(Utah News Dispatch)

When Mitt Romney joined the Senate in 2018, he was mostly seen as a mainstream Republican. Now, with his one and only term coming to an end, the 77-year-old isn’t sure what the future holds for his party.

But he did caution Republicans during a news conference on Friday.

“The Republican Party, made up of working class Americans, and Republican policy positions don’t necessarily line up terribly well,” he said.

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Whatever happens with the GOP, don’t expect Romney to be a part of it. His time on the political stage is over, he said on Friday.

Romney spoke during what was likely his last media availability with Utah reporters as a senator, touting his decades of public service that started with his management of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and included becoming the governor of Massachusetts, a GOP nominee for President and a one term senator representing the Beehive State.

In Sept. 2023, Romney announced he would not seek reelection and this January, Republican John Curtis will leave his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and join Mike Lee to represent Utah in the Senate.

In the past six years, Romney emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal critics in the Republican Party. He was the only GOP senator who voted to convict Trump during his first impeachment in 2020, and joined seven other Republicans who voted for conviction during the second impeachment in 2021.

Yet he was often aligned with Trump on policy issues.

“I voted with him, I think, more than Senator Lee,” Romney said on Friday. “I’m a conservative and he put in place, by and large, conservative policies.”

But it was Trump’s “relaxed relationship with the truth” and a 2023 ruling that found the incoming president liable for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 that, among other things, “prevented me from supporting him,” Romney said.

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Now, with Congress losing perhaps its last vocal critic of Trump in the GOP, Romney offered somewhat of a concession on Friday. “The Republican Party really is shaped by Donald Trump now,” he said.

Expect the House and Senate, now both controlled by Republican majorities, to follow Trump on most policy issues, Romney said.

In his six years in the Senate, Romney helped pass the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which channeled around $3.7 billion to Utah for water, transportation, broadband and other infrastructure; secured funding for Hill Air Force Base; sponsored bills like the Great Salt Lake Recovery Act and the Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act, which funded studies for Utah’s beleaguered saline lake; and ended decades of negotiations between the Navajo Nation, Utah and the federal government to allow for more funding and water rights for the tribe.

“I’m a narrow slice, if you will, what we used to call the mainstream Republicans. The stream has gotten a little smaller. It’s more like the main-creek Republicans now,” he said.

The 77-year-old senator couldn’t say for certain what the future of the party will be. Trump’s cabinet picks so far have been “all over the map,” he said, including former outspoken liberals like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard.

He’s confident Trump will “stop the immigration mess,” unsure whether he’ll be able to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and doubtful that he’ll curb the nation’s $1.9 trillion deficit and $36 trillion debt.

He doesn’t fear retribution from a Trump Department of Justice, despite the incoming president recently suggesting members of the House January 6 committee, on which he did not serve, should be imprisoned.

And whether you agree or disagree with Trump’s policies, he said, Romney expects him to “shake things up” over the next four years.

If that shakeup is successful, Romney expects incoming Vice President J.D. Vance to carry that momentum and become the next Republican presidential nominee.

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Romney faults Democrats, rather than crediting Republicans, for working-class voters supporting Trump over Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and criticizes progressives for getting behind “absolutely nutty stuff.” That includes the “defund the police” movement, an “open borders” immigration policy and “biological males competing in girls sports.”

“That drove a lot of working families and minorities out of the Democratic Party,” Romney said. “The Republican Party is now the party of working-class Americans. It used to be Democrats, all the time I’ve been alive it was Democrats.”

But he seemed skeptical that Republicans could hold that base, criticizing GOP policies that “don’t necessarily line up” with the working class. The party’s reluctance to raise the minimum wage or support labor unions could give Democrats an opportunity to realign, Romney said.

Regardless of what the future of American politics is, Romney won’t be a part of it. When asked what he plans to do next, he said, jokingly, “I’ll be doing nothing.”

He might appear as an event speaker from time to time, and will likely pop up on college campuses to work with young people. He hinted at some kind of public service, referencing former President Jimmy Carter’s work with Habitat for Humanity, former Vice President Al Gore raising awareness of climate change, and former President George W. Bush’s advocacy for veterans.

But don’t expect any political endorsements or business endeavors from the outgoing senator.

“I will do things I think are going to promote the preservation of the union and the cause of freedom,” he said.

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.