Utah Senator Mitt Romney warned President Joe Biden against campaigning on Donald Trump’s actions relating to the Jan 6 attack on Congress in an interview this week, arguing that voters are weary of conversations about it.
It was a surprising remark to come from Mr Romney, who is retiring this year and has been one of the few GOP electeds in Washington to side against the former president from his own party in the wake of the latter’s efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power to the rightful winner of the 2020 election. The senator voted for Mr Trump’s conviction in both impeachment trials, and has consistently battled members of his own party who have lied about or otherwise sought to whitewash the tragic and shocking violence of the attack.
Speaking with The New York Times, Mr Romney warned against using January 6 as a campaign theme for Mr Biden’s re-election bid, calling it a “dead political horse”.
"Jan 6 will be four years old by the election. People have processed it, one way or another," he said. "Biden needs fresh material, a new attack, rather than kicking a dead political horse."
His comments put the incumbent president in an awkward spot. Mr Biden is running for re-election despite his own cratering poll numbers, which show him losing support among key parts of his voter coalition including younger voters and people of colour. His likely opponent for the general election is none other than Mr Trump, who remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination heading in to the Iowa caucuses this weekend.
And Mr Trump remains under four separate criminal prosecutions, two of which relate directly to his attempts to change the results of the 2020 election and stop Mr Biden from assuming office. At least one of those trials is likely to take place as the presidential election plays out later this year. The ex-president is accused of violating the law in two jurisdictions — Washington DC and Georgia — in relation to his recorded attempts to persuade Georgia officials to change his vote totals as well as his alleged instigation of the riot that turned into a violent hunt for members of Congress by Trump supporters on January 6.
The president described his likely 2024 opponent as a threat to democracy this past week in a speech marking the three-year anniversary of the attack that left dozens of police officers wounded and one rioter dead from police gunfire.
“Donald Trump’s campaign is about him, not America. Not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy [to] put himself in power,” said Mr Biden on Friday.
Mr Romney is retiring rather than face his own re-election bid; as a senator from Utah, his main competition would have taken place in the state’s Republican primary election, where the senator was almost certain to face a Trump-backed opponent. Had he stayed in the race, the senator could very well have faced a challenging path to re-election.
His comments come as the senator recently sat down with The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins for a definitive biography of the senator’s life in the Trump-dominant Republican Party. In the book, Mr Romney was quoted as saying his own party has become a threat to US democracy and the Constitution.
