MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” backed Republican Sen. Mitt Romney’s latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which asked donors to narrow the 2024 GOP candidates in order to prevent a Donald Trump nomination.
The Romney piece titled, “Donors, Don’t Fund a Trump Plurality,” was published on Monday afternoon in the WSJ.
“A baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president,” the senator writes. “That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up.”
According to Romney, for that to happen, donors should “get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed.”
The senator suggested the deadline of Feb. 26, which is the Monday after the primary in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
“Let to their own inclinations,” Romney warned, “expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time.”
“They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize,” the prospect of which disappoints the senator who is looking for a younger nominee with “character” and “driven by something greater than revenge.”
Morning Joe host Willie Geist asked his panel whether Romney’s suggestion has a plausible outcome.
“I completely agree with Senator Romney on the practicalities of what he’s suggesting,” said MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan. “It is the most logical effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the primary.”
But Jordan questioned the feasibility of candidates willingly bowing out of the race. “There is a lot of ego involved,” she said.
“Are people really going to be willing to drop out for the greater cause of preventing Donald Trump from winning again?” Jordan continued. “I’m skeptical.”
Regardless of how plausible this suggestion is, Jordan is “glad that Senator Romney wrote this Op-Ed.”
“It gives me such deja vu watching what’s happening because it really is the 2016 primary all over,” Jordan said.
The political analyst invoked her recent conversations with GOP operatives involved in other campaigns during the 2016 presidential election who are concerned that “it’s gonna happen again.”
Jordan praised Romney’s words again, but concluded “let’s be realistic when the time comes to be realistic.”
Watch the full MSNBC segment in video at the top of this post.
