REPUBLICAN Senator Mitt Romney suffered a black eye in a fall but joked it was from attending the Conservative Political Action Conference. The 73-year-old senator from Utah told reporters that he “took a fall” and joked that it was owed to CPAC, where Republicans gathered for numerous speeches including from former President Donald Trump.
"I took a fall, knocked me unconscious, but I'm doing better," Romney said.
“Went to CPAC, that was the problem.”
In reality, Romney did not attend CPAC, as he was not invited.
Instead, he was injured while visiting his grandchildren and family in Boston, Massachusetts, where he served as governor, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
The senator said he had “a lot of stitches” in his eyebrows and lip.
Romney has been a vocal critic Trump and was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict him of inciting the January 6 Capitol riot during the impeachment trial in February.
In a statement on his stance, Romney wrote that Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol as lawmakers were counting electoral votes “despite the obvious and well known threats of violence that day.”
The senator was not invited this year after his impeachment vote, and Matt Schlapp, who is the chairman of the American Conservative Union which hosts CPAC, tweeted that he was disinvited last year
Romney was the only Republican senator to vote in favor of convicting Trump in his first impeachment trial in January 2020.
The 2012 presidential nominee won CPAC’s presidential straw poll in 2012, 2009, 2008 and 2007.
Along with Romney, the No. 1 Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was not invited to CPAC although he voted to acquit Trump because he gave a scathing speech about the former president.
The No. 3 Republican, House Conference Chair Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection, did not attend CPAC either.
Former Vice President Mike Pence declined to attend CPAC, in order to lay low during the first few months of the Biden administration.
Schlapp said it was a “mistake” for Pence to miss the conference.
In his first major speech since leaving the White House, Trump on Sunday attacked Republicans and lashed out at Supreme Court justices for not intervening in the election results.
"They should be ashamed of themselves for what they've done to our country... the Supreme Court didn't have the guts or the courage to do anything about it," Trump said during his speech in Orlando, Florida.
Trump hinted that he might run for president in 2024.