During his time in the Senate, Mitt Romney stood as the lone Republican opposing Donald Trump and his allies. However, as his tenure in the chamber comes to a close, Romney has shifted his focus to offensive maneuvers. In the upcoming biography Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins, the junior senator from Utah takes aim at various current and former congressional colleagues, including Ron DeSantis, Mitch McConnell, and a host of others. Yet, he reserves some of his sharpest criticism for notable conservative media figures.
According to an excerpt reviewed by CNN, Romney reveals that Sean Hannity harbored jealousy toward former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who enjoyed several years as the top-rated cable news personality. Romney reportedly stated, “I can only imagine that Sean is consumed with Tucker Carlson being ahead of him, and his everyday effort is to find ways to reclaim the throne as the most watched.” Furthermore, Romney suggests that Hannity has tried to emulate Carlson’s style, but falls short in effectiveness, noting, “He’s in the same vein as Tucker. Just not as effective as Tucker—Tucker’s smart.”
Interestingly, Hannity no longer faces the dominance of Carlson. In April, Carlson was fired by the network and now hosts an independent show on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. In response to Romney’s remarks, Hannity mocked the senator’s loss to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race, stating, “It’s very clear losing the presidency has turned Mitt into a small, angry, and very bitter man. It’s sad to see,” according to a statement issued through a spokesperson to CNN.
Romney’s relationship with Hannity reportedly reached a boiling point in 2019 when Hannity described the Utah lawmaker on-air as a “weak, sanctimonious Washington swamp politician.” This likely resulted from Romney’s criticisms of Trump prior to his first impeachment trial. Following the on-air jab, Romney reached out to Hannity, leading to a less-than-reconciliatory conversation. Allegedly, Hannity accused Romney of seeking “praise on MSNBC” and demanded an explanation as to why Romney lacked knowledge about Hunter Biden‘s business dealings in Ukraine.
The book also mentions other figures affiliated with Fox News. Coppins reveals that Romney referred to former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs as “a moron” and described Fox as his “enabler,” triggered by Dobbs’s anti-immigrant segments. Fox ultimately canceled Dobbs’s show in 2021 due to his conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election and the voting-machine companies involved.
While expressing his desire for the GOP to move on from Trump, Romney doesn’t particularly favor the former president’s significant contender in the 2024 Republican primary, Ron DeSantis. According to The New York Times, Romney stated that DeSantis possesses “no warmth at all” and shares some of the “odious qualities” found in Trump, including an obsession with cultural battles. Nonetheless, Romney reportedly said he would support DeSantis for the sake of preventing Trump’s return, even if it means enduring DeSantis’s unappealing demeanor when interacting with voters.
As the publication of the book approaches, Romney has been openly expressing his unfiltered opinions about his fellow Republicans. In the days leading up to its release, Politico’s Playbook compiled a list of Romney’s jabs at individuals such as Newt Gingrich, whom he calls “A smug know-it-all, smarmy, and too pleased with himself.” He also referred to Mike Huckabee as a “huckster” and a “caricature of a for-profit preacher,” and criticized Rick Santorum for being “Sanctimonious, severe, and strange,” among others.
Romney, who is 76 years old, announced his decision not to seek another term in the Senate. In a video statement shared on X, Romney explained, “At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.”
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