Transcripts For CSPAN2 McKay 20240705

An Award Winning journalist for the Atlantic Mckay Coppins is a veteran journalist and i say veteran because hes been reporting since he was a student at byu. Hes still pretty young, but know no one perhaps is better suited to write about senator romney. They share a faith, a political sensibility and a deep sense of right and wrong. Well hear more about that in a minute. Hes joined in conversation by Doug Fabrizio from College Radio west. I dont think dougs needs any introduction. Hes been a friend to all of us in the valley for many years. We look to him for advice and good humor, especially on nonfiction topics. Finally, before we get started, id like to say that a portion of all of our ticket sales go to fund our not for profit brain food books, working to get books into the hands of those without regular access, especially young people. Since the beginning of last year, weve distributed over 20,000 books across the state and also at the Pediatric Clinic in tuba city, arizona. So thank you very much for that. Bring food books because kids need to read. And now please welcome Mckay Coppins and Doug Fabrizio. Hi, Mckay Coppins. Well, i want to start with a tweet from donald trump because there have been plenty of reviews of the book. You do all this work and Donald Trump Trump doesnt even realize its you that did the writing. Heres his tweet that appeared a few days ago. I love listening to people read this. This is something of mitt romney, a total loser that only a mother could love. Just wrote a book which is much like him. Boring, horrible, and totally predictable. Thats got to move a few books, right . We were thrilled. We put it on the amazon page. I did send that that that tweet to mitt romney and he texted back, ha ha ha. Hes such a whack job. One of the things that i wanted to ask you about it does have something to do with donald trump and the part that hes playing in the moment were in right now. And the sort of the like the incredible, i guess, timing of this book. What do we be talking about . Mitt romney with the same level of attention. If it werent for donald trump in this odd moment, just talk about the the way we were talking a little bit about this earlier. The the strange, i guess, kind of timing for all of this. Yeah. I mean, its its not a given that a book about mitt romney in 2023 would have been like wildly interesting. Right. And i had to kind of sell it to publishers when i first embarked on it. But what makes him interesting to me, at least what drew me to him as a subject was that within a space of ten years, he had gone from president ial nominee of the Republican Party, republican standard bearer to essentially a pariah in his own party, because in a very short period of time, he watched his party radically transform all around him. Right. And he kind of didnt change that much, at least in that period. And so he was sort of left out on his own. And rather than, you know, quickly capitulated to this new brand of right wing populism, like most of his fellow republicans did, he sort of decided he wasnt going to do it. And not being willing to do it made him very isolated, but also very interesting. And for me, as a biographer, to my great fortune, very introspective and kind of soul searching about what had happened and that was sort of the jumping off point for the book. What was the thing is there one characteristic in particular about mitt romney that you wanted to unpack . Like, was there one part of him . Like what was an. Youve been covering mitt romney for some time now. Mm hmm. Before all of this, before he was a pariah in the party, when he was a candid, it was there a consistent through line in terms of a characteristic that you thought you wanted to explore . Well, i think, you know, i have covered him for more than ten years before i approached him about writing this book. And as a president candidate, he was i mean, really not that interesting. You know, i covered his campaign. I tended hundreds of events. He gave the same stumps speech word for word, four times a day, every day for a year. I got to the point where i was like having dreams about it. I could recite every word. He was very cautious, very calculating, very disciplined. Thats what his public persona was. And i remember actually early in that campaign in 2012, talking to another reporter about how it was really difficult to cover mitt romney in an interesting way. And the reporter said, yeah, i dont think he has a lot of interiority. Thats my theory. Like he doesnt have a lot going on beneath the surface. And, you know, i didnt realize that maybe thats true. Who knows . I always sensed that wasnt true. I always had this kind of hunch that there was more going on internally than he let on. But i think what what was so interesting about getting to do this book was that he really became pretty vulnerable with me and opened up. I mean, over the course of two years, i interviewed him 45 times. He gave me his journals. He gave me his email correspondence with top republicans, his text messages. I interviewed his family. I interviewed people who had known him throughout his life. And it became very clear very quickly to me that theres a lot of interiority like mitt romney has, a lot going on. He wrestles with his conscience. He wrestles with the compromises that hes made over the course of his political career. His journals are filled with him being really hard on himself, you know, beating himself up for mistakes hes made or gaffes hes committed. And, you know, pretty early on in the process, i realized that this was a guy who was much more selfaware than most people realized. And i think that selfawareness was the characteristic that i found most interesting. When you presented romney with your pitch and then the conditions you write in the book that its he responded to those terms as if it were a dare. Mm hmm. What was that about . What was. Did he see it as a kind of a challenge that i will take this . Well, its i think its i mean, i did kind of needle him a little bit when i first approached it. And i was hoping to get a little bit of a rise out of him, but i didnt think i would get nearly what i did. So i basically said, i think you have a really interesting story to tell. I think youve seen a lot in politics and especially the last few years as a republican senator in these caucus lunches and, you know, cloakrooms. And i want to write a biography where i have all these stories, but i only want to do it if youre ready to be fully candid and implicit to that was that i wasnt sure he he would be right. And i had i talked to friends of his when i was thinking about doing this, he said hes not going to give you what you need. Like your this isnt going to work out. And so i kind of presented that to him and i think he may have i dont know. But it was almost like he he took offense at the idea that he wouldnt be fully candid or fully forthcoming. Right. And i knew that i had him in that really the first few weeks of interviewing him when i was sitting in church and i got a text message from him and he said, hey, mccain, check your email. I just sent you something that might be interesting to look at before our next our next chat. And i looked at it and its just hundreds of pages of his personal journals that i hadnt even asked for. And i later found out through his wife and he had not reread them before giving them to me. And its funny. What is that about, by the way . Not rereading that because twit and nutjob and all of the quote unquote burns that people have been paying attention to in the book appeared in in those personal. A lot. Yeah, a lot of them, anyway. A lot of the most withering comments he made about his fellow republicans were from those journalists, some of them more than a decade ago. And he didnt, you know, part of the deal that we made was that this wouldnt be an authorized biography in the sense that he had any editorial control. He couldnt take things out. He couldnt, you know, tamper with it. I would let him read it before it was published. And if you wanted to have a conversation about it, i was willing to do that in good faith. But ultimately, i would decide what was in the book. So for him to give me his journals without reviewing them, i think demonstrated a lot of trust, which i certainly appreciate it, but also a certain kind of reckless feeling of liberation. You know, i think that he when i approached him, it was it was shortly after january 6th. And i could tell that something had kind of shaken loose in him from being in that experience, being in the senate and having to be evacuated as a mob was, you know, hunting for him. And fellow republican traitors. And i think that he had entered this new phase of his life and career in public service, where he just didnt care anymore about getting reelected. His own political future, and was thinking more about you know, on one his his own legacy. And he wanted a story that could be put into a book and that his posterity could read. He said, i want this to be something my Great Grandkids could read. I think that, you know, this is something i want them to remember. This moment. But the other thing was he it was kind of a warning, i think, that he after january 6th started to ruminate a lot about the fragility of american democracy and he has this map on the wall of his Senate Office that its called the histo map, and it charts the rise and fall of very the most powerful civilizations throughout Human History. And he had hung it on his wall when he first got to the senate and kind of thought of it as like a curiosity that he would sometimes show people. After january six, he sort of became obsessed with it and he would find himself looking at it late at night at his office and, you know, showing it to people. And the thing he he said to me when he first showed it to me was, if you look at this whole, you know, chart of Human History, there are very few periods where democracies are thriving. Right. Almost without exception. Throughout Human History is the most powerful civilizations in the world have been autocracies of some kind. You know, its kings or emperors, rulers, kaisers, whatever. And he came to believe that we are in a much more perilous moment than a lot of us realize. And i think he saw this book as sort of a warning that he could issue is any of that view of history informed by his faith, his sense of, i dont know, book of mormon characters, biblical prophets, the ideas as theres a latter day saint, the notion that joseph smith would talk about the constitution hanging by a thread. Was he informed by any of that . So i think theres no question that his view of the kind of sacredness of american democracy in the american project is informed by his faith. I mean, i think most most people who grow up mormon are kind of taught that, you know, the founding documents of the United States are divinely inspired and america is a promised land. You know, all that stuff. And so i think that he had a kind of very sincere and sort of sentimental or patriotism that that these days almost kind of seems quaint. But, you know, he was deeply offended on on kind of a visceral level by seeing members of his party try to overturn a president ial election. Like there was something about it. You know, he was mad about the lies, that he was mad that, you know, about this cynicism of his his colleagues. But i think on just like an elemental level, he just couldnt stand seeing so much disrespect for the, you know, american democracy. I mean, one of the first things he told me was that a very large portion of my party doesnt really believe in the constitution. And i remember kind of being taken aback by that because its like our second or third interview and i asked him to kind of expound on that. And thats when he showed me the map, and thats when he he said, you know, that our book that members of my party believe in the parts of the constitution, they like they like the second amendment. They believe in that. But you know, it seems to me that theyre willing, at least now in this desert new era, to pick and choose which parts of the constitution theyre willing to follow. And for him, that its just very alarming. I want to ask about the the sort of the nature of the conversations you were having. As you say, 45 interviews. You describe in the book. Hes more puckish than his public persona. Some nights he vented some nights he dished. Youve also talked about i dont know if this is you dont use this term necessarily in the book, but youve said you think hes kind of judgmental. So what . So i guess what im saying is, in the ebb and flow, did you argue, did he ever yell at you . Did he ever say, dude, im not interested in doing this anymore . What what are your motives . Like, what was the give and take like . Yeah. I mean, first of all, i will say that like, to my pleasant surprise, mitt romney is a pretty good hang, which i dont think people would necessarily know. Right. You know, because i knew right at the beginning, like, oh, this is going to be great material. I wasnt sure what it would be like to hang out with mitt romney for two years. Right. But luckily for me, hes actually like very funny. He has like a finely tuned sense of the absurd in political life. He can he can tell really entertaining stories about his colleagues. And, you know, the indignities of running for office. So all of that was fun. Most of our meetings were very friendly. He you know, it often i got the sense that he just liked the company because he didnt have that many friends in washington. I would like get to the end of my questions and sort of close my notebook or laptop or whatever. And he would be like, so what are you watching these days . Like, have you seen ted lasso right. Like, all right, were still going. Lets. Lets do this. But there were definitely also contentious conversations for sure, because the relationship between biographer and subject is pretty interesting. And kind of weird. Like on the one hand, you want to do everything you can as a writer to understand where theyre coming from, understand their perspective, perspective. And i really did strive to do that. But then once youre writing the book, you have to kind of insert yourself sometimes as a narrator to point out where you think he is. You know, rationalizing or where hes, you know, a little being inconsistent and or he hasnt considered this element or whatever the deal that we had was that he would get to read the book before it was published. And that was i remember i sent him the manuscript of his earlier this spring, and i sent him the manuscript and then just kind of like waited for his reaction. And i thought he might take some time to process it. And then, you know, next time i saw him, we we would we would talk about it. And instead, he was live texting me his reaction while i read it, which made for a very unnerving weekend. Like on page 132, literally like, yeah, it would be like 100 pages in, you know, this is really interesting. This is this parts compelling, but i give him a lot of credit because i think i tried to put myself in his shoes. I think reading a biography written by somebody else about your life where youve given so much access to your innermost thoughts. I would sometimes joke with my wife, actually, she would joke this, that, that if felt like i know mitt romney better than i know her at this point because, you know, shes like, ive never given you major. And also, you dont know what i was thinking. You know . But when you have youve given that level of access to your private thoughts and feelings to a writer, and then you have to read their assessment of your life. Thats got to be really hard. I dont know if i could do it. I dont think if somebody came to me and said, i want all your emails and journals and then im going to turn it into a book, i think i would be a little suspicious. So i think it speaks to his selfawareness and candor and also to his kind of confidence in himself that he was willing to do that. But it was i think it was hard. You know, i write in the book at the end that there were some things he just disagreed with. He doesnt you know, he disagrees with my characterization and he doesnt think that i quite capture that. But overall. Well, i think i mean, youd have to ask him, but i think that he has he feels good about where it ended up. I think for the most part, he feels like i hope that he feels that ive done his story justice. You mentioned in the book that one thing he said to you was he figured that you would get the mormon thing as a as a fellow latter day saint. What difference did that make you being a latter day saint . Him being a latter day saint . Like, did did it come up very much . Did did he think that you would understand him be more sympathetic to him . Like, did you get a sense of that . I wondered what he meant when he said that in our first interview. And i kind of didnt explore it. I was just like, well, well see. You know, early on, one thing became very clear, which is that it helped that we could use a mormon shorthand with each other. Right. Like while he was telling me the stories of his service as a bishop in the belmont ward or his mission or whatever, he didnt have to pause to explain, you know, what all this was. He knew that i understood it. And thats certainly what a steakhouse writes. And in my context, yes, exactly. So that helped. But i also found over time that, you know, one way that i was able to understand him was not just that we were both mormon, but that we had both grown up mormon in places where there werent many mormons and, you know, he grew up in michigan. I grew up in massachusetts. And he said to me once, you know, the thing about growing up mormon outside of utah is that you get used to being different in ways that are important to you. And, you know, especially these last seven or eight years of his career, thats kind of been the defining theme of his of his work. Right. Hes become increasingly isolated and increasingly disliked among his republican colleagues. But its for reasons that he feels are important. And so hes sort of made peace with it. Hes drawn on his experience in, you know, being at 100, you know, parties in high school where hes the only one not drinking or whatever. That that kind of, i think, helped inform him. And i was i think i understood that about him because we had that same experience. Do you think that. It seems like in his early experience as hes trying to decide what sort of ideal he wants for himself politically, like he seems somewhat ambivalent about being a republican early on, as certainly his father, as you say in the book, planted himself in the squarely in the liberal wing of the Republican Party. Do you think thats where he wanted to be and talk about the fact that he didnt really ever fancy himself a reagan republican . He can it himself. A George Romney. Yeah. Again. Yeah. So, i mean, i think that part of the reason he didnt identify strongly as a republican, you know earlier in his adult life is because his father was sort of, you know, chased out of the party. Not not totally, but George Romney was a liberal republican in sort of the last days of the liberal republican wing existing right. He was a big advocate for civil rights in the 1960s. He marched with civil rights activists as governor of michigan. When he ran for president , he refused to condemn the race. Rioters in detroit, even though, you know, a lot of his white constituents wanted him to and instead gave a televised address saying that we need to look at the root causes of this unrest and the inequality that that black americans are suffering from. And so mitt grew up watching his dad represent this this strand of republicanism and then gradually become more and more isolated in his party as Barry Goldwater won the nomination and conservatives took over the party and his own you know, his own president ial campaign was sort of derailed by a gaffe that was also, you know, him being attacked by the right for his position on vietnam. And so i think that mitt probably by you know, in the eighties and nineties, he didnt really identify with the reagan wing of the party, which was, you know, a succession from Barry Goldwater. But once he got into republican politics, thats kind of the only wing of the party you could be in. Right. And so while he was as governor of massachusetts, he he governed as kind of a moderate, probusiness republican. Once he got out of massachusetts and was running for president nationally, he sort of felt he had no choice but to reinvent his persona as this kind of reaganite conservative and its not that he consciously decided, im going to adopt a bunch of positions i dont really believe in. And, you know, pretend im a totally different person. It just kind of happened, you know, he said there were there were a couple issues that, you know, he he very consciously flipped on. Abortion was one of them. But but for the most part, he he told me that he would get on these stages to speak, to conserve it of voters. And he thought when he first started running for president that he could make his campaign about the things he cared about. Right. Im going to talk about fiscal discipline and jobs and, you know, education policy. And what he found was that the people in the crowds didnt want to hear about that stuff. They didnt want to hear his 59 point plan to, you know, reduce the deficit. They wanted to hear about guns and abortion and killing terrorists. And he found he found himself reacting to what the crowds liked and and kind of a new persona, sort of organically formed on that stage. And what i never was able to figure out and i asked him about this was did he ever pause to consider whether this new persona was more or less true to himself . I, i think that now when he looks back on it and realizes that, you know, there were times where he took positions or said things that he didnt totally believe in. But in the moment, i think he convinced himself he really did believe these things because that was the easiest way to sort of exist in this climate. Yeah, this is how you put it in the book. You said that that new persona was working for him, but he did not pause to consider whether the politic reinvention was more or less authentic to who he truly was. When did he become aware of the fact that he he was i mean, you say it didnt occur to him. You know, it just it was through circumstance. Nance, happened to you. You moved the mark this much further and then this much further. And by the time youre at some point in your political career, youve moved pretty far off from where you started. When did he start to realize, man, im way far off the mark here. Did you identify at that moment . I dont know that there was one moment. I think there were periodic moments, you know, even between his first and second president ial campaigns, i came across this email. He sent to Stuart Stevens, his chief political strategist, where he was kind of weighing whether to run again and, you know, in between those two campaigns, the tea party had, you know, kind of taken over republican politics. And it seemed like the right was radicalized. And it was a very different climate. And he wasnt sure if he wanted to run for president again in that climate. And what he said to to Stuart Stevens is basically, if im going to do this again, id like to be a little bit more true to who i am and can less, you know, think less about whether ill win and more about, you know, my my integrity. So i think he had periodic moments where his conscience would sort of assert itself. And he had a very overactive conscience. Its not like he was bracketing questions of right and wrong and just putting them aside. He was always wrestling with it. He was like, you know, he would take a position that he knew was politically expedient. And then he would sort of pull back and say, oh, is this is this totally right . It reading his journals is really interesting because hes not hes not kind of like the robotic, you know, management consultant. Hes much more, you know, hamlet ask almost. You know, hes hes constantly questioned himself and second guessing himself and ruminating in a way that, you know, he did a very good job of hiding as a president ial candidate, but i think makes him actually seem more human. Its interesting the time that he it seems from my point of view, went public with his own battle, with his conscience, as was when he voted to impeach him. And that and the really powerful speech that he gave eve, which you write about him working through that. And he talked about how important his conscience what were you talk a little bit about this moment because this seemed like a moment when hes revealing to everybody else and he talked about it being core to his identity and being core to his sense of faith as well. Yeah. So that in that first impeachment trial, he was, of course, famously the only republican to vote to convict trump. In fact, the first senator in history to vote to convict a president of his own party. And at the time, you know, i think a lot of people were moved by his speech, but a lot of republicans sort of looked at that and said, oh, he just hates trump and hes being vindictive. And whatever the reality is that he agonized over that decision. The journals that he kept during that first impeachment trial are sort of tortured, like he he he wanted so badly to vote with the rest of his republican colleagues to acquit trump because he just felt like his life would be easier. Right. And he would he would ruminate in his journal about all the bad things that might happen to him and his family if he kind of sticks it to trump in this way. Right. He was worried that there would be, you know, threats against his sons, that they you know, the trump government might come after them, audit his sons businesses. He might have to leave utah and so he really he kind of grappled with it a lot. But in the end, he just kind of felt like he wouldnt be able to live with himself. I think if he on this very high stakes question, decided to do the politically convenient thing instead of the thing he believed was right and he did he he gave that speech where he kind of begins by saying, my faith is very important to me. And then his voice catches and he has to kind of compose himself. And then he talks about how at the beginning of this trial, i took an oath before god to be an impartial juror and that means something to me thats really important. And implicit in that, i think, was both a an indictment of his fellow republicans, who he felt were not taking the trial seriously. They were not taking that oath seriously. But also and, you know, he might disagree with this characterization, but it felt like a a kind of moral reawakening almost in a way where he he would say, you know, he fully was doing only what he thought was right without giving any thought to his political future, which had not been something he had done very much in his political career up to that point. Theres a really interesting contrast just in some of the stories you tell. One is this moment where he says to you, or maybe its something that he had written in in his journal, i dont know that i can disrespect someone more than j. D. Vance. Yes. It was that in his journal. Or do you say that you said thats okay. Thats a quote. Okay. And then he says to you, i do wonder, how do you make that decision . That is to say, j. D. Vance palling around with with donald trump. Well, in sort of, you know, reinventing his whole persona to be a maga republican. Right. How how is he said, how can you get over a line . So stark as that . And for what . And you write romney wished he could grab vance by the shoulders and scream, this is not worth it. But how do you square that with the decision that he makes to. Go and talk to donald trump about possibly becoming secretary of state after being. Disgusted by that man . He. What do you make of that . Like, again, some of the his own kind of personal compromise is. How did he justify that . How did he talk about that kind of story or that kind of contradiction . Did you notice about well, so the story about his decision to meet with trump, about joining his administration as secretary of state was interesting because he kind of admitted to me that he had two motives there. And one of them was more noble. Right. He believed that trumps election was an emergency, that we needed serious adults in the room, that it was important for serious minded people to take important posts in the administration. And he was being told by people like Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice and george w bush, if you get this job offer, you have to take it for the good of the country. So, you know, theres that noble, noble motivation. And i think that was real. But then he admitted to me there was this other motivation, which was he said, i wanted the job. I like to be in the middle of the action. I wanted to be president. If you cant be president , secretary of state, its a pretty good consolation prize. Right. And so he sort of admitted there was also the selfinterested part and this desire for, you know, this ambition and i think the way you square them is just that hes he is imperfect from that was happening at the end of 2016 when he gave that quote to me about j. D. Vance. That was 2022, i believe, and that was a pretty eventful six years for mitt romney. A lot had happened. He had seen the consequences and costs of making these moral compromises in politics. I think he was more attuned to his own history of sometimes making these compromises, but also was seeing the depth of cynicism and hypocrisy in his own caucus and what it had led to. And i think he was judgmental of it. Right. And, you know, i, i say this not necessarily as an indictment of mitt romney, because i think its true of me, too. I think its true of all of us. I think were often most judgmental of sins that we commit ourselves. Right. And i think that part of why he is so put off by watching all of his Senate Colleagues take these positions that he kind of knows they dont really believe and contort themselves in ways that are kind of humiliating to to appease donald trump is because he feels like hes done a similar thing earlier in his career. And and seeing that kind of mirror image, you know, makes him especially aggravated. So we want to hear from you questions that you might have so be thinking about them while you are. Let me ask it another question. When you just sort of talk a little bit about what do you understand about mitt romneys preoccupation with, death . Is that the way to put it like a morbid obsession . Yeah. He so he you know, i think a lot of people know this when he was a mormon missionary in france, was involved in a deadly car accident. He was driving a car, a black mercedes swerved into his lane, crashed head on, and a passenger sitting next to romney died and from that point on, he has been sort of stalked by premonitions of his own death and, you know, some people would say that its, you know, some form of ptsd. Others would say that theres, you know, kind of cosmic or spiritual going on. But whatever it is, he is constantly thinking about his own death and has always suspected on some level that it would happen in a sudden, violent way. He told me stories about, you know, he was a once on an airplane and the he got he got on the plane and a stewardess, a Flight Attendant saw him. And gasp and rushed to the back of plane and he didnt know what was going on. And they went to find her. And she said that the night before she had had a dream about a guy who looked exactly like him getting shot and hyde park in london and he was flying to london and and he kind of didnt know what to say. It was like, oh, hopefully i dont get shot, but things like that would happen to him all the time. And i dont know totally why. I dont know where it comes from, but i do think that its had an interesting effect on him throughout his life and career because for a long time in his career, he was really in a hurry. Like he was very ambitious, very eager to make his mark right. And and, you know, i think maybe part of that that was not knowing how how long his life would be in this last stage of his his life and career. He he thought he would talk all the time to me about, you know, the men in my family have a history of sudden heart failure. So i could die any time and id always be well. But youre healthy and hes like, no, no, no. I could die at any time. And it was it was kind of like, okay, i dont really know what to say, but but because of that, i think now hes thinking more about his legacy and his you know what hes leaving for his children and grandchildren and less about, you know, the current news cycle. Its put him into kind of an interesting headspace, which for me as a biographer was very helpful because he was thinking in kind of long term, sweeping gestures, not just about the present questions. Yes, please. So given the level of kind of unprecedented personal information weve had access to, and he could go back and add one of those things that you left out of the book to help us better understand what that what thing . Check the paperback. Ill put it in there. No, i dont. I dont know. I mean, its funny there were so many things in his journals that i found personally interesting, but i wasnt sure they really were part of the story or had any general importance. Ill say this because i also dont want to, you know, be just quoting from his journals rampantly without without having published them in a piece. But i will say his relationship with his wife is really interesting. And it comes up again and again in his journals, his wife. And it at almost every important juncture in his career, kind of makes an appearance and steer him often toward his better angels. But it is very, very influential. And that, you know, theres one moment where he during the impeachment trial, hes kind of made up his mind that hes just going to go with the rest of the republicans to acquit. He thinks the Trump Defense is reasonable enough and he doesnt want to make waves. And he tells this to and he calls her and said, yeah, i think im going to to acquit. And and says, huh, im surprised by that. And she say anything else . She doesnt render any judgment or anything, but he immediately kind of goes into a spy role and is like, oh, i got to go back to the drawing board, you know . And its because he he cares so much about her respect and approval and that really comes through throughout throughout his journals and really all of his life. Yes. So. We stand out. I will even you will want to be mindful of the audience. So they show it. In the 45 times you hung out with him, how many times did you eat hot dogs . What what is the deal with that . Is it fair to be. Yeah. And he asked how many times had hot dogs at zero times i did not eat hot dogs with him. I did eat. I can get a catalog of the food i ate with him. Pizza once, butter, chicken once. When i went up to visit his family at Lake Winnipesaukee in new hampshire, i kind of have this annual Family Reunion in the summer and they had this one moment where it was dinner time and it was like 40 romneys on a bunch of stretched out picnic tables. And we had like sweet potato burritos and strawberry pie, and it was all very good. I dont know what the fixation on hot dogs is. I think a lot of people assumed that, you know, he said once famously, that hot dog, his Favorite Meat and, you know, even more than steak or whatever. And a lot of people thought that he was like trying to be like an average guy. I actually think that was real, but i have no idea what to make of this is where my power and analytical power is as biographer fail. Im sorry. Well, we know he eats ketchup on his salmon. He does it. My gosh, the first the first meeting i had at his house, he had a freezer full of frozen salmon filets, which he told me he put on hamburger buns and smothered and ketchup. I know. I dont know. Im sorry. I have no defense about it. Yes, please. Yes. What is this . What is wrong . Plans for the future is he got some fear about wind. Wood. I cant imagine hes not going to be doing anything. What is what is he going to do now . So i agree with you. He asked what his plans for retirement and is he is he going to be okay being retired . I think hes going to struggle with it. He tried retirement and after the 2012 president ial election and would constantly vent in his journal about how bored he was. And, you know, he said, the truth is, i like a good project more than i like the day at the beach. I dont think i think hes going to struggle with just kind of relaxing, but hell projects. I mean, first of all, i think hell remain outspoken about politics. I think hell at least for the next year, certainly be active somehow in the president ial campaign. Im not sure how i know that hes very concerned about the prospect of a second trump term. And i imagine hell be involved in trying to stop that. Beyond that, i dont know. I mean, if you guys have any idea, somebody told me he should he should take over the next Salt Lake City olympics and i thought that was kind of an interesting idea. Hell be like in eight years, by the time that that happens. But itll be a young lady, too. So maybe itll be fun. Yes. Were you able to discuss with him ever since he is the only lds person in high government, the the same prophecy that the constitution would hang by a thread. And since he was sort of the heir apparent to that, we were able to talk with him about that. But she asked about the white horse prophecy and whether i had ever asked mitt romney about this mormon prophecy that one day the constitution would hanging by a thread and the elders of the church would say that i have talked to him about that a little bit, mainly kind of like a nervous joking. Its funny, though, he often, when he was a president ial candidate, would would be approached by by mormon voters and say you know youre the fulfillment of the white house prophecy. And he always immediately rejected that idea. First of all, he doesnt really believe that that thats a real prophecy. The church has sort of disowned it and said its apocryphal, but he also this is actually a really interesting thing about him. He is very uncomfortable with the idea that god interjects himself into politics very often. And, you know, he when he won the republican nomination in 2012, he had all kinds of evangelical supporters prominent religious right leaders who would tell him, god, god has told me that youre going to win the next election or win this election. And romney would kind of demur politely and then write in his journal like, i dont know what hes talking about. God hasnt told me that you know, and when i asked him about this, he would say, you know, i really dont know how much god intervenes in the affairs of man. He said, its one of the great imponderables of life. And so i dont think he he believes that hes the fulfillment of that prophecy. I will say i report in the book and its kind of tangential, but i just always wanted a place to report this. But orrin hatch once told me that he believed he was the fulfillment of the white light. 15 years ago, he told me that. And i had no i was like a very young reporter in my first job. And he told me on the record, but i didnt know what to do with it. And finally, i had like a moment to just put it somewhere. So its, its in the book. I love how orrin hatch, part of his political advice was for him to spice up his language. Mitt romney, one more curse words or what did you he said that you come across as a little stiff and you need to say the sh word every now and then. And meant said, okay, thank you. But i dont i cannot imagine him saying i mean, he does not swear very often at all that its going back there. So go ahead. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so mitt romney, you get the impression in this book that this is sort of the closing chapter of his life. Its kind of reflecting in a lot of ways. Hes very concerned about the country and the rest of this article is mitt romney. Ryan also share the same concerns. Why do you think he would say about maybe younger folks what we be doing to guard against what hes worried about . Yeah, well, we announced retirement in october. September, i guess he said that he won. The part of why is retiring is that hes in his mid seventies and he wants to clear out a space for the next generation to come in. You know, he when he is speaking to groups of young people, the piece of advice he most frequently gives them is not to sacrifice your principles at the altar of ambition. And he says, you know, its not worth it. Trust me. And so i think his advice would be basically, we need more ideals, stick young people to get involved in government and politics. But, you know, jealously guard your your idealism right because it is so once you actually get the kind of political race to sell yourself out very quickly. And i think his you know he the thing that he would like to see most is people who are actually following their conscience at running running the government regardless of party. Thats what he finds most important. And it was in that. Yeah, go ahead. How much contact has you have with Senior Church leaders while hes been in office . And how much does you view his role in politics in relation to furthering the institution of the mission of the Institutional Church . Yeah, i dont know if i can totally answer that. Know that there have been you know, i report on a few episodes throughout the book of his interactions with church leaders. You know, he, he, i guess it was in the 2020 election. He was called to kind of brief the leaders of the lds church. And he said the way hes looking at the election is its it comes down to a terrible verb person versus terrible policies. And, you know, he kind of said, you have to decide what you care about. More, though, mitt romney told me when it comes to president and he actually believes the character of the president matters more than the policy is, he thinks that president s actually have relatively limited ability to, you know, steer the national economy, but that theyre character trickles down to the rest of the country. And thats part of why hes so alarmed by donald trump. I think there was somebody here whos yeah, right there. I think its time that you said that his willingness to give you all of his journals came immediately after the aftermath of january 6th. And then youre interviewing him for two years afterwards. Did his willingness to be that open and vulnerable wane during that . Did you find that you were working with a different mitt romney by the end of the book and you were only beginning of the book . Yeah, thats a great question. She asked if he had changed his kind of level of vulnerability throughout the two years. Definitely, yes. Were times where he seemed a little bit more guarded, but it wasnt a perfect, you know, line, you know, up toward enlightenment or down toward, you know, you fear of disclosure. It was more messy. I actually write about this in the book. There would be some weeks where he would really bare his soul and and to me, it seemed like he was sort of confessing complicity and what the Republican Party had become. And then, you know, a week later, he would sort of walk that back and become a little defensive about that idea. He would sometimes get mad at me and then kind of cool off and it was it was like a process. I you know, im not a therapist, but it almost sometimes felt like we were in therapy together, like he was wrestling with difficult questions. And i think that its not always easy. Right. But i think the biggest change i saw in him was that by the end of our two years together, he had sort of made peace with the fact that he didnt belong in todays Republican Party. At the beginning, he was, you know, certainly very critical of his party. Thats when he told me that, you know, a large portion of my party doesnt believe in the constitution, but hes still very much identified as a republican. By our last interview for the book, he was openly talking about leaving the party or starting a third party. And so i think over those two years, he became more and more comfortable with the fact that hes sort of politically homeless now because of. Yeah, you mentioned that he becomes kind of variety. His party is filled the same way about membership in the church. You feel unsupported by his, you know, religious party. She asked if he feels if he felt like he was a pariah inside of his church at all and the way he was a prey on the party. I never got that sense. No, i think that, you know, certainly he sometimes struggled to understand the kind of hard core maga Trump Supporters in the church and i think he was very he was frustrated by them a lot of the time, but, you know, i think i think that he still felt that there were enough like minded members of his faith, whether they were conservative or progressive or moderate, that he still felt kind of embraced. And i would also say that, you know, this is my my take, but i think that the institution and all church, the leaders of the church have have kind of seemed like they identify a little more with the mitt romney brand of republicanism than with trumpism. And so he probably felt supported in that way. But i mean, there is one story that he told me about, which is and this is probably more about utah than about you know, latterday saints specifically, but he told me about speaking a convention in here in utah at the republican convention, where he was just really kind of intensely booed. Right. And it was, you know, after he had voted to impeach trump twice. And and he went up there and he expected people to boo. But the booing was so loud that he could barely could get through his speech. And at one point, he looked down and he saw a woman in the front row just red faced, screaming at him. And she had a child with her. And he paused his speech to look at her and say, arent you embarrassed . And i think that that moment kind of captured how he felt about a lot of, you know, republicans in his state. Like i think it it it was really hard for him to understand that the same people who had been supporters of his president ial campaigns, who had volunteered for him, who had shown up at his events and kind of been very polite and and friendly, were now kind of acting like this. And again, he chalk that up to the trickle down effect of donald trump. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking just generally, as you bring up the Republican Party, can you tell us based on your conversations with senator romney or even your observations generally of washington, d. C. , like as the Republican Party sort of seems to be imploding, how did senator romney feel this ends like whats this ultimate path that theyve kind of taken that sorry to say that last part so that you know, its happened like with the speaker of the party, the Republican Party seems to me to sort of be like implode or maybe thats not the right word or dysfunctional. Yeah, right. And kind of taken a country with that. How did you get into romney or how whats your observation of like whats the ultimate how radically ultimately can such a basic. Yeah, what is mitt romneys view of kind of how this all ends when it comes to republican dysfunction and chaos . You know, we just went through several weeks without a speaker of the house because of republican inviting one of the revelations to mitt romney upon arriving in washington was just how deeply these institutions were. And it came as a surprise him because he is an institutional right like on some level he has this. And its kind of a mormon thing, like he has this very like sort of quaint belief that somewhere in the government there are serious minded, patriotic people sitting in rooms drying up, plans to solve the big issues that america faces and when he got to the senate, he thought that, you know, a lot of the senators would be those serious people. And he was kind of surprised that that wasnt the case, you know, and he found that over and over as he met with Senate Colleagues in both parties that he would, you know, would kind of press them to be like, well, what what issues can we work on . What what bills can i cosponsor with you . And and he found that a large portion of the senate, in his view, was really not interested in legislating at all. And he was told by a colleague, in fact, something you have to understand, matt, is that 20 senators here do all the work and the other 80 are just along for the ride. And he he found that that was basically true. And i think the proportion are probably even worse than the house of representatives. You know, i dont know that he he sees and you know, i dont know that he has the solution to how this all ends. But again, i think to him, it goes back to treating the job of senator or member of congress or governor of a state legislator with the seriousness that it should be treated like he believes that when you get a job like this, you have a certain duty to to try to get serious work done and part of the problem is that so many of these people and this was another revelation to him, attach so much psychic currency to their senate seats that it makes it very hard for them to do anything that might compromise their reelection. Right. And and he said, you know, i thought i always wondered why they seemed so afraid to do anything. And once i got here, i kind of realized its because theyre all they that they cant live without the big office is and the staffs and the trappings of their their their their position. You know, for a lot of these these people in the senate, theyre in their seventies, even eighties, the prospect of losing reelection is almost like dying. Right. And so they will not give up their seats and i think thats been thats led to some pretty counterproductive behavior. And, yes. You and then sage, i was wondering if he talked about how he negotiated his relationship with mike lee. Its really interesting. You. Teddy best of luck with so. Yeah he asked about mitt romneys Favorite Senate colleague mike lee. I. Theres so much to say. I read the last couple chapters of the book. I look mitt romney clearly, he views his role as a senator very differently than mike lee views is interesting to me. They kind of started in the same place when it came to donald trump in 2016. Both of them were outspoken critics of trump. Mike lee, very quickly got on board once trump won and mitt romney didnt. But you know, i think and this is based on my conversations with romney, but also a lot people in his circle because mike lee was one of the people that romney kind of felt a little bit, you know, like he shouldnt he shouldnt burn that that relationship yet while they still have to Work Together for the state. But i talked to a lot of people in his circle and people who knew them. And basically what said is that, you know, romneys problem with lee is that, first of all, he has gone out of his way to kind of theatrically oppose and criticize every piece of Bipartisan Legislation that romneys been involved in. Right. Its not just that they disagree on issues tries to sabotage them, tries to raise money off, attacking them and and romney just kind of thinks that hes he sees a lot of it as kind of cheap red. But also in 2022, when mike lee was up for reelection, mitt romney famously declined to endorse him and he sort of thought, you know, but part of the reason for that was that was really offended by lees involvement in trying to overturn the president ial election with donald trump and just felt like he couldnt, you know, in a door to somebody like that. But he also didnt want to make waves with it. So he sort of just quietly said, look, i know both of the candidates. Evan mcmullin was th i know both of the candidates. Are not going to endorse but lee made such a spectacle of the fact that romney wouldnt endorse him. He went on fox news to demand an endorsement and the quote i had from romney in the book born of this frustration from all of this is romney told a confidant maybe he just cant stand being in my shadow which i think speaks to the nature of their relationship now. Hard to imagine mitt romney didnt leave an impression on you after this whole journey. What wisdom is he leaving you with . What nuggets of wisdom and lessons i learned from mitt romney . It is interesting. Because i have so much access to him and hes willing to talk as long as i want, i sometimes try to advise asking for advice. I admire his family life. Seeing him with his family, i notice ive profiled a lot of people in my career, powerful wealthy people, and for a lot of them they get to a point that mitt romney is that kind their life and current look around, theyve made a lot of money and become famous but their marriage is not great and they are estranged from their kids they havent put in the time to prioritize their family relationships and mitt romney had done that. I asked him what is your advice to me as somebody, my own career ambitions but also four kids and a wife and i want to be close to them. How do you balance that . He refused to ever give me advice. Every time, i dont think i can give you advice so then i would rephrase the question as if it was for the book and then he would answer it but i didnt really put it in the book. I would just use it as advice. For him, for example on that question he told me he learned early on in his career that you have to draw bright red lines, he would drift toward endless work, interviewed his sons and they all said he traveled a lot, he worked a lot but he also made sure he was always home on sunday. He was set aside time to be with her said important events and really cultivated individual relationships and maybe that sounds trite and obvious but there is something about the idea of creating unprofitable boundaries around his family relationships that i thought was interesting. Thats one nugget of wisdom. The time you spent with mitt including his children, do you see that theres going to be another generation of romneys . There will be another generation of romneys in politics. I think for a time that seems pretty likely. I think the problem is right now, the romney name does not carry much weight in republican circles. So i think any romney running for office now, its possible the next generation will follow, his grandkids, but right now i dont see a lot of political goodwill in the gop for the romneys. You never encountered a politician so openly reckoning with what his pursuit of power cost. Let me ask you what you have learned about that cost now . Is it too higher price to expect people in the current environment, all the basic incentives baked into the political system now, the cost of into ogrady, is almost too much to have that and also be successful . This is why i wanted to write the book especially once i realized this would be one of the themes of the book, i dont think its too much to ask our leaders to do what they think is right. I think weve all internalized this cynical attitude toward politics the all of them are kind of snakes and they are all just acting in their own self interests, vote based on which policies we prefer and expect them to act terribly. I just think that is such a selfdefeating way of thinking about politics. It is hard to come up with structural policies that will incentivize integrity in our elected officials but i wrote this book because i wanted, almost a cry for help. We need to demand more of our elected leaders. Its not too much to ask that they sometimes prioritize their conscience over reelection. Its not too much to ask that they do whats right even when there are political costs. We should expect that from our leaders and punish them at the ballot box when they dont do that. Weve had this, the last 8 or 9 years of american politics has made us all deeply cynical and skeptical that that can ever happen. Talking to somebody recently who said mitt romney seems to have a lot of moral vanity. He said i think thats a good thing. I dont think we are in a moment where elected officials have too much moral vanity. We need our elected officials to have more moral vanity, they care about their own morality, have a little bit of regard for themselves as good people and i hope if theres one thing we can take away from mitt romneys story it is that it is worth it to do the right thing even when it is not politically at the end of your life, the end of your career when you are getting ready to retire, die, that you will be happy you follow your conscience. [applause]