Sporting a black eye and stitches, Sen. Romney jokes he ‘went to CPAC’

Sen. Mitt Romney’s got jokes.

The Utah Republican, who has been sidelined in his party because of his willingness to criticize Donald Trump, joked that he had attended this past weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference after reporters asked what the matter was when he showed up at the U.S. Capitol on Monday with a black eye and stitches on his face.

“What can I say? Yeah, I had kind of a tough, tough weekend...I went to CPAC. That was a problem,” Romney said with a laugh after showing off his bruised face.

On a more serious note, Romney explained he suffered facial injuries after falling while visiting his grandchildren in Boston.

“I took a fall,” Romney said. “That’s about as far as I need to go. I took a fall. Knocked me unconscious, but I’m doing better.”

Romney declined to say exactly how he fell, but confirmed he was hospitalized.

“A lot of stitches,” he said. “I don’t know how many. I asked the doctor how many stitches and she said, ‘I don’t know.’ But it’s all to my eyebrow and my lip.”

Romney, the GOP’s presidential candidate in 2012, has become a target of Trump-loyal Republicans ever since he voted to convict the ex-president at his first Senate impeachment trial in 2020.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) (Sarah Silbiger/)

The Utah senator also voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial last month, drawing more ire from right-wing lawmakers who claim the ex-president wasn’t responsible for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Romney and the handful of other Republicans in Congress who have broken with the former president were harshly criticized by speakers at the four-day CPAC event.

In his own CPAC speech Sunday, Trump called for an intra-party purge of Republicans who supported his impeachment on charges that he incited the Capitol riot.

“Get rid of them all,” Trump said.