On Wednesday, President Donald Trump spent his first press conference after a midterm rebuke ranting about the media. He said CNN should be “ashamed of itself” for its coverage of his administration and that reporter Jim Acosta was “a rude, terrible person.” He shouted at reporter April Ryan and told her to “sit down.” He blamed losses in the House of Representatives on Republicans who didn’t “embrace” him, like Utah’s Mia Love, but refused to accept any responsibility for the dozens of House seats that were lost. Then, a few hours later, he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Mitt Romney, meanwhile, was singing. Literally.

This campaign has been quite the ride. Thank you, Utah. pic.twitter.com/2vTxInB7by — Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 7, 2018

Driving down the highway, singing a Johnny Cash song, seemingly without a care in the world: Romney was having a pretty good day. He had just easily won election to the U.S. Senate, replacing Orrin Hatch. After spending much of 2016 sparring with Trump—including a blistering speech in which Romney declared him unfit for office—the two had seemingly come to a truce. During the campaign, Romney largely steered clear of Trump, and Trump largely steered clear of Romney.



No doubt, the newly minted junior senator from Utah would like to continue this dynamic. But that is unlikely to happen. As a representative of a red state that is more skeptical of Trump than most, and the biggest political star to enter the Senate since Hillary Clinton in 2000, Romney will be pressed repeatedly to comment on the Trump tweets, rants, and policy improvisations of the day.



The question facing Romney as he heads to Washington isn’t just how he’ll get along with Trump, but what his relationship with the president will say about who he is as a politician. With the exception of his 2016 speech against Trump, Romney has hardly been a model of political courage. But with the Senate losing its leading Republican critics of Trump—Bob Corker and Jeff Flake—there will be enormous pressure for him to take up their mantle.