YouSaid · the spoken record

Heidi Heitkamp

lines on the record

76

first

2021-02-18

most recent

2021-02-18

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. “And it renders a country that's ungovernable. Because we're all in our corners yelling as opposed to finding some common ground.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Politically. And so this reconnect. And I think one of the things that I get in trouble is I just want progressives, especially those who think that language doesn't matter. Language like defund the police doesn't matter. I want them to understand how hard it is in places where we're from when that can be demonized, when socialism can be demonized and how that language that defines the Democratic Party then labels a local democratic leader. Here's the factoid that I want to leave your audience with. When I ran in 2012, my pollster said, oh, about 20% or about that amount of Republicans in your state will cross over and vote for a Democrat. When I sought re-election, it was only four.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “All the people out there who think, oh, well, you know, we're the party of suburbia, Democrats, and Urban, and we can win, see, you know, look where we are and we didn't win rural America. I'd ask you to go out on our website, one countryproject, I think it's dot com, and just look at the analysis. And I think you can bear this out as well, that if we see these trends continue, you know, what you have is you have a politically divided country that continues to be politically divided, but you have a very fragile victory.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “I just think that I feel sad for all those people who watch the presentation on the impeachment and then decided to vote in a way that was so wrong in my opinion, that was so reflective of expediency and not deliberation.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “And especially when it didn't matter. You know, there's always this thing of, you know, and that's what happened in the impeachment trial. You know, well, you can vote this way because it doesn't matter. It's not just a one vote thing. And you have to decide whether you're going to take that precious thing you've been given by the people of your state, which is that vote to represent them and how you're going to present that and use that vote. And so to me, I knew, you know, who knows? It's like I'm saying, David, you know, who knows whether I would have won or not won. But I know one thing, I couldn't look myself in the mirror and say I had done the right thing. I would have said I might have been done the politically expedient thing. And losing that race for governor taught me, look, it's not the end of the world. There's life after this. People think in Washington and politics, the world revolves around them. Get over yourself.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “You know, he's going to be on the court for 30 years. I don't think he'll ever distinguish himself as anything other than a solid conservative jurist, but, you know, he's certainly the other thing I would say, and I've said this publicly before I had the chance to interview Jessice Gorsuch, and I had the chance to interview Brett Kavanaugh. I don't think there is any comparison between their intellect. I think Kavanaugh is way. And that may make him more dangerous because he is so brilliant.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “And so I knew that the most important thing that you could do, and eventually I called Dr. Ford, she was gracious enough to take my call and I said, I just want you to know one thing because I think it's important. I believe you. And sometimes, you know, when we dealt with sexual assault victims and we couldn't get a prosecution, it was always important that they hear that. And so I wanted her to hear that from me. The other thing is he lied about a whole lot of other stuff, right? I mean, Ralphing was about his sick tummy and, you know, come on. I mean, he had put his hand on a Bible and swore he was going to tell the truth and then he proceeded to just buy, you know, kind of like Donald Trump, you know, kind of blatantly and everybody's like giving him a free ride. And so, you know, people said, but you were obligated to vote your constituents. And I said, I'm making this decision for 30 years.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Well, you know this from doing campaigns. And as being, you know, if you're a trial lawyer, you have to have a theory of your case. And the theory of my case was two things. Number one, I wasn't going to be with Trump 100% because I couldn't be. Kevin Kramer, who was my opponent, now Senator Kramer, told people he was going to be with Trump 100% of the time. And the other theory of my case is that I was an independent voice, that when I agreed with Trump, I'd be with him when I disagreed. And when that decision came so late in the cycle, No doubt in my mind she was telling the truth. And no doubt when people say, Oh, maybe it was somebody else and that comes from working with sexual assault.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “The tough decisions, and I had made a lot of tough decisions. I'd like to think that with maybe one or two possible exceptions, they weren't political decisions. They were decisions that I made because I thought they were the right decisions.”

   2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Think we're all part of the journey that we were on, and one of the things that I realized when I lost the race for governor is that I had been kind of making decisions based on, were you going to like me? I mean, what could I be popular? And when I lost that race, and people say, well, how did cancer change your life? I said, losing an election changed my life more than anything. I decided it was really important that I like myself. And so when I, you know, no one thought I was going to win the Senate seat. And when I got that seat, I thought, yes, you represent North Dakota, but at the end of the day, you got to look yourself in the mirror and say, did I make the right decisions, not just for my constituents today, but for the next seven generations, deeply moved by kind of that visual that Native American people have, that leaders have an obligation not just for this generation and not today, but for seven generations. And so I really thought a lot about”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Yeah, so my aunt, you know, memory was always diligent, was making phone calls for me and she called this woman from a very heavy at the time, heavily Democratic area of the state. And she said, oh, you know, I'm Heidi Heikam's aunt and we're just calling to see if you would, you know, you know, kind of to reach out. She said, Heidi, Hikant, I have a scrapbook. Every time she's in the paper, I cut it out and I put it in the scrapbook. And so memory says, really? She said, so then you'll be supporting her for governor. She goes, oh no, honey, that's a man's job.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “A family physician. And so, you know, but that, I remember when Cheryl Sandberg came to the Senate, she wanted to meet with all the women senators. And I, you know, I hadn't read her book. I don't know her. But I wanted to go there because I wanted to make this point that at the time, over half of the Democratic women in the Senate had tried to become governor and failed. And then we're later elected to the Senate. It is much easier for women at the time. And I think even today, because they have a hard time visualizing women in that executive role.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “And probably the most sexist thing in politics that's ever happened to me was that ad. And finally, a reporter from Fargo asked Ed Schaefer, her husband, what does Nancy mean by that ad? What does she mean? They're best equipped to represent North Dakota. And Ad, I think, a little sheepish about it said, well, she means like her, you know, carry on her work on breast cancer and child immunizations. And I had been diagnosed with breast cancer at the time. And so the reporter said, what's your response to that? And I said, well, I'm not even going to mention this stuff with breast cancer. But I said, my husband can not only talk about immunizations, he can give them”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “And I would say, well, they're the same age as John Hov And the message was pretty clear. You don't ask him that question. And so it's, you know, I think being a young mother was not helpful. Then Nancy Schaefer, who was the first lady at the time, did an ad, we called it the infamous pink suit ad and they had more points on that ad. They ran it like, I mean, every time you turned on the TV, it was Nancy Schaefer. And her message was John Hovin and his wife Mikey are not only the best equipped to bring new economic opportunity to North Dakota, but they're the best equipped to represent North Dakota.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “I was in my 40s. My daughter was 14, and my son was 10. And people would ask me, how old are your kids? And I would say, oh, 10 and 14, you know, blah, blah, blah. Daughters in swim team. And, you know, so I would talk about my kids. Or they would ask, how old are your kids? And you would just see a big bubble come up over their head of bad mother abandoning her children.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “Already metastized, and so. It wasn't unserious. My husband and I had just gotten done at a political event, I think was a parade, and we were at something called Kroll's Kitchen, having breakfast. You're Heidi High Camp. And I said, Yeah. And Darwin's there with me. And he says, you know, I'm a Democrat, but I'm not going to vote for you. And my husband says, well, why? And he says, because you're a woman and you have cancer. And I said, Oh, and Darwin wants to argue with this guy. And I said, I just looked at this guy and I said, there is nothing I can do about either of those facts. So I'm just going to eat my breakfast and you can go sit down. The other story that I tell from this race is the difficulty that a young mother back then had.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “So, what do you mean, you never know in politics, then you know this whether something is what effect it has? Because it's all cumulative. Everything that you do in a race is cumulative. And it's really a rare event where you can say that's the thing that did it. And in both of these losses, whether it's the Kavanaugh decision that I made or whether it was breast cancer in my race, you know, I really always hesitate to say that's the moment that I knew I was going to lose because, yeah, who knows, you may be lost without it, maybe you would have won if you had done it differently, but you make these decisions. But my favorite story about this is we were, I was back on the campaign trail after I'd been diagnosed. I had surgery. I'd already probably had a treatment. And, you know, they were taking, when you're undergoing some pretty serious chemotherapy, because my cancer was stage 3A, which meant that it had...”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “You did it. I mean, we talked. So that was years ago. I mean, literally 20 years ago. Yeah. But I knew you were the real deal, David, and maybe I would have had a different outcome.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “It's interesting because I think that sometimes when you look back at experiences, you say, oh, that must be hard. But it didn't seem hard at the time. Honestly, it didn't. I was kind of like, okay, put one foot in front of the other. This is what you got to do to get stuff done. You just power through it. I thought you're going to ask me if I regretted not hiring you to run my race. That would have been smart”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “North Dakota is one of those hybrids. Delaware, the AG's office has exclusive jurisdiction. In most states, the AGs will take a case from the local county if there's a conflict, will participate, may in fact, we did a fair amount of prosecution, especially of complicated child sexual assault cases, things that the state's attorneys who many times in North Dakota would have been part-time. We did a lot of that work. Plus, probably the biggest part of the law enforcement portfolio for the North Code AG is that you run and are the head of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is the state police.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “I could make a case for Y Gorsuch might be a pivotal person on the court. And, you know, I had a different result with Kavanaugh. But I would tell you this. The other thing that we did in the tax department was something called Worldwide Unitary Taxation as we were looking for a way to basically make multinational corporations reflect their economic activity and states more clearly and be taxed more fairly. It was not something, it was California, North Dakota, and Montana. A number of states had adopted this. And it's something that's very interesting to me now. As you look at the kind of morass of the IRS in terms of taxation of multinationals. So we did a lot of really creative work in the tax department. I'm really proud of that work.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “But you know, we passed the Supreme Court and okay, little known discussion. I had read at the time Judge Gore such as opinion on something called the Tax Anti-Injunction Act, where he basically suggested that he believed Quill was wrongly decided. And so in no small. So he would have been on your side”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Here's the interesting story. So when Byron had always led this effort in the Senate to have Congress basically give authorization to the states to collect what we call remote sales based on economic theory, so long legal. And so I was part of the litigation team that litigated the quill case, which basically the court said you couldn't do. And so when Dick Durbin, when I got there, Dick Durbin, you know, kind of asked his staff, well, maybe Heidi will take over for where Byron left off and help me with this catalog sales thing. And would you think she'd be interested? And they laughed and said, have you read the caption of the quill case? My name is actually in the caption as the”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “That. Oh, yeah, no one expected I was going to win. In fact, a lot of people forget. I always say was a recalibrating race for me on how hard it was to lose was the race for governor.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “No, it wasn't in part because that my motivation in running for state auditor. And I would have been, I think, a good state auditor, but it wasn't my life's passion to be a state auditor. But my motivation was I tried to get a bunch of women to run women who had been on school boards. And they all said no. And that's not for me. And I was at the time single, got married in the middle of that race and had no children. And so, okay, what do you risk getting your car and drive around the state for three months? So you knew.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “Hope good work and good thinking, but that knowledge and those skills that I was able to secure very early on, whether it was administrative skills, whether it was listening skills, political skills were invaluable. So I really consider my time in the tax department to be a real higher education of PhD and government.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “But I got a job, and Kent Conrad liked me and said, why don't you come to work? And it was never going to be a long-term thing. But I got very intrigued by the similarities between tax policy and environmental policy, highly regulatory, highly statutory. And I started understanding that tax policy is a huge part of what government does. And it's a huge part in reflecting government values. And so got very invested and very engaged in tax policy. Eventually, can't convince me to run for office when I was 28 years old. I ran for state auditor, lost a close race against a 12-year incumbent. Nobody thought I would even come close. And so when Kent went to the Senate, the governor at the time, who was a Democrat, appointed me to be tax commissioner, where I did a lot of,”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Yeah. Well, here's a little factoid. So I move home to be with my now husband. And he is a fourth year medical student, never home. And that winter for 45 days it never got above zero. And I had been living in Portland. I had been living in Washington, D.C. I was like, what the heck am I doing?”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Abandon the environmental direction that the Republican Party had taken. And basically through something called the Rocky Mountain legal foundation, I think it was called, started adopting the policies of somebody named James Watt. And Vorsic was actually an acolyte. And Buford, who was her husband, he was the head of BLM. And so I saw that political Unraveling of what I thought was stayed policy and said, oh, now I get it. You cannot be kind of doing good policy work without being involved in politics. And pretty young to kind of come to that conclusion. I needed to get home in part because I didn't want to stay in DC plus my now husband was doing his fourth year of medical school in Bismarck. We had been having a long-term relationship and it was kind of like, okay.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “And Ronald Reagan frequently touted as the greatest Republican president ever, abandoned the Republican principles. Lincoln fans would object.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Who's confirmation? She was not He cut me off very quickly, said that was a difficult time for my family. I guess I will not talk about that. But so I was kind of this young idealistic, I had seen reauthorization of water. I had seen reauthorization of the Clean Air Act. I had seen Congress work to protect something I thought was really important. And I was really excited about doing policy work, which is why I went to Lewis and Clark Law School, went back to EPA. That was even before Superfund had been passed. I was part of the task force that dealt with the love canal cases, which are famous hazardous waste dumping cases. And so it was kind of the beginning of Superfund and RICRA. And so that was my passion. And then something happens, David. It's called an election.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “She's not bullshitting you folks. Yeah. You know, I was at EPA and Anne Gorsuch came in, which is something I mentioned to her son.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “When I got to the Senate, the coal industry and the mining industry would come in and I say, Look, you can have my vote. You know, that's my constituency. But if you want my leadership, you can't be hell no. And that's how that led to probably.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “Said this, he said We have to have an international market and if we're not changing how we grow what we have in a sustainable way, we may not be in the international market. He saw that sustainability is going to be one of those things that is going to be either offer a premium or essential to accessing markets. And you're seeing that with all kinds of buyers of commodities right now. They want to know how was this raised? How was this grown? How was what were the practices that were engaged in? And so then the question becomes if we're going to use the landmass of farmers and ranchers, how do we compensate them for the work that they're going to do in climate? The other thing, you know, and going back to climate, I preach that. When I was in the Senate.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “And we're starting to experience the cost of not paying attention. And so I think we've got to connect the dots. I'm part of a group right now that is trying to find a path forward for forestry and for agriculture to be part of the solution and not resisting no, no, no. And the good news is that the corn growers have said, yes, we want to engage, the soybean growers want to engage. All of the large commodity groups see there's an opportunity. And here is an interesting thing about what's happening with the intersection of agriculture with climate. I was having conversation with my soybean growers, I call them mine. They're no longer mine, I guess. I'm not in the Senate anymore, but I spent a lot of time with these guys talking about policy. And very smart farmer.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “I mean, yeah, so I think, again, that history is such an important part. And why it's more difficult now is you can't see climate, although we're starting to experience it.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “Yep. You can't. John Prine wrote a number of paradise. One of my favorite songs of all time about mountaintop mining and what that was doing to communities. And so there was a, you know, you couldn't see LA. So everything was so in the environmental, but was so physical. You couldn't eat the fish out of the Great Lakes.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Have to look at the environmental movement of the 70s differently than where we are right now. The thing about climate is it's invisible. What was happening in the 70s was not invisible. The Cuyahoga River basically catching on fire. Famous song by Randy Newman talking”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “And so it was an interesting experience working in Congress for one of these study conferences and doing briefings on the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act, surface mining recreation act. That was like the pinnacle of legislating on important environmental events. And it really formed, you know, I was interested in the environmental movement, but it really formed a lot of kind of my desire to specialize in environmental law.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “Yeah, I worked for something. This was before there were big staffs over at the house, and they used to pool their resources, their staff resources, and they would basically create study groups or study conferences. And so my internship was with something called the Environmental Study Conference, which people forget that Republicans were leaders of the environmental movement in the 70s.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “One more often than he did. Yeah, I hope you won more often. But honestly, I think people laughed when I said I was going to be a lawyer because at the time I think about 5% of the women, people in law school were women. By the time it went to law school in 1977, it was 30% of my class were women and now it's well over half for many law schools.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “Just give back what you've got from the feminist movement, which is a lot of liberty, a lot of freedom, and a lot of choices that you didn't and would never have before. And so I think we forget our history way too often. And for me, it was like, I wanted to be a criminal defense attorney. Of course, I eventually became a prosecutor. But about the time that... You started off as parameters.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Which most people who go to law school, that is plan B, believe it or not. But I said, look, I knew that at the time, if you were a woman, your choices were to be a teacher. To be a nurse. And if you were really headed for the glamour to be a flight attendant, stewardess as they were known at the time. And then you were going to do all that until you had babies. And then you were going to go home. And people forget it wasn't that long ago. I mean, I'm only 65 years old and I would have been 11 at the time. So less than 50 years ago, the opportunities that we all experience today, it's kind of like we were talking about government. When young women say, well, I don't believe in feminism. I always want to say, well, then give it back.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Well, to tell the whole story, I thought that I was going to be the first woman on the moon. It's going to be an astronaut. And I always say sixth grade math did me in I knew that was not where I was. So you went to”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “Up in the Democratic caucus and say, Look, I believe that regulation is necessary and important, but we can't be the party of stupid regulation. And so when people tell you, I don't know why you're making me do this, maybe you should listen to them. And so I think that the crossover becomes when people feel like government is intruding in their private life. And you saw that with the mask mandate. You saw it with kind of the whole reaction to COVID that government can't tell me what to do kind of reaction or that they're in my space and I don't want them in my space telling me what to do. Sometimes people are right and sometimes people are wrong. But people feel that intrusion. And I think that's part of the disconnect people feel with government.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Yeah, yeah. You know, the thing about Byron is he would talk about how he would start talking about how his mother was in a tragic car accident with a drunk driver and died. And he would talk about how government was part of that experience for him, from that people showing up in the ambulance to the criminal justice system to, you know, all of the kind of public safety people along the way. And he would say, when you're damning government, think about what they do and who they are. And, you know, we don't do enough of that to kind of connect the dots. It's easy to demonize because people like Rush Limbo go out every day and say the government's the problem. And in some ways, you know, and this is not gotten me any friends in the progressive movement, but I used to stand.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Your predecessors. But you took And he's probably the best known populist when he was there. I mean, he would tell him he's good.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Energy. Oh, get over it. This is Texas. I mean, you know, only 13% of what's not performing on the grid is renewables. And so we haven't connected the dots. And because people like Rush Limbo, and in some ways it started with Ronald Reagan, right? When people start saying government's the enemy and they forget that government is provides public education and public safety and clean water and all those things that government does I wish I had recorded a speech that Byron Dorgan used to give about”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “You know, we have now there is this kind of take it for granted kind of event. You take a look at farmers. Farmers have had the largest ad hoc investment of dollars in the taxpayer dollars in almost our history in the last, during the Trump years, but yet they'll damn the government. So there has been a disconnect between what government provides. Right now, we're going through this terrible situation in Texas. And I feel for Texas. I mean, I think, you know, was it a foreseeable event? Who knows? They're going to have to analyze this, but it clearly is a government failure. You know, when you basically say, we aren't going to interject a kind of regulation that will guarantee this redundancy, this is what you get. Now we're experiencing rolling blackouts in other parts of the country, but not a complete shutdown of the electric grid. And people can say, well, that's clear.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “I think there is this amazing disconnect, and we saw it, and I'm sure you saw it when you were in the Obama White House, you know, when people were carrying signs saying, keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

    2021-02-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 430 — Heidi Heitkamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source