On the night of the 2018 midterm elections, when a wave of anti-Trump sentiment swept the Democrats and took control of the House, Republican leader Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president.
Romney, who lost to Republican presidential nominees Biden and Barack Obama in 2012, told the former vice president by phone.
The same night, Romney was elected to the U.S. Senate from Utah, and from that post voted twice to convict Donald Trump in an impeachment trial.
Romney’s recommendations for a man seen as a likely challenger to Donald Trump in 2020 will likely further anger the former president, his supporters, and the Republican Party they rule.
The Biden-Romney phone call is described in Gabriel DeBenedetti’s book, The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, due out next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
About how Biden spent Nov. 6, 2018, DeBenedetti wrote: Or just to catch up.
“I feel better this time around than I did in 2016” — when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the presidential election — “partly because the Democrats had at least won big in local elections and the House.
“But it was also because of the refrain [Biden] Not always from the most expected sources.
“At some point, he hooked up with Mitt Romney, who was briefly elected to the Senate that night as one of the rare Republicans to oppose Trump. Biden rooted for Romney’s victory.” They were warmly welcomed.
“Then Obama’s former rival said: you have to runsaid Romney.
In a note on sources, DeBenedetti said his book was a conversation with “colleagues, aides, rivals, confidantes, allies and witnesses at every stage” of Obama’s and Biden’s careers since 2003. He said it was “mainly the product of hundreds of interviews.”
He also said:
Romney’s opposition to Trump has long been established, if not entirely consistent.
In 2016, the former Massachusetts governor spoke out against Trump, denouncing his actions during the campaign and calling him a “fake” and a “cheater”. said he did not vote, instead writing in his wife’s name.
Nevertheless, Romney pitched himself to work for Trump and become Secretary of State. After he became a senator, he usually voted with the president.
But the relationship has never been smooth: Trump called Romney a “pompous ass.”In 2019, Romney told The New York Times: No, I’m not – I’m paving the way for the party to become president. “
In 2020, when Trump was impeached for threatening Ukraine for the corruption of his rivals, including Biden, Romney became the first senator to vote to remove the president from his own party. became.
He said he didn’t vote for Trump in that year’s election, but declined to say whether he voted for Biden.
In 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time for inciting the attack on the Capitol. Romney was again convicted.
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