YouSaid · the spoken record

Jim Baker

lines on the record
81
first
2017-09-30
most recent
2017-09-30
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1
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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. “Absolutely. No, no, he'd been his chief of staff in California. It was really important that I prove that my loyalty was with Ronald Reagan because my loyalty theretofore had been A against him and B substantially with George Bush. Who was my longtime friend? So that's how that decision happened to get made. But it could have been reversed. We could have implemented it very, very quickly.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “What would have happened is we would have quickly invoked the 25th Amendment and transferred power to the vice president. But politically, it was.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “The vice president and President Reagan had asked me then to be his chief of staff something, by the way, that I don't think will ever happen again in American politics. But I was viewed with some suspicion by some of the Reagan people because I'd run these two campaigns against the Reagan, one for Ford and one for George Bush. And I just thought it would look like usurpation of power. Vice President Bush was not in favor of it, as best I know. He was in Texas flying back. And so we opted not to do it. President was operated on, came out in good shape four or five hours later, and that's the story.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “We could have invoked the 25th Amendment. We made it. I may have made a mistake here. I got criticized for it in the aftermath, but I don't think it was a mistake. I concluded that we ought not to invoke the 25th Amendment. The doctors had told us that they were going to take the president into surgery. They're going to remove this bullet, and that he would be under anesthesia for maybe four or five hours. And so Ed Meese and I, who was counselor to the president and had been his chief of staff in California, I decided in a broom closet in George Washington Hospital that we wouldn't invoke the 25th Amendment. I was in favor of not invoking it because I had been George Bush's campaign manager.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “He might have been right in the line of fire. I might very well have been poor Jim Brady got shot in the press sect in the head, the press secretary.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Well, it was devastating news, of course, because we didn't know, first of all, whether the president had been hit, the first reports were he hadn't been hit. Then we get a report that he's not only been Haiti, he's on his way to George Washington Hospital, so we left the White House and went right to the hospital. And the president, of course, never lost his sense of humor. You know, the quips that he gave. If they wheeled him in on the gurney and you looked at the doctors and said, I hope you're all Republicans. And then Nancy shows up and looks at her and says, honey, I'm sorry. I forgot the duck. You dare then? Yeah, I went to the hospital immediately. I had not gone on the event, to the event. I got Mike Deever, the Deputy Chief of Staff, to take my place.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Sure, do, and it's not just by the way I said a minute ago redistricting, but there's other reasons that you could pinpoint to. One, you know, our representatives no longer take their families up to Washington. When I was up there, there was a lot of socializing across party lines. You don't have that anymore. That's regrettable. You also today have the internet, and you have a media that are no longer objective observers and reporters of the facts, they're players. And divisiveness sells comity, C-O-M-I-T-Y, doesn't sell. And so you see more and more of this, and I think those are all reasons why our polity has degenerated into what it is today.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I do. I do. If you're going to govern in Washington, DC, if you're going to get things accomplished, you're going to end up at some point having to reach across the aisle to make it happen. And so without judging the specifics of those deals he made with Schumer and Pelosi, I think that is a good deal. What's wrong with getting things done in a bipartisan way? That was one of the keys to the success of Ronald Reagan's presidency and George Bush's presidency.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “No, because while they're for those things you said, and I may be in a different position, they're also for getting things done. And what we were able to do in Ronald Reagan's administration, George H.W. Bush's administration, is get things done for the American people. They're for tax reform. They are for health care reform. They're for some solution to the immigration problem. So therefore, these things which are not getting done.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Well, now you go too far there. I think the climate may be changing, but I do not have any idea the extent to which man is responsible for it. And by the way, I and some of my fellow conservatives have come with a very good proposal involving a carbon tax with dividends back to the American people so it doesn't grow the government. But I understand what you're saying. And yes, that's”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I haven't heard much of that, but we sure heard it back there in my day. And, you know, here these were supposed to be the strongest, most steadfast supporters of the president. And they're saying that he's subject to being controlled by his chief of staff or something. But there does have to be a message discipline.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “That's correct. No, that's correct. And you know, it's like a campaign. Running the government's not unlike running a campaign. There needs to be message discipline Now, the president is the one who's going to set the message. So I suppose you can have message discipline that begins at 5 a.m. and runs through that day. But in a campaign, if you don't have message discipline, you may not win in running the government, it's important to have message discipline.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Well, I hope there wouldn't be, but I don't think that it's a case of our president pushing that, you don't need to push him very far. Look what he's doing. He's firing off these missiles over Japan and violating their airspace. And he's doing it very provocatively. And the Chinese don't like it either. Nobody likes what he's doing. Everybody opposes this.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “In South Korea, on the Korean Peninsula. And you get rid of this flake. And he is a flake. So I don't see anything wrong with the president calling attention to the fact that he's flaky. But that's the case.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “On a very private and confidential basis. I know I'm talking about it here publicly, but you could do it privately and confidentially. It'll have to be someone who can get in and out of there without. Can't have all the fanfare and so forth of a government official. And sit down with the Chinese and say, hey, you know, you don't want our nuclear Korean peninsula. And they don't. And they don't like what this guy is doing there. And we don't want it. Why don't we make this agreement? We the United States will support any government you put in North Korea install in North Korea that renounces nuclear weapons that they won't seek to develop them or maintain them. And we will agree with you that if that happens, we will sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War and we will agree we won't station nukes.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “It could be, but it depends on what else is going to come with it. There's nothing wrong with knocking this guy, even though when the Fresno United States does it personally himself, it sort of builds the guy up bigger than he's entitled to be, in my view. I got a solution for North Korea, but I don't know whether we'll ever get there.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “In the campaign, it worked for him in business. Who's to say it won't work, but I will tell you this, if I were Secretary of State, it would make my job a lot harder or sector defense or whatever official it might be. That's not to say that it won't work for him. It may very well.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And in the campaign it worked for him, which is why he continues to do it. You know, running the government, running a business and running the government are too entirely different undertakings. The one thing that I would worry about if I were one of his senior officials would be Not knowing until 2 33 in the morning when you see the most recent twitter because when a president of the United States speaks he speaks, he's creating policy. But it worked for him.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Well, a lot of people will tell you they think it's counterproductive. It, of course, has worked for him in the private sector, which is why he does it.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “He wrote those peaches and sense that, and by the way, he wrote a lot of his letters. I've still got the rough draft in his own handwriting of his letter to Brezhnev lifting the grain embargo on the Soviet Union. I mean, he did a lot of this on his own. One of the secrets, I think, to Ronald Reagan's political success is that he was consistently underestimated. And as you know, as a good politician, exceeding expectations is the key in politics.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “To get the bill on the floor, it passed, yeah. It looked like they're in a position to tube the whole effort. So the president went up there and he spent the first 40 minutes talking about the tragic accident at Fort Meyer and the wonderful brave American men and women who'd been killed and so forth and so on. And then after about 34 minutes, she said, and now fellas, he said, I want to talk to you about the tax bill. And there was not a dry eye and a house, and we got the bill passed through the house, a Democratic bill, and we did fix it in the Senate. Then it helped the country.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “No, I didn't talk at all about tax reform, but let me correct you in one respect. I didn't send Reagan up there. The president agreed to go up there. And he did an extraordinary job. We just had a big, very tragic accident, I think at Fort Meyer at one of our military installations killed a lot of servicemen. And President Reagan went up there to the House Republican Caucus. Now, bear in mind they had beat us on the rule. Dick Cheney and Trent Lott and these guys came down to my office, Treasury and said, this is a bad bill. It's a Democratic bill. We're not going to support it. We're going to beat you on it. I said, fellas, you're at the wrong white house, the White House you need to go to cross the street here because the Gipper wants to do this and we're going to try and do it. So they'd beaten us on the rule.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Didn't want to vote for it, and they rebelled against President Reagan. And it was not until President Reagan went up to the hill and sat down with them and finally got them to agree, okay, vote for this bill when he gets to the Senate, we'll fix it. And if we don't fix it, I'll veto it, or we won't pass it. We finally got that message through. But that was a really good example, I think, of bipartisan cooperation to get something accomplished for the American.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “My great friend. From Chicago, yes. I know he's from your hometown, and he was a great guy. And we cooperated and we got, but it was a democratic bill. And our House Republicans”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, they are talking about it. And there have been statements that have come out of there saying, well, we'll get this done by August or we'll get this done by JLL. We'll get it done by the fall. It's hard. If you're talking about really comprehensive tax reform, now you can reduce the corporate rate and call it tax reform and the corporate rate needs to be reduced. We got the highest one in the world. And that, I think, can get done. But to broaden the base, get rid of loopholes and deductions and lower marginal rates, which is what we did in 86 is extremely difficult because whatever you do, somebody's oxygen is going to get gored. And we did it with Democrat, with Republicans and Democrats together. We had a Democratic House. The legislation had to start in ways and meanings. So we got a Democratic bill passed. Rostin Kowski, Danny Ross.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Well, I don't think it is the operative theory. Now, why that is, I can't tell you, except that I think this president has had a career of Accomplishment that required him to strike back at his opponents. And so you never see a situation where he isn't going to want to hit back it's someone he thinks has wronged him. I think, as a matter of fact, that that could make it a lot more difficult to get anything done. You need the congressional leadership if you're going to get legislation. And we judge our presidents by how much of their policy goals they accomplish and move into law. So it's very difficult to conceive of getting a lot done if your own party leadership in the Congress is opposed to you.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “That's a lot of things, well, I don't know. I wouldn't feel particularly good about it. I would say, hey, wait a minute, pal. I gave you a chance to come into the White House and sit at a very high level in the American government. And I wouldn't ask too much of you, but I would ask that much loyalty for him.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Well, I think that's a big mistake, of course, but parties need to unify in order to get things done. The party structure is never really strong. I mean, I think that happens on both sides. That the parties are not what they used to be back in the early 1900s or the 1800s, but they're still very important. But I can't conceive of a situation where someone would work in Reagan or George Bush's White House at a high level and then go out and campaign against a candidate that the president had endorsed. I bet you you can't.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Redistricting has gotten almost out of hand. If you live in a state that's dominated by Republicans, you're going to create more and more safe Republican districts. If you live in a state that's dominated by Democrats, you're going to create more and more safe Democratic districts. And the center has really gone from American politics.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “They are wider today. I was the establishment's man in the White House. I had worked for Jerry Ford. I had run two campaigns against Ronald Reagan. But you talk about broad gauge. Here's a president who goes, he's so broad gauge that he can overlook the fact that someone has run two campaigns against him and ask him to be his White House chief of staff. And we don't see that anymore. The objective back in those days was to get things done. That always involves, as you well know, having been in there, it involves compromise. It involves sitting down and working things out. We don't see that happening anymore, and that's very regrettable. There are a number of causes for which I think I could point to, no one of which is the absolute cause. But our”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Well, I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what's happening except it's very regrettable what I see happening. I don't see our government getting things done for the people anymore. And that's a bipartisan thing. I'm not talking just about one party or another. And the people that we send up there seem to go up there and spend all their time fighting with each other. You know, back in the days when I was there with Reagan and Bush, Ronald Reagan had a Democratic house for his two terms. George Bush had a Democratic house in the Democratic Senate, and those presidents found ways to work with Congress.”

    2017-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 176 - Jim Baker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source