Donald Trump attacked Mitt Romney on Saturday after the Utah Senator criticized the president. Romney has been one of the few Republican leaders to be harshly critical of Trump, and he has ramped his comments up in the wake of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. On Friday, Romney said he is “sickened” by Trump, so Trump punched back with a video clip showing Romney during the 2012 race and a caption bashing Romney for losing that year.
“If @MittRomney spent the same energy fighting Barack Obama as he does fighting Donald Trump, he could have won the race (maybe)!” Trump wrote in a tweet .
The video features clips from Romney’s campaign in 2012, in which he lost to Barack Obama in the general election by more than 100 electoral votes, and the popular vote by 4 percentage points.
The tweet comes after Romney published a statement criticizing the president and those around him for their behavior around during the 2016 election, new information regarding which has recently come under public scrutiny thanks to the Mueller report.
“I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President,” Romney said in a tweet .
“I am also appalled that, among other things, fellow citizens working in a campaign for the president welcomed help from Russia – including information that had been illegally obtained.”
Romney’s statement quickly gained attention across the internet. Trump, who is known for attacking his critics using his Twitter account, didn’t hesitate to fire back.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney on Mueller report: I am “sickened” by “dishonesty and misdirection” of President Trump https://t.co/olACy9itcH pic.twitter.com/POMXZwviFQ
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 21, 2019
Early in Trump’s presidency, Romney was considered for the position of running the state department, but he ultimately ended up running and winning the seat as Utah’s Senator to replace Orrin Hatch. Since then, he has become one of the leading critics of the president from within the Republican party.
In January, Romney wrote an Op-Ed for The Washington Post in which he called the president out for failing to rise to the level that the office required of him. He also said that Trump failed to unite the country and furthered the divide between citizens. He added that Trump had weakened the country’s standing in the world and harmed relationships with its allies.
Governor Mike Huckabee also attacked Romney with a tweet saying that the Utah politician was “disingenuous” for taking Trump’s money and pandering to him in order to become Secretary of State, only to later attack the president. He added that the idea that Romney got the GOP nomination in 2012 makes him “sick” to think about.
