Trump’s impeachment revenge list starts with Mitt Romney

Source: Politico | February 6, 2020 | Meridith McGraw and Nancy Cook

With impeachment over, Trump is fully embracing grievance politics as he heads into 2020.

There were initially prepared remarks.

But those were eventually scrapped sometime after the Senate acquitted Donald Trump. Instead, it was decided that the president should just say what he wanted when he strode up to the lectern in the East Room of the White House shortly after noon on Thursday.

Given a blank slate, Trump chose revenge. An eye for an eye, a tweet for a tweet, a vote for a vote. And instead of plotting with whispers behind closed doors, Trump simply broadcast his intentions to the world in a “celebration” filled with film noir phrases — “dirty cops,” “evil,” “liars.”

It was a brazen, albeit not unexpected, move. And it signals how the president may enter campaign season, feeling that he is finally clear of the plots arrayed against him and ready to ditch any remaining veneer of restraint. “Unleashed” was how one White House official described the president. The politics of grievance have, once again, defeated the White House aides who wish Trump would stick to the economy.

First on Trump’s election-year hit list: Mitt Romney.

Trump felt particularly aggrieved by Romney’s sole GOP vote to boot him from the White House, according to a Republican familiar with the White House and a senior administration official.

Trump had shown uncharacteristic control toward the Utah senator during the impeachment process, heeding the advice of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to lay off individual senators ahead of the impeachment trial.

In the weeks leading up to the Senate trial, Trump gave Romney space to make a decision. He did not court or pressure him, or phone him directly and frequently as he often does with Republican lawmakers. Both Romney allies on Capitol Hill and advisers close to the White House told the president they believed Romney would ultimately vote to acquit him. With less than 24 hours to go until the impeachment vote, Romney allies kept signaling to Republican lawmakers and the White House that Romney was leaning toward acquittal. All the while, Romney’s office avoided contact with the White House.

Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the chatter about Romney went silent, a fact White House aides reported to the president.

Trump and White House officials later learned that Romney had given embargoed interviews to the Atlantic, The New York Times, and the Washington Post on his decision to convict Trump.

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Trump began needling Romney Thursday morning at the traditionally nonpartisan National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, chiding the senator’s declaration that his faith had helped guide him to convict the president. Faith, Trump said, was merely a “crutch” for Romney.

Hours later, speaking from the East Room at the White House, Trump cut down Romney as bitter about his failed 2012 run for president.

“The only one that voted against us was a guy that can’t stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency,” Trump said.

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The Republican close to the White House predicted that this was the opening salvo in a campaign to ostracize Romney.

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Yet there may not be much Trump can do to exact revenge on Romney, apart from dishing out mean girl insults and trying to socially isolate the lawmaker from the Republican party. At age 72, Romney is toward the end of his career, exorbitantly wealthy and does not face re-election until 2024. His own hometown paper applauded his vote to convict Trump on one of the articles of impeachment.

“All Utahns, all Americans, regardless of politics, ideology or religion should be duly impressed with Romney’s decision to follow his heart and his conscience — and his God — in doing the right thing when doing the right thing was difficult,” the Salt Lake Tribune wrote in an editorial published after the vote.

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