Mitt Romney Not Feeling the Love from Trump Camp

Offered a chance to serve as Secretary of State, Mitt Romney might have been willing to put aside his past opposition to President-elect Donald Trump, but it seems many in Trump World are less than welcoming toward the former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate.

Trump Senior Adviser Kellyanne Conway took to the talk shows Sunday to downplay the possibility of the pick, after Romney met with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence last weekend.

"I think that there was the 'Never Trump' movement and then there was Gov. Mitt Romney. He went out of his way to hurt Donald Trump," Conway said on ABC. "He gave two speeches that I can recall in this calendar year, and they were both about Donald Trump."

It follows tweets earlier this week in which Conway relayed doubts about the rumored Romney appointment:

Elsewhere Sunday, Newt Gingrich offered his own take on the possible position:

As Patch previously reported, Romney's appointment is a tough pill for both to swallow, after a heated back-and-forth during the campaign. Trump cast the one-time presidential candidate as a failure who "choked like a dog" when he lost the 2012 race; Romney called his party's then-candidate a phony, a fraud and a con-man.

Say Romney's ready to bury the hatchet and Trump is ready to let, uh... sleeping dogs lie. Even then, there remains the vocal Trump constituency firmly convinced that Romney typifies the kind of establishment politician their candidate's ascendance to the White House was meant to destroy.

As Politico reports, there are multiple reads on the situation so far.

In the one camp are people like MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, who see Conway and Gingrich's outspoken approach as insubordination meant to undermine and "bully" the President-elect. There's also the read put forward by Trump critic Ana Navarro — that all this is a purposeful attempt at vindication orchestrated by Trump to "pay back" and humiliate one of his biggest campaign critics.

Romney is keeping tight lips, using his Twitter account only to post about family time over the Thanksgiving holiday. Trump, despite a deluge of tweets, hasn't mentioned the matter.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, Flickr/Creative Commons