Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (UT) sharply rebuked President Donald Trump on Thursday night calling the one-term President’s efforts to overturn his election loss in Michigan “undemocratic.”
“Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election,” Romney said in a statement posted to Twitter. “It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”
Romney’s direct criticism of Trump for his unprecedented attack on democracy, comes as few of the lawmaker’s Republican colleagues have stepped forward to acknowledge reality. Weeks after Biden’s win, many Republican leaders have continued to encourage President Trump to soldier on in long-shot court cases and baseless claims of voter fraud while refusing to refer to Biden formally as the President-elect.
Romney’s comments were met by at least one other GOP colleague, Sen. Benn Sasse (NE) who urged Americans not to be fooled by Trump’s rhetoric in public after looking at the Trump campaign’s actual allegations in court, noting in a statement obtained by the Washington Post that the campaign had lost or been forced to withdraw from a number of lawsuits in Michigan “for being unable to produce any evidence.”
“Based on what I’ve read in their filings, when Trump campaign lawyers have stood before courts under oath, they have repeatedly refused to actually allege grand fraud — because there are legal consequences for lying to judges,” Sasse said in the statement, noting that Trump lost the battleground state by at least 100,000 votes.
President Trump responded to Romney’s statement early Friday with predictable name-calling, referring to the lawmaker in a tweet as a “RINO,” Republican in name only. Instead of refuting the lawmaker’s suggestions that his efforts to challenge the vote was “undemocratic,” the President goaded Romney about his loss to former President Barack Obama, saying, “I’m sure, however, that he feels he got slaughtering by Obama ‘fair and square’.”
