On Thursday, Politico Playbook published a sprinkling of Sen. Mitt Romney’s dunks on his Republican colleagues in a new book about the senator ― and they’re hilariously brutal.
Advance excerpts from journalist McKay Coppins’ biography about the retiring Utah Republican suggest Romney goes scorched-earth on a great many GOP hotshots, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
For instance, he gives DeSantis a real drubbing, saying the Florida governor has “no warmth at all” and “looks like he’s got a toothache,” according to Politico.
Romney reportedly concedes that DeSantis is “much smarter than Trump,” but then poses a rhetorical question: “Do you want an authoritarian who’s smart or one who’s not smart?”
Meanwhile, Romney apparently says Cruz is “frightening,” “scary” and “a demagogue,” while former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is “sanctimonious, severe and strange.”
He also reportedly mocks former Texas Gov. Rick Perry by noting that “Republicans must realize that we have to have someone who can complete a sentence.”
Earlier previews of Romney’s book have proven just as biting. An advance excerpt published in the Atlantic in September quoted the senator blasting Mike Pence by saying there was no one “more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God’s will to things that were ungodly” than the former vice president.
Romney also said he didn’t know that he could “disrespect someone more” than Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. Although Romney was reportedly impressed by Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy,” he was shocked at how easily the Ohio Republican appeared to change his convictions in order to get Donald Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 election.
“How do you sit next to him at lunch?” he wondered at the time.
“Romney: A Reckoning” will be published Oct. 24.