The enmity between President Donald Trump and Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) has been ongoing and well-documented. During the 2016 campaigns, Romney spoke out against the bombastic and dangerous Trump and declared him unfit for public office, particularly the highest office in the land.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney: "I did not vote for President Trump" https://t.co/NyIQftO31d pic.twitter.com/wLuMvHydrl
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 21, 2020
On Wednesday, Romney told CNN reporters that he had already voted in the 2020 presidential elections and that he “did not vote for Trump.” However, he would not say if he voted for Joe Biden, a third-party candidate, or if he wrote someone in as the governor of Maryland says he did when he cast his vote for Ronald Reagan.
In a statement released on Twitter last week, Romney said:
‘The president’s unwillingness to denounce an absurd and dangerous conspiracy theory last night continues an alarming pattern: politicians and parties refuse to forcefully and convincingly repudiate groups like antifa, white supremacists and conspiracy peddlers.’
Mitt Romney went public and said he already voted in the election and adds: “I did not vote for President Trump.”
He wouldn't say anything more. Hmmm. OK, we'll take it.
— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) October 21, 2020
While Romney has routinely vacillated between disparaging Trump’s actions and supporting the majority of his policies in the Senate, including promising to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee while voters are still casting ballots, it’s been apparent for some time that the Republican Party has grown disenchanted with Trump, and Romney has never subscribed to the GOP hero-worship of the reality TV game show host, publicly denouncing Trump’s juvenile, divisive style.
‘I have stayed quiet with the approach of the election. But I’m troubled by our politics, as it has moved away from spirited debate to a vile, vituperative, hate-filled morass that is unbecoming of any free nation—let alone the birthplace of modern democracy.’
#BREAKING: Mitt Romney did not vote for Trump in 2020 election https://t.co/BdH8IrziTP pic.twitter.com/2IDATwTN0u
— The Hill (@thehill) October 21, 2020
In particular, Trump’s attempts to form an autocratic government, one in which political dissidents are thrown in jail and violence in support of the president is quietly supported by the lack of denouncements, that turned Romney against his party’s leader.
‘The president calls the Democratic vice presidential candidate ‘a monster;’ he repeatedly labels the speaker of the house ‘crazy;’ he calls for the Justice Department to put the prior president in jail; he attacks the governor of Michigan on the very day a ploy is discovered to kidnap her.’
“I look at my race back in 2012 and there was a postmortem done about what we would do to get our party back in line with more of our voters," Romney told me of the RNC autopsy that called for a more inclusive message. "And we haven't taken that direction” https://t.co/0dL5dqlKJ0
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 21, 2020