times reports that romney recently texted a friend saying he will be running for the open senate seat in utah to replace orrin hatch. good morning, kevin. good morning. is mitt romney running? i think he very much is. i don t have any inside information or anything to break for you. i was not the receiver of that text, but i do think that if a rumor like this got out and mitt romney wanted to stop it, he could have. so since he hasn t, i think he s leaning towards running. mitt romney sent a text the story goes, to his friend who then showed it or read it, i guess, to the governor of utah and i will quote it directly from romney, it sid i m running. so that sounds unequivocal. that s very close to an official announcement and not the way we used to do it back in romney world. let s talk about this.
shot that it s going to happen. and i think that s exactly what newt gingrich is doing. and i m going to tell you one thing, what i know from my reporting in romney world, which as i ve been saying the last day or so has gone dark, is romney is not talking about this with a lot of people. he s not asking people to lobby for this job for him. he did enough lobbying this other night at dinne when he ate crow. but he s not telling people to talk to the transition team or reince priebus or vice president-elect pence. he s just letting it happen and talking to donald trump as he s asked to do. but there s not a lobbying campaign, there s only an anti-romney campaign. you make a good point that romney did beat newt gingrich for the republican presidential nomination four years ago. and there s clearly a little bit
well, look, i think this is high profile and they know it. and inviting mitt romney back for dinner, i was told by a source in the transition is meaningful. that was the word my source used. and i think if you re looking at this it is meaningful. these men could not be more different. they ve said an awful lot of stuff about each other. i don t expect they re ever going to be best friends. but i think what they are coming to and maybe i m wrong is some kind of mutual respect. and i think what trump is going to demand from mitt romney is loyalty and trust. and i think, if i had to guess, that that s kind of the backdrop for all of this given the words that milt romney spoke about donald trump including calling him a con man. and i think that he s trying to, as donald trump does with his gut, sort of feel out somebody to see if he s a team player. and one thing i should point out is that sources in the romney world have kind of gone dark on this.
is that sources in the romney world have kind of gone dark on this. and kevin you know this better than i do. but they are dark. mitt romney isn t talking to them. they are not talking a lot to us. and and romney is not lobbying for the job. nor has he asked anybody to lobby on his behalf for the job. if he gets it it is clear to me he want this is job or he wouldn t be having dinner there tonight. if he gets it great. if he doesn t, he ll go back to his life. even if he s not the pick it does help donald trump to not only have a relationship with mitt romney but to be seen to be consulting him. yeah, no i think this is we don t really know what donald trump is up too here. we don t know how serious he is about romney or if he s just doing this to make it very clear that not only did he win but now the person who s tearing him down is coming and being a
cabinet position in his administration. we know and we ve been reporting very extensively over the past several days about the deep division among donald trump s advisers that obviously spilled out in public with kellyanne conway making clear she doesn t think it s a good idea but there are others who do thing it could be a good idea. so this dinner tonight is and how it pans out is going to be fascinating. especially given the fact the recent history of donald trump s sort of end matt meetings with his chief foes, president obama, obviously the brightest example of that, end up with donald trump changing his position and seeing a different side of these people who he really disliked very much from afar. sara murray, you re deeply sourced in romney world, how is governor romney looking on this meal tonight? any word? there s a lot less drama coming from the romney side than there is from the trump side of this. i think the romney world is sort of just watching this and