Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said fellow Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) stinging criticism in a new biography is “probably the nicest thing he’s ever said about me,” adding, “You should see what he says about me in private.”
Hawley also made a humorous reference to Romney’s observation that the Missouri senator is “one of the smartest people in the Senate, if not the smartest.”
“And I did like the part where he said that maybe I was smarter than Ted Cruz, so I would say on balance he was like 47 percent accurate,” Hawley quipped.
His remarks were in response to Romney’s observations about colleagues in a new biography, “Romney: A Reckoning,” written by McKay Coppins. Excerpts of the book appeared this week in The Atlantic magazine.
In the book, Romney expresses his intense frustration and disappointment with colleagues such as Hawley who supported objections to the certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
Coppins wrote that “what bothered Romney most about Hawley and his cohort was the oily disingenuousness.”
“They know better!” Romney told his biographer. “Josh Hawley is one of the smartest people in the Senate, if not the smartest, and Ted Cruz could give him a run for his money.”
Romney said they were too smart to actually think that Trump had won the 2020 election.
He believed they “were making a calculation” to advance their own careers “that put politics above the interests of liberal democracy and the Constitution.”
The book recounted a tense moment when Romney yelled at Hawley on the Senate floor Jan. 6 as a mob of pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol and started to infiltrate the Senate chamber, sending senators fleeing.
The book reports that amid the chaos of that day, Romney turned to Hawley, who was huddled with some of his colleagues, and started to yell.
Coppins wrote that “Romney would struggle to recall the exact wording of his rebuke. Sometimes he’d remember shouting, ‘You’re the reason this is happening!’ Other times, it would be something more terse: ‘You did this.’”
Romney also confided to his biographer that he felt such an intense dislike for his colleague that he couldn’t envision working with him on any legislation.
“I doubt I will work with Josh Hawley on anything,” he said.