Trump offered to endorse Blunt as Missouri senator kept retirement plans closely guarded
Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt kept his retirement plans secret from Senate colleagues, a former president and even members of his own staff before proceeding with his video announcement this week.
“In the Congress, until you’ve made a final decision on this it’s not helpful to have it be a topic of general conversation,” Blunt said a day after his announcement rejiggered Missouri’s 2022 election.
Blunt, the No. 4 Republican in the Senate, said that he doesn’t consider retirement decisions final until the moment they’ve been announced.
“We didn’t tell everybody on the team either,” Blunt said, explaining that he and a select few had been planning an announcement for several weeks.
Blunt, who began his five-decade political career as Greene County Clerk, had planned to announce his retirement Saturday at Lincoln Days in Springfield before a crowd of Missouri Republicans.
But the Senate’s Saturday vote on the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill thwarted those plans.
Instead, Blunt filmed a short video outside his childhood dairy farm and posted the video online Monday. Among the people surprised by the news was former President Donald Trump, who had offered Blunt his endorsement in the 2022 race.
“He called me about three weeks ago and offered to help. He was assuming at that point I would be running,” Blunt said.
The timing of the conversation would have been around the time Blunt and every other senator from the Kansas City area voted to acquit Trump in his impeachment trial for the charge of incitement of insurrection.
Trump, who remains popular with the GOP base in both Missouri and Kansas, endorsed Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran just 12 days after the trial concluded in his acquittal.
Blunt said Trump called him again Monday after his announcement, jokingly asking whether he could talk Blunt out of it.
Trump issued a statement Tuesday thanking Blunt for his acquittal vote.
“I very much appreciate and respect the career of Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri. He was one of the first people who came to my defense against the Impeachment Hoax #2 (IH-2), and it was greatly appreciated by me,” Trump said.
“Congratulations to the entire Blunt family, and to Roy on a wonderful career!”
Blunt said he made his decision because 2022 is expected to be a strong year for Republicans with a Democrat in the White House, which will create a strong opportunity for a GOP successor.
There had been rumors that Blunt might retire, but the timing of the announcement still caught many in the Missouri political world by surprise.
It served as a starting pistol on what promises to be a crowded race as an array of current and former officeholders publicly contemplate runs.
But the retiring senator predicted the field of candidates will soon winnow.
“I will say that talking about public office is a lot easier than ultimately running for public office. The only thing easier than talking about running for office is criticizing the person currently in office,” Blunt said, likely making a veiled jab at former Gov. Eric Greitens, who has routinely attacked Blunt on social media and in cable news appearances in recent weeks.
Greitens repeatedly hinted at a primary challenge against Blunt in the lead-up to the senator’s announcement.
Now that he’s retiring, Blunt will be free to broker deals with Democrats in the 50-50 Senate without a fear of what it’ll do to his electoral prospects.
“I think I’ve always been reasonably good at figuring out how to put enough Democrats with our side to get some things done,” said Blunt.
“I don’t know if it creates a big difference, but it probably gives me more time to focus on getting things done and to focus on stopping things that shouldn’t get done.”
Blunt said he is in close contact with Missouri Rep. Sam Graves, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee, about President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plans.
Graves was among a bipartisan group that visited the White House last week to discuss the upcoming bill, which will be the next major piece of Biden’s agenda after the COVID-19 relief bill.
Blunt said the infrastructure plan could go one of two ways. One way is for Biden to pursue a traditional infrastructure package, which could pass with broad bipartisan agreement.
“The other way is if they try to make this be a huge environmental package… and take away the tax cuts to provide more revenue,” Blunt said, referring to the income tax cuts enacted during Trump’s presidency. “That would be a tragedy.”
