Volodymor Zelensky to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Romney tweeted Sunday that the allegations would be “troubling in the extreme” if true — the first Republican senator to push for an inquiry on the issue. Trump, who has a history of clashing with Romney, responded on Monday night by sharing the video, which includes clips of a disappointed Romney on election night 2012.
The president initially shared the video in April in response to Romney saying he was “sickened” by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Trump’s actions during the 2016 election. Trump tweeted at the time: “If @MittRomney spent the same energy fighting Barack Obama as he does fighting Donald Trump, he could have won the race (maybe)!”
If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme. Critical for the facts to come out.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) September 22, 2019
Trump’s latest clash with Romney comes amid renewed calls for an investigation into the president’s actions around the phone call with Zelensky. The new reports have made Democrats who have been reluctant on impeachment much more amenable to the idea, and House Democrats have been demanding the release of the phone call and a whistleblower report about the president’s actions that has been blocked by the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire.
Romney has not yet called for specific action against Trump, citing the need for more information. “What actions might be taken would depend upon what actually happened,” he said.
Romney’s fellow Republicans, meanwhile, have been cautious in their approach to the reports. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she wanted to see the transcript before passing judgment. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, called on Monday for Trump to make the transcript of the phone call public, but expressed confidence that the president had done nothing wrong.
Graham and Trump have also butted heads in the past — particularly when they were both vying for their party’s 2016 presidential nomination — but Trump and Romney have remained less cordial since Romney was elected to the Senate in 2018. He has broken ranks with the president on numerous issues, from the character of the late Sen. John McCain to Trump’s tweets calling for U.S. congresswomen to “go back” to countries “from which they came.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the year in which video clips showed a disappointed Mitt Romney.
