It has been noted that a preview of McKay Coppins’ new book about Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) in The Atlantic revealed that Senate Republicans often shared private laughs at the expense of former President Donald Trump during his time in the White House via Media Ite.
According to Coppins, “Romney’s most surprising discovery upon entering the Senate was that his disgust with Trump was not unique among his Republican colleagues.” Coppins continued:
Perhaps Romney’s most surprising discovery upon entering the Senate was that his disgust with Trump was not unique among his Republican colleagues. “Almost without exception,” he told me, “they shared my view of the president.” In public, of course, they played their parts as Trump loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the president’s most indefensible behavior. But in private, they ridiculed his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive observations about his warped, toddlerlike psyche. Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”
As an example of Republicans’ amusement at Trump’s behavior, Romney cited a 2019 visit that the then-president made to a Senate GOP lunch:
“One afternoon in March 2019, Trump paid a visit to the Senate Republicans’ weekly caucus lunch. He was in a buoyant mood—two days earlier, the Justice Department had announced that the much-anticipated report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller failed to establish collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. As Romney later wrote in his journal, the president was met with a standing ovation fit for a conquering hero, and then launched into some rambling remarks. He talked about the so-called Russia hoax and relitigated the recent midterm elections and swung wildly from one tangent to another. He declared, somewhat implausibly, that the GOP would soon become “the party of health care.” The senators were respectful and attentive.
As soon as Trump left, Romney recalled, the Republican caucus burst into laughter.”
Romney, who is the last Republican presidential nominee before Trump claimed the same title in 2016, has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s for years. The former president celebrated Romney’s announcement of his intention to retire from the Senate on Truth Social Wednesday.
“FANTASTIC NEWS FOR AMERICA,THE GREAT STATE OF UTAH, & FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY,” he declared. “MITT ROMNEY, SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS PIERRE DELECTO, WILL NOT BE SEEKING A SECOND TERM IN THE U.S. SENATE, WHERE HE DID NOT SERVE WITH DISTINCTION.”
