Conservative group calls Mitt Romney a ‘Democrat secret asset’ in TV ad
Dennis Romboy
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, attends the HELP Hearing: Implementing the 21st Century Cures Act on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 26, 2019. Cheryl Diaz Meyer, for the Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — A conservative political advocacy group will launch a television ad Thursday that describes Sen. Mitt Romney as a “Democrat secret asset” after his recent comments about President Donald Trump.
In the spot airing on Fox News from Oct. 17-27, the Club for Growth urges Utahns to tell the GOP senator to stop supporting Democrats and their push to impeach Trump.
David McIntosh, Club for Growth president, said in a statement that Romney lost his bid for president and should stop running in 2020 against a Republican incumbent. Democrats, he said, falsely targeted Trump because they lost the 2016 election and know they can’t win next year’s with a “socialist” candidate.
“There are two things Sen. Romney is good at: changing positions and alienating conservatives, and now he is bringing his unique brand of self-promoting flip-flopping to yet another issue,” McIntosh said.
Romney’s office had no comment about the ad.
Last week, Romney reiterated earlier his earlier comments that it was wrong for Trump to ask Ukraine and China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I think everyone understands that asking a foreign government to investigate one’s political opponent is wrong,” Romney said. “I don’t think there’s any exception to that.”
Romney also said he’s withholding judgment on whether that’s an impeachable or removable offense.
Utah’s junior senator said he’s not running for president again.
In the ad, Romney is called “slick, slippery, stealthy,” and it claims he “had us fooled.”
The ad quotes Romney expressing delight about receiving Trump’s endorsement for president in 2012 and saying in 2018 that Trump would lead the country to a better future.
“Now his cover’s blown — exposed by news reports as a Democrat secret asset. Sources say Romney’s plotting to take down President Trump with impeachment. Tell Romney, quit colluding with Democrats on impeachment,” the narrator says.
Romney spokeswoman Liz Johnson last week dismissed as “blatantly false” a Vanity Fairstory that quoted an unnamed Romney adviser saying the senator believes he has the influence to “decide Trump’s fate in an impeachment trial.”
Trump blasted the Club for Growth after it ran attack ads against him during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“The Club for Growth is a very dishonest group. They represent conservative values terribly & are bad for America,” he tweeted in March 2016.
But the group is moving closer to the president heading into the 2020 election.
McIntosh told The Hill in July that the Club for Growth coordinated with the America First Action PAC, an outside group supporting Trump, before deciding to put its money behind attack ads targeting the Democratic presidential contenders. It has not put any money directly into ads supporting Trump’s reelection bid, according to The Hill.