YouSaid · the spoken record

Eliot Spitzer

lines on the record: 47
first: 2015-10-29
most recent: 2015-10-29
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

“What about this culture? I'm of two minds about it. Yes, we live in a wireistic culture. We're Schadenfreude is the emotion that sort of drives our tabloid mentality. That's too bad. And it certainly distracts from a serious discussion of the things that matter to us as a society. Having said that, the defense I would make for those who would look at me and say, no, it's a legitimate issue is, you know, how you lead your life is one way to measure somebody's character, and I of all people won't try to deny that. And so fine, give them their due. Is the search for purity a vain search? Yeah. I wish it weren't always quite as front and center, but I understand why people raise these issues.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They come through all of this. They're doing great, and thank you for asking at the end of the day. That is what matters. I'll brag, I've got one who's not that this is the way you measure. They're wonderful, great, smart, empathetic kids who care about the right things, and one of them happens to be a second year student at Harvard Law School, one of them is a first year student at Stanford Medical School, and one of them is junior at Princeton studying philosophy and writes papers I can't understand for the life of me. So I couldn't be prouder of them and what they're doing and what they want to do.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This was a different will. Exactly. That was black hats, and we had beards and pay us. Which was one generation removed for me also, but now it's a different beard and a different tattoo.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the real estate in New York is expensive, the obvious, but it's more expensive to rent in Williamsburg than on the upper east side of Manhattan. That's how desirable it is. My three daughters who are now in their early twenties coming back to the city for a summer, some of them will be there full time in a couple years, I said to them, you want to live in some of our buildings on the upper east side. They said, Daddy, are you nuts? We want to be in Williamsburg. It is cool. It is gritty. I'm 30 years too old to walk around Williamsburg. Everybody has a beard, a tattoo. Nobody wears a tie. But it is go there on people”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anybody cares, a pretty significant portfolio of properties that we've built over 50 years, and we have a big project we're building in Williamsburg on the waterfront in Brooklyn. It'll be beautiful, a project at the Hudson Yards in Manhattan, and a very large project in downtown Washington.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was always very close with my dad and so spent a lot of time talking business with him and loved it because even though politics was a passion, the dynamism of the private sector where you're creating things is equally compelling, not almost equally as compelled. There's some tangible real, we build buildings, we own them, we maintain them, we create jobs, and I don't want to sound like somebody from the American Enterprise Institute, or maybe on this issue I'm happy to. I'm very proud of that. And we put our own capital at risk in big ways, and when we produce and we build, there's a sense of pride that results from that.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Other side and garnered the respect that you get from the public legitimately so for having been there. Now, look, I think there are a lot of tough issues ahead. On foreign policy for her, and I don't mean the Benghazi stuff, but the Republicans forget that that's awful what they're doing. What I do mean is what her larger structural view is on foreign policy. Remember, she voted the wrong way in the Iraq war. She hasn't yet explained what is the right response to the Arab Spring. Why is it that her reset with Russia, we now have Putin dominant as a player in the Middle East? The pivot to Asia. I mean, there are a lot of things I think that are going to be legitimate questions that are substantive questions that deserve to be debated.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If one looks at the pole numbers, there's not much question about it. The only thing I would suggest is that, and this is your territory, not mine, but eight years ago, there was almost a similar feeling at this point in the case.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Intensely smart. Intensely smart, clever, glib, a joy to be with, None of that has to do with whether or not she's the best Democratic candidate for president, because take the trade issue. I mean, where she did say it was the gold plated standard, the TPP. She did speak for it forty five times, did say this is great policy, and is now not only completely reversed her policy, but is claiming that that's not what she said. And, you know, we need at this moment in particular where the issues are so tough, the issues of inequity, growing our economy, getting jobs back for the middle class, we need a leader who has the capacity to be forthright and direct, and not somebody who wavers and waffles.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it's something I'm ashamed of. We pulled the proposal. Now, I don't want to suggest we pulled it exclusively because of that. If you were to go back and look at the... The newspapers of the time, I had virtually no support in New York State, no elected official statewide would stand with me. It was a tough proposal. People were spitting at me in the streets. And I'm embarrassed to say after three weeks of fighting valiantly, I said, I'm not going to sacrifice my entire agenda to this”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a politically tough issue. It didn't poll well, but there was no ambiguity about what was right. And if you look about where we are now as a nation on this very issue, very few people, it's the law of the land, I think, in California, a slew of states. And that it is not controversial because people know it's right and it works. But at the time, it was controversial. And because it was controversial, she hemmed in jihad. And again, this goes to the core of where are you on immigrants' rights? And the president, not then the president, Senator Obama, now the president, gave an unambiguous answer yes. Now, the Clinton folks, as no doubt you remember, thought the issue was the problem. I thought the issue was a metaphor for her vacillation.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When it came time to Senator Clinton's answer, she literally gave three different answers in thirty seconds, to which Chris Dodd then responded Wait a minute, Senator Clint, you've just said three different things. What do you think? And she waffled and waffled and waffled. Subsequent thereto, next couple days, when the issue was gaining.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was watching, I was in my living room pacing around the living room, watching the TV, and then out of nowhere this question was posed. And I think President Obama, then Senator Obama, the question was, do you support Governor Spitzer's or the New York Governor's proposal to permit undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses? And let me drop a footnote. The backdrop to this is it's good for law enforcement. It permits the folks to work. It had been a policy embraced by Republican governors and Democratic governors. But when I proposed it, it became a torrential outpouring of venom from Ludobs and then the right wing media. Okay, that's the backdrop. Senator Obama on that stage was asked, do you support it? He gave a one-word answer. Yes.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why isn't he doing better? He will do better. And I think that as the, it's now winnowed down to three candidates, which I think is good for him. The next debate in Iowa in two and a half weeks or so, it will be Bernie Sanders, whom I respect for his passion, love his accent, you know, Brooklyn accent for Vermont Senator, only in America could we get this. And Governor O'Malley will have the chance, I think, to stand up as he did at the Jefferson Jackson dinner last Saturday night and make the persuasive case that you need to be principled, you need to have the backbone and fortitude to stand on those principles. You can't be a presidential candidate, as I hate to say, but as I think Hillary Clinton is, who has shifted position on every major issue leading up to this campaign. That's not what leadership is about. O'Malley has been there on the tough issues and gotten it done, and I think we'll make that case.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's how I view it. I think Bernie Sanders deserves credit for sort of being a voice that has galvanized a fair bit of passion on that issue. Hillary Clinton read a poll, I guess, and decided it was time to talk about it, so she started talking about it. Martin O'Malley is the guy whom I'm supporting. I just have known him for many years. He has an executive who got things done. I both value and respect his dedication to his principles and to his capacity to make it real, and as the mayor of Baltimore, which is obviously a fraught issue these days given some of the criminal justice issues, but I thought he was a spectacular mayor, who passed marriage equality, raised the minimum wage, passed a dream act, invested in schools, he got it done. He really did it. And I think that capacity to take the speech that others may give and transform it into actual policy that's implemented.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“May be one of the conclusions. The other conclusion is that I'm not a kid, I'm 56, I have a family. Individuals who are five years younger, ten years younger, 20 years younger, who were smarter than I have better experience than I, they will go out, do great things. I said this and I used to mean that politics isn't about people, it's about ideas, and I don't need to be the one in there. I love the stuff. You're right. I have a passion for it. It still gets my heartbeating faster than just being in business to make money. Although I love what I'm doing now without any hesitation, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to get back in. I'm done with that. I loved it, but I've moved on.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They've got 48%, which is pretty good given the headlines that were being run here. Look, it was close race. It was interesting race and didn't quite get together.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's no good answer to that, David. And that's a question that I have needless to say asked myself over and over. Look, the only thing I could say is Greek mythology is the story of Icarus and we all have read it and don't realize perhaps we're living it until too late. That there is, you know, I used to use back when I was in government, and the irony is maybe I became the best example of this, hubris is terminal. And there is a capacity to begin to believe in one's being inviolate, and society has a good way of letting us all know that's not the case.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's what I would say. I have no doubt the first half of what you said is correct. They disliked me and with every reason. I understand human emotions. They had every reason to dislike me. I'd prosecuted them. I take them to court. I was adverse to them in many, many fundamental ways. I also agree with your other fundamental point. It was a problem of my own making. I've heard all sorts of rumors and seen some evidence that yes, they did everything they could to catch me, but I've always said to myself it's irrelevant to where I am today, and so I'm not going to think about it or worry about it or care about it, because it's just not going to change anything about where I am or what I did, and therefore it is what it is.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People at the top of the banks who understand risk, which we were 0 for two back then. We had Alan Greenspan is revered by many people, wonderful guy who wants to speak ill of him, but his sort of intellectual worldview was that of a libertarian. And as a consequence, the deregulation of Wall Street for a decade led to an environment in which people believed that they could sell credit to fault swaps and therefore risk had disappeared. It was crazy.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, no question we are less likely today than we were at the peak of the bubble, but I would rephrase the question and the metaphor I use is it's like getting a speeding ticket. When you get a speeding ticket, you say, oh, I'd better not go above the speed limit. So for the next half hour, you don't. But as time passes, your foot begins to go a bit heavier on the pedal. And so I think the question is, for how long do we remember the lessons? We learned the lessons. But how long do we remember and how adept are we? The next crisis will never be like the former, the past crisis. Because finance, like everything else in life is dynamic. And so will it be Blackpools of capital, will it be high-speed trading? Will it be hedge funds that are unstolenced? I have no idea. But something different will create the systemic risk. And so you need people up at the top who understand and appreciate that a regulatory framework is critical and that you need”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“saw the structural issues through the same prism that I and others did. But what we got was probably 75% of it, but hasn't eliminated these tensions where you have two sides of major investment banks, the sort of the side that depends upon government guarantees still able to live off that guarantee to create revenue and capital to make bets. And that is the intersection there's always bothered me, where you have sort of the federal government's guarantee permitting the banks to know that on the downside they're covered and so they can play more aggressively, which leads them to take improper risk.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very hard, and I'm the last person who should opine about the probability or possibility of getting a law through Congress never played on that field. I used to go down there and test file a lot, and I can tell you that even back, this is pre-crash, so it was, you know, I guess it was 01 and 02, 0304. I guess when I was testifying down there a lot, the Republicans had special, what they called Spitzer amendments drafted in one case by the General Counsel Morgan Stanley to just deny us of jurisdiction. So that's the sort of thing you're up against. That there is not an honest, what I would view as an honest analysis of the issues leading to deliberative results. What you have is huge clash of powerful interests. And so what resulted, and I give Barney Frank an enormous amount of credit for this, Barney is classically acerbic and wonderful and just a great guy. You know I had some issues with whether Tim Geithner pushed hard enough early on.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Better yes, but not good enough. Look, we still are having a fight over whether there should be a fiduciary obligation when people give advice to investors. I mean, Secretary Perez at the Labor Department is fighting valiantly for this. I mean, I'm not as aware of what the state of play is. It's crazy to me that there's pushback on that very simple principle. There's a great moment when some Goldman Sachs executives were testifying. This goes back maybe 809 or 10, and they were asked by, I forget, maybe Senator Eleven, do you have to live up to a fiduciary obligation? Do you have to do what's in the best interest of your client? Or is it the best interest of your own firm that takes precedence? And they couldn't answer the question. And that is the root of the problem.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were so many conflicts of interest rife in Wall Street because people were playing with other people's money. There was no fiduciary obligation, and the payback to the bankers was so enormous even while their clients were doing terribly, that the whole system was becoming a house of cards.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We did. We found a jurisdictional hook. It's not as though we were stretching. It's not as though there was any ambiguity about it. The Martin Act essentially codifies common law fraud provisions, but gave the Attorney General the capacity to go into court to enforce them. And so what we had to allege was fraud, which without any ambiguity, in my mind, in all the companies this was, back then it was big money. They paid $1.4 billion, but forget the money. And we can talk about the problem with the sort of settlements that we've been getting. We tried to create structural relief. In other words, merely a financial payment is useless, because usually it's other people's money. The companies pay with shareholder money. And if you don't get the people at the top who've been responsible to leave or change the structure, you haven't done anything. So time and again, whether it was analysts or mutual funds insurance, we went after what we thought was a structural problem on the street. And the takeaway at the end of the day was that”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Guys, yeah, exactly. It all comes back to that person. They beat me, and I'll show them. The real thing was that if you spoke to people on the street, every of one of the major cases we made, they would say to you as their first line of defense, but everybody knows that everybody's doing that. But nobody had had the backbone to do anything about it. The first big case analysts were tens of millions of Americans were being told by this stock by that stock, all of that advice was twisted and was being bought by the companies in return for good commentary on the stock itself. Now, without getting down to the weeds of the boredom of the analyst cases, everybody on the street understood that dynamic, but nobody at the SEC, nobody at the Fed, nobody at the stock exchange wanted to disrupt a system. And that was the pity of it. Wait a minute, guys, stop, you can't do this. Everybody was kind of a guest saying, well, eh, who were you, the AG of W.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wall Street case is what people remember. And maybe it was 60 minutes the sobriety quit of the sheriff of Wall Street and all this and that. But really all we did, and I've often felt I grew up with these kids who then ended up on Wall Street. So I knew them, I understood them. And I used to joke if they cheat on the tennis court, they'll cheat in the office. And I'd seen them then. So I said, wait a minute, there's something going on here.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really rampant in the sea That's right, and the emotion of the city was driven by tabloid headlines about crime. And that crime had already dipped significantly. Bill Bratton, who's now back with us, had put in place, and I think Bill is one of the great intellects in terms of law enforcement policy. Bill Bratton had driven Giuliani, given, don't like him, but give him credit, had helped drive it down. But the stop and frisk policies that were part of it were problematic. So we did that. We did environmental cases, the clean air cases that have sort of percolated all the way through to the Supreme Court in past years, permitting the EPA to use the new source review provisions of the Clean Air Act. There's a great guy, Peter Lehner, spectacular lawyer I brought in as the only credit I should get is for hiring him. He did everything else. The Clean Air cases that were transformative in terms of interstate flow of the pollutants, the NOx, the nitrous oxide, the sulfur dioxide that really creates the smog.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We did the first study of stopping Frisk. It was nineteen ninety nine. We did every, got every UF two hundred fifty, which is the piece of paper an NYPD officer filled out when they did a stop at Frisk and came out with what was and still is, I think, the gold standard phrase we'll come back to later, maybe gold standard of analysis of stop and frisk policy. And it was from that that the entire debate about policing kicked in. Rudy Giuliani was mayor. He was furious about this, because here's the conundrum stop and frisk as it was being implemented, was unconstitutional, but it worked. If you look at it in terms of law enforcement, they would say he got...”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, is that right? Yeah. Okay. Well, in that, now that you've given me free license, here I go. If I were going back into politics, I'd be interested in doing that. Now I just want to live in anonymity. It's much more peaceful. But what we did, and frankly, the Wall Street stuff is what everybody remembers. But in a way, I thought the first most important transformative thing we did was the study of stop and frisk.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, again, without trying to be or sounding self-aggrandized. I think we did things that were more structural in areas that”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's where you come into this. Somehow I had this great David Haxerot, something I was able to win. The world turned around. But no, then I ran in 98. That was a tough race. Had eight great years as AG that were really, in terms of the issues from the Wall Street stuff, the environmental stuff. Well, let's talk about that because...”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, I ran for seventh grade class president and didn't win, which I'm still bruised. My high school buddies remind me all the time. They say you? How do you end up in politics? You couldn't be elected seventh grade class president. So, you know, because I wasn't the natural gladhander and this and that.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I know Harzmann now has this image of whatever the image is. We flip baseball cards and we're kids. We talked about the Allman Brothers and the Prayful Dead. Maybe not the dead at that stage a couple years later. But no, we were pretty normal kids. But by the time I was mid-20s in the DA's office, spent six, great years there, loved it. I mean, it was really fun. And I hate it when people give career advice, but for young lawyers, being in the courtroom is really what lawyering should be all about. So I loved being a prosecutor. But if you're on the defense side, just as exciting. Get into the courtroom where you have to make your case in front of a jury. And it is just, that's the drama, that's the adrenaline, and that is, I love the judicial system, flawed as it might be. It's still the one branch of government where there are decisions made on the facts based upon neutral rules, and eighty five percent of the time.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, what they had done was create monopolies in various sectors and garner huge, huge improper, what the economists would call rents from doing that.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I mean, I was, Mr. Morgenthal called me up to his office one day and said, You're going to go to the Rackets Bureau. Organized crime was still, this is when Rudy Giuliani was the U.S. attorney. The grip of organized crime on New York City was much more significant. And it wasn't just Loan Sharkin, it was construction. It was the fish market. It was carting. It was drywall. It was pervasive. Pervasive through industries that were being strangled and organized crime. And I use this metaphor in very sort of book I wrote a bunch of years ago. Organized crime had looked back at some of the great American magnates and understood having monopoly in a critical sector was a better way to make money than loan sharpening on the street.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That law and order was built around Manhattan I used to introduce him when I was in government as AG and Governor as America's DA. He really defined the propriety, the perfection and demands of doing it right, what justice was all about. He's still with us. He's great man who defined what that role is supposed to be. So, yeah, no, I worked for him for six years, did political corruption, organized crime cases, you know, have great stories from this was the day when good fellows was there as the movie late 80s, early 90s. And the mobsters were imitating the movie. It was very funny on the wiretaps to hear them kind of imitating Marlon Brando because you say, wait a minute, you're real, that's fiction, but they want to be more like the movie stars. It was, I prosecuted time again, who was the son of Carlo, you know, great stories, but also important prosecutions. It was only after that”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Terry Fonty story. He's Mr. Morgenthau still to me, even though I'm at an age where I can pretty much call anybody other than”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I actually got out of law school as many lawyers who've done well. I was on law review, clerk for a federal judge, went to a law firm for eleven months, loved it. Paul Weiss, one of the great firms in the country, but realized that was just a way station, was a prosecutor for six years and loved that.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He liked to be the Talmudic scholar, but instead of the Talmud is the foundation of the debate. It was what's going on in the world. And he put us to our pesos. He was a very liberal guy. He grew up without two nickels to rub together on the lower side of New York. It's a great story. It really is classical New York classic American story, no hot water, the whole bit. I mean, he's had a great life, passed away just about a year ago right now, age of ninety and a half, had a great run, and he believed that his job was the first generation. He was the first one in the family born here, was to make enough money so the rest of us could go out and do other stuff. So my brother became a doctor, my sister a public interest lawyer, and I got stuck in politics, the lowest of the three, but it was, you know, he pushed us to do interesting and useful things.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That in two beers, let me tell you, Great Friday night. The only person who ever subscribed to the RAND studies. But you know, I loved that stuff, and that's the grist of really what governing should be about”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was always interested in, and I don't want to look, I'm out of politics, I'm in real estate these days. That's where I'm going to be so I can say this without it sounding self-aggrandizing or self-interested. I was always interested in the policy stuff. I really, and you met me early on in my political life. I really never thought I'd be running for office. I thought I'd be in an assistant secretary of this or that because I went to college, studied policy, and my friends used to make fun of me. I would read rand reports about recidivism and stuff like that. It would have been fun.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not in a position to say anymore. People morph. And what I've noticed, and maybe you've had the same experience, David, in politics, people begin to believe their own rhetoric because it makes it easier to play the part. And so even if they're people whom you say, look, he couldn't really be believing that he's playing, he's pandering. A year later, they say it with a certitude and persuasiveness that you say to yourself, wait a minute, they really do. And so he has said things with the consistency and venom that makes you think he really does believe it.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He is brash, he is abrasive, he is not lacking in sort of arrogance, but as you and I have joked off air, humility is not a trait that New Yorkers tend to have in much abundance.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But as casinos were in bankruptcy, there was a lot of razzle dazzle, which I think would not withstand scrutiny in terms of how he really ran things, but put that aside. His political commentary recently has been just so abhorrent that I think the brand he tried to create over the past number of years is being destroyed.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You were growing up? Sure. Not Donald Trump's father, but we dealt with Donald Trump many years ago when he was sort of new to the business. My dad did. He was a different persona, and I say this about him as abhorrent and absolutely revolting as his political commentary has been in the past number of years. Thirty years ago, he was actually a decent real estate developer at two buildings he built that were risky but creative, the Hyatt Hotel on forty second street, New York City, helped revitalize that part of the city, and Trump Tower again creative. But look, I'm not going to start critiquing his business thereafter, although I think it's fair to observe.”
2015-10-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 8 - Eliot Spitzer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source