The best personnel decision Donald Trump has made, Mitt Romney said in an interview published on Saturday, “was not choosing me”.

After winning the White House in 2016. Trump toyed with the idea – and in doing so rather cruelly toyed with the man – of appointing Romney secretary of state.

The contender for the Republican nomination in 2008 and nominee in 2012 had already called Trump a “phony”. The job went to an oil baron.

“I would not have lasted as long as Rex Tillerson,” Romney told the New York Times.

Tillerson was fired by Trump – by tweet, reportedly while on the toilet – in March 2018, after a year on the job.

Romney also told the New York Times he thought he would have lasted “maybe a little longer than Anthony Scaramucci”. That was a reference to the hedge-funder-cum-White House communications director who served for less than two weeks.

I’m laying out a path for the party post the president Mitt Romney

Tillerson reportedly called Trump “a fucking moron” while he was secretary of state but has largely remained quiet since leaving the administration. Scaramucci is now a vocal critic of the president, touring cable news shows to pontificate on the impeachment inquiry and plead for Trump’s removal or defeat.

Romney is now a senator from Utah and a more subtle but persistent critic. Trump recently called him “a pompous ass” and doubtlessly counted him among the “Never Trumper” Republicans he called “human scum” in a tweet this week.

The former Massachusetts governor’s Times interview was part of a media campaign which this week saw him essentially out himself as “Pierre Delecto”, a rather more secretive Twitter user than the man in charge.

Republican critics of the decision to use a pseudonym, a practice formerly followed by Trump nemesis James Comey, generally chose not to comment on Trump’s admitted use of assumed names to praise himself in the past.

“People say to me, ‘If you’re critical of the president you’re hurting the party,’” Romney said. “No I’m not – I’m laying out a path for the party post the president.”

Trump might be defeated at the polls next year. Or if as seems likely he is impeached by the House, he might yet be convicted and removed by the Senate. That chamber is held by Republicans guided by Mitch McConnell, the majority leader and a staunch Trump ally. That makes it seem highly unlikely 20 Republicans will vote for Trump’s removal.

But some leading Republican voices have suggested enough senators could yet decide that defending Trump over his attempts to force Ukraine to investigate his political rivals is not worth their reputations or the cost to the party as a whole.

Romney might then emerge as a figurehead. In accordance with reports McConnell is preparing his party for a trial, Romney told the Times he has been reading the Federalist Papers and other constitutional texts.

Also on Saturday, Romney told the Washington Post: “I am going to wait to see if impeachment articles come. If they do come, I will review all the facts as they are presented at that point and make a decision which I believe is right.”

The Post detailed Romney and Trump’s long relationship and an attempted rapprochement earlier this year. Romney’s niece Ronna McDaniel is chair of the Republican party, but she reportedly dropped Romney from her name at Trump’s request. According to the Post, it took Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, formerly a fierce opponent of Trump but now a stout ally, to set up a private meeting.

That went reasonably well, the Post said, but Romney soon publicly expressed his disappointment with Trump over foreign policy issues including Ukraine, China and Syria. Graham told the Post Trump now realises “the damage has been done”. The senator also said: “I don’t think I’ll go into marriage counselling.”

Romney told the Times his wife, Ann, had convinced him to run for the Senate last year in part by asking: “What would your dad do?”

George Romney was a Michigan governor who ran for the Republican nomination as a moderate in the age of Barry Goldwater and the party’s lurch to the right.

“You know,” Romney told the Times, “just because you weren’t made general doesn’t mean you stop fighting.”