President Trump on Sunday bemoaned how Democrats stay in lockstep while Republicans such as Sen. Mitt Romney reliably turn on their party’s leaders.
“The Democrats are lucky that they don’t have any Mitt Romney types. They may be lousy politicians, with really bad policies (Open Borders, Sanctuary Cities etc.), but they stick together!” tweeted the president.
He has been ripping Mr. Romney since the Utah Republican sided with a U.S. intelligence community whistleblower who accusing Mr. Trump of abuse of power and spurred House Democrats’ new impeachment effort.
But Mr. Trump was also calling attention to an age-old Washington rubric by which Republican lawmakers who rebel against their leadership become darlings of the news media. In this way, Mr. Romney follows in the footsteps of the late John McCain, whose reputation as a “maverick” critic of his own GOP eventually propelled him to the party’s presidential nomination.
Mr. Trump blistered at Mr. Romney lending credence to the impeachment push.
“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!” Mr. Trump tweeted Saturday.
He also blasted Mr. Romney, the 2014 Republican presidential nominee, for being one of his most outspoken critics since arriving in the Senate last year.
“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!” wrote the president.
Mr. Trump’s support among Republicans has remained relatively strong despite the whistleblower accusation. However, a predictable list of Republican that also includes moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and anti-Trump diehard Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska have condemned the president’s actions.
Mr. Romney said he doubted Mr. Trump’s explanation that he asked Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, a frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, as part of an anti-corruption push in that country.
“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,” Mr. Romney tweeted Friday.
Mr. Romney also called it “wrong and appalling” for Mr. Trump to publicly call on Ukraine and China to investigate Mr. Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter Biden’s business dealings in those countries while his father was in the White House have raised eyebrows. It’s at the heart of Mr. Trump’s push for a corruption probe that spurred an intelligence community whistleblower complaint and a new impeachment effort.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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