{"id":8002,"date":"2024-09-24T12:11:07","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T12:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amnewsworld.com\/?p=8002"},"modified":"2024-09-24T12:11:07","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T12:11:07","slug":"what-will-mitt-romney-do-if-trump-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amnewsworld.com\/fi\/what-will-mitt-romney-do-if-trump-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"What will Mitt Romney do if Trump wins?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\"><span class=\"smallcaps\">Ona swampy afternoon<\/span>\u00a0this past spring, I met Mitt Romney in his soon-to-be-vacated Senate office. It was strange to see him in person again. For two years, we\u2019d talked almost every week as I worked on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2023\/11\/mitt-romney-retiring-senate-trump-mcconnell\/675306\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"208986\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">a biography<\/a> that would cement his reputation as a Republican apostate. Since the book\u2019s publication last year, we\u2019d kept in sporadic touch mostly through texts, the senator\u2019s preferred medium for venting about politics\u2014but we hadn\u2019t spoken in much depth.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Some things hadn\u2019t changed. Romney was, as ever, acutely attuned to his own mortality. \u201cI saw an article this morning saying that they find your chances of getting Alzheimer\u2019s are significantly increased based upon two things,\u201d he told me as soon as we sat down. One factor was alcohol consumption; the other was stress at work. The latter had him worried. Romney is a teetotaler but has been addicted his whole life to stressful jobs. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve felt high stress in my work since\u2014\u201d He thought about it. \u201cWell, since I went to grad school.\u201d He\u2019s stepping down when his term ends in January. Retirement, he told me, would be good for his health.<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/4624\/theatlantic.web\/ideas\/article_standard\/injector_1__container__\">\n<section class=\"ha-o-house-ad ha-c-newsletter-promo \">\n<div class=\"ha-c-newsletter-promo__content\">\n<div class=\"ha-c-newsletter-promo__copy \"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ha-c-newsletter-promo__confirmation\">\n<div class=\"ha-c-newsletter-promo__body ha-js-confirmation-message\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">As we chatted, though, I noted a change in his countenance. In the past, his frustration\u2014with the Senate, with the Republican Party, with politics in general\u2014had always seemed tinged with resignation. Maybe he was miserable, but he felt obligated to stay in Washington and do his part. Now, at 77, he couldn\u2019t wait to leave. He seemed lighter in a way, but also more restless. Mormon missionaries have a term for the feeling of distraction and homesickness that sometimes settles in as they approach the end of their service:\u00a0<em>trunky<\/em>. I asked if the term applied to him now, and he smirked: \u201cOh yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"ArticleInlineImageFigure_root__syFcM ArticleInlineImageFigure_alignLeft__hDy8R\" data-flatplan-inline_image=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Romney had mentioned to me repeatedly, in those brief exchanges over the preceding months, that life in Congress was getting worse. He wasn\u2019t alone in feeling this way. His planned departure was part of an unusually large wave of retirements from Congress in 2024\u201452 as of May\u2014and the phenomenon had prompted\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/30\/us\/politics\/house-retirees.html\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"209520\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">much discussion<\/a> about why lawmakers were rushing for the exits. \u201cIt is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I\u2019ve been in Congress,\u201d Ken Buck, an outgoing Republican congressman from Colorado, told reporters. \u201cAnd having talked to former members, it\u2019s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">When I asked Romney why his colleagues seemed so miserable, he surprised me by launching into an uninterrupted, seven-minute diatribe about everything that was wrong with Washington. He talked about growing polarization, and the radicalizing effects of the primary process, and the institutional dysfunction of the House, and the indignity of serving in Congress during a presidential-election year.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">To illustrate this last point, he offered an example. Last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers had negotiated a bill aimed at restricting illegal immigration. It had been written at the behest of Republicans, who said they would fund new Ukrainian military aid only if Congress also tackled the \u201ccrisis\u201d at America\u2019s southern border. Then Trump came out against the immigration bill, having reportedly decided that the crisis at the border was good for his reelection prospects, and Republicans promptly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2024\/02\/republicans-congress-immigration-deal\/677357\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"230728\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">fell in line<\/a>. To Romney, it was clear that the priority for most of his colleagues was \u201cto do whatever their nominee wants\u201d\u2014not to solve the problems they\u2019d been elected to solve: \u201cIf Donald Trump says, \u2018Hey, kill that immigration deal,\u2019 [they\u2019re] gonna kill the immigration deal.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/4624\/theatlantic.web\/ideas\/article_standard\/injector_2__container__\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Romney told me he\u2019d been invited to deliver a commencement speech, and he planned to illustrate the cynical nature of politics today by talking about his childhood fascination with professional wrestling. As a kid, he\u2019d been enthralled by the theatrical rivalry between \u201cDick the Bruiser,\u201d a muscle-bound former NFL player, and \u201cHaystacks Calhoun,\u201d a 600-pound farm boy from Texas. The two men riled up crowds by thumping their chests and talking trash about each other. \u201cI was intrigued,\u201d Romney told me, \u201cuntil my brother, six years older, said it\u2019s all fake. And it suddenly became less interesting.\u201d Congress, he\u2019d come to discover, was more or less the same. \u201cMost of what\u2019s going on in these buildings is just fake\u201d less policy making than performative animosity and posturing.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">I thought it sounded a little bleak for a commencement address, but Romney wasn\u2019t soliciting feedback. Before I could say anything, he was venting about the lack of seriousness in legislative debates over the federal debt and climate change, and the plague of partisan \u201cmessaging bills\u201d that are written to score points instead of make law. Finally, when he\u2019d tired himself out, he slumped back in his chair. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some real challenges,\u201d Romney said, \u201cand we just don\u2019t deal with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cSo that\u2019sanyway, that\u2019s a long answer,\u201d he said with a sigh.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">I joked that it seemed like he had a lot to get off his chest. He didn\u2019t laugh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW ArticleParagraph_dropcap__uIVzg\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\" data-flatplan-dropcap=\"true\">I<span class=\"smallcaps\">t was not lost<\/span>\u00a0on me that the publication of my book,\u00a0<em>Romney: A Reckoning,<\/em>\u00a0was a more fraught experience for Romney than it was for me. As a biographer, I\u2019d looked at his stories about the dissolution of the GOP under Trump as a valuable contribution to the historical record. But Romney had paid a price for his candor.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ArticleRelatedContentModule_root__nT4KN\" data-flatplan-ignore=\"true\">\n<div class=\"ArticleRelatedContentModule_notchedModule__ZRNgF\">\n<section class=\"ArticleRelatedContentList_root__IjCAr\" data-event-module=\"recirc\">\n<h2 class=\"ArticleRelatedContentList_heading__EWCWq\"><\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">To the extent that there had been any doubt before, the book sealed his status as a villain in MAGA world. Conservative publications ran takedowns with headlines such as \u201cMitt Romney, We Hardly Knew Ye.\u201d Sean Hannity, a onetime cheerleader for Romney\u2019s presidential campaign,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/10\/19\/media\/mitt-romney-right-wing-media-republican-party-reliable-sources\/index.html\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"232466\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">denounced him<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201csmall, angry, and very bitter man.\u201d Trump himself weighed in with a characteristically rambling post on Truth Social in which he seemed to confuse the biography for a memoir. \u201cMitt Romney, a total loser that only a mother could love,\u201d the review began, \u201cjust wrote a book which is, much like him, horrible, boring, and totally predictable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Romney was mostly amused by Trump\u2019s reaction (\u201cHahaha!\u201d he texted me at the time. \u201cHe\u2019s such a whack job!\u201d), but the book\u2019s chilly reception among Republicans on Capitol Hill must have been upsetting. Some of his colleagues made known their disapproval in private. Others, including Senator J. D. Vance, lashed out in the press. \u201cIf he has a problem with me,\u201d Vance\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/2442300\/jd-vance-hits-back-at-romney-over-political-opportunism-digs\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"232833\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">told a reporter<\/a>, \u201cI kind of wish he just acted like a man and spoke to me directly, not whining to a reporter about it.\u201d Romney wasn\u2019t exactly surprised by the attacks from people he\u2019d criticized in such withering fashion. (\u201cI don\u2019t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,\u201d he had told me.) Still, the hostility was unpleasant enough that, after\u00a0<em>The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0published an excerpt from the book, he opted to skip the GOP caucus lunch.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">The Trump-era GOP\u2019s perception of Romney as a devious traitor put him in a precarious position. The 2024 presidential election had, by that point in the spring, played out exactly as he\u2019d predicted. Trump had easily defeated a large and feckless field of Republican challengers to clinch the party\u2019s nomination, despite facing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizensforethics.org\/reports-investigations\/crew-reports\/trumps-91-criminal-charges-and-where-they-stand\/\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"233218\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">88 criminal charges<\/a>. And Joe Biden looked to be on a glide path to renomination, despite having some of the worst approval ratings of any modern first-term president. In the months that followed, the race would become more volatile\u2014a disastrous debate performance by Biden; a party-wide panic and push to replace him on the ticket; the nomination of Kamala Harris; the assassination attempts on Trump. But that spring, polls showed Trump clinging to a persistent lead, and Romney was convinced that a second Trump term was imminent.<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/4624\/theatlantic.web\/ideas\/article_standard\/injector_3__container__\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Romney had made this prediction before, telling anyone who would listen in the run-up to the 2020 election that he thought Trump was going to get a second term. He\u2019d even bet one of his sons his prized 1985 BMW that Biden would lose. But back then, he\u2019d told me, it was a kind of psychological game he played with himself\u2014predicting the outcome he most dreaded as a form of \u201cinoculation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">This time felt different. Trump had repeatedly pledged to use the Justice Department and the FBI to go after his political enemies if reelected. \u201cI am your retribution,\u201d he enjoyed telling his crowds. Romney knew that he was likely to appear on any enemies list kept by the former president, and he\u2019d privately mused to friends that it might be time for him and his wife, Ann, to consider moving abroad. (A spokesperson for the senator told me he was not serious about this.)<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">But when I asked Romney, in the spring, what a Trump reelection would mean for him and his family, he was careful at first. \u201cI don\u2019t know the answer to that,\u201d he said. If Trump tried to sic the Justice Department on him, Romney told me, \u201cthe good news is I haven\u2019t had an affair with anybody; I don\u2019t have any classified documents; I can\u2019t imagine something I\u2019ve done that would justify an investigation, let alone an indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">What about his sons? I asked. Might they be targeted?<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cI mean, hopefully they\u2019ve all crossed their\u00a0<em>t<\/em>\u2019s and dotted their\u00a0<em>i<\/em>\u2019s,\u201d Romney replied, straining to sound casual. \u201cBut it\u2019s hard for me to imagine that President Trump would take the time to go out and see if [he] can find something on members of my family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cYou might need to expand your imagination,\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Romney grew irritated. \u201cYeah, but I\u2019ve got 25 grandkids!\u201d he said, throwing up his hands. \u201cHow am I going to protect 25 grandkids, two great-grandkids? I\u2019ve got five sons, five daughters-in-law\u2014it\u2019s like, we\u2019re a big group.\u201d This was clearly a problem to which he\u2019d given serious thought, and realized there was no solution. In the weeks after January 6, he\u2019d spent thousands of dollars a day to protect his family from red-capped vigilantes. But how do you hide a family of 40 from a president hell-bent on revenge?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Recognizing that I\u2019d hit a nerve, I said it was possible, of course, that Trump\u2019s \u201cretribution\u201d rhetoric was all bluster. But Romney didn\u2019t seem comforted.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cI think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,\u201d he told me, his voice suddenly subdued. \u201cSo I would take him at his word.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW ArticleParagraph_dropcap__uIVzg\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\" data-flatplan-dropcap=\"true\">R<span class=\"smallcaps\">omney is the first to admit<\/span>\u00a0that retirement has never been his strong suit. The last time he attempted it, after losing the 2012 presidential election, the boredom nearly drove him crazy. Writing in his journal at the time, he struggled to even use the term\u00a0<em>retirement<\/em>. \u201cTerrifying word,\u201d he wrote, \u201cbut worse reality.\u201d Among those who know him best, the consensus is that he\u2019ll need a post-Senate project\u2014but what will it be?<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\" data-flatplan-dropcap=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">Romney told me he\u2019s received invitations from multiple universities to teach, and was considering a campus lecture tour. He also remained fixated on finding ways to pull American politics back toward the center. He wanted to collect data on how reforming the primary system to allow ranked-choice voting and greater participation from independents might yield less extreme candidates. And he was eager to see more coordination among the various centrist nonprofits and third parties\u2014No Labels, Forward, Unite America\u2014that are devoted to depolarization.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">He conceded that there were hurdles impeding such efforts. Romney himself had been recruited by No Labels to run as an independent. Like everyone else approached by the group, Romney had turned them down. \u201cThe reality that anyone who looked at it had to confront was that you can\u2019t win, right?\u201d he told me. \u201cAnd if you can\u2019t win, you\u2019re a spoiler, and you\u2019re not quite sure who you\u2019re going to spoil.\u201d Sure, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seemed content at the time to play the 2024 spoiler, but Romney didn\u2019t exactly consider the anti-vaccine former Democrat a role model. The senator mentioned a recent\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0article revealing that doctors had discovered a dead parasite in Kennedy\u2019s brain in 2010. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but there are certain people I will not vote for for president,\u201d Romney told me. \u201cPeople who\u2019ve had a worm eat part of their brain should probably not be given the nuclear code.\u201d (Kennedy dropped out over the summer and, perhaps confirming the wisdom of Romney\u2019s litmus test, endorsed Trump.)<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">There was, of course, one other possibility for Romney\u2019s final act: a position in the next Biden administration. The two men have become unlikely friends in recent years. And according to one person close to the Biden campaign, senior Democrats in the president\u2019s orbit had discussed appointing Romney to a high-profile diplomatic post in a second term, before Biden dropped out of the race. The conversations were hypothetical\u2014ambassadorships aren\u2019t typically doled out six months before an election\u2014but such an offer would presumably be conditioned on an endorsement. And Romney wasn\u2019t sure he could oblige.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cBiden\u2019s policies drive me crazy,\u201d he told me. \u201cAnd one of the reasons I think there are people like me who shrink at the idea of endorsing Biden is, does that mean I endorse his border policies? Or do I endorse giving trillions of dollars to college students to pay their debt?\u201d He knew Trump\u2019s authoritarianism and commitment to undermining America\u2019s electoral system made him more dangerous than Biden. \u201cThe fact that if you want to be in the good graces of MAGA world you\u2019ve got to say the election was stolen is\u00a0<em>extraordinary<\/em>\u00a0to me\u2014but that is the test,\u201d Romney said. Still, throwing his support behind a president whose policies he\u2019d spent decades fighting against was a difficult thing to do. He told me he wasn\u2019t ruling it out.<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p class=\"ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW\" data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">In September, after Harris\u2019s ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, I asked Romney if he wanted to talk again, hoping to understand how the news might change his expectations for the election. He declined, but there are signs that his impression of the vice president, like that of many Americans, might be evolving. On the few occasions when he mentioned her in our interviews over the years, it was usually to describe the Democrats\u2019 political bind. Romney had internalized the Washington consensus that, although Biden was clearly weak, Harris had no chance of beating Trump. But after her debate performance earlier this month, Romney seemed impressed. \u201cMost people didn\u2019t know her terribly well other than a few clips that were not flattering that you might see on the internet,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AccountableGOP\/status\/1833914291482763499\" data-event-element=\"inline link\" data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen31117857_899=\"245892\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen31117857_899=\"245893\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time31117857_899=\"100\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired31117857_899=\"1\">he told reporters<\/a>. \u201cAnd people saw, actually, she\u2019s an intelligent, capable person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\">\n<p data-flatplan-paragraph=\"true\"><strong>AMN | Reporters&#8217; | Other source from TA.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ona swampy afternoon\u00a0this past spring, I met Mitt Romney in his soon-to-be-vacated Senate office. It was strange to see him in person again. For two years, we\u2019d talked almost every week as I worked on\u00a0a biography that would cement his reputation as a Republican apostate. Since the book\u2019s publication last year, we\u2019d kept in sporadic<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_1160854738579181570_1160854738579181570":"","facebook_3558452337540614_100649324928663":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What will Mitt Romney do if Trump wins? | Amnewsworld<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amnewsworld.com\/fi\/what-will-mitt-romney-do-if-trump-wins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fi_FI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What will Mitt Romney do if Trump wins? | Amnewsworld\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ona swampy afternoon\u00a0this past spring, I met Mitt Romney in his soon-to-be-vacated Senate office. It was strange to see him in person again. For two years, we\u2019d talked almost every week as I worked on\u00a0a biography that would cement his reputation as a Republican apostate. 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