Romney: Obama waiting on executive action is ‘cynical,’ ‘political’

Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee for president, said Sunday that President Obama waiting until after the midterm elections to address immigration reform is a “cynical” and “political” move.

“The president’s saying I’m going to violate the law after the election when what I do will not have electoral consequences,” Mr. Romney said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s basically saying he wants to do something the American people won’t like and he wants to do it after the midterms when it won’t have consequences for him.”

Mr. Obama announced Saturday that he would wait until after November to issue an executive order on immigration. Republicans are calling it a political move to protect vulnerable Democrats and hopefully keep control of the Senate. Democrats said they were disappointed that the president isn’t acting sooner on something House Republicans failed to move forward.

Mr. Romney also criticized the president on his foreign policy, noting that he has downplayed threats to the country’s national security in the past by wanting to reset the relationship with Russia and calling the Islamic State junior varsity.

“He is so out of touch with reality that he hasn’t taken the kind of action necessary to prevent very bad things from happening,” Mr. Romney said. “When the president is seen as being weak, bad people do bad things.”

Mr. Romney also suggested that the president hasn’t yet come up with a strategy to defeat the Islamic State because he spends too much time playing golf.

“The president was too busy on the golf course to pick up the phone and call leaders around the world to say what if,” he said. “I don’t know whether you can’t see reality from a fairway.”

While Mr. Romney was critical of the president, he stood by past assertions that he will not make another run at the country’s top office in 2016.

“There’s no question in my mind that I think I would’ve been a better president than Barack Obama has been,” Mr. Romney said. “My time has come and gone, I had that opportunity. I ran, I didn’t win and now it’s time for someone else to pick up the baton.”