Donald Trump had marshaled his MAGA forces, he says, for a big primary fight against incumbent Utah Senator — and frequent Trump scourge — Mitt Romney, but now that particular MAGA political militia won’t have to attack Romney in the next election cycle, as the Senator has announced he won’t run for re-election.
My message to Utahns on my Senate reelection plan: pic.twitter.com/kgbsfIxMeR
— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) September 13, 2023
Trump reacted swiftly to the news that his sometime rival — the most recent GOP nominee for president (2012) not named Trump — won’t run for a second term. And while Trump gave Romney a goodbye kiss-off that claimed the Utah legislator “did not serve with distinction,” the former President refrained from his usual level of vitriol, aside from slapping Romney with his own Twitter alias, a self-inflicted optics wound that made Romney the subject of much MAGA mockery.
Referring to Romney as Pierre Delecto, Trump wrote in his customary all caps: “FANTASTIC NEWS FOR AMERICA,THE GREAT STATE OF UTAH, & FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. MITT ROMNEY, SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS PIERRE DELECTO, WILL NOT BE SEEKING A SECOND TERM IN THE U.S. SENATE, WHERE HE DID NOT SERVE WITH DISTINCTION. A BIG PRIMARY FIGHT AGAINST HIM WAS IN THE OFFING, BUT NOW THAT WILL NOT BE NECESSARY. CONGRATS TO ALL. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Romney, who voted to impeach Trump twice, told biographer McKay Coppins that “a very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”
It’s not hard to guess who Romney targets most acutely with that statement. Here, for example, is what he said, in part, in explaining his vote to impeach Trump a second time.
“President Trump attempted to corrupt the election by pressuring the Secretary of State of Georgia to falsify the election results in his state. President Trump incited the insurrection against Congress by using the power of his office to summon his supporters to Washington on January 6th and urging them to march on the Capitol during the counting of electoral votes. He did this despite the obvious and well known threats of violence that day. President Trump also violated his oath of office by failing to protect the Capitol, the Vice President, and others in the Capitol. Each and every one of these conclusions compels me to support conviction.”
For two years, I met with Mitt Romney in his DC townhome as he grappled with what his party—and his country—were becoming. The stories he told me from inside the Senate were extraordinary and damning.
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) September 13, 2023
ROMNEY: A RECKONING is out next month. First excerpt: https://t.co/khdW2iafq0
