YouSaid · the spoken record

Alex Wagner

lines on the record
71
first
2016-12-01
most recent
2016-12-01
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “After working as a strategist and consultant, you know, kind of it was, they were Republican years in the 80s for the most part.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah. I mean, there's kind of a sort of famous story that's, I mean, like they were, they knew each other from the McGovern era and it stayed kind of close in democratic circles. And, you know,”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, thirteen. And that was like this spirit of kind of, you know, you have to invest in public education and the way you change the system is by, you know, being part of the PTA, being part of the student body, trying to change it from within. And my parents were like, you know, but we're not sacrificing your education for this. And I sort of went about and did all my research and I said, these are the programs that I can be a part of at Wilson, my senior high school. These are the teachers that I'm going to have. And I promise you, this is going to work out okay. And it did.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Exactly. And I said, you know, I remember feeling really strongly when Bill Clinton came to that town and didn't look seriously at any of the DC public schools and immediately rolled his daughter and said, well, and I wrote a letter to the Clintons because I was just so indignant about that. How old were you? I was 13 at the time.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So, I think very much politics and the world were with me when I was growing up in a way that I don't think would have been the case if I had been in, say, New York City. I mean, there was, I just remember in high school, we were always on the mall marching for something. And maybe that's just because there wasn't that much else to do in DC. But the sense of civic engagement was really pronounced. I mean, and I remember feeling really political at a young age. Like my parents actually had enrolled me in one of Washington's best private schools for high school. And I said, I'm not going there. I'm staying in the public school system. And they said, well, that is not an option. You have to stay. You're going to the school. We've paid like the deposit. It's happening.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And married and then had a kid in short order. And then my dad started working in earnest again on campaigns. And my mom was working for a number of nonprofits in DC. And, you know, they're shining light. They're favorite child. Alex Wagner was enrolled in Montessori School and then public school in Washington, D.C. And that's where I was born and raised.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Appreciate it. Absolutely. But it is, I mean, that's it, may not be the change you want to see, but big decisions are happening in Washington every day. And public service has been so denigrated. That's one of the real tragedies, I think, of the last few years. Yeah.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “You know, and people would flock to it, not just if they had a job in the administration, but because there was a sense that that was where change happened. And my mom, you know, I think people were really engaged at that period. There was a flourishing of kind of intellectual liberalism and practical liberalism. And she was really attracted to it and got a job at the Teamsters Union because they were looking for her.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “No, this is before the Teamsters, and then she went and wanted to work in Washington. I think a lot of people, you know, one of the things that was happening in those days, David, and I know that you know this, is people would go to Washington because they wanted to change the world.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “She majored in political science at Swarthmore, and she was putting out some kind of newspaper with a French boyfriend in West Philadelphia.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “No, my parents are both still alive, and there have been no horse heads left in any beds. So, you know, they exited the Teamsters peacefully, which is all you can really ask for, right?”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “The so my mom came over from Burma. She was basically an exile. My grandfather was involved in the government in Burma before it fell in a military coup. And my grandmother had gotten her master's degree in library science. And the Library of Congress needed someone to head their East Asian books department. And my grandmother was very well qualified for the job. And they basically brought our family over from Burma. So my mom came over and she got a full scholarship to go to Swarthmore. College. And she was very radical 70s progressive. She went down to DC to work at the Teamsters Union, which is where my dad was working at the time. And he hired her. And my mom said she, on the first day of work, came home and said, I have just the worst boss ever. I hate him. And then she ended up marrying him.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, I mean, I will say my mom, so much of my, you know, people hear about my dad being involved in politics and they think my appetite for world affairs comes from him necessarily, but my mom was hugely, if not more influential in terms of helping cobble together my understanding of the world. And she comes from Burma and became an American citizen.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Wait, he was gone, I think in 1980 he was gone something like 320 days out of the year. He was like a shadowy figure more than he was. But the touchstones for fatherhood become these moments where it's you see your dad picking up the phone and asking for the numbers, right?”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Right. So you know this. When I was two, I would stand on the kitchen chair and pick up the receiver. Was no one at the other end of the line, and I just say, give me the numbers because that's what my dad did. So I like to think that, you know, politics has always been in my blood”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Be the place you'd go. He was the lion in the Senate. And I had been born by the time my dad was working on the Kennedy campaign, and there's a story that he loves to tell, which is that, you know, this is in the day before the internet, obviously. And, you know, you do everything by phone. My dad would come home every night and he'd pick up the phone and say, give me the numbers, which is what you said to get the poll numbers, whatever the data was. I've lived there.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, and that's where he met Bill Clinton, actually. And so by the time Ted Kennedy was running, you know, there was always, as you know, David, there are insurgent and establishment wings of each party. My dad has always belonged to the insurgent. And so when Kennedy was running to challenge Jimmy Carter, my dad was on board and became the field director.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “This is, and yeah, he went to Lauris College, another tiny college in Iowa, and then he did his graduate work at the University of Iowa in Design. And that's where he got interested in hunger policy and came to Washington. and then got involved in, you know, it was the early 70s. He worked on the McGovern campaign, which was a formative experience for, I think, a lot of young people.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Which we'll talk about later. But he grew up in an Irish Catholic family. He had five brothers and sisters. My dad's dad was a postdoc, a male deliveryman in rural Iowa. And his mom was a housewife. And the ethic of work and community, those were really powerful organizing principles in that house. And my dad really believes in the democracy, but also felt, I think, he was really ambitious. Most of the families stayed in the Midwest. My dad went to Washington because he wanted to work on hunger and he wanted to help write the federal food stamp bill. And he has, I mean, my dad.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You know, he grew up in a tiny town in northeast Iowa. And I'm actually writing about that side of the family in my upcoming book.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “He's gonna clip this audio piece and save it and play it every time he walks into a room, David. That's very generous of you. Yeah, my dad is.”

    2016-12-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 101 - Alex Wagner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source