Utah Sen. Mitt Romney says he doesn’t have a place in today’s Republican Party, in an interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell, to be broadcast on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” Sunday, October 22 and streamed on Paramount+.
In a wide-ranging interview with the former Republican presidential nominee and his wife, Ann, Romney explores his political career, why he decided to leave the Senate, his future, and a new biography, “Romney: A Reckoning,” written by McKay Coppins and published by Scribner (an imprint of CBS’ sister company Simon & Schuster).
CBS News
Here are some excerpts:
NORAH O’DONNELL: “Privately, what do you hear from fellow Republicans in the Senate?”
MITT ROMNEY: “I don’t think I’ve heard a single member of my caucus, the Republicans in the Senate, say, ‘You know, Donald Trump is great. Aren’t we lucky to have him as our leader?’ … Donald Trump represents a failure of character, which is changing, I think, in many respects, the psyche of our nation and the heart of our nation. And that’s something which takes a long time – if ever – to repair.”
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NORAH O’DONNELL: “You were once the party’s nominee, and now you’re a pariah in the Republican Party.”
MITT ROMNEY: “Yeah, that’s, that’s saying it in a gentle way, yeah. I mean, yeah, no question. I don’t really have a home in my party … I come from a tradition of, you know, Ronald Reagan, and George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush, and John McCain. … Those are the people that have shaped our party: anti-Putin, anti-Russia, anti-authoritarians, anti-Kim Jong Un, very strong on foreign policy, involved in the world because it’s in America’s interest, character counts, that the character of our leaders makes a difference and it shapes the character of our country. That’s the party I’ve come from. And I don’t recognize that in the great majority of our party today. And that, for me, is very troubling.”
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Also in the interview, Ann Romney addresses whether Oprah proposed a run with Romney on an independent ticket in 2019.
The book “Romney: A Reckoning” includes personal details from the senator’s diaries. View a clip below of Mitt and Ann Romney discussing the use of his private journals:
More of O’Donnell’s interview with Romney will be presented on “Person to Person with Norah O’Donnell,” Thursday, October 26 (9:30 p.m. ET) on the CBS News Streaming Network.
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READ AN EXCERPT: “Romney: A Reckoning” by McKay Coppins
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