Trump, Romney Flip-Flop on Immigration and Each Other
Since Donald Trump first endorsed Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy during an uncomfortable news conference at the Trump International Hotel & Tower Las Vegas in February 2012, both businessmen-turned-politicians have taken aggressively contradictory stances on the issue of immigration, and lambasted one another for positions they themselves once espoused.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post suggesting that President Trump’s “divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest” actions and statements have marked a steep descent in American politics, Romney shifted the long-simmering feud between himself and Trump into offensive gear. The president’s response, urging Romney to be a “team player” by supporting his hardline immigration agenda, have embroiled both politicians in an avoidable contretemps before the newest Congress has even been seated.
More revealingly, however, the fight has invited closer scrutiny of both Romney and Trump’s frequent flip-flops on the issue of immigration—and each other. The Romney-Trump relationship has waxed and waned numerous times since 2012, when the presidential hopeful accepted Trump’s endorsement at the height of the latter’s propagation of the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.