Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (@bfrist) interviewed me about my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, and then I interviewed him at an event on Monday night at Middle Tennessee State University (@MTSU) in Murfreesboro. It was a banner day for Frist, who was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and who was shown the site of the archives of his consequential public and private life. I begin my memoir with the story of how Dr. Frist abandoned a career as one of the country’s top heart transplant surgeons to run for the US Senate in 1994. He did that, he said, because as a surgeon “I could save one life at a time and as a senator I might be able to save a million lives”. He did just that as a senator by working with President George H.W. Bush to create PEPFAR, which saved the lives of at least 2 million people afflicted with HIV. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam….

I'll be joining Bill Frist (@bfrist) this evening at the Tucker Theatre on the @MTSU campus for a discussion of our time in public service, what it taught us about being leaders, and my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR FROM JKF TO TRUMP. The event is free and open to the public. It will also be livestreamed. You can use this link to learn more and access the link to the livestream: addevent.com/event/0zdbddcl0…

When I discussed my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, at the Bush Library (@BushFdn) in September, I talked about a decision that President George H.W. Bush made after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 that demonstrated the president’s skill and understanding of foreign affairs. Bush recognized that in a country of one billion people, China, the brightest young people were standing in line competing to study at American universities. So, the president condemned China’s action by doing something that hurt them as much as anything could: he created an exodus to the United States of 30,000 of those bright Chinese students who were at our universities. By giving those students green cards, he deprived China of a generation of skilled leaders and brought those future leaders instead to the United States. Today most of those 30,000 Chinese students and their sons and daughters are American citizens contributing to our future rather than to China’s future. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam….

I'm looking forward to my conversation with Bill Frist (@bfrist) on Monday, October 19th, at the Tucker Theatre on the @MTSU campus for a discussion of our time in public service as well as my memoir. The event is free and open to the public. It will also be livestreamed. You can use this link to learn more: addevent.com/event/0zdbddcl0…

In my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about how, when I was in Cub Scouts, we hit a softball through a neighbor's window. Most of us ran, but Bill Earnest walked to the neighbor's front door and confessed that we had done it. The neighbor praised Bill for being honest and invited him inside for a piece of apple pie. Telling the truth does not always produce such tasty rewards. In fact, it is often hard to tell the truth about doing something wrong. But there is so little truth-telling in public life these days that admitting a mistake is not only the right thing to do; it can be a useful tactic. Your political adversary may be so confounded by your honesty that he will be left without anything damaging to say about your mistake. And it is worth remembering that after Watergate, Jimmy Carter won the presidency promising, “I will never lie to you.” In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam….

“I often think about how George H.W. Bush would handle the current war with Iran if he were President today,” I told an audience at the Bush Library (@BushFdn) in College Station, Texas, when I discussed my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP. Bush was comfortable with national security and foreign affairs, and, arguably, no president was better at it. His demeanor and skill in handling the disintegration of the Soviet Union and reunification of Germany, and his decisiveness, combined with restraint in the Gulf War, set a high standard. He had spent most of his adult life in Washington or overseas serving as a congressman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, ambassador to the United Nations, chief of the US Liaison Office in China, director of the CIA, and vice president of the United States. It may well be that sooner or later some US president would be justified in using force to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon and terrorizing its Middle Eastern neighborhood. But, based on Bush’s conduct of the Gulf War in 1990- 1991, if he were in charge of the Iran War today, he would have announced a clear objective, planned ahead, secured support from the UN and the US Senate, persuaded allies to join him and to pay for most of the cost of the war. Instead of threatening Iran with several deadlines, he would give them one deadline and then follow through with worldwide support. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam….

In Chapter 39 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I tell the story of why, after losing by one vote to Sen. Trent Lott in an election to be Senate Republican whip, I told my Republican colleagues, “I will be writing 27 thank-you notes for 24 votes.” I had not learned well enough Howard Baker’s lesson to “Count carefully and often. Fifty-one votes today may be 49 tomorrow, so keep on counting.” Going into the vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2006, I had 27 votes, enough to win—or so I thought. When the secretary opened the ballots, Lott won 25-24. Some minds had changed, and Lott’s experience in vote counting during his 33 years in Congress (compared to my four) gave him the win. A year later, Lott surprised everyone by announcing that he was retiring early from the Senate. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona won Lott’s whip position, and I ran for Kyl’s now-vacant position as chairman of the Republican conference. Having learned to count, this time I won 31-16. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam…

In my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR, I tell the story of how Bill Frist (@bfrist) ran into my Nashville office in 1994 and told me he was going to run for the United States Senate after being one of the world's leading heart surgeons. Now Bill and I will be meeting again on October 19th at the Tucker Theatre on the @MTSU campus for a discussion of our time in public service as well as my memoir. You can learn more here: mtsunews.com/2026/10/07/lama…

“Mother would rule on sunny October afternoons when the maples, oaks, sweet gums, and poplars along Ruth and Oak Park were red and golden and burning leaf piles scented the air. Such rulings led me also to see God as responsible for making the hedge grow high, so I could cut it, and making the white paint peel off our frame house, so I could paint it. In pronouncing rules, mother had a habit of improvising on God’s intentions.” This is an excerpt from my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR, where I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam….

Music taught me discipline and brought me joy—both of which turned out to be useful during a sixty-year journey in and out of public life. In Chapter 20 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write that since my first piano lesson at age three, music has been an essential part of my life. The metronome was my steady friend, its beat my closest companion. Its tick- tock, tick-tock, tick-tock became a part of me, measuring my struggle with Bach’s counterpoints, Rachmaninoff’s hard left hand, Mozart’s runs, and Czerny’s arpeggios. Mastering Czerny exercises made me feel better prepared for almost anything. Amid the busyness of life on Ruth Street, music resonated within me and gave me peace, especially Mozart’s sonatas and the gospel songs of Albert E. Brumley. And music was fun—whether I was playing Elvis tunes for friends, hymns at school assemblies or church, singing in choir practice, playing melodies for girls who hung around the piano in our law school dormitory, or sliding my trombone with the Mustache Stompers on Bourbon Street or on the back of a flatbed truck with Alexander’s Washboard Band. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam…

“Of the ten presidents with whom I worked, I found Ronald Reagan to be the one who best fit the job,” I told an audience at the Reagan Institute (@ReaganInstitute) in Washington, D.C., last Thursday during a discussion of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP. I met Ronald Reagan in April 1980 during his presidential campaign when the Reagans spent the night at the Tennessee governor’s residence. Before that I thought he was too old, too western, and too conservative to be president. Reagan was sixty-nine. I was thirty-nine, the youngest governor. My opinion changed the next day. At an 8 a.m. breakfast—6 a.m. on the West Coast—the California governor was sparkling and engaging. I was impressed by his executive demeanor and good humor. As his policies improved the national economy, Tennessee’s economy improved at an even faster rate. In 1981, I asked to meet with Reagan in the Oval Office to propose a grand swap—the federal government would take over all of Medicaid in exchange for states taking all of K–12 schools. That would make it clear who had the responsibility. This fit Reagan’s unconventional brand of thinking, and he advocated for the swap, but the idea went nowhere. He had the same sort of unconventional attitude toward national defense. He built up America’s strength so he could reduce nuclear weapons—and do it unilaterally—hoping that the Soviets would follow. In 1985, after I led a People-to-People trip to Russia and China, I again asked to see the president and encouraged him to travel to Russia, where he had never been. “One of my goals is to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely,” he told me in that Oval Office meeting. Reagan asked me to head his “Presidential Commission on Outdoor Recreation Resources Review,” called ORCC for short, which I did only after he agreed to change the name to plain English—“The President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors.” In June 1984, the president came to Knoxville to lend support to my merit pay program for teachers. It became the first state law to pay teachers more for teaching well. Checker Finn, who interviewed me at the Reagan Institute gathering last week, helped to write that law when he was a Vanderbilt University professor. This is an excerpt from my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, where I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam…

I was grateful to speak with Chester E. Finn, Jr. on Thursday for an event hosted by the @ReaganInstitute and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute where we discussed my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR, and I shared a few of my memories of Ronald Reagan.

“[George H.W. Bush] is the only man ever elected president by being nice,” his campaign manager, Bob Teeter, once told me. During my visit to the Bush Presidential Library (@BushFdn) at Texas A&M University last week, I told stories from my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, about my twenty months of working with President Bush. I am among the hundreds who have a stack of handwritten George Bush thank-you notes. He was an excellent executive, giving me free rein to come up with an education plan, to recruit a team, and to help implement it. As president, he set an admirable example, always correct in behavior, self-effacing, and putting the country ahead of himself. He was most comfortable with national security and foreign affairs, and, arguably, no president was better at it. His demeanor and skill in handling the disintegration of the Soviet Union and reunification of Germany, and his decisiveness, combined with restraint in the Gulf War, set a high standard. He was devoted to Barbara Bush and, when seen up close, good humor ran through their relationship. One evening, the Bushes invited Honey and me to join them at Ford’s Theatre. When we arrived, the Secret Service helped the president out of the limousine, while Barbara remained in the back seat. “I’ll get the door, George,” Barbara said, and helped herself out of the vehicle. Once, before the president was about to speak, I heard him whisper, “Bar, what should I talk about?” “About five minutes, George,” Barbara Bush replied. On a bright day in late June 1992, walking across the White House south lawn to an event announcing his “GI Bill for Children” school choice program, Barbara looked at her husband. “George, you have on the wrong coat,” she said. “No one will notice,” the president said. “You go change,” she said. He walked back to his second-floor White House quarters to find the matching coat while I waited with the First Lady. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam…

Well, after one week, this puts an end to my big idea of walking across the state; I thought after being hit by the truck. In chapter 18 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about how I hobbled to the town infirmary, which fortunately was also on Main Street. A doctor examined my left ankle. It was already beginning to swell. “Without your heavy boot, it surely would have been broken,” he said. Meanwhile, a block away at the Cocke County courthouse, Honey was shaking hands while the washboard band entertained a noontime audience. No one had missed me. Favoring my tender left foot, which was now tightly wrapped inside a loosely tied boot, I shuffled over to join them, while keeping an eye out for more pickup trucks. After the washboard band stopped playing and onlookers had drifted away, I ate lunch with county political leaders. Then, I returned to Main Street, where I used white chalk to write an “X” on the street where the accident had happened. That was where I would resume the walk as soon as I was able. Staff drove me fifty-two miles to our family cabin in West Millers Cove. When I arrived, I noticed for the first time the white paint smeared on the left shoulder of my red windbreaker where the truck had hit me. I stayed off my feet for three days. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/.../Lam….