Senator Mitt Romney on Formative Moments, Presidential Leadership, and the Question of Legacy

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

You have to begin by asking yourself, what are your most fundamental values and is obedience the truth and right and wrong as you understand it, one of those fundamental values? And if it is, how do you make sure that rationalization and self-interest doesn't overwhelm those core values?

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. My guest today is Senator Mitt Romney, and I'm going to be honest, he's been at the very, very top of my list of potential guests since we first envisioned this podcast. We know him best from his political career, but he first gained success in business. He co-founded Bain Capital, one of the most prominent private investment firms in the country. In 2003, he ran for governor of Massachusetts and won. He then became the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 and most recently represented Utah and the Senate before retiring from politics last year. Throughout, he was known for something increasingly rare — a genuine respect for his colleagues across the aisle and an openness to opposing points of view. He became the first senator in American history to vote to remove a president from his own party, something he did twice.

Whether you agree with that vote or frankly any of the other votes that he took, you can be sure that he follows his own moral compass. He is never being politically expedient or opportunistic, which is frankly exactly what we should hope for from our politicians. In this conversation, we talk about moral clarity, why presidential leadership is so influential, and what, if anything, he changed about his political decisions. When Senator Mitt Romney talks about all of this, it almost always comes back to family. So we begin at the beginning with his father who rose from poverty to become a businessman and a governor, and who never once confused monetary achievement with worth.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

This was in 1964. He was running for governor in Michigan. Linda Mains Johnson was at the top of the ticket. By dad's pollster, Walter DeVries came in and he said, "Governor, Johnson is winning by over 600,000 votes in Michigan. So you ought to be prepared for a concession speech because my analysis is you're going to lose." And I, of course, as a little kid, I was devastated. "Oh, my friend's at school are going to think I'm a loser." And I looked over at my dad and he was calm as could be. He said, "Look, I'm running to try and make a difference for people and if they want to take a different direction, that's fine." And I was like, "Wow."

TED ROOSEVELT V:

George Romney, amazing man, amazing career. You often cite him as your hero. Was it his character, his decision making?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

To see a person who lived by his own beliefs and his own character, and to recognize that that's what allowed him not to be filled with anxiety and anger and frustration, but instead to be calm as a summer's morning. He was elected, surprisingly that night, and it was elected again as Governor of Michigan. He ran for president and he lost and it didn't devastate him. So I saw that in my own home. It was an extraordinary advantage I had.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

This feels foundational. And so I want to get into the specifics. What is it about your dad? What was his background?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

He was born in Mexico of American parents living there. Came to the US at age five or six, lived in El Paso in government housing. He never was able to get a college degree because he couldn't get the time or money to get that done, but ultimately became the head of a car company and then governor of a state. And you have to look at that pathway and say, "That's pretty extraordinary. "

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Yeah.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

When he became involved in public life, he had a very clear sense of what was right and wrong, what needed to be done for the country and for the people. And he didn't vary from that depending upon trying to win elections. His personal character was something which I saw firsthand at the dinner table. We even had Dwight Eisenhower come to our home for dinner on one occasion after he was no longer president. And he asked us questions and I watched my dad interact with them. So watching my dad and frankly, my mother as well have a very firm set of what their personal values were and then hold fast to them regardless of the circumstances was something which I saw throughout my life.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

I'm curious about his interest in service because when you grow up poor and then are highly successful in business, you chase that and you keep chasing that. What was it about your father that led him or prioritize service?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

It's hard for me to point precisely where that came from. Part may have come from my mom. A phrase that she used all the time, I'm sure you've heard it, which is, "If not me, who? If not now, when? If not here, where?" There was a view in our family that I heard from my mom and dad that if there was a problem that needed to be addressed, that you had a responsibility to step in and make a difference. But also in his own life, he began — his first job was working as a secretary for the senator from Massachusetts of all things. So he worked in the Senate office building and watched what was going on in Washington. And I presume, in that experience, he got a taste of how politics worked, how government worked. He saw his state, which was the state of Michigan, become unproductive in part because of the massive power of the United Auto Workers. And he thought that the state needed to have a different voice, take a different course. And I guess it's the old, if it's not me, who? And he worked to get a new constitution in the state of Michigan in order to make some of the fundamental changes that would, in his view, make it more productive.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Your family has this quintessential, in some ways, American story. You mentioned earlier that your father was growing up in Mexico. They were then displaced by the Mexican Revolution and arrived here with very little, and yet he went on to become remarkably successful. How much did that family story inform your view of America or what this country represents?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

There's no question, but that was a major part of what I came to think of when I considered our country and a recognition of how extraordinarily fortunate I was to be born here, not to have to battle through the trauma that my dad had to live through, but instead was able to stand on his and my mom's shoulders and by virtue of their experiences, have opportunities they didn't have. My family law was the fact that I grew up in a religion that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or the Mormon Church, which was a small minority, still is a small minority in our country. And so I grew up recognizing that I'm not exactly like everybody else, that there are differences between me and others, and it's okay to be different. So I love the country in part because it allowed me to be different, to follow a different path than perhaps my friends at school might follow, and still be recognized as a loving and faithful American. So there's so many dimensions of what America is and has been that informs my care for the country and my desire to see us do better.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

I want to get into this a little bit, this idea of moral leadership, because there are few people in my mind that embody it more in the modern era than you. And I want to ask a somewhat pointed question, which is the founders gave the United States a remarkably durable framework, but it's really predicated on people in power willing to act with courage, even at personal cost. One, do you think the system is being tested today, but insofar that it is, is it because of the current design, like the influence of money, the rise of the two party system, the role of media, or is it something more fundamental and basic that there's a deficit and moral courage in our leaders today?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

I believe we are what we are as a extraordinary nation, in part because of the presidents of the United States. I love reading biographies. So that's been a big part of my life, is reading about the presidents of the United States. They are, with few exceptions, individuals of great character — not just great capacity, but character. And that has shaped what we as a nation admire. It has shaped our values as a nation. The honesty of Washington, if you will, even though that's a caricature in some respects, but nonetheless, a caricature that has influenced what we value and what we think is important. Lincoln and his willingness following the Civil War to say "with malice toward none and charity for all" — what an extraordinary approach rather than retribution being his call, it was no charity for all. These things I think have influenced what we are as a nation of people. And I think we're having a bit of a deficit in that quality, and that's an understatement today. And I think that has an impact on the entire country, how we're seen around the world, for instance. I don't know that we've seen America so negatively by so many people around the world if the polls are right. It's in part, I think, from a departure from the culture and the character which has shaped America over the centuries.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

So I understand the top-down comment that you're making. I'm wondering if you feel that there's any bottoms up reflection. In other words, is it something that might be more pervasive in this country that there is a decline in moral character and that we have the leader that we deserve to some degree?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Well, there's no question that we elect the leadership based upon what we as individuals deem in our interest and in the national interest. But I think at the heart is the question, what are the values? What are the things that are most formative in the character of the people of America? There's always been a great conflict, if you will, between, if you will, the values of the world, which is, "Hey, I want to get more money. I want to get more power. I want to get more fame." Those are things which have always been attractive to people in the history of humanity, and religion in some respects has become more political and politics is in some respects becoming the religion for many people. And those things without question, I think are having an impact on the people we decide to vote for.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

So I want to talk about, you have this unbelievably successful career. I mean, your resume, I'd put up against almost anyone's. It's unbelievable with Bain Capital, obviously your political career, but to some degree, you're going to be, or at least you might be most remembered for a single vote you took, your decision to convict President Trump. And I'm curious whether you see that as a distortion of your career or in fact a distillation of it.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Well, I recognize that a number of people will point to that decision in my life as being what they remember most, but I recognize it'll be a footnoted history of that because we all disappear into the dust of history, but it was in some respects a visible manifestation of one important reality, which I understand. And that is that the human mind has the capacity to rationalize self-interest. It is something we are all subject to. So if we're faced with a circumstance where we very badly want something, the mind is amazing at convincing us that getting that something or doing what it takes to get that something is okay and maybe even is good. And that's in me like it is in everybody else. We want to rationalize what we want. And as I was in that trial, the impeachment trial, as we went into it, I recognized I had a huge desire not to convict Donald Trump. And that could shape whether or not I made a decision which was consistent with the oath I took, which was to apply impartial justice. And I took that oath before God and before my colleagues there in the Senate and said to myself, "I've got a guard against rationalization to do what's in my self-interest." So I wrote down what I was hearing. I would study it every night. I looked at a timeline of events that occurred, all these things designed on my part to keep from being influenced by self-interest. And when it was finished, it was pretty clear to me what the right answer was, and I was therefore able to take it because I was not overwhelmed with self-interest. For me, that was an important part of the process. And I think you have to begin by asking yourself, what are your most fundamental values and is obedience the truth and right and wrong, as you understand it, one of those fundamental values? And if it is, how do you make sure that rationalization and self-interest doesn't overwhelm those core values?

TED ROOSEVELT V:

And I would hope that everybody thinks truth and honesty are core values that they have. And yet you hear rationalizations all the time from politicians, which is the most common one is, "I need to vote with this administration or make this vote in order to protect my seat. And if I lose my seat, somebody worse is going to come in and take this seat." What do you see as guardrails to those types of rationalizations that lead to complicity to really diverging from our core values?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Yeah. I have heard that argument time and time again.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

I know you have.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Actually, when I came into the Senate, a colleague said, "Mitt, now and then you're going to have to rise above principle." And it's like, you have to rise above principle? What does that mean? The context is sometimes you've got to do things that are necessary to keep our political party in power. There's a sense right now that the opposition people, the opposition party, that they're evil, that they're bad. And that I think has been stimulated in part by populists on the right and left, demonizing fellow Americans. It's also part of our media today, meaning social media, where we're drawn through algorithms to look at things that make us angry and we look at the dumbest things that the opposition people might do and characterize that as who they all are. We got to do whatever it takes to keep those evil people from getting power. And politicians from the top right and down have recognized, boy, there's real power in demonizing your opposition. It's great to say your opposition is wrong, that they're taking the wrong direction, but it's something very different to characterize them as being evil and un-American and traitors. And that's a very dangerous trait. And it leads people to take action which is not consistent with their fundamental values.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

It leads me to this idea of the importance of compromise in any self-government. And you just can't do it if you're going to have a multi-party system not to have compromise. So if we're demonizing the other side and any compromise is seen as a sin of some sort, where does that leave our elected officials? What are they practicing at this point if compromise is not a component of the governing process?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

My perspective is that our American political system was designed to protect the interests of the minority as well as the majority, that the majority would not just run roughshod over the minority, but that both points of view had merit. And therefore what the founders put in place procedures and institutions which slowed things down, which made it hard for one person, a president, to do whatever he or she wanted to do, that they would have to instead work through institutions, including the House and the Senate, work through the courts, that there were all these processes and breaks on one person being able to just push through whatever he or she wanted. That's the nature of how our process was designed. I served in the Senate. I got to know people on both sides of the aisle. I like almost all of the senators, and they're all good people trying to do what they believe is right.

I listened to a wonderful former member of the cabinet who was asked, "What's the most important quality of the President of the United States?" And without hesitation, he said, "The most important quality for the President of the United States is the recognition that he is not necessarily the smartest person in the room."

You have to be willing to listen to others. Our system said that to get a law passed, you have to have people on both sides of the aisle come to some common agreement. That's how it works. And people say, "Well, that's not literally written in the Constitution." No, it's not written in the Constitution, but it has grown up over the years as part of our constitutional system, the rules of the Senate, the rules of the House, the way we work, the power that's now given at the Supreme Court, all these things developed over centuries to make us a more perfect union and shredding those things so that one side could get whatever it wants would come with enormous peril.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Is there something fundamental that needs to change in this country that will allow for more moral leadership, more courage, more backbone, more leaders that are really acting in the best interests of their constituents versus the best interests of their party?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

If you have a president who is overwhelmingly powerful and who is willing to exert his power to punish or reward how you vote, then if you want to keep your job, you better do what that president wants. You ask what it's going to take to change that dynamic. I think one, it takes a leader in the president who doesn't necessarily think he's right about everything and instead is willing to listen to both sides to compromise. I mean, look at the partial shutdown of the government we have right now with the TSA not being funded. Gosh, this is a place where both sides ought to be able to sit down and say, "Okay, look, we recognize that in the world of politics, we both have to get something here. We can't have one side win because they're going to lose their jobs. That's just not how it works. So we've got to sit down and work out some middle ground." That's part of the structure of the American political process and something which I think requires a return to presidential leadership that says, "Look, I value people on the other side. I'm willing to work with them."

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Karl Rove was also on the podcast and he had a similar response. What didn't sit well with me in the response was that it's not necessarily a durable solution because the president changes every four to eight years. And I would hope that there's something that can be a bottoms-up response to the process where your constituents can look at your moral leadership and say, "I don't always agree with the way that he voted, but I believe that he voted with his conscience, and that is why I continue to support him." Is that pollyannaish to hope for that from a citizenry that's as big and diverse as ours?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

No, I think it's essential, as you pointed out, for the continuation of and consistency of policies that are in America's interest and in the world's interest. For that to happen, I think you need to have someone like a Lincoln or a Teddy Roosevelt or, I mean, even an FDR or a John Kennedy or a Lyndon Johnson. I mean, you go across down the line of presidents, they shared a conviction that character was critical. Now look at the voices that people are listening to. I mean, in the old days, we listened to Walter Cronkite and people like him who helped us with shared values. Today we're on social media. I have five sons. They don't subscribe to the newspapers and magazines. They don't watch the evening news. So where do they get their news? They get it online, provided to them through an algorithm of people who agree with them. If you only listen to people who agree with you, you're going to find yourself finding the other side to be stupid or bad or both. I don't even know how much of it is being promoted by bots and by adversaries of America, people trying to get as angry with one another. It's kind of a dangerous path. I do think at some point that people in America are going to say, "I can't trust what I'm seeing in social media. I don't know whether it's real or not." And there will be a return to looking for sources of credibility. I think it's essential for the functioning of a democracy.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

I've been having a conversation with some folks recently because it's very common in certain circles to talk about the lack of shared facts — I'll put facts in quotes here — as a source of the problem of the political animus that we're seeing. And I actually think it might be more a lack of shared values that we have, that those have deteriorated that we are no longer having conversations like in the case of corruption at the White House level. The conversations, well, Hunter Biden took a board seat that he shouldn't have had and it becomes this very quickly, this what about ism. The other side's doing it, therefore we can do it or we don't care about it when our side does it. And what gets lost is this shared value of we shouldn't have corruption in the White House full stop. When we see it on either side, it should be stopped and we should all be up in arms.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

I'm reminded of a circumstance that existed earlier in my career. I was working in a consulting firm and some of the leaders in the firm, including myself, were kind of at odds with one another. We were sort of all at each other's throats competing with one another. And my boss hired two psychologists to come into our company and bring the leaders aside. And there were like 10 of us and see if we couldn't work out some of the anger that existed between us and the competition. And this psychologist, one of them, he said, "Look, if you have core values, which you do, and if you live in a way that is inconsistent with your core values, you're going to experience ill health and a shortened lifespan and anxiety." And one of us said, "Well, what are my core values? I don't know what they are." And he said, "That's —"

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Problem one.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Yeah. And he said, "Okay, here's what your core values are. " And I'm telling you this, Ted, because I believe the core values of Americans are very much the same, but we're straying from them without knowing it. So he said, "Here's how you can determine what your core values are." He said, "Write down the names of the five people who've ever lived that you most admire." And so I wrote down, because I'm a Christian person, I wrote down Jesus Christ, I wrote down the founder of my religion, I wrote down Abraham Lincoln, my dad and my wife. All right. He said, "Next to each one of those people, write down three or four attributes which you most associate with that person." If you see one that's mentioned multiple times, circle it. And the things I circled were service, love, and honor. Now, went around the room and it turned out that all of us had basically the same values. We get to live in accordance with our core values, even though we're in business.

And that's true in politics too. I think the American people have those same values. And when Lincoln said we needed to draw on our better angels, that's what he's referring to.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

That experiment is something I wish we could recreate for the entire country because I think the problem isn't necessarily that Americans don't share values, but we've lost the awareness that we do. And that feels like it's driving so much of what's happening socially and politically right now.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

What many in politics have found is that it's more effective to draw on our lesser angels, if you will, and to create anger. The people who put algorithms together on social media have found that we're drawn to things that make us angry. We're finding ourselves drawn to things that are actually not our core values. It does tend to make us less healthy. It does tend to create more anxiety. And you think about, if you will, the evening news anchors in the past, they tried to draw us to things that were good. We're not seeing that as much today.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

I wonder as you think back on your political career, and I'm thinking about this in the question in kind of a broad stroke, but you might answer it in the specifics. Is there anything that you would've changed about your political career?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Well, I sure wish I'd have won more often.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

You won quite a bit, but I hear your point.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Yeah, no, but I laugh at that. The truth is, of course, I made mistakes. I was wrong on certain issues. I made — misspoke from time to time. I mean, but that's part of a human being, if you will. And so if I look back at decisions I made, the answer is no. I don't regret decisions I made. I made decisions very deliberately. I always like to get the opinions of people around me. I remember we had a decision in Massachusetts when I served as Governor about expanding the transit system into a certain area. And my Chief of Staff came in and said, "Look, your cabinet all agrees and I agree. We all agree that we should do this." And I said, "Does anyone disagree?" And she said, "No." And I said, "Well, I can't do it then. I can't decide unless there's somebody who can come in here and describe for me the reasons why it's a bad idea." I got to hear the pro and the con.

Yeah, I watched that in my dad's life. You began by asking me about what I learned from my dad. Part of it was I watched him interact. I watched him lead a company. I watched him become a governor, look how he made decisions. He made sure he heard opinions from both sides and then he was wise enough to make a decision himself. I had tried to do that. My staff that I was lucky enough to have in Washington disagreed with where I was headed time and again, and I would take their advice and I'm glad I did. So I really don't have things I'd go back and do differently. I guess I'm drawn also to the reality. I'm going to be gone. My politics are irrelevant, but what I do want to have behind me is a legacy that my kids and grandkids are proud of and will help them to have a successful life.

So when you think about legacy and what you're known for, sticking by your core values and your fundamental beliefs is perhaps the most important thing you can do. I don't want to be indicted by my conscience and have the legacy of my life be, well, he did whatever he thought was necessary to get ahead. "Getting ahead isn't worth a warm bucket of spit," quoting John McCain in a different context.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Having come out of the political arena and you look at the political landscape today, do you have an emotional response to the state of politics today?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Oh, there's no question but that I do. I look at a number of people that I really admire, even though I disagree with them. So for instance, I disagree with, I don't know how much of what Rand Paul says I agree with, but not very much, but I really admire the fact that he stands up for what he believes, even though it comes, I'm sure, at political cost.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

That's actually a great segue into my final question. And it's one that we ask everybody on the podcast. What does it mean to be a good citizen?

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Well, a good citizen cares first and foremost about their faith, their family and friends, and then a good citizen needs to be actively engaged in a productive effort of some kind. So whether that's their job or something they volunteer for, but they've got to be engaged in working and doing something. Now, also a good citizen needs to vote and to vote in an effective way, they need to be informed. And so they need to keep up with events to make sure that their vote is a good vote. And if you want to be a good citizen, you get involved politically by voting and perhaps even more if the window opens to allow you to do so.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Mitt, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. You really were the top person when we were thinking about the type of person we'd like to have on this podcast. So I'm so thrilled that you were able to join us.

SENATOR MITT ROMNEY:

Thanks, Ted. Thank you so much.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Thank you, Senator. What an honor to have you on this podcast. I really appreciate the deep reflections on your career and your honest insights into this political moment. Your commitment to principle is a reminder that living by our values is not optional. It's a essential, so thank you for sharing your time with me. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the future of storytelling and charts and leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.