The Conflicted Legacy of Mitt Romney
About this episode
Guest host Carlos Lozada interviews Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins about his biography 'Romney: A Reckoning,' built on more than fifty interviews plus Mitt Romney's private journals, emails, and texts. They trace Romney's ambition, temper, and Mormon faith, his father George's influence, and a career of shifting rationalizations and ideological flexibility — from accepting Donald Trump's 2012 endorsement to entertaining the idea of serving as his secretary of state. The conversation follows Romney's growing isolation as the Republican Party transformed around him into something he barely recognized. It centers on his vote to convict Trump in the impeachment trial as a late-career moral reckoning, and possibly his defining legacy.