Mitt Romney just recorded an hour-long podcast with Obama campaign architect David Axelrod

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

published 16 October 2015

A reflective Mitt Romney is the rather surprising guest on the newest podcast from David Axelrod, the former chief strategist for both of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

But while there are a couple awkward moments of referring to your party verses mine, the conversation otherwise flows smoothly from topics such as Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis to Donald Trump's churlishness. The 2012 GOP nominee also weighed in on the darker side of contemporary politics, citing extremes on both sides of the aisle as the new norm:

There's no question that in our political system right now that the extremes in our respective political parties are having a louder and louder voice and demanding more attention and demanding immediate action as opposed to than collaborative action. And that, in my view, flows in part from the change in the world of media. There was a time when we all got our news with the same facts, if you will. We had three networks that we watched for the evening news, we mostly got newspapers […] So we got the same facts whether or not we agreed on them, we could pull in different directions. Now, my sons, I don't think any one of them gets a newspaper […] They get their news on the web. And they tend to read those things which they agree with […]Google, for instance, looks at what you'd been reading last and then gives you articles it thinks you'll enjoy, so you're not seeing the other side. If you watch the news, some of us will watch Fox, some will watch MSNBC. So we're not even getting the same facts and then we have commentators who are hyperbolic in expressing their views and issues and people are becoming more and more divided […] I think that divisiveness is one of the things that's lead to Washington having such a hard time getting things done. [The Axe Files]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.