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State of the Union

Interview With Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired December 15, 2024 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[09:00:45]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Exit stage right.

Over three decades in politics...

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I accept your nomination.

TAPPER: ... Mitt Romney was governor, senator and presidential nominee, and more. Pilloried by Democrats during his 2012 run, Romney has emerged as a strong voice for a bygone kind of politics.

ROMNEY: I believe in America.

TAPPER: What does he see as the future of the GOP and resistance?

ROMNEY: Donald Trump is a phony.

TAPPER: Central to Romney's legacy, a fierce and vocal criticism of president-elect Donald Trump.

ROMNEY: A selfish man.

TAPPER: As the first senator to vote to remove a president of his own party from office...

ROMNEY: The president is guilty.

TAPPER: ... what are Romney's fears for Trump's second term?

Plus: saying goodbye. As his time in public office comes to a close, the former GOP standard-bearer looks back on his successes...

ROMNEY: I will leave this chamber with a sense of achievement.

TAPPER: ... and where he fell short.

ROMNEY: I did not achieve everything I had hoped.

TAPPER: How will history remember him?

Utah senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney joins us exclusively for an exit interview next.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is reflecting on a life of public service.

In a few short weeks, Donald Trump will be president again, and the Republican Party's previous presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, will be leaving the Senate, confronted with the reality of a very different GOP than the one he led in 2012, the last presidential election that Trump was not on the ballot.

I have covered Romney for more than two decades, he ran for president twice, when he warned Republican voters against making Trump their nominee in 2016, and through his time in the U.S. Senate, his bipartisan work, his historic impeachment votes, January 6.

So, as Senator Romney prepares to leave Washington, we wanted to talk to him about all of it, where he thinks his party and the country go from here, what he's proudest of over a long life of public service, what keeps him up at night now.

We're going to get into it all on a special edition of CNN's STATE OF THE UNION.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Senator Romney, thank you so much for -- for being here...

ROMNEY: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: ... and for doing this interview. We really appreciate it.

ROMNEY: Good to be with you.

TAPPER: I have a lot to ask you about a long life in public service.

But I do want to start with just a couple questions about what's going on now. And the first one is, what lessons are you taking away from the election results?

ROMNEY: Donald Trump won. He won overwhelmingly. He said what he was going to do, and that's what he's doing.

I mean, people are saying, oh, I don't like this appointment or this policy that he's talking about.

But those are the things he said he was going to do when he ran. So you can't complain about someone who does what he said he was going to do.

And I agree with him on a lot of policy fronts. I disagree with him on some things. But it's like, OK, give him a chance to do what he said he's going to do and see how it works out.

TAPPER: This is not a traditional Cabinet, the nominees. I'm sure you have some feelings. I know you're not going to be voting on them, and I know you're loathe to talk about individual ones. But I'm wondering if there's a perception you have of the people he is

putting into his administration, which are certainly very different than his first administration.

ROMNEY: Well, a very famous book talked about Abraham Lincoln choosing a team of rivals. This is a team of people who are very, very different, extraordinarily different backgrounds, different perspectives on issues, in some cases, I think even than the president, so an unusual collection of individuals, not the people I would have chosen.

But I lost. He won, all right? I would like to revisit that and win, but I didn't get that chance. And so these are the kind of people he wants to run. And he's entitled to that.

Now, the Senate has a responsibility to make sure that these people are legitimate, that there's no skeleton that could be an embarrassment to them or the country, and to also determine if they're qualified for the position that they've been nominated to. And I expect them to carry out that responsibility with conscience and diligence.

TAPPER: Trump has made it clear that he wants to go after his political opponents. He's talking about, members of the January 6 Committee should go to jail.

[09:05:01]

Are you worried at all about being a target for retribution, you or members of your family?

ROMNEY: No, actually, I have been pretty clean throughout my life. I'm not particularly worried about criminal investigations.

And I don't know how much, by the way, of what the president says is hyperbole, because there was a lot of this person ought to be jailed and that person ought to be jailed that was said during the last two campaigns.

But I think President Trump is likely to try and focus on the future. People who committed crimes, I'm sure, will be prosecuted. But I think that's few and far between.

TAPPER: So let's take a look at your life.

You were famously the son of George Romney, a Michigan governor, a 1968 presidential candidate, a HUD secretary. We were watching the 1964 Republican Convention, as we do in our spare time here.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: And we came across your dad's speech. He said something interesting, kind of warning -- he didn't mention Barry Goldwater, but he was kind of warning about -- about the power of personality, as opposed to the strength of character.

And let's run a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. GEORGE ROMNEY (R-MI): The strongest personality on Earth cannot deal with the problems of this nation, except upon the basis of correct principles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Doesn't sound all that different from some things you've been saying.

ROMNEY: Well, I'm -- I haven't seen that clip, by the way.

And he obviously was a man of great energy and passion. That's -- that's what comes across to me in that clip. But -- but, also, I think it's a fair warning, which is that personality is important. And character, in my view, is actually perhaps the most critical thing we choose in our leaders, whether in a state, in a university, in a church or in a White House.

Policy, bad policy, we can live with. The country's overcome bad policy in the past, and it will in the future. Bad character is something we haven't had to live with. And so it's important in our leaders of all kinds that we have people who are honest and virtuous and direct in a way that is not based upon personal interest, but is based instead on the national interest.

So that's what I hope we find in the next administration. I'm, as you know, not a supporter of President Trump's. I didn't support him in this election, didn't last time he ran either, largely for matters of character. And I hope we see better in the coming years.

TAPPER: Let's talk about your career.

When you look back on everything you have accomplished, removing your marriage and your family from it and your faith, just in terms of professional accomplishment, what are you proudest of?

ROMNEY: Yes, you can't remove family and faith.

TAPPER: Well, I'm going to get to those too, but they're -- I just mean, like -- but, obviously, you're proud of that.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Yes.

TAPPER: And we'll get to that.

ROMNEY: Yes.

TAPPER: But just on the professional side?

ROMNEY: Well, but I am -- I mean, I am a creature of, you know, my dad that you just saw and the values that he instilled in me and my mom and her passion.

I'm a person of deep and profoundly -- profound faith. And so those are, importantly, part of who I am and what I brought to the public sector. And -- and my passion has been to preserve the union, preserve freedom and to help people in our country in doing that.

You know, so, for instance, when Benjamin Franklin was reported to say, you know, a republic, if you can keep it, my purpose has been trying to make sure that we keep it and to do the things that would allow us to keep it.

And so things I'm proudest of are things that have made it more likely for America to succeed, so things that made our economy work better, when I was a governor, things that made our state work better. When I was at the Olympics, it was making sure that the character of the country was able to be demonstrated to people around the world.

And then there are things that actually are more attuned to helping individuals. So, our health care plan that got everybody in the state of Massachusetts insured, I'm very proud of that. Our education policies.

I mean, Massachusetts ranks number one in the nation in K-12 education. That's in part because of policies not just I put in place, but my predecessors did. These are things that I'm extraordinarily proud of.

And, in Washington, it was going after some of the challenges we face globally, how we stand up to the China, how we support freedom fighters like those in Ukraine, those in Israel, a lot of different voices and perspectives.

But keeping America strong and, if you will, preserving the republic is, in my view, the most important thing I have endeavored to do.

TAPPER: I don't know if you agree with this, but -- but I have heard it said -- and I understand why people say it -- that, sometimes, you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes.

And I'm wondering if -- if you think that's true, and, if so, what you've learned from things that didn't go the way you wanted.

ROMNEY: Well, I think you learn from life's experience. You learn from both your successes and your failures. I don't think you just learn from one or the other or perhaps even one more than the other.

[09:10:07]

But, sure, I have had some failures. I had some campaigns that didn't work. But the funny thing is, I don't define myself by promotions or pay or actually winning elections.

I define myself by whether I'm in the fight, whether I have tried to make a difference on things that matter most. And, you know, the places where I failed, it's like, OK, what can I do next time to be more successful? I mean, I wish I could go back and start over again, because, of

course, I have learned a lot of lessons along the way.

I should have been more assertive in some places, pushed harder than I did, created more energy and heat than I did, went along quietly a little longer than I probably should have. But, you know, I'm proud for what I accomplished, but I recognize there are places I didn't get the job done.

And -- but I'm not going to lose sleep over that, because I fought as hard as I knew how to do at that time. And that's the nature of life.

TAPPER: What's an example of someplace that you wish you had been more assertive?

ROMNEY: Well, we have a number of challenges as a country, but -- but we don't have a strategy to deal with China, a great power competitor unlike anything we faced before.

The Soviet Union was a competitor, but it was -- we didn't know it at the time. It was weak economically.

China is strong, even potentially stronger than us down the road economically. So it's a different kind of threat. And I keep on pushing for us to develop a national strategy to confront China and to get them to be diverted towards a course of collaboration or cooperation or competition, as opposed to warfare eventually.

And I have a hard time getting any administration to sign on to that. It's one of the areas I feel I needed to push harder.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2012, Democrats portrayed him as a heartless plutocrat, though they have seemingly had a change of heart.

I will ask Romney what he makes of that next and then what he thinks will happen at the end of Trump's second term.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: I had the chance to pull together a Cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I went to my staff and I said, how come all the people for these jobs are all men? They said, well, these are the people that have the qualifications. And I said, well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some women that are also qualified?

I went to a number of women's groups and said, can you help us find folks? And they brought us whole binders full of women. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Kind of incredible that that was considered a gaffe when you look back at it, 2012.

Mitt Romney was pilloried by Democrats for saying that he had -- quote -- "binders full of women" -- unquote -- applicants for his Cabinet, his governor. Heaven forbid he make efforts to bring women into his administration.

But, like life, politics ain't fair. I talked with Governor Romney about how he got into politics and what he learned from his presidential campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Do you think you were always going to run for office?

You were a very successful businessman. And then you ran for, I think, senate and then governor in Massachusetts. Were you always going to do that, or were you going to go to business and then later felt the call?

ROMNEY: Yes, I never thought I would be involved in public service of any kind. Didn't cross my mind.

My dad would give -- given us advice, all four of us. He said, don't get involved in politics or public service unless your kids are raised, because you don't want your job to turn their head and whatever, or, number two, you're independent financially, he said, because you don't want to be in a position where, to pay your mortgage, you've got to win an election, so you're going to be tempted to say whatever you have to say to win the election.

And I never thought I would be independent financially. I was working at a consulting firm and earning a good living, but didn't think that would ever blossom as the way it did when we created Bain Capital.

And I -- you know, I had five sons. I knew someday they'd be raised, but it seemed like that was going to be forever.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Yes, I imagine.

You ran for president in 2008. You came up short, didn't get the nomination. One of the things that I remember very distinctly during that race is your faith being attacked by allies of your Republican rivals.

Mike Huckabee, I'm specifically thinking of. And I remember asking Huckabee about it, and he didn't decry it, as you might remember. And I'm wondering what went through your head, what went through your heart and your soul when you saw your faith being impugned that way.

ROMNEY: You know, I grew up in a setting where I recognized my faith was not common, all right, and that people were going to be inclined to think less of me, perhaps, because of my faith.

I mean, I was the only member of my church in my high school, all right? So I was different than other kids in important ways. That's not something I would have necessarily chosen to be, different, but, actually, that served me well throughout my life...

TAPPER: How?

ROMNEY: ... which is, I'm willing to stand alone. I'm not going to lose sleep over the fact that other people are critical of me if I feel that I have done the right thing. It's a great source of solace and relief.

And the fact that people would attack my religion and my faith, it's like, yes, OK, they're -- in a campaign, they're going to do anything they can that's going to help them get votes. I'm not going to worry about that. And that's something that, frankly, I expected and have seen throughout my political career.

I think it's unfortunate in the country, because I think we really want to have people of faith who believe in something bigger than themselves. It may be faith in the country, faith in their family, faith in God. And the whole idea of faith, by the way, is that there's a supreme being and that we are somehow the children or the family of a supreme being, and, therefore, that all humanity is connected.

[09:20:22]

That, I think, is a very helpful perspective to bring to politics and to bring to public service. So, I want people of faith. And I'm not going to be critical of their faith if they exhibit the qualities, the best qualities of their religion and bring that to the political table.

TAPPER: So, in 2008, you came up short. In 2012, you got the nomination.

What do you think you did differently in 2012? Did you learn anything from 2008 that got you to the finish line in 2012?

ROMNEY: Well, John McCain was a highly effective individual with a reputation for character and authenticity and a national hero. And he beat me in 2008, and he deserved to beat me in 2008.

I'm sure I -- my team would tell you all the mistakes that I made. But, basically, John McCain was a superior candidate and the right person for that time.

2012 was not an easy race for me. My campaign strategist said to me: "In some respects, you're going to have to steal this nomination."

And I laughed. I said: "What do you mean?"

He said: "Well, you're Mormon, and the party is more evangelical. You're a millionaire and the party is more populist. And you're a business guy, and that's not welcomed by many, many in the party. You're from Massachusetts. You have been governor of Massachusetts. You have lived there 40 years. The party is more Southern, not more New England."

I mean, there's only one congressional representative from New England that's a Republican right now, Susan Collins. That's it, congresspeople, senators.

TAPPER: Right.

ROMNEY: I mean, so those were things that made my race in 2012 particularly difficult, but my team was strong. I think my message was strong.

I won. I squeaked in to getting the nomination. And, darn it, I lost to Barack Obama, but he ran a good campaign.

TAPPER: Looking back at that campaign, Democrats really caricatured you as an out-of-touch robber baron of sorts.

Harry Reid falsely accused you of being a tax cheat. Joe Biden suggested that you and your party were going to put African-Americans back in chains.

Now you are heralded by Democrats, who see you as the last Republican statesman, praising your integrity, lamenting that the Republican Party is not more like Mitt Romney. That must be something of a whiplash-inducing experience.

ROMNEY: Well, it is fair to say that, as I look back at campaigns and think about the angst that surrounded any mistake that I or a campaign member made...

TAPPER: Yes.

ROMNEY: Some small thing occurred, and it...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: "What about your gaffes?"...

ROMNEY: Yes. I mean...

TAPPER: ... I remember somebody yelling at you.

ROMNEY: Yes. Yes, right, right.

TAPPER: Right.

ROMNEY: And so these things were blown at a huge proportion.

And in this campaign, and in the prior campaign that President Trump ran, I mean, they talked about flooding the zone with various excrement.

TAPPER: Right. Yes. ROMNEY: It's like, hey, if you make a mistake, just make a bunch

more, and people will forget the first one. It's like -- and so we look today, it's like -- it's like, that's kind of amusing to see the kinds of things that, looking back, look quaint.

But, by the way, you look at President Obama's campaign, he was, in some respects, smart to go after me and say, OK, here's a rich business guy. We're going to characterize him as a plutocrat that doesn't care about people.

And he -- he went with that narrative, put it out there before I could really effectively respond, and was successful in doing so. I'm honored by the fact, by the way, that David Axelrod, who was his strategist -- and I have become friendly and had a number of events together since then.

He said: "I'm glad I didn't know you, because I couldn't have said the things about you then that I know about you today."

TAPPER: Yes.

Do you think you've changed? Do you think they've changed?

ROMNEY: Look, I have been the same thing, you know, throughout. I'm who I am.

TAPPER: Yes.

ROMNEY: I'm shaped by my family and my faith. And that's what I am.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Coming up next: Is there still a never-Trump movement within the Republican Party?

I will ask Romney about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:37]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: The audio and video of the infamous Tapper-Trump exchange on the Ku Klux Klan will play 100,000 times on cable and who knows how many million times on social media.

Here's what I know. Donald Trump is a phony. And his personal qualities would mean that America would cease to be a shining city on a hill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION, Mitt Romney there in March 2016 not mincing words about then-candidate, not yet the nominee, Donald Trump in 2016, particularly Trump's refusal to disavow the support of Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in an interview earlier that year.

We talked about where Romney thinks the party goes from here in our conversation. Here's more of that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: You said in an interview a few months ago that -- quote -- "There's a good chance that the Republican Party is going to be -- is going to need to be rebuilt or reoriented" and that you want to have a voice in the post-Trump Republican Party.

Do you think that there's still -- you think there's going to be a post-Trump Republican Party, or is MAGA now the Republican Party?

ROMNEY: Oh, MAGA is the Republican Party, and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today. And if you were to ask me who the nominee will be in 2028, I think it'll be J.D. Vance, all right? He's smart, well- spoken, part of the MAGA movement.

TAPPER: You said something pretty harsh about him a few months ago, though. You're -- you could not have less respect for somebody than J.D. Vance.

[09:30:00]

ROMNEY: Long ago. I'm not going to rehash history. And we've worked together in the Senate since then.

But I -- you know, that is what the Republican Party is. And will the party need to change? Look, the Republican Party has become the party of the working-class, middle-class voter. And you've got to give Donald Trump credit for having done that, taken that away from the Democrats.

Democrats pushed them out, all right? The Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren faction of the Democrat Party, with some of this, you know, defund the police and transgenders in -- or -- excuse me -- biological males in women's sports, these things had a lot of people in the middle class just flee the Democratic Party. They're now Republicans.

Now, one of the challenges in my party is that our policies do not necessarily line up with the interests of our voters. And so there'll be some -- you know, some reorientation that's going to be necessary in my party.

The Democrat Party is the one in trouble. I mean, I don't know how they recover. And, you know, I'm not going to tell them what to do, because I wouldn't begin to have the capacity to do so. But they've lost their base.

I mean, union guys and gals have left the Democratic Party and are voting Republican. And the Democratic Party is seen not as rich people, but as college professors and woke scolds. And that's not an attractive feature.

TAPPER: Before you ran for the Senate, you came forward and gave a very tough speech about then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016. What caused you to do that? At the time, I think Ted Cruz and maybe Marco Rubio were still in the race. Was that difficult to do?

ROMNEY: Well, I'm kind of outspoken.

And, as I pointed out, given my history, I'm not terribly concerned about being out on a limb or being criticized or different. And I felt that Donald Trump was wrong for the country, wrong for our party, that he wouldn't win. I was wrong about that.

And that I felt that his record was not adequately being exposed and that people needed to recognize he was the wrong person to be president. I think most people disagree with me. I'm willing to live with that. I just put emphasis on different things than I think the public at large does right now.

And I -- you know, I look at this last election. I shake my head as I look at our Democrat friends. How could they have so badly misread the public mood? Did they not understand how upset people are about inflation, with President Biden out there saying Bidenomics? It's like, really? Do you not see what people are seeing when they go to the grocery store, and particularly the grocery store?

And then immigration? I mean, "The New York Times" just yesterday, I think, or the day before put a piece out saying how many people have come into the country, largest in American history, by number and by percent. And this is something the Biden administration took responsibility for.

And then, finally, the whole transgender issue that President Trump was able to promote so effectively at the very end, Democrats have badly misread the direction of the country and the attitude of the country. And President Trump took advantage of that, as well as he should.

TAPPER: One of the things that you did a lot in the Senate in your one term was, you established a reputation for working in a bipartisan way. You worked with a bipartisan group to pass pretty significant laws, the infrastructure bill, gun safety legislation, the electoral count reform.

How important is that to your legacy, do you think, being a bipartisan figure?

ROMNEY: Well, I think it was important for the country, which is that, at the time when we were able to be more successful in passing legislation, we had divided government.

Republicans had one chamber, Democrats the other. The White House, Democrats had. and so the only way you were going to get anything done was working with people on both sides of the aisle. And -- and so a group of 10 of us came together, largely from happenstance.

We shared a dinner together and began working on a little issue just for fun over dinner. And that became the basis of a COVID relief package, and then went on to the other legislation you described, the same group of 10 people. That's the way I think America wants us to work, to actually come together, to find common ground, and to put aside the politics, if possible.

I wish we'd have done that in immigration. We tried. Our little group wanted to do that. We couldn't get that across the finish line. But America's got to work, because some of the challenges we have may not necessarily be front and center in people's minds because they're so far distant in their impact. But you have to take action now to avoid the potential calamity down the road.

[09:35:02]

And the debt that we have is one of those. China's emergence as a great power and the great power is another one of those. A.I. is another one of those, I mean, climate.

There are major issues that don't have as much public attention as they deserve. And so you'd expect, in a representative democracy, the representatives to work on some things that may not be thought about by the public at large. And we were able to do that.

TAPPER: You've talked about your family a lot. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about Ann, who's -- how long have you been together, since you were 19 or something?

ROMNEY: Yes, we started dating when she was 15 and I was a senior. She was a sophomore in high school. We've been going steady ever since.

And...

TAPPER: And you have 25 grandchildren?

ROMNEY: Twenty-five, yes.

TAPPER: Five kids and 10 -- five spouses of those kids. It's a 35- person brood.

ROMNEY: Yes.

TAPPER: She's been called your encourager in chief. How vital has she been to your success, your life? And what role does she play beyond nurturing, loving spouse, which is not to belittle that? That's a lot, but...

ROMNEY: Yes, Ann's my best counselor and adviser.

So, any policy decision, any life decision I make is shared with Ann. She has, if you will, diverted me from a course I might otherwise have taken. So, for instance, when I was at Bain Capital and was really getting into the financial success that has now been developed there by a stronger team than I represented, I was asked to go off and run the Olympics in Utah.

And I said, absolutely not. And she said: "You've got to do it."

And I said: "No, I don't."

And then she began to describe why this was something I needed to do.

TAPPER: People might forget, but the Olympics had been rocked with horrible scandal, and you came in and cleaned it up.

ROMNEY: Yes. But, I mean, I hadn't lived in Utah. It was my -- place of my family's heritage, my mom and dad. But I hadn't lived there. My faith was based in Utah, but I had never run a big event. And the Olympics is a big event.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Yes.

ROMNEY: I was not a -- I was not a great athlete. So there was not an obvious connection.

I said: "Well, no, why would I do that?"

And she said: "The Olympics is one of the few places where people in the world get to see the great qualities of humanity, teamwork, determination, sacrifice. These are things that are extolled in the Olympics. We can't have the Games just removed and eliminated because of what's happened in Utah. You've got to go fix it."

And she said: "You know, that's your background, is trying to fix troubled things."

And so Ann helps me makes critical decisions. She keeps me from making bad ones, usually, and is very honest in her occasional criticisms.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: In 2016, you wrote in Ann's name for president. Did you write her in again in 2024?

ROMNEY: You know, there's a wonderful thing we have in this country, which is the secret ballot.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: So I'm not telling you I voted for in 2024.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Stunning video of Mitt Romney running for his life for safety on January 6, 2021, running from that angry mob. Now that Trump is president again, how will that day be remembered in history? Will it be whitewashed?

That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:55] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. That's the duty of leadership.

I ask my colleague, do we weigh our own political fortunes more heavily than we weigh the strength of our republic, the strength of our democracy, and the cause of freedom? What's the weight of personal acclaim compared to the weight of conscience?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Good questions.

That was Senator Mitt Romney speaking on the floor of the Senate in the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Just hours earlier, Romney had to run for safety from the mob ransacking the Capitol, thanks to the intervention of Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman.

I asked Romney how he will remember that day now that the man he held responsible is returning to power.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Four years ago next month, you were running for your life from the mob on January 6.

And now the person that you said was responsible for that day is about to return to the White House. He says he's going to pardon a lot of the people that have been convicted for the crimes committed on that day.

What do you think the legacy of January 6 will be in the history books, given the fact that, as they say, history is written by the winners, Donald Trump won, and there's been this attempt to whitewash the whole thing?

ROMNEY: I'm not sure history is written by winners in this case. Politics is written by -- by winners. But the history books are typically written by scholars of one kind or another.

And I think attacking the Capitol of the United States of America, smearing feces on the wall, attacking police officers, injuring police officers, that will be seen as being an abuse and a felony and being wrong.

Who was responsible for it? There'll be all sorts of conspiracy theories, but, ultimately, confessions and guilty verdicts sort of sort that out. And it will be seen, I think, as a very dark day in American history. I think it's unfortunate that there are some in the MAGA world that try and paper over it, but I don't think it's possible to do.

[09:45:06]

TAPPER: One of the most enduring images I have in the wake of that in my mind is -- and I think you are wearing a COVID mask -- but the glare you were giving Josh Hawley, who was one of the people who led the insurrection, you know, the premise of it, that -- as if the election could be undone.

He and Ted Cruz are the ones who introduced that in the Senate, the notion that this actually could happen. And Hawley's speaking, and you're behind him and you're -- you know the photo I'm talking about.

ROMNEY: Yes, I have seen some of those, doctored in some cases.

TAPPER: No, I'm talking about the real ones.

ROMNEY: Look, I was -- I was -- this...

TAPPER: You had every right to be angry. I'm not making fun of it.

ROMNEY: Yes. Yes. Yes. No, I -- without question. I mean, this was an attack on the symbol of democracy throughout the world...

TAPPER: Yes.

ROMNEY: ... the United States Capitol, and an attack by a brutal mob. And people were injured. And there was an effort to try and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. It was a very dark day in American history. And it'll be recorded as such, despite all the effort politically to try and paper over.

But, yes, those people that in any way encouraged that or stimulated that, I felt shared responsibility for it occurring.

TAPPER: How concerned are you about America's institutions holding over the next four years or eight or 16?

ROMNEY: Yes, I think they hold. I really do. I think people fundamentally recognize the importance of what America is, the role we play here for our citizens, the power of freedom.

I mean, if you think about our -- if you will, our competition, and hopefully not confrontation, but our competition with the authoritarians, which is this new axis of China and Russia and Iran, North Korea, think -- and, by the way, they're winning.

You know, according to Freedom House that looks at the spread of freedom or its retreat around the world, they're picking up more adherents than we are.

If you think about -- about that effort and what we have to do, I think people recognize, OK, we've got a responsibility. We have to -- we have to win, and we can't attack the institutions that allow us to be successful in this global competition. It's bad for the world and it's bad for us.

I mean, there are some who think that America doesn't need to be involved in the world. Look, we're the superpower. We're the largest economy in the world, all right? We're almost 25 percent of the world's economy. And so what we do has impact.

And if we want to see a strong America with prosperous Americans, and inflation tamed, and great education, and good health care -- we want all these wonderful things -- we would like to have a stable world. We don't want to have wars going on. We don't want to have people attacking our allies or the people who buy products from us. So we're involved in the world because it's in our interest.

TAPPER: Right.

ROMNEY: And, I mean, that's why -- when people say America first, it's like, yes, America first means America is going to be involved in the world. That's why we're helping Ukraine, because, if Russia is stronger and takes Ukraine, then it's not going to stop.

And if it doesn't stop, that's going to hurt us. So, yes, I think the institutions hold because I think people, when -- when faced with the reality of -- of what's at stake, they're going to want to protect the roots of freedom.

TAPPER: You gave your final Senate speech the other day, and you issued something of a of a warning for the American people. I want to play some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: A country's character is a reflection not just of its elected officials, but also of its people.

I leave Washington to return to be one among them, and hope to be a voice of unity and virtue, for it is only if the American people merit his benevolence that God will continue to bless America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I thought that was really interesting. "It is only if the American people merit God's benevolence that God will continue to bless America."

Tell us more about what you meant by that.

ROMNEY: Look, I'm a person of faith. That's fundamental to who I am.

And I actually believe that the reason we were successful in the Revolutionary War and that George Washington was successful in guiding the troops, was that the hand of God somehow played a role. I don't know what it was, don't know how direct it was, but I -- but I believe that we are blessed as a nation.

And if you don't believe in a deity, fine, but I believe we're nonetheless blessed if we're good. See, I happen to believe that good ultimately wins. And I believe we're a good people. We've helped people in need. We've welcomed the poor, the hungry, those that are yielding -- or looking for freedom. We have helped freedom fighters around the world. You know, our motto,

"In God we trust," as well as the refrain, "United we stand," all these things have made us a good people. And I think our future is bright if we -- if we continue to be a good people.

[09:50:04]

And that is not just our president or our senator or our governor, but it's our university presidents and our teachers and our professors and our parents.

We -- the blessings of heaven, if you believe in God, as I do, or the blessings of providence and the universe are associated with goodness, not evil. And so I think it's incumbent not just on the people we elect, but on all of us, to try and -- despite apparent failures from time to time and grievous mistakes that we've made, to do what we can to be good people.

TAPPER: How do you want history to remember Mitt Romney?

ROMNEY: Yes, I don't think history will remember Mitt Romney.

TAPPER: But, if it does...

ROMNEY: Yes.

TAPPER: ... how do you want history to remember Mitt Romney?

ROMNEY: Yes, it's a footnote for somebody who's reading ancient history.

I mean, you look at the civilizations that have come and gone over the 4,000 years of, you know, recorded history, names are gone. What I want is my family to remember me.

TAPPER: OK. How do you want your family to remember you?

ROMNEY: And I want my family to remember me as someone who stood up for the things I believed, was not embarrassed by my fundamental beliefs, who loved the country, and did what I believed was right to help preserve the greatest nation on Earth.

TAPPER: Senator Romney, a real honor to do this interview. Thank you so much. And best of luck to you, and please stay in touch.

ROMNEY: Thanks, Jake. Keep it up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:05]

TAPPER: Join me tonight as I take you behind the headlines of some of the biggest political scandals in recent memory. We will look at what drives a politician to break the rules and the laws and what happens when they get caught.

Join me tonight for a "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL" marathon. It starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

Thanks for spending your Sunday morning with us. "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.

I will see you tomorrow on "THE LEAD."