Hello from Washington. I'm Chuck Todd with a special edition of Meet the Press.

This Sunday, we're going to bring you a collection of exit interviews with four members of Congress who are leaving Washington this year for greener pastures.

They're leaving before the voters tell them to leave, shall we say?

We're going to get a sense of the state of politics they're leaving behind and how they've seen Capitol Hill evolve through their terms in office.

A quick note before we begin, we recorded these interviews before the midterm elections of this cycle,

and notably before the results from Tuesday in mid-May in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina.

So first up, it's Senator Pat Toomewerey, a Republican from Pennsylvania. He served in the Senate since 2011. He's been in North Carolina. So first up, it's Senator Pat Toome, a Republican from

Pennsylvania. He served in the Senate since 2011. He's been in Congress altogether for more than 20 years.

In October of 2020, to me announced that he would retire and not seek a third term in the 2022

election cycle, saying he wanted to return to the private sector. Well, let's find out what he's going to be up to.

So, Senator, welcome back to meet the press.

Thanks for having me, Chuck.

So let me start with a question that I know I've never asked you on the television show,

is do you remember the first time you decided to run for office?

Well, I don't remember like the precise moment.

Sure.

But the first thing I did, actually, in any kind of public office was I ran for and was elected to a commission to rewrite the charter for the city government of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Okay.

And I think that was 1994.

What got you at Allentown? Oh, it was a very circuitous path. Okay. And I think that was 1994. What got you to Allentown? Oh, it was a very

circuitous path. I grew up in Rhode Island. I worked in New York, spent a year in Hong Kong.

But along the way, my brother, Steve, talked me into going into business with him and our other

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