Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) continued his criticism of Trump in a recent interview conducted onstage.
“If President Trump continues in his campaign, I’m not sure they can — any one of them — can make it through and beat him,” Romney said, referring to some of the other potential picks from the GOP for president in 2024, a list dominated although not exclusively populated by Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis. “I think he’s got such a strong base of 30 or 40 percent of the Republican voters, or maybe more, it’s going to be hard to knock him off as our nominee. If he became our nominee, I think he loses again.” Asked if he would support Trump if he became the nominee, Romney said: “Absolutely not… It’s not just because he loses. That’s my reason that I offer to other people who are big fans of his. It’s also he’s simply not a person who ought to have the reins of the government of the United States.”
Romney also recently spoke in frank terms about the negative impacts associated with Trump’s endorsements on candidates in statewide elections this year. “I know a lot of people in our party love the former president. But he’s the kiss of death for someone who wants to win the general election. At some point, we’ve got to move on and look for new leaders that will lead us to win,” the Utah Senator observed.
Trump’s Save America PAC spent on at least seven races around the country this year, and Trump’s candidates lost in six of them. The only election with results breaking from the trend was the Ohio Senate contest in which Republican J.D. Vance won against Democrat Tim Ryan. Trump endorsed five candidates across three dozen House races identified by the election experts at the Cook Political Report as the most competitive this year, and they all lost. Trump made hundreds of endorsements overall, but among his endorsements were incumbents running in races in which odds already heavily leaned in their favor. In races where results were expected to be closer, Trump’s slate lost over and over. Trump has, of course, already announced his own ambitions to once again secure the GOP nomination, although he hasn’t done much since recently making that expected confirmation. No other major candidate has yet made an announcement of their candidacy in the GOP primary.
In the meantime, Trump has also continued pushing for a return to the presidency before the 2024 presidential election, either through declaring him the rightful winner of the last election or redoing it. Neither option has any kind of legal foundation to it. There’s no opportunity for those upset about the outcome to legally see it simply thrown out or force authorities to hold a redo to the election years after it happened. There remains no evidence of some kind of apocalyptic conspiracy somehow warranting a dramatic departure from the entirety of the legally established process of selecting presidents past and future.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) says he would "absolutely not" support Donald Trump in 2024 even if he is the Republican nominee:
"It's not just because he loses … It's also he's simply not a person who ought to have the reins of the government of the United States." pic.twitter.com/048yFvGfJh
— The Recount (@therecount) December 8, 2022
Sen. Mitt Romney: "President Trump lost again, and I know a lot of people in our party love the president — former president — but he is, if you will, the kiss of death for somebody who wants to win a general election." @NBCNews
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 8, 2022
