YouSaid · the spoken record

Eli Attie

lines on the record
87
first
2016-12-22
most recent
2016-12-22
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

  1. “It's the greatest. And it's why there are so many shows now in and around that arena. But for me, I think after the West Wing in particular, I felt, you know, I want to have a career doing this and have other options. And so that's why I moved on to more material that didn't have to do with politics, just to show I could house and other shows like that. But I would do it in a second. You know, if somebody, if Aaron Sorkin said, we're getting the band back together and we're doing more Seasons of the West Wing, I'd be the first person to put the Spurs on.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “As subject matter for scripts, you mean? Yeah, I could see, I love politics. I love writing about it. I love the complexity. I love the largeness of the characters. I love the stakes of it. I love the fun of it. I love what it love it as a game and I love what you can do through it. So it's always something I want to write about. It's a dramatic element.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “No, you know, it's funny, it was the guy who created the show, wrote a screenplay 10 years ago. It was just one of many, many Hollywood projects like most Hollywood projects, languishing on a shelf. And someone heard about it and thought that would be a good TV show. And it kind of got revived. And it's been a really fun little show. We shot 10 episodes. I'm not sure if we hope we'll get a chance to do more. But I also, I'm in a sort of a deal with Fox Studio for television. Do you think that you'll ever return?”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “And this was the brilliance of Aaron, which is that it's about what seems real. It's not about what Israel. I remember Ron Clain saying to me, because he'd seen more of the West Wing than I had at first, and he used to give me a lot of great ideas for the show. He said, he argued to me that the West Wing was more real than the real thing because it stripped away all the clutter and just focused on the kind of essence of decision-making and what it was like to be there. But I think this kind of buffoonish cartoonish narcissistic orange fake wig wearing, you know, it wouldn't seem realistic. It doesn't seem realistic to me now. And it happened.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think so. There's more nobility. I think so. It obviously started and became a bit of an early hit under Clinton, but I think it really caught on more under Bush. And maybe it was a fantasy for people, you know, for Democrats, although I always meet Republicans who liked it and found it kind of heartwarming and at its best it certainly didn't want to demonize anybody. I don't think the Trump election Could have been fiction because it was so bizarre. One of the things Aaron Sorkin taught me early on is that there's a difference between what Israel and what seems real. I came in the door of that show thinking any one of my gore campaign stories they'll think are fantastic. And I told a few of them and they were so strange and so absurd and so dark that they were like, yeah, we're not using that. Or no one would believe that.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “You know, I think you could have a West Wing show now and The Western got its highest ratings when W was president, and there was a lot of”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I think he is. But in any case, it's just funny that at that moment, I never, ever thought I would see an African-American elected president in my lifetime. So, as much as this character was sort of shaped on Barack Obama, it was kind of, well, this is fiction. I probably would have thought we'd have a Latino president before an African-American president. Although, of course, Barack Obama is just such a unique historical figure. He's beyond any categorization for sure. But the irony is then later when Obama was elected, which was such an amazing fiction couldn't have matched that campaign. It was so incredible. Yeah, and I remember writing you an email during that campaign and you said wrote back something very nice, like, we're living out your scripts, you know, but what you were doing was so much more stirring and transformational than anything we did. But people started to write that there turned out to be a lot of parallels between the Jimmy Smith's character and Obama weird things like they both liked Bob Dylan, you know, little personality things that were just pure coincidence.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, it was always a source of great mystery and intrigue among Westwing folks, actors and writers, whether Barack Obama had seen the West Wing, and there were so many competing views on whether he had ever actually watched it. Maybe I'll leave that there.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Smart about it, but also elevate it. He was grappling with being a vessel for everybody's hopes in a way that was unrealistic. It was everything that made sense for this character. And so I really think those conversations shaped at least my conception of who this character became and the incredible irony is.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Good long time. I remember it was a fun conversation. And I just remember saying, so tell me about this guy, Barack Obama. And he was already famous. It's not like he was some obscure guy from the Ozarks or something, but he was a state legislator who was already a rock star. But he was, like the Matt Santos character on the West Wing became, in my mind, really, because of these conversations, he was a guy who was post-racial. He didn't want to be defined by his race. He wanted to try to change the process as he participated in the process. He wanted to be”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And so basically, I had to fill two hours pretty much with this character who'd just been in a couple scenes. And so, you know, the first thing I thought to do was research. And who are the Latino, the prominent Latino politicians who might be viable on a national scale? And I don't know if I called you about that. I might have because we had both helped Freddie Ferrer a little bit or you really worked for Freddie. I helped you on something, I guess. I couldn't really find anybody who fit that description. And right around that time, Barack Obama gave his unbelievably electrifying speech to the Democratic Convention in 2004. I knew from the papers that you were his guy. And so I called you, and I remember having a couple long conversations with you one where you were, I think, driving to a Cubs game.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Just about this character beginning to campaign and going to New Hampshire and going to Iowa and will film them together on location.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “But it's true. It's true. And I've told this story many times that so I, after Aaron left the show and John Wells took over the show, but he made it much more of a multi-writer show and really delegated a ton to the writers and producers there. And Jean was amazing. He actually had come up with the idea that we should run the race to succeed the Martin Sheen character. And why don't we do something that's just over the horizon but not happening yet in the country. And we talked about it as a group. But it was really John's idea. Let's have a Latino candidate for president who's really viable. And we ended up casting Jimmy Smith's in that role. And thinking that that would probably be the first non-white president would be a Latino. It makes sense kind of demographically and for various other reasons. Plus, we live in California, so we tend to think that that's a bigger thing than it is nationally. So that character was introduced in a couple episodes in a scene or two. And then John said to me, I want you to write two whole episodes.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Was noble and sexy and glamorous. So, of course, like the handsomest character on the West Wing Roblow is the speechwriter, and women would approach him after speeches that the president had given weak in the knees from his rhetoric. And it was just kind of a joke to me because as you know, speechwriters are so kicked around and marginalized at times. I mean, I used to talk about it with Aaron, but that was, I could kind of give him all my speechwriting anecdotes, and he found it riveting, you know, and we did so many episodes about speechwriting. And to me, it's like watching paint dry. You and I typing.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I found I was able to put a lot of myself into it over time. Sometimes just, you know, a line or a moment, sometimes a whole storyline. I mean, later on as time went on and Aaron ended up leaving the show and I ended up sort of stepping up more as a writer and producer there. But, you know, there was a character there whose career arc ended up kind of mirroring mine. He was a sort of a mid-level guy working for the president who then went to a more senior job for a vice president. Then obviously we ran the campaign to succeed Jed Bartlett, the Martin Sheen character, and that was when I really got to put a lot of my campaign experiences and what it was like to work for vice president, who really is just platforming into a run. But even from the earliest days there, the other thing is that Aaron had and maybe still has, because he's a writer and really defines himself as a writer very deeply and emotionally, he had this kind of erroneous and wonderful view that speech writing”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Just, you know, maybe because I had walked out of that building so recently that Aaron was really eager to hear my stories and I was really eager to learn how I could provide him with the kind of things he needed. And it was just an incredible screenwriting laboratory for me. And I just had so much fun and I loved all the writers there.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I went to one. Remember that when I visited you there, I went to one of the early ones and it was so much fun. And your students were so great. But what was great was...”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Oh, yeah Joined the show at the beginning of the third season. It had already, you know, the first two seasons won record amounts of Emmy Awards and everything else. I can't, you know, so I can't take credit for anything about the show in the sense that it was what it was. It was fantastic show. Plenty of people would say their favorite episodes were from seasons I wasn't even there.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Know, because it's a TV show, you know, we're selling liquid tide. Like, we can figure this out tomorrow. And so I just came in with a lot of anecdotes and stories and hungry to learn. And I had a great, great experience with Aaron. How much?”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Well, I need it now. But I also felt working at this job that was recognized as a very difficult job in Hollywood, I felt like every day was a half day. I just felt it was so not challenging. Because Aaron Sorkman would come into the writer's room at the West Wing and say, okay, I'm thinking this and that. And here's what I want to look at for the next episode. And we should get a storyline going for this character and he'd leave the room. And I would look at all the other writers like, okay, we need all of this in seven minutes because that was how I was trained in politics. And everybody would be taking out lunch menus.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I loved it. I loved every second of working for him. And he not only was a great teacher and friend and mentor, I always felt After working for difficult politicians and presidential campaigns, I mean, you know, the legend is these are hard jobs and thankless jobs. And first of all, I just loved it. It was just, you could say something. I could tell all my anecdotes from politics and then change the endings and make them happy endings, which was incredible therapy.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “And so the short version is I flew out, I met with him for half an hour, and he changed my life. And I have to point out, by the way, that in addition to you and I being graduates of PS40, he hired, Aaron Sorkin hired me. I was on the phone with a friend from elementary school from PS40 when I was about to make the move to LA. And I just called him and said, hey, I just want to let you know I'm moving to Los Angeles. I got a job on this TV show, The West Wing. And he said, well, you know who Aaron Sorkin's mother is, don't you? And I said, who's his mother? Mrs. Sorkin. She was our fourth grade elementary school teacher at PS40. So all roads lead to PS40.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Number of NBC got the switchboard and said, I'm calling for Aaron, I'm trying to reach the West Wing, actually. And they said, you actually need to call Warner Brothers the studio. They gave me that number. And then on that next call, I made it all the way from the Switchboard to the West Wing offices to his office. I said to his assistant, he doesn't know me. I was a speechwriter for Al Gore until a couple weeks ago, just calling to talk to him. Long hold. And then he came on the line. I think because he'd been sitting there in front of a blank computer screen, probably angry about the recount. It would be like, you know, somebody from the OJ trial calling Law and Order and saying, you know, do you want to talk? And he was incredibly friendly and nice. And I said, look, I'm not asking you for a job, but I'm interested in being a television writer. And I've seen a couple episodes of your show. I mean, it was so pathetic in retrospect. I barely seen the show. He was so nice. So I wouldn't expect you to be, you know, sitting around watching it. And then he said, I'd love to consider you for a job.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Other staff people and commiserating and debriefing what's going on now in New York and Washington and everywhere. And everyone's asking everybody, are you leaving town? Are you staying? What are you going to do? And I was getting job offers on Capitol Hill. But I started saying to people, I think I might move to LA and become a television writer. And I didn't really know what it meant. I was trying it on for size. And everybody to a person, like 40 people, said to me, the West Wing, you should go work on the West Wing. And I'd seen 20 minutes of it and it hadn't landed with me. It hadn't resonated with me. But then I watched a couple episodes of it on the air and I thought, this is pretty good. And actually, Aaron Sorkin is such a gifted, breezy writer. It seems easy. So I remember watching it thinking, I think I can do this. And of course it was super challenging and hard. But really what I did is I called him out of the blue. And when you work on a presidential campaign, you know, you can reach anybody on the phone. So it wasn't so much arrogance. I just thought, it's not that hard to reach somebody. So I called Los Angeles information.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “He really is the reason I got my first White House job, actually, I think, or that I first got on their radar. So I hadn't really paid attention to the show I hadn't watched it. But I remember looking at this email and thinking, well, boy, if the recount doesn't go our way and I didn't think it was going to, I do want to get out of Dodge. I do want to try something different. And, you know, speechwriter, screenwriter, which was sort of the joke this guy made in the email, how different could it be? It turns out it's completely different. But I thought, you know, why not? So I called that agent and we chatted for a little while and I said, were you serious about maybe me becoming a screenwriter? And he wasn't. And he said, you know, it's pretty hard and you'd need a screenplay and you'd need all these things that I didn't know anything about. But I hung up the phone from that conversation and I thought, you know, I've had some interesting professional experiences. I've been lucky to have some interesting professional experiences. Maybe I should do this. And so, you know, after the recount, we're going out every night for drinks with reporters.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “We should Deputy Secretary of State, a true rock star and one of the greatest people ever. And we've both worked with him closely”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Which was a joke, actually, but I remember seeing that email and saying in the West Wing had been on for about a year and a couple months, and I'd seen the first episode with Tony Blinken and our then Tony.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “How did that happen? What was very strange and random like pretty much everything that's ever happened to me? Me in my career, I, in the middle of the recount, was getting all kinds of calls and emails from people I hadn't heard from in years just because anyone who knew I was connected to Gore, people I'd met once on the campaign trail who had my number or email address would sort of call and say check on your well-being. Well, just what's happening? What's going on? And I got an email from a guy I had known but hadn't talked to in years who was a Hollywood agent. And he just sort of said, you know, what's going on with the recount? And so-and-so told me you're still with Gore. And this talent agent said very explicitly in the email, you know, if this doesn't work out, I can get you a job. You should sell out and become a screenwriter. I can get you a job working on the West Wing.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I felt always like the recount for me was like you've got a terminal cancer patient. The presumption of victory was unfortunately for Bush because his cousin called it from at Fox News and because a major donor insisted that NBC call it after that and I think that was erroneous and illegitimate but it always gave us a feeling of this uphill challenge and I think there were very few moments in the 36 days when I felt we were going to come out with the presidency, maybe a day or two. So it was very crushing and sad the whole experience. Emotionally prepared and also a sense of release when the terminal cancer patient finally succumbs, you know?”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I did. I had had a lot of different drafts that I was sort of tinkering with for different scenarios over the course of the recount. And I came to him that the morning that he actually gave his concession speech, I came to him with a draft, and then we substantially reworked it. He dictated a lot of it to me. He'd had friends, facts, suggestions, and we sort of piece it together over the course of a day. But it's a funny thing.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Just who went in and out of Gore's house would be reported feverishly in the press. You know, it was just a crazy. I stayed in Washington with Gore. You know, I wasn't ever in Florida, but you just didn't know what was happening. It just felt unreal.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “No, I mean, I couldn't hear Bush's end of the conversation, and maybe it's been reported in books or something, but the two things I remember from Gore's end of the conversation. One was hearing him say after a pause Bush must have said something. He said, well, your little brother doesn't get to make that decision. And Bush must have said something like, well, Jeb says I'm fine in Florida. And then there was another pause and Gore said, you don't have to be snippy about it. And you just felt you were witnessing absurd history. But then when the call was over, we're all around this little desk laughing giddily like we're still alive. Like, what just happened? It was over, and now it's not over. And it was the next 36 days were a true out of body experience, you know, that involved everything from”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “He'd already conceded earlier that evening from a little earlier that evening from the Lowe's hotel in Nashville where we were all staying and his kids were crying and it was that whole scene was over we'd lost and so they dragged him into a room and I just thought I need to change the language in the speech somehow. So I set up a little laptop and printer that I carried around and it's a little bit of a blur. It's what happened next. It's been written in a lot of books. But I had my laptop and printer on an old steel public school desk basically in this outer area of this little holding area we had at this war memorial. And before long, and I think that was where the White House had laid down our phone lines or something. Before long, Gore came out and called W from that desk with about 10 of us, 12 of us standing around and retracted his concession. And I could only hear Gore's side of the conversation, but it was insane.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “I remember Carter turning to me. I mean, Bill Daly sort of turned back to Carter and said, what do we do? And Carter looked at me because he didn't know and he said, I guess we need to change the language in the speech so it's not legally binding. That's the first thing he said. And we didn't know what any of this meant. And so just at that moment, the motorcade screeched to a halt and I was, we were about a million cars back from Al Gore. So I raced to the front of the line just because I wanted to grab Gore and say, we have to change the language in the speech. And I was the first person to reach him. He had already reached this holding room in the War Memorial, and I said to him, 99.9% of the votes counted in Florida were only 600 votes behind. I actually think what I said is Carter and Bill Daley need to talk to you. And he just said this look on his face like, what?”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “He was a campaign manager, right? And he campaigned chairman, and he got a call from Michael Hooley, who was sort of our boiler room field operative in charge of field for the whole country, basically saying with 99.9% of the vote counted in Florida, we were only 600 votes behind.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “It was a crazy. I mean, I was in a van that night heading to the war memorial when Gore was on his way to concede, and I'd already shown him a concession speech, and it was over. We'd sort of won Florida, then had it pulled back, and then everybody had called it for Bush. And I was in a van with Carter SQ, who was sort of the Dame Axelrod of that race. And Bill Daly. And Daly.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I don't believe September 11th would have happened if Al Gore had been the president because unlike the Bush team who came in kind of obsessed with a sort of a Cold War rivalry with Russia that was mostly I wouldn't say over because it's revived itself but Gora as vice president was obsessed with Osama bin Laden and deeply involved in that issue and I think wouldn't have dropped that ball I believe”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “10,000 this goes back to your mother's lesson yeah well for sure no and and it's funny yeah I always had so much rage toward Nader at that time simply because I just didn't see any way he did anything other than hurt the left you know and and yeah sure anyone's entitled to run and that's our system and I'm not saying he didn't raise some good points I just It's frustrating to me.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “People took it for granted. And I think that people didn't really think it mattered who the president was. And I think the view was, well, you know, Fallon Greenspan is healthy. I mean, who cares? And it was a frustrating thing because I felt like the Gore campaign in that year, 2000, every day we got up and tried to basically set our clothes on fire and say, hey, he's going to privatize Social Security. He doesn't understand farm policy. He's going to, you know, this tax cut will eliminate the budget surpluses which we have at the time amazingly to remember now. And nobody cared. And they all thought we were being alarmist and it didn't matter. And I think 2016, we're looking at so much visceral rage from so much of the electorate because”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Many parallels between 2000 and 2016, but I think there's also a kind of a polar opposite dynamic to me in that I always felt in 2000 and in the aftermath of 2000, you know, they said at the time, I don't know what the statistic is now, but around 2000, the typical presidential election is held within something like 36 months of the most recent economic downturn, meaning there's some memory of hard times. And people have some sense that this election is probably going to mean something. When Al Gore ran in 2000, there had been ninety-four months of continuous economic growth, and it was maybe a kind of a blip before some of the downside of globalization really kind of kicked in in this country. But I think there was so much peace and prosperity that”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “And I think Hillary, what they're asked to do, what you're asked to do in these campaigns is to create a kind of a fake authenticity in front of 50,000 people. I don't know that any of my, most of my close friends who are genuine authentic people put them on a stage and suddenly it's a different reality. It's connecting with that kind of a An audience, maybe it can be genuine, but you have to manufacture or project in a certain way. That's what I think both of them had issues with. But here's the interesting thing.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Not good performers. I mean, and this is the thing that frustrates me because I love Al Gore, and if he was here right now,”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “From the US. Yeah, and somebody who had presidential aspirations himself, and I met his father before his father died. And I think that Gore... Very much wanted He sort of worshipped his father and wanted to be liked his father, but in the same breath in a way, I think he was uncomfortable with the compromises of politics. And I think as Gore went through his day as a vice president, that he was somebody who sort of wanted to be a politician and didn't want to be a politician.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Oh, yeah, this is a guy who, in the first Clinton term, strongly argued to Clinton that they should just adjust the cost of living index for Social Security and eliminate the deficit in like day and then deal with the political fallout and climb their way back the whole first term. I always thought as president, I wouldn't have put it past him to get some kind of a carbon tax, some hugely controversial thing that would actually make a gigantic long-term change. In the country. And I think the thing about Gore as I, if I was going to sort of psychoanalyze him, which I shouldn't, is that his father was a very prominent senator from Tennessee. And I think, and he”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Think that's right. You know, I love Al Gore. I saw him recently. He'll always, we sort of these days drift in and out of contact. There was a time, first few years after I worked for him, we would talk on the phone and we were in more regular touch. But to me, he'll always be my troop commander from the war. I'll do anything for him. But the thing about Gore, I think he's written so much when he was vice president, you know, the difference between the public and the private. And he's a guy who I think is a genuine person, really funny, really smart, really sardonic, a more subversive sense of humor in private than maybe most politicians would have or should have.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “I just felt like I was on thin ice every day about everything, just that you'd come into his office with one thing and he would want another thing. And I just had to learn his brain And we spent a lot of time together. We pulled all nighters together many times. It was just a very intense working relationship, which I loved, actually.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Yeah. And what quickly became apparent when I started that job was that Gore. Maybe like Barack Obama, is a writer started as a journalist? Started as a journalist.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “With the vice president, you know, time I would get actually, it's that term we all use, and he said, yeah, FaceTime is a big problem, but not in the way you think.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Yes, he hired me as scorers, chief speechwriter. And it's a funny thing because that process probably took a couple months and I had to, of course, interview with Al Gore and be chosen by him. Ron could only sort of say, I want to get you an interview. The decision's up to Gore. But, you know, I had at that point, when I worked for GetPart, I was very close to Getpart. I traveled all over with him. We would talk on the phone a lot. And then I went to work for Clinton, but really I worked for Don Baer, the White House Communications Director, and I never saw Bill Clinton. I mean, I knew him a little bit. But so I just remember meeting with the outgoing Chief Speech Rider to Gore, a guy named Dan Pink, and just having coffee with him and asking him about the job. And I asked him, well, what about FaceTime?”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Listen to that one because he's somebody that I used to love on long flights on Air Force 2, just hearing him break down the state of politics, meets press, meets policy. He was one of those rare, you know, what they used to call Stephanopolites who really understood that place where politics, policy, and strategy meet.”

    2016-12-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 107 - Eli Attie · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source