Mitt Romney made a telling change to his Twitter profile after Sen. Orrin Hatch announced his retirement

Mitt Romney and Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

After Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced Tuesday that he won't in fact be seeking re-election in 2018, Mitt Romney, for whatever reason, decided to finally update his Twitter profile location from Massachusetts to Holladay, Utah — as Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur fortuitously documented:

See more

Romney had been considering a run for Hatch's seat whether or not the long-serving senator retired, Politico says, and he's expected to formally announce his Senate campaign in a few weeks. President Trump had been publicly and privately urging Hatch to run again, apparently in a bid to block Romney from running. After a trip to Utah in December, Trump called Romney ostensibly to "ease tensions between the two men," Politico reports, "but the 10-minute chat only further raised suspicions within Romney's inner circle that the president was out to stymie the former GOP presidential nominee's political ambitions."

Romney is the heavy favorite to replace Hatch, and he has reportedly been telling GOP donors, senators, and power brokers that he is willing to speak out against Trump from the Senate. Whether he votes in line with Trump's wishes is perhaps the bigger question, but Romney has been criticizing Trump's policies and rhetoric for two years now, and he has wanted to return to public life for longer than that, Politico reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Romney and Trump had a brief detente a year ago, when Romney unsuccessfully auditioned to be Trump's secretary of state over dinner. The Trump team thought this humiliating spectacle had neutered Romney. "Judas Iscariot got 30 pieces of silver; Mitt Romney got a dish of frog legs at Jean-Georges. And even at that, it was the appetizer portion," a high-ranking White House official told The Atlantic's Molly Ball last April. "We've sort of taken out his larynx — how can he criticize [Trump] now?" Stay tuned.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.