Mitt Romney can’t stop making Republicans regret him.
The former GOP presidential nominee, who should know better than most how a biased establishment media reflexively attacks conservatives, has been going out of his way to court mainstream media attention as he nears the end of his single Senate term.
And in the process, he’s proving why so many Republicans don’t trust him.
In an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the lifelong Republican — a Massachusetts governor before he was a presidential candidate before he was a Utah senator — reiterated that he would not rule out voting for Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election, despite the obvious damage Biden’s presidency is doing to the country.
An ongoing invasion over the southern border, inflation eating the wages of working Americans, and a disastrous foreign policy that’s witnessed the United States humiliated on a global scale is apparently nothing to Romney compared to his personal distaste for former President Donald Trump.
Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in his 2020 impeachment. He was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict in Trump’s 2021 impeachment.
In both cases, the legal cases against Trump were paper-thin, but they were enough for Romney.
Yet he sees no grounds for an impeachment inquiry into Biden — despite the mounting evidence that Biden and his family have profited enormously from the sale of Biden’s influence during his vice presidential days.
“Have you seen any evidence that President Biden has committed high crimes and misdemeanors,” host Kristen Welker asked.
Will Trump become the Republican nominee?
“No, I don’t see any evidence of that at all,” Romney answered. “I think before you begin an impeachment inquiry you have to have some evidence, some inclination, that there’s been wrongdoing.
“And so far, there’s nothing of that nature that’s been provided.”
Romney allowed that Biden’s son, the notorious Hunter Biden, is not exactly a national role model, but “we’re not going to impeach someone because of the sins of their kids.”
Sen. @MittRomney: “I don’t see any evidence [justifying a Biden impeachment inquiry]. I think, before you begin an impeachment inquiry, you ought to have some evidence … We’re not going to impeach someone because of the sins of their kids.” pic.twitter.com/9aaud6m9Df
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 10, 2023
That’s just deliberate dishonesty — and anyone paying attention to the news knows it.
Yet Mitt Romney, a man who could somehow discern a reason to convict Trump of ginned-up, partisan charges involving Ukraine (a country the Bidens have enormous interest in) and do the same thing the following year on an equally baseless charge of “incitement to insurrection,” can find no reason to even begin an impeachment inquiry into Biden?
His comments were not well received. Here’s a fair sample of comments on X.
He just keeps getting worse with his statements. RINO!
— Debra Freeman (@DebtheEverlivin) December 10, 2023
The “no evidence” excuse is always a fake. There is almost always some evidence, and in this case there is a lot: testimony, interviews, recordings, bank records, admissions, etc.
— Andy Martin (@Dollarlogic) December 10, 2023
With all due respect, this is a bonkers take. There would be enough evidence for a true vote on a grand jury, never mind an “inquiry”.
— Check Mark Prime (@PrimeCheckMark) December 10, 2023
But this one summed it up perfectly:
What a useless, spineless squish.
I regret my performative vote for him more than I regret voting for McCain, and that’s really saying something.
— MacroAggressions (@DenierNyc) December 11, 2023
As a candidate in the 2012 Republican primary, then as the standard-bearer in the general election, Romney appeared to be the best hope of ending the administration of then-President Barack Obama in one term, which could well have cut off some of the country’s most pressing current problems.
Since then, however, he’s shown himself to be a party of one — a man more interested in public preening than benefitting his own party.
His one-term Senate career is forgettable except for his twin betrayals of his party and its voters on the altar of his own self-esteem. He was willing to cast Donald Trump from office twice on charges that were either imagined or exaggerated. He can’t see one reason to bring up the question when it comes to Joe Biden — “the big guy” himself.
The disappointment in Romney isn’t just that he lost in 2012 — though even a RINO would have been better in the office than Barack Obama. The real disappointment is that Romney has spent the years since proving to be utterly disloyal to the party that once chose him to lead — and the voters who supported him.
Republicans have many things to regret about the first quarter of the 20th century — but when it comes to their own, Mitt Romney is at the very top of the list.
