YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Shapiro

lines on the record: 97
first: 2017-04-24
most recent: 2017-04-24
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

“Thank you, David. It was definitely an honor to serve with you and serve the president, and he put me in the place where I hopefully made a good contribution.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I do think that that's one of the things that I hold on to as hope that the two state solution is not dead, is that the right leaders properly motivated and who invest in each other as partners and show that they trust each other and make it a little bit easier to make hard decisions instead of the dynamic we've basically had between Netanyahu and Abbas where they mistrust each other and are always scoring points and positioning for the blame game, that would still give me some hope that it's possible.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's how I read that statement by the president was that he was doing a favor to Prime Minister Ninyau to help him get in and out of that press conference without crossing lines that members of his cabinet had set for him. Now, you asked, what are the prospects? I mean, I do think one of the reasons I think it's not dead yet is because a lot of this depends on leadership. And even when it looks impossible, when the right leaders or the right combination of leaders emerge, things that look impossible are suddenly possible again. I don't think the dynamic of Netanyahu and Abbas is going to produce that breakthrough. I don't think any Israeli coalition that looks like the current one could do it. It may well require new Palestinian leadership, and that's a huge question.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't buy it, I didn't buy it that it was a change of policy, and indeed the next day several administration officials made clear the policy is still two states, and I was very glad about that. I think it was a favor for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was under great pressure from his cabinet, who are dominated by ministers who actually oppose a two-state solution, not to use that language. Now, he has endorsed a two-state solution with various caveats, a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state since a speech he gave in Bari Lawn University in 2009.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“strong and secure in Jewish and Democratic because that's the Israel that we've been able to build that partnership with. And if you take the two-state solution off the table, some of those things are going to start to change. So I'm not ready to throw it out and say it's dead. I do think at the same time that we continue to work for it. And I'm glad the administration is, there's probably a policy planning exercise that people outside of government and think tanks and others should be thinking about. It's not a happy question, but what does the U.S.-Israel relationship look like if we don't have a two-state solution? Once we sort of know it's not going to happen, what are our options? How will we maintain our interests, our security partnership, certain moral commitments as well, at a time when many Americans, much of the rest of the world, and not a small number of Israelis will say, you know, Israel is not quite the same Jewish and Democratic society that it was originally intended?”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't know if it's wrong. I hope it's wrong. I don't know if it's dead. There is some tipping point where because of the way attitudes have evolved on both sides in which both sides still say in majorities but declining majorities, we want two states, but it's the other side that won't make the necessary compromises as those attitudes harden. And of course, as the map changes with additional settlement construction, it will reach a point of impossibility. The thing about tipping points is you often don't know you're past them until you're well past them. So I don't know if it's a little ahead of us. I hope that's still true or if it's a little behind us, in which case Tom is right. I do think that we as Israel's closest ally and we as a country that benefits from the kind of security and economic and societal partnership we've built with that country have an interest in ensuring that it remains”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a belief, right, that the Palestinian issue no longer matters. It's true. If you go and talk to Arab leaders, they don't necessarily put the Palestinian issue at the top or top five of their priority list, but it is different from saying they could be seen as throwing them under the bus. That misunderstands the role the Palestinian issue in Arab politics. And I have to say to the new administration's credit, they seem to have understood that, and they're trying to find a way.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And under the pressures of his cabinet, he says he's going to go ahead and build a new settlement for those from a settlement that was evacuated under court order, and they will allow building within the built-up areas of existing settlements. The Trump administration has not endorsed that. I think they are continuing to push for less and something they can take to Arab states and say, look, you're not going to be embarrassed. If you come to a regional process, you're not going to be embarrassed by some splashy announcement of settlement construction the same week you show up. You know, there's sometimes a belief in some articulate this that because there is an actual alignment of interests between Israel and many of the Sunni Arab states against other regional threats like Iran and like ISIS and that's real and they are talking often quietly but often less quietly with Egypt and Jordan about how to protect each other against those threats.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He didn't get much of a response. Subsequent to that, his envoy, Jason Greenblatt, another lawyer from the Trump organization, went out there. And I have to say, he's made an impressive debut. He, first of all, didn't only meet with Netanyahu and Abbas. He met everybody, Israelis of all political stripes, Palestinians of many political stripes, refugees, students, settlers, soldiers, business people. I thought that was the right thing to do. Both of those societies, there are other actors besides the leaders who will help determine the success or failure of the diplomatic efforts. And it was useful for him to hear that. But number two, they entered into a weeks-long negotiation with the Israelis that reminded me a lot of several episodes in the Obama administration, which was how much less settlement construction will go on during a period you're trying to get the Palestinians back to the table and trying to get Arab states to participate in a regional process. In the end, they haven't reached an agreement by all counts.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get back to that at the same time to try to convince Arab states who want to participate or you want to participate in a regional process that will show Israelis there's a prospect of being integrated and normalized into the region and put some positive pressure on the Palestinians to come to the table in a useful way. Those two things don't really go together. And so they seem to figure that out even before inauguration. They certainly in the run-up to the Prime Minister's visit to Washington in which”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. So that funny thing happened between election day and inauguration day, at least as it looks from some Israelis who were expecting something very different, in that they must have started talking to a lot of other people, including Arab diplomats. It took a while, but eventually the Palestinians as well. And they, I think, started to understand the connections between these issues. If you decide that you're going to say we don't have any problem with building settlements, or if you decide to say, you know, on the first day we're going to move our embassy to Jerusalem, which I actually think is not an impossible thing to do.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That I believe is fundamentally dangerous for Israel's future as a Jewish democratic state. So, you know, it was a tough call. It was a judgment call. In the end, he made the call to abstain.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We can start annexing the two state solution is dead. Thank you, President Trump. And I said to them, you know, he's not president yet. If you actually think that's going to be the policy of the new administration, well, I would disagree with it, but wait till January to adjust your policies accordingly. President Obama is still president. So by the time that resolution came up and it was kind of in the crazy period right before the holidays as things were nearing an end, then this legislation to legalize illegal building had advanced. The president had a tough decision. I mean, had he vetoed it, he could have said, look, the UN is an inherently unfriendly body, and it is, and that's why we've always protected Israel from unfair criticism there. On the other hand, he said to say, number one, this resolution is drafted in a more balanced way. But number two, if I veto it, am I somehow giving assent to this race to legalize and annex and build?”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, right, and so there were Israelis, particularly on the right who said, Great, this is a sea change. Now we can legalize illegal settlements, and there was Knesset legislation advancing to do just that.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was a belief, which turns out not to have been the case, that the Trump administration was going to take the reins off completely, build anywhere you want, annex anything. And part of it was...”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And went the other direction. First there was a new settlement announced right when President Obama traveled to Israel for former President Perez's funeral and about two weeks after we had signed the $38 billion memorandum of understanding for military assistance. Kind of an odd way to sort of say thank you for those steps. And then after our election there was a kind of hooping and hollering since then.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To find the hook on which to hang the veto, but at least if you know that's coming, this should be a period of relative quiet on the issue of settlements because you don't want the decision makers to have that weighing heavily on their mind when the time comes.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can defend it. It was actually not my preference. I mean, I think had we been able to shape a resolution to be more like a report the Quartet had issued in the summer that I think applied the responsibility to all the different parties a bit more evenly, that I think could have been maybe a more constructive product. But that's not how the Security Council works. We were not really in a position to just draft what we wanted and get it passed. We were going to have to deal with something the Palestinians were able to get one of their allies on the council to present. And so that's what happens. And all through the fall, we were talking about this very openly with the Israelis. And I said to them, you know, I don't know how we would respond to a resolution like that. We did veto one in 2011, but this one, maybe it'll be drafted more cleverly. Maybe it'll put in some balanced language about terrorism and incitement. Actually, they did include that in the end. Maybe it will just be hard for us.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. You know, this was really sort of the last chapter of my ambassadorship and all Israelis, not only those in the Prime Minister's camp, were unhappy about it. And so it sort of colored my final weeks there. And not that that's that important, but I probably could have lived without it from that point of view.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it wouldn't have taken away the knowledge. It probably would have lost us the international consensus around trying to keep Iran from breaking out, and Iran would have gained a great deal of international sympathy. And then within two to three years, they could have rebuilt those facilities and made a dash into a breakout for a bomb. So this agreement, which buys us at least 10 to 15 years with systematic monitoring of all the different pathways that Iran could take to make sure they don't break out, buys us much more time. It doesn't solve this problem, and the president never claimed it did solve this problem for all time, but abyss us much more time and gives us much more intelligence, with much greater international support than we would have ended up with after military strike.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that was something else President Obama did during those years. The Iranian nuclear facilities. And he was prepared, I believe, to this day. He was prepared to use that if there were no other way to prevent Iran from breaking out. I know Wendy Sherman was here recently, and she made an important point, which was While you can bomb facilities, you can't bomb away knowledge. So the downside of the military option is that it would have destroyed some of those facilities.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely, absolutely. Those sanctions were already fraying. There were many countries, not only Russia and China, but others who were looking for ways to wriggle out of those obligations. And if we were seen as the party that sort of walked away from the negotiating table, They would have collapsed. And so then Iran would have had the return to the international economic system and no restrictions on its nuclear program.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the problem, and this was the argument we made consistently, is that had we not reached an agreement that met our conditions of systematically blocking off every pathway Iran has to nuclear weapon, and that's what this agreement did, we would have been faced with trying to maintain the sanctions against Iran at a time when most of the rest of the world was still.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“draw the line differently between a good agreement and a bad agreement. And indeed, that's sort of what happened as we reached the decision points of early 2015. Then the question is, how do you deal with that disagreement? And it's a big one. It's important, and I don't fault Israelis for feeling that sense of vulnerability. You know, those differences of perspective are legitimate given that we're a global power, given where we sit physically, geographically, given our military capabilities, and Israel, which is closer to the threat and more.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Iran deal was, you're correct, widely viewed in Israel, not only by Prime Minister Netanyahu as a bad deal. What was a little bit vexing for those of us who had worked on that issue with the Israelis for years, going back to the beginning of the Obama administration, was that it really did derive from a common strategic goal of preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon. There was no question in either government that that was a completely unacceptable outcome. That regime given its ideology and its threats and the way it conducts itself regionally could never be allowed to get that technology. And so we had worked for years in very, very close cooperation to build the intelligence picture of the nuclear program in Iran, to build out a sanctions regime and then enforce it. And that's really what put the economic pressure on Iran that ultimately brought them to the table in a serious way finally. But we always sort of knew that we would probably, if the negotiations ever got serious,”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You need an opponent, and there is your Lapede who's rising in the polls, but it has challenges. But it may be that there will be that feeling among Israelis that we just need a change. On the other hand, a lot of people thought that before the last election as well.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I thought the Prime Minister made an ugly statement on election day about. Calling it a question the legitimacy of Arab citizens of Israel voting. He later apologized for it. But it showed how he was willing to play just about any card to get those voters to come back home and support him. By the way, now I'd say now he's been prime minister eight and a half years, this time plus an earlier term in the 90s. There is a kind of a natural process in democracies where at some point a leader who has been there for a long time is sort of pushed out. It happened to Thatcher. It happened to Blair. There are those who think the next election, quite apart from legal troubles, quite apart from policy issues, will be one.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, he was basically trailing in the polls going into the final weekend of the last election. And the only way he could recover those votes was to pull them from other parties on the right. That is to say, he had to kind of play to the furthest right elements of Israeli politics, bring them back into the Likud fold, and also suggest to them that they might end up with a prime minister from the left. And so Naftali Bennett, his right-wing rival and now coalition partner, lost probably three or four seats in that final weekend because the prime minister was saying things about.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other iss They've been very disappointing. And therefore, it's a good foil for an Israeli leader turning down what seems to be a very forthright and forward-leaning Palestinian leadership, they'd pay more of a price for that. For Netanyahu, he hasn't had that generally because President Abbas has been disappointing in many ways. So I think he is still seen by many Israelis as somebody they trust with their overall security, since they have doubts about the prospects of two states under this pairing with these Palestinian leaders. He doesn't pay that high a price.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is, there is, but he remains, I think, considered by many Israelis to be someone who's been very credible on Israel's security core security needs at a time when there is a lot of doubt about who the leaders of the Palestinians will be or whether the current leaders have it within them to make hard decisions.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there could be a recommendation for an indictment from the police later this year. The Attorney General then would have to. There's some precedent.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, today he leads a very right wing government, probably the most right wing in Israel's history, probably not the coalition he wanted, frankly coming out of the last election, and he's made several attempts during this government to try to broaden it and to try to bring in Buji Herzog, the leader of the Zionist Union, the center-left party and the opposition, to try to have a more balanced government. But he continues to, he's got some legal troubles. He's been investigated by the police on a number of different...”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He did. He was frustrated. I mean, he also did believe that the Prime Minister Netanyahu had certain qualities and capabilities and political standing, considering where he came from in the political system in Israel, to actually take some very hard decisions. And of course, there's precedent for that in Israel, Manacham Began.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's made him very, very cautious. And then when asked to do hard things, as the president did, as he'd asked others to do hard things, including the Palestinians, he would sometimes recoil from that.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes. So, I mean, I have to say, I think the Prime Minister took a view fairly early on, and it was inaccurate in my view, and I would tell him that in later periods, that there was almost a desire to harm him politically by some of the things that were being asked of Israel, by asking for settlement freezes or other limitations on settlement construction, maybe too much focus or too much sympathy for certain Palestinian demands or perspectives. And he has always had a approach, I think, to politics to first put, and you almost have to do this in the Israeli political system to kind of put his own political stability first. It is true that an Israeli prime minister, unlike an American president, can wake up prime minister and by evening have his government fall.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was also the case that they, I want to say before I get to the differences, that they actually did an enormous amount of positive work together and that despite those differences, they really put the focus on the common interests of strengthening the alliance, of strengthening Israel's ability to defend itself. And we can talk about some of the ways we can do it.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, the president has spoken about this in ways that I think are still true. He and Prime Minister Netanyahu come from sort of different political traditions, if you will, Prime Minister Netanyahu clearly out of the right-of-center camp in Israel, the president from a center, center-left camp in the United States. So it's not surprising that they have some differences of outlook. But, you know, we've had those differences in pairings between Israeli and American leaders before.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just one more point on the previous question, if you don't mind, David. My feeling that it wasn't a mistake to go to Cairo was also shaped by the fact that we always thought we would be able to get the president there much earlier. We thought we could get him there within the next six to twelve months as part of a peace process that was getting launched. And of course we never.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some tough language about settlements and about the need for Israel to take certain decisions as well. So I think those were important messages for those audiences to deliver. I think had we continued on from Cairo to a trip to Israel, it would have perhaps soothed some of the concerns that Israelis were feeling watching that scene unfold in Cairo. But it also would have meant the trip would have taken on a completely different meaning. You would have had to not only do Israel, you would also had to do the Palestinians, you would probably have also had to do Jordan. And suddenly it becomes a peace process trip. And to try to keep the focus on that initial outreach and not have it turn into a trip about the negotiations that then George Mitchell, our envoy, was trying to get launched, I think would have really muddied the focus.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They can have a good relationship with the United States without accepting that we will maintain our close bonds with Israel and expect others to move in that direction as well should think otherwise.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it was a mistake. I know there's been a lot of written about that and a lot of people involved in decision, even in RNR team, have said they wish we had continued on to Israel. I don't think that was the time to go to Israel. You know, that trip had a very specific purpose, which was to open a conversation with Muslim societies who had really during the Bush years come to see the United States in a very unfriendly light. And it was critical that that audience be able to absorb the messages he was trying to deliver to them. There were many, I should add that among them were that there should be no question raised about Israel's legitimacy. Anybody who thinks”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this was always my experience. We'll get to maybe other policy differences that came up later in the presidency. But it was always my experience that when you got him in front of people, either a group of leaders in a small room or even a larger audience, and he was able to speak in his own voice and communicate his own feelings and his own motivations, it wasn't that everybody agreed with absolutely every word that came out of his mouth, but that he so easily cleared the bar of this is a friend. This is a person who is a friend of the Jewish community who shares so many of our community's traditions and values and who Really has Israel's well-being very much prominent in his mind and in his policies. And he was always able to convince people that I felt in his own voice better than we of the staff could.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It meant that we had a lot of work to do to convince people who ultimately did vote for him that he was fine. There was nothing you had to worry about.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but that became a factor in it. You know, in the end, the approach I took and others on the campaign took that next two years was, look, there's facts, there's rumors, there's a supposition, there's even innuendo, much of it fueled by people with a clear political agenda, which is to hurt him, or more broadly to kind of drive a partisan wedge into the Jewish community to try to suggest that one party, the Republican Party, is more friendly to Israel and the Democratic Party is less. And so much of it had that very impure motive behind it. But then there were lots of people out of genuine concern, out of care about Israel and its security and not knowing what would happen with an unknown president with a different background than they're used to and without the national profile and with some other associations that raised questions for them.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was before the internet, but it's certainly been made more true since then. And so there were, you know, look, various episodes, he had relationships, which he was proud of and deservedly so with Palestinian Americans as well here in Chicago. And so sometimes those were twisted to say, ah, see, he's not so unfriendly. There was a story about Reverend Wright and, you know, Reverend Wright's stated views, which the president never. Endorsed in any way.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was also at a time, I think, when the phenomenon of internet rumors was really sort of reaching kind of a new plateau. And people could basically drop any story about him onto the net, and it would race around. And as Mark Twain said, the lie gets halfway around the world where the truth gets its boots on.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A strong relationship, but outside of that community, he was not well known. That's unusual for a politician getting to the level, the national level he did. And so many other people were just sort of hearing whatever they heard from whatever rumor. And it was also...”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, it was the newness and the differentness and the unusual biography that he came with him, I think obviously that played into it. First of all, he was new on the national stage. Outside of the Jewish community around Chicago, and as you know, most of its leaders have then and still now think of him as a great friend. Yeah, a very close relationship.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Community right. So the first thing to say is one shouldn't overstate the, at least in percentage terms. People in the Jewish community feel about him or felt about him during all those years. Look, there was a narrative that kind of grew up around him”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Trying to reduce our own presence and footprint and the costs we were incurring because of the war in Iraq and work with partners in the region to help them take on more of that burden with us as a convener and as an ally, but not necessarily shouldering all the burden ourselves.”
2017-04-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 141 - Dan Shapiro · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source