CNN
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Senator Mitt Romney, a regular Donald Trump The critic, who will soon retire from Congress, maintained his criticism of the president-elect’s character, but said Trump and his MAGA movement now define the Republican Party.
“As you know, I am not a supporter of President Trump. I did not support him in this election. “I didn’t do it the last time he ran either, largely because of character issues,” the Utah Republican, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, said Sunday. to CNN’s Jake Tapper in a wide-ranging “State of the Union” interview.
But Romney acknowledged Trump’s hold on the party he once led.
“MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” he said.
Asked about his sustained criticism of Trump, dating back to the president-elect’s first run at the White House in 2016, Romney described himself as “pretty outspoken” and said he felt Trump “was wrong for the country, wrong for our party, that he would not win,” but he noted, “I was wrong about that. »
“I think most people disagree with me. I’m ready to live with that. I’m just emphasizing different things than the general public is doing now,” he said.
But Romney argued that the new president deserved a “chance” to do what he wanted. he promised upon his return to the White House.
“I agree with him on many policy fronts. I don’t agree with him on some things,” Romney said of Trump. “But it’s like, OK, give him a chance to do what he said he was going to do and see how it works.”
Asked about Trump taking unorthodox steps Choice of firmRomney called it “an unusual group of individuals, not people I would have chosen,” but said Trump had “the right” to make his choice because he won the election.
Romney on Trump’s cabinet: “Not the people I would have chosen.” But I lost. He won.
But, Romney said, “the Senate has a responsibility to make sure that these people are legitimate, that there are no skeletons that could be an embarrassment to them or to the country” and that the nominees are qualified to the position.
Elected to the Senate in 2018, Romney became known as a distinctive voice in the House, ready to take on his own party. In Trump’s first impeachment trial, Romney was the only Republican in the Senate to find him guilty of abuse of power. In 2021, he was one of seven Senate Republicans who crossed party lines to find Trump guilty of inciting the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
When asked what he thought the legacy of the January 6 attack would be, Romney said he thought it would be considered “a very dark day in American history” and that ” It’s unfortunate that there are people in the MAGA world trying to paper over this, but I don’t think it’s possible.
But Romney also said he believed American institutions would hold up in the years to come “because I think people, faced with the reality of what is at stake, will want to protect the roots of freedom.”
Trump and his allies have suggested that in his second term he could unleash the Justice Department against his political enemies.
Asked if he was concerned that he or his family could become a target for political retaliation by Trump, Romney replied: “No, actually, I’ve been pretty clean throughout my life . Criminal investigations don’t particularly worry me.
“I don’t know, by the way, how much of what the president is saying is hyperbole,” he said, adding, “I think President Trump will probably try to focus on the future.”
Romney: Despite Trump’s victory, January 6 will be remembered as ‘a very dark day in American history’
The Utah Republican also praised Vice President-elect JD Vance, calling the Ohio senator “smart” and predicting he will be the GOP nominee in 2028.
“If you ask me who the candidate will be in 2028, I think it will be JD Vance, okay? He’s smart, he’s well-spoken, he’s part of the MAGA movement,” Romney said, downplaying Vance’s past criticisms as comments “from a long time ago” and saying, “I’m not going to rehash the history, and we have worked together in the Senate together ever since.
Reflecting on the results of the recent presidential election, Romney said Trump deserves “credit” for moving working-class voters to the Democratic Party in favor of the Republican Party.
“Look, the Republican Party has become the party of working-class and middle-class voters, and you have to give credit to Donald Trump for doing that, taking that away from the Democrats,” he said.
Romney said that after some Democratic Party voters switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, “there will be a reorientation that will be necessary in my party,” but that the Democratic Party “is the one in trouble.”
He also discussed his long political career on the national stage, including his unsuccessful campaign against Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, and how he went from being the target of high-profile attacks by Democrats during his candidacy for the presidential election to be hailed by the Democrats. during his time in the Senate for his desire to break with Trump.
“When I look back on the campaigns and I think about the angst that surrounded any mistake that I or anyone in the campaign made, a small thing, those things grew to enormous proportions,” he said. “It’s kind of amusing to see the kinds of things that, in hindsight, seem quaint.”
Romney said Obama was “in some ways smart to pick on me and say, ‘Here’s a rich businessman, we’re going to characterize him as a plutocrat who doesn’t care about people.’ He followed that story, put it out there before I could respond to it really effectively, and he managed to do it.
Romney ignored the question of how he would like history to remember him, downplaying his legacy as “a footnote to someone who reads ancient history” but saying he would like his family remembers him.
“I want my family to remember me as someone who stood up for what I believed in, was not embarrassed by my core beliefs, who loved the country and did what I believe was right for help preserve the greatest nation in the world,” he said. .
CNN’s Clare Foran and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.