A new book claims that RINO Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president in 2018 on the night that Utah elected him to the U.S. Senate.
“You have to run,” Romney allegedly told Biden.
The exchange is detailed in the upcoming book “The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama,” by Gabriel Debenedetti, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.
On the night in 2018 that Utah elected Mitt Romney to the U.S. Senate, Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president, according to a new book. https://t.co/YO33CaxD4U
— KSL (@KSLcom) September 11, 2022
From The Guardian:
On the night of the 2018 midterm elections, as a wave of anti-Trump sentiment swept Democrats to take control of the House, top Republican Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president.
“You have to run,” said Romney, the Republican presidential nominee Biden and Barack Obama defeated in 2012, speaking to the former vice-president by phone.
The same night, Romney was elected a US senator from Utah, a post from which he would twice vote to convict Donald Trump in impeachment trials.
Romney’s exhortation to a man then seen as a likely challenger to Donald Trump in 2020 will probably further enrage the former president, his supporters and the Republican party they dominate.
Describing how Biden spent November 6th, 2018, Debenedetti writes: “Biden spent election night glued to his phone as usual … He talked to most of the candidates he’d campaigned for, and plenty he didn’t, either to congratulate or console them, or just to catch up.”
Debenedetti also writes: “At one point he connected with Mitt Romney, who’d been easily elected to the Senate that night as a rare Trump-opposing Republican. They were warm as Biden cheered Romney’s win.”
“Then Obama’s old rival got to the point: You have to run, Romney said.”
Debenedetti says his book is “primarily the product of hundreds of interviews” with “colleagues, aides, rivals, confidants, allies and eyewitnesses from every stage” of Obama and Biden’s careers since 2003.
He also says: “When someone’s words are rendered in italics, that indicates an approximation based on the memories of sources who did not recall exact wordings.”
Debenedetti is a national correspondent for New York Magazine covering politics and national affairs.
Deseret News noted:
Interestingly, Biden encouraged Romney to run for the Senate in 2017.
“By the way, you should run for Senate,” Biden told Romney at his annual E2 Summit in Park City.
The audience for their exchange, which was closed to the news media, applauded Biden’s suggestion, Jason Chaffetz, a Utah GOP congressman at the time who attended the summit, told the Deseret News after the meeting. Romney, he said, “just smiled” and offered no response.
At the time, Romney had been touted as a candidate for the seat held by the late Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch who was considering retirement.
Romney and Biden squared off in the 2012 presidential race, when Romney topped the GOP presidential ticket and Biden ran as President Barack Obama’s vice president.
But Chaffetz said Romney and Biden encouraged each other “to continue in the public arena” because they “recognize we need good people in government,” regardless of party.
“Both gentlemen were very complimentary of each other,” said Chaffetz, now a Fox News contributor. “I think they get along and have deep respect for each other, so I think it was a natural complement.”
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