Into their subject s book tv weekends. They bring you author after author afterauthor. Its all the work of fascinating people. I love book tv and im a cspan fan. Cspan created by americas Television Companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Afterwords is next on tv with senator Mitch Mcconnell talk about his life and politics with senator lamar alexander. This is a book about a shy boy who grew up in alabama, overcame polio, was inspired by henry clay at the university of louisville to become a senator, did. Then set out to be the majority leader of the United States senate and did but mitch, i have a confession to make. When i was asked to do this, here is what i thought. How can anyone get Mitch Mcconnell to talk for an hour . Because in your own book, you point out that you only the press when its to your advantage. You talk about a time when bill gates came in to see you and the two of you just sat there and people are uncomfortable waiting for one of you to speak and your account someone once told president george w. Bush that you were excited over a certain vote and he said really . How can you tell so why so few words . S . Well, im not afraid of talking but i found i learned a lot more by listening and so frequently i start out listening and think about what i want tosay before i do it. I think its fair to say that im in the era of trump, probably a very different approach to commenting on public affairs. Are not the first one. I remembered bob novak used to say the hardest interview ever had on meet the press was with senator Mike Mansfield because he asked him a question, he said yes. Hed asked him another one and hed say no and he run out of questions and easiest one was hubert humphrey. One question and he talked for 30 minutes. You dont get in trouble for what you dont say and i think theresnothing wrong with being cautious about your comments. I certainly dont mind talking but i usually like to know what im talking about. Before i ventured down that path. Youre not socautious in your book. Theres a lot of unexpected material in there. Theres a polio, will talk about that. His fight with edema grew. Your vote for Lyndon Johnson in 1954 over civil rights and then when it gets to professor obama and senator harry reid, your democratic counterparts and the Senate Conservative fund, you dont hold back there and i think most people would be the price to learn that youre an allamerican tailgater at the university of louisville, will talk about that but why dont we start with polio . Its 1944. Youre two years old. Youre living with your mom and five points alabama and the doctor, your dad is a season the war and the doctor says mitch as polio. Its hard today to imagine how terrifying those words must have been for parents. Absolutely and i subsequently learned there was a serious epidemic in 1944 all over the country. And the disease is very, very unpredictable. Some people, of courseyoud have the flu. You would think you have the flu and a couple of weeks later, some people would be completely normal. A couple weeks later, some people would be in an iron lung or dead. In my case, it affected my left quadriceps, muscle between your knee and your thigh. And in one of the great good fortunes of my life, this little crossroads, five points alabama, there was not even a stoplight there where my mother as you indicated was living with her sister while my dad was overseas fighting the germans. It happened to be 60 miles from warm springs. Roosevelt, having gone there himself in the 20s. Because he had polio. He got it at age 39. Completely paralyzed below the waist. But your mother had no way of knowing if you might be like the president , completely paralyzed. Notcompletely but what they predicted, the worst case an area for me would have been a brace on my left leg. So i didnt have as severe a case as president roosevelt had but the key, imagine im twoyears old. You know what twoyearold kids are like. My mother took me over to warm springs, they taught her a physical therapy regimen and told her to administer it four times a day and to keep me off my feet. So she literally watched me like a hawk for two years, every waking moment. And try to convey to me the subtle message that they didnt want me to think i couldnt walk but i shouldnt walk, a very subtle message. How do you keep a twoyearold from walking . Thats what twoyearolds do. She wants me every minute and prevented me from prematurely walking. Obviously, she told me that years later. My first memory in life was the last visit to warm springs where they told my mother i was going to be okay, that id be able to walk without a limp and wes stop in a shoe store in lagrange georgia on the way back to alabama. I had to get a pair of low top shoes which were kind of a symbol that i was going have a normal childhood and i did have a normal childhood. How old were you . Asked for at that point and that went on for two years, she watched me like a hawk what an amazing thing. You got a chapter in your book calledresilience. I guess resilience must come from that, to some extent. If impressions being made on us at really early ages are as significant as some people think, it sure had to have one on me which was if you stick to something, you keep working on it and giving it your best, the chances are you may actually overcome whatever problem you are currently having. You have any impediments today . Some the quadricep is more important going downstairs and up. Im not great at going downstairs but i had a perfectly normal life. When i was a kid i wasnt good at running longdistances that i could play baseball. It doesnt have the kind of back and forth like basketball does. Lets move on to Dickie Mcgrew. Your fatherencouraged you to have a fistfight with Dickie Mcgrew, what was that about . He didnt encourage me, i had no choice. I was about seven and we lived in athens alabama. I had a friend across the street named Dickie Mcgrew who was a year older than i wasnt considerably bigger. He was also a bully and he kept pushing me around and my dad was out working in the yard one day and he saw that. Again, hed seen it before. He called me over and he said , son, id have been watching the way hes been pushing you around and i want you to go over there and beat him up. I said dad, hes older than i am and bigger than i am. He said im older than he is and bigger than he is and given what some would say hobsons choice, i chose dickie. I went across the street and started swinging and i beat him up and that his glasses. It was an incredible lesson in standing up to bullies and i thought about that throughout my life at critical moments when people are trying topush you around. You got a chapter standing your ground. Yes. Lets jump ahead to kentucky, the university of louisville. People looking at cspan might wonder what those senators talk about when there on the floor . Watching you, the odds are youretalking about the university of louisville sports program. Before i get to that, your honors thesis was henry clay, senator henry clay and that inspired you , that inspired you to want to be a United States senator . I had gotten interested in politics in school. I ran for president of the student body in high school and it was a big high school, a very contentious race. You said you were hooked. I won last night so i began to follow politics. I remember at age 14 when the conventions were really the coverage of conventions was really dull. They focus on the podium and listen to all the speeches on tv. We use two, there was a big scene at radio and we listen to the whole thing. Pretty boring. You may have been doing this to but ithought i was the only 14yearold. Only 14 isyearold in america, maybe you were watching too. Watchingfrom gavel to gavel so i began to try to practice this craft to see if i could get good at it. And i was, ran for president of Student Council in college and in law school and clay was the most famous politician in kentucky. What about clay inspired you most . The fact that he, in a not terribly significant state, some would argue had become a major statesman. In kentucky, i wanted to learn more about him so. When he was known for crafting compromises which is a dirty word today with some people. It is but absolutely essential. The constitution is full of compromises. You and i in our daily lives you every single day in order to make the senate function. So i did my senior thesis on henry clay and the compromise of 1850 and continued to follow him as a lot of us in kentucky politics do. There was another aspect at the university of louisville and that this athletic program. Describe your tailgating schedule. Well, football is an important part of life but. But you take it pretty seriously. I do, i have about 12 season tickets every year. I have regulars, one of them goes back to college and we go to every home game and on occasion, and away game. We make a day of it, we goout early, one of my friends has an rv. In the parking lot and we talk about what will happen in the game and then we go to the game and talk about what did happen in the game and its a complete lengthy exercise and one ofthe great joys of life. Lets jump ahead a little bit. Were talking about theearly 1960s when you are at the university of louisville. You and i both drove to washington, we each realize in a green mustangs for the end of 1960s and i can still view the work from howard buell from kentucky and i remember in 1969 senator baker saying you need to go over and meet that smart young legislative aide from marlo cook, Mitch Mcconnell. But lets go back to louisville. In louisville you lead a march or part of a march on the capital about civil rights. You were in washington as i was to hear Martin Luther kings speech in 19 63, the i have a dreamspeech. You had had goldwater , speak to the university of louisville because you are president of the college of republicans but you voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, what happened . In our generation i think the civil rights issue was the defining issue of our generation and in 62, i have was fortunate enough when i was in College Republican president , goldwater accepted an invitation to come to you about, it was terrific and in the summer of 63, people like you and myself got to see the i have a dream speech and in 64 i was an intern in senator coopers office, two important things happened in 64. We broke the filibuster of the civil rights bill, senator cooper was in the middle of breaking the bill and we nominated very goldwater, one of the few people who voted against the civil rights bill. I was mad as hell about it and i was so irritated about goldwater voting against the civil rights bill and kind of defining the Republican Party in a way i thought would be unfortunate that i voted for lyndonjohnson which in retrospect was a huge mistake. But it was a protest vote. And. That feeling. Over into your tenant days. When president reagan vetoed the sanctions on south africa , for apartheid, you voted not to override his veto. I voted to override. You would override his veto which most republicans did not do. Right. I just dont like reagan who was widely admired by people like you and me, who was simply wrong about whether or not South African sanctions could work. I know there are people who think sanctions never work, occasionally they do. They worked in south africa, they worked in burma. A number of years later and i thought reagan was wrong and i did vote to override his veto. You mentioned burma. How do you get interested in aung san suu kyi. That was an extraordinary thing that lasted over 20 years. I remember watching you make speeches on the senate floor, i wonder what you were doing. I started following her after she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 91. And for the listeners who are not familiar with her, she, her father was sort of the founder of modern burma but he didnt live very long, got assassinated. She went off to europe and went to school, lived in the United States for a while, married a guy from britain. Had two sons from england that have gone back to burma in 1988 to care for his six mother. When this movement started. And she was sort of thrust into the leadership, the military junta which ran the country since the early 60s decided to have a free and Fair Election and they got creamed. And their reaction to getting creamed in the free and Fair Election was to arrest all the people who had gotten elected and put her under house arrest in her own house where she remained most of the time for 21 years so we would flip notes to each other over the years and ive offered along with some others a burma sanctions bill that actually ultimately made a difference and. You visited her, did you not . Not long ago . Amazingly enough, the regime began to crumble and in 2011 and so then we were able to talk on the phone and i actually went to burma in january 2012 and got to see her in person, invite her to come to the university of louisville to the Mccallum Center earlier that year and she did come in september 2012 and now shes the de facto elected leader of the country, even though the constitution prohibits anyone from married to a foreigner who has been married to a fouryear to be president. That keeps her from being president. Shes the de facto president , shes put in a president who is a close ally. You mentioned the Mcconnell Center at the university of louisville, what is that . It basically a Scholarship Program for the best and brightest kids that i started about 25 years ago. You have to be from kentucky and there are 10 each year, 10 freshmen, 10 sophomores, 10 seniors and so its designed to try to compete with Ivy League Schools and they get sharper kids to stay in kentucky for education, believing that if they stay there theyre more likely to stay there after school. 70 percent of the graduates have chosen to stay in kentucky where most of the sharp kids who grow up to the east to school never come back. What i do is i bring in speakers and we had some great ones over the years, hillary clinton, she wasthere while she was secretary of state and joe bidens been there when he was Vice President , chief Justice Roberts has been there. Not only for the 40 get to meet privately with whoever the speaker is but they address a larger audience while they are there. Lets which the politics, a subject you like to discuss and something youre pretty good at. You on races in kentucky, counting primaries so lets talk about the first one, the bloodhound commercial. You were, well i think all of us inthe United States senate are political activists, not all of us will admit it but we all are and you surely were. You were 30 points behind. In july of the electionyear. So the bloodhound dad, what was that . It was a desperate situation. Roger ailes who is now pretty well known. How do you find roger ailes . In those days he was doing political consulting, doing commercials. He was willing to take on somebody in a Democratic State 30 points behind . He had a couple of clients he thought were going to win and then me and i appreciated the fact that he was willing to take me on but this is a tough competitor, you can see how he started seeing cnbc for fox4nownews. Com rupert murdoch. Heres the situation. It was july of the election. I was down. 1984. I was down 30 points. We had a meeting in louisville and i said roger, is this race over . Heres what he said. Ive never known anybody to come this far behind thislate to win but i dont think its over. A very competitive guy. I was running against a pretty smart democratic incumbent who didnt have a lot of obvious vulnerabilities. We were looking for some kind of issue that needle in the haystack and it turned out, this was back in the honoraria days which i didnt have any problem with able making speeches for money but he had been making speeches for money while he was missing votes on the senate floor. So ailes turned back in to a couple of featuring a kentucky hunter type person with a bloodhound out looking for huddleston to get him back to work and it electrified the campaign, got people interested in it, got people talking about it and there was a sequel later where we had a guy who looked like huddleston, an actor who was being chased by the dogs and literally ended up in a tree. And the key line there was we got you now the huddleston, they freed him right at the end. Not exactly a landslide, one vote present. But there was a way of looking at it, even though reagan carried 150 states, we lost two seats in the senate and he was the only democratic incumbent editor in the country that your toulouse. I think your opponents would probably say that they find a method of campaigning a smashed them in the mouth before they get started. Probably, and im just guessing, your toughest campaign other than that was the last one, 2014 as you have sent conservative fund coming at you from the right, you had harry reed coming from the left and it was a pretty big brawl that you started right out by an ad that called yourrepublican opponent, now the governor of kentucky ,bailout devon. Well, you and i witness the results in 2010 and 2012. I was glad all the attention was on you. [laughter] the Senate Conservatives fund and its allies had basically cost us fiveraces. In 2010 and 2012. Nominating people whocouldnt win. And so at the beginning of 2014, i said not only in our race but other races, were not one to let that happen anymore. So what we did, not only in my race but other races around the country, we got the most electable people nominated. Basically took them on because if you are dealing with a group of people who think compromise is a dirty word and who always want to make a point but never want to make a difference, they only thing to do if you want to win the election is to beat them so we on every primary including my own and as you indicated, my primary opponent was a pretty credible guy and