Meet Mitt Romney’s replacement – who could make or break the Trump agenda
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Cameron Joseph Staff writer
| Washington
John Curtis was just a few weeks into his new job as Utah’s junior senator when a former House colleague put him squarely in the spotlight.
As former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his bid to be attorney general, The New York Times reported he’d told those close to him that there were four Republican senators who were “implacably opposed,” enough to sink his nomination – including Senator Curtis.
Mr. Curtis says that isn’t completely accurate. “Matt made that up,” he says. “That came from nowhere.” But, he adds, “Matt’s smart enough to know I would have had some serious problems with his nomination.”
Why We Wrote This
Utah Sen. John Curtis, like his predecessor, doesn’t always agree with President Donald Trump. But his approach leaves more room for consensus – and shows how the Senate Republican Party has changed.
The episode marked the newly elected senator as one of a handful of Republicans who could wind up shaping – and possibly stalling – the agenda of the incoming president, from cabinet nominations to big-ticket legislation.
Gaetz-gate was quite a start for a self-described “extreme introvert” whose reputation in the House was more for building bipartisan consensus than making headlines. The loudest thing about him is often hidden away. He’s collected hundreds of pairs of colorful socks, and puts serious thought into which pair he’ll wear on a given day.
Like his Senate predecessor, Mitt Romney, he’s been willing at times to break with and criticize President Donald Trump. But Mr. Curtis’ less confrontational approach also shows how much resistance to MAGA Republicanism from the traditional GOP has softened and shifted compared with when President Trump first won office.
“I view myself as somebody who has commitment to my constitutional responsibility – and I’m not a rubber stamp,” he says in a sitdown interview in his temporary Senate office, a windowless basement warren he and his staff are using until permanent assignments are made for freshman lawmakers.
The changing face of the non-MAGA GOP
When Mr. Trump first came to Washington in 2017, he faced at times overt hostility from GOP senators like John McCain, who singlehandedly torpedoed his attempted Obamacare repeal. Mr. Romney was elected to the Senate shortly after Senator McCain’s death, and quickly established himself as another prominent Republican willing to defy the president.
That level of outright resistance from Republicans is long gone – Mr. Trump’s biggest GOP critics have largely fallen in line or left office.
But that doesn’t mean Mr. Trump won’t ever face challenges from within his party. As Senate Republicans race to confirm his cabinet and move on to the meat of his agenda, Mr. Curtis is positioned to play a crucial role.
“I think there’s a lot I can do to help him. And part of that is, from time to time, actually disagreeing with him,” Mr. Curtis says, comparing the GOP-controlled Senate’s role to a board of directors looking to improve the end product.
He says Mr. Gaetz’s withdrawal as the AG nominee shows he’s helping already. That led Mr. Trump to tap former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who’s now on the cusp of being confirmed. “I think the president is far better served with the second pick,” the senator says.
Mr. Curtis has come around to backing some of Mr. Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks – after initially voicing concerns about Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Defense secretary, he joined other Republicans in deciding to back him. But he’s made clear that he won’t be a pushover.
While speaking at a Politico breakfast panel, Mr. Curtis commented that he hadn’t yet been able to meet with Tulsi Gabbard, whose nomination to be director of national intelligence appears to be in possible jeopardy.
“The biggest problem for me is, she’s been so low profile,” he said. “The others have come to my office and so if you go back to that analogy of a sheet of music, her sheet’s pretty blank for me. I need more information to start filling that in. And, look, if I can’t fill that in, I can’t vote for her.”
Ms. Gabbard’s team got the message: She sat down with him just two days later. Senator Curtis later posted photos of their meeting with the noncommittal remark, “I’ll carefully evaluate her qualifications to ensure America’s intelligence capabilities remain the best in the world.”
He also strikes a different tone from the Trump administration on immigration – the top issue for the new president, and one where Congress will have a big say in how far he can go.
“While deportation is a vital tool in upholding the rule of law, it must be wielded with a proper proportion of compassion. Mass deportation may not uphold either, in the end,” he wrote in a Jan. 21 op-ed.
He described a moment where he met the eyes of a man being apprehended by border patrol agents.
“I saw in his eyes both his plight and my role in trying to fix this human crisis,” he wrote. “No words were spoken, yet the look in his eyes seemed to be asking me the question, ‘How can you be letting this go on?’ He was the one in handcuffs, yet I felt as though I was the one who had failed.”
Not Romney 2.0
Like a plurality of Utahans, Mr. Curtis is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – a church long rooted in international missionary work, whose members are often more welcoming of immigrant communities than other conservatives. Some Mormon Republicans, including Mr. Romney and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, formed a pocket of conservative resistance against Mr. Trump, though that’s lessened in recent years.
Mr. Curtis says his faith shapes his approach to everything, including politics: “It would be impossible to separate my faith from my actions.” But he also resists comparisons to his predecessor.
“If you expect me to be Mitt Romney, I’m going to disappoint you,” he says, adding, “Now, here’s the good news for my constituents: I’m not an unknown.... I have three years where I served simultaneously with President Trump. You know exactly how I’m going to handle this relationship, because I’ve done it before.”
Mr. Curtis indeed has a long track record. A one-time registered Democrat, he joined the GOP in 2006 before winning a nonpartisan election to become mayor of Provo, where he built a reputation for fiscal conservatism paired with nonpartisan consensus-building. He ran for the House in a 2017 special election in which he distanced himself from Mr. Trump, winning Mr. Romney’s endorsement.
While Mr. Romney was used to being the man in charge, as a former CEO, governor, and presidential nominee, Mr. Curtis has spent the last seven years in Congress quietly developing a reputation for bipartisan bonhomie.
In the House, he founded the Conservative Climate Caucus, a working group for Republicans who acknowledge that climate change is occurring and work to develop conservative solutions to address the problem. The caucus has grown to more than 80 members.
That kind of approach has endeared him to colleagues from across the political spectrum, like Rep. Scott Peters, who worked closely with Mr. Curtis on climate and energy issues.
“One of the better things out of Election Day was seeing John Curtis get elected to the Senate,” the California Democrat says. “He’s a really trustworthy, intelligent, and terrific public servant.”
Mr. Curtis didn’t vote for Mr. Trump in 2016, and during his first term in office criticized the president’s tariffs and cuts in foreign aid. During Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, he called his pressure on Ukraine “troubling and problematic” but concluded it didn’t warrant impeachment. After the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, Mr. Curtis said Mr. Trump’s actions were “grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.” He voted against impeachment then too, but filed a resolution to censure the president. He later broke with most of his caucus to vote for a bipartisan committee to investigate the Capitol riot, though criticized the eventual version created by Democrats.
He didn’t endorse Mr. Trump in the primary this time around, either, staying silent on his preference as his wife publicly backed and campaigned for Nikki Haley. Mr. Curtis repeatedly declined to tell the Monitor whom he’d voted for in Utah’s GOP caucuses, though emphasized that he’d always said he’d back whomever Republicans chose as their nominee.
Mr. Trump didn’t return the favor of staying neutral, endorsing a little-known challenger in the Utah Senate primary. Mr. Curtis won anyway, 49%-33%, buoyed by a glut of outside ad spending on his behalf as well as superior campaign fundraising.
Where he’s going
A natty dresser, especially by congressional standards, Mr. Curtis has turned his penchant for bright socks into an ice-breaker that he says helps constituents feel comfortable in approaching him. He gives colorful socks to other lawmakers on their birthdays.
Mr. Curtis has hired a handful of former Romney staffers onto his team. But he’s also brought on Boyd Matheson, a former chief of staff to Sen. Mike Lee – Utah’s conservative senior senator who has gone from being a fierce Trump critic to one of his most ardent supporters.
“Two of his greatest gifts are his ability to really listen – I don’t know if I’ve ever met anybody who listens better or more intensely or remembers more from the conversation – and the fact that he is really curious, not just in what you believe, but why you believe it,” says Mr. Matheson.
Every Monday, Mr. Matheson says, Mr. Curtis blocks out “deep thinking time” on his calendar – a chunk of 90 minutes to two hours, where he can dive into policy and philosophy, from white papers to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Yuval Levin.
Mr. Romney says he believes Mr. Curtis will chart his own course. But he is confident his successor will follow his own moral compass on key decisions during the Trump administration.
“He’s an independent and principled person who has, throughout his career, shown an ability to cut through political pressures and do what he thinks is right,” Mr. Romney says. “I’m sure I will disagree with some of the positions he takes, and the votes he takes. That’s to be expected. But he’ll follow his own conscience.”
Editor’s note: A reference to the timing of Mitt Romney’s Senate campaign was corrected on Jan. 28, the date of initial publication.
