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Retiring Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney has provided an update on whether he plans to support his nemesis and former President Donald Trump in the November election.
Last week, Trump held a closed-door meeting with Republican senators to propose a new policy position aimed at gaining support from workers in crucial swing states before the November election. Romney was present at the meeting, but he told CNN reporter Manu Raju on Tuesday that he did not attend to show support for Trump.
“I didn’t go there to support former President Trump. I went there to listen to what he was planning on doing if he became president,” Romney told Raju, according to Fox News.
Initially, Romney said he wasn’t planning on attending the meeting on Capitol Hill with Trump but changed his mind after his flight was canceled.
“With President Trump, it’s a matter of personal character,” the Utah senator said. “I draw a line and say when someone has been actually found to have been sexually assaulted, that’s something I just won’t cross over in the person I wouldn’t want to have as president of the United States.”
Romney was referring to a federal jury’s decision in New York City last year, which ruled that Trump was not liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll, though the former president was liable for sexual abuse and defamation, Fox noted.
The outlet reached out to Romney’s office for clarification about Romney’s remarks. The spokesperson said: “That is what he said and has been saying this for months — it’s not new.
In May, Romney cut Trump some slack when he said the 45th president was much better at handling the border crisis than President Joe Biden.
“People have been screaming about the border for all three and a half years Joe Biden has been president,” Romney argued during an exclusive MSNBC interview. “He’s not done anything to solve the problem of the border. That’s a huge issue for President Trump, I can’t understand why President Biden didn’t tackle this from the beginning.”
Romney locked horns with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle over Biden’s record during the episode of “The Eleventh Hour with Stephanie Ruhle,” arguing that Trump may benefit from Biden’s failure to secure the border.
“That’s an issue that has worked for him, it worked for him back in 2016, he expects it will work for him again,” said Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. “If I were President Biden, I’d be all over that, and instead he served it to President Trump on a silver platter.”
Earlier in the interview, Ruhle expressed concern about the political polarization in America. She asked Romney how Biden would be able to reunify the country, noting that “he’s got a lot of policies under his belt that he’s done for the country and worked with you.”
“The way to bring people together is not just to give a good speech,” Romney said. “Nice as that is, the way to get people together is to tell them the truth. To let them know what the real challenges are that you’re concerned about and how you’re going to honestly deal with them.”
“President Biden isn’t just giving a good speech,” Ruhle argued. “Infrastructure law is now the law, the CHIPS Act is bringing jobs back, bringing manufacturing back. Those aren’t speeches.”
“The fact that things cost more than they did before, inflation is still there. People somehow think that the prices are going to go down — no, when you beat inflation prices don’t go down. That would be deflation, they just stabilize, and they’re getting stabilized, but the fact that people are paying more is a real concern,” Romney said.
Romney admitted, “This was not a problem when President Trump was president.”
