What is Mitt Romney’s end game?
Unless you’ve not been paying any attention, literally, to politics over the past four years, you’d have stopped me. Because Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee and now a senator from Utah, has repeatedly spoken out against Trump’s most egregious acts and statements — only to retreat amid a verbal barrage of criticism from the President and his supporters.
Romney is at it again following Trump’s imploring of Ukraine and China to look into debunked allegations of corruption directed at Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
“By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling,” Romney said Friday. Which, of course, prompted Trump to respond — calling the Utah Republican a “pompous ass” who had been “begging” to be his secretary of state when Trump took office.
Again, this stuff is par for the course between these two men. So what’s different this time around — if anything?
The obvious answer is that Trump now faces an impeachment inquiry in the House, the result of a pressure campaign brought to bear against the Ukrainians in hopes of forcing their hand to investigate debunked allegations of corruption against Biden. And the very real possibility that if the Democratic-controlled House impeaches Trump, then the Republican-led Senate will hold a trial to decide whether to acquit or remove him.
Which brings us to this reporting from Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman:
“According to people close to Romney, he’s firmly decided against primarying Trump, an enterprise he believes to be a sure loser given Trump’s enduring GOP support. Romney has also told people that, as an unsuccessful two-time presidential candidate, he’s the wrong person to take on Trump. Instead, a Romney adviser told me, Romney believes he has more potential power as a senator who will decide Trump’s fate in an impeachment trial. “He could have tremendous influence in the impeachment process as the lone voice of conscience in the Republican caucus,” the adviser said. In recent days, Romney has been reaching out privately to key players in the Republican resistance, according to a person briefed on the conversations. ‘Romney is the one guy who could bring along Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, Ben Sasse. Romney is the pressure point in the impeachment process. That’s why the things he’s saying are freaking Republicans out.'”
Now, that is very interesting.
Romney is right that any sort of 2020 primary challenge to Trump is totally pointless — if your goal is to actually win. Trump cannot be beaten in a Republican primary; he is one of the most popular Republican presidents among Republican voters ever.
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But, as I wrote last week, the conventional wisdom that the Republican-controlled Senate would never remove Trump should be viewed somewhat skeptically — in the same way that any “X thing can never happen in politics” should be viewed somewhat askance in this age of Trump.
New polling from The Washington Post shows how public opinion is already moving in relation to the impeachment inquiry in the House — even among Republicans. In total, almost six in 10 (58%) say the House was right to begin an impeachment investigation. That number includes almost three in 10 Republicans. And almost one in five Republicans believe that Trump should not only be impeached by the House but also should be subject to a removal vote by the Senate.
What those results make clear is that there is a bloc of Republicans who have badly soured on Trump and are now willing to see this inquiry to its end. And it’s not just a few dead-enders, to borrow a phrase. It’s a statistically significant chunk — although nothing near a majority — of the party base.
Which gets us back to Romney and the role he sees for himself as this impeachment investigation wends it way through Congress. Is he an emerging ringleader (as the Vanity Fair reporting suggests) or simply a man who believes he is following his conscience without any broader political considerations?
“Might Mitt play a key role in persuading other senators? If this comes to the Senate, I think he will view his role as a juror, not a politician, and act accordingly,” one source familiar with Romney’s thinking on Trump and impeachment said. “He hasn’t weighed in on how he would vote and would never do that before case was made by both sides. Those expecting him to automatically support Trump will be disappointed. Those expecting him to organize a coalition to convict Trump will be disappointed. The question seems to be will Mitt Romney standing up encourage others to do so by example? I’d hope so, but who knows?”
If past is prologue, Romney’s critiques will land on deaf ears among his Republican colleagues. And it remains to be seen as to whether — again, in a break with the past — Romney is willing to keep up his critique of Trump’s behavior amid an unending onslaught of tweets and disparagement from the President.
Still, if you are looking for a Republican to watch as a sort of pivot point in this impeachment investigation, Romney is a good place to start.
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