YouSaid · the spoken record

Doug Jones

lines on the record: 76
first: 2022-10-06
most recent: 2022-10-06
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

“At the Lincoln Memorial, and then to be there and to really get to know Justice Jackson, then Judge Jackson and understand her. And I've told folks. She became such an inspirational figure around the country. It wasn't just the nomination, the way she handled herself, the grace, the dignity, the way she presented herself, almost always with a smile on her face. She really truly became an inspiration. Some of the letters and cards that she shared with us from around the country were just remarkable. And it just was a great thing for me to have been involved. And I'm so appreciative of the president and White House Council Dana Remus, who I'm hoping to have here with me and talk about that sometime.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I stop and we talk for a minute, and we talk about what a great night it was and how excited everybody was. And I walk a few blocks, I mean, a few steps away, and I look back, and it dawned on me that the man I was talking to was Billy Joe Camp, who was George Wallace's press secretary. And he was going over to the Obama victory party. And just think about that and the image of that. And so those kind of things mean so much. It meant so much to I was in Denver with my son at the time at that acceptance speech, which was on the anniversary of the Martin Luther King speech”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rolling. And David, I want to tell you a quick story about election night because I had a number of candidates that I was following on election night in Birmingham, but I ended up going over to Boutwell Auditorium. That's where they were having the victory party for Obama. Boutwell Auditorium was the site of the Dixiecrat Convention in 1948. It was the site of where Nat Keen Cole got beat up just to come to Birmingham. But they were having it there. And I stayed through a little bit of the acceptance speech and I'm walking out and I go across the street to go to another event. And I passed an older white gentleman coming across toward the party.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then they did that again when I got elected in 2017. And here I was about whoever the nominee was going to be to be the Sharpa for the first African American female was just overwhelming. I mean, it was.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, it was an amazing experience in two nights before the president nominated her. I was at the church. We did an event in honor of a late lawyer named Chuck Morgan who gave an unprecedented speech after the bombing. And I'm sitting up there where the pulpit is. They had moved it out for this panel that we were having. And there was a big crowd there. including one of my panelists was the sister of one of the girls, Lisa McNair, who's sister Denise. And it just really struck me about where I had been. And you had this, what I would call the Son of the South that not only kind of brought justice to those families and really to bring justice a little bit for Birmingham and let people look at Birmingham and Alabama in a little bit different way.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So engaged in civil rights and civil liberties and giving David, I was the, I think the, in fact, I know I was the only voice from the South on the Senate floor, the Deep South, that talked about Black Lives Matter on the floor of the United States Senate. And it was after we did a reading of Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail. So you get informed about a lot of things, including sometimes your children.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was very proud of him. I mean, that's the kind of thing that I think more people need to stand up, whether you're gay or not. When the legislature reacts in a way like that, to take away, I mean, it's just silly. It was just a silly reaction to something that was now the law of the land. And so I was very proud of him and standing up and speaking out. That's what John Lewis taught us to do. Calls a little good trouble. And so, you know, and all of that helped form me in the Senate being an advocate for LGBTQ rights, a sponsor of the Equality Act.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Announced his nominee, and Susan Collins, my friend who I worked with on the other side of the Alabunch, had the same, did the same thing.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For Merrick Garham. So it remains to be seen. But, you know, when it came time for Justice Coney Barrett, I just could not do that. I knew she had the votes to pass. And so it was one of the rare, I think I took two protest votes. One was on another judge in a spot that had been held open for seven years by Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. And then this one, I just said, no, I cannot do this. It doesn't. And I made that announcement before the president.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you very well could have done. Although he would have had at that time, he would have had to get 60 votes in the Senate. I don't think McConnell would have nuked the filibuster.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the court has been significantly damaged with the politics surrounding the nominations of some of the justices, including what Senator McConnell did by holding off and not even giving Merritt Garland a hearing, not trying to move on that at all, just controlling and not giving him a hearing.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was, there was nothing untrue about that. He never said one way or another, neither did Justice Gorsuch or Barrett, Cody Barrett, that they would vote to overturn it or they would uphold it. They never said that. They parsed their words very, very carefully in a manner that's been done over the last 20 years. And people, you know, David, there is a line from the judge in Tequila Malkenberg who says, you know, people see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. And that's what happened, I think, a lot with those. And if you just look at the words and take away who said them, you'd never really know who made that comment because it was very plain and generic. And I hate that some people, some friends of mine that voted in favor of Justice Kavanaugh feel betrayed. But I think they were kind of wanting him to say and they heard what they wanted to hear.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not going to go there. I know that so many Democrats say that, that they ought to be impeached for perjury. Yeah, I'm not asking if you should be impeached. Yeah, no, look, what I heard from all of those justices was a standard line that Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I was prepared for it. I don't think my family was as prepared as I was, but I was prepared for it. I've been, you know, look, I've been in politics a long time as a worker bee and a staffer and everything else. And so I knew where things were and how things were going to end up going. And I knew that if I could ever get Tuberville or more, he didn't debate either on the debate stage and people could see some of the things. We were also campaigning in COVID, and that made it really difficult to get out. So, you know, by the time the election rolled around, I knew exactly where this was going to go. And I was prepared for that. You know, I left office as U.S. attorney. I mean, I'm a big boy when it comes to politics. But I'm often asked, would you do anything different? And the answer, I've got a couple of votes I would probably do different, but they're not votes that cost me the election by any stretch.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'm a hunter, and I like to shoot. But the fact is, we had to do some things. We needed to do some things with some common sense measures to try to stop deaths. And that included not just the mass shootings, but also suicides and other domestic violence that we could do. So I had this unique opportunity. People would always say, well, he's just free to do X, Y, Z. But I never did anything that was not me.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it wasn't because I knew that those were a lot of people that wouldn't listen to it. Okay. For instance, I can remember a comment from the head of the NRA in Alabama who said it was just another gun grabbing speech. There was nothing in my speech about gun grabbing, nothing that could even be construed that way. But it was one of those things after Parkland, I felt very strong about that because I'm a gun guy in the sense and I've got a bunch of that in the speech.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly what I said I was going to do. I didn't waver from that. I worked with people. I never told anybody I was going to vote for every Trump judge. And I ended up voting for a majority of them. I didn't tell everybody that I was going to absolutely vote for a Trump Supreme Court nominee or if he got impeached, I would vote one way or another. What I did was to do things for all segments of the people of the state and did it in a way that I said I was going to do it and try to represent all people, civil rights advocates, you name it. So it was a little bit liberating in that sense. Yeah.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Extraordinarily We had expectations that it was likely to be a three year gig, but we didn't approach it that way. I never felt like I was a dead man walking. I felt like I was truly liberated. I did what I said I was going to do. I ran and I operated, I think, as a senator.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we could give a voice to people that hadn't felt like they hadn't had a voice in a long time in Alabama, despite the fact that Republicans have been winning for so many years. There's still 40% of the people that vote Democratic and they just don't have a voice. And so we thought, you know, there's a path here. But more importantly, there's an opportunity to try to build, to try to let people know that it's okay to be a Democrat. It's okay to be a more progressive voice and to stand up for the things that you believe in. And so I wouldn't say.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but it was a special election. That was number one. And the two candidates that we saw as the leading nominees for the Republican Party, we think had flaws that could be exploited in different ways. But we saw a path. But importantly, it was going to be the only race on the ballot. It was not going to get bogged down by a governor's race or presidential races.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't want to tear this country apart. This could tear the country apart. We could see this. I hope not. But instead, he says there will be X. And I think that's a real problem. And I don't think people always understand. If they didn't grow up listening to the kind of rhetoric I did, they don't always fully appreciate the words that they have because words matter and they have consequences.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of enablers. And I go back to where we were David talking early in this podcast about where I grew up. I saw the same rhetoric coming from Boyle Connor. I saw the same rhetoric coming from George Wallace. And it was dog whistles. It was telling these folks that it's okay to go commit crimes against black folks because we're not going to do anything. And they didn't. And that was a real problem. And today's dog whistles are often done in ways that I'm not sure people even mean to cause that violence. But there are people out there that are listening and they're hearing it one way that may not be intended. That's why, for instance, comments that my friend Senator Graham said about there will be riots. I thought was a really poor choice of words because he was essentially saying it's okay to riot when all he had to see was say, I'm concerned.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of proliferation of these kind of hate crimes, and it goes beyond race now. It goes into religion, like against Muslims. It goes beyond just pure race. And I have been concerned about backsliding and civil rights for some time, but we've certainly seen a rise of the white nationalist fervor, hate crimes across the country, anti-Semitic crimes across the country. And I know there's a lot of focus on that now to try to figure out what to do on that. But it's a growing problem. The radical right, there is violence on both left and right, but clearly the radical right is responsible for more of the extremist violence in this country. And that's something that I think unfortunately Donald Trump stoked by talking, telling the proud boys to stand by, by telling that there were good people on both.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was 96 Olympics in Atlanta that he bombed in Centennial Park. One lady died. And then a couple of years later in 98, I'd only been U.S. Attorney five months when he set a bomb off at a women's clinic that performed abortions, killed in Alabama, Birmingham police officer, badly, badly, badly wounded a nurse. And so you see this kind of.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, David, I'm violent. I've been concerned about that for a long time. I mean, even before Trump, even before he really brought it out from under the shadow some, I think I had been concerned. I think it's a combination of when the courts and others started rolling back voting rights, it empowered people, I think, to try to do some things. We saw it with the advent of the internet back when I was actually U.S. attorney and we saw hate groups on the internet that were really recruiting these lone wolves to go out and do their damage. We saw it happen time and time again. Ricky Birdsong, you know, I think was a coach up this way. Yes, yes, of Northwest. That happened, you know, at a time when I was U.S. attorney.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think the AG is going to really weigh this very heavily because there are pros and cons from a very historical and policy perspective. But at the same time, I don't think that comments like Trump made concerning riots or that Lindsay Graham made about riots or that they'll tear the country apart. I don't think they're going to use that as the determining factor. I think they've got to look at the law, the evidence, whether or not they can prove it in that jurisdiction beyond a reasonable doubt. There's a lot of things that they'll have to look at like this. It's not going to be an easy to call, though, despite what the evidence might show.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what do you do? I think it's going to be a very difficult decision for the Department of Justice and ultimately the Attorney General. Ultimately, the Attorney General will make the final call on that. I say make the final call. The ultimate call is whether or not a grand jury will indict. And I know people say that, you know. Prosecutors didn't die a ham sandwich. Well, that's not always the case”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yesterday, you see so many things repeated. And what concerns me about Marlago is not whether or not Trump's going to get indicted, that courts are going to take care of the DOJ is going to do what they're going to do on that. But it does concern me from a national security standpoint and what was in those blank folders that were classified information and where's that documentation now? That troubles me a lot.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody knows what confidential material is. Everybody knows what top secret material is. Everybody understands the nature of all that. When you get into the things of January 6th and sedition and you get into things about inciting rights, I think it can get a little blurry sometimes and a little fuzzy. But it seems to me that there are building a pretty strong case that is to some extent consistent with what I saw with Donald Trump as president, just a complete lack of respect for institutions of government, for protocol, for rules, and sometimes even laws. It's why I voted the way I did as guilty in his first impeachment. And it's interesting because what you're seeing sometimes, you know, you see so many things repeated with Donald Trump.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We couldn't even take our phones into the SCIF. I couldn't even take my little earpods, you know, that you wear to listen, you know, the Bluetooth music. You couldn't even take those in there. And you couldn't take anything out. They kept a file with my name on it. If I wanted to make notes, they kept those notes in those files. I think that there is some great risk to him down there. In part, David, because”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it's hard to say because there is so much we really don't know that's going on behind the scenes. One of the things I keep reminding people, the criminal investigations are not January 6th committees that is done with open subpoenas and testimony and being able to video so much of that evidence they may turn over, but you cannot use that evidence per se in a criminal case because there's no cross-examination under the Constitution. I think some of the evidence is getting to be pretty compelling, particularly down at Marlago. Yeah, yeah.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's no question about it. And it was all, and see, it was made worse because they would put all of this fill at the plant. And people used to go get this fill and they would put it on their yards. That's how they would grow their yards. So these communities, it wasn't just airborne or waterborne PCBs. It was literally filled from the plant that people used to seed their lawns and get their lawns going in so that you had cleanup all over. They had literally had to test lawns everywhere in Anniston.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, there is no question. The court had in Monsanto and Seleucia had settled with the government to go through years of cleanup for the PCB releases that were in the Anniston, Alabama area. And I was the eyes and ears of the court. I helped monitor that. It's still ongoing right now. I left when I announced my candidacy, there's another special master that's working on it as well. But that was really interesting. And then you could see what happened in that area. It was just horrible what was released into that into Calhoun County, Alabama.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How was appointed a special master, which is all in the news these days. So I have a special place in my heart for special masters.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. I knew that there might be a time that I had to go before cameras and say we can't do it But once you get over that and you know you're going to do it, you really get invested. You get to know those girls that died. You get to know their families. You get to see how the community is reacting. And when you hear the testimony of a parent who lost a child some 37 years earlier, you know what it means for victims. And that, as I said to the jury that a mother's heart never stops crying for the loss of a child.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can't describe it. I mean, I just, I knew what it meant to Birmingham and my state and to the country. I think I underestimated a little bit. But you get in a case like that, you really do get invested. And I tried my best to stay objective. I didn't talk to Chris McNair very much at all. I didn't talk to the families very much. I didn't talk to Bill Baxley, who had prosecuted the first case because I felt like I needed to try to be as objective as possible.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was the real kicker for him when we found that tape. Cherry was a lot different. Cherry had made admissions over the years. He just got lazy. He got comfortable that he had gotten away. Bragged about bragged about it, bragged about it into a number of people with an ex-wife, with coworkers and some things. We had five or six people that came forward, mainly from the media, that saw the media and called us and said, let me tell you what this guy told me one time 20 years ago. What”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, Blanton's a former girlfriend came forward. The real key in Blanton's case, though, was a tape recording because J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI were putting tapes and bugs everywhere and getting that into evidence. And there was a challenge for us, but there was one tape where Blanton admitted to his then wife and one other person who he never identified of being part of a group the weekend of the bombing that was at this river right south of Birmingham, being a part of the group that was planning the bomb and making the bomb. And that was the real...”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Vernon Damer murder and successfully prosecuted decades after the fact. And things just happen and the case got reopened right before I became U.S. attorney. My staff really didn't know my history with the families, much less sitting in as a kid watching the earlier trial. And we just, you know, we set about to do something, not knowing whether we could be successful. And I told the staff at the time when they kept saying, don't get your hopes up because it's old case. The evidence may not be there. And I said, well, you're right. But if we don't do it now, it'll never get done. And I think this families and this community deserves our best effort because there was a thought that the F- It worked out in an amazing fashion.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And he was actually my legislator in Fairfield at the time. And when he decided to run for Congress, I went and talked to him about maybe running for that seat, going back to your earlier question. And he was really funny. He says, Well, he listened to him. He said, Doug, I really appreciate. But he said, you know, this has kind of been, this is really kind of a black seat now. I said, oh, okay. I get that. And so I didn't, but he and I stayed friends too and did some things over the years when you got elected to the county commission. And the whole thing with the church bombing just kind of. Fell just right. There had been some cases in Mississippi that were reopened, the Medgar Evers murder.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was just a remarkable circle of life to me to some extent to have been a kid, young lawyer wannabe cutting classes to watch the first prosecution of that case. But then getting to know Chris McNair, who's who you're referring to, was in the letter to Denise.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it just didn't work out. You know, I tried, I thought about it. I thought about several times as a matter of fact, but where I happen to be living at the time, where things were, it just didn't work out at the time. We had a lot of good Democrats in the legislature and in Congress at the time. And I was trying to get my law practice up and running after I left the U.S. Attorney as an assistant U.S. attorney. So it just didn't present itself. I worked on the Clinton campaign. I worked on a bunch of campaigns, but it just didn't present itself. But I also had it in mind that being the U.S. attorney in Birmingham would be a pretty good gig. It was. It was just really remarkable. To be able to do that with something”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then working with him in the campaign and then in the Senate, I saw the ability to try to work with people from all sides. He had union support. He had business support. He had black support. He had white support. The director of the ACLU one time said about Howell Hefflin, this is in the 1970s. He said, you know, he's somebody that me, my mother, and my grandmother can all agree. And that was saying a lot in Alabama in those days. And so he was just a great teacher. I learned an awful, awful lot from him.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And he gave, he was funny, he would give these stories. But yet beneath that, though, was a man of great intelligence and compassion. And he was that bridge to the minority communities and others in Alabama that I'm not sure he gets all enough credit for. And what I saw with him were two things. First of all, he was elected chief justice in 1970 to modernize Alabama's court system. And he did it. That's where we first met. I would campaign to try to get a judicial article passed by the state of Alabama. And it really did. He won just a claim across the country for what he did in Alabama's court system.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he was, I just think one of Alabama's great leaders and was also one of those transition leaders. You look at Hefflin, he was a huge man. We called him the Buffalo. And he talked like an old Southern style politician.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a very personal question. And so much of everything that Joe Biden has done in his career has been a very personal connection to decision.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And ask you for your. He's got a lot of great advisors, so we'll see. I do think he understands, though, and knows where things are. And I think it's going to be a difficult call for him. It's not like a normal run-free election. Listen, if”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, David, I got to be honest with you, if he would like to get my advice, I'm happy to sit down and talk to him, but I think that that would be just between two old friends that have known each other. That's a very appropriate answer.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In history, I told him not long after he got elected that I had waited for almost, I guess it was right at 40 years plus for me to be able to call him Mr. President. But I felt like there was a reason. I just, as it turns out, I think that it was his time and his place and a moment in history that only he could achieve. In 2020, it took a long time, but I really do believe there's a reason for so many things that happen in life and that his delay in becoming president was for the right moment at the right time with his experience and the way he perceives government and the Senate and the legislature.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to do that these days. I don't think there's any question about that, but it truly is what attracted me to Biden very straightforward in his beliefs. But I've always saw him and I watched him work over the years that he could absolutely do that. give people the leeway to talk about these issues. And you're talking about, you know, I think Biden's always said, look, we really have objectives that are the same. We may disagree on how to get there. We have objectives about good health care, about a strong foreign policy, whatever it is. Now let's figure out the common ground that we've got to reach our mutual objectives. And I think he's been incredibly successful. That's why I think he was in the Senate as long as he was, that he rose through those ranks, that he did amazing jobs when he was chairman of various committees. And quite frankly, I think it's why he was elected at a moment.”
2022-10-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 506 — Doug Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source