Transcripts For CSPAN2 McKay 20240706 : vimarsana.com

Like it. [laughter] something you should be shocked. Thank you for writing this wonderful book and thank you all foru coming. Thank you for hosting us. [applause] you are watching a book tv with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Book tv common television for serious readers. Awardwinning journal for the atlantic as a veteran journalist. An i say veteran because he has been reported since he was a student at byu. He is still pretty young. No one perhaps is better suited to write about that sure faith, political sense of ability and a deep sense of right and wrong. We a will hear more about that n a minute. Hes joined in conversation i dont think he is an introduction hes been a friend to all of us for many years we go to him for advice and good humor especially on nonfictionno topics. Before we get started a portion of all of our ticket sales are non for profit books working to get books into the hands of both without regular access. Professionally young people. Since the beginning of last year with distributive or 20000 books across the state and also the Pediatric Clinic in arizona. [applause] [applause] hi. [laughter] well, want to start with a tweet. From donald trump. There have been plenty of reviews of the book. Donald trump doesnt realize its you thats done the writing heres a tweet mitch at romney a total loser that only a mother could love just wrote a book which is much like him boring, horrible, fairly perfect. That is not to move a few books, right . We are thrilled we did things that tweet to mitt romney such a whack job one of the things i wanted to ask about does has something to do with donald trump on the part he is playing in the moment we are in right now. Incredible timing of this book of the same level ofn attention the audit moments. The strange timing for all of this. We wildly interesting. L and we had to sell it to publishers but through at the end of the subject within the space of 10 years he had gone from president ial nominee washes party radically transform all around him. Didnt change that much and that. And rather than quickly capitulates to this new brand of right wing populism like his fellow republicans stood he sortof decided he wasnt going o it. And not being willing to do it made him very isolated those perspective and soulsearching with what had happened. That was hee jumping off point insert one character in particular about that romney even covering mitt romney for some time now. Before he was a pariah in the party when he was a candidate to the characteristics you thought you wanted to explore. I have covered him for more than 10 years before he approached him about writing this book. And as a president ial candidate he was not that interesting. [laughter] high covered his campaign. I covered hundreds of events. He gave the same stump speech word for word four times a day every day for a year. I got to the point i was having dreams about it. I could recite everyry word. He was very cautious, very confident, very disciplined that is what his public persona was. And i remember early in that campaign in 2012 talking to another reporter about how its really difficult to cover mitt romney in an interesting way. The reporter said i dont think that is my theory he does not have a lot going on beneath the surface. I didnt know i said maybe thats true. Internally than he let on. But i think what was so interesting about getting to do this book was that he really became pretty vulnerable with me and opened up. Over the course of two years i interviewed him 45 times. He gave me his journal, his email correspondence with Top Republican Text Messages i interviewed his family. I interviewed people who had known him throughout his life. It became very clear very quickly to me theres a lot mitt romneyhe has a lot going on. He wrestles with his conscience. He wrestles with the compromises that he has made over the course of his political career. His journals are field with him being really hard on himself. Beating himself up o for mistaks hes made or gaffes hes committed. Y and it pretty early on in the process i realized this was a guy at much more selfaware than most people realize. I think that selfawareness was the characteristic i found most interesting. When you presented romney with your pitch and then the condition, you write in the book he responded to those as if it were a dare. What was that about . Did he see it as a kind of s challenge that i will take th . I did kind of needle him a little bit when i first approachedi him. I was hoping to get a little bit of a rise out of him i did not think i would get nearly what i did i basicallyea said i think u have a very interesting story to tell. Youve seen a lot in politics especially the last few years as a republican senator you talk at lunches and i want to write a biography and make only want to do it if you are ready to be candid. An implicit said that as i wasnt sure he would be. I talked to friends of his wives thinking about doing this hes not going to give you what you need. This is not going to work out. So i presented that to him. I dont know but its almost like he took offense at the idea he would not be fully candid or forthcoming. And i knew i had him. The first few weeks of interviewing him of sitting in church i got a text message i sent something that might be interesting to look at before our next. I looked at it in its hundreds of his personal journal. That i had not asked for. I later found out through his wife and he had not really read them before giving them to me. What is that about by the way not rereading them . Because twits, not job all the quoteur unquote burns people hae been paying attention to in the book appeared in this personal. A lot of them anyway progress a lot of most withering comments he made about his fellow republicans were from those journals break some more than a decade ago. Part of the deal we made he couldnt take things out he couldnt tamper with it. We letli them read it before it was published if you wanted to have a conversation about is willing to do that good faith. For him to give me his journals without reviewing them demonstrate a lot oflo trust whh i certainlypr appreciated the reckless feeling of liberation. When i approached him something had shaken loose and him being in that experience being the senate be evacuated on think for him and fellow republican traders. Nk he had entered this new phase of his life and career in Public Service he didnt care anymore about getting reelected his own political future won his own legacy and he wanted a story that could be put into a book. He said i want this to be something my Great Grandkids can read. I want them to remember this. It was kind of a warning. Fragin 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 kind of thought of it as curiosity that you sometimes show people. After january 66th he sort of became obsessed with it, and he would find himself looking at it hate at night in his office and showing it to o people. And the thing he said to me when he first showed it to me was if you look at the old chart of Human History, there are very few periods where democracies are thriving, right . Almost without exception throughout Human History the most powerful civilizations in the world have been autocracies of some kind, you know . 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 r think he saw this book as sort of a warning. Is any of that view of history informed by his faith, his sense of, i dont know, book of more month characters mormon characters, biblical prophets, the ideas, theres a latterday saint notion that joseph smith would talk about the constitution happening by a thread. Was heha informed by any of that in. So i think theres no question that his view of the kind of sacredness of american democracy and the american project is informed by his faith. I mean, i think most people who grow up mormon are kind of taught that, you know, the founding documents of the United States are divinely inspired and americas a promised land, you know, all that stuff is. And so i think that he had a kind of very sincere and sort of sentimental patriotism that these days almost kind of seems quaint. But, you know, he was deeply offended on kind of a visceral level byng seeing members of his party try to overturn a president ial election. Like, there was something about, you know, he was mad about the lies, he was mad about, you know, the cynicism of his colleagues. But i think just on an elemental level, he just couldnt stand seeing sohe much disrespect. One of the first things he told me was a very large portion of my party doesnt really believe in the constitution. And i remember kind of being taken aback by that. This is, like, our second or third interview. And i i asked him to kind of expound on that, and thats when he showed me the path and he said, you know, members of my feater believe inev the parts of the Constitution Party believe in the parts of the the constitution they like, they likeou the Second Amendment and delay believe in that, but they believe in that, but it seems to me theyre willing at least now in this new era to pick and choose which parts of the constitution theyre willing to follow. And for him, thats just very alarming. I want to ask about sort of the nature of the conversations you were having. As a you say, 45 interviews [laughter] riyou describe in the book hes more puckish than his public persona. Some nights he vented, some nights he dished. Youve also a talked about i dont know if this is you dont use this term necessarily in thehe book, but you said you think hes kind of judgmental. So what, 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, 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,ec right . [laughter] you know, because i knew right at the beginning, like, oh, this was going to be great material. I wasnt sure what it would be like to happening out with mitt romney for two years, right . Yeah. But luckily for me, hes actually, like, very funny. He has a finelytuned sense of the absurde. In political life. He can tell really entertaining story thes about his colleagues, and, youan know, the indignities ofof running for office. So all of that was fun. Most of our meetings were very friendly. He, you know, often a 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 close my notebook, laptop, and he would be, like, so what are you watching thesese days . [laughter] haveav youu seen ted lasso . Im like, all right, were still going. 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 wood. Like 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 per speck if u i perspective, and andi really did strive to do that. But then once youre writing the book, you have to kind of insert yourself sometimes as a narrate or to point out where you think he is, you know, fractionalizing or where hes, you know, a little being rationalizing or where hes, you know, a little bit being up consistent. The deal that we had was for him to read the book before it was published. And i remember i sent hem the manuscript, it was earlier this spring, and then i kind of waited for his reaction. And i thought he might if take some time to process p and, you know, next time i saw hem, i we would talk about it. And instead he was live texting me his reaction. Wow. As he read it. [laughter] would which made for a very up nerving weekend. On page 132 be lislely. Literally. It would be a hundred pages in, this is really interesting. This part 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 innear most i would sometimes joke with my wife, actually, held joke that it felt like i know mitt romney better than i know her at this point because, or you know, shes, like, im never giving you my journal. You dont know what i was thinking. But when you have, youve given that level of access to your private thoughts andat feelingso a writer and then you have to read their assessment of your life are, thats got to be reallyd. Hard. I dont know if i could do it. I dontt think if somebody came to me and said i want all your emails and journals and im going to turn it into a book, i think that would be a little deefficient p. I think it speaks to his selfawareness, candor and also to his kind of confidence in himself that he was willing to do that. But i think it was the hard, you know . I write in the book at the end that there were some things he disagreed with. He disagreed with my characterization, he doesnt think thatt i quite captured it. But overall, i think, i mean, youd have to ask him, but i think that 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 mention in the book that one thing he said to you was he figured that you would get the mormon thing as a fellow latter day saint. What difference did that make, you being a latterday saint, him being a latterday saint . Did it come up very much . Did he think that you would understand him, be more sympathetic to him . Like, did you get a sense of that . I wondered when he said that in our first interview. And i kind of didnt explore i. I was, like, well see. [laughter] early on, one thing became very clear which is that it helped that we could use a mormon shorthand with each other, right . If while he wasot telling me the stories of his service as a bishop in the belmont warted or his mission or whatever ward, he didnt have to pause to explain, you know, what all this was. He knew that i understood it. Nl [inaudible] in my con detective. Right. So that steppedded helped. But i also found over time that, you know, one way that i wasle able to understand him was not just that we were both more if morning but that we had both grown up mormon in places where there werent many mormons. And he grew up in michigan, i grew up in massachusetts. He said to me once, you know are, the thing about growing up more if monooutside 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 a defining theme of his work, right . Hes become increasingly isolated, increasingly disliked among his, you know, 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 of being in a hundred, you know, parties in high school where hes the only one not drinking or whatever, that kind of, i think, helped inform him. And i think i understood that the about him because we have that same experience. Doo you think that it sees like in his early experience as hes trying to decide what sort of id following he ideology he wants for himself politically, like, he seems somewhat ambivalent about being a republican early on. Certainly his father, as you say in the book with, planted himself square he in the liberal wing of the Republican Party do you think thats where he wanted to be . If and talk about the fact that he didnt really ever fancy himself a reagan republican, he fancied himself a George Romney republican. Yeah. So i think the part of the reason he didnt identify stockily as a republican strongly as a republican earlier in his e adult life is because his father was sort of, you know, chased out of the party. 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 1990s. He marched 1960. He marched with civil rights activists in 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 we neededst to look at te root causes and the inequality that black americans are sufferingso from. So mitt grew up watching his dad represent 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 president ial campaign was sort of derailed by a gap that was also, you know, him being attacked by the right for his position on vietnam. And so i think that mitt probably 80s and 990s, he didnt really identify9 with the reagan wing of the party which was, youyo know, a succession secession from Barry Goldwater. But once he got into republican politics, thats kind of the only wing of the party you could be in, right in so while he was governor of massachusetts, he governede as kind of a moderat, probusiness republican. Once he got out of massachusetts andou 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 the 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 happens, you know . He said there were a couple issues that he very consciously flipped on, abortion was one of them, but for the most part he told me that he would get on these stagesea to speak to conservative voters, and he thought when he first started running for president that he could make his campaign about the things he cared about a, right in 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 a 59 point plan to reduce can the deficit. They wanted to hear about guns and abortion, killing terrorists, and he found himself reacting to what the crowd liked and kind of a new persona, kind 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 considerne whether this new persona was more or less true to himself. I think that you 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 new persona was with working for him, but he did not pause to consider whether the political reinventioning was more or less authentic to who he truly was. When did he become aware of the fact that he was you say is it didnt occur to him. It just through circumstance happenedan a. Happened. You move the mark this much further ands 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. Yeah. When did he tart to realize, man, im way far off the mark here in did you identify 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 that he sent to Stuart Stephens, his chief political strategist, where he was kind of walking whether to run again and, you know, in between those two campaigns the tea e 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 he wanted to run for president in that climate. And what he said to Stuart Stephens was basically if im going today this again, id like to be a little bit more true to who i am and less, you know, think less about whether ill win and more about my integrity. So i think he had periodic moments where his conscience would sort of assert itself. He had a are overactive conscience. Its not like questions of right and wrong and just putting them aside. He was always wrestling. You know, he would take a position that he knew was politically expedient, and then he would sort of pull back and say, oh, ah, is this the totally right . Reading his journals is interesting because hes not kind of like the robotic management if consultant. Hes much more, you know,letesque almost, you know in ham letesque. Hes constantly second guessing himself and ruminating in a way he did a very good job of hiding as a president ial candidate but i think actually makes him 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 was when he voted to impeach. Uhhuh. And the really powerful speech that he gave which you write about him working through that. And he talked about how important his conscience will you talk a little bit about this moment in. Yeah. Because thiss is, like, a moment when hes revealing to everybody else, and he talked about it being with core to his identity to and to his faith as well. 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 open 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 i that he agonizd over that decision. The journal withs that he kept journals that the he kept during that first impeachment trial are sort of tortured. Like, 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 in and he would ruminate in his ajournal about all the bad this that might happen to him and his family if he kind of sticks it to trump in this way, right in he was worried that there would be with, you know, threats against his sons, that they, you know, the trump government might if come after them, audit his sons businesses. He might have to leave utah. And to so he really, he kind of he 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 are high stakes question decided to do the politically convenient thing instead of theea thing he belied was right. And he gave that speech where he kind of begins by saying my faith is very important to me. And then his voice catches. He has to kind of compose himself. And he talks abouthow how, you know, as 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 an indictment of his fellow republicans who he felt were not taking the trial seriously, were not taking that oath seriously, but also and, you know, he might disagree we this characterization, but it felt like a kind of moral rea awakening almost in reawakening almost inay a way where he was saying he fully was doing only what he thought was right without giving any thought to his political future which is, had not been something the had had done of very much in his political career up to that point. This is just a really stinteresting contrast in some f the stories you tell. Llif one is this moment where he says to you with or maybe its something that he had written in his journal up i dont know that i can disrespect someone more than j. D. Vance. [laughter] yes. Was that in his journal or did he say that to you in. That was a quote. Okay. Can then he says how do you make that decision, that is to say j. D. Vance palling around with donald trump . Sort of, you know, reinventing his whole persona to be a maga republican. Yes. Right. Because he said how can you get over a line so stark as that and for what. D and you write romney wished e could grab vance by the shoulders or and scream this is not worth it. Uhhuh. But how do you square that with the decision that he makes togo go and talk the donald trup about possibly becoming secretary of state after being disgusted by that man . He what do you make of that . Like, again,ing some of his open kind of personal compromise, how did he justify that . How did he talk about that kind of story or that kind of contradiction . Yeah. Well, the story about his decision to meet with trump about a 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 in he believed that trumps election was an emergency, that we needed serious adults in the room, that it was important for, you know, seriousminded people to take important postshe 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 a, you have to take it for the good of the country. Soth theres this noble motivation, and i think that was real. But then he admitted, he said i wanted the job. I like to be in the middle of the action. If i i wanted to be president , if you cant be president , secretary of state is a pretty good consolation prize. He admitted there was this selfinterested part and this desire for ambition. And i think the way you square them is hes imperfect, right . If from [inaudible] at the end of 2016 when he gave that quote to me about j. D. Vance, that was 2022, i believe. That was a pretty eventful 6 years for mitt romney. [laughter] a lot had happened. He had seen the consequences and making these moral compromises in politics. Itu think he was more attuned to hisor e own history but also was seeing the depth of cynicism and hypocrisy in his own caucus and what it had led to, and i the he was judgmental of it, right . I think he was judgmental of it, right . I say this not necessarily as an indictment of mitt romney, because i think its true of me, true of all of us, i think were often most judgmental of sins that weur commit ourselves, rig . And i think thats e part of why he is so put off by watching all of his Senate Colleagues, you know, take these positions that he kind of knows they dont really believe and contort themselves in ways that are kind of humiliate dog appease donald trump humiliating to appease donald trump. Its because he feels like hes e done a similar thing earlier in his career. And seeing that kind of mirrorrism imagine, you know, makes him especially aggravated. So we want to hear from you questions that you might have, so be thinking about where you are while you are, let me ask another question. Will you sort of talk what do you understand about a mitt romneys preoccupation with death . Is that a way to put it in. Like a morbid obsession is almost. Yeah. He, so he, you know, i think a lot of people know 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 open death. And, you know his own death. Some people would say its some follow of ptsd, others would say theres something cosmic or spiritual going on. Whatevers it is, he is constantly thinking about his own death and that is always has always suspected on some level that it would happen in a sudden, violent way. He told me stories about, you know, he was once on an airplane, and he got on the plane and if a stewardess, a flightht attendant saw him and gasped andan rushed to the backf the plane, and he didnt know what was going on. They went to find her, and she said that the night before shed had a dream about a guy who looked exactly like him getting shot in hyde park in london, and he was flying to london. And he kind of didnt know what to say, hopefully i dont get shot. [laughter] but things like that would happen to him all the time. And i dont know totally why. I dont know where it comes from p. 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 in and, you know, i think maybe part of that was not knowing how long his life would be. In thehe last stage of his life andar career, he would talk all the time to me about, you know, the men in my family are a history of sudden heart failure, so i could die at any time. I was, like, no, youre healthy x. He was, like, no, i could die at any time. [laughter] i really dont know what to say. But i think now hes thinking more about his legacy and his, you know, what hes leaving for his children and grandchildren and less about the current cycle. Its put him into a kind of interesting head space which, for me, as a biographer was helpful because he was thinking in longterm, sweeping gestures, not just about the present. Questions. Yes, please. So [inaudible] the level of kind of unprecedented personal information, if you could go back and [inaudible] one of those things that you wrote about in the book [inaudible] what would that one thing be . Checkth the paperback. Ill put it in there. No, i dont know. I mean,i its funny, there were so many things in his journals that i found personally interesting but wasnt sure they really were partre of, you know, the story or had any general importance. Ill say this, i also dont want to, you know,ing, just be quoting from his journals rampantly without [laughter] without having published them in a piece. But with i will say this relationship with his wife is really interesting, and it comes up again and again in his journal ares. Kind of made up his mind is going to vote with the rest of the republicans. Trumps e is reasonable enough he does when the take. Eight tells us to and. And says i am surprised by that. And she does not say anything else. In she does not render any judgment or anything but shend immediatey goes into a spiral. Ive got to go back to the drawing board. Caruso much for the respect and approval that really comes through throughout the journals. [inaudible] i want to be mindful of the t audience. The times you hung out with him how many times did you eat hot dogs . [laughter]he yes sometimes we at hotdog spread zero times i did not eat hot dogs with them. I did eat, have a catalog of the food i ate with him. Pizza once, butter chicken, once. When i went up to visit his family in New Hampshire they have an annual family reunion. Then this one moment or it was dinner time and 40 romneys stretched out picnic tables. And we had like sweet potato burritos and strawberry pie. It was all very good. I dont what the fixation on hotdogs is. One time he said hotdogs is his Favorite Meat even more than steak. A lot of people thought he was trying to be like an average guy. I actually think that was real but i have no idea. This is where my analytical powers. Had a freezer full of frozen fillets he told me put on a hamburger and smothered in catchup. I dont know. [laughter] i have no defense of that. What is. [inaudible] what is. I agree with you. He asks what his plans are for retirement comp is going to be okay being retired . I think its going to struggle with this. I tried retirement after the 2012 president ial election. Would consol event in his journal about how bored he was. The truth is i like a good project more than alike a day at the beach. I think hes going to struggle with relaxing. But hell have projects. I will remain outspoken. The active in the campaign. Very concerned about the prospect of a second trump term i imagine he be involved. Beyond that i do not know. He should take up the next olympics. Youd be young. You discuss on hyatt government the constitution. [inaudible] talks about whether or not i would ask mitt romney the elders of the church would say i have talked to him about that a little bit. Mainly innate nervous joking way. When he was a president ial candidate and approached by more of a voters he always immediately rejected that. First of all he doesnt really believe thats a real problem. But he also, this is actually a really good thing about him. Hes very uncomfortable with the idea and when he won the republican nomination 2012 he had all kinds of evangelical prominent religious leaders who would tell him they need to win this election. God hasnt told me that. She would say i dont know how much god intervenes. He said its one of the great of life. I will say i report in the book that is thefu focal event. Like 50 years ago told me this. I was a very young reporter. And finally i have like a moment. So it is in the book. I love how orrin hatch part of its political advice was to spice up his l language. With mitt romney. He said he come across it said the word every now and again. I cannot imagine him saying he does not swear very often. Not at all. [inaudible] the closing chapter. [inaudible] also share the same concerns. What we should be doing. Hugs when he announced his retirement inbe october, he is said part of why hes retiring hes in his mid 70scl he was to clear out a space the next generation to come in. But he speaking to groups of young people the pieces of advice he most gives them is not to sacrifice your principles at the altar. I think his advice would be we need more idealistic young people to get involved in government and politics. But jealously guard your idealism. Because it is so easily want to actually get into the political rat race to sell your self out very quickly. The thing you would like to see most is people who are actually following their conscience and running the government. Regardless of party is what you find. Goahead. The access you have a Senior Church leaders with furthering institutionsch. [inaudible] i dont know if i can totally answern that. I report on a few episodes throughout the book of his interactions with church leaders. I guess it was in the 2020 election he was called to brief the leaders of the church. And he said the way hes looking at the election as it comes down to a terrible person versus terrible policies. He said you have to decide what you careol about more. Mitt romney told me when it comes to president he believes the character of the president matters more than the policies. President s have relatively limited ability to steer the National Economy such as their character trickles down to the rest of the country and thats part of the why hes alarmed by it. Youth said his willingness to give you all his journals in the aftermath of january 6. And then for two years after words. When the flames during that time. Was itit different at the end of the books in thehe beginning of the book . What such a great question she asked if he had changed his level of vulnerability throughout the two years. Yes, there were times where it seemed a little more regarded. But it was not a perfect line up entoward enlightenment there be some weeks where he would really bear his soul and to me it seemed like he was confessing and what the Republican Party had become. And a week later he would sort of walk that back and become a little defensive about that. He would sometimes get mad at me and then cool off. I am not a therapist like he was wrestling with difficult questions. And i think it is not always easy. But i think the biggest size saw it sort of made peace with the fact that he did not belong in todays Republican Party. Its critical of that party he told me large part of the party does not believe in the muchitution he very identified as the constitution. He was openly talking about leaving the party and starting a thirdrd party. And so i think over those two years he became more and more m comfortable with the fact hes sort of politically homeless now. Goahead. U feel the same way about membership and church . She asked if he felt like he was a a pariah inside of his church at all. Never got that sense, no. I think is certainly he sometimes struggles to understand the hard core maga Trump Supporters in the church. And i think he was frustrated by them a lot of the time. I think he still felt there were enough likeminded members were that they weree conservative or progressive or moderates that he still felt embraced. I would alsoow say this is my te but theres some Institutional Church the leaders of the h chuh have identified a little martha mitt romney brown deaf republicanism then trump is in. He probably felt supported in that way. There is one story he told me and this is probably more about utah than the latterday saints specifically. He told me about speaking at a convention here in utah at a Republican Convention there is really intensely booted. This after he voted to impeach trump twice. He went up there but it was so loud he could barely get through his speech. At one point he looked down and saw a woman in the front row just read face screaming at him. She had a child with her. He pausedto his speech to look t her and say arent you embarrassed . That moment captured how he felt about a lot of republicans in his state. I think it was really hard for him to understand the same people who were supporters of his president ial campaign who had volunteered for him whod shown up with his events that have been very polite and friendly were now acting like this. And again he chalks itec up to e trickledown effect of donald trump. Just speaking andca generally as you bring up the Republican Party, can you tell us based on your conversations with romney are your general observations of washingtonso d. C. How did said in a romney what is the ultimate path . Im sorry say that last part . S is happening with the spear of the house andrt the party like the Republican Party. Are talking more functional. Im taking the country with that. What is your observation of like what is the ultimate . Hooks what is mitt romneys view of how this all ends with function and chaos . We went through several weeks without speaker of the house because of the republicans. One of the revelations upon arriving in washington was at just how deeplypl dysfunctional that came to the surprise he is an institutionalist. Like o some level its kind of a more of a thing. He has this quaint belief that somewhere in the government they are serious minded and patriotic people sitting in a room strike up plans a lot of the senators to be those serious people and it was kind of surprised that was not the case. Most Senate Colleagues in bothh parties. Hehe would kind of oppress them, what issues can we work on . Bill can i cosponsor with you . He found a large portion of the senate in his view was really not interested in legislating at all. He was told by a call they can back something you have to understand is 20 senators here do all the work and the other adr along for the ride. He found that was basically true. I dont know he sees them that he has the solution to how this all ends. But again it goes back to treating the job of the senator or member of congress and the state legislature with the seriousness it should be treated. To try to get serious work done. Im part of the problem is, this is another revelation attacked to their senate seat. That it makes it very hard that might compromise the reelection. I always wondered why they seem so afraid to do anything. When i got here they cant live without the big offices and the staff and the trappings of their position. For a lot of these people the prospects of the election is almost like dying. They williv not give up and i think thats some pretty counterproductive behavior. You. Click talk you having negotiated this relationship. [inaudible] at. [laughter] he asked about mitt romney. [inaudible] [laughter] there is so much to say. Read the last couple chapters of thero book. It romney clearly views the role as a senate very differently. Interestingly they started in the same place with donald trump with both of them without poking critics of trump. Trump. Mike lee quickly got on b. I think, this is based on my conversation a lot of people because romney felt a little bit you shouldnt burn that relationship yet but we still have to work together. Ive talked to a lot of people in his circle. Basically romneys problem is that first of all he has gone out of his way to theatrically oppose and criticize every piece of bipartisaneg legislation. It is not just the disagree on issues. We try to sabotage them for trying to raise money off behalf of them. And romney just thanks. Also in 2022 it is up for reelection mitt romney famously declined to endorse them. Part of the reason for that as he was really offended by the involvement in trying to overturn the president ial election. Im felt like he could mentor someone like that. They couldve quietly said look, i note both candidates are involved. Make such a spectacle he went on Tucker Carlsons show on fox news and demands an endorsement. The quote that i had in the book born of these frustrations from all of this is romney told a confidantt that maybe he just cant stand being in my shadow. I think it speaks to the nature of their relationship. Im sorry. Its hard to imagine mitt romney. [inaudible] what nuggets of wisdom going with mitt romney. Its interesting one. [inaudible] men especiallyan and for a lot f them it gets the point that mitt romney is at and theyve made a lot of money and they become ndfamous but their marriage is t that great and maybe they are strange from their kids. The put in the time for their relationships. I thought mitt romney clearly had done that i asked him what is your advice to me as someone with my own careerfo ambitions t also for kids, and a wife and i want to be close to them. He refused to ever give me advice. If i can give you advice, i dont know so i would reframe the question and then he would answer it. But i didnt really put in the book i would just use it. So for him for example on that question he told me he learned early on in his career he had to draw red lines around his time with his family or he would drift towards endless work. And i interviewed all the sons and they all said he traveled a lot, he worked a lot but always made sure he was home on sunday. He would set aside time to be for an important event and it cultivated individual relationships with each of us. Maybe that sounds trite and obvious but there is something about the idea of creating boundaries around his family relationships but if that was kind ofst interesting. That is one nugget ofto wisdom. Goahead. The time yount spent with mit including his children, do you see theres going to be another generation of a romney get into politics . Yes it does another generation of romneys get into politics. I think for a time that seem pretty likely. Josh romney was considering running for office. I think tag had flirted with it massachusetts. I think the problem right now the romney name does not carry much weight in republican circles. And i think any romney running for office will struggle. It is possible maybe the next generation will follow his grandkids. Right now i do not see a lot of political goodwill in the gop for the romneys. This thing you rates you would never encountered a politician so openly reckoning with this pursuit of power had cost. Let me ask you finally, what have you learned about that cost now . Ic is it just too high of a price to pay to expect people in the current environment of social media, that media environment, all the basic incentives baked into the political system now the cost of integrity, is it almost too much to have that and also be successful . This is why i wanted to write the book especially once i realized i dont think its too much to ask our leaders to do what they think is right. I really dont. I think we have all internalize the cynical attitude toward politics that all of them are snakes are all going to act in their own self interest. Based on which policies we prefer i expect them to act terribly that is selfdefeating way and is hard to come up with sstructural policies that will incentivize in our elected officials right wrote this book thats almost a cry for help. Weo demand more of our elected leaders. Suck too much to ask his mothers political cost we should expect that from our leaders and punish them at the ballot box when they dont. I think the last eight or nine years in politics i have made us all deeply cynical and skeptical that can ever happen. Ive talked to someone recently has said mitt romney seems to have a lot of moral vanity. And i think thats a good thing. I do not think we are in a moment where elected officials have too much moral vanity. We need our Election Officials to have more and care about their own morality as regards to good people. I hope if there is one thing you can take away for the mitt romney story even when its not politically expedient. Ultimately the end of your life the end of your career when you are getting ready to retire that you will be happy you file your conscience. Thank you. [applause] [appuse] in the past 25 yrs of book tv has been on t air over 1300 weekends cover nearly 90 or book festivals and featured 22000 authors. Including this event. For me it really is a gut punch we are going through right now is a very instructive for this nation. I think it is necessary. He think its necessary for us to rustle some of the more foundational issues of who we are, where were going and how were going to get there. I think the answers were going to go together or not at all. That is interesting and frankly helpful for us to go to this tribal to see how hard it is to make up for past discrimination is not working well for us right now all of the tribes we are putting together for a caste system of that centralized withl or not too. All of that will burn off but it will produce as an American Family has more respect and appreciation for the necessity of pursuing the American Dream as one family. We will break the barriers that divide us into smaller categories so people in the same socioeconomic groups see the problems the same and see the solution to the same of those working on their behalf go outside of the rules of the road win or lose in their efforts its a good thing not a bad thing. Not thinking so much about centralized control but the power of the individual been the greatest minority in the country. I think we are heading there. If you know all 92000 plus hours of book tv programming is avlable online. Just visit booktv. Org to wash watchful programs on your favorite authors. Admits her favorite nonfiction off and invite all of our programming online at booktv. Org. Just use the search bar at the top of the page. Weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. Every saturday American History tv it documents americas story. On sunday booktv brings you the latest books and nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan2 comes with these Television Companies and more including charter communication. Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers and we are just getting started. Building 100,000 miles of new infras