Romney on voting for Trump over Biden: ‘No, no, no, absolutely not’

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said Wednesday he would “absolutely not” vote for former President Trump over President Biden in November, pointing to Trump’s foreign policy views and his character.

“No. No, no, absolutely not,” Romney told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” when asked whether he would support Trump over Biden.

Romney explained there are “two factors” — policy and character — he is using to decide “who I want to have as the leader of my country and the person who is the example of the president for my kids and my grandkids.” He said are both vital but that character is most important.

“What America is as a nation, what has allowed us to be the most powerful nation on Earth, and the leader of the Earth is the character of the people who have been our leaders,” Romney said. “Past presidents, but also mothers, fathers, church leaders, university presidents, and so forth.”

“Having a president who is so defaulted of character would have an enormous impact on the character of America,” he added. “And for me, that’s the primary consideration.”

Romney, who ran for president in 2012 and secured the GOP nomination, said position and policies is another category that factors into his selection for president.

“On foreign policy, I’m not aligned with Donald Trump, at least as I understand his policy,” he said. “And domestic policy, yeah, aligned with many of his domestic policies.”

But the Utah Republican stressed his fundamental policy differences with Trump, who Romney said “shows more respect for [Russian President] Vladimir Putin than Vladimir Putin deserves.”

Romney added that he disagrees with GOP candidate Nikki Haley, the last remaining challenger to Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, who said she did not think the former president could win the general election against Biden.

He predicted Trump might win the election, if it were held today, but said that would result in “a dramatic change in our foreign policy.”

“I think that people around the world say, OK, America is no longer the leader of the free world and the arsenal of democracy,” the senator said. “It’s not the shining city on a hill. It’s now an isolated island.”

Romney, who announced in September that he would not seek reelection, has been among the most critical senators of the former president.

He became the first senator to vote to convict a president of his own party during Trump’s first impeachment trial, and was among several GOP senators to vote to convict the former president in his second impeachment. Neither trial reached the vote threshold needed to convict or remove him.

In a statement to The Hill, a Trump spokesperson blasted Romney as “a loser” who “continues to prove why he is irrelevant.”

“Nobody cares what he has to say and should crawl back under the rock he came from,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.

This story was updated at 10:35 a.m.