Mitt Romney Appears To Trash President Trump During Farewell Address on Senate Floor

Mitt Romney announced last year that he would not be seeking a second term as the U.S. Senator from Utah.

Surprisingly, he is apparently making good on that promise, and on the floor of the Senate he gave his farewell address.

Not surprisingly, Romney seemed to trash talk President Trump during his remarks.

Mitt Romney delivers his “farewell address” from the Senate floor, where he virtue signals and criticizes those who “tear at our unity” and practice “hate.”

We can all but guess who he’s talking about.

Good riddance. pic.twitter.com/K4YYGLc0eM

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) December 4, 2024

Romney waxed poetic during his farewell speech, promising to be “a voice of unity and virtue” after he leaves Washington.

One has to wonder, like Kamala Harris, why he waited until his exit to improve the situation rather than making it worse every chance he got?

He also said he felt a sense of achievement leaving the Senate, although he wasn’t able to accomplish several important things like stabilizing the national debt, according to a report in the Washington Post.

Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), a former GOP presidential nominee who later criticized fellow Republican Donald Trump, delivered his farewell address on the Senate floor Wednesday, stressing the importance of bipartisanship and promising to be “a voice of unity and virtue” after he leaves Washington.

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“There are some today who would tear at our unity, who would replace love with hate, who would deride our foundation of virtue or who debase the values on which the blessings of heaven depend,” Romney said in his floor speech. Appearing somewhat emotional at times, Romney praised his fellow senators, and he expressed one regret: not resolving the growing national debt.

“I will leave this chamber with a sense of achievement, but in truth, I will also leave with the recognition that I did not achieve everything I hoped,” Romney said. “Among other things, the scourge of partisan politics has frustrated repeated efforts to stabilize our national debt.”

Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin both praised Romney’s work as a Senator, which should give a good indication of the degree to which “business as usual” marked his time in the Senate after multiple failed runs at the presidency.

He first announced that he would not be seeking reelection back in September of last year.

My message to Utahns on my Senate reelection plan: pic.twitter.com/kgbsfIxMeR

— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) September 13, 2023

Romney was born in Michigan, and his father served as governor of the state.

A Mormon, Romney attended Brigham Young University in Utah, but ultimately won the governorship of Massachusetts beginning in 2003.

In Massachusetts he developed “Romneycare” according to the Washington Post story referenced earlier — which Obama used as a template for creating what would become known as “Obamacare”.

Romney was born in Michigan, where his father served as governor, and he attended Brigham Young University in Utah. A Mormon venture capitalist who co-founded the private equity firm Bain Capital, he emerged as a household name when he was picked to lead the organization responsible for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, helping steer the games out of a fiscal crisis. The same year as the Games, he ran and won the governor’s race in Massachusetts, serving from 2003 through 2007, where he helped develop and institute a universal health-care law dubbed “Romneycare.”

After the governorship, Romney launched an unsuccessful presidential bid, losing the Republican nomination in 2008 to Sen. John McCain (Arizona). Four years later, Romney ran again and became the Republican presidential nominee, but he lost the general election to the incumbent Democratic president, Barack Obama.

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Four years later, he opted against another presidential run, but was an early Republican critic of Trump, calling him a “phony” who was “playing members of the American public for suckers.”

After Trump won the 2016 election, Romney made it to the short list of names being considered to be secretary of state. And amid reports that he was in consideration for the role that late fall, footage of Romney and Trump dining in a dimly lit restaurant at Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York went viral, with some mocking Romney for his apparent about-face. Trump, whose isolationist views were expected to be at odds with Romney’s more hawkish positions on foreign policy, eventually picked Rex Tillerson for the chief diplomat role.

The following year, Trump endorsed Romney’s 2018 campaign to replace Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R), who was retiring. Romney won the seat and joined the Senate the following year.

Days before he was set to be sworn in, Romney published a scathing op-ed in The Post, criticizing recent key departures among Trump’s top advisers and the president’s claim in remarks to U.S. service members in Iraq that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs. Romney wrote that Trump’s “conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

Here’s a clip of his full remarks, including his jabs at President Trump.

JUST IN: Mitt Romney officially bids farewell to the Senate.

👏👏pic.twitter.com/3BNsT3lLLW

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 4, 2024

Romney spoke graciously about those who formed the “group affair” of his political career, giving credit to many others for their help during his time in the Senate.

For all the “unity” talk, he nevertheless could not hold back from what seemed to be at least one more parting shot at President Trump.

In June, President Trump held a meeting with Republican senators in order to pitch a policy to win over voters in swing states.

Romney intended to skip the meeting, but ended up going.  Later, he said that he could not support President Trump based on character according to a report in Fox News at the time.

Romney attended the meeting, though he told CNN reporter Manu Raju on Tuesday that he did not go to support Trump.

“I didn’t go there to support former President Trump. I went there to listen to what he was planning on doing if he became president,” Romney told Raju.

Romney reportedly acknowledged he was not planning to attend the meeting, though he changed his mind after his flight was canceled.

“With President Trump, it’s a matter of personal character,” the Utah senator said.

In February of this year, as the Senate prepared to vote on a bill to provide weapons for Ukraine, Romney took to the Senate floor in support of the bill.

His words have rung in my ears ever since as a perfect example of the myopic views taken by those often called RINOS.

He considered the vote supplying weapons to Ukraine to be the most important vote that the Senate would ever take; not securing the border, protecting the second amendment, or guarding free speech.

In Mitt Romney’s mind, the issue of supplying weapons to Ukraine was more important than all those things.

Mitt Romney believes sending more money to Ukraine is the “single most important vote they will ever take as Senators”

Not securing our border or 2A rights

Not reforming the VA

Not fixing election fraud

Ukraine

Good riddance to this RINO & his niece
pic.twitter.com/4lT4pjhaF9

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) February 13, 2024

With that outlook, there is little mystery why President Trump called Romney a “loser” on more than one occasion, or why he has been labeled a RINO as much as any other “Republican” politician.

And so I happily join in with so many others I have seen celebrating the exit of Mitt Romney from the Senate, and his exit from a position of any authority in American governance.

Goodbye, Romney… and good riddance.