Category Archives: Mitt Romney

Biden should have pardoned Trump on federal charges, Mitt Romney says

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Republican senator tells MSNBC that ‘frankly, the country doesn’t want to have to go through prosecuting a former president’

Joe Biden should have pardoned Donald Trump on all federal criminal charges the moment they were announced, the Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said.

“Had I been President Biden,” Romney said, “when the justice department brought out indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him. I’d have pardoned President Trump.”

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Mitt Romney says Alejandro Mayorkas’s actions do not merit impeachment

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Republican senator says homeland security secretary is following position of party and will not vote to remove him if it goes to trial

Alejandro Mayorkas is not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanour, the Republican senator Mitt Romney said, making clear he will not vote to remove the US homeland security secretary from office if his impeachment goes to a trial.

“Secretary Mayorkas is following the position of his party and of the president who was elected,” Romney, from Utah and his party’s nominee for president in 2012, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.

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Mitt Romney: Trump’s call to stonewall Democrats on immigration ‘appalling’

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Utah senator accuses ex-president of exploiting issue for political gain by directing Republicans to block deal

Donald Trump’s directive to congressional Republicans to not agree to a deal with Democrats on immigration and border control is “appalling”, Mitt Romney said.

“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

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Mitt Romney says his endorsement in 2024 race would be ‘kiss of death’

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Republican senator also declines to rule out voting for Biden, and added he wishes Joe Manchin would ‘be the Democratic nominee’

Utah senator Mitt Romney declined to rule out voting for Joe Biden next year and said he hasn’t offered an endorsement in the Republican race because his backing would probably be a “kiss of death”.

“If I endorsed them, it would be the kiss of death – I’m not going to do that,” Romney said during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.

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Republican response to the January 6 Capitol attack divides party

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Line are drawn between the extremist wing and those who distance themselves from portraying the rioters as ‘sightseers’

Some Republicans have rebuked efforts by Donald Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson to whitewash the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, underscoring a significant split in the party over attempts to downplay the events of the day.

Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, turned over more than 40,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol to Carlson earlier this year. This week, Carlson aired selectively edited portions of that footage, falsely claiming the rioters were “sightseers” and “not insurrectionists”. At least 1,000 people have been arrested for their role in the January 6 attack. Five people died as a result of it.

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George Santos: puppy theft charge news follows Romney’s ‘sick puppy’ barb

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Republican at centre of string of scandals was charged in Pennsylvania with theft over purchase of puppies in 2017

The New York Republican congressman George Santos, who is at the centre of a bizarre string of scandals and who the Utah senator Mitt Romney this week called a “sick puppy”, was charged with theft in Pennsylvania in 2017 – over a purchase of “puppies”.

The scandal, reported by Politico, is not Santos’s first involving dogs and his charity, Friends of Pets United. A New Jersey veteran alleges Santos raised money for an operation for his dog, then absconded with the money.

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‘You don’t belong here’: Romney and Santos in tense State of Union exchange

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Controversial Republican congressman confronted by senator and former presidential candidate on floor of House

Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday but the Republican congressman George Santos still managed to grab some headlines, over an apparently tense exchange with Mitt Romney, the senator from Utah and former Republican presidential nominee.

“He shouldn’t be in Congress,” Romney later told reporters.

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‘You have to run’: Romney urged Biden to take down Trump, book says

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Gabriel Debenedetti, author of book on Biden’s relationship with Obama, reports call on night of 2018 midterms

On the night of the 2018 midterm elections, as a wave of anti-Trump sentiment swept Democrats to take control of the House, top Republican Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president.

“You have to run,” said Romney, the Republican presidential nominee Biden and Barack Obama defeated in 2012, speaking to the former vice-president by phone.

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Romney won’t criticise niece for calling Trump lies and Capitol riot ‘legitimate political discourse’

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Senator says he has texted with ‘terrific’ Ronna McDaniel, RNC chair who oversaw censure of Cheney and Kinzinger

Mitt Romney and his niece, Ronna McDaniel, exchanged texts after the Republican National Committee she chairs called Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat and the Capitol riot “legitimate political discourse”.

Romney, the Utah senator, 2012 presidential nominee and only Republican to twice vote to convict Trump at his impeachment trials, told reporters on Monday he “expressed his point of view”.

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Romney: Trump’s lie that he lost 2020 election from voter fraud ‘like WWF’

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‘It’s entertaining. But it’s not real’, says Utah senator, referring to artificial world of professional wrestling

Donald Trump’s “big lie” that he lost the 2020 US election because of voter fraud is “a bit like WWF”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday, referring to the gaudy and artificial world of professional wrestling, an arena in which Trump starred before entering politics.

Related: ‘First of all, I’m taller’: AOC dismisses Greene’s ‘little communist’ attack

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Mitt Romney booed and called ‘traitor’ at Utah Republican convention

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Only Republican to twice vote to impeach Trump gets hostile reception as censure motion narrowly fails

Mitt Romney was loudly booed at the Utah Republican party convention on Saturday – and called a “traitor” and a “communist” as he tried to speak.

Related: Bush: ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideals show pro-Trump Republicans ‘want to be extinct’

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Mitt Romney booed while speaking at Utah Republican convention – video

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Mitt Romney was loudly booed at the Utah Republican party convention on Saturday, and called a 'traitor' and a 'communist' as he tried to speak. 'Aren’t you embarrassed?' the Utah senator asked the crowd of 2,100 delegates at the Maverik Center in West Valley City. 'I’m a man who says what he means, and you know I was not a fan of our last president’s character issues.'

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Trump impeachment: new footage shows Mike Pence and Mitt Romney fleeing Capitol attack – video

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New video shown during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump has revealed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters as well as the evacuation of former vice-president Mike Pence.

Representative Stacey Plaskett presented the previously unreleased security footage from the 6 January Capitol breach documenting Romney's close call as well as Pence and his family's escape as rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’

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Trump plots revenge on Republicans who betrayed him as Senate trial looms

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Republican divisions over Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial came into clearer focus on Sunday, as the former president spent his first weekend out of office plotting revenge against those he says betrayed him.

Related: Can Trump do a Nixon and re-enter polite society? Elizabeth Drew doubts it

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Democratic and Republican senators unite to condemn US Capitol violence – video

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Senators from both sides of US politics have condemned the violence unleashed on the Capitol building on Wednesday.  The vice-president, Mike Pence, described it as 'a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol'. The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, labelled the Trump supporters as 'goons', 'thugs' and 'domestic terrorists', while Republican Mitt Romney labelled the events 'an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States'

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‘Traitors and patriots’: Republican push to keep Trump in power seems doomed

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All 12 Republican senators who have pledged not to ratify the electoral college results on Wednesday, and thereby refuse to confirm Joe Biden’s resounding victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, declined to defend their move on television, a CNN host said on Sunday.

Related: Ted Cruz and other Republican senators oppose certifying election results

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Trump attempt to overturn election is ‘nutty and loopy’, Romney says

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Donald Trump’s flirtation with declaring martial law in battleground states and appointing a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to help his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden are “really sad” and “nutty and loopy”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.

Related: Biden mulls punishments for Russia over suspected role in government hack

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After Trump: first shots fired in battle for Republican party’s future

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Emboldened by the president’s election defeat, some Republican leaders are speaking out as others vie for the Trumpist mantle

For four years he commanded their unflinching loyalty. They protected him from impeachment, tacitly approved as children at the border were prised from their parents and placed in cages, and looked the other way as peacefully protesting Americans were gassed for a photo opportunity.

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Romney says he supports voting on Trump’s supreme court nominee

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Republican who voted to convict Trump at impeachment trial said decision is ‘based on the immutable fairness of following the law’

Donald Trump received a major boost on Tuesday when Republican senator Mitt Romney announced his support for considering the US president’s supreme court nominee.

Related: 'Fill that seat': Trump's weaponizing of the courts will be his lasting legacy

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Coronavirus US live: California governor says 1m people filed for unemployment in state

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Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards updated reporters on a major spike in the Covid-19 death toll and contraction rate in the state, which remains a major coronavirus hotspot.

There are now 1,975 confirmed cases, a day-on-day increase of 407, and 65 deaths, a day-on-day increase of 19.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a briefing on Wednesday that 1 million people have filed for unemployment in the state since March 13th.

Gov @GavinNewsom says 1 million Californians have filed for unemployment since March 13. For context, CA usually gets 2500 claims a day, or about 22,500 in the 9 business days since 3/13. Instead: *one million.*#coronavirus #COVID19

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