Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) on Monday came to Sen. Mike Rounds’ (R-SD) defense after former President Trump attacked the GOP senator for calling the 2020 presidential election “fair” during an interview.
In his tweet defending Rounds, Romney pointed to other prominent conservatives who have decried Trump’s election fraud falsehoods and attempts to subvert the election results — and have become targets of the former president for doing so.
Earlier Monday, Trump blasted Rounds, accusing him of being “woke” after the GOP senator came out against Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud during an interview with ABC News the day before. Rounds also wouldn’t commit to endorsing Trump if the former president were to launch another presidential run in 2024.
While pushing more election fraud falsehoods, Trump vowed to never endorse Rounds again.
“The only reason he did this is because he got my endorsement and easily won his state in 2020, so now he thinks he has time, and those are the only ones, the weak ones, that will break away,” Trump said.
“Even though his election will not be coming up for 5 years, I will never endorse this jerk again,” Trump added.
Despite voting to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory last year after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol during the joint session of Congress, Rounds voted against impeaching the former president for “incitement of insurrection” in the former president’s second impeachment trial.
However, Rounds is among the handful of Republicans who refuse to push the Big Lie of a “stolen” election, which includes Romney.
Prior to Trump’s attack against Rounds, Romney became a target of the former president even before he voted to convict Trump following the deadly Capitol insurrection last year. Romney was an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a debunked Ukraine conspiracy theory that Trump and his GOP allies pushed, and Trump’s efforts to suppress mail-in voting during the 2020 presidential election.
Romney has continued to take heat from the former president and other Republican lawmakers for refusing to do Trump’s bidding. Last year, Romney was booed by the crowd at the Utah GOP convention for his vote to convict Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The Utah Republican Party’s resolution to censure after Romney’s vote to convict Trump narrowly failed, however, in a 711-798 vote.
