WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — Mitt Romney is minimizing past hostilities with President Trump, emphasizing his delight with the first-year accomplishments of his occasional political foe.
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee bragged about a personal relationship with Trump that goes back decades in conversations with voters while campaigning for Senate over the weekend. Romney paid Trump perhaps the ultimate compliment, saying the president’s achievements are similar to what he would have done had he won the White House.
“I knew Donald Trump when we were both in business. I’ve had dinner at his breakfast table in Mar-a-Lago when it was his private residence, not a club. I was there with Marla Maples, his wife at the time, and their little baby, Brittany, she was — no, Tiffany — she was in a high chair. We’ve known each other for a long time,” Romney said, as he met with voters attending the state GOP convention near Salt Lake City.
“I mean, you know, he endorsed me,” Romney added. “Why did he endorse me? Because he knows I know how to get stuff done.” In another exchange, Romney said: “He and I go back way before politics, back in our business days. Look, I’ve been on his jet; I’ve gone to the Super Bowl with him.”
Romney is favored to succeed retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. He’s expected to easily defeat Mike Kennedy in the June primary, despite finishing just behind the state representative in a vote of more than 3,300 delegates at Saturday’s Utah GOP convention. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, should cruise in the general election.
Romney, 71, said he would not hesitate to publicly criticize Trump, also 71, in the future if his actions or rhetoric warrant admonishment. “If he says something which I believe is racist or divisive and serious, then I’ll point out that I disagree with that,” Romney told one voter, who asked how he reconciled his past disparagement of Trump with recent praise.
And Romney told CNN’s Maeve Reston he was undecided on endorsing the president for re-election in 2020, telling reporters in a subsequent interview: “In terms of what happens in 2020, we’re going to wait and see who runs, and gosh, if I had to make that decision today, I’d be missing that opportunity to find out what they’re going to do for Utah.”
Romney purposely didn’t raise the issue of his relationship with Trump during nearly three hours of answering voters’ questions, as they mingled with candidates at the convention. He focused on plans to use a perch on Capitol Hill to stop excessive federal spending and lead his party in making another run at fully repealing Obamacare. But voters asked about his relationship with Trump, given his harsh words for the president, on occasion, in recent years.
In March 2016, in the heat of a then-undecided GOP presidential primary, Romney delivered a speech urging Republicans to support other GOP candidates, warning that Trump was a “fraud” and a liar. Romney said he wouldn’t have accepted Trump’s endorsement in the 2012 race had he said then what he was saying in 2016 about Mexicans and Muslims.
Last year, after Trump equivocated in his criticism of the white supremacists that marched on Charlottesville, Va., Romney again rebuked Trump, saying in part: “What he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep and the vast heart of America to mourn. His apologists strain to explain that he didn’t mean what we heard.”
Trump fans among the delegates at the Utah GOP convention wanted to know how Romney intends to work with the president in the Senate. Trump critics wanted assurances Romney would continue confronting him. Romney said he would compliment and criticize Trump, as events, policies, and rhetoric, dictate.
“The things he’s actually done have been better than I would have expected,” Romney said. “I’m an honest enough person that if he does something right — and, by the way, he’s done a number of things right — I’ll be fully supportive of those things. I will support the president’s agenda when it’s good for Utah, and when it’s good for the country, and so far, that’s been the case.”
Romney’s relationship with Trump is complicated — and he’s not the first Republican to chastise Trump’s behavior but applaud his agenda. The president, then a real estate mogul and reality television star, endorsed Romney in his 2012 presidential bid. Trump was critical of Romney afterward, saying he blew a campaign he should have won. Four years later, they squabbled again, yet after Trump won he interviewed Romney as a possible secretary of state.
Romney is a favorite son in Utah, beloved for saving the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and becoming the first Mormon to lead a national ticket — the state is home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s conservative territory, but unlike other red states, not always hospitable to Trump. So, Romney’s past feuding with the president is a virtue.
Voters are pleased with the president’s deregulatory and tax policies and ecstatic over his decision to return control of federal lands to the state. But they prefer political disagreements be discussed with civility, and there is lingering discomfort with Trump’s personal style, marked by provocative rhetoric and boorish behavior — plus concerns about trade and immigration.
It’s caused a bit of political schizophrenia on the part of some Utah Republicans. In that regard, Romney isn’t much different from his future constituents.
“It is very disconcerting still to me. I haven’t really gotten used to it,” Tony Kent, a 30-year-old construction materials salesman, said of Trump’s polarizing style. “I will say that, when he does something right, does something well, I do agree with him.”
