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RNC committeeman from U.S. Virgin Islands warns that Mitt Romney could try to seize GOP presidential nomination in 2020
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Slams Romney for direct attack on Trump in Washington Post op-ed
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Wants rule change to close primary season ‘loopholes’ and a Republican Party statement that Trump will be renominated for a second term
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RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel is Mitt Romney niece, and attacked her uncle for blasting the president
A member of the Republican National Committee claimed Tuesday night in a letter to the other 167 committee members that Mitt Romney’s anti-Donald Trump op-ed published hours earlier was an act of ‘calculated political treachery’ against the president.
Jevon O.A. Williams, the RNC member who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands, wrote that Romney could use ‘loopholes’ in the nominating process to openly challenge the president’s re-nomination in 2020.
That, he wrote, would feed Romney’s ‘fantasy of being president, even if that means destroying our party and denying President Trump re-election.’
‘With Republicans like him who needs Democrats?’ Williams added. He confirmed in a phone call Wednesday morning that he sent the email but declined further comment.
In his Washington Post op-ed, Romney referred to Trump as ‘the incumbent.’ His niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, is the Republican Party’s chairwoman.
Romney asserts his independence – and Trump’s GOP critics see an opening
For weeks, incoming Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has been tight-lipped as he prepares to be sworn in on Thursday, disappointing his longtime friends who hoped he would emerge as a new power center for mainstream Republicans in President Donald Trump’s Washington, particularly with the Senate now without the late John McCain.
Romney’s tweets last month included a musing on church hymns and pictures of his grandchildren – and nothing about Trump. “Sorry, guys,” he’d say as he rushed by and ignored reporters’ questions in the Capitol’s halls.
But on Tuesday night, Romney jolted his allies – and the White House – by publishing a scathing critique of Trump in The Washington Post that said the president “has not risen to the mantle of the office.”
Romney’s assertion of independence is a thunder clap in the GOP, thrusting him forward as Trump’s highest-profile Republican foil in the new Congress and stoking talk of Trump’s vulnerability to a challenger for the party’s 2020 nomination, be it Romney or another Trump critic, such as Ohio Gov. John Kasich, R, who has been eyeing an insurgent bid.
“It begins,” former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon wrote in an email to The Post, referring to the effort to block Trump from the 2020 Republican nomination.
ROMNEY DOWNLOADS ON TRUMP…
‘Nation so divided, resentful and angry’…
RNC chair slams her uncle…
Rand Paul hits ‘Big Government’ Mitt.
Washington is already taking sides in the battle between President Trump and incoming Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, with Trump ally Sen. Rand Paul slamming the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.
Paul tweeted that Romney is a “Big Government Republican” and a faux conservative, and a top Paul aide said that Trump is delivering on his promises.
In reacting to Romney’s attack in the Washington Post on Trump, Paul also made clear that he does not think Romney, who is still to be sworn in as a new senator, has any affinity for former President Ronald Reagan.
Like other Big Government Republicans who never liked Reagan, Mitt Romney wants to signal how virtuous he is in comparison to the President. Well, I’m most concerned and pleased with the actual conservative reform agenda @realDonaldTrump has achieved.
t.co/vNvp2ZwyK7— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 2, 2019