YouSaid · the spoken record

David Litt

lines on the record: 98
first: 2017-10-09
most recent: 2017-10-09
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

“And we didn't have any furniture in our office, and we turned the back room. We were so exhausted that the back room just became a rotating nap room so that we could keep going. And eventually they did send Jen Brown, who then went on to be the field director for Ohio for... President's campaign in 2012, and she sort of came and said, what are you guys doing here? And whipped us into shape a little bit. But it was this almost like kind of like a lost boys feeling. I mean, you know, both genders, but that feeling of there's no grown-ups, and so we're just going to figure this thing out. And there was something, it was nice to have someone who came in and told us what made sense, but it was also, it's really hard to describe just. Possible everything seemed back then. I mean, there was so much pressure.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. I was an indentured servant, but we didn't, we called it something fancier than that. And it was great, though. I mean, it was lucky we started this talking a little bit about privilege. Not everybody can go out and, you know, follow their campaign sort of instinct for no money and afford to do that, but I could. And it was an amazing experience. I remember we were, for some reason, in the one region of Ohio, in Canton, Ohio, and nobody had hired any regional field director for the campaign. So there were five of us organizing fellows, and we didn't have a boss, so we just kind of totally went off the grid. We stopped dialing into conference calls, and we tried to lease office space that didn't make any sense because there was no air conditioning in summer.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. So he, as I told him, yeah, we were passed by some cars. We were in the left lane. We were mostly passing. And then it was late at night, so it wasn't like bumper to bumper traffic on 95 or 81. I forget which highway we were on. Nonetheless, Yeah, there were some moments when we passed, you know, people would get a glimpse of what was going on and sort of do a double take, and we'd try to speed past them.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He read the book, and like, there's things you're like, Oh, yeah, you're gonna read that part too. Didn't think about that. I should have given him a redacted version, yes, exactly.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we left very quickly after that. But once we got back on the highway, true to our agreement, we figured out a way to strip down and finished our ride naked.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were planning it, and then a security guard came over, and so we sort of threw on underwear, and I will say in a weird way, the only thing more embarrassing than being naked in a car is being in your underwear in a car.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was this moment of feeling like we're just part of this new and exciting and at least in my mind better thing. And so we did. We drove, it wasn't a straight shot. At one point, we veered over and tried to break into the mystic aquarium, which is a small aquarium in Connecticut, which made a lot of sense at the time.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And in the book, the way I describe it is, it just seemed like the Barack Obama of propositions. Like what you were saying about how unimaginable it is that he was an African-American man who could win in a state that was predominantly white. It was similarly unimaginable that I could ask someone, do you want to drive back to the camp? It seems like the perfect analogy.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we got beat pretty bad there, but it still was this kind of giddy, unprecedented moment where it just everything about the idea of dropping everything and driving, you know, it's New England, so driving across state lines isn't that hard, but still, like driving to a whole new place and being part of this movement and the generosity that people felt toward us, even if they weren't voting for Obama, but the sense that just seeing us there made them feel better about America in some way. And it made us feel better about America in some way. It just felt like we were on the cusp of something incredible. And so on the way back, I was sort of thought about trying to work up the courage to try to lean in for a kiss or something like that. And then instead, what I said was, hey, do you want to drive back to New Haven naked? And to be fair, I was not new to streaking. It's not like this had ever crossed either of our minds, but I was new to naked driving, as was she, to my knowledge.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's called aggravated borrowing. I think upon the return, it sort of maybe, well. It's funny, one of the few people friends of mine from college I haven't heard from since then is my former roommate, so she may agree with you. So we drove to Providence. It became very clear very early on that Rhode Island was not going for Obama.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And I mean, she was. Paid me no interest, for totally understandable reasons, and she had plenty of choices, but it turned out that she was also she caught the Obama bug too, and so I saw an inn, and so the day of the Rhode Island primary, which was march fourth, maybe one early March, I said, Hey, do you want to go to Rhode Island at the last minute and will knock on doors in Providence? And she had rejected basically every other offer that I had. And this one she said, yeah, that sounds good. So I borrowed my roommate's car without asking my roommate, and we drove up. I think that's called Then.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So around the time that this first sort of kind of relationship died out I had a huge crush on this other young woman who I call Amy in the book and”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't think so. I don't think I would have appreciated if the shoe was on the other foot. So that sort of kind of relationship fizzled out fairly quickly after that.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my sort of kind of girlfriend in that college way, I had been involved, I guess, with a young woman, and we didn't agree about everything, but that didn't seem like a problem. And then suddenly the primaries came up, and she was undecided until the last minute, and she ended up voting. Perfectly supportive of her as a candidate she had won, but in practice I sort of reacted as if we were at dinner and my sort of kind of girlfriend had just casually ordered human flesh. This was totally unacceptable. And I was about as condescending and not understanding about her choice as you might expect from a 21-year-old who suddenly decided that they know the path forward. And so that she spent an appreciation.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Flying from Salt Lake City. I'd just gone skiing. And we were flying into JFK. And this was like free in-flight cables heyday. So we were watching the cable or I was, and I was flipping around and there was nothing on any of the ESPNs. And so I turned on CNN and then Senator Obama was delivering he was maybe 30 seconds from taking the podium to deliver his victory speech after the Iowa caucuses. And I mean within thirty seconds of watching that speech, I just, I mean, it's funny because I thought about this the way you titled your book, Believer. I mean, it was like it was not that I decided that I wanted to be part of this thing. It was about 30 seconds after I started watching this speech. I believed in it. And I can't really explain it.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. And I don't know, and I felt, I had that moment where I was like, if I lied to the CIA right now, maybe this is the start of a beautiful CIA career. But also maybe it's the thing that really I end up regretting when I'm on the run, so I didn't want to risk it.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. I started the interview, and my interviewer was very chipper, sounded very all American, and said, well, you know, just to kick things off, have you ever used illegal substances in the last year? And I thought about lying to the CIA, and I still wonder whether what they were looking for was someone who would lie to the CIA. But I decided this is not worth it. These people could probably assassinate me. So I will just tell them the truth. And I said I had smoked weed about two months earlier on my 21st birthday party. And immediately my interviewer switched tones and said, well, you know, we like people who break rules, but legally we can't continue this interview.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I do think it was just that sense of this seems irrefutably useful. And so I don't think I ever thought why would I be the person who would be like the bin Laden catching one. That question never crossed my mind. And I don't know my CIA interview because it got cut short. I don't know what they would have said about that. I suspect that they would not have put me on the bin Laden catching team, which seems to have done fine with them.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was a sense of, like every college senior, I was thinking, what can I be doing next year where when people ask me what I'm doing, I don't have to wonder whether it's worthwhile? And so I figured, you know, if I got together with my friends from college and they said, well, you know, I'm in law school, I'm in medical school, and I said, well, I just got bin Laden with the CIA, then that would be a, no one would question whether or not that was a good decision. Yeah, it's like, this will be, they're going to buy me a beer.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As with the stand up saying, well, you know, maybe this isn't actually my, maybe this isn't so great after all. Maybe I'll do something else.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. Fair to say. That's very fair to say. I enjoyed working at the onion, but I was not good at that specific style of writing that they... Trained their writers to do, so they are all about the headlines and sending in dozens and dozens of possible headlines, and I had about three headlines in there over the course of a year while I was an intern I had about none, and then for the next year I would pitch headlines as a freelancer, and then they wouldn't go anywhere, and then gradually as I started to get more into the Obama campaign, all of my headlines were about exhausted campaign volunteers, and they weren't very funny at all. So there was kind of this point after that internship where I saw the writing on the wall and said, you know, headline writing for the onion sounds amazing, but it's not, this does not seem to be my thing.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's funny, this is the kind of book where people have said, oh, I got through it in a day. And I feel like with some books, that's an insult, but I'm comfortable with that.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obama did that too That's right. I feel like I have lots of wisdom to dispense at 30. I will say it is worth noting mine just to be completely fair was substantially shorter than yours. That's true. And it has a lot more trivial fun stuff. Probably.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I remember the Gore Bush election. I remember waking up the next day and being very confused that they didn't have a president yet because I was in, yeah, that was eighth grade or ninth grade.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it made me, it wasn't that we lost, it was that I felt like we were so afraid to lose that we didn't give ourselves a real chance to win. And even more than that, you know, sometimes, I mean, I think about 2010 where I did some volunteering at the DNC or 2014 where I was in the White House and writing some of the speeches for POTIS. And we lost. President Obama, but I never felt like this is looking back, it wasn't worth doing, that we didn't give it everything we had. And that, in 2004, it did feel like that. And I kind of took that hard turn where I said, you know what, this stuff, this kind of changed the world stuff is stupid. So I'm going to get better at making fun of things and worse at changing them.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For sure, but he never seemed to say so in a way that really had confidence to it. It seemed like he was always thinking in the back of his head, does this sound good? It sounded like me in front of 20 people. Whereas kind of like, is this okay? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? The way I put in the book is it was like watching an entire campaign spent arguing that the most talented beetle is Ringo Starr. There's never a real confidence there. There's always a sense of like, it's John, it's Paul, isn't it?”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I mean, to me, there's all these Washington books that say you're either sort of naive and idealistic or you're cynical and realistic and disillusioned. And I didn't think that was a fair spectrum that we should be thinking about. Because in my mind, we're all a little disillusioned by the time you've been in the real world for a little bit, or you're one of those people that there's something grating about someone who's never become even a little bit disillusioned, the question becomes, how do you deal with disillusionment, which is part of life, and still have those ideals that got you involved in the first place. So I think that was the way that I thought about disillusionment in the book. But the closest I came to sort of classic DC book disillusionment where you say, this whole thing is stupid and I don't want to deal with it was probably my freshman year of college because I just, I always felt like John Kerry would have made a better president than George W. Bush.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think he probably had thought it through a little bit more, or at least whoever he had doing it. But he didn't have to go.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“John Carey, I mean, to give you a sense of how long ago that was, my brilliant idea was a Yahoo group for high school students who supported John Kerry and somehow this Yahoo group was going to swing the election and it never really got off the ground, but they were like, well, you could put data into spreadsheets. And I was like, yeah, I'll do that. Although, you know, Howard Dean.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I was an intern in the finance office in two thousand four in New York, so they let you in second semester senior year. They knew that you weren't going to pay any attention in class anyway. So if you could find a worthwhile internship, they would let you do that. And at the time, I was, I wouldn't say I was fascinated by politics, but I grew up in that environment where you're constantly told you can change the world and felt like, okay, I should do that. And so I'll intern with.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I started doing improv with a group called the Yale Exit Players, and we would do sort of short form improv games. And that was one of my main focuses during my time of college, and the other was the humor magazine that I worked on, which was called the Yale Record, and was kind of our, like the Harvard has the lampoon, and it's a well-known institution. And then there was the Yale Record, which was kind of our upstart version of that.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I went to Yale and my freshman year within a few months there was a stand up night, and I did stand up and I totally bombed and decided maybe I'm not as into stand up as I thought. And the way I put it in the book about another moment in my life was sort of said it can be hard to tell the difference between the absence of talent and the presence of destiny. So that was the end of my stand-up career.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right size number of people that they feel like I understand what I'm supposed to do here and then a different number you say I don't really get it.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of a performance aspect of their job as well Some people are good in large crowds, some people are good one on one, and I feel like some people can work a room. And when I was a field organizer, for example, and I know I'm skipping a tiny bit ahead, but when I was a field organizer and there were 20 people at a house party, I would always feel very uncomfortable. When we do a one-on-one meeting, I felt like I knew what I was doing when Joe Biden came to Worcester where I worked. It was my job to do the field pitch for, I think we had 4,500 people at that rally. I felt like, oh, I can do this. I'm actually pretty comfortable doing that. But in that room of 20 people, it just didn't, it's not where I feel at home. And I think everybody kind of has their.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's I guess it was a little bit that I feel comfortable on stage and I feel comfortable. I hope I feel comfortable in conversation because we're having one right now. And I think I'm counting on it. Yeah. You're like, I feel like there's a little bit of a leading question of like, is this conversation going to go terribly? I hope. But to me, the group, the size of a group that I'm always not comfortable in is about 20 people. I don't know if you found this working with politicians who have”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it is, it's a sort of, I guess for me, was like a very low level way of disappointing one's parents, right? Like you're still a good kid, but you do this weird thing that and you force them to chaperone you to comedy clubs, which they were very nice about, I will say. My mom would take me to comedy nights so I could do my five minutes on a Tuesday night. Then I'd go home and do my homework and go to high school and the next day.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, exactly. They're like jokes, wrestling, just all sorts of looks that I'm getting. But I do think there was, you know, I was always a very serious kid, actually. And then I think I wasn't rebellious enough to rebel in any of the traditional ways. Like I didn't drink in high school.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not at all. I think most people who meet me, and I say I've written jokes, they give me a look, you know, like, really? It's like the wrestling.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We did. I mean, I don't know too much about your, well, I guess I do from reading your book that it was probably somewhat similar in that in certain New York families talking about current events as like talking about sports in other parts of the country. And so we never discussed the Jets or the Giants. And, you know, I think I converted my dad from Metz fandom to Yankees fandom, but it wasn't very hard because he wasn't a big fan of anybody. But when it came to politics, you just kind of talked about it. It was this thing that people discussed.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My dad was a doctor and my mom was a lawyer. So sort of very classic, what the Jewish immigrants, they get here, they're... Kids are the first in the family to go to college, then their kids become the doctor and the lawyer and marry each other. So no surprises there. But I think there was a sense that one of the things that you have to believe if you've gotten to live that story in your own family is that there's some luck involved in this and that you have a responsibility to help other people and other families live that story too.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Upringing that was important and part of, I think, where I came from is that it was very much ingrained in me that we wouldn't have used the word privilege because it didn't really exist in that way, but people, my parents would have said we're very lucky. And it's what you're doing.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. I was not going to be in the 112 pound basketball team. They didn't have one of those. And one of the other things that I thought when I look back on my own”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's not a large man. Well, that's the good thing about wrestling that it's weight classes. You can be, I mean, I was. In the 112-pound white class when I was a freshman in high school. You kick someone.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I took the Stuisant test, I think, and I didn't end up going because they didn't have a wrestling team, and I threw a fit because I was a wrestler in middle school. I'm just starting by making all of your listeners really not like me, and then we'll go from there. No, I think I'll earn them slowly over the course of the fifths were actually on TV.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, that's true. How did someone who went from New York private schools to an Ivy League university ever end up at the White House? I don't know. Never.”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. Yeah, this is like, I have a terrible ragsturich's politician story, you know what I mean? Like so many of the stories for people that I'm sure you've worked on or not just President Obama, but people I've written speeches for is kind of about humble upbringings. And I felt like when I wrote about my own in the book, I didn't want to pretend that this was a, you know, how did somebody? Exactly. How did someone who went from fiction?”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was going to say I went to high school at Dalton, which was the inspiration for gossip girl. So I was not gossip girl. But periodically, the New York Times would come. They were looking for a story about sort of unpleasant rich kids in New York. And so they would just lurk outside the school gates. We had to be told, you know, don't talk to reporters. So it was definitely one of those things, no matter where you grow up, you think that's everywhere. That's how you're growing up. Did you go through?”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yet the way I put it in my book is that I have the somewhat typical story in New York City where my great grandparents fled Eastern Europe for to avoid being persecuted because they were Jewish, and my parents fled New York City in the summers for their country house. So it's kind of that story we were not like, you know, I would say fairly typical in that New York bubble, you know, that kind of sheltered New York private school universe, but that in and of itself, to put it this way, where did you?”
2017-10-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 179 - David Litt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source