Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) took a veiled shot at President Donald Trump’s delayed response to the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday night.
“The speed of our response looked slow compared to other people,” the GOP senator said during a virtual Georgetown University event, per the Washington Post. “That first phase will not stand out as a great moment in American leadership.”
“We didn’t look real strong, and that’s kind of an understatement,” he continued.
Romney made sure to mention he was “not blaming this administration,” but also that “the federal coordination has been less than my personal style.”
“The key to leadership is recognizing you’re not the smartest guy in the room,” the lawmaker said while laying out the importance of a president having experts guide him or her through a crisis like this one.
Romney had previously criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the outbreak, saying during a Senate briefing in late February that he was “very disappointed in the degree to which we’ve prepared for a pandemic.”
The senator is one of the few Republicans to speak out against Trump, and he even sided with Democrats to convict the President in the Senate impeachment trial. Trump has been heaping abuse onto Romney ever since, including cheering sarcastically when the senator tested negative for COVID-19 last month.
“This is really great news! I am so happy I can barely speak,” Trump tweeted. “He may have been a terrible presidential candidate and an even worse U.S. Senator, but he is a [Republican In Name Only], and I like him a lot!”
“We didn’t look real strong, and that’s kind of an understatement.”
And so is that.
As much as I thought, after the Salt Lake City Olympics, this guy would be a great candidate, I no longer believe so. He’s demonstrated that he has a little more courage than some others of his party to speak out, but this is pussy-footing at its finest.
Romney has little to lose by speaking out - he’s significantly more well off than Trump and the Mormons of the great State of Utah will keep him as Senator for as long as he wants the job, no question.
So take advantage of that platform, call a spade a shovel, and smack Trump over the head with it.
I ask the question yet again: What the hell is everyone so afraid of?
“We didn’t look real strong, and that’s
kind ofan understatement,”Extraordinarily cuckish even by Republican cuck standards.
Oooh. How bold and brave you are, Mitt! Someone must have put chocolate syrup in your glass of milk this morning! You daughter doesn’t have the stones to address Trump’s failings, but she comes closer to it than you do.