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Even earlier than Senator Mitt Romney of Utah introduced he wouldn’t search re-election subsequent yr, he made no secret of his disapproval of the route of the Republican Occasion and former President Donald J. Trump’s grip on it.
However in a brand new, deeply reported biography, “Romney: A Reckoning,” set to be launched subsequent week, Mr. Romney goes past his broad disdain for the occasion and offers his unvarnished opinion of a few of his fellow Republicans.
In interviews with the e-book’s writer, McKay Coppins, Mr. Romney, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, affords frank value determinations which can be uncommon in Washington.
Such tell-all, insider books usually foster a observe generally known as the “Washington learn,” during which boldfaced names instantly flip by way of the index to seek out out what damaging assessments might come to hang-out them.
Here’s a number of what Mr. Romney’s friends and colleagues, previous and current, may discover.
Christie, Chris
Mr. Romney’s advisers in 2012 steered that he take into account Chris Christie, then the governor of New Jersey, as a operating mate, in line with the e-book.
However Mr. Romney had reservations about Mr. Christie’s “prima donna tendencies,” and fearful that the governor was not “as much as the bodily calls for” of being on the ticket and was stricken by “barely buried” scandals, Mr. Coppin writes.
The 2 additionally got here into battle in 2016 after Mr. Christie grew to become one of many first institution Republicans to again Mr. Trump.
“I imagine your endorsement of him severely diminishes you morally,” Mr. Romney wrote in an e mail. He added: “You need to withdraw that assist to protect your integrity and character.”
Evaluating Mr. Christie’s 2024 marketing campaign, Mr. Romney labels him “one other bridge-and-tunnel loudmouth” like Mr. Trump, saying it will be “a hoot” to look at the 2 of them spar on the talk stage.
Cruz, Ted
Mr. Romney known as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas “scary” and “a demagogue” in his journal, and in an e mail assessing political candidates in 2016, he stated Mr. Cruz was “scary.”
He was additionally bluntly crucial of Mr. Cruz’s function in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election, together with his perpetuating Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
Mr. Romney stated that he believed Mr. Cruz and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, one other objector, had been too good to imagine what they had been saying.
“They had been making a calculation that put politics above the pursuits of liberal democracy and the Structure,” Mr. Romney stated.
DeSantis, Ron
Of all the would-be challengers to Mr. Trump, Mr. Romney appeared to have essentially the most to say about Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who was seen early on as having one of the best shot at difficult Mr. Trump for the nomination.
Mr. Romney’s views on the governor had been decidedly blended, in line with the e-book.
“Mr. Romney wished to love the governor,” Mr. Coppins writes. The senator stated that it was a “no-brainer” to assist Mr. DeSantis if it meant conserving Mr. Trump out of the White Home.
But Mr. Romney appeared to have reservations. He fearful that Mr. DeSantis shared “odious qualities” with Mr. Trump, pointing to his penchant for stoking the tradition wars and his combat with the Walt Disney Firm.
And Mr. Romney appeared to have objections to the Florida governor on a extra private degree.
“There’s simply no heat in any respect,” Mr. Romney stated. He added that when Mr. DeSantis posed for photographs with Iowa voters, “he appears to be like like he’s acquired a toothache.”
Even his appraisal of Mr. DeSantis’s optimistic qualities got here with a backhanded sting.
“He’s a lot smarter than Trump,” Mr. Romney stated. However, he added, “there’s a peril to having somebody who’s good and pulling in a route that’s harmful.”
Gingrich, Newt
Whereas Mr. Romney was operating unsuccessfully for Senate in Massachusetts in 1994, Mr. Gingrich, a hard-line conservative who would develop into Home speaker, was rising to prominence.
Mr. Romney recollects pondering, in line with the e-book, that Mr. Gingrich “got here throughout as a smug know-it-all; smarmy and too happy with himself and never an excellent face for our occasion.”
Twenty years later, when the 2 had been competing in opposition to one another within the Republican presidential main, Mr. Romney was no extra impressed.
Mr. Coppins writes that Mr. Romney noticed Mr. Gingrich as “a ridiculous blowhard who babbled about America constructing colonies on the moon.” He additionally had ethical objections to Mr. Gingrich’s admitted adultery.
In his journal, Mr. Romney wrote that his spouse, Ann, thought that Mr. Gingrich was “a megalomaniac, severely needing psychiatric consideration.”
McConnell, Mitch
As he does with many different Republicans within the e-book, Mr. Romney hammers Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican chief, over what he sees as a spot between his private and non-private statements regarding Mr. Trump.
Mr. Coppins writes that Mr. Romney questioned “which model of McConnell was extra genuine: the one who did Trump’s bidding in public, or the one who excoriated him of their non-public conversations.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Romney appears to have respect for Mr. McConnell. In January 2021, he stated, he believed Mr. McConnell had been “indulgent of Trump’s deranged habits during the last 4 years, however he’s not loopy.”
Pence, Mike
Mr. Romney makes his disdain for the previous vp abundantly clear, calling him “a lap canine to Trump for 4 years.”
He appears notably appalled by what he seen as Mr. Pence’s willingness to compromise his personal ethical views, or contort them, to be a loyal foot soldier to Mr. Trump.
“Nobody had been extra loyal, extra prepared to smile when he noticed absurdities, extra prepared to ascribe God’s will to issues that had been ungodly, than Mike Pence,” Mr. Romney instructed Mr. Coppins.
Perry, Rick
Mr. Romney described Mr. Perry, the previous Texas governor who was a rival for the 2012 Republican nomination, as a “dimwit,” Mr. Coppins writes.
In his journal, Mr. Romney wrote of Mr. Perry that “Republicans should understand that we should have somebody who can full a sentence.”
In 2016, when Mr. Perry ran a short-lived marketing campaign for president, Mr. Romney stated that the Texan’s “prima donna, low-IQ persona” was a non-starter.
Santorum, Rick
The previous senator from Pennsylvania, who additionally ran in opposition to Mr. Romney in 2012, was “sanctimonious, extreme and unusual,” in Mr. Romney’s evaluation.
At one level throughout the 2012 marketing campaign, Mr. Romney finds himself irked by his rival’s “apparently bottomless self-interest,” Mr. Coppin writes.
In his journal, Mr. Romney stated Mr. Santorum was “pushed by ego, not precept.”
Trump, Donald J.
Maybe the freshest revelation in Mr. Romney’s e-book is his acknowledgment that lots of his colleagues within the Senate, together with Mr. McConnell, privately shared his poor view of Mr. Trump.
However that harsh evaluation — which might arrange Mr. Romney’s battle with Mr. Trump all through his presidency — was made most clear within the e mail Mr. Romney despatched to Mr. Christie in 2016.
“He’s unquestionably mentally unstable, and he’s racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar and vulnerable to violence,” Mr. Romney wrote. “There may be merely no rational argument that might lead me to vote for somebody with these traits.”
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