#322 Mitch McConnell: The Price of Power w/ Michael Tackett
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2024
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
Journalist Michael Tackett joins Ben & Bob to discuss his new book The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America and Lost his Party (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Tackett, who wrote the biography with McConnell's consent, was granted unprecedented access to McConnell's vast personal archives, his staff, and even the Senator himself, who sat for about 50 hours of interviews. If you've ever wondered how Mitch McConnell rose to power, how he's stayed there despite challenges from both parties, or what makes the man tick, this conversation has the answers.
Michael Tackett covers national politics for The New York Times. His work has earned him multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Edgar A. Poe Award for National Reporting.
This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer. |
| 0:06.4 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:08.0 | And this is the road to now. |
| 0:11.0 | Today, up on a platter for you guys who are wanting more election in politics, we have a great book here, Bob. |
| 0:18.6 | Yeah, it's a great book. |
| 0:20.0 | It's a new book biography of Mitch McConnell |
| 0:22.9 | by Mike Tackett. Yeah, the price of power. How Mitch McConnell mastered the Senate, changed America, |
| 0:29.9 | and lost his party. They may not like each other, but McConnell and Trump go hand and glove. |
| 0:35.7 | Yeah, they do. And this conversation is fantastic. |
| 0:38.4 | And I'm just going to say, I say this in the episode, this book is so readable. |
| 0:41.8 | If you want the book to hate McConnell, you will be disappointed. |
| 0:45.7 | If you want the book to love McConnell, you will be disappointed. |
| 0:49.1 | If you actually want a story that helps explain the man, whether you like him or not, this is what you're |
| 0:55.5 | looking for. He did a really good job with this. Yeah, yeah, and he had complete access to McConnell. |
| 1:02.1 | He had complete access to his archives. McConnell told all those around him and everyone he knew |
| 1:08.3 | to speak with Mike. And yet, Mike had full editorial control. And McConnell |
| 1:14.5 | saw the book just days before it was published. So there were no changes made. And it is, |
| 1:21.1 | again, with that, right, like, do you love McConnell? Do you hate McConnell? We've all formed our |
| 1:26.9 | opinions of him. |
| 1:29.5 | Yet, um, he did, uh, allow Mike Tackett to write this, uh, important complex biography about his life. |
| 1:39.0 | It's conveniently timed to, uh, to come out as Mitch McConnell no longer needs to be reelected, or at least as far as we know. |
| 1:48.1 | I just want to say right now, me and Bob want to say thank you to all the patrons who support the show. |
... |
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