Sen. Mitt Romney, in an interview with “Axios on HBO,” outlined a broad indictment of President Trump, criticizing his rhetoric, his abandonment of the Kurds, his plea to Ukraine and China to undermine a political opponent, his character and past personal life.
Why it matters: Romney, who has emerged as the party’s most prominent Trump critic, is getting overtures to run against the president (he won’t) or lead the charge to get senators to convict Trump if the House impeaches him.
“It’s been … suggested that Turkey may have called America’s bluff, telling the president they are coming no matter what we did,” said Romney, of Utah. “If that’s so, we should know it. For it would tell us a great deal about how we should deal with Turkey, now and in the future.”
View the complete October 18 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.
One of the things we can’t understand is how the media is only focusing on the Democratic Congress’ reaction to the release of the redacted Mueller report. This is a Republican administration. The Republicans in Congress appeared cowed by the possibility of a mean tweet from Donald Trump. The only Republican responding has been Mitt Romney, and see if you can spot what’s missing from his statement:
WASHINGTON— U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) released the following statement regarding the Mueller report:
“I have now read the redacted Mueller report and offer my personal reaction.
“It is good news that there was insufficient evidence to charge the President of the United States with having conspired with a foreign adversary or with having obstructed justice. The alternative would have taken us through a wrenching process with the potential for constitutional crisis. The business of government can move on. Continue reading “Senator Romney’s Statement on Mueller Report”
George Conway used election statistics to call out Donald Trump after the president taunted Utah senator-elect Mitt Romney for losing the 2012 election to Barack Obama.
In response to Romney’s blistering opinion piece about him in The Washington Post, Trump posted a tweet on Wednesday discussing how he won “big” in the 2016 election:
Continue reading “George Conway Schools Trump About Mitt Romney’s Election Statistics”
Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah and the party’s 2012 nominee for president, will be sworn into the U.S. Senate on Thursday.
The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.
It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.
It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.
View the complete commentary by Mitt Romney on The Washington Post website here.
The following article by Niels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website January 2 2018:
When GOP Sen. Orrin G. Hatch announced Tuesday that he will retire from the Senate after serving Utah for more than four decades, talk quickly turned to whether Mitt Romney will seek to succeed him.
But on Capitol Hill, the pending departure of the Finance Committee chairman — who could have wielded the tax writing gavel for two more years under conference rules — also raises questions about which senator will lead the GOP on taxes, trade, health care and entitlements. Continue reading “It’s Not Just Romney: Hatch Retirement Could Lead to Decisions for Grassley, Crapo”
The following article by Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey was posted on the Washington Post website December 8, 2017:
Before Ronna Romney McDaniel took over as Republican National Committee chairwoman earlier this year, President Trump had a request: Would she be willing to stop using her middle name publicly?
Trump followed up by saying in a lighthearted way that McDaniel, the niece of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, could do what she wanted, according to two people familiar with the comments. But the change was soon plain for all to see. Though she had used her maiden name for years in Michigan, where her grandfather George W. Romney had been governor, McDaniel dropped “Romney” from most official party communications and has rarely used it since.
The moment offers a window on Trump’s complicated and often tense relationship with the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, who has remained a frequent critic of the president and is considering a Senate campaign next year in Utah. The pair’s history stretches from Romney’s pained courtship of Trump’s endorsement in 2012 to Trump’s searing criticism of Romney in 2016, when he called his predecessor a “stone cold loser” who blew an easy chance to beat then-President Barack Obama. Continue reading “Trump calls Romney ‘a great man,’ but works to undermine him and block Senate run”
This post has been updated with Schumer’s and Esper’s comments.