Whoopsie: Aaron Sorkin Doesn’t Want Democrats to Nominate Mitt Romney After All

Aaron Sorkin is no stranger to rewriting history. On Sunday, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and creator of political television series The West Wing and The Newsroom wrote a guest op-ed in the New York Times dreaming up a scenario in which the Democratic Party replaced then presumptive nominee Joe Biden with a rogue, out-of-the-box candidate. But shortly after Biden officially dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris instead, Sorkin seems to have changed his tune.

In his original essay, titled “How I Would Script This Moment for Biden and the Democrats,” Sorkin did just that, noting the parallels between the 2024 election and the reelection efforts of his fictional West Wing president Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen). On the series, Bartlet was suffering from a secret illness; Sorkin compared the character’s plight to the growing concerns regarding Biden’s age. The Emmy winner added that if he were scripting this political moment, he’d have the sitting president drop out of the race, then endorse whoever had the best chance of beating “dangerous imbecile” and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“There’s something the Democrats can do that would not just put a lump in people’s throats with its appeal to stop-Donald-Trump-at-all-costs unity, but with its originality and sense of sacrifice,” wrote Sorkin. His so-crazy-it-just-might-work pitch? “The Democratic Party should pick a Republican. At their convention next month, the Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney.”

Sorkin spent the rest of the essay justifying his wild pitch. The Social Network scribe admitted that Romney is at seemingly odds with the majority of the Democratic Party on most ideological issues, ranging from abortion to LGBTQ+ rights to tax reform. But in Sorkin’s mind, all that would be inconsequential. “Nominating Mr. Romney would be putting our money where our mouth is: a clear and powerful demonstration that this election isn’t about what our elections are usually about it, but about stopping a deranged man from taking power,” he wrote. “It’s a grand gesture. A sacrifice. It would put a lump in our throats. But mostly, it would be the end of Donald Trump in presidential politics.”

Hours after the Times published Sorkin’s essay, Biden took the narrative into his own hands and announced that he was no longer seeking reelection. But rather than following Sorkin’s script, Biden soon endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic nominee. And evidently, Sorkin was listening.

Although he’s not a social media user himself, Sorkin has a history of borrowing his friends’ accounts to make public statements, famously defending his The Trial of Chicago 7 star Jeremy Strong via Jessica Chastain’s personal twitter account. This time, Sorkin hit up actor Josh Malina—who played Will Bailey on The West Wing—emailing him at 11:19 a.m. with the following message: “I need to borrow your Twitter account again,” wrote Sorkin. “I take it all back. Harris for America!” The email, Malina reiterated in a followup message, is real. (Vanity Fair reached out to Sorkin for comment.)

Sorkin’s quick pivot from Romney to Harris is not entirely surprising, as he readily admitted in his op-ed that his writing staff would have told him that the Democrats nominating a Republican would be a jump-the-shark moment. “This is a ‘West Wing’ fantasy that would never, ever happen,” wrote Sorkin. Thankfully, he is (probably) right. Still, it’s nice to know that even Oscar winners can adjust a script after receiving notes from the network.