On Saturday, President Donald Trump tore into his arch-nemesis Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) by calling him a “pompous a**” after he publicly rebuked him for asking foreign governments to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s allegedly corrupt dealings.
“Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics,” Trump tweeted. “If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!”
Trump continued: “Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous ‘a–’ who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!”
Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2019
Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous “ass” who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2019
The president was reacting to Romney’s tweets on Friday in which he said Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine and China were “appalling.”
“When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated,” Romney said. “By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.”
Romney issued those tweets shortly after Trump publicly said that China should investigate Joe Biden’s allegedly corrupt dealings in the country.
“China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened with China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Trump said earlier last week. “I’m sure that President Xi [Jinping] does not like being under that kind of scrutiny where billions of dollars is taken out of his country by a guy that just got kicked out of the Navy.”
Trump is not alone in his condemnation of Romney for essentially siding with the Democratic Party’s talking points against him during the Ukraine investigation. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Fox Business host Charles Payne that Romney does not speak for all Republicans.
“Senator Romney has gone down the same path as the Democrats like Nancy Pelosi,” Scott said. “He thinks the worst of the president instead of the best, before he ever gets all the facts. We have to go through the process to get the facts. Senator Romney doesn’t speak for the Republican Party. He can have his own opinions, and he doesn’t speak for all Republican senators.”
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that the Democratic Party will be looking into a possible impeachment inquiry against Trump based on a whistleblower’s allegation that he pressured Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden’s potentially corrupt dealings in the country, Mitt Romney said that Trump’s actions were “troubling.”
“My reaction was the same as I had a few days ago, which is this remains deeply troubling and we’ll see where it leads. The first reaction is troubling,” Romney said in response to the released transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine. “I don’t know if I’d focus so much on the quid pro quo element as perhaps some do. I’ve said this in my first reaction, if the President of the United States asks or presses the leader of a foreign country to carry out an investigation of a political nature, that’s troubling. Clearly, if there were a quid pro quo that would take it to an entirely more extreme level.”