A Republican establishment impatient with President Trump but uninterested in fomenting an intraparty crackup ahead of 2020 is questioning Mitt Romney’s motivation for issuing a scathing takedown of the president.
These Republican insiders weren’t necessarily disputing Romney’s attention-grabbing Washington Post op-ed — that Trump is unfit for the presidency and driving U.S. foreign policy into a ditch. But they argued with the timing, saying it suggests the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee is all about self-promotion. Romney is to be sworn in as Utah’s junior senator on Thursday, Day 12 of the Republicans’ shutdown showdown with the Democrats.
“I’m not sure what he thought he was accomplishing, aside from annoying the president and lots of fellow senators,” a Republican senator said, requesting anonymity to avoid getting caught in the fray. “Also, why do it in abstract? Why not just wait till he has a concrete disagreement?”
“Everything he said is 100 percent true but the timing makes the remarks seem gratuitous,” a Republican congressman added. In remarks to reporters on Wednesday, Trump dismissed the skirmish: “I think Mitt Romney hopefully will be a team player. And if not, that’s okay, too.”
In November, Romney, 71, was elected in Utah, his adopted home of the past decade, after serving one term as Massachusetts governor in the early 2000s. He twice ran for president, winning the nomination in 2012 before losing to President Barack Obama. Romney accepted Trump’s endorsement in that race — but four years later urged GOP primary voters to back any Republican other than Trump.
Multiple Republicans who have worked for Romney downplayed the 2020 implications of the op-ed, insisting the screed is not a signal of interest in running for president or challenging Trump in a GOP primary.
Rather, the substance is in line with what Romney has said he would do: criticize the president when he believes he’s wrong. The timing was part proving his seriousness and part reaction to Trump’s actions in December, when he sacked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, threatened to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, and made other moves that alarmed many congressional Republicans, sources said.
“There’s absolutely nothing in it that’s new,” Kevin Madden, a veteran Republican operative who advised Romney in 2012, said. “Parts of it could have been lifted from his 2008 and 2012 stump speeches, and certainly the character references come straight from his 2016 speech where he previously denounced Trump.”
“He wants to lay down a marker for what he will do in the Senate, since he gets a lot of questions about it and people are naturally curious,” Lanhee Chen, a longtime Romney advisor, added.
[Related: Romney’s attack prompts call to protect Trump from 2020 primary challenger]
But there is little appetite for a Republican civil war as the GOP adjusts to Democratic control of the House amid a government shutdown. Republicans would prefer that Democratic infighting on Capitol Hill, and that party’s presidential primary, hog the spotlight.
“His problem is not going to be with Trump, it will be with senators who actually want to focus on legislating rather than fielding questions from press about a personality conflict,” a former senior Republican Senate aide said.
Even for some Trump critics, Romney’s op-ed harkens back to what many Republicans didn’t like about him as a presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012. Then, the former governor acquired a reputation as a flip-flopping chameleon constantly altering his image to fit what he believed the party, or the political press corps, wanted.
Romney has, at times, when it benefited him, put his hostility toward Trump aside. He interviewed to become Trump’s first secretary of state and, during his 2018 Senate campaign, accepted Trump’s endorsement.
This crowd views the Romney op-ed as more of the same. They don’t accept claims, reiterated Wednesday during an interview with CNN, that there are no circumstances under which he would run for president again, viewing his recent statements as leaving the door open to a bid.
“This is as it always has been with Mitt,” a GOP strategist said. “It’s all about Mitt and what he thinks is going to help Mitt over the long run. In reality, it just shows what a fraud Mitt has always been.”
[Also read: Not so niece: GOP chairwoman goes after Romney, her uncle, for his Trump criticism]
