Elections
Romney: If Trumps runs in 2024, ‘I’m pretty sure he will win’ GOP nomination
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) predicted Tuesday that, if former President Donald Trump runs again in 2024, Trump would likely win the Republican Party’s nomination.
“I expect he will continue playing a role. I don’t know if he’ll run in 2024 or not. But if he does, I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination,” Romney assessed in a New York Times-DealBook virtual interview.
The Utah Republican, who voted to convict Trump in both of his Senate impeachment trials, conceded that Trump has “by far the largest voice and a big impact in my party.”
While Romney noted that “a lot can happen between now and 2024,” he brought up recent polls showing that Republican voters still overwhelmingly prefer Trump.
“I look at the polls,” Romney said. “And the polls show that among the names being floated as potential contenders in 2024, if you put President Trump in there among Republicans, he wins in a landslide.”
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The Utah senator, however, emphasized that “I’m not great at predicting,” adding that he subscribes to the philosophy of former baseball catcher Yogi Berra represented in a famous but often-paraphrased quote: “I don’t like predicting, particularly if the future’s involved.”
If the 2024 GOP presidential primaries were held today, according to a Politico-Morning Consult poll released three days after the Senate acquitted Trump, a majority of Republican voters would choose the former commander-in-chief as their party’s nominee.
RELATED: Poll: Majority of GOP voters still favor Trump for 2024
The survey reported that 53% of GOP voters said they would vote for Trump—whereas former Vice President Mike Pence came in second with 12%, and Donald Trump Jr. and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley tied each other for third place with 6%. Having been the GOP’s 2012 nominee, Romney himself received 4% in the poll.
As for whether Romney would vote for the former president, he said during the interview: “I would not be voting for President Trump again. I haven’t voted for him in the past. I would be getting behind somebody in the tiny wing of the Republican Party that I represent.”
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Former President Trump has repeatedly suggested that him running for president again in 2024. Most recently in a February 17 Newsmax interview, Trump was asked if he would run in the next presidential election, and he left the possibility open.
“Well, we have tremendous support. I won’t say yet, but we have tremendous support, and I’m looking at poll numbers that are through the roof,” Trump told the hyper-conservative outlet. “You saw what happened yesterday when we went up again. I’m the only guy who gets impeached and my numbers go up. Figure that one out.”
“Let’s say somebody gets impeached, typically, your numbers would go down. They would go down like a dead balloon,” he added. “But the numbers are very good. They’re very high. I think they’re higher than they were before the election. And they were high at the election.”
You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a longtime supporter of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, is now acknowledging the unintended consequences of the healthcare legislation, particularly its impact on industry consolidation and rising healthcare prices.
Warren, who has been a vocal proponent of Obamacare, has recently had what the Wall Street Journal reported as an “epiphany” regarding the consequences of the healthcare law. In a letter addressed to the Health and Human Services Department inspector general, Warren, along with Senator Mike Braun of Indiana, expressed concerns about vertically-integrated healthcare companies potentially increasing prescription drug costs and evading federal regulations.
According to reports from Fox News, the bipartisan letter highlighted issues with the nation’s largest health insurers allegedly bypassing Obamacare’s medical loss ratio (MLR). According to Warren, these insurers, through vertical integration, have manipulated the system, leading to “sky-high prescription drug costs and excessive corporate profits.”
The senators detailed how conglomerates, like UnitedHealth Group, with ownership across various healthcare sectors, could inflate medical payments to pharmacies and, by realizing those payments on the pharmacy side, appear to comply with MLR requirements while retaining more profits.
Moreover, despite the Democrats’ argument that the MLR would benefit patients, it has incentivized insurers to merge with or acquire pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), retail and specialty pharmacies, and healthcare providers. This, in turn, has made healthcare spending less transparent, as insurers can allegedly shift profits to their affiliates by increasing reimbursements.
Warren, who has consistently voted against Obamacare repeal efforts, notably advocated for a “Medicare for All” proposal during her 2020 presidential campaign. Despite her prior support for the healthcare law, Warren’s recent concerns about its unintended consequences have raised questions about the long-term effects of Obamacare and its impact on the healthcare industry.
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