YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeff Weaver

lines on the record: 86
first: 2018-10-22
most recent: 2018-10-22
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

“No, that's right, but I think Bernie Sanders has a unique appeal with voters. I really do, particularly the voters that we're talking about, which is, we would call low propensity voters voters who were less likely to vote. He just has an appeal with those voters that others are not going to vote. I'll”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not as she ended up supporting Hillary Clinton. So there, you know, and I've seen other research. And what you have to understand about Iowa and how Bernie Sanders, I think probably won the popular vote in Iowa, but as you know, they don't report the popular vote. They will now. They have to now under new Democratic rules, but they didn't then. Is he changed the nature of the electorate in Iowa? Everybody thought there was going to be 135,000 people showing up and there was 170,000 people. And that book Shattered, they talk about it. The Hillary people were shocked that of those new voters, they thought there'd be like two to one for Bernie or 60, 40. And there were 10 to 1 for Bernie.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and you're right, there was a BuzzFeed story recently about the sort of relationship of Warren versus Sanders. And, I mean, I think you're right to say that it's his lane. I mean, he ran last time when she did not. You know, I think there is some resentment among some of his people that she supported Hillary Clinton and not him. But I do, look, I do think in a crowded field, there is room for both of them. I've seen other research. Did she support the clinician? I thought she was.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think you'd be a great president. I think he could institutionalize a lot of the policies that he has been advocating that have caught fire around the country.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He has been around for a while. So, like, there's not, if he decides to not run for president, you know, the guy's Galvanize the whole generation of young people to get involved in politics. He's changed the debate in this country around issues. So he has nothing to prove to me”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not for me in terms of his ability to do it, absolutely not. No, if I thought he was going to, look, the guy has had an illustrious career. The guy's a United States Senator. He was close runner-up for president. He got 43%. Part of having an illustrious career.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Apparently, not David. Look, chronological age is one thing. His biological age has to be. Has to, you know, his body has to just be younger. I mean, the guy puts, you know, he puts 23-year-old media people, you know, to shame. They try to follow him around. I mean, he's the hardest working person I know. He doesn't stop. So this isn't a...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, I speak to him with him about it often. You know, one question that sort of weighs on him because he's a serious guy, he wants to make sure that Trump is beaten in 2020. And he wants to be very confident that if he runs, he's running because he's the person who's best able to do that. Now, I think he is, but I'm not the candidate. And if he decides he is, I think the chance of running is much higher. I think if he's...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Flying your candidate around on a plane and the fact that a couple of days after South Carolina, a whole slew of other states are voting, right? You got Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Texas. And so if you have to advertise simultaneously in all those places, by the time you get to Super Tuesday, I mean, just on television, you might have to spend... $150 million. Yeah.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's 50 million. If you want to do another full flight of six weeks of TV in California, what are you talking about? 40, 50 million dollars, right? Yes. In Iowa, it's probably $16, $15, $16 million, you know, New Hampshire because of your advertising out of Boston media”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, as you point out, California will start voting when I was voting. So you have to be advertising even a couple weeks early even there. Which”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What is true is that, according to the exit polls, the percentage of African American voters who are millennials is much smaller than in other communities. So in the exit polls, it was 12% of African American voters were millennials. In the non-African American community in Democratic primaries, it was 18%. And so made us look like we were doing even worse with African American voters, but it was primarily, it had a lot to do with the age of the electorate and not the race of the electorate. But I will admit that certainly in the South at the beginning it was crucial.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, well, that's right. But, you know, this was an issue throughout the campaign, David. If you look at voters over. No, I was watching any race. That was not.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that's the narrative, right? And early in the campaign, that was true. By the time we get to Michigan, he's going toe to toe with her with African-American voters under 40. By the time we get to Pennsylvania, when the campaign, in fact, is tanking, basically our campaign after New York started a steady decline, he was doing better than she was with African Americans under 40. We only lost the African-American vote in Pennsylvania by 10 points. I think we lost the overall state by more, so we're doing better with black voters.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, absolutely. I do think he would have beaten Trump because he would not, you know, if you look at You look at Michigan. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan in the primary. She lost in the general election in exactly the same way. There was depressed turnout in Detroit and Wayne County. And then overwhelming turnout against her everywhere else, small towns, rural areas, suburbs. And it was an identity. You know, Bernie Sanders would not have lost Michigan or would not have lost Wisconsin, would not have lost Pennsylvania.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From the Clinton campaign, which the subsequent investigation demonstrated, you know, which we paid for, showed by a contractor picked by the DNC, there was no data stolen. You know, it was modeling data. You would have had to memorize 10,000 person lists in the course of 30 or 40 seconds in order to have had data.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Including where and when and how many there would be that was dictated by them. And, you know, I mean, Tom Perez, I think, is in a much different position. I think he will be, regardless of who's the candidate, will be a much more honest broker. I mean, Debbie Wassman Schultz, you know, you remember the point at which she shut off our data because a couple of low-level staffers took advantage of a breach in the firewall.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I mean, we know Adonna Brazil exposed that in the summer of 2015, this is a document between Debbie Osman Schultz and the Clinton campaign, essentially giving them control over staffing and messaging. And that was certainly not something that was revealed during the campaign. But there were enough other things. It's clear that the Clinton campaign dictated the debate schedule.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. And he doesn't go after people's personalities or their personal life. He's not interested in that kind of politics. He always wants to, you know, if he had won, he would have wanted to have won on the basis of the ideas that he was putting forward so that he would have in some way a mandate to push those ideas through. Because it's not personal for him, as he often tells me, he goes, look, you know where I come from. I wasn't somebody who was born and groomed to be president of the United States. I don't have to be president of the United States. And that's absolutely true. He's not somebody who's, you know. Was groomed from a child to be the next leader of the free world. That's not who he is.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but he was, you know, so for instance, he did not go after the foundation, right? That would have been clearly something that somebody could have gone after. He didn't want to go there. You remember he famously said in the Las Vegas one? Tire the damn emails. But the point being, it's dominating a conversation. Let's talk about he wanted to talk about single payer health care. He wanted to talk about the $15 minimum wage, climate change. He wanted to talk about these issues.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not sure that those wounds weren't there before the campaign Started. I mean, as I pointed out, the independent voters had difficulty with Hillary Clinton before. The campaign was even engaged, and it was largely on the issue of trustworthiness. That was something that they came to the election with. That was not something that was created by our campaign. And frankly, David, were there moments.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and you look at 2004 when Edwards leaves the race in April, like the media coverage of Carrie just goes away until the convention. And then the next thing you know he's being swift boated in August. Meanwhile, the Republican administration, I was on the hill then, they would trot out a cabinet secretary or high-level government official literally on the hour and dominate the news for the entire, you know, Kerry could not break through. But that was because the primary was over, the quote unquote conflict was gone, and the media went away.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think that that is just 100% wrong, frankly. I mean, if you look at the tone and tenor of that 2016 race compared to 2008, it was a much tamer exchange than in 2008, frankly. And, you know, I always look back to, I actually believe in long primaries. I think it actually benefits Democrats. Media only likes to cover conflict. And as soon as the conflict goes away, the coverage goes away.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What are you going to tell independent voters who have a fixed notion of you from decades that's going to change their mind, right? When you start with high negatives with independent voters, it's a real challenge.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, that's right. Look, the polling was at the very beginning of the race. The polling was, at least that I saw was pretty clear that Hillary Clinton was very popular with self-identified Democrats. I mean, her popularity was very high. You know, Obama was slightly higher, but he's beloved by Democrats. But she had a real problem. This is before any engagement with Bernie. She had a problem with younger voters, and she had a problem with independent voters. And as you know, in most places in this country, independent voters can participate in the Democratic primary process. And her favorables, when you got to a democratically leaning independent, they weren't like off a cliff. And, you know, there was a lot of, there's been a lot of, you'd talk about what Bernie have won or not won. And obviously the Clinton people say, well, he would have had all these attacks against him that she already had these attacks against her. But they had landed on her and she was carrying that baggage and it had really hurt her with independent voters in a general election, as you know.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I think that they had to suddenly Bernie caught on and they really tried to catch up, right? I mean, she was not for a $15 minimum wage until she got to New York than she was for. There was like an evolution in her policy prescriptions. They kept getting more and more left to try to”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. No, no, that's exactly right. But then Barack Obama was certainly the outside candidate in that primary. There's no doubt about that. But I do think that there is... A lot of discontent in the country, there's a lot of anxiety in the country. I think it's largely economic, but manifests itself in other ways. And I think that the Clinton people didn't sort of get that in 2016. I think a lot of the policy people she had around her were very much more conservative. I'm not Republican, but I mean conservative and cautious.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it became binary very quickly very quickly. I mean, just like in 2008, I mean, John Edwards did not play the role in that race that he played in 2004, where he was one of the top two.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bars, you run your tray down, and they were literally David crawling through the food to get to Bernie Sanders. And this is very early on. And so he has always had this connection with rural people that I think people just don't. And I've talked to, you know, I'm actually have great relations with a lot of the senior Hillary people now. I haven't worked with them in the general election. And they didn't get it either until later in the campaign. Then, in fact, Bernie Sanders was going to do well with World Democrats, with quote unquote moderate Democrats. He did much better with those voters than Hillary Clinton did, right? And they were at one point trying to drive those voters out to counter him. And in fact, they were helping him.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and we talked, you know, we talked about, and I might be the only one, probably maybe even more than he was, convinced that not that he would win, but that he could win. Because I had just seen it in Vermont. And, you know, people have a view of him, and it's largely a stereotypical view at this point about who he appeals to and how people relate to him. But I saw rural people, otherwise Republican rural people who love Bernie Sanders. I mean, I remember very distinctly, I went to Strawberry Festival, St. Anne Shrine in the islands in Lake Champlain. And we went to the cafeteria. This was very, this is running for governor, I think, very early on. And we were in a cafeteria and there were a bunch of French Canadian ladies there. I mean, there were Vermonters, but French-Canadian heritage looked like my grandmother behind the counter, you know, with like the Jello and the, you know, the metal.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, right, exactly. So, you know, he certainly understood the value that people can raise money online or people that can run a social media campaign or people that can create TV commercials or people that, you know, and ultimately people that can poll, you know, he understands the value of these things, but he doesn't want to be consumed by them, right?”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, and that things were done the way he wanted them done, that he wasn't consumed by consultants' view of what he should be or say, right? He's always been super resistant to that, which is one of his...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At that point, he had already talked to a number of consultants, not a pollster at that time. We didn't have a pollster till the fall, but TV guys and the digital guys. And it all seemed very expensive to him, which it is, as you know. Very expensive.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had a very good life. And he explained to me that he was going to run for president. We talked about sort of his thinking about what he wanted it to be like.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he was trying to gauge how good my life was and whether he should say you should throw all that away. Well, you might.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know it became clear after watching news, he did this tour around the country, this sort of like pre tour, went to Iwan a few places. So it became clear that he was thinking about running for president, and then he called me up again. And we went to dinner again. This was right before he announced, the day before he announced. And I said, are we going to talk about today what we were supposed to talk about last time? And I just think, why didn't I?”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, right. I mean, you know, I would get invited to the holiday party and I would go to that. But other than that, you didn't really hear from him much. So I got a call from him out of the blue asking if I wanted to have dinner. So we went and had dinner at Union Station. And it was just all chit-chat. Right? Like, how you doing? How are your kids doing? I was helping coach my kids' little league teams. How's your store doing? And just like if I, you know, I went out to dinner at some point, you like you done sort of talking and people go home and I went home and my wife said, what did he want? And I was like, I have no idea. This is before he, you know, but this is not clearly he wanted something. And then...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I have to tell you, like Chronicle is in my book, he called me up for a meeting. And as you point out, Bernie's, you know, very focused on his work and social nicety. So when I work with him, we talk every day and often multiple meat and so on and so forth. But when you're not working with him, even if you were business.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, right, in Northern Virginia. Yeah, so I just wanted to do something. Else. And so I thought I would do that. And my daughter runs the store now. Nice family business. Yeah. It's been successful. I don't know that it's a business that I can pass on to them ultimately if the interest will still be there in the world for”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I was too. I was too. I was too. So I just, you know, I decided After spending a couple years as the Senate chief of staff, that I was just done with politics. And so why? You get tired of it after a while. David, it's tough, right? You know, I ran the Senate campaign. I went in Vermont for six months. I went Monday through Friday to Vermont. I had little kids.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? And he tells you stories about he and his brother and friends of theirs would trade comic books. He was living obviously in Brooklyn. But I was in Vermont in a small place and it was really a way to, I mean, it was really an escape, right? Before 24 hour TV, and people don't remember the days of the staticky late-night television, the planes flying, the national anthem. And there was three TV stations. And it was just a different Like now, there's so much entertainment on your phone or on the big screen or whatever. But comic books for. A few generations were a major form of escapist enterprise”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the first appearance of Spider Man sort of on the, you know, in that hobby, it's very grade driven, right? The nicer the book is, the more it brings. But, you know, so the range on that book would be anywhere from $15,000 to $2 million, depending on the condition. Yours is probably your...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Donations. We all have Vermont donations, but they would relatively small donations compared to what you would get nationally.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, $2 million run a Senate race. But for us, that was a lot of money. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, our opponent ended up spending $8 million, and we spent over $6 million. Most of it raised through direct mail. This is before the advent of internet fundraising to a large.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we had a self funded opponent in 2006, a guy who just sold his company. He had built a medical software company. He had sold it. And he had hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean, in cash in his bank account. And the most that anyone had ever spent in a Senate race in Vermont is going to sound quaint to people who are familiar with politics was Pat Lee. He had spent $2 million in the prior. Election cycle. It's the lunch.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think too few people on the left understand that world at all, right? They have conceptions about it. In some ways, it's much less nefarious than people think, you know, it's collections of people trying to make a lot of money. And, you know, people will do things at times that are like in any other endeavor that are not appropriate in order to achieve their end. But it was an interesting window for me coming from my small town and working for the congressman from Vermont.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I did government contracts law. So I worked for an illustrious number of government contractors in their never-ending pushing money back and forth across the table with the government. So United Technologies and companies like that. It was actually an important Moment for me because I really got to see sort of how corporate America works and what the structure is like. Well, just the way information is passed, the culture of how big corporations work. I mean, I just think it's...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, right. So I left, I worked the law firm for a few years. Then he called me back, and I was his House Chief of Staff for over years. And then in 2005. What kind of law?”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, David, that's been weaponized too. I mean, Republicans, as you know, working very hard because they don't want to compete fairly at the ballot box. And so they do things to. To make it harder for people to vote”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, you have to beat them at the ballot box. I mean, that's how you are vindicated in politics in a democracy is beating them at the ballot box. I mean, apropos, the sort of norms, I remember. God, how many years ago was it now? I was at a Christmas Mass and the priest who had a thick Irish brogue. I mean, he was right from Ireland, you know, spoke against the war. And a fully dressed, fully uniformed Virginia state policeman walked to the front of the church and sort of scolded him and then walked out. Like that's, you know, that works both ways. Yes, of course, yeah. And to see a sort of policeman in the Virginia uniform is fairly military looking, you know, scolding a cleric for...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source