Tag: mitt romney
Trump Suffers 'Rough Primary Night' As MAGA Candidates Fail

Trump Suffers 'Rough Primary Night' As MAGA Candidates Fail

Tuesday night, June 25 brought some major bombshells in U.S. House primaries.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, a far-right MAGA Republican, prevailed in Colorado's ultra-conservative 4th Congressional District — where, in the general election, she will have a definite advantage in the competition for the seat once held by former Rep. Ken Buck. And The Squad, an alliance of progressive Democratic lawmakers, suffered a brutal defeat when Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost to the more moderate Democrat George Latimer by roughly 17 percent in New York's 16th Congressional District.

But there were other important stories on June 25, including, according to Politico, some disappointments for former President Donald Trump.

Boebert's victory was good news for him, as the congresswoman has been a staunch Trump loyalist.

However, Politico reporters Ally Mutnick and Madison Fernandez stress that on the whole, June 25 was a "rough primary night" for Trump.

"The former president endorsed a replacement for Sen. Mitt Romney," Mutnick and Fernandez explain, "but Utah voters picked a Trump skeptic [Rep. John Curtis] instead. He backed his spiritual adviser [Mark Burns} for an open South Carolina House seat only to watch him narrowly lose in a runoff. Trump threw his support to the Colorado GOP chair [Dave Williams] for a House district; he was blown out by more than 30 points."

The journalists add, "On the heels of two other recent flops and one high-profile near-miss in Virginia that could have been embarrassing, the string of losses mars a nearly unblemished record this cycle."

The "misses" on June 25, according to Mutnick and Fernandez, "were all in red seats Republicans are favored to win in the fall" and underscore "the ideological factions in the GOP that have been at war all cycle."

"In those races," they observe, "Trump's loss is the establishment's triumph."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Mitt Romney

Romney Blasts Fellow Republicans 'Prostrating' At Trump Trial

Former President Donald Trump's ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan recently attracted a throng of Republicans in blue suits and red ties all taking turns praising the ex-president while bashing the trial, the witnesses and Judge Juan Merchan. One Senate Republican wasn't impressed by the show of fealty to the 45th U.S. president.

In a recent interview in Washington, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) spoke candidly about his fellow Republicans, which included House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and some of his colleagues like Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). Romney said the display of loyalty to the presumptive GOP nominee by those vying to be Trump's running mate was "really very difficult to watch."

"There is a level of dignity and decorum that you expect from people who are running for the highest station in the land, and going out and prostrating themselves in front of the public to try and apparently curry favor with the person whose our nominee, it's a little embarrassing," Romney said.

Romney — who isn't running for another term this fall — also opined that his fellow Republicans were debasing themselves in New York despite the sordid nature of the facts coming out in the trial proceedings. The 2012 GOP presidential nominee observed that it was "demeaning" for high-profile Republicans to effectively put their reputations on the line by defending the honor of a man disputing "an allegation of paying a porn star."

Of course, while Romney has not been shy about criticizing Trump, he's also been critical of President Joe Biden's Department of Justice for prosecuting the ex-president. In a separate interview with NBC's Stephanie Ruhle, the Utah senator said that if he were president, he would have "immediately" issued a presidential pardon to Trump. He cited Lyndon Baines' Johnson's pardon of Richard Nixon as an example.

"I'd have pardoned President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy," Romney said. He also added he would have pressured Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to not bring criminal charges in their respective investigations.

"I have been around for a while. If LBJ had been president, and he didn’t want something like this to happen, he’d have been all over that prosecutor saying, ‘You better not bring that forward or I’m gonna drive you out of office,'" Romney said.

Trump's trial is in its fifth week, and defense attorneys are cross-examining former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who is seen as one of Bragg's star witnesses. Prosecutors have said they plan to rest their case after Cohen is finished, and Trump's lawyers haven't yet clarified whether they plan to call any witnesses, or bring Trump himself to the witness stand.

Despite Romney being outspokenly critical of Trump, he has yet to say definitively how he would vote in November. The Utah senator may elaborate on his choice for president in a Wednesday night CNN interview at 11 PM.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney Savagely Mocks Trump's Porn Star Payoff

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) hasn't shied away from criticizing former President Donald Trump in the past. But on Tuesday he gave his frank and candid take on the allegations surrounding the ex-president's ongoing criminal trial.

Trump's attorneys have spent the first portion of the Manhattan trial making their case that the former president is a "family man" who has been unfairly painted in the media as immoral. While speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, the Utah senator — a fifth-generation practicing Mormon — offered his opinion on that characterization of Trump to CNN congressional correspondent Kristin Wilson.

"I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump's character, and so far as I know you don't pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you," Romney said.

Romney — who was the GOP presidential nominee in 2012 — appeared to be referencing the hush money payment Trump allegedly made to buy the silence of adult film star and producer Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Daniels maintains that she and the reality TV star had an affair in 2006, just weeks after Trump's wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. The former president continues to deny the allegations.

Tuesday's trial proceedings featured the testimony of David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc. — the company that publishes the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper. Daniels' story was part of the so-called "catch and kill" scheme in which Pecker would purchase the rights to certain stories in order to bury them and limit public knowledge. Pecker told prosecutors that he agreed during a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower to be the "eyes and ears" of Trump's 2016 campaign.

One such "catch-and-kill" scheme involved the story of former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had an ongoing relationship with Trump while he was married. When Trump reportedly asked Pecker his thoughts on whether they should pay McDougal, Pecker responded with, "we should take this story off the market.

"And I said, 'it's my understanding that she doesn't want her story published. I think the story should be purchased and I believe that you should buy it,'" Pecker said on the witness stand.

According to the 34-count indictment unveiled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last year, Trump's personal lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen made the $130,000 payment to Daniels at the behest of Trump, who then reimbursed Cohen and labeled it as a legal retainer. Cohen has said repeatedly that there was no such retainer, and that the $130,000 was explicitly done to prevent Daniels from going public with her story.

Cohen will be one of the prosecution's key witnesses, and will be expected to guide the jury through the hush money payment process. In 2018, he was handed a three-year federal prison sentence for his role in the scheme, among other crimes.

Jurors were excused at approximately 2 PM ET on Tuesday, and the trial will be paused on Wednesday in observance of the Jewish Passover holiday. Proceedings are expected to resume on Thursday morning, with the defense expected to cross-examine Pecker on the stand.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

John Cornyn

Why Republican Politicians Fear Another Trump Nomination In 2024

When Donald Trump recently revived his quest to overturn the Affordable Care Act of 2010 , a.k.a. Obamacare, he not only gave Democratic strategists and organizers an issue to use against him in 2024 — he also forced Republicans to have a conversation that many of them were hoping to avoid. Efforts to overturn the ACA proved to be a major liability for Republicans in 2018 and 2020, and a KFF poll released earlier this year found that 59 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the law.

In an article published by Politico on December 4, journalists Burgess Everett, Olivia Beavers and Meridith McGraw cite Trump's unpopular campaign against Obamacare as the type of thing Republicans in Congress will have to contend with if Trump is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee — which, according to countless polls, appears likely.

"Trump's recent call to replace the Affordable Care Act is triggering a particularly unwelcome sense of deja vu within the GOP," the Politico journalists report . "Even as many Senate Republicans steered away from Trump over the past couple years, now they're increasingly resigned to another general election that could inundate them with the former president's often fact-averse and hyperbolic statements. But Hill Republicans are girding to treat Trump the third-time nominee the same way they did Trump the neophyte candidate and then president."

Everett, Beavers and McGraw continue , "They're distancing themselves and downplaying his remarks, which touch on policy stresses like his urge to end Obamacare and political grievances like his vow to come down 'hard' on MSNBC for its unfavorable coverage."

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), a conservative Trump critic, recalled how frustrating it was for members of Congress when Trump was unprepared from a policy standpoint.

Romney told Politico, "He says a lot of stuff that he has no intention of actually doing. At some point, you stop getting worried about what he says and recognize: We'll see what he does."

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) acknowledges that things could be chaotic for Republicans in Congress if Trump is 2024's GOP presidential nominee.

Cornyn told Politico, "I'm under no illusions what that would be like. If it's Biden and Trump, I'm gonna be supporting Trump. But that's obviously not without its challenges."

When Politico asked if fellow House Republicans are worried about having to work with Trump again, Rep. David Joyce (R-OH), responded, "S*** yeah. Orange Jesus?"

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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