Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 Republican nominee for president who made a historic break with his party when he voted to remove former President Donald J. Trump from office, announced on Wednesday that he would not seek re-election in 2024, saying he wanted to make way for a “new generation of leaders.”
He strongly suggested that Mr. Trump, 77, and President Biden, 80, should follow his lead and bow out to pave the way for younger candidates, arguing that neither was effectively leading his party to confront the “critical challenges” the nation faces.
“At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders,” Mr. Romney, 76, said in a video statement. “They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.”
The announcement was in some ways the culmination of a long divergence between Mr. Romney, a genteel and wealthy former governor and traditional conservative, and the Republican Party, which has veered sharply to the right and embraced a coarser brand of partisanship in recent years.
Elected to the Senate in 2018, Mr. Romney has occupied a lonely space in a Capitol where a majority of Republicans remain loyal to Mr. Trump — or at least refuse to break with him. Mr. Romney has joined an array of bipartisan “gangs” seeking to take on major policy issues — including infrastructure, gun safety and overhauling the Electoral Count Act — but rarely sought to lead those efforts.
In the video, Mr. Romney said that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination, was addressing the nation’s most critical challenges, including climate change, authoritarian threats from Russia and China and mounting debt.
“Both men refuse to address entitlements even though they represent two-thirds of federal spending,” he said. “Donald Trump calls global warming a hoax, and President Biden offers feel-good solutions that will make no difference to the global climate. On China, President Biden underinvests in the military, and President Trump underinvests in our alliances.”
“The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership,” he added.
The statement came amid renewed scrutiny of the age of Mr. Biden and other prominent elected officials including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 81, the longtime Republican leader whose recent health issues have raised questions about whether he is fit to continue in his post. Editors’ Picks MTV Video Music Awards: 5 Memorable Moments Why Are So Many Millennials Going to Mongolia? My Disabled Colleague Is Struggling at Work. Am I Responsible for Her Care? SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Romney, who describes his career in politics as a moral mission driven by his Mormon faith, has in recent years been marginalized in a party that has shifted to the right under the sway of Mr. Trump. In the Senate, he never emerged as a leader of any faction or committee, even as he was regarded as a reliable, common-sense vote.
He hinted that he might still have some role to play in the nation’s political discourse, saying, “I’m not retiring from the fight.” He said he planned to finish out his term, which ends in January 2025.
Utah is a solidly Republican state, so Mr. Romney’s departure is highly unlikely to affect the balance of power on Capitol Hill. He had recently told people that he planned to make a decision about seeking re-election by the end of the year and that he was weighing whether he could still play any productive role in Congress. Mr. Romney was also cognizant that he would face a tough primary fight if he decided to run again.
His decision to abandon a career in the Senate followed similar decisions from many moderate House Republicans last year. In the 2022 midterm elections, four House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump declined to run for re-election.
Mr. Romney had also begun to stir speculation that he was ready to move on from the Senate when he agreed to participate in a biography set to be published next month by Scribner, titled “Romney: A Reckoning,” by McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic. In the book, Mr. Romney is said to quote his colleagues by name in discussing how Republican lawmakers really view and talk about Mr. Trump in private when the former president is not present.
Mr. Coppins is said to have conducted hours of interviews with Mr. Romney for the book, and was given access to the senator’s emails and his diary. The book’s impending release already has his colleagues concerned about their private thoughts and conversations regarding the party’s vengeful presidential front-runner being aired publicly.
Mr. Romney has also appeared increasingly concerned about the likelihood that Mr. Trump would emerge as his party’s nominee.
In a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Romney implored donors and Republican candidates to unite around an alternative to Mr. Trump, for fear of delivering him the party’s nomination, writing that “donors who are backing someone with a slim chance of winning should seek a commitment from the candidate to drop out and endorse the person with the best chance of defeating Mr. Trump by Feb. 26.”
We are entering dark fucking times when Mitt Fucking Romney is becoming the voice of reason in the American political landscape.
This is the problem. The moderate Republicans that didn’t support Trump are looking at retirement. They are marginalized in their party. The replacements likely will be further right.
The country did far better when you have moderate and capable leadership on both sides.
When was that exactly? I don’t see anybody from Reagan on that I would consider a “moderate” on the Republican side.
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What we’ve had for over 40 years is a moderately right wing party (the Democratic Party) and then the Republican Party, which even under the guise of “moderates” like Romney want some pretty extreme things.
It’s a false equivalence. Trump isn’t unfit just because he’s old.
Edit: reading comprehension, folks
No, he’s unfit because he’s a traitor
I think that’s what neptune was implying.
It’s also not about unfit. Being old means you don’t have to care what happens to future generations- you’ll be dead by then and you can leave a wealthy inheritance for your brats to squander after you’re gone. Making decisions that you’ll never have to face the consequences of.
Yep. Agree 100%
Sure but the point is it lessens the awful crimes of Trump by saying “they both suck”.
It lessens the awful crimes of the Democrats if we pretend that anyone who isn’t Trump’s level of bad is good by default
Jesus Christ. When Mitt Romney starts looking progressive you fucked up.
This is the Republican game for the last 3 decades. Field shitter and shitter candidates so people can reminisce how inclusive W was… How upstanding Romney was… Meanwhile if you actually lived through these people’s tenure you’d know how vile and disgusting all of them are/were.
I’m waiting for people to reminisce about how smart Trump was compared to insert next nutjob Republican
The ACA was an adaptation of Romney’s healthcare plan for Massachusetts.
The Overton window is so fucked it should start an OnlyFans.
The Overton window is so fucked it should start an OnlyFan
And then run for Virginia House of Delegates!
What in the fuck, I would have never guessed Mitt was 76 years old. He looks a generation younger than Trump/Biden/McConnell, not their peer.
Overall I disagreed with Mitt a ton but he was someone with a bit of backbone compared to other Republicans.
Damn, yeah he looks 60 at most. I guess magical underpants or whatever will do that for you.
And hot dogs… apparently.
I mean, except for the grey hair, Romney looks similar enough to Biden. I don’t know if Mormons forbid hair dye in the same way they forbid hot drinks, but the hair color is the only difference I see.
In any case, I’m not yet 40 and my cohort are dealing with grey hair. Romney’s would be unusual but not impossible. I also have very few greys, but it gets comments since I’m not the type of person who would dye his hair.
Lol, Mormons forbid caffeine not hot drinks.
They’re still allowed hot cocoa.
Luckily they made an exception for herbal tea!
They actually just aren’t allowed caffeine. It’s a “mind-altering” substance according to them. So they can drink hot cocoa, but only if the chocolate has been de-caffeinated.
Source: my old roommate was a “Jack” Mormon.
This is incorrect. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, and do not use illegal or dangerous substances (exceptions made when the substance is used legally and with a doctor’s prescription). We do not have any prohibition on caffeine.
Source: Currently practicing Latter-day Saint
People have no idea what Mormons believe, the other day I saw someone saying they couldn’t eat chocolate and the comment had hundreds of upvotes
Chocolate is actually a topic of debate, because of the caffeine.
That itself is fun, because the book that talks about keeping your body pure, “the pearls of wisdom,” doesn’t actually say you can’t have caffeine, but that’s how it’s taught and interpreted. It actually talks about “hot drinks,” which at the time would have been tea and coffee, but it doesnt out right say either.
So the chocolate thing is real-ish, but its issue is based on something that isn’t real but is considered real.
Neat, huh?
I think by pearls of wisdom you mean the Pearl of Great Price, but that was really just a supplement to the Old Testament, expounding on Moses and their belief of the creation.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ were commanded not to drink hot drinks, interpreted by prophets as coffee and tea. Members recently have, when asked why, claimed their teachings were that they were to abstain from caffeine because the caffeine is addictive and that’s why Coffee was bad. However, this was and has never been the doctrine. The doctrine was purely to abstain from coffee and certain types of tea, as the “hot drinks” in the book of the Doctrine and Covenants that has been interrpreted by modern-day prophets. Never has a prophet established that caffeine is the culprit for the reason for abstaining, infact, the same book also establishes that God has only given commandments for the purposes of spirituality, rather than mortality. But because of the member-spread tradition, many members have believed–falsly–that they had been taught to abstain from caffeine and therefore also abstain from chocolate. This has never been the case, but has merely been member tradition and has unfortunately spread as what their church teaches. The doctrine of the church is relatively simple, but you have to sift member traditions (such as being republican, or not drinking caffeine, or not letting their children play with non members, or not being able to gamble, or not being able to consume caffeine, or being homophobic) from the teachings of the Church, which is to have Faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the end.
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Arguably one of the least disliked of Republicans, John McCain not withstanding, for me personally.
At least tried to maintain some sort of civility. Too bad that doesn’t mean much when he goes along with the rest of colleagues and their craziness.
Not sad he’s gone, but not particularly happy either. Might open up Utah for the Dems in the future.
Same way I feel. In the grand scheme of things he’s a piece of shit and votes as such. But as far as Republicans go he’s semi-palatable.
It’s not opening anything up to the dems. As a Utahn myself, I’m 99% certain Romney is retiring because he can’t win reelection here, as the majority of the state thinks he’s a RINO. I mean, he replaced Orrin Hatch, who could have won another term if he wanted, despite being in the senate since before microwave popcorn was a thing.
Utah had 1 dem representative and he only won because people came out to vote for medical marijuana. The state house then butchered that law until it was almost unrecognizable disenfranchising everyone who was finally getting involved. The state is run by car dealerships and residential developers. The money won’t let a non-republican take that seat.
It’s amazing how far the R has fallen.
Small government? Privacy? Staying out of people’s life? Individual rights and responsibility? Freedom?
Yeah.
Im not registered with a party. I’m not sure about how that would benefit anything, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to vote R until that’s fixed.
Same.
Although it’s becoming close I register for Democrats cause of how bad things have gotten with Republicans.
They only got culture wars and conspiracy theories and downright malice now.Helps me? NO. Tax cuts for the rich, taxes for me, and forcing their religion down my throat.
Helps others? NO. Targeting social security, restricted voting, and a whole lot of pulling up bootstraps
Helps kids? NO. Child labor laws weakened, free school lunched targeted, and don’t say gay.
Helps nature? NO. Climate change “isn’t real!!!”, drill baby drill no matter what, and hostility to any “alternative/clean” solutions.
What future is there in that? Just a regressive and bastardization of the past. For what?!?! Just to try to bring back the “Good old days?”
With Dems there is at least a future, as troubled and imperfect as it might be. With Reps there isn’t
If those are your concerns I’m curious how you were ever comfortable voting for a republican? These have always been their stances, they’ve just doubled down on them lately.
They used to have a redeeming feature here and there. I voted for a republican about 8 years ago because he was the only one willing to combat out of control unaudited spending in my state.
Now anyone who can stand to have a ® next to their name stands with the party of fascism and that’s way more important than the occasional good opinion any one candidate might have.
Romney’s almost worse. At least with the current crop of republicans there’s no doubting they’re batshit and evil because they don’t even bother hiding it.
Mittens gives a veneer of civility to a party that has lost its way and isn’t fit for purpose.
Yeah I liked that but on entitlements; surely he meant billionaire and corporate welfare.
Hes only talking about cutting “entitlements” because the real way you pay for them is taxing billionaires like him drastically more, and he doesnt like that.
You already know.
There are 54 senators over 65. Only 16.8% of Americans are over 65. So how the fuck is this proper representation?
Because that’s who people showed up to vote for as their representatives, that’s how.
That is democracy. You vote them in. Of course leadership positions will always be above the mean age. Same as senior positions in companies will also be older than the new hires. It takes years to become proficient in your trade and new people to politics usually start at the local level first before entering upper offices.
To be fair, infants aren’t allowed to (and probably shouldn’t be allowed to) run for senate, even if they don’t cry about things as much as some of the representatives do. The number probably shouldn’t be perfectly 1-to-1. It’s still way too high though.
Right, and there should be an upper age limit too for the same reasons. For example, I don’t see much difference between a toddler and where Feinstein is at now. I don’t mean to be callus, but we competency in government.
I probably agree. I don’t think it should be a competency test though, because that’s too easy for fascists to manipulate, and they will if given the chance. An age gate is totally OK.
And what would be the mechanism to set that age, and raise it if medicine radically alters what is thought of as “old”?
It’s not and we don’t live in a real democracy.
Wow, imagine a Senator retiring before you’re so old that you can hardly walk or remember your own name. Good for him.
He strongly suggested that Mr. Trump, 77, and President Biden, 80, should follow his lead and bow out to pave the way for younger candidates
Hey, what do you know, I agree with Mitt Romney on something. Maybe people who would be roundly considered unemployable in any other profession shouldn’t be leading the country. This goes for Fenstien and McConnell too. Let’s just make sure the “younger people” aren’t all Boeberts.
Let’s just make sure the “younger people” are all Boeberts.
Really hope you meant “aren’t”.
Lol. Oops. Maybe I’m just a fan of seeing elected officials thrown out of Beetlejuice? Edited.
Oops! All Boeberts.
I’m gonna be sick…
Let’s avoid political dynasties too, please and thanks
Vivek Ramaswamy must be your guy. He’s 38.
Vivek “let’s fire 75% of federal workforce” Ramaswamy is not the future generation we should be hoping for.
He seems like a Boebert that came from money to me.
In his newest episode of “how can I be crazier than Trump “ Ramaswamy takes another deep dive into the shallow end of the pool…and the pool has no water.
I snorted loud enough for the booth next to be looked over
Oof 😓
You can say whatever you want about him, but one thing I’m fairly certain is that at the end of the day Mitt Romney cared about the average American. I’m not saying I agree with even half of his beliefs. But I believe his beliefs were focused on what he thought was best for the country and it’s people. I’m also not saying he didn’t attempt to make himself and those around him stupid rich, but that he wasn’t going to do so by throwing everyone and everything out the window to obtain it. It’s really a stark contrast to Trump. And you might think that’s sad, but what’s really sad is that it’s not just Trump but nearly the entirety of that party now.
You’re falling for the bullshit then. No man who cared about people would have helped found Bain Capital.
Seriosuly. Bain single handedly killed Toy R Us and 35,000 jobs. The chain was actually profitable, but then bain loaded it up with hundreds of millions of debt it used to buy it, parted the profitable bits out, then bankrupted it.
It’s a pure vulture capital company, wrecking havoc and destroying lives to make Romney and men like him rich at the expense of millions.
Turbo fuck that guy.
Didn’t romney champion the Citizens United bill which was basically like throwing a lit match into a pool of gasoline for enshittifying the political process
Not that the process was great before but no one who considers “corporations are people too” ever had an average american citizens best interests in heart
Corporations are people. They’re groups of people working for a common goal. If those people don’t have free speech, neither do other groups, like political parties for instance. You do not lose your free speech rights when you are in a group.
The real damage done by citizens united was equating money to speech.
Those individuals do have the right to free speech
But just because they come together as a collective it doesn’t mean they get a second bigger voice. A company is not a person. At best its a collection of people as you said working together towards a common goal.
And yes the biggest problem coming from citizens united is that it further equated money to free speech/representation
Which is directly contributing to every individual’s rights to representation rapidly eroding
But just because they come together as a collective it doesn’t mean they get a second bigger voice.
In other words, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances?
And yes the biggest problem coming from citizens united is that it further equated money to free speech/representation
Yeah far as I know there’s no amendment for that
He cared more about Dressage Horses than the common man. He definitely didn’t care about his dog.
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Only reason he’s leaving is he’s not going to get reelected. He did shit that pissed off the trumpies and there’s too many of them in his state for him to win the primary; he’s probably already got a really credible (for certain definitions of credible) primary opponent who he knows he can’t beat.
Also he might have something resembling principles, but those principles are themselves still monstrous and harmful.
President Biden offers feel-good solutions that will make no difference to the global climate.
A lot more could be done but the Inflation Reduction Act is a major policy that is driving a lot of renewable energy investment, and probably the best that could be done under the current political circumstances. Hardly a “feel-good” solution, and I somehow doubt Romney, the lifelong conservative, has anything more substantial on climate in his back pocket.
I guarantee you I wouldn’t have solar panels on my house right now with the IRA. This is the truth.
Yeah, because “both sides”.
If he’s retiring, the time for something more bold than some “both sides” milquetoast is NOW.
Before anyone lionizes him for his “principles” remember he helped promote the rediculous birther / birth certificate bullshit:
Yes, he’s a piece of shit. But the fact that he’s less of a piece of shit than most of the Republican Party says a lot.
Oh yeah, he sucks ass. Just he was a real one for not trading in his shitty beliefs for even shittier beliefs in the Trump era.
Damn, the last republican with a string of spine left is retiring. Good luck with your party…
I never thought I would unsarcastically say “Oh no! Mitt Romney is retiring!” But here I am, saying just that. Even though he is Mormon and has some shitty politics he is one of the few remaining Republicans left that understands the importance of Bipartisan legislation and voting to help the people instead of voting against everything to “own the libs.” It probably helps that he while he is a Republican, a lot of his policies while he was governor of Ma, and even now are more Center right, and almost Center left, making it seem like he is largely GOP because he’s LDS and would really fit better as an Independent.*
No major disagreement here – just making a factual adjustment. Romney served as a Republican governor of Massachusetts long before moving to Utah. According to Wikipedia, he was never affiliated with the Democrat party.
Democratic party, not Democrat.
Wtf I’m having a Mandala effect moment because I vividly remember when he was running in 2008 and 2012 he came under fire by some conservatives because he was a Democrat when he was in Ma. Wild.
He brought in essentially Obamacare before it was Obamacare so people treated him like the devil…
What was amusing to watch when the anti-ACA sentiment hit Peak Stupid (I hope) was that many cons were simultaneously hating on Romney, but also gaslighting about how ACA was “not really” essentially RomneyCare. I’d ask them why they were hating so much on Romney, then, if ACA was “not really” RomneyCare.
Well, you can imagine the usual derangement I’d get as a response.
