Sen. Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president against Donald Trump, book says
- Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president against Donald Trump in 2020, a book says.
- Romney previously ran as the GOP presidential nominee against Obama and Biden in 2012.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president against Donald Trump, a new book said.
"You have to run," Romney told Biden over the phone on the night of the 2018 midterm elections, the book said. It was the same night Romney was elected to the US Senate to represent Utah.
The exchange is detailed in the upcoming book "The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama by Gabriel Debenedetti", a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.
"At one point [Biden] connected with Mitt Romney, who'd been easily elected to the Senate that night as a rare Trump-opposing Republican. They were warm as Biden cheered Romney's win," the Guardian's extract said.
"Then Obama's old rival got to the point: You have to run, Romney said."
Romney previously ran as the Republican presidential nominee against Barack Obama and his running mate Biden in 2012.
The book cites hundreds of interviews with "colleagues, aides, rivals, confidants, allies and eyewitnesses" of Obama and Biden, and notes that Romney's quote is not verbatim.
Romney had been an outspoken critic of Trump since before Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016. He called Trump a "fraud" and pointed to his "bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics."
The pair traded public barbs, although Romney later praised Trump and was briefly considered for the position of his Secretary of State. Trump later endorsed Romney in the 2018 Utah Senate race.
Their apparent truce did not last for long, as Romney renewed his criticisms of Trump. Trump later said he regretted the endorsement and called Romney a "pompous ass."
Romney later became the only Republican to vote to impeach Trump twice. He said he did not vote for Trump in 2020, but declined to say whether he voted for Biden.
Despite once urging him to run, Romney has been critical of Biden as president, and said in January he was only elected to "stop the crazy" of Donald Trump.