YouSaid · the spoken record

Carl Bernstein

lines on the record: 86
first: 2017-02-02
most recent: 2017-02-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: 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

“Able to agree on the real existing conditions of the colonies and proceed with a debate a fact based debate from there about what this country would be and its institutions. They agreed what was there in the landscape on ground level. We can't agree on whether climate is changing things. That's the difference.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's truth. And that is what is reflected in this city here in the capital of the United States as well. It comes from the people as well as from our politicians. It's a two-way process. There is not an openness in this country to truth, to fact-based debate. And you cannot have a fact-based debate in the Congress of the United States, have not been able to have one on any major issue for 25 years now. What's the great debate in the history of this country? It's the Federalist debate. Every bit the founders had this debate every bit as angry and dug in as we see today in Washington, except for one thing. They were...”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the best obtainable version of truth. They are going to talk radio, to television, to newspapers of various kinds, to look for information that reinforces in social media, that reinforces what they already believe, the prejudices they already hold, the religious beliefs they have. They're not open.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's the other thing. It's impossible to have a fact-based debate in this country today, and particularly in the Congress or the state legislatures. But before we get to that, there is the problem you can yell about journalism all you want, and I think the state of journalism is much better than people are willing to acknowledge. But there is not the kind of receptivity in our culture today to the best obtainable version of the truth that there was at the time of Watergate. It can't measure it with a metric, but I know that not enough people, not enough of our citizens are open.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I talk about this a lot all over the country and on television as well, that there is great investigative reporting in the United States today. It's being done by a great number of news organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, organizations like ProPublica, smaller organizations. Great reporting. What has changed in this country is, and what is good reporting? The best obtainable version of the truth. Very simple definition, the best obtainable version of the truth, hard to do, requires perseverance, great effort, commitment of difficult and environmentally short we are.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How much did you pay for it? Who are your business partners? Whom do you owe? How much do you owe? That's all we want to know, and put it out there. We need to know all of your holdings, not just in Greater Russia, but Greater Russia especially, but how in the world there was that dog and pony show the other day that Donald Trump did with all the envelopes out there. It reminded me of Richard Nixon in the edited transcripts piled up behind him, which was part of the Watergate conspiracy. This dog and pony show that he did about how he was ostensibly going to separate his businesses from his presidency. It's impossible. And the idea that the Congress of the United States and the Republicans in control are not insisting that this happen, if Hillary Clinton...”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Job for Republicans in Congress, especially because it's going to come back to bite them. But really, our national security is at stake here. We need to know, Mr. President, what do you own?”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Violated the immutable borders of Western Europe, the very basic linchpin of post war life that you will not invade another country, Putin has invaded Georgia, he's invaded Ukraine, well, regardless of whether that's in his sphere of influence, this has not happened. We have now seen the upending in both Europe and the Pacific if we are to go along with what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are talking about. And meanwhile, we have no idea what Trump's businesses, associations, loans are in greater Russia, the former Russian Empire, the former USSR, those countries and republics, including the Federation, the Russian Federation. We know nothing. And this is a big job for investigative reporting. It's a big job.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of other world leaders, but not Putin really talking about, and it seems intent on doing is upending the world order as we have known it since the end of World War II that everything we have learned about the security of the democracies, especially when threatened by Russia, goes out the window, and that in lockstep, certainly Rhetorically, and in terms of what he's announced as his intent in lockstep with Vladimir Putin. That he intends to change the world order in such a way that Russia and the United States, look, I think it'd be terrific if we had better relations with Russia based on strength when our interests go in and based on strength. But the idea that what we have heard from him so far about what he wants to do with the Russians in a new world order after the Russians have”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He does not want us to know about his business and the amazing thing is that the Republican Party is allowing this to happen, that the Republican Party has not insisted that he divest, that they are so interested in their own agenda, that they are allowing a president of the United States to come into office with his family running a huge family enterprise that can be nothing but tied to his presidency. It is impossible that it be otherwise because the effects of what his decisions are impact on those holdings. And right now we are in the midst of an unprecedented situation where the president-elect of the United States has embraced the positions”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It'd But what we really need to look at right now are the conflicts of interest. If Hillary Clinton had been the president of the United States and had the conflicts of interest patent obvious conflicts of interest that Donald Trump has, there would be already a congressional investigation, and it would lead to something horrible.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's go to that question, though, of a hopeful picture. Nonetheless, Trump has identified some things. Maybe we're going to get infrastructure. He said the other night everybody wants health care for everybody. Well, I'll say this. I'm sure.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A figure in our culture in terms of being a lawyer who was disbarred for co-mingling of funds, who never told the truth about, you know, unless it was convenient, who counseled Donald Trump about suing people rather than paying debts. He's the great influence. And you see so much in Trump's methodology that is very much like Cohn's methodology. And back to this thing of no shame. That is really unusual. It's like there's a piece missing in some part of the cortex there that has to do with shame.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“McCarthy didn't get close to the presidency of the United States with his ideas. Donald Trump made it. And so that's now what we're confronted with. You know, one would hope, pray, and all the rest that he becomes the president of all the people and does great things. But so far in the transition, there are not too many indications of that. But also, if I were doing this biography of Trump that you propose... I would look at the in biographical terms at the role of Roy Cohn in his life. His one real mentor aside from his father is Roy Cohn. Joe McCarthy. Joe McCarthy side. Roy Cohn was much more than that. Roy Cohn was as amoral.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the result is that we live not just in a gilded age, but in which the wealthy, the privileged, and the connected are dominating our culture in a way we have been the greatest meritocracy in the history of the world in the post-war era especially up until about 20 years ago. And then that started to disintegrate. And what we are dealing with now are the results of the disintegration. And so if you talk about the institutions that don't work, public education, infrastructure, and you go on and on and on, you see how the environment for a Donald Trump, for a demagogue, and he ran a demagogic campaign. No question about it. Joe McCarthy, probably the best example of a demagogue of modern history in this country that we had.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, again, the question also is, was the plutocratic imperative stilled even during President Obama's years? And I would argue that despite the best intentions of yourself and the president, and I mean really great intentions, and with the idea that this plutocratic imperative had to be slowed down, but it wasn't.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the elites of this country have failed in their mission, which is to say, as Trump pointed out, the institutions in this country have not been working. That's the great story journalistically too, because we haven't been doing it enough. Let's look at what institutions in this country really have been working. Tech, yes, entertainment? Yes. Tell me what institutions beyond that work in.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He also had a much better sense of than Hillary Clinton in this election of what a huge number of Americans have been suffering and the way they have been suffering, which is to say white working class people that she seemed oblivious to. Bernie Sanders was not oblivious to it, but she really did seem oblivious to this. I mean, let me ask you, does it seem that way to you? Well, I mean, I...”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two things winning is the thing, but we also know that there is an established record that really his success is based on the con and on treating people badly and suing people and not meeting his obligations that he agreed to, that the basic methodology of financing his empire has been to borrow money and not pay it back and to pay back 20, 30, 40, 50 cents on the dollar after people sue him to recover. It is a very unsavory and almost, you have to look very hard to find admirable transactions that he has been involved in. The opposite is the case. They are not admirable ways of doing business. You read what those who have done books on them have Have written. And look, he is a showman. There's no question about it. The other thing is a prof.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know enough yet. I'd have to do the reporting. What I see Is someone who appears to lack some part of the natural response that most of us have about shame? That he's willing to say almost anything to get what he wants, but that what we know from the”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exploited by their enemies no doubt, but in the end you see this almost tragic aspect in this book, and I think we saw it in the campaign.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On Hillary, though, let me say one thing about how that book ends, Hillary, the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. A woman in charge The last paragraphs of the book begin since her Arkansas days Hillary Ronham Clinton has had a difficult relationship with truth, and it then goes in the last paragraphs to all her strengths and all her kindnesses and wonderful aspects of her personality and abilities, but always it also comes back to this problem that she has had. And of course, It worked, that the untruths that the Clintons plural found necessary at various times to make his political candidacy viable that had to do largely with the other women, and then you get into some other things. But this was always a problem.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cap off the tube, throw it out the window and into the snow and make him get down on all fours and find it. It was that kind of”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not physically abusive. No, I understand. No, I understand what you're saying. He also told tall tales about himself. You know, he talked about how he would have been a pro football player and he was about to be drafted and he blew out his knee at Penn State. Well, I went up to Penn State and I found that the newspapers, the college newspapers at the time, he had sort of been a JV kind of player. It wasn't so. He had been in World War II a drill instructor in the Midwest, and he ran his household like a military drill instructor. He would sit in a big reclining chair and bark out orders to the kids.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, that was very typical of you, Ronham, but he also separated himself from the community, his sons played football rather than sit in the stands with everybody, including his own family, he would get a deck chair and go sit down at the end of the sidelines by himself. He was an odd duck who did not have friends, very few friends. And as I say, he was sour, unfulfilled, abusive in many ways. And you think that abuse would...”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, there would be the kids and misses Clinton, and pardon me, and Mrs. Rodham would be at the dinner table when Hillary was growing up, and her father would throw out a topic for conversation at the dinner table, and they would all go around and discuss it, and it would get to Hillary's mother, and he'd say, what do you know? You don't know anything, you know? And it would become vicious, and she would leave the table in tears. He would yell, don't let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out. And many friends of the family wondered why Dorothy Rodham had stayed with you, Rodham. And of course, Dorothy Rodham, who is the great influence in Hillary's life, remarkable woman, had herself been abandoned by her parents. But the family dynamic was Really, pretty awful.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I go back to her childhood, which is very different in reality from the childhood that she describes in her own memoir. And that too gets to a problem with Hillary Clinton, that candor and transparency are not natural acts for her. She's very guarded and she wants to control how she is perceived, and it worked eventually to her great disadvantage. But the story is much more complicated than that. But the reality of her childhood was not a suburban idol IDYLLL that she had described in her memoir. It was kind of hellish. Her father was a misanthrope, a sour. Very, very nasty man in some ways, and especially towards his wife, Hillary's mother, whom he verbally abused.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, you've read it. I mean, I have to ask you. I went back and I've never gone back to read any of my books before, but I had to go back and read some of this one. And I read it, oh, I don't know about six months ago. And I said to myself, oh my God, this book published in 2007, and I'm about pretty good. It sounds prescient. Yeah.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But we stayed very close and have stayed very close. There's always been tension here and there, but basically we've stayed very, very close through the years. But in terms of my own work, somehow things have worked out. Well, let me talk to you about...”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably was less welcome to you. In Heartburn? Yes. And I was very worried about the effect of what that movie might be on our kids. And it was a rough few years, and I made it rough on myself. But then also, The thing of being well known Incrementally, I guess you get used to it. And then once I started to get used to it, I think, you know, and then I went back to my work. I did this book about my growing up in a left-wing family. I then continued to do journalism, continued to do what I do. I've had a great life. It's just, you know,”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Background. No, Any real background, I became a bureau chief for ABC News here in Washington, and I was just married to Nora Efrin, my late ex-wife, blew up the marriage through an affair. And it was a terrible, terrible time in my life. And by my own making at the same time,”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In my case, not well for a number of years in there, I think, I didn't know quite what I wanted to do. Woodward and I weren't getting along for a period there after we wrote the final days, which is the account of Nixon's final days in office, which actually was a bigger book than all the president's men.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But instead, we had nothing left to write about after the Senate Watergate Committee had done its fabulous job. And so we decided with some advice from others, we would write the story of our reporting.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That doesn't happen to a lot of newspapers. Well, we agreed to sign a contract. Redford wanted to do a movie early on. Redford had approached us while we were doing the story. And we had said to Redford, go away. If anybody ever knew that we were going to consider doing a movie and we did not consider it, it was beyond even comprehension. And we told him to go away. But then after the resignation, Redford came back and he wanted to do this movie. And we agonized over it, though probably we were going to do it all along, but we really did. We were terribly worried that it would look like an ego trip. Just as we were worried when we did the book that it would look like an ego trip. Originally, all the presidents mend the book was going to be about the cover-up that was still going on because it hadn't been unlocked. And we thought if we wrote a book about it back in 19”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some of it well and some of it not so well. I think some of it in retrospect did it go to my head. Did it go to our heads maybe sometimes? Did we have any idea that we would achieve a kind of a level of fame such as had probably never been known in this business?”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of 72, we did the most important story we did that said that the Watergate break-in was just a small part of a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage directed by the president's closest aides.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was a patriot as well, and he loved the FBI. He could see that the FBI was being used, that the investigation had been circumscribed by the Attorney General of the United States. It was part of the cover-up that the FBI was not allowed to do what it was supposed to do in investigating this break-in. He was aware of the dimensions of it. And so he was willing incrementally and in tiny bits to confirm these things, especially once we discovered this campaign of political espionage and sabotage. And Bob, and we went to him, Bob went to him and said, what about this? And he confirmed this was at the heart of something much bigger than a break-in. And then, until then, this thing did not make sense. And so in October,”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Part of the reason, I think it's a little unclear, and felt as a result was obviously angered, but more than that, there are many motivations, and we can't know them all. And Bob wrote a book called The Secret Man, to which I wrote the introduction about Felt and the deep throat experience.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Help save the country. But felt was the deputy director of the FBI at the time of Watergate. And when J. Edgar Hoover died a few weeks before the Watergate break in, Felt was seen to be a logical successor. But Nixon did not pick Felt.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About two years before he died, and by which time he was somewhat experiencing dementia and at the same time it was very apparent that he So relieved at his secret had been revealed and that he could be recognized for what he did. I mean, this is a case where”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bob Woodward met with Felt. I did not. He met him in an underground garage. He had a signal, Bob, that he would move a plant on the balcony of his little apartment on 15th Street. And somehow felt managed to see it, and they would meet in an underground parking garage over in Arlington. And usually there were only about seven or so meetings during the course of the two years that we worked on the story. Bob and I would work on, and I was always saying to Woods, I said, go see this guy, will you? And he's, I can't see him all the time. Why did”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The whole idea you got to think about how foreign to our history the idea of impeaching the President of the United States was. This was a notion, and in fact it's the one thing we left out of all the president's men, this little meeting we had. The reason we left it out was because when all the president's men was published, Nixon was still president. And we were still concerned that if we were to even put that in there, that it would be regarded, and he was being judged just around that time, he had said he wouldn't resign by the House Judiciary Committee on Articles of Impeachment. And we thought that it might somehow convey the impression even then that we had an agenda. Now, you can argue it was the wrong thing to do to leave it out, but we did.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we were getting ready to do this story, and I put a dime in the coffee machine, which is what coffee cost in those days. And I literally felt a chill go down my neck, only time in my life that was not a metaphor. It was for real. And I turned to Woodward and I said, oh my God, this president is going to be impeached. And Woodward looked at me and said, oh my God, you're right. And we can never use that word impeachment around this newsroom lest somebody here think we have some kind of an agenda. And this was way before anybody had mentioned the words, but it just you could somehow, I don't know how I came to this, but I could just see, oh my God, this is because it stood teres.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bob and I would go to a vending machine room off the newsroom floor and to get our ducks in a row for a presentation to the editors. We had a kind of good, bad cop routine. You can imagine who was the good cop and who was the bad cop. Yeah, probably you don't need to elaborate on that.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thinkable that this would go to the President of the United States and we all thought, I believe, in the early days that this was about overzealous aides very close to Nixon. And then, though, we discovered about eight weeks in a secret fund that had paid for the bugging at Watergate and other undercover activities against the Democrats and it had been controlled by the closest aides to Nixon, including his Attorney General of the United States John Mitchell, who was his campaign manager and the person closest to him. And Bradley says to us, OK, you know, you're about to write a story that says the Attorney General of the United States is a crook. There's never been a story like this in this town. You guys better be right.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again There was no objective here to take down a president. I understand, but you understood the implications of your story. But what's, well, it's very interesting because at first it was not.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but the real trust he placed in us was dick. He confirmed for us information that we had obtained elsewhere by knocking on doors at night and going to visit people who worked for the committee for the re-election of the president.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before, shortly before he died, surely before he died. The secret kept for more than 30 years who this you guys both know who it was. Bob and I knew and we Ben Bradley, you had to know Bradley who it was after Nixon had resigned. We told Bradley who it was.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the Muskie campaign was sabotaged, and you can now see day by day how it was sabotaged. We were able to establish some of it in our stories. And the result was that Nixon was successful in picking the nominee of the Democratic Party. So this is a momentous thing, and they had plans to beat up demonstrators at the conventions for effect so that it would look like the Democrats were doing it. This was a terrible, terrible undermining of democracy, and it was anything but trivial.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That there had been, as Woodward and I discovered, a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage engineered by the White House, by Richard Nixon, and those under him to interfere in the Democratic Party's primary process through wiretappings, through dirty tricks in which the objective was to get George McGovern to be the nominee of the Democratic Party because he was the weakest of candidates. And the strongest candidate who Nixon did not want to run against was Edmund Muskie, the Senator from Maine.”
2017-02-02 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 118 - Carl Bernstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source