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n a swampy afternoon this previous spring, I met Mitt Romney in his soon-to-be-vacated Senate workplace. It was unusual to see him in individual once more. For 2 years, we’d talked nearly each week as I labored on a biography that may cement his fame as a Republican apostate. Because the ebook’s publication final 12 months, we’d stored in sporadic contact—largely by way of texts, the senator’s most well-liked medium for venting about politics—however we hadn’t spoken in a lot depth.
Some issues hadn’t modified. Romney was, as ever, acutely attuned to his personal mortality. “I noticed an article this morning saying that they discover your possibilities of getting Alzheimer’s are considerably elevated primarily based upon two issues,” he advised me as quickly as we sat down. One issue was alcohol consumption; the opposite was stress at work. The latter had him nervous. Romney is a teetotaler however has been addicted his entire life to disturbing jobs. “I imply, I’ve felt excessive stress in my work since—” He thought of it. “Properly, since I went to grad college.” He’s stepping down when his time period ends in January. Retirement, he advised me, could be good for his well being.
As we chatted, although, I famous a change in his countenance. Previously, his frustration—with the Senate, with the Republican Get together, with politics generally—had at all times appeared tinged with resignation. Perhaps he was depressing, however he felt obligated to remain in Washington and do his half. Now, at 77, he couldn’t wait to depart. He appeared lighter in a approach, but additionally extra stressed. Mormon missionaries have a time period for the sensation of distraction and homesickness that typically settles in as they strategy the tip of their service: trunky. I requested if the time period utilized to him now, and he smirked: “Oh yeah.”
Romney had talked about to me repeatedly, in these temporary exchanges over the previous months, that life in Congress was getting worse. He wasn’t alone in feeling this manner. His deliberate departure was a part of an unusually massive wave of retirements from Congress in 2024—52 as of Could—and the phenomenon had prompted a lot dialogue about why lawmakers had been speeding for the exits. “It’s the worst 12 months of the 9 years and three months that I’ve been in Congress,” Ken Buck, an outgoing Republican congressman from Colorado, advised CNN. “And having talked to former members, it’s the worst 12 months in 40, 50 years to be in Congress.”
Once I requested Romney why his colleagues appeared so depressing, he shocked me by launching into an uninterrupted, seven-minute diatribe about all the things that was mistaken with Washington. He talked about rising polarization, and the radicalizing results of the first course of, and the institutional dysfunction of the Home, and the indignity of serving in Congress throughout a presidential-election 12 months.
As an example this final level, he provided an instance. Final 12 months, a bipartisan group of lawmakers had negotiated a invoice geared toward proscribing unlawful immigration. It had been written on the behest of Republicans, who stated they’d fund new Ukrainian army assist provided that Congress additionally tackled the “disaster” at America’s southern border. Then Trump got here out in opposition to the immigration invoice, having reportedly determined that the disaster on the border was good for his reelection prospects, and Republicans promptly fell in line. To Romney, it was clear that the precedence for many of his colleagues was “to do no matter their nominee needs”—to not resolve the issues they’d been elected to unravel: “If Donald Trump says, ‘Hey, kill that immigration deal,’ [they’re] gonna kill the immigration deal.”
Romney advised me he’d been invited to ship a graduation speech, and he deliberate for example the cynical nature of politics in the present day by speaking about his childhood fascination with skilled wrestling. As a child, he’d been enthralled by the theatrical rivalry between “Dick the Bruiser,” a muscle-bound former NFL participant, and “Haystacks Calhoun,” a 600-pound farm boy from Texas. The 2 males riled up crowds by thumping their chests and speaking trash about one another. “I used to be intrigued,” Romney advised me, “till my brother, six years older, stated it’s all faux. And it all of the sudden turned much less fascinating.” Congress, he’d come to find, was kind of the identical. “Most of what’s occurring in these buildings is simply faux”—much less coverage making than performative animosity and posturing.
I assumed it sounded just a little bleak for a graduation deal with, however Romney wasn’t soliciting suggestions. Earlier than I might say something, he was venting in regards to the lack of seriousness in legislative debates over the federal debt and local weather change, and the plague of partisan “messaging payments” which are written to attain factors as an alternative of make legislation. Lastly, when he’d drained himself out, he slumped again in his chair. “We’ve received some actual challenges,” Romney stated, “and we simply don’t cope with them.”
“In order that’s—anyway, that’s a protracted reply,” he stated with a sigh.
I joked that it appeared like he had quite a bit to get off his chest. He didn’t chortle.
It was not misplaced on me that the publication of my ebook, Romney: A Reckoning, was a extra fraught expertise for Romney than it was for me. As a biographer, I’d checked out his tales in regards to the dissolution of the GOP beneath Trump as a invaluable contribution to the historic report. However Romney had paid a worth for his candor.
To the extent that there had been any doubt earlier than, the ebook sealed his standing as a villain in MAGA world. Conservative publications ran takedowns with headlines corresponding to “Mitt Romney, We Hardly Knew Ye.” Sean Hannity, a onetime cheerleader for Romney’s presidential marketing campaign, denounced him as a “small, indignant, and really bitter man.” Trump himself weighed in with a characteristically rambling put up on Reality Social through which he appeared to confuse the biography for a memoir. “Mitt Romney, a complete loser that solely a mom might love,” the evaluate started, “simply wrote a ebook which is, very like him, horrible, boring, and completely predictable.”
Romney was largely amused by Trump’s response (“Hahaha!” he texted me on the time. “He’s such a whack job!”), however the ebook’s chilly reception amongst Republicans on Capitol Hill will need to have been upsetting. A few of his colleagues made identified their disapproval in non-public. Others, together with Senator J. D. Vance, lashed out within the press. “If he has an issue with me,” Vance advised a reporter, “I form of want he simply acted like a person and spoke to me immediately, not whining to a reporter about it.” Romney wasn’t precisely shocked by the assaults from individuals he’d criticized in such withering trend. (“I don’t know that I can disrespect somebody greater than J. D. Vance,” he had advised me.) Nonetheless, the hostility was disagreeable sufficient that, after The Atlantic revealed an excerpt from the ebook, he opted to skip the GOP caucus lunch.
The Trump-era GOP’s notion of Romney as a devious traitor put him in a precarious place. The 2024 presidential election had, by that time within the spring, performed out precisely as he’d predicted. Trump had simply defeated a big and feckless area of Republican challengers to clinch the get together’s nomination, regardless of going through 88 felony expenses. And Joe Biden seemed to be on a glide path to renomination, regardless of having a number of the worst approval scores of any trendy first-term president. Within the months that adopted, the race would turn out to be extra risky—a disastrous debate efficiency by Biden; a party-wide panic and push to interchange him on the ticket; the nomination of Kamala Harris; the assassination makes an attempt on Trump. However that spring, polls confirmed Trump clinging to a persistent lead, and Romney was satisfied {that a} second Trump time period was imminent.
Romney had made this prediction earlier than, telling anybody who would hear within the run-up to the 2020 election that he thought Trump was going to get a second time period. He’d even guess considered one of his sons his prized 1985 BMW that Biden would lose. However again then, he’d advised me, it was a form of psychological sport he performed with himself—predicting the result he most dreaded as a type of “inoculation.”
This time felt completely different. Trump had repeatedly pledged to make use of the Justice Division and the FBI to go after his political enemies if reelected. “I’m your retribution,” he loved telling his crowds. Romney knew that he was prone to seem on any enemies checklist stored by the previous president, and he’d privately mused to associates that it could be time for him and his spouse, Ann, to contemplate transferring overseas. (A spokesperson for the senator advised me he was not severe about this.)
However once I requested Romney, within the spring, what a Trump reelection would imply for him and his household, he was cautious at first. “I don’t know the reply to that,” he stated. If Trump tried to sic the Justice Division on him, Romney advised me, “the excellent news is I haven’t had an affair with anyone; I don’t have any categorized paperwork; I can’t think about one thing I’ve completed that may justify an investigation, not to mention an indictment.”
What about his sons? I requested. May they be focused?
“I imply, hopefully they’ve all crossed their t’s and dotted their i’s,” Romney replied, straining to sound informal. “But it surely’s exhausting for me to think about that President Trump would take the time to exit and see if [he] can discover one thing on members of my household.”
“You may must develop your creativeness,” I steered.
Romney grew irritated. “Yeah, however I’ve received 25 grandkids!” he stated, throwing up his fingers. “How am I going to guard 25 grandkids, two great-grandkids? I’ve received 5 sons, 5 daughters-in-law—it’s like, we’re an enormous group.” This was clearly an issue to which he’d given severe thought, and realized there was no answer. Within the weeks after January 6, he’d spent hundreds of {dollars} a day to guard his household from red-capped vigilantes. However how do you cover a household of 40 from a president hell-bent on revenge?
Recognizing that I’d hit a nerve, I stated it was doable, after all, that Trump’s “retribution” rhetoric was all bluster. However Romney didn’t appear comforted.
“I feel he has proven by his prior actions you could take him at his phrase,” he advised me, his voice all of the sudden subdued. “So I might take him at his phrase.”
Romney is the primary to confess that retirement has by no means been his sturdy go well with. The final time he tried it, after dropping the 2012 presidential election, the boredom almost drove him loopy. Writing in his journal on the time, he struggled to even use the time period retirement. “Terrifying phrase,” he wrote, “however worse actuality.” Amongst those that know him finest, the consensus is that he’ll want a post-Senate challenge—however what is going to or not it’s?
Romney advised me he’s obtained invites from a number of universities to show, and was contemplating a campus lecture tour. He additionally remained fixated on discovering methods to tug American politics again towards the middle. He needed to gather information on how reforming the first system to permit ranked-choice voting and higher participation from independents may yield much less excessive candidates. And he was desirous to see extra coordination among the many varied centrist nonprofits and third events—No Labels, Ahead, Unite America—which are dedicated to depolarization.
He conceded that there have been hurdles impeding such efforts. Romney himself had been recruited by No Labels to run as an unbiased. Like everybody else approached by the group, Romney had turned them down. “The fact that anybody who checked out it needed to confront was you could’t win, proper?” he advised me. “And in the event you can’t win, you’re a spoiler, and also you’re not fairly certain who you’re going to spoil.” Certain, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared content material on the time to play the 2024 spoiler, however Romney didn’t precisely contemplate the anti-vaccine former Democrat a job mannequin. The senator talked about a latest New York Occasions article revealing that docs had found a lifeless parasite in Kennedy’s mind in 2010. “I’m sorry, however there are specific individuals I can’t vote for for president,” Romney advised me. “Individuals who’ve had a worm eat a part of their mind ought to in all probability not be given the nuclear code.” (Kennedy dropped out over the summer season and, maybe confirming the knowledge of Romney’s litmus take a look at, endorsed Trump.)
There was, after all, one different chance for Romney’s last act: a place within the subsequent Biden administration. The 2 males have turn out to be unlikely associates lately. And in keeping with one individual near the Biden marketing campaign, senior Democrats within the president’s orbit had mentioned appointing Romney to a high-profile diplomatic put up in a second time period, earlier than Biden dropped out of the race. The conversations had been hypothetical—ambassadorships aren’t sometimes doled out six months earlier than an election—however such a suggestion would presumably be conditioned on an endorsement. And Romney wasn’t certain he might oblige.
“Biden’s insurance policies drive me loopy,” he advised me. “And one of many causes I feel there are individuals like me who shrink on the concept of endorsing Biden is, does that imply I endorse his border insurance policies? Or do I endorse giving trillions of {dollars} to school college students to pay their debt?” He knew Trump’s authoritarianism and dedication to undermining America’s electoral system made him extra harmful than Biden. “The truth that if you wish to be within the good graces of MAGA world you’ve received to say the election was stolen is extraordinary to me—however that’s the take a look at,” Romney stated. Nonetheless, throwing his assist behind a president whose insurance policies he’d spent a long time combating in opposition to was a tough factor to do. He advised me he wasn’t ruling it out.
In September, after Harris’s ascent to the highest of the Democratic ticket, I requested Romney if he needed to speak once more, hoping to grasp how the information may change his expectations for the election. He declined, however there are indicators that his impression of the vice chairman, like that of many Individuals, could be evolving. On the few events when he talked about her in our interviews over time, it was often to explain the Democrats’ political bind. Romney had internalized the Washington consensus that, though Biden was clearly weak, Harris had no likelihood of beating Trump. However after her debate efficiency earlier this month, Romney appeared impressed. “Most individuals didn’t know her terribly nicely apart from a couple of clips that weren’t flattering that you simply may see on the web,” he advised reporters. “And folks noticed, really, she’s an clever, succesful individual.”
As our dialog within the spring wound down, I made a decision to ask Romney a query I’d someway uncared for to deliver up in our dozens of interviews earlier than: What—if something—gave him hope in regards to the future?
This query had come up repeatedly on my ebook tour. Invariably, after listening to me recount the sordid tales of cynicism, hypocrisy, and unbridled malice that Romney had witnessed inside Congress, somebody within the viewers would politely increase their hand and ask for a contented ending—and I’d draw a clean.
Once I put it to Romney in his workplace, he advised me a few ebook he’d not too long ago learn, The Age of Acrimony. The ebook chronicled America from 1865 to 1915, a interval through which the nation was exploding with political vitality, a lot of it damaging. Torch-carrying mobs held huge rallies that became riots. Political assassinations had been widespread. Many individuals had been predicting a second civil warfare. Then, in comparatively brief order, “the air went out of the balloon,” Romney advised me. Presidential-election turnout charges plunged from 80 % in 1896 (when many individuals had been bribed for his or her vote) to lower than 50 % twenty years later. Romney invited the creator, a historian on the Smithsonian, to his workplace. He needed to know what had modified. How had a nation hooked on partisan tribalism and political violence managed to interrupt the cycle? The creator advised him that members of the technology that had come of age throughout this “age of acrimony” merely determined they didn’t need to reside that approach anymore.
Romney thought in regards to the younger Individuals who’d entered political consciousness through the Trump period. They’d watched their dad and mom and grandparents battle endlessly with each other about politics on Fb and fall down conspiracy-theory rabbit holes. They’d seen the caliber of politicians who rose to the highest on this local weather, and the havoc they’d wrought on democratic establishments. And he hoped that maybe they had been able to attempt one thing completely different.
When Romney introduced his retirement final 12 months, he framed the choice as a transfer to make room for “a brand new technology of leaders.” On the time, I didn’t pay a lot consideration to this notion. It appeared like a savvy little bit of rhetoric aimed as a lot at dinging the 2 geriatric presidential contenders on the time because it was at explaining his personal pondering.
However listening to him speak that day in his workplace, I used to be struck by simply how a lot belief he was inserting in youthful Individuals to repair Washington, if solely as a result of he’d misplaced confidence within the supposed adults operating the city now.
“I’ve hope within the rising technology,” Romney advised me—hope “that they’re watching what’s occurring, and so they’re going to say, Sufficient.”
This essay was tailored from the brand new afterword for the paperback version of Romney: A Reckoning.
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