U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney on Tuesday accused fellow Republicans of fomenting political division by perpetuating the myth that massive voter fraud denied Donald Trump reelection, and said unity will be difficult to achieve without acknowledging Democratic President Joe Biden won a fair contest.
Romney, in a livestreamed interview with Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar on behalf of the Economic Club of Chicago, also said he shared hopes that the Jan. 6 uprising at the nation’s capital might lead to more bipartisanship but said there’s been no sign of any change in rhetoric.
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Romney acknowledged there were already divisions within the Republican Party when he ran as the GOP candidate in 2012 against then President Barack Obama, but said they have only grown stronger.
“There’s no question but that I was not the ideal fit with the Republican Party at that time (of the presidential bid), nor am I the ideal fit today with the Republican Party,” said Romney, elected as a senator from Utah in 2018.
Romney said his 2012 campaign strategist told him he would have to work even harder to get the nomination because the GOP had become more Evangelical, while he was a Mormon, more populist, while he was a millionaire, and more conservative, while he was a moderate.
Romney, voted to convict Trump in the former president’s first Senate impeachment trial last year, and will be a juror in the upcoming trial in which Trump is accused of insurrection for allegedly encouraging the violent attempt by his supporters to take over the nation’s Capitol.
The senator said he believed the impact of social media in stoking unrest over the election would have been dampened if Republicans had pronounced Biden the rightful victor.
“In addition to social media perpetuating the big lie, if you will, that somehow Donald Trump is still president and Joseph Biden stole the election, you have many Trump supporters in elected office — senators, congresspeople, governors — continuing to say the same thing, that the election was stolen,” he said.
“If each of us, elected Republicans, went out and jf we went on Fox (News) … saying, ‘You know what? I was a big Trump supporter. I was really pulling for Donald Trump. But you know what? He lost fair and square,’ ” Romney said. “If that were happening, I think the impact of social media would be less.”
Romney dismissed complaints from other Republicans that proceeding with a second Trump impeachment trial would only serve to fan anger and division.
“Have you gone out publicly and said that there was not widespread voter fraud and that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States? If you said that, then I’m happy to listen to you talk about other things that might inflame anger and divide. But if you haven’t said that, that’s really what’s at the source of the anger right now,” Romney said. “You’ve got to have that get to the rearview mirror before you talk about the next stage” toward unity.
“Justice being carried out is something which the American people expect,” Romney said of the second impeachment.
“There’s no question but that the president incited the insurrection that occurred. To what degree and so forth is something we’re going to evaluate in the trial that will proceed,” he said. “But to simply say, ‘Well, we’re gonna just move on because we need to be united’ would not be, I think, consistent with the history of justice as applied in our country. And I believe it’s an element of unity, which I look forward to having resolved, so that we can move on.”
Romney acknowledged that political self interest was at play among some of his colleagues, particularly those considering a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination who want to appeal to Trump’s base.
“(Arkansas Sen.) Tom Cotton, (former U.N. Ambassador) Nikki Haley, (Florida Sen.) Marco Rubio, (Missouri Sen.) Josh Hawley — I don’t hear them speaking in terms of moderation but instead continuing the same rhetoric as in the past,” Romney said.
On a more optimistic note, he said he expects with the country facing the challenges of COVID-19 and vaccine distribution, pandemic relief funding, growing debt, climate change and a more powerful China, “we’ll be able to get work done.”
“But I think the rhetoric is probably not going to change a lot,” he said.
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Romney on Tuesday accused fellow Republicans of fomenting political division by perpetuating the myth that massive voter fraud denied Donald Trump reelection
Enough of this child and his tantrums. It’s time for this piece of garbage to be primaried the hell out.
There in “lies” the problem… these fragments of excrement now control and manipulate the entire election process. Scumbag Romney is just lying and saying what the people who are going to fraudulently manipulate the election for him want to hear….so he can keep up the charade of caring about this country while selling it out for his own personal gain. There’s only one option left.
I agree. ITS HARD TO primary one of them out, when damn near EVERY FACET of the election process, from WHOM The gop even ALLOWS To run against those incumbents, to HOW THE VOTES get counted etc, ARE controlled BY THOSE IN power…
I just logged in only to say:
“Runme, you are a piece of lying garbage, badly smelling.
May h*ll take care of sick antiamerican idiots soon”
Romney being perfect again. The fact that so many disagree with him means nothing because he is convinced he is right. I’m glad that he and McCain never were elected.
Huh?? You lost me.
As disgraceful as it is:
The general election in Utah was won by Mitt Romney, who had been the Republican nominee for president in 2012 and previously was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.
Scruffy, I am from California, the very belly of the beast, so it is hard (but not impossible) for me to talk smack about voters from Utah. But yeah, Utahans, is it only because Romney says he is a Mormon that y’all voted him in? What other possible reason could there be? He is an ongoing embarrassment to thinking people everywhere. I voted for him when he ran against O’Bummer, but never again. He is a charter member of my list of RINOs who will never get my support in any fashion, ever again.
BUT does that show he was RIGHT< OR the voters in MA and Utah are DUNCES?
At what point do we get rid of this disgraceful, dishonorable Democrat Mitt Romney?
How can the citizens of Utah even hold their heads up after electing this unethical trash Romney??
They probably didn’t vote for him… I’m sure the election was fraudulent like everywhere else… Scumbag Romney just lies and projectile vomits whatever the cesspool swamp wants to hear so they manipulate the voting his way…. and they love it. Makes it look more legitimate that “some” republicans won… even though he ….IS… one of the communist party.
Romney’s “acknowledging Democratic President Joe Biden won a fair contest.” Is to surrender to the dark side of political corruption, election manipulation, media mind manipulation, which leaves the American election’s baby’s diapers unchanged to the point where lethal infection sets in. I challenge Romney and all parties to an experiment in truth. Let all mid-term elections be held by in-person ID voting only and then lets see who is actually voting and how many got stolen last time around. You and I and Romney all know that the corrupt Democrats cannot allow this to happen in their machine run cities or they would never win another election again. Truth in elections is the greatest defense against election theft but where is Mitthead on this one,,,,,out in the hay stacked elections fast asleep.
Trump was not the cause of the November 6th incitement, but bad government, lack of transparency, lack of investigations and accountability, which Romney runs from lest his own contributions to American failure, and International corrupt business deals gets revealed. There are so many American puppet politicians in Washington like Romney, controlled by the Chinese, I’m surprised you can still find strings left on the shelves of our stores.
COMMENTThe ONLY myth is that Romney is a Republican.
You deserve 27 stars for that one! My thoughts exactly! It’s also a myth that he’s a Mormon. It’s like senile Joe saying he’s Catholic.
I fled the democrat party when it began to morph into its present shape. even so I found romney so appalling, so hypocritical, so nasty and a liar that I voted for Obama. that is what I always recall whenever I see this guy. uch.
HOW could you ever vote for obama??
I’m sure along the way President Xi Jinping was heard saying to the scumbag… “Mitt… I am your father”
Unfortunately, he can’t be booted until Nov 2024. At some point, his constituents better wake up. It seems even Massachusetts believes Romney thinks he’s “Mr. President Standby” and will seize the GOP nomination in his deranged thoughts next time around.
Romney needs to start acting like an Latter day American Saint, instead of a modern day Democrat Devil in disguise.
The old Republican party that refuses to stand on principles, rolls over on its back and whines and cries while the left rips out their throat is dead with their clubhouse scheduled for demolition in November 2022. That includes you Mit.
I have always thought of the current leadership of the GOP as an exclusive club with a secluded place to meet and plan to weaken the foundations of the constitution and stab the people in the back by agreeing with the Democrats. That clubhouse!
The new Republican party, the Trump Republican party, cleaning itself of RINOs, will stand up in November of 2022.
IT damn well BETTER stand up and clean this nation, of all those rinos.
COMMENTsure hope so, but with the dummycrats proving they can steal elections and get away with it, the 2022 mid terms might be a big waste of time. We shall see.
That’s what i am fearing too, wild dog.. THAT cause they KNOW THEIR FRAUD will be allowed (BY the media and courts), conservatives will never again win an election.
Perpetual loser Romney mustn’t have seen the videos, read any of the depositions, or checked any of the laws that had been broken. He wasn’t the voter’s primary choice, he was the establishment’s, the same establishment that fought against Donald Trump before, during, and after the election of 2016.
He’s like Stg Shultz, from the hogan’s heroes tv show.. “I SEE NOTHING!”
The only myth here is that Romney is a Republican.
“The senator said he believed the impact of social media in stoking unrest over the election would have been dampened if Republicans had pronounced Biden the rightful victor.” IOW, if we all just cave and accept whatever the Dems have to say, then we’ll have unity.
Uh, Mit, we’ve been given enough accounts of voting irregularities that we can reasonably question the integrity of the election. At the very least we were entitled to a thorough investigation of the election practices before crowning Biden. All we got was a chorus of “nothing to see here” from the media, Dems, and clowns like yourself. I assume that even someone of your superior intellect can see why we might be unhappy with that result. And the coordinated attack by Big Tech hasn’t given us warm fuzzy feelings that the whole process is copacetic instead of a coordinated attack on us.
Add to it the stunts the Dems have pulled over the last year regarding loosening up voting standards and the ignoring of valid concerns we expressed about those practices and you can begin to see why many of us feel the election was probably stolen. At least, we’re unwilling to accept that Biden actually won fair and square.
Telling us to shut up and go away isn’t going to fix this. What was anger has turned to rage. Trump may not be President, but he hasn’t gone away, and neither have we. Watch your back.
Anyone that actually thinks a Senile Old Fool who didn’t even know what office he was seeking and referred to his team as the Harris Biden ticket could receive 80 million votes has nothing but a Vacuum between the ears. The Presidential Election of 2020 was a Massive Theft to overthrow OUR Republic. Now they are punishing anyone questioning the validity of election. Welcome to the Communist States Of America, Comrade.
Yes, Trump’s election was stolen by the use of several means including fake ballots. Yours was also stolen because you lied to the voters and represented yourself as a Republican. Using these false credentials, you are causing more harm to our country
There’s a lot of times i REALLY WISH we the voter, could CIVILLY AND even criminally sue, these politicians, for HOODWINKING US to vote for them..
For all Mitt’s religious sanctimony, and the guise of wannabe senior statesman, he is an incredibly vindictive man who holds grudges. When I think back to his 2012 campaign, and the comments that were made by people who lost jobs from closed factories and businesses because they were broken apart and sold off by Mitt’s hedge fund, that spoke volumes. He’s never forgiven Trump for not giving giving him the Secretary of State job, and in fact, winning the Presidency when he couldn’t. Romney’s up for re-election in 2024, not soon enough. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not provide for recall of members of the House or Senate.
First of all, Vladimir Putin cares more about American Values than Mitt Romney.
On topic, I’m willing to believe that there are enough Trump haters and “Blue no matter who” Democrat voters to put Biden over Trump in the 2020 election.
What I’m having trouble believing is the margins and percentages he supposedly won by.
Case in point. American Pharoah was an Triple Crown winner in horse racing. His time in the Belmont was 2.26.65 minutes. That’s almost three seconds slower than Secretariat ran the same race in 1973. In other words, the world’s fastest horse would have lost that race by 30 lengths had he been running against the fastest horse of all time.
Why is that important? Because by the numbers and the percentages, Biden not only beats Trump in 2020, he beats both Trump and Clinton in 2016. He beats Obama in 2008 and 2012, and he even beats Kennedy in 1960!
I don’t really believe he’s capable of that, especially since he’s the only President in the history of the USA to require the National Guard to stand by at his inauguration for security. He just doesn’t seem that popular to me.
He ISN’T that popular ! I know without a doubt in my mind, that this WAS a fraudulent election, and people like Romney, who frankly I cannot stand, only make it worse. There is NO way on “God’s Green Earth” that Biden could have gotten that many votes. The FIX was in, and China contributed to help THEIR man. Now we have to suffer with a man in office, who is making the WORST decisions, for both his cabinet and the Country !
True, except biden isn’t making ANY decisions. His communist handlers are. biden rarely even knows where he is, what day it is, or the difference between his wife and his sister.
I wonder, how much longer it will be, before they invoke the 25th amendment, and boot his demented butt.
Yep, Mitt, Trump lost “fair and square”, because of all of the cheating that went on, in the biggest voting scam in American history. Mitt, you are a Republican In Name Only and a Democrat communist. Mitt, they should put the Scarlet Letter on your forehead, a big “T”, for traitor. Every time I think of you, Mitt, I need a bucket for the flu symptoms I get. You, Mitt are disgusting. You are like a spoiled child. You, Mitt, are the epitome of the “Deep State”.
The only analogy I can think of when the topic of Romney is addressed is one of Romney and a few others, being comparable to that of Antifa infiltrating the rally on the 6th to cause havoc and destruction.
Romney is NOT a Republican, he is a mole at best, an infiltrator within the Republican Party, a plant to sabotage the Party, he is a Democrat operative and likely always has been.
mitt benedict arnold romney is a traitor pure and simple.
can they recall him in utah?
Romney could put the myth to rest if he would prevail on his Democrat friends to examine a random sample of those 100,000 ballots, counted in the wee hours of Nov 4.
Virtually every one of those ballots will show a unique set of fingerprints from the genuine voter who touched it when he/she filled it out. That set of prints will be found on no other ballot!
Just show that 1000 or so of those ballots, randomly selected, do indeed each have a unique set of prints on them. That alone will largely “dispel the myth” of fraud.
How about it, Senator Romney? Could you stop outgassing long enough to use ‘science’ to confirm that those ballots are genuine, not fake or counterfeit?
EVEn If those checks, showed Multiple finger prints, wrong signatures etc, THEY WOULD STILL SAY “there’s no evidence of fraud”…
Biden “POTUS” is the myth.
Romney is so closed minded he is constipated.
MYTH? Are you serious?
WHAT, Mr. Romney, do YOU call the Surveillance Video showing poll workers taking boxes of ballots out from under covered tables (AFTER declaring a FALSE “broken water main” emergency, and sending people [observers] home)?
How about that SAME video showing one of the women running THE SAME BALLOTS through the counting machine MULTIPLE TIMES?
That doesn’t even warrant an INVESTIGATION?
You just dismiss it as a MYTH?
YOU, Sir, are an IGNORANT BAFFOON, and have NO BUSINESS representing ANYONE or ANY State in the United States’ Congress!
The people of Utah should be ASHAMED of themselves!
The people of Utah ARE ashamed!! I can’t believe I voted for this carpet bagger piece of **** TWICE – – for President and Senator. NEVER AGAIN. Although I am not Mormon and don’t run in their circles, I believe from everything I have heard, the Mormons are NOT HAPPY!! I believe if Mittens has the cajones (as if he had any) to run again, he will be primaried and thrown out!! And not a moment too soon!
He probably calls THOSE things, fake.
Romney’s comments should be disregarded because he is weak and stupid just like all democrats. I am embarrassed when he is addressed as a Republican. Why don’t the voters who elect him make him go away. Why would we want to unite with a bunch of thieves and crooks? Please fix this Utah.
When it comes out that this fool is dirty, we will know why he is such an idiot. NEVER underestimate the ignorance of this fool.
OR IN THOSE who still voted for this cretin…
An embarrassment to the state of Utah
Romney is evil!!! and will do all he can to bring America down.
He would do what Biden is doing, heading the forces of evil in
the war of good vs. evil…………..William
Not just republicans. It is anyone with common sense and two eyes. You know mitty something that no one has in the DC.
If he doesn’t think he’s a “fit” for the Republican Party, why doesn’t he get the [bleep] out?