YouSaid · the spoken record

David Axelrod

lines on the record: 75
first: 2022-09-01
most recent: 2022-09-01
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

“Again, I've just paused on that for a second just because I think it's a political insider's world, yeah, the big lie, amazing. I mean, we all are amazed by it, astonished by it, appalled by it, right? But for normal people, I think about this much as anybody as you do, right? How can it be? I mean, I thought it was crazy back in the days when your boss, when we saw these numbers, it would be like a third of Republicans think he's not a legitimate president he was born in Kenya. Another thing that Donald Trump propagated. Yes. Obviously very fast.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But he stopped being president. Well, but I think that's presidency ended. And there was an insurrection that he fomented, right? That's a little bit of unusual case, right?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We love you Very special The guys who beat Capital Hill police officers with American flags tased Officer Fanone. He loves them, right? This is like one of the most appalling things anybody's ever seen, although Trump has done a lot of appalling things. But here's my question for you as we look back on the year of 2021. Are you surprised that Trump remains such a big figure in our politics and that in some way that not only did one sixth and all of that horror that people witnessed that day It didn't diminish his power at all, I don't think. And does that stun you? And how can that be?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Up so late. Deep in the A-block. When histories are written, obviously his management of COVID was disastrous, but the legacy of that is this, you know, he turned a pandemic, an issue of public health where science should have governed. And in any other era in our time really probably would have governed. We're not being, I think, rose-colored in our glasses when we say in the past America, generally like these were depoliticized things. Trump politicized it, turned it into a culture war, and it did everything into a culture war. Right. And well, yes, and we're dealing with all of that right now, but really the worst of it to go back to the inaugural period. We had the insurrection on January 6th. I want to plague Trump, that 16 video, the thing he put out a little too late in the day, just to remember what it was like on the day that the Capitol was almost sacked.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that takes us to my next topic, which is that man Donald J. Trump, who I think if you were going to talk about what led to the politicization.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's times when I think Republican death cult is overstated, other times not. It does feel to me like there are Republicans who are rooting for COVID to come back because they think it's in their political benefit.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, there was Ron Johnson attacking Fauci a little while ago and saying, you know, we got the whole line of Republicans who attacked Fauci and say he's a Nazi and this and that. There's all that scapegoating of Fauci. It raises a question. I have commented on this and gotten in some trouble with conservatives for saying this, that Republicans kind of...”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But here's the thing that frustrates me about people and the way we talk about politics. It's like, you know, look. Presidents don't create good and bad economies, they move the needle a little bit, but they get when the economy's good, they get all the credit. When the economy's bad, they get hammered. That's just reality. So like people say Joe Biden doesn't deserve all the criticism, but when Delta hit, that's when the opinion poll started to slide. Even more than Afghanistan, we can say in August is when the slide started. He's been on a downhill trajectory ever since. Is it fair? No. It's just part of the program of your president. You can't really be like, this isn't fair. I've done a good job. Why are people mad at me? Because COVID's backed. That's going to be how it's going to be, if you said.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It leaves a giant hostage to fortune, no matter what you say about what they were informed about, it's like it just seems like why? Why do you need to go that far?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm only going to channel Ron Claim this second now right here because I don't like Ron's got about 100 IQ points on me, so I feel like an idiot. But Ron would say, hey, we've played that fairly, right? That's the full context. He didn't say the fight's over. He didn't say mission accomplished. He didn't say we are declaring independence. But you know, David, you're a message communications guy. Would you have had the president go out and say today we're closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus, or is that a little too close to mission accomplished, which of course, as we know, came back to Biden when Delta came around days later?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And of course, one of the things that's true is that because of the narrow majorities and because the ideological divisions in the party, the impression to a lot of Americans is Democrats in disarray, they can't get this shit done. Why not? And it just looks like more Washington squabble to a lot of people. But here's a tangible thing, right? COVID, right? The most tangible thing. Why would you have I elected president? A lot of people were sick of Trump. A lot of people thought COVID was fucking his asshole. 100%. They said, get Joe Biden, he's going to come in here. His company's going to fix the virus, right? He's going to help us get past the pandemic. So they passed that big COVID bill. Things were looking great. And then we got to the summer. And over July 4th weekend, I want to play this here's Joe Biden. This, I think, is the literally the worst thing Joe Biden said. People make fun of him for a million things.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And now, these broad were here, he would say, we pass these huge things. We will be rewarded for them down the line. Do you think that that's a good bet, or do you look at that and say, hey, maybe Spamberger is right?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're not going to know whether Build Back Better is passed before the time that this airs and maybe not this year. But even if, let's imagine it passes in some form, another multi-trillion dollar thing, even if it's scaled down, right? If I'm channeling Ron Clain and I'm sitting here at this table, I say, man, those are three enormous things that we passed with threadbare majorities in the House and Senate. Abigail Spanberger, after the Virginia thing, said, we didn't elect him to be FDR. People just wanted to get back to normal. And that's the problem, overreach. In this inaugural, he's laying out the case for boldness. He's got laying down the tracks for I'm going to be FDR.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he passed a massive COVID relief program in the spring. He passed the infrastructure bill you just talked about. These are multi-trillion dollar. Like way off the scale of precedent, nothing we've ever done in America.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think the answer to my question, at least, is that he has been bold, right? He's pursued. There's no doubt. Maybe, I mean, you could argue he hasn't really done much, even to try to address the questions of systemic racism, or really of democracy and the truth, but the virus, the economy, and maybe climate, he's done big swings, right?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Biden met this moment. Has he been bold? Have we been bold in some ways? Yes, in some ways no. But the other question, and I'll get back to yours, is that what most Americans were thinking about? I mean, obviously the democracy issue was you're behind a fence and an armed guard on the capital because we just had an insurrection. So he had to address that. The other challenges are undoubtedly existential challenges really important. But the question is always like, what are people feeling in their own lives? And I think that the test for him, as it is for every president, but particularly in a time like this where things feel so loose and out of control, is do people feel better about what's going on in their lives? And do they feel like you are connected to what's going on in their lives? And the danger of going”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. Where this one's on table made, if it's not for boldness, it's our time. Yes, exactly right. So we want to talk about the year in politics, and I figured I'd start with that because it's amazing it's a year ago almost that it was inaugurated. And I just, I don't mean to be too literalist, but he rattled. I always think it's a little dangerous to rattle off. Here are the five or six big crises of our time. And if we don't solve them, we're fucked. But he did. He named them all. And I'll ask you how you think he did on them, but most generally like, have we met this moment?”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Extra, it's great to see you here. Good to see you. We're going to talk about the next time for baldness. I feel really comfortable.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Indeed, it is a lot, and you are going to want to hear every word of wisdom from David Axelrod, a man who has spent his entire career dedicated in one way or another, to keeping our country and himself, his family, and back in the old days his beloved clients, including one Barack Obama, from getting singed or scorched, or swamped, or drowned by the forces of Helen Highwater.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The rest of the sterling conversation with David. We got to talk about all that political stuff, but also we had time to talk about David's long and fascinating career first in journalism, then as a democratic strategist with a specialty in helping black politicians navigate the tricky cross currents of American racial politics. And now, as an analyst for CNN, hosted the excellent podcast and co-host of another second excellent podcast, despite the presence and nature of his co-host, the ever surly and short tempered curmudgeon, Mike Murphy. That podcast called Hacks on Tap. At the end of our talk, despite its retrospective focus, Axe and I turned towards the future. Got to talk about his assessment of how steep the hill is the Democrats are facing in next year's midterm elections, the biggest challenges facing the Biden administration, and of course, Donald Trump and his party's repeated and relentless attempts to subvert American democracy and the resulting stakes for all of us in 2022 and 2024.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is David Axelrod's second appearance on Hell in High Water. The first came back in late October of last year, just a couple of weeks before Election Day, when David appeared with his fellow members of the Obama Brain Trust, Alyssa Mastromonico and David Pluff. This time, however, we have Ax Solo, allowing us plenty of time to discuss pretty much everything of consequence this past year in politics from the implications of COVID to the Biden presidency, the American economy, and Washington's overarching, never-worse polarization, partisanship, and dysfunction. Everything that is, except for all the news related to Joe Biden's Build Back Better bill, which, since we recorded this, got punted into 2022 when it was supposed to be done by the end of 2021, and then since we recorded this, received what could turn out to be a mortal blow from Joe Manchin. So the coverage of Build Back Better, a little bit overtaken by events here in the podcast, but that's sort of made up for by...”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hang dog expression that is one of his characteristic trademarks, along of course with his unmatched knowledge of and experience in national politics, a track record that most famously includes back in simpler times, helping to elect and then re-elect our nation's first black president. And so, without further ado, you already know who this person is, the master disaster, the Sultan of Swat. The Say Hey Kid of American politics, the truth, the light, the answer, the question, the one and only, David Axelrod. The state of our politics in the last year has been rancid because we can't get free of this goddamn virus.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Either foolish or lucky enough not to have to take four years of Latin high school. That means the year of our Lord 2021 in the year of our Lord. Although when it comes to this past year, the Lord, if such a creature even exists, doesn't seem to have been around very much. Anyway, we are starting down this retrospective path, which will carry us through the next few episodes of the podcast with the topic that is nearest and dearest to both my and the recount's heart, and that would be politics. And to help us make sense of the past year in politics, we have with us this week an old and dear friend, someone I sat down with recently, when he happened to be in New York City, well, not exactly happened to be. This guy had come to New York precisely so the two of us could go to see the Knicks take on his beloved Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden, a game that did not go exactly as I had hoped, but that put him in a mighty good mood. He's like cackling and chortling and taunting me, all the while still wearing that”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone, John Heilman here, and welcome to Hell and High Water, my podcast for the recount about politics and culture on the edge of Armageddon with big ups to my palizza, the presiding genius, and the sound of Wutang clan, and the producer of our dope theme music. It's that time of year again, people, meaning the end of the year, where we here at Hellen High Water start feeling a little not exactly sentimental or nostalgic, God knows, or reflective, God help us. But, you know, just a little retrospective. Which is to say that we're in the mood to gaze back upon these past 12 months, to review and assess and analyze, extrapolate, and explicate the highs and the lows, the big stories, the sweeping trends, and the most unsettling, unnerving, and occasionally uplifting events, developments, dust ups, and disasters of this past year. And boy, there have been a bunch of those all across the news landscape from 2021 Anodomini, for all of you people who were”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Heyax files listeners. This week we're sharing a conversation I had with my pal John Heilman back in December for his podcast, Hell or High Water. Every week John talks to seminal figures in politics, entertainment, business, tech, the media, and beyond about the chaos we've lived through during the last few years. The conversations are deep, rich, bracingly real, but also hopeful. I was honored to talk about my time as a political reporter, a Democratic strategist, a White House aide, as well as to reflect on what's ahead for the Democratic Party and the country. I hope you'll enjoy the episode as much as I loved recording it. Be sure to check out other episodes of Hell or High Water, wherever you get your podcasts.”
2022-09-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · The Axe Files presents Hell & High Water with John Heilemann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source