Exclusive — Mike Braun: I Ran Because I’m Tired of the Mitt Romney ‘Old Way of Governing’

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) told Breitbart News on Monday that he ran for the Senate because he was tired of the Mitt Romney “old way of governing” and wanted to shake up the “status quo” in Congress.

Sen. Braun spoke with Breitbart News on topics ranging from immigration, his No Budget, No Pay legislation, to fighting the Washington status quo, and combatting the new progressive Democrat in Congress.

Before Vice President Mike Pence swore-in Mitt Romney (R-UT) to become the junior senator from Utah, the failed presidential candidate took to the leftist Washington Post to slam President Donald J. Trump.

“The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December,” Romney wrote in the Post last week. Romney suggested that “on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

Sen. Braun, who has championed the president’s America First agenda and defeated Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) by nearly six points in 2018 midterms, said that he ran for office because he was tired of the Mitt Romney “old way of governing.”

Braun represents the people of Indiana as a fellow freshman senator alongside Romney.

“One of the reasons I ran is because it’s no longer business as usual and to me, Mitt Romney would epitomize business as usual and the old way of governing,” Braun charged. “Many people were shaken by the fact that there is a novel approach and a new style. Thank goodness, because what we had is dismal.”

Romney’s attack on Trump rattled several Senate Republicans, many of lamenting that the op-ed might fracture the Senate’s GOP majority.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told Politico he found it ironic that Romney complained about Trump’s personal attacks in a personal attack strike against the sitting Republican president.

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) said that Romney’s op-ed was an “attempted character assassination” and said that Romney could serve as a “Jeff Flake on steroids.”

“Everybody’s got their strategy and their tactic. Mine is going to be to try and help the president and our country be successful. Mitt’s got a different take,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), another freshman senator. “I haven’t talked to anybody that’s encouraged by” Romney’s strategy.

The Hoosier Republican questioned why Romney would attack a Republican president unless he plans to disrupt the Senate’s GOP majority.

Sen. Braun continued, “I think the policies, either as a conservative or a Republican, when have they been better, in terms of the economy and in terms of trying to fix things that have not been addressed, like border security? I think anybody’s got the right to do anything they want in terms of sticking your neck or making a pronouncement– I don’t know how that gets you off on a solid footing unless you’re just here to be disruptive form the status quo point of view.”