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, apparently they kissed you. They've kissed and made up. Yes. But you've been in the heat of a campaign. And when family members get attacked, it's...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, clearly it was. And yes, they were propagated. I mean, the chief propagator was Trump's campaign manager in Vermont. So, I mean, I don't think there's any, that'll come as a surprise to anybody. But yeah, it's very difficult. You've been with a candidate too. When their family gets attacked or they get attacked in an unfair way, particularly when you go after their family, you know, it really... It really hurts. I mean, even look like Ted Cruz, when his father was accused of being one of the Kennedy assassins.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's always had, and this goes way back from the early days, he's always had the conviction that if he can just talk to enough people about his ideas and the policy agenda that he's advocating, that he'll be successful. And this is true in the presidential race when he would count the number of, you know, we go to Iowa and we would hold rallies. And he kept a rolling track of how many actual people attended the rallies just because he wanted to know what percent of the eventual electorate he actually talked to basically in person. He was always very, you know, some of us would make the case. Well, many more people will see part of this rally on television than in person. And he's like, no, no, no, no. I don't care about that. I want to know how many actual people I'm talking to. So he's always had that. And so he keeps his head, you know, keeps his head down. He puts his shoulder harder into the wheel and he tries to talk to more people about the sort of vision he articulates. And he's confident that if he can, again, do that to enough people with enough people, he'll be successful.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I'm very clear about the last three words of my book are run, Bernie Run. So I'm very clear about what I think he should do. But it's ultimately his decision.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, you know, no, not really. I've done that and I much prefer the role I have now. There's plenty of great people running for office. And, you know, frankly, David, as you know, in many ways, the environment is so toxic.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of man himself. Well, that's what my opponents were saying. And I got almost 40% of the vote. My opponent had the endorsement of both parties. I was 24. I won the sort of working class side of the city barely, and then in the hill section slaughtered. It was an interesting lesson in class politics even in a place like that.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In St. Albans, in the most conservative ward in the city in a three-air race didn't do well. And then I ran for mayor of that city following”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, it was fine. I mean, yes, I just went, you know, the class time isn't that much yet. Then you have to cram you're studying in at night. And then after my second year, I did a summer traditional summer associate gig at a firm and then I left Bernie's office and worked at that firm for three years.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would work on the hill. I would work on the hill, and Georgetown Law School is on Capitol Hill, so I would leave the hill to go to class and then go back to the hill. So I was.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You went down there? I did. I did. Don't tell people at Georgetown because they tell you you can't work while you're going to the first year of law school.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then not that expensive. And I'm sure the ads were homemade. And so there was no production expensive, very little. So it was, you know,”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, right, right. Well, I wasn't, you know, those campaigns were very different than what I understand now like a modern, how you write a modern campaign. Bernie did a lot of the quote unquote running of the campaign. It was very few people, the amount of money was, you know, when I look back on it, like very, very little, although we ran TV advertising, certainly in 88 and 90.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did, yes, between campaigns. Bernie, I worked with Bernie 86 where he was not successful in running for governor. I worked with him in 8080. He ran for Congress and lost by three points. And then in 90, he came back and had a sort of rerun against the Republican who had beaten him two years earlier. And he won in 1990. And then I came down to D.C. with him.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, let me be clear. I mean, the NRA has become an adjunct of the Republican Party. There's no, I mean, it is a wildly partisan organization. I mean, I remember when Bernie first got elected to the House of Representatives, there were a lot of many more rural Democrats, right? And the views on gun legislation within the Democratic Party was much more diverse in terms of positioning. And it was much more urban-rural. Now it's completely a partisan issue, right? And Republicans use it to try to beat up Democrats.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And no one thinks anything about it. Nor would anybody think that that would be something that you would take and use for some nefarious purpose. It's One of the things you have”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, you know, apropos of where I grew up, you know, in many people's homes, you will go into the living room. And one of the major sort of pieces of furniture is a glass gun case, which has five or six guns in it. There's the ammunition is lying on the shelf below.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, in a, you know, the course of a presidential campaign, there's a lot of nuance that gets lost, as you well know, as people try to paint you with broad brushstrokes. But the truth of the matter is that in Vermont, certainly, Bernie was way out front in terms of the assault weapons ban ahead of everybody. Yeah, I mean, there are other...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Although I got to tell you, in Vermont His position in Vermont, particularly in the 80s when he was running for first running to run for Congress, was really very considered very extremely left. Howard Dean had an A-plus rating from the NRA throughout his entire career. He would never have touched guns with a 10-foot pole. And Burning 88, when he ran for Congress and lost by three points, he was, again, running as an independent, both the Democrat and Republican both pledged that they would not ban assault weapons. And he said, no, I will ban assault weapons in 1988.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so people didn't know really what to make of him outside of Burlington. So he had a lot of work to do. The truth of the matter is he ended up being very, very popular with rural people in particular, I think, who appreciated his sincerity and understood that he was believe what he said.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He knocked off a machine politician in Burlington. But outside the Burlington and Vermont, Burlington, you look at it as a small city, but in Vermont, Burlington's the big city, right? And so among rural people and small town people, Burlington is looked at at that time was looked at as sort of like the big city.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he was. And in some ways, we were going around the state and he was, you know, he would meet with small groups of people, eight, ten people, you know, far cry from the 30,000 person crowds he had in 2016. But in some ways, there were similarities because at that point, he was mayor of Burlington, not that well-known or understanding. And”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cockatoo seems pretty sharp. Yeah, right, exactly. So I met Bernie at an event when he came. I staffed him at an event. He came up to in Franklin County. And, you know, I guess we hit it off and he called me up and said, can you come down and work in Burlington a couple days a week? And it's been, I don't know, how many years is that now? 30 years since then.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, I had been quote unquote radicalized at undergraduate school, and I came back home again to this sort of sleepy place. And I was looking for, you know, what am I going to do now? I'm kicked out of college, right? I don't have a job. And he was running. And I called down to his office to see if I could help out. And a guy named Phil Fremonti came up who's been a friend of mine now for decades, came up. And then should have been my first warning, David. By the time he left my house, I was the county coordinator for a gubernatorial campaign with absolutely no political experience whatsoever. It seemed good at the time, but in hindsight, it should have been a warning.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, running for governor at that time, right? As an independent against Madeleine Kunan, who was in the middle of her first two-year term when Bernie announced, and for the record, Madeline Cunan was one of the few Democrats in Vermont in 2016 who supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, which was a small minority of people. Vermont is the only state during the primary process where one candidate swept all of the delegates. So that was certainly...”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be trained as journalists and then sending them to foreign countries to join news organizations and report back stuff on the AP and the UPI and others. So be at that point was really sort of had become a sort of hub of far-right intelligentsia and was being used in that way to build credibility for people who would then support that kind of agenda around the world. And it was very disturbing.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was such a clear and compelling example of injustice in the world. Here you had just a brutal regime that was keeping down the vast majority of people in that country, obviously along racial lines. And, you know, Boston University at John Silber was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. He was bringing speakers, you wouldn't call them pro-apartheid speakers, but there was certainly apologists for apartheid speakers onto campus. And it was just moved me very much that an institution that I was paying a lot of money to was involved in supporting that regime. And BU had, at that time, there were a number of departments, the International Relations Department had strong relationships with the Contra rebels in Central America. There was eventually a scandal at the communications school involving the CIA, sending students there.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. I did. They tried to throw us out of the dorms, the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts represented us in court, and we won, actually, we won actually that case. And they said there was no institution in Massachusetts that had more civil rights violations or civil liberties violations lodged against it than the Boston University under John Silber at that time.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We did. We did. On campus were doing it. It seemed to go fine. At VU, that was John Silber. I don't know if you remember John Silbert. Yeah, who do.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Political activism paying off, and then I was arrested in anti-apartheid protests at BU in unceremoniously asked to leave. And that's when I met up with Bernie Sanders in the summer of. You set up Shanty Town.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was a Russian area studies major at the time, and I had met there were a number of Jewish students at BU, and I became involved. I was convinced to go down to an annual lobby they had in DC at that time to lobby members of Congress on behalf of Soviet Jewry. And I had a geography professor who heard I was going, and she said, I have a friend I would like you to meet. And I met this woman, and her mother was still in the Soviet Union, and they weren't letting her leave. And I brought her case actually to Pat Leahy, Vermont. Your senator. Exactly. And he raised it with Soviet officials, and she was ultimately released. It was sort of early.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was not a deeply interested in politics as a kid. I was interested in sort of political theory as a kid. I became sort of politicized when I was at Boston University. In undergraduate school, I became involved first in the Soviet Jewry movement and then in the anti apartheid movement.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, that's right. I mean, now you get in the car and it's just another period of work, right? There's phone calls. And as you know, sometimes multiple cell phones being passed to a candidate back and forth, and there just is no sort of downtime to write or think or get your bearings.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're holding forth screaming in the, you know, those days there was no cell phone. So when you wanted to call somebody, you had to find a telephone. So we went to my father's pet store and he had this giant, very beautiful cockatoo. And it was screaming in the background. And the AP reporter in Montpelier, the capital, said, Bernie, where are you? It sounds like you're in the jungle somewhere. I also remember driving with Bernie from one town to another late for a live radio show, and we were desperately looking for a payphone as the host was on the air saying, I don't know where Mayor Sanders is. Where could he be? You know, no self had just a very different world in those days. Yeah.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My dad had a pet shop. He did a bunch of jobs, but his final job in life was having a pet store in St. Albans, which he loved very much. He also, he worked for many years at a utility as a late night. The person you called when your power went out, he would dispatch the trucks for folks. So it was a nice place to grow up. I mean, it was obviously homogenous in some ways. There were two Catholic churches. It was an Irish Catholic church on the hill and a French Catholic church below the diverse.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, you know, in those days, the border was, you know, we talk about open borders these days. When I grew up, the border with Quebec was basically an open border. You could drive back and forth, being waved through. So there was a lot of more interaction across the border than there is now, certainly.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so St. Albans, Vermont, well, it's changed a lot since I was a kid. It was a conservative Democratic area, had more cows than people. I went to high school with a substantial number of people who spoke French at home as their first language.”
2018-10-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 279 — Jeff Weaver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source