Romney says he texted with niece McDaniel after RNC censure

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) says that he texted his niece, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, after the RNC censured Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) last week. 

“We’ve exchanged some texts. … I expressed my point of view,” Romney said Monday. 

He declined to comment on the conversation, but described McDaniel as “terrific.”

“I think she’s a wonderful person and doing her very best,” Romney added.

The text messages come after the RNC sparked fierce backlash after it described Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of former President Trump’s followers breached the Capitol, as “legitimate political discourse” in a resolution censuring Kinzinger and Cheney, the only two Republicans on the select House committee investigating the attack. 

McDaniel appeared to try to clarify the resolution, saying in a statement that the two GOP lawmakers were involved in persecuting citizens “engaged in legitimate political discourse” but “that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.” The last section was not in the RNC resolution. 

Romney, who was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial in the wake of Jan. 6, has been critical of both the censure resolution and the language used in it. 

“It could not have been a more inappropriate message,” the former Republican presidential nominee said, adding that it was “so far from accurate as to shock and to make people wonder what we’re thinking.”