Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) stands behind his long-standing anti-Trump conviction ahead of this year’s 2024 election.
Following Sen. Romney attended Trump’s closed-door meeting with Republican senators last week, he told a news source that he did not go to support Trump. In fact, the Senator is more adamant than ever that he will not back Trump for president.
He reportedly told the source, “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.”
There have even been reports that Romney didn’t plan to attend the meeting, but made the last minute decision due to this flight being canceled.
On the former president, Sen. Romney has gone on the record saying, “With President Trump, it’s a matter of personal character,” the Utah senator said. “I draw a line and say when someone has been actually found to have been sexually assaulted, that’s something I just won’t cross over in the person I wouldn’t want to have as president of the United States.”
Here, Romney is referring to a federal jury verdict returned in New York City last year finding that Trump was not responsible for raping E. Jean Carroll, although he was liable for sexual battery and defamation.
Carroll – who claims Trump raped her at the Bergdorf Goodman department store near Trump Tower in Manhattan in 1996 – had sought $12 million.
Trump, who is leading the pack of potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates, has called the allegations made against him a hoax on multiple occasions. Carroll, who slapped Trump with a defamation lawsuit over his denial, said the rejection damaged her career.
The jury found Carroll was injured as a result of statements Trump made while in the White House in June 2019. As a result, the jury added $7.3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in damages for the reputational repair program.
The jury ruled that Trump made the statements with the intent of harming Carroll and hit him with an additional $65 million in punitive damages. The jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in total.
