However, Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, said he didn’t necessarily put too much stock in the former president’s specific words, describing Trump as a “human gumball machine.”
“A thought or an idea comes in and it comes out of his mouth. There’s not much of a filter. … He says whatever he wants. I don’t attach a great deal of influence to the specific words that come out,” Romney said.
Romney, who announced earlier this year that he would drop his re-election bid in 2024, became one of the few remaining Republicans in Congress to publicly denounce Trump. Many Trump critics have formally retired, only to be ousted from their seats by the former president and his MAGA-based candidates, as Romney planned.
During Trump’s first impeachment inquiry in 2020, Romney was the only Republican senator to break with his party on a vote to impeach him, and has since become an outsider in his caucus. On Sunday he joked that his endorsement in the 2024 presidential race would be tantamount to the “kiss of death” for that candidate, though he left the door open for him to throw his support behind President Joe Biden down the road.
“Joe Joe Manchin is the one I want to vote for,” Romney said — but he didn’t expect the West Virginia Democratic senator’s name to be thrown around as a potential front-runner on the bipartisan No Labels ticket. race
“I wish he would,” Romney said.
