Today we’ll talk with McKay Coppins, author of Romney: A Reckoning, a biography of Mitt Romney.
Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection. Despite these moments of public courage, Romney has shared very little about what he’s witnessed behind the scenes over his three decades in politics—in GOP cloakrooms and caucus lunches, in his private meetings with Donald Trump and his family, in his dealings with John McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. Now, exclusively for this biography, Romney has provided a window to his most private thoughts.
Based on dozens of interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle as well as hundreds of pages of his personal journals and private emails, this in-depth portrait by award-winning journalist McKay Coppins shows a public servant authentically wrestling with the choices he has made over his career. In lively, revelatory detail, the book traces Romney’s early life and rise through the ranks of a fast-transforming Republican Party and exposes how a trail of seemingly small compromises by political leaders has led to a crisis in democracy. Ultimately, Romney: A Reckoning is a redemptive story about a flawed politician who summoned his moral courage just as fear and divisiveness were overtaking American life.
McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party, and Romney: A Reckoning, a biography of Mitt Romney. In 2019, he received the Aldo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondents’ Association for his coverage of the Trump presidency; in 2021, he received a Wilbur Award for religion journalism. Previously he was a reporter for BuzzFeed News, where he covered two presidential campaigns, and Newsweek. Coppins was listed as one of the Forbes 30 under 30, included on Politico's list of 2012's "breakout reporters," and identified as a rising TV pundit in Details magazine.
