The role Trump played after Romney lost to Obama in 2012

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) went from being the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee to being an outcast in much of his party. Romney's cardinal sin, as MAGA Republicans see it, was his willingness to vote "guilty" in Donald Trump's two impeachment trials and vehemently criticize the former president.

The Utah senator and former Massachusetts governor candidly discusses his relationship with the GOP in journalist McKay Coppins' new biography "Romney: A Reckoning." During an early November appearance on The Bulwark's podcast, Coppins cited Romney's loss to President Barack Obama in 2012 as an early example of Trump's election denialism.

Host Charlie Sykes, a Never Trump conservative, told Coppins, "One of the interesting little tidbits in your book that I had completely forgotten about was Election Night 2012 after Romney lost — the role that Trump played. Trump started tweeting, foreshadowing about how the election was stolen. He tweeting things like, 'We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. We are not a democracy.' Now, that is years before January 6."

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Coppins responded, "But isn't that so interesting? Because I had forgotten about that too; you had forgotten about it. I think that most readers, when they come to that portion of the story — this is the Election Night 2012 — they almost have to check back: Wait, what year is this, right? But it speaks to how unserious Donald Trump was at the time; it barely registered. It was: Oh, this loudmouth celebrity is saying stupid things on Twitter. But it speaks to how so much of the Republican Party and political establishment didn't take him seriously and didn't take what he represented seriously. And four years later, that element of their party, that ugliness took over."

READ MORE: 'An idiot': GOP senators privately unload on Trump in new Mitt Romney biography

Watch the video below or at this link.

FULL EPISODE: Did Mitt Romney’s 2012 Loss Start the Apocalyse? | The Bulwark Podcastwww.youtube.com