Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a special series of discussions about US politics

and the Trump presidency, or as we journalists call it, the gift that keeps on giving.

I'm Freddie Gray, I'm deputy editor of the spectator. I'm joined today by Luke Thompson,

who is vice president of Applecart, which is a political consultancy.

We're going to be talking about Mitt Romney and his run for the Senate and the threat that Mitt Romney might pose to Donald Trump.

Luke, Mitt Romney's had to delay the announcement that he is standing for the Senate seat in Utah because of

the shooting in Florida. However, we're all fairly sure it's going to go ahead. Could you tell me a

little bit about what that says about the state of the Republican Party? I mean, the speculation

is that this will revive the never Trump movement.

Do you think there's anything in that?

I think a lot of that expectation is misplaced.

And it's misplaced for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the Trump administration has mostly bent to the Republican Congress on matters of policy

and has not been as enthusiastic

pushing some of the more heterodox positions that candidate Trump embraced on the on the trail,

as many expected.

You know, additionally, Trump is clearly a pretty well-defined personality who doesn't intend to change, and so there's

a certain amount of futility in resisting that personality from the U.S. Senate.

That's a, as I think Jeff Flake learned, whatever the kind of moral arguments that one can

muster in support of going to battle with the

president in the Senate, it doesn't really yield much in terms of either policy dividends

or personal political dividends.

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