Donald Trump Lashes Out at Mitt Romney Over Melania Claims

Donald Trump's team has lashed out at Sen. Mitt Romney over an excerpt from the retiring Utah senator's new biography that claimed the former president once bragged of his plans to "drop" his then girlfriend Melania.

In an extract from Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins, obtained by Rolling Stone, The Atlantic staff writer wrote of the Republican Utah senator's encounter with the former president when they both attended a New England Patriots game as guests of owner Robert Kraft.

"Trump sidled up to Romney's son Josh and pointed at a leggy brunette across the room. 'Have you seen my girlfriend, Melania?' he asked, smirking. 'When I drop her, the phone is gonna ring off the hook. Every guy in New York wants to go out with her,'" Coppins writes in the book, set to be released on October 24.

Trump's team hit back, calling Romney "a loser" who was "creating false stories to stay relevant."

"Mittens is a loser who is 'retiring' because he knows he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving another campaign," a Trump spokesperson told Rolling Stone.

"He should stop lying and creating fake stories in order to stay relevant. The fact is that he dropped the ball when he ran against Barack Obama and is partially responsible for the mess America is in."

Newsweek has contacted spokespeople for Trump and Romney for comment via email.

Rolling Stone did not say exactly when the encounter at the Patriots game occurred, but Romney and Trump were photographed at the playoff game between the Patriots and Tennessee Titans on January 10, 2004. Trump proposed to Melania in April that year, and they were married at Mar-a-Lago the following January.

According to Coppins' book, based on dozens of interviews with Romney and access to his journals and emails, the Utah senator's initial impression of Trump was that he "wasn't really a 'businessman' at all."

They met for the first time when Trump invited Romney to his Mar-a-Lago estate in January 1995.

Romney, who made his fortune in private equity, agreed to meet with Trump because he was interested in a "memorable, low-stakes, and deeply weird," experience with the celebrity real estate mogul and was "not above gawking at famous people," Coppins writes.

Trump duly delivered, with a "surreal scene" on Romney's arrival where the entirety of the club's staff "lined up outside in a white linen uniform, as if posed for a royal reception." When he left, he thought he'd never see Trump again, Coppins writes.

Trump said it was a "real honor" to endorse the senator's 2012 bid for president, but Romney did not return the favor in 2016, instead branding Trump a "phony" and "fraud," while urging his fellow Republicans to reject him.

He later became the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump in both of his impeachment trials and was among the few GOP lawmakers willing to criticize him in public.

But he now joins several prominent establishment Republicans, including Liz Cheney, who pushed back against Trump and then found themselves isolated in the GOP and facing threats from MAGA extremists.

Romney has been paying $5,000 a day for private security for his family since the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol by Trump supporters, according to an excerpt of Coppins' book published by The Atlantic.

While Trump is running to regain the White House and facing charges in four criminal cases, Romney announced last month that he will not seek another term in the Senate.

In a statement announcing his plans, he said he was "not retiring from the fight," but that It's time "for a new generation of leaders."

"They're the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in," he said.

He also took aim at both President Joe Biden and Trump. "We face critical challenges—mounting national debt, climate change, and the ambitious authoritarians of Russia and China," he said. "Neither President Biden nor former President Trump are leading their party to confront them."