Did, and then set out to become 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 speak to the press when its to your advantage. You talk about a time when billgates came in to see you and you just sat there and people were uncomfortable waiting for one of you to speak, someone on told president george w. Bush you were excited over a certain vote and he said, really . How can you tell. Why so few words. Guest well, im in the afraid of talking but i learn morally listen more by listening so astart out listening and think about what i want to say before i do it. I think its fair to say that im in the era of trump, probably very different approach to commenting on public affairs. Host youre not the first one i remember the late bob mow vac used to novak idea to day the hardest interview wait senator mike commandfield and he would ask him a question ask he way said, yep, and he thissest one was hubert humphrey. Guest do you dont net get in trouble for what you dont say and theirs wrong with being cautious about your comments. Certainly dont mind talking but i like to know what im takenning about before i venture down the path. Host youre not so cautious in your book. A lot of unexpected material in there the polio, your fistfight we dicky mcgrew. Your vote forline don johnson in 1964 over several rights and then win it gets to professor obama and senator harry reid, your tell tell derek cars port you dont hold back there, and then i think most people would be surprised to learn youren allamerican tailgater at the university of louisville. Lets start with polio. 1944. Your two years old, living with your mom and identify points, alabama, and thank your dades os in the world and your doctor says, mitch has polio. Its hard today to imagine how terrifying those words must have been for a parent then. Guest absolutely. Subsequently learned that there was a serious epidemic number 1944 all over the country, and the disease is very, very unpredictable. Some people of course you have the flu. Think you had the flu, and couple weeks later some people would we completely normal. A couple weeks later some people would be in an iron lung for dead inch my case it faked my left quad trisend quadricep. The muscle between your knee and thigh, and this little crossroads, five points, alabama, not even a stoplight there, where my father, as you indicate, was living with her sister while my dad was overseas fighting the germans. Happened to be 60 miles from warm springs and roosevelt, having gone there himself in the 20s, trying to host he had polio. Guest he did injury an an adult. Guest got it as age 39. Completely peril paralyzed before the waist. Host your more had no way of knowing. Guest the worst case worst worst case cierre scenario would be a im two years old. My mother took me over to warm springs, taught her a physical harm regimen and told her to administer it four times a day and keep me off my feet. So she late literally watched my like a hawk for two years, every waking moment, tried to convey to the the subtle message, they didnt want me to think i cooperate walk but i shouldnt walk. Host how do you keep what twoyearolds do. Guest she matched me every minute and prevent me from prematurely walking. Voicely she told me that years later. My first memory in life was the last visit to warm spring where they told my mother i was going to be okay. Id be able to walk without a limp and we stopped in a shoe store in la grange, georgia, on the way back to alabama to get a pair of lowtop shoes which were a symbol i would have a regular childhood. You have a chapter in your book called resilience. I guess resilience must come that. Guest impressions being made on us that really early age or significant as some people think, it sure had one on me, which was if you stick to something, you keep working at it and giving it your past, the chances are you may actually overcome whatever problem youre currently host do you have in impediment today . Guest some. The quadricep is more important going down steps than if so not great at going unstairs. When i was a kid i wasnt good at running long distances us builds could i bay play baseball. Host youre fatherren couraged you to have a fight with dickie mcgrew. Guest i had no choice. Was seven we lived in athens, alabama, and i had a friend across the street named dickie mcgrew, a year older and considerably bigger. 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, he sad seen it before. He called me over and he said, son, ive been watching the way he has been pushing you around. Want you to go over there and beat him up . I said, dad, ease holder than i im and bigger than me. So he said im older than you and im bigger. So with this hobsons choice, i went over and started swinging and i bent his glasses. That was inincredible lesson when people are trying to push you around. Host you have a chapter, standings your ground. Guest yeah. Host lets jump ahead to kentucky, the university of louisville. People at croons might wonder what do the senators talk about when theyre on the floor. The aids arewatching you, youre talking bet the louisville sports program. Before get to that your honors thesis was henry clay. Guest in 1950. Host that inspired you to want to be a United States senator . Guest i had gotten interested in politics in school. Rant for president of the student body in high school and a big high school, about very contentious race. Host you said you were hooked. Guest i want so abegan to follow politics i won so i began to follow politics and i was age 14 when the conventions were the coverage of convention was really dull. Theyd focus on he podium and listen to all the speeches on tv. Host or we used to theres a big zenith radio and we would listen to to the whole thing. Guest pretty boring. Thought i was probably the only 14 year jamiel have been two. Guest only 14yearold in america, thought. Maybe you were watching, too. Watching those things from gavel to gavel, so i began to try to practice this craft and see if it could get good at it, and i was ran for president of student counsel in college and in law school and clay was the most famous politician in kentucky. Host what guest like andrew jackson. Host what about clay inspired you most . Guest the fact he in a not terribly significant state, some would argue, had become a major statesman, is why i in kentucky, people i wanted to learn more about him. And so host he was known for craft compromises, which i a dirty word today with some people. Guest it is but essential. This constitution is full of compromises compromises and we do it every day to make the senate function. So i did my senior thesis on henry clay in the compromise of 1850, and continued to follow him as a lot of aspiring kentucky politicians do. Host now, there was another aspect of the university of louisville, and that is this athletic programs. Describe your tailget tailgating schedule. Guest well, football its an important part of life. Host but you take it seriously. Guest i do. We have about eye buy 12 season tickets every year, go to every home game. And an occasional away game wimp make a day of it. Go out early. One hover my of my prepared rv in the parking lot and talk about the game and then go the game and then talk about what did happen in the game. Its a complete lengthy exercise and one of the great joys of life. Host were talk beth the early 1960s when you were at the university of louisville. We both drove to washington, we just each realized in a green mustang. Toward the end of the 1960s, and i can you worked for senator marlowe cook from kentucky, and i worked for senator howard baker and i remember in 1969 senator baker said to me you need to meet that smart young legislative aide for cook, mitchell mcconnell. In loves you led a march on the capitol about civil rights. You were in washington as i was, to hear king king kings speech, the i have a dream speech you. Had goldwater come sneak university of lot because youre president of the come republicans but voted for lip i Lyndon Johnson in 19 of 4. What happened. Guest the Civil Rights Movement was the defining issue of our generation. When i was College Republican president , the acceptedded an invitation to come to u of l. And then we got to see the i have a dream peach and then in 674 i was an enter in senator coomers office. Two important things happened in 64. We broke the filibuster of the civil rights bill and senator cooper was in the middle of breaking the fill buster and we nominated barry gold water who was against the civil rights bill, and i was irritated and thought it would be unfortunate i voted for Lyndon Johnson, which was a huge mistake but it was a protest vote,. Host well, that feeling carried over into your senate days. You voted when president reagan vetoed the sanctions on south africa for apartheid, you voted not to override his veto. Guest i voted to mean you voted to override hit hiss veto which most republicans did not do. I. Guest i just felt lying reagan who is widely admired by people like you and me, was simply wrong about whether or not south africa sanctions could work. I know there are people who think that sanctions never work. Occasionally they do. The worked in south africa, they worked in burma, years later, and i thought reagan was wrong and i did vote to override his tivo. Host you mentioned burma. Holiday dud did you get interested in suu kyi. I wondered what you were doing. Guest sunny started following her after she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 91 and for the listener who are not familiar with her, she her father was sort of the founder, modern burma but didnt live very long. Got assassinated. She went off to europe, went to school, lived in the United States for a while, married a guy from britton, had two sons from england, that gone back to burma in 1988 to care for her sick mother, when this movement started, and she was sort of thrust into the leadership. The military junta which around the country since the early of 0s decided to have a free and Fair Election and 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 open house where she remained mose of the time for 21 years. So we would slip notes to each other over the years and authord some burma sanction bills that ultimately made a difference, and y jo. Host you visited her. Guest 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 of 2012 and got to see her in person, invite her to come to the university of louisville to the Mcconnell Center that year and she did come in september of 2012, and now she is the de facto elected leadership leader of the country, even though the constitution prohibits anyone from who is married to a foreigner, who has been married to a foreigner to be president. Put in the constitution exactly to keep her from being president. She is de facto president. Put in a president who is close ally. Host you mentioned the Mcconnell Center at the university of louisville. What that. Guest basically a Scholarship Program for the best and brightest kidded started 25 years ago. You have to be from kentucky and there are ten each year, ten freshman, ten sophomores, ten juniors and ten southeasterns. Its design to try to compete with ivy league schools, and to get sharper kids to stay in kentucky for education, believing that if they stay there, more likely to stay there after school. 70 of the graduates have closen to stay . Kentucky, and most of the sharp kids would go to east and go to school never come back. Bring in speakers and we have had some great ones over the years. Hillary clinton was there while she was secretary of state, and joe biden has been there while he was Vice President and chief it Justice Roberts has been there and its a treat not only for the 40 mo who get to meet private live with the speaker and then they address a larger public audience. Host lets pitch to politics, a subject you like to discuss and something youre pretty good at. Or undefeated. Have won six races in kentucky, 12 counts primarieses lets talk about in the first one, the blood hound commercial. I think all of us in the senate are political accidents, not all of us will admit it but we all are. You surely were. Guest yeah. Host 30points behind . July. Host show to bloodhound ad, at was that. Guest it was a desperate situation. Roger ailes, who is now pretty well known dish. Host how did you find roger ailes. Guest this doughs he was doing political consulting. Host willing to take on some in a Democratic State who was 30 points behind. Guest he has a couple of client his thought would win, and and me i protectedded the fact he was willing to take me on. This is a tough competitor. You can see how he is that righted cnbc and started fox. Heres the situation. It was july of the election. I was down host 1984. Guest 1984ment down 34points. We had a meeting in louisville, and i said, roger, is this race over . Heres what he said. Ive never known anybody come from this far behind this late to win, but i dont think its over. 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 thed in until the hay stack, and this is back in the hon rare ya days. Which i d. Have any problem with people making speeches for money but he had been making speeches for money while he was missing votes on the senate floor. So ailes turned that in to a couple of ads featuring a kentucky hunter type person with bloodhounds, out looking for the senator to get him back to work, and it electrified the campaign, got people interest it, talking about it, and then there was a sequel later in which had a guy who looked lick huddleston, an actor, who was being chased by the dogs and ended up in the tree and the key line there was, we got you now. Not exactly a landslide, one vote a precincts. Fourtenths one percent. Guest even though reagan carried 49 out of 50 states we lost two seats in the senate and he was owe the only democratic senator to lose. Host you next opponent will fine your midwest of campaigning, which is to smash them in the mouth before they get started. Probably im just guessing your toughest campaign was the last one, 2014. Because you had the Senate Conservatives fund from the right, harry reid from the left. And and it was a pretty big brawl but you start right out by an ad that called you republican opponent, now the governor of kentucky, bailout guest will, you and i witnessed the results in 2010 and 2012 host i was glad all the attention was on you. Guest the Senate Conservatives fund and its allies had basically cost us five races in 2010 and 2012. By nominating people who couldnt win. So with the beginning of 2014, i said, not only in my race and other raised were not going to let that happen. And what i did, we got the most electable people nominated. Basically took them on, because if youre dealing with a group of people who think compromise is a dirty word and always want to make a point but never want to make a difference, the only thing to do if you want to win the election is to beat them, and so we won every primary, including my own, and i was as you indicate, my primary opponent was a credible guy. The next year he was elected governor of kentucky, but in my primary he carried two out of 120 counties. Host you say take them on. Eight like your fistfight withic dickie mcgrew. Been our aids said the Senate Conservatives fun has been destroying the Republican Party like a drunk who tears up every bar they walk in. The difference is they strolled in Mitch Mcconnells barn. Hes not go throw you out. Hes going to lock the door. Thosing are fighting words. Guest i think thats what needed to be done, some as a result, if you look at 2014, as a result of that approach, not only in my rails but several others, we took the senate back. We had the most electable candidates on in the November Ballot everywhere. Host lets across cross the tile and talk about harry reid. We were another bon bennetts funeral a few days ago and you and senator reid both spoke. He said people don think Mitch Mcconnell and i dont like each other but we are friends. But and you say in your book, reid says youre classless and you liketon donald trump thing women are dogs and pigs you. Say north your book but i think you said other places he may be the worst majority leader. So the senate is a place of relationships. What about this relationship between the democratic and republican leader . Are you friends or not friends . Guest ive been very, very public about a couple of things about hari hairy, i didnt like the way he shut the senate down, and prevented people from voting. I didnt like the way he ran the senate, and i think his public rhetoric, is frequently very inappropriate. So i dont think host like what . Guest well, the example you just mentioned, just a fee weeks before we are taping this he took all of Donald Trumps most outrageous comments and attributed them to me. I dont do that to him. So i dont think theres an equivalents here but nevertheless i think to a lot of people looks like were just feuding all the time. We arent feuding all the time. We have to talk daily. I do vehemently object to the way he ran the senate, and my gold in this current majority is to be as different in every way from harry and the way he ran the previous majority. Im trying to do everything totally different. I do object to the way he ran the senate. And i do object to the inflammatory rhetoric issue like calling Alan Greenspan a political or calling george w. Bush a loser or saying the iraq war is lost in the middle of a Major Military exercise there. So, i cant fail to express my objection to that kind of rhetoric, which is frequently flat out wrong. Host lets take one other person you talk about the