Mitt Romney’s Nastiest Slams of ‘Trump Republicans’ Highlighted by MSNBC: ‘No Warmth’ Ron DeSantis, ‘Scary’ Ted Cruz (Video)
If you thought Mitt Romney was the “nice” Republican, well, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner has a list of quotes she wants you to see.
The “Alex Wagner Tonight” host had The Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins on as a guest Tuesday night to promote his new book “Romney: A Reckoning.” The retiring Utah senator granted Coppins months of interviews and unfettered access to his personal journals, which included some gnarly assessments of fellow Republicans – those who support Donald Trump in particular.
“First, the level of just profound personal animus that Romney holds for other leading lights in the Republican party,” Wagner said, before launching into a highlight reel of “just a few” examples:
“Ron DeSantis: ‘There is just no warmth at all.’ That’s one of the nicer quotes,” Wagner began.
“Newt Gingrich: ‘A smug know-it-all, smarmy and too pleased with himself.'”
“‘Rick Santorum: ‘Sanctimonious, severe and strange.'”
“Rick Perry: ‘Republicans must realize that we have to have someone who can complete a sentence.'”
“Ted Cruz: ‘Frightening, scary, a demagogue.'”
“[Mike] Huckabee: ‘A huckster, a caricature of a for-profit preacher.'”
“Bobby Jindal: ‘A twit.'”
“John Kasich: ‘Lack of thoughtfulness, lack of attentiveness, ego — no wonder he and Chris Christie spark.'”
“With friends like that!” Wagner concluded. “I am eager to know whether this distrust, this distaste for the leaders in his party — was it always in him, or did Trump really catalyze a sense of anger and frustration?”
Coppins said some of the diss material came from “things he told me over the past two years,” while some of it is from Romney’s personal writings over the past decade: “For a long time, he had this sense that the Republican base gravitates toward figures who he finds unimpressive, to say the least — sometimes frightening.”
But it’s the recent, Trump-era trend of the party becoming “more populist, more extreme” led to Romney’s “profound disappointment.”
“I think something after Jan. 6 in him just snapped,” Coppins said, “and he was finally ready to unburden himself.”
Watch the entire exchange in the video above.
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