Utah Sen. Mitt Romney bashed President Donald Trump again on national TV on Monday evening for continuing to falsely claim the election was stolen from him — and drew on his own experience of losing a presidential election to drive home the point.
“The biggest concern that I have is that people here genuinely believe that somehow this election was stolen, and there’s not evidence of that. The president was saying it was stolen even before Election Day happened. He said if he loses, it would be fraud. Well, no one knows that,” Romney told Shepard Smith in a live CNBC interview.
“I thought I was going to win too when I ran for president in 2012. I didn’t. I didn’t go out and say ‘fraud.’ We have a process. We count the votes. That’s the way it is,” the Utah senator said.
Romney stressed again that Trump may be hurting democracy not only in America, but worldwide.
“We’re the democratic leader of the world. What’s going on now, I’m afraid, is terribly dispiriting to people all over the globe,” he said.
Romney said several of his GOP colleagues in Congress feel the same, even though many have chosen not to speak out as strongly as he has.
“I know there are a number of people who feel like I do and have expressed their points of view. Some feel there is no upside in attacking fellows in our party,” he said. “But I think it’s important to say where you stand. That’s what I’ve tried to do.”
Romney also said he’s not surprised that Attorney General William Barr decided to leave office early — after Trump had criticized him for also saying that he saw no significant fraud in the election.
“Serving in this administration was a challenging responsibility for him, to say the least,” Romney said. “I’m not surprised that he could no longer associate himself with the process that is going on now.”
He added that “Bill Barr drew the line. I credit him with once you draw the line, if someone steps over it, you say, ‘OK, that’s the consequence.’”
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