Mitt Romney Is Retiring, Says Fellow Old Folks Biden and Trump Should Too

Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Mitt Romney is blowing out the candle on his political career. In a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, the Utah senator announced that he will not seek a second term next year.

In the statement, Romney, who is 76, had a not-so-subtle message for the octogenarians everyone is concerned about in national politics. “At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s,” he said. While that’s hardly a disqualifying factor these days, Romney said he believes it is “time for a new generation of leaders” who will “shape the world they will be living in.”

The only Republican senator to vote to impeach Donald Trump the first time around, Romney had some choice words for the former president he has never gotten along with — and a few more for the current president. “Neither President Biden nor former president Donald Trump are leading their party to confront” issues like “the ambitious authoritarians” in Russia and China and climate change. “Donald Trump calls global warming a hoax, and President Biden offers feel-good solutions that make no difference to the global climate,” he said. “On China, President Biden underinvests in the military, and President Trump underinvests in our alliances.”

It has been a long run for Romney, the most successful Mormon politician in U.S. history, who served as the governor of Massachusetts before becoming the Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Along the way, he has quietly been one of the weirdest and most unexpectedly funny guys on the national stage. As he serves out his final term, we say good-bye to the man who brought us classics like “Hot dog is my favorite meat.” And the “binders full of women” airball that might have hurt him in 2012. And the time he drove across the country with the family dog strapped into a crate on the roof, which definitely hurt the Irish setter’s feelings.