Mitt Romney Is Meeting with Donald Trump Again

Photo via Associated Press

Mitt Romney is headed back to meet with Donald Trump again this week, as the president-elect weighs whether to make the former Massachusetts governor his Secretary of State.

Romney will sit down with Trump on Tuesday, Trump’s transition team told reporters today on a conference call.

The post has become one of the more controversial in a transition that has played out like a never-ending reality TV show, and whether it will result in the second straight Massachusetts politician leading the State Department remains an open question.

There has been internal disagreement in the president-elect’s transition about Romney, the ex-CEO who was Massachusetts’ governor from 2003-2007. He’s been more warmly received by many establishment Republicans eager to keep the responsibilities of the job away from another, more Trumpian finalist: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Romney this year made himself an early enemy of Trump when he lambasted the candidate as an unqualified “phony.” But he now wants a position in Trump’s administration, seeking a top post for a president who has no experience in government, let alone foreign policy, and whose bold and freewheeling campaign rhetoric on global issues has many world leaders anxious about the next four years.

Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway yesterday said voters would feel “betrayed” if Romney were picked for the position, saying the politician had been “nothing but awful” to the president-elect. But MSNBC is reporting today that Conway “went rogue” and that Trump is “furious” with her about those comments.

Elsewhere though, Trump has been outspoken about spurning those that were critical of him, notably including outgoing Republican New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who, under pressure from her opponent in her ill-fated Senate race, said she wouldn’t vote for the candidate. Last week, he gleefully put to rest rumors that he might be inviting her to the White House in an interview with the New York Times. “No, thank you,” he said.

Trump is also meeting with retired Army Gen. David Petraeus on Monday and is reportedly also considering Republican Bob Corker, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for the job.