The Utah senator Mitt Romney’s biography Romney: A Reckoning reveals details of Donald Trump and Melania Trump’s early dating life. An excerpt from his book says the former president once told Romney’s son Josh that he was planning to “drop” his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss. Trump’s team hit back.
The tell-all memoir promises the juiciest revelations, including Romney’s political career and early encounters with the Republican candidate. One of the startling accounts obtained by Rolling Stone details insight into Trump and Melania’s early romance, where the 77-year-old talked about ‘dumping’ the former First Lady.
The excerpt read, “Trump sidled up to Romney’s son Josh and pointed at a leggy brunette across the room. ‘Have you seen my girlfriend, Melania?’ he asked, smirking. ‘When I drop her, the phone is gonna ring off the hook. Every guy in New York wants to go out with her.'”
The surprising details are in Romney’s book, released on October 24, 2023, and written by McKay Coppins. The incident happened when the Utah senator and the Republican front-runner attended a New England Patriots game as guests of owner Robert Kraft while he was still dating Melania Trump, formerly Knauss.
However, Trump’s team slammed the book claims and hit back, calling Romney a “loser” and accused him of fabricating stories, per Newsweek. A former president’s spokesperson defended, “Mittens is a loser who is ‘retiring’ because he knows he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving another campaign.”
The spokesperson attacked, “He [Romeny] should stop lying and creating fake stories in order to stay relevant. The fact is that he dropped the ball when he ran against Barack Obama and is partially responsible for the mess America is in.”
Although the outlet doesn’t mention the exact date when the exchange happened, it is worth noting Trump and Romney were photographed at the playoff game between the Patriots and Tennessee Titans on January 10, 2004. It’s the same year the former real estate mogul proposed to Melania (in April), and the two got married in 2005 in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
The book also details their first meeting at Mar-a-Lago. According to the biography, Romney recounts Trump as a “cartoon character” who strutted around his lavish Florida estate behaving like an “English Lord.” The book is backed by dozens of interviews with the Utah senator, access to resources like his journals and e-mails, his family, and members of his inner circle.
Former President Trump called Senator Romney’s retirement a “fantastic news” for Utah and the Republican Party, per The Hill. “Mitt Romney, sometimes referred to as Pierre Delecto, will not be seeking a second term in the U.S. Senate, where he did not serve with distinction,” he wrote in his Truth Social.
After announcing his retirement, Romney said, “I have spent my last 25 years in public service of one kind or another.” The Utah senator continued, “Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.”
