Romney is still trying to destroy Trump’s reputation.
Donald Trump’s team has fired back at Senator Mitt Romney over a passage from Romney’s forthcoming biography. The excerpt from McKay Coppins’ book, titled “Romney: A Reckoning,” reveals a previously undisclosed incident where the former president boasted about his intentions to part ways with his then-girlfriend, Melania.
According to Newsweek, in the book, which Rolling Stone obtained early, Coppins recounts a meeting between the Republican Utah senator and Trump at a New England Patriots game, where they were both guests of owner Robert Kraft. According to Coppins, Trump approached Romney’s son, Josh, and gestured toward an attractive woman in the room, asking if they had seen his girlfriend, Melania. He allegedly remarked with a smirk, “When I drop her, the phone is gonna ring off the hook. Every guy in New York wants to go out with her.“
In response, Trump’s team fired back, referring to Romney as a “loser” who was fabricating stories to maintain his relevance. A Trump spokesperson told Rolling Stone, “Mittens is a loser who is ‘retiring’ because he knows he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving another campaign. “He should stop lying and creating fake stories in order to stay relevant. The fact is that he dropped the ball when he ran against Barack Obama and is partially responsible for the mess America is in.”
Rolling Stone did not specify the exact date of the encounter at the Patriots game, but it’s worth noting that Romney and Trump were photographed at a playoff game between the Patriots and the Tennessee Titans on January 10, 2004. Trump proposed to Melania in April of the same year, and they were married at Mar-a-Lago the following January.
Coppins’ book, based on numerous interviews with Romney and access to his journals and emails, reveals that the Utah senator’s initial impression of Trump was that he wasn’t truly a “businessman.” Their first meeting took place when Trump invited Romney to his Mar-a-Lago estate in January 1995.
Romney, known for his success in private equity, agreed to meet Trump because he was seeking a “memorable, low-stakes, and peculiar” experience with the celebrity real estate mogul. He admitted to being captivated by famous personalities, according to Coppins. The meeting at Mar-a-Lago was a surreal affair, with the club’s entire staff donned in white linen uniforms, as if they were part of a royal reception. After this encounter, Romney assumed he would never cross paths with Trump again, as Coppins recounts.
Although Trump enthusiastically endorsed Romney’s presidential bid in 2012, Romney did not reciprocate in 2016. Instead, he publicly criticized Trump, labeling him as a “phony” and a “fraud.” Romney also urged fellow Republicans to reject Trump during that election.