YouSaid · the spoken record

Clarissa Ward

lines on the record: 66
first: 2021-09-09
most recent: 2021-09-09
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

“I have a much better understanding of it. And it is frustrating on one level because you want to be able to come out and be like, here is my big takeaway and have it be something that's easy for people to synthesize. But my only big takeaway is that people are people. Wherever you are, whatever their religious creed, color, Whatever dominates, motivates people or people. And that to me is really what keeps me doing this job to this day. I'm endlessly fascinated by people in curious about them and wanting to understand them better and wanting people to be able to Access other worlds more easily even worlds that seem a thousand miles away.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there is a line of demarcation. I think it is the end of the US really trying to impose its will or its ideals onto the world in using the sort of mechanisms of traditional warfare. I feel like that chapter seems to be closed. And I think many people would argue that that's probably a good thing too. I also feel in terms of having come full circle this twenty years, I started out so desperate to understand how these things could happen and what goes into the mind of someone who engages in these kinds of attacks.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that you can't have gone through this 20 years and covering these wars as closely as I have without asking yourself at this moment what was it all for? What did we achieve? What have we changed? What was the legacy that was left? You know, I think sometimes when you think you ask yourself those questions and you reflect on that, it is a little frustrating and a little scary to see. You know, the cycle of history continues to go round and round. And obviously we do learn, but we also don't change as much as we think we will from any given situation.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so. I mean, look, the job of all these, you know, any European leaders you talk to will tell you the same thing, especially the British prime minister, no matter who it is. It's our job to get along with whoever is the president of the United States, and we will.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pretty way to do this, it's going to look ugly, and we're just going to do the best we can. So I think the Europeans are used to dealing with much more intense sort of areas of disagreement or frustration with the US. And I think they see President Biden as being a really effective leader and an ally. But yeah, I think those.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Through Afghanistan? I think that there's a sense of real disappointment in terms of how the levels of communication throughout this whole withdrawal and how much warning European partners were given, NATO allies were given. I think there's also a sense that while the Europeans also wanted to get out of Afghanistan and wanted to end the war, nobody feels delighted about the way it ended. Nobody can look at images of women throwing their babies over razor wire and being like, that was fabulous, right? I mean, it is a moment to stop and think and ask yourself questions about how it could have been done differently. Could it have been done differently? Maybe it couldn't have, but then maybe it needed to be made clearer from the beginning to the public that there's going to be no”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And President Biden has said that, you know, he doesn't want, he wants to see America taking a real global leadership role once again, which is not to say that pulling out of Afghanistan was the wrong thing to do in any way, shape, or form. And as a journalist, it's not my place to say even if it was. But my point is that there may well be consequences for staying and there may well be consequences for leaving. And we should be able to have the conversation about both.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mistake to keep staying in a war that you no longer have any concept or understanding of why you're even there anymore just to keep going along. But I do think that sometimes that is something that's lost, if not on America's leadership, I definitely think it's lost on the American people somewhat who want to believe that, oh, if we're just not paying attention and not involved with that, then it's not our problem. But look how this whole war has started and how 9-11 started. The world is not letting America completely disengage and revert to a more introverted posture.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Afghanistan, it's slightly different, but there's a sometimes a misunderstanding that people in the US have, which is that if the US isn't involved, then there are no consequences. If we leave Afghanistan, then we're done with it. Halas, wow, thank you. If we don't go into Syria, we don't get involved, then we're not involved with that. And the reality is the pain of being the world's greatest superpower is there's always consequences. For action, there are consequences. For inaction, there are consequences. That doesn't mean that action is always the right course and that inaction is not. It just means that it's a mistake to think that just because you leave a war or don't enter a war, that you're off the hook somehow, you're not necessarily, I would argue in the exact same way.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Heading for last, any president. Is going to be faced with. And there are no easy answers. And everyone understands that. I just think that the one thing I would say that I've noticed again in Syria is”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An endless war in Afghanistan. And what is not allowed, it seems to me, in the current political debate is what I have found to be true in so many different wars I've covered, which is it's possible to feel many different things at the same time. It's possible to feel that it was time for this war to come to an end and it's still possible to feel, you know, rivers of pain about leaving people in Afghanistan, about leaving women, it's possible to feel guilt. It's possible to feel unthrilled by America's comportment over the past two decades as a whole. It's possible to feel resentment. It's possible to feel dizzying exhilaration as well at the freedom of being ended. It's possible to feel all these things at the same time. And intellectually, it's possible to grasp all these things at the same time. And I just, it strikes me that.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, listen, I think in the final annalis, it'll turn out that everybody's responsible on some level and to some extent. What I find troubling about the way the Narrative has been framed politically is that if you voice concern about the way it was carried out or you voice sadness for the Afghan people, then you're immediately branded as a warmonger who wants to continue.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, it was absolutely, you know, 90s redux a lot of the same characters who were involved in the government back then, no women, no Hazaras, the ethnic minority that has faced incredible persecution for years at the hands of the Hakani network and others. So no, there was absolutely no indication from the leadership that's been announced so far that there is sincerity behind the platitudes about inclusiveness.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of command I mean, they do actually have in terms of, you know, various different militant groups and insurgencies that I've covered, they actually have a pretty impressive level of command and control, I would say, but within reason and with absolute limitations. And the problem is that the second the rank and files start to get just a little bit disenchanted with the leadership, which could happen very easily because all this talk about progressiveness and diplomacy and that is not Of interest to the rank and file. So it could easily happen, I think, that they will start to get more disillusioned and that things could get trickier for the Taliban.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's really difficult to take the Taliban at face value on anything they've said at the moment because they've made a lot of pretty big promises and we already see they're what someone would say are their true colors coming through. I think the blanket amnesty would be Also, very difficult to enforce on a sort of local level when you're talking about rank and file. And this is the thing that you've always had this with the Taliban. You've got the guys in Doha at the Five Star Hotel talking about women's rights. And then you've got the people on the ground”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then I think the other thing that was maybe not anticipated was that the Taliban were savvier than people had given them credit for in terms of how they went into a lot of these cities. And they basically started having conversations with different groups within the different cities in advance. And they would just say, listen, we're going to come in. We're not going to fire a shot. We'll have a blanket amnesty if you don't fire a shot at us. To a lot of people, that was more appealing than fighting.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We left, and I was like, what do you mean? You fight and you fight and you fight and you fight and unfortunately a lot of people probably die and then yes maybe one side wins but it's pretty rare that you just leave and then again I was driving to Ghazni province drove past a checkpoint with a small base Taliban snipers again firing on the base I just saw a bunch of Afghan soldiers running down out of the base taking off their uniforms hailing a civilian car and just getting in the car and driving off and so at that moment you realize okay this is not what was expected maybe it was by some but I think largely we can agree it was not what was expected”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, I think this is sort of not stating anything new, but I just don't think anyone quite understood how quickly the Afghan army would basically give up. And I know that that really hit home for me when we were in Kandahar and we were on the front lines in this wedding hall that the commandos had taken over and it was their frontline position and they were taking fire from snipers from the Taliban during the day and at night there would be more significant fighting but it was as far as front lines I've been to it was a pretty relaxed frontline and they had a very fortified position and then like four or five days after I left they lost that position and Kandahar fell and I wrote immediately a WhatsApp to the Afghan soldiers who I had been with and I said where are you? Are you okay? And they were like, oh yeah, we left.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, because of that, of course, I think it's vitally important that, and I wish it wasn't still a taboo in our industry. I wish people felt more comfortable talking about it, not talking about like the details of their own personal grief or whatever it might be, but just it should, in my mind, go without saying that anyone who does this job should be seeking therapy once in a while, you know?”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're losing weight, but you're still eating, so you're obviously not happy, you know, like, and then you, and then you realize, oh, wait, this is about that, like, because it's not like, oh, I'm crying because I saw the sad thing. It's like, I don't know what's going on with me. I don't feel like myself anymore. At some of my worst moments, it's like I don't really want to be myself anymore, which is not the same as I don't want to live anymore. It's more just like I don't want to live this life, right?”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think Yes, I do. I think you have to have a therapist if you do this job. I mean, I'm a big fan of therapy no matter what job you do. But this job, it's really essential to have someone who you check in with because the way the trauma or just even deep intense stress manifests is not always in this neat chronological order, right? Where I see the child being trampled and then I go home and I cry a lot because I saw a kid being trampled and then I feel sad about it. And then I've dealt with it, right? It's more like you see something awful, you leave, you feel nothing, you feel detached, you don't sleep well, you're irritable. You don't want to talk to people that you normally really love to be around. Everything feels gray and flat and kind of numb. And yeah, and that's like.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My life is secondary to my kid's lives. And so yes, that takes some readjusting and rejuggling. And I'm not going to say it's all perfect and works super well. Definitely doctor's appointments have been missed and play dates and all the rest of it. And you do the best that you can. And ultimately, I think that for me, I always felt because my upbringing was a little unusual that as long as children have huge amounts of love and support and stability in their life, I think the rest is like, yeah, the rest will kind of work itself out. So hopefully they'll understand why I made some of the choices that I did and went to the places I did. That's part of why I wrote that book. Was for them to understand it all better. But of course it changes everything. It does.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, it changes everything, right? Having kids changes everything, it doesn't change who you are on a fundamental level or it doesn't have to change what you do. But of course it changes the way you approach risk. It changes the way I approach how long I can be away. Previously, I'd go away for six weeks. Like, no problem. Now there's no way. I can't be away from my kids for longer than, you know, ideally two weeks, maybe in a pinch three weeks, but that's it. And that's hard. And there are assignments that I would definitely think twice about taking in terms of risk or certain things, even if I would take the assignment that I wouldn't do that I would have done before because of risk. And also just the whole nature of being on assignment now. And I'll be on a satellite phone organizing a doctor.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Natural instinct when you get back from a very intense trip or you're going through something really tough to kind of feel numb, feel detached, and feel like the only way you can really deal with it is to go back. And the only people you want to talk to are the people you were there with. And that's very natural, but it's definitely not healthy in the long run. And the reality is you can only keep doing this job if you fill the tank. Keep replenishing the tank when you're at home and then you can go out and give the job 110%. But you can't be giving 110% constantly without filling the tank. Doesn't work.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was really great advice, and it's advice that I now pass on to other people. She basically was like, if you want to keep doing this job, you got to have a normal life as well. You can't be one of those people who comes home to like, you know, a dead plant and like, you know, a string of broken relationships and friends who don't talk to you anymore because you're always on the road and overpay, you know, overdue bills and all that. You have to have a nurturing normal life with friends and you whether it's that you want to go out to dinner and have a glass of wine or go to the theater or whatever it is that does it for you. Go dancing. Just have that normalcy in your life and make a point of dedicating time and energy and fostering that because it is the”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our freelance brothers and sisters was you realize that no one was telling the freelancers Don't stay longer than a week, don't go here, don't go there, I won't print this if you don't get it together or, you know, you have to come out now. People were actually saying, I don't want to be responsible for you, but if you get really good stuff, I'll buy it. And so you're encouraging that.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. He's the personification of that. So, but at the same time, I was always pretty cautious. I know that sounds ridiculous because you're like, oh, you're just talking about going to Aleppo in Syria. But still, I was very cautious within the context of covering that conflict. And CBS was also like they were strict with us. We were only allowed to go in for very specific periods of time. Every minute of every day had to be accounted for. We had to take security with us. We had to check in all the time. And, you know, and CNN is the same way as well. And I'm not saying that entirely mitigates risks or means that bad things don't happen. But it's easier when you're a freelancer. And I think that what happened in Syria really highlighted the fact that the industry needs to do better by our”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I didn't say that so much because well, look, there's always when you do this job an element of there but for the grace of God go I, right? Because you can take the craziest risks ever and then somebody else who takes no risk gets killed in a car accident, which by the way is the most common way that foreign correspondents.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The reason I became friends with Jim Foley is that we were both working hard because we knew Austin to try to find Austin. And then Jim was executed. And then my friend Pete Kasig was also executed. But, you know, it was just the worst. It was so, so, so dark. Just relentlessly dark. And my previous experiences of grief had been that there was this sort of catharsis in grief and you kind of work through it and then it passes and the thing about this type of grief was it was so dark. There was no catharsis in it and it was so Difficult to navigate. Yeah, it was really, really a really tough time.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was. I mean it was without a doubt the worst period in my life, the toughest to get my head around. There was so much rage and a lot of fear and a sense honestly that things had slipped out of my control a little bit because when I embarked on this journey as a senior in college, it never occurred to me that I was going to have people I cared about who would be executed, people I cared about who were disappeared by the regime, people I cared about who were bombed or shelled or, you know, and suddenly in Syria, every worst case scenario just started coming at the same time. And Austin Tice, my friend who disappeared.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's say for conduct, then I am willing to take a lot of risks in that situation because I feel like if there is a code of conduct, then I usually have pretty good instincts about people and I work with people. So that's a kind of danger that I'm always more willing to enter into. I definitely struggle in a situation where there's active shelling going on all the time. I obviously spent years covering the Syrian civil war very closely. And that really was very difficult for me because that was a level of fear that was almost crippling. Like it was hard for me to leave the safe house that we were staying in to go out and shoot for the day. I remember my first 60 minutes assignment and I was like, I do not want to leave this house. I really don't, but I really, really, really want this opportunity to do a 60 minutes piece.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Want to see you captured. Yeah. So, I mean, there's several things I would say. Firstly, of course, I get terrified. And like, you're really stupid if you don't get terrified because fear serves a very important function in terms of your ability to survive in dangerous places. So if you're not scared, you're stupid and you don't have any business being there in the first place. I would say for me, I feel much more comfortable with threats that come from, you know, for example embedding with the Taliban or interviewing jihadists. If I can build a relationship and understand a little bit about the way someone's mind works and form some kind of a semblance of a framework for understanding each other or like not trust because I think that's overstating it but like mutually understood rationale.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Often Why was I hooked? I was hooked because. Life seems more important than The world, the things feel more vivid and profound and meaningful when you're in those kind of high stakes moments. And I think when you start out, that's probably what drew me to it or what hooked me. I wasn't hooked to the danger at all because that is scary and I'm not particularly good in a sort of active kinetic situation. But I was drawn to the intensity and the profundity of life in these conflict zones, I think. Yeah.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where I kind of woke up a little bit like, okay, this isn't a game. This isn't a movie. This is real, and this is And yeah, that was a really, it was a pivotal moment for me because I understood both how serious it really was, but I also understood that I was completely hooked.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no. I don't think anyone knows what they're getting into the first time you go to a war zone. You can do all the courses to prepare for it. You can read as many books and do as much research and watch as many movies. Nothing prepares you for the first time that you're in an active conflict zone. And I think in the beginning you're sort of pinching yourself and you feel like you're in a movie or something and you have profound culture shock and everything is sort of thrilling and exciting and new and just like stimulus overload. And then usually you'll have, well, not usually, maybe for me, I had a very close call after, I think halfway through my second trip to Iraq where the hotel we were in was attacked in a triple suicide car bombing and we were all very nearly killed and I think that's the moment.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I always knew that I wanted to cover conflict and I took the job at Fox because they told me I was going to have to wait a month or two for a CNN opening and I was not interested. And I was in a real hurry at 23. So I took the job at Fox with the absolute certainty that this was a stepping stone to get to where I wanted to be, which was in the field. And I drove everybody nuts probably by constantly badgering them to let me go to Baghdad and I would finish work at nine in the morning and go and do Arabic lessons and eventually in 2005, two years into the war and it was so dangerous and people were starting to lose interest in the story because it was relentlessly depressing and it was harder to get staffers to go. And so I was like, all right, send me. And eventually they did”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We don't have the economic growth. We know how to fight in different ways. I mean, this is sort of the beginning of like hybrid warfare as well, right?”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sort of third rate power and like a basket case that needed help to get back on its feet. And it's funny you mention the annexation of Crimea because I often have to explain this to people in the West. The vast majority of Russians thought that that was the most amazing thing they'd ever seen. They were delighted by it. They didn't care about the contravention of international law or whether it was part of no. That was about reinstating Russia's importance on the world stage and about saying we have had just enough of being pushed around by you. Thank you very much. This is how Russian people felt about it. And, you know, you have to deal with us and respect us because we are able, even though we don't have the wealth.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh a hundred percent He was putting Russia back on the map and reinstating the former glory and the geopolitical heft that the Soviet Union had enjoyed for so many years. And because I think there had been humiliation in the 90s, not just in terms of the grinding poverty, but also in terms of perceived NATO encroachment and this idea that Russia was just seen as being”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was different. And I then you started to realize that he was starting to cultivate this grand image. And people were willing to go along for the ride because they were starting to get rich and they had been poor for a really long time. And we're talking like grinding poverty. And so I do think there was something of a Faustian bargain where people were willing to slowly give up little bits of their civil liberties or their privacy or, you know, whatever it might be in exchange for the possibility that, you know, in five years time, they might be able to go on vacation to Egypt for the summer, which was, or Turkey or Thailand. Which was something that had never been possible for most Russians for many, many decades. So, yeah, it was a very different time.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obak puten stobin biel, which means like someone like Putin who's really strong, someone like Putin who doesn't drink. And it was like, wait, what is this? There's like this pop song about your president, but it's sort of, I had never really experienced that before. I can't really imagine a pop song about President Bush or President Clinton.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's extraordinary the evolution of that story because at that time I think he was underestimated by a lot of people. Definitely he was seen as sort of not unthreatening, don't get me wrong. I mean, people were talking about what was going on and it had begun. But he was sort of, he was in a seen in a positive light by many because he had been very quick to respond after 9-11 and sort of extend his hand out to the US and say that, you know, Russia showed solidarity in that moment with America, which earned him a lot of kudos, I think, with President Bush. But meanwhile, the cult of personality was starting to bubble away. I remember while I was living there that time that this song came out, this pop song that went like Takova puten pulse.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Russia wasn't the obvious place to go, but I had already studied Russian literature and I spoke a bit of Russian and I just was so desperate to go somewhere quickly and learn as much as I could. And so that's where I ended up. And then I ended up moving to Russia again later on. So it was very worthwhile, although at the time I felt sort of like, oh, I'm not at the center of the story, but, you know.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Moscow Bureau chief. So I was like, all right, between the two of you, we need to lock this thing down. Because immediately to me, it was like, okay, now I know what I'm going to do with my life. How do we do it? Where do we start? And so I went to Moscow and it was a strange time to be in Moscow because the story post 9-11 was very much about Afghanistan and also the Arab world and the sort of like, you know, drum beat to war in Iraq was starting off”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was super random. Well, there were two sort of prongs to it. One was that my father knew Mike Chinoi, who was a CNN correspondent for years in Hong Kong. And then the second was that my mother's dentist was Jill Doherty's dentist, who was”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Having a vocation or a calling that is to somehow create connections through shared human experience with people or places or cultures or conflict that seem impossibly remote to many Americans, that is still to this day what excites me about this work and what motivates me”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I also felt this strong sense of compulsion that there was a breakdown in translation between different worlds and that that had contributed to what had happened. And I think, you know, some people were called to serve. And for me, I felt called to act as a translator and to try to better understand how this had happened and why this had happened. And in the process of trying to understand that, maybe also to bring something of America to that world as well that clearly was only seeing America through one lens, let's say. So, I mean, I was 22, right? There's a lot of hubris and a lot of idealism. And I think that the goals are maybe slightly less lofty now, although I will say that the primary, that sense in my gut of”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In touch with what's happening in the world around us and when did people start to hate America so much and how did this happen and where did this happen and why did this happen and how do they see it?”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I woke up. My friend told me to come over to his apartment. We didn't have a television in our apartment. And so I ran over to his apartment. There were a bunch of other students sitting on the floor watching the TV as things were unfolding. And basically, all I remember for the rest of that day was being glued to the television. I remember feeling obviously as everyone did like profound shock, but I also felt shame that all of this had been brewing beneath the surface and I had been largely disengaged from it. And that seemed very odd to me because I was like, I am from a world where I should know more about this, right? Like I'm privileged enough to have a great education and I should be more”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely not, definitely not. Nothing could have been further from my orbit. I mean, you know, hindsight's 2020. And so I look back and I'm like, okay, this is an operating thing that taught me to be curious, that taught me to be self-reliant, that taught me about storytelling, that allowed me the privilege of traveling a lot in the world and being exposed to different languages, which I had always loved from a young age. So in that sense, you can sort of see how things could end up where they were, but no, up until 9-11, there was absolutely no glimmer on the horizon that Classa was going to become an international correspondent.”
2021-09-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 459 — Clarissa Ward · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source