Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and now Utah senator, reportedly offered some surprising advice to Joe Biden, who was one half of the ticket that kept him out of the White House, on November 6th, 2018, according to a new book out next week.

Romney and Biden spoke on the phone after the Republican easily won his Utah Senate race and while Biden congratulated him, Romney reportedly urged the former vice president to run for president in 2020 in order to remove then President Donald Trump from power.

“You have to run,” New York Magazine national correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti quotes Romney as telling Biden. The exchange is detailed in Debenedetti’s upcoming book, The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly obtained an advanced copy of the book and highlighted the surprising exchange between former political rivals.

Pengelly writes about the impact the exchange becoming public will likely have:

Romney’s exhortation to a man then seen as a likely challenger to Donald Trump in 2020 will probably further enrage the former president, his supporters, and the Republican party they dominate.

Debenedetti details how Biden spent election night in 2018: “Biden spent election night glued to his phone as usual … He talked to most of the candidates he’d campaigned for, and plenty he didn’t, either to congratulate or console them, or just to catch up.”

“This time felt better than 2016 in part because Democrats were winning big, at least in local races and in the House. But it was also because of a refrain [Biden] kept hearing, and not always from the most expected sources,” Debenedetti adds.

That refrain was, of course, those around him urging Biden to run for president as many at the time saw him as the most moderate and electable Democrat – one who might be able to reactivate the winning Obama coalition.

Pengelly offers some clarifying context as to how the book is sourced:

In a note on sourcing, Debenedetti says his book is “primarily the product of hundreds of interviews” with “colleagues, aides, rivals, confidants, allies and eyewitnesses from every stage” of Obama and Biden’s careers since 2003.

“When someone’s words are rendered in italics, that indicates an approximation based on the memories of sources who did not recall exact wordings,” Pengelly adds, noting that the “You have to run” quote from Romney is indeed in italics.

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