YouSaid · the spoken record

George Stephanopoulos

lines on the record: 100
first: 2017-07-10
most recent: 2017-07-10
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

“I do have reverence for it. I mean, that's what you're saying about my time in the White House was a mixed experience. That's true. And maybe this is looking back with rose-colored glasses. Peak professional experience My life, how could it not be? I mean, to have that kind of privilege, to have that kind of chance to work on what you care about at the highest level in a way that matters every single day is once in a lifetime. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can't imagine a present surviving, a move like that. But he's defied, right? But in this case, perhaps it's different. If you try to think this one through. The Deputy Attorney General is now in charge of Mueller who would have to do it. Rod Rosline is not going to fire Robert Mueller. So he's going to resign.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You would think, having just read a book I would recommend to all of your listeners, fantastic new biography of Richard Nixon Farrell. Jack Farrell. Jack Farrell. And it brings you back to the Watergate times and the Saturday night massacre.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I would think having worked in a White House that was under the thumb of the Special Counsel for several years, they have no idea. Once the special counsel starts and certainly can Star did remember he was appointed. Two years before Monica Lewinsky came into the White House. That's what ended up being what Bill Clinton got impeached over. Social counsels can go in any direction they want.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I remember one big interview I did was after their convention. I flew up to Colorado, and that was the interview where he, after Denver Democratic Convention, where he attacked Khazir Khan and his wife. And I remember walking out of the interview, now President Trump, he was very mad at me and he was really as angry as I've ever seen him. And he was yelling at me, but it was about a different part of the interview was about the questions I had been asking him about Putin, which again, on their own, would have been...”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Role in this, and did we do something wrong? Were we not fair? Did we give him too much coverage? I look at every interview I did. They were tough interviews. And again, these were interviews that if other people gave the answers he gave, and not just to me, but to others, as well in a different world, they were interviews and answers that politicians just didn't survive. You know, whether it's attacking John McCain for his time as a prisoner of war when you didn't go. How many times?”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Now, actually, no one else actually ever thought of it. That's the problem. Well, that's my point. That's a way that he gamed it. But, you know, I'm of two minds of this because a lot of the people who complain about how much coverage we were giving him, we'd invite them on every day. They wouldn't come on. I mean, he had a because, and this goes back to when I look at my own.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this gets back to something we were talking about. This goes back to the Hillary conversation as well. He clearly gamed cable. Well, no, and any game, I could argue that he gamed all of us. I mean, obviously we thought a lot about this.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, both Obama and it was actually the tougher time was. The early 2000s Obama brought back a lot of interest in Trump. And Trump has done the same. Like a shiny object. Trump has done the same. Let me ask you one.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, morning and Sunday are in better shape than anything else. So good for you. Sunday is getting, we're getting the same numbers, in some cases better than we were getting eight, 10 years ago.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the upside turns out again when I sort of felt, I actually said no to the job three times. But the more I said no, the more it became clear to me that I was putting a pretty hard ceiling on my career if I said no. Yeah, you can say no. You're not going anywhere. I would never be the chief anchor. I would never be doing anchoring election night, anything like that if I said no. They needed. Now,”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even if the intentions were. I mean, I don't think there was anything, I think it's a good charity. I'm glad I supported it in that respect, but it was dumb given the role I had. I would say that when I was making these contributions, this was a time when Mitt Romney was chairing the Clinton Initiative. It became something different. It looked different in the middle of the campaign. And I should have had, even though I did disclose it, I should have had more disclosures than I had. I certainly coped to that.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And to me, that was just, you know, should he have been peached for it? No, but incredibly reckless and irresponsible and selfish act. And that's what I said as a commentator.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yes and no. I mean. This goes back to the point I was trying to make about what I felt like The way to be true to myself was to make the arguments I would have been making inside and the truth was that I was appalled by this. You know, when I went to work for Bill Clinton in 1991-92, he had already, part of the reason he didn't run in 1988, people thought was because of these questions about his personal behavior. Charges that I was told were untrue for years. But the whole implicit and to some degree explicit bargain was or contract was you're going to put people out to defend you on this. But that means you're not going to make the problem worse. You know you're in the White House now.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it definitely took time. Now one of the things that sort of ended up complicating, that was kind of a fraught time. While this is happening, the whole Monica Lewinsky thing blows up. This is all after I left the White House.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I started to become a reporter and an anchor, I knew that people were skeptical and I just had to be scrupulous about, and we've actually talked about this before, but two things. One, being fair to both sides, but also not overcompensating and ending just to look like you're being tougher on the side you used to work to work on. And that was a balancing act for a long time. But I always knew it was going to be up to... The viewers and the people I was covering to determine whether or not I was doing a fair job.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With a point of view, it was only over time that Made that a full time job and moved on to reporting and anchoring. But I knew that I had In order to be accepted in this role had to be sort of transparent about it. And I had different rules for myself at different times. When I was a pundit, an analyst, I sort of felt the best way that I could be true to my past work and true to the job of being an analyst was to basically say on the air what I would say in a meeting in the White House, which would not necessarily agree with what the president did, but would sort of be true to the arguments I made at the time.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You work for Richard Nixon. Worked for Richard Nixon, Bill Moyers. I think generally by the time... I came along that was more like you get one move, you still get to go back and fourth. But when I first left, I didn't know for sure this is what I was going to do. I came on to ABC, although now it turns out I've been there 20 years, been here 20 years, as an analyst of...”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it was illustrative. But then put yourself. And this is where I then can flip it around and say, put yourself in her shoes. She's running against someone who, you know, demonstrably on several different occasions just says stuff that's flat out not true. I saw thousands of Muslims cheering on 9-11. He's all over the map on policy. He's not releasing his taxes. And she's thinking, you're hitting me for being secretive, right?”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and Giuliani, I mean, what was Trump's word then? It was one of his words he was using about whether she wasn't one word. It was just, yeah, she barely campaigns. Right.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On a hot day or something. And I just said, Nick, and I didn't even know anything. This was just purely based on intuition and experience. I said, Nick, I don't think you know. I just don't think you know. And sure enough, you know.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I called Nick Merrill when he came up with that first statement of, I don't even remember what he said, but I knew just didn't.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But yeah, and you know when it really felt it, and it turned out ended up not to be the biggest deal in the world, but it wasn't helpful that Sunday when she fainted.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, everybody's got their Mix of gifts and flaws, and this was, I think, one thing that is pretty consistent in the Clinton history and in Hillary Clinton's history is that for all her commitment to public service, which is deep, lifelong, and policy smarts, which is also off the charts. She has a tough shell and a very protective shell and feels burned by the press and burned by the public and just gets into a protective crouch over things that feel personal to her. And, you know, the email was one example. The speeches is another example. She feels like she's being held to a different standard, so she hunkers down. I don't think she's necessarily wrong that she's held to a different standard, but that's life. That's politics that happens. You have to deal with the world as it comes sometimes. Yeah.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're going to get them eventually anyway. Let them write the stories and then we can move on. They didn't do that. And that's what led to the first special counsel.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Saw that there was nothing wrong and I made the argument this was even before that I guess that whatever papers you have Give them to the breast because”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two pieces of advice where I clashed with Hillary Clinton especially and Bernie Nuspan. And the president was in the middle, and that's where we were having these debates. One was this whole issue of whitewater people don't even know what it's about anymore because it was a losing real estate investment of about $20,000, $30,000. In Arkansas back in the 1970s, now somehow this had become fodder for the special council, but there had already been one special council looked at it.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was whether you were going to ask for it before the five Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who would make the difference. Maybe it was four at the time were going to request it anyway. And then it just happens to.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they might as well get in front of it and say and invite it to happen. This whole debate, and the Clinton still disagree with me on this, Bernie Nusbaum disagrees with me on this.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then at the time we were still battling these stories Paulie Jones was filing a lawsuit against the president. There were stories still stories being, it would be Oliver Breitbart if this were today, but about some of his troopers in Arkansas saying that they had helped him get women as well, things he was all denying, but which started to plant the seeds of future problems because at the time... They had appointed us. You”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of the presidency for the things we believed in ended up in a titanic battle with then Republican Congress over the budget. And Clinton ended up, I give him credit for this in retrospect. It was a tough, tough fight. I have to say, though, it felt that was one of the more energizing times at the White House because you felt even though sometimes it was against people inside your White House, you felt like you're fighting for stuff that really... Really mattered.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. He'd been all over the map, and now he's, you know, I'm not sure exactly what to do. Off the edge of the earth. Yeah, but way, way, way right wing. But, you know, there was a real after the midterms, I stayed, but there was a real existential struggle inside the White House for the direction of...”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, and it's had a secret team that became lesser to a guy named Dick Morris, his old political consultant, who not only was consulting in secret for a long time, but also was at odds with a lot of The principles that President Clinton had run on.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Flat out untrue, and yet therefore they go out and either repeat them or refuse to correct them or refuse to get an answer from the president, the tapes for 40, 40 something. That's different. That's an entirely different. Has an entirely different quality to it.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About the crowd. And then a day later or three days later trying to make the argument about how President Trump would have won but for the illegal votes in the popular vote, but for illegal votes from an image tweet about Obama bugging debugging him. I mean, they've had a series of things which are just”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there is. And I think that in this White House, the president's spokespeople have been put, and they've put themselves there too, but have been put in untenable positions. For Sean from the first day, trying to make this argument that.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In fact, when I was flying back. From the White House was when they put out the word that Comey had been fired, which I think so much has changed. We're just intensified since then. But yeah, and I've talked to Sean about this. The difference is, I mean, yeah, and I had to deal with my own in the first briefings, you know, Hillary Clinton wanted to close the press office door to the working press between the West Wing and the press office. They could move them around. And that was a big controversy at the time. We went back and forth on televising the briefing, so that controversy is not new at all. The difference is, and I know that a lot of people who listen don't accept this, but there's a difference between... Advocacy and spin and lying.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've been in the White House a few times this spring and I guess it was in May a week or two before Memorial Day was the last time. And I was in Sean's office. I said, hey, you're going to last in the briefings longer than I did. Turned out he didn't. I mean, that was the next day or that night.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Resented the fact that they had to answer a lot of the questions they were getting posed that were being posed to them every day. And that created a fair amount of stress.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The stress that came with the experience. And part of it was the job I had. At first I was communications director and was doing the briefings, moved on to more of the role that I had in the campaign of being sort of a senior policy and strategic advisor. For Bill Clinton, a lot of that was and a lot of my particular role was damage control on all of the tough stories and many of them self inflicted, which meant that I was. In my own mind, often fighting two or three front wars, you know, trying to I answer these stories in public, but dealing with Many times not knowing all the facts even after asking many times not being entirely clear on the What was really going on behind the scenes and dealing with, you know, and I get it, a president or first lady who”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And every decision matters. So you're playing at your highest level, but they had a lot of stress comes with that as well.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every minute. I mean, I always say that, and I'm sure you felt the same way, you never feel smarter than when you're in the White House because you have The information of the world At your fingertips, you could call anybody. You could call anybody anytime. You're generally surrounded by the smartest eight or ten people around a table this size you're ever going to be working with and including in both our cases, I think the presidents we worked with.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you don't want to be doing that all the time. But we felt, and then at the time it felt new, that that's exactly what we had to do, and it was right for the time.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had three news cycles, maybe you were going from a one or two news cycle day to maybe three, and we did have some people work all night, but there's no internet. The basic rhythms were still driven by the evening news and the deadlines for the papers and the morning news to... To a degree, but not as much as it is today, but a completely different from what people face now, which gets to my point of, I think part of what you guys had to deal with in the Obama campaign and people have to deal with even more now is learning what not to respond to, learning what is knowing as”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“in presidential history One of the best And those guys, yeah, just if you learned one thing from then, which is something I ended up having to unlearn in the White House, and I think people have had to unlearn even more today, but the driving philosophy of our rabbit response was nothing goes unanswered. Nothing. And you're fighting it out literally every minute of every day. Now then.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“George Bush. Yeah. You know, that was when Perot had decided. Now Bush had his own kind of rocky primary in New Hampshire with Pappy Canon for the first time. Wait, was that in?”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure enough, the Illinois primary, he had become the nominee, but even then, by the time he wins Illinois, we're looking at a general election where he was polling in third place.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was life support for all of January and February, but then he would not give up. And in that last week of the New Hampshire primary, he simply didn't sleep. And even though after those two stories, Jennifer and the draft, he had fallen at times to third place. He ended up not winning. People forget to fall, it's of course sort of a native son, but it was such a surprising recovery. He labeled himself to comeback hit and it worked. I mean, that was always that credit where credit is due that as a joint creation of Manny Grunwald and Paul Bigala. And he went down south and was able to win in Georgia. And just then keep rolling along and end up, you know, took Songhas out in the south and hung on for a little longer.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we were preparing for what to do if FuMo indeed got in. And at the time, we were all acting like, oh, yeah, it's a good thing if he gets in. We'll take him on. But sure enough, just before Clinton got off the plane, We got word that Cuomo decided not to get in. So I said, don't go make the statement whole different thing. And he just out of lived a gracious statement. And it was fine.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You brought up Mario Cuomo. He actually flirted with coming back into the race in December and to the point where he had actually had a plane waiting in the tarmac to Friday, New Hampshire. And I'm sitting down in my office in Little Rock, and I think Clinton was about to get off a plane. And I think it was Tennessee. It might have been Kentucky.”
2017-07-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 161 - George Stephanopoulos · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source