Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said that politics has been divisive during his entire political career, and it's a main reason why he is retiring from Congress after his term is up.
"Politics has been divisive the whole time I've been in D.C. I think it's probably getting worse. But the divisiveness didn't start with [President] Donald Trump, it started from the first day," Gowdy said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."
"Politics is all about winning and I don't think there's any other relationship we have in life where our sole goal is to win by whatever means necessary," he added.
Gowdy appeared on CBS with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., his co-author on a book about how their friendship was born from the mass church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
There remains reason to hope for the polarization to improve, Scott said. "Hope is necessary in a toxic world. The polarization in this country must be bridged so that we are one nation, one American family focused on the ways to get back to a position of truth, honesty, and believing that American exceptionalism is alive and well."
Friendships transcend politics, Gowdy said. About his friendship with Scott, Gowdy said, "The only argument we had was my insistence (that) his name go first (on the book cover) because he's a United States senator."
Gowdy took aim at Congress Sunday, saying the committees there were "incapable" of conducting investigations. "Congressional investigations leak like the Gossip Girls," Gowdy said on CBS Sunday.
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