Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the longest serving Senate leader in history, is set to step down from that position next month.

Over nearly two decades in the role, he has become one of the most consequential and powerful senators in US history,

reshaping the federal judiciary now navigating a party transformed by Donald Trump.

The Associated Press' Michael Tackett has written the first definitive biography of

Mitch McConnell due out on Tuesday.

It's called The Price of Power, how Mitch McConnell mastered the Senate, changed America,

and lost his party.

Michael Tackett joins us now.

Thanks for being here.

Oh, great to be here, Jim.

So this book has already garnered a lot of attention,

in large part because you quote Mitch McConnell as he is sharing his private

views with you about how he views Donald Trump. He called him a sleighsball,

a narcissist, says he's stupid as well as being ill-tempered not very smart

irascible nasty just about every quality you would not want somebody to have and

yet Mitch McConnell has endorsed Donald Trump.

Why?

It's a real contradiction there, obviously, and it's hard for people to sort that out.

What it starts with is he wants to be in control of the Senate.

He wants to stay as the Senate leader. He can't stay

as the Senate leader if he doesn't endorse the Republican nominee. So that's why he did it.

He also says the MAGA movement is completely wrong, that Ronald Reagan wouldn't recognize the party today.

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