McKay Coppins appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers to discuss his new book, Romney: A Reckoning.
Coppins’ biography of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney—the former governor of Massachusetts and the 2012 Republican nominee for president—was published Tuesday by Scribner. A critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a vigorous, highly readable account of politics—and ethics—in action.”
Meyers observed that Romney had given Coppins access to text messages, emails, and journals for the biography, and he asked if Coppins was surprised at the extent of the materials he received.
“I was surprised when he agreed to do it at all,” Coppins said. “Mitt Romney was known for most of his political career as this very cautious, restrained, calculated politician who stuck to his talking points.”
Meyers said that “it does feel like this moment has broken [Romney] to some degree and it’s broken his spirit,” and speculated that the politician is using the biography as “a warning to all of us.”
“I think that’s why he ultimately decided to do this,” Coppins replied, noting that he first approached Romney about the project a few weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. “Something snapped in him, almost, after Jan. 6, because it demonstrated just how far his party had kind of descended into what he considers authoritarianism. He told me in one of our first meetings, ‘A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.’”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
