YouSaid · the spoken record

John Delaney

lines on the record: 83
first: 2019-01-31
most recent: 2019-01-31
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

“Every day you fight and don't make progress, right? You're creating such a huge hurdle for you. Someone call that incremental. I don't think it's incremental.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it was the dumbest idea you could possibly put forth, which is you're going to have a regressive tax on hardworking French citizens and use the money to cut corporate tax rates. Which benefit 1% of the country as compared to what I've proposed, which is you put a price on carbon and you take 100% of the revenues and you put it in a lockbox and you dividend it back to the American people, you know, in a progressive way. Tax itself is repressive. But there's an example of something that can actually make a difference. But right now, some people in the party are saying, oh no, that's not good enough. We need to move the goalposts away from carbon tax because that's not good enough. And my answer to them is. Climate is not a linear problem, it's an exponential problem. Right.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But here's an example. So climate change, which is a big issue. I have the only bipartisan carbon tax bill in the Congress. That's right, a bipartisan carbon tax bill. And it can work, right? It's got good Republican support. I think a carbon tax bill can ultimately get passed in the Congress. You have to structure it right. You got to take all the revenues and give it right back to the American people. You can't keep the revenues for other pet projects like that. Rance tried to do. I mean, France put a carbon tax in place, took the revenues, and cut corporate taxes with it. You know, obviously the citizens think that's a terrible idea.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I just think it would be amazing if a president of the United States at their inauguration looked out the American people and said, I represent every one of you, whether you voted for me or not. And to prove it, my first hundred day agenda are these things, things that your good minded Democrat and Republican members have been working on. That doesn't mean we're going to not try to do some big things, but we are going to actually start getting some of these things done where there's broad support among you, the American people. And I think that approach can start getting at that issue because you're actually taking the case to the American people and you're not forcing them into their political camps out of the blocks. Because what happens, I think, is because of the polarizing effect of hyperpartisan politics the way it is now, that grinds everything to a halt. And then the special interests can float on top of that and pick their spots to get little things done that enormously benefit them.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, in part, you got to take the case to the American people. I mean, one of the things I've called for is, you know, as president in my first hundred days, to only do proposals that currently have significant bipartisan support in the Congress. As you and I both know, David, there's a lot of things in the Congress, from criminal justice reform to immigration reform to infrastructure policy to something I've been really passionate about, which is national service. There's a lot of big ideas in the Congress that currently enjoy bipartisan support.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? If you actually were sitting here and saying, okay, what really matters? You'd say, the future of work and how we make sure we have enough good-paying jobs in this country so that people can support their families, and that kids have opportunities. What do we got to do with our education system? What do we got to do to ensure that people invest in communities that haven't been invested in? What do we got to do to give people that basic kind of package that they need to have a shot on life? What are we going to do from a national security perspective? What are we going to do from a privacy perspective? And what are we going to do from almost a programming perspective to ensure that these changes unfold in a way that's as beneficial to our country as possible? If we spend the next 20 years fighting politically and not doing things, there's no question these things are going to unfold badly for the vast majority of American people. But with every single one of these issues, there's an opportunity to turn it significantly and turn them into benefits for a lot of Americans. And that to me is the question for the...”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right, not in the same places or for the same people. And that's the fundamental public policy. It's one of the reasons I've called for national artificial intelligence strategy. I think we need an articulated strategy with the government, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector working together to say, what are our goals for the future of work? What are our goals for kind of our digital privacy? What are our goals for how programming decisions are made? Because a lot of biases that exist in society may be hard-coded into these programs. And national security is a huge issue. I mean, pretty soon in a year or two, people will be able to take your face, your voice, my face, my voice, and impose it into completely realistic video clips where we're doing things or saying things we have never said or even thought.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's a huge problem. I mean, by 2030, they estimate the number of jobs displaced or fundamentally changed because of automation and artificial intelligence. On the low end is 15 million on the high end is 50 million. No one knows exactly the amounts. And it'll create a lot of jobs. I mean, innovation always creates as many jobs. Not necessarily.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's an area that's been frustrating for me because most of the pushback I've had on that issue has been from my fellow Democratic colleagues. I've had big agendas to encourage and make it easier for businesses to give equity ownership to their employees. And it's been an area that I think we have a lot more to do because if you think about how the world's going to unfold and how all this change and transformation is going to work, it's likely to be very beneficial for capital and not as beneficial for labor. And we have to get workers owning more of capital in this country if we're going to balance out.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so I think what we have to do is several things. And first of all, this thing about public companies, remember, the number of public companies is actually going down quite a bit. So it's a much broader issue than public companies, right? It's business in general because private equity is now such a huge footprint in this country. They own huge parts of our economy. So, it really gets down to what basic protections we provide our employees, the basic set of benefits they deserve, what we do to increase their wages or their take-home pay, whether that's minimum wage or more importantly, in my opinion, which is the earned income tax credit, which I think we should be doubling. But we also have to do things to encourage companies to allow workers to own more of the business.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Company and what I was doing for them and their lives. And when they see these third party validators like the Obama administrations and other stuff like that, I think people are actually very comfortable with my business career and view it as a big asset. So that I'm not worried about at all.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, to some extent I'm the opposite of those things, right? Because I'm really an entrepreneur and my businesses were focused on helping small to mid-sized businesses, which I think is something the Democratic Party is really supportive of. But the best example I have is from what I hear from voters, right? So I've done over 300 events in Iowa, New Hampshire. So I've probably talked to more voters in those two early states than anyone else. And I really do think those early states still do matter. And that is, to some extent, the premise of this campaign. And I can tell you the bio or what I've done with my life, we almost get no pushback on any of that stuff. In fact, it's generally viewed as a positive. I think when people get to know what I did in my business career and they hear that my companies always voted the best places to work, and when I talk about how I thought about treating my employees and the kind of benefits we provided and how I thought about”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm prepared to invest heavily in my campaign, in my prior races for Congress. I raised about half the money and I invested about half. And that's probably what we'll do between now and the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. And we're planning on doing very well in those two things. And after that, I suspect... Will most of the campaign will be funded by individual donations. We're not taking a corporate package or any of those things.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that's why I got in early, right? Because I think I'm the right person for the job and have the right vision. Because really, I know why I'm running, right? What I really believe in terms of what our next president should be and how they should conduct themselves and how they can get at the central question facing this country, which is how terribly divided we are and how Americans increasingly been pitted against America. I am running exactly to address that issue. So I know why I'm running. So I think I'm the right person for the job and I have the right vision, but not enough people know who I am, to your point. That's why I entered the race so early.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Developing compromise with people, thinking about the future and how all this technological innovation is changing everything, and restoring a sense of almost moral aspiration to our politics where we actually try to do things to build a better and more just future. We believe that's exactly what the country's looking for right now. And I felt like it wasn't clear to me anyone was going to run for president on that”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We never thought about running for president prior to Hillary Clinton losing. I expected her to be the president and I expected me to be in some capacity helping her in that role, in the Congress or maybe who knows what else. That's what I thought was going to happen. But after Hillary won, my wife and I sat down and said, listen, we've got to start thinking differently about everything. And what we really care about, which is restoring a sense of unity and common purpose to this country, actually solving problems which sometimes involves finding common ground and”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I've actually loved Congress, despite the fact that what a lot of people say about Congress, I think it's been an amazing privilege to serve in Congress. I've made some amazing friendships and I've been very impressed with the people I've served with. So I totally enjoyed my experience at Congress. And giving up my seat was a hard decision to make, but I felt like it was the right thing to do if I'm going to dedicate myself fully to running for president.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, do I think we should hire a business person who's never done public service or never served in government? Absolutely not. So I think he's ruined that model. But when I talk to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, wherever I go, and I talk about my background as a blue-collar kid and someone who's been successful as an entrepreneur and someone who's now rolled up their sleeves, that sounds like the kind of background that I think a lot of people are looking for.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I But I also think look at it, I think we shouldn't elect someone to be the president of the United States who's never done public service or served in government. I think about what I understand about how the federal government works now compared to what I did when I ran for office the first time. I mean, I saw in your office Malcolm Gladwell's book the outliers. And in that book, it talks about how you have to basically spend 10,000 hours becoming an expert in it or something. But once you spend 10,000 hours, you become pretty good. That's four or five or six years of work depending on how much work you do. So do I think I worked out?”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did he invest in his communities? No, I don't see any evidence of really charitable work by the Trump organization. So I just think he's not a business leader, he's a business promoter. So I view him as something entirely different. I also think.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I don't think of Donald Trump as a business leader. When I think of business leaders, I think of people who innovate, create jobs, hire the best and the brightest, pay their bills, write, and try to invest in their communities. That's kind of what I think of as great business leaders. I think Donald Trump was a very successful business promoter. He was very good at promoting his name and getting licensing revenues for it. But did he innovate? No. Did he hire the best and the brightest? My sense is he engages in massive amounts of nepotism, which is effectively the opposite of what business people do. Did he pay his bills? No. He left bankruptcies behind him.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Society as a whole and the world as a whole, and we should be working hard to build a more just and prosperous and secure future. And it's just a different set of stakeholders and a different set of objectives.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was a transition and it was frustrating at times. There's no question about that. But I think pretty early on, I realized that it's different. At the end of the day, I kind of understood what I was getting into, a legislative role. I'm not one of these people who come from business that thinks government should run like a business all the time. I think there's definitely things that the private sector does well that would be good to incorporate into government more, a notion of best practices and trying to incorporate more innovation and a battle of ideas which really takes place very well in the private economy and not so well in the public sector. But at the end of the day, I think I pretty rapidly adapted to the notion that government is different and you have different stakeholders and you have different goals. In the private sector, you have multiple stakeholders. I mean, I always thought of it that way. I had my shareholders, but I also had my employees and my clients. But in the government sector, you know, your stakeholders are really...”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I just felt like I had developed a set of leadership skills that were useful to public office. And I thought my understanding of the private economy and how it works, having spent all this time working closely with thousands of small to mid-sized businesses all over the country was something that was really needed in government because the policies that I saw coming out of the government, I didn't see as very conducive to creating that type of job growth. So I thought I had something to offer. I enjoy a leadership position in taking on new challenges and solving problems. And there were so many things I saw about how our government functioned that I thought I could add a lot of value on.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I always wanted to, you know, I shouldn't say I always wanted to do, but once I started to get involved in community service and philanthropic work, April and I realized that that's where we were getting what felt like all the rewards in our life.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I thought about it in 2006, but I didn't think it was the right time to leave my company. And there was an open Senate seat in Maryland.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a bank that was the bank in California that owned the fifth largest subprime mortgage company in the country. And we didn't buy that. The regulators sold that to someone else and we bought the branches and a clean bank, basically. And then we merged our company into it. And that worked out very well. In fact, we got an award from the Obama administration, something called the Bank Enterprise Award for lending to disadvantaged communities.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was very painful. I mean, I watched as we, you know, we had a substantial business. We had about $15 billion of assets. We were financing about 5,000 small to mid-sized businesses all over the country. I had 20 offices, well over 1,000 employees. And it was hard. It was really hard getting through it. I mean, we were able to get through without taking any money from the government. But what I did see is why some people are so upset with how the financial crisis unfolded because we were borrowing a lot of money from very large banks who were getting very significant sums of money from the government and then they were just pulling credit lines including to us left and right so it was a very hard time I effectively had to strap myself to the mast for two years to get through the financial crisis”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, a third. But I still have the entrepreneurial edge. And what I had observed from my prior business is that there was a real gap for small businesses. In other words, a lot of small businesses grow really fast and they outgrow their community banks. But they're too small for big banks. So I basically built a business to take care of those businesses, to finance fast-growing small to mid-sized companies that were too dynamic and fast-growing for their small local banks, but were not big enough for a big bank. So I started that business in 2000, took it public in 2003, and ran it until I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to public service.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Took a year off. My wife and I started a foundation. We got involved in community service and philanthropy, which actually ultimately led to me running for office. We always kind of thought of our life as a third learning, a third earning, and a third serving. But back then, I was, I guess we were just having our...”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Behind What we're not going to do is throw out the entire U.S. healthcare system and start with a new system, right? That I'm pretty sure we're not going to do. And if we insist that that is what the goal is, then we will never get anything done, I think. But what I think we can do is if you think about what the Affordable Care Act did at its core that I think was the most transformative, was Medicaid expansion. That to me was the most positive part. It did a lot of other positive things that are no question good and valid, but Medicaid expansion. And so what I'm really talking about is the next evolution of that.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think the insurance industry would view themselves as now being in the supplemental insurance business. They are with Medicare And I think they'd be, you know, I mean, they'd probably end up being fewer insurance companies. But you'd have a government market, and then you'd have a private market that floats on top of”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, if you go back to your firm here, let's say your people have Aetna, I think the way it would work is Aetna would basically have the, quote, major medical part of the plan would be the government. They'd put this wrapper on top of it and sell a supplemental. So if you had Etna, you would probably have basically had the same plan. But depending how your medical costs go, some of it would be paid for through the government plan, which is embedded in your plan. So you probably would keep your same health.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So you're solving for about 20 or 30 million people who don't have health care because a lot of it would basically fill in the seams. So, you know, you're talking about $400, $500 billion over 10 years, which is about 2x what the corporate deductibility exemption is, right? Or deduction. So you start seeing how you're getting there. But what I think we learned with the Affordable Care Act, you want to roll out universal health care system in a way that allows people to largely keep their health care. And that's what I think this does.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they like it. Under my system, what would happen is all your employees would get a basic government plan. They'd probably want more of that, more than just that, but they'd get a basic plan. You would no longer get a deduction. So you'd say, I'm out of that business. But what I will do is go to Etna and negotiate a group rate for you all to buy the supplemental. So you'll effectively end up the same place you are, right? But you'll be tethered in part to this now government system. So why I think my plan is achievable is not only have I figured out how to pay for it, but it also, and you know from your experience,”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not as significant shift as you think. Because if you think about leaving Medicare alone, and if you think about starting a new program that you roll Medicaid in, because Medicaid is the largest government program out there. And if you think about a situation where people can basically, so let's say you're a firm here, you offer Aetna healthcare to be.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just as a matter of politics, that's not necessarily a great idea. I would much rather create a new system for everyone who's not Medicare eligible. I'd roll Medicaid into that and effectively create a system that feels a lot like Medicare. Basic system is a right with your ability to buy supplementals, which is basically just how Medicare works. And then maybe in 50 years they can merge together.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the reason I'm not for Medicare for all as opposed to what I just described is I think Medicare actually works. It's one of the only parts of the healthcare system that really works. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well. And so I don't think when we're trying to fix the problems with healthcare, I don't think we should mess up what's working. I also think if we go to all the seniors in this country who have largely paid for their Medicare and say, we're going to take it and give it to everyone else.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We actually got rid of that, then all corporations would basically stop offering healthcare as a benefit. They might do things to help negotiate group deals for their employees and provide some benefits, but it would fundamentally change the orientation. And then you'd have a system where everyone gets a basic healthcare plan when they're born until they're 65. And if they want supplementals, they can get that. And then once they turn 65, they get Medicare. And that to me would fundamentally change a lot of these.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's an example That's right. And again, everything makes sense at the time. When you go back, and most of the things we have today that seem really stupid, when you actually look at where they came from, you're like, well, that actually made sense. But the problem is, as you and I talked about before, the world's changed so fast and we didn't do, you know, we didn't update any of these institutions, including healthcare. So clearly what I think should be the model for healthcare in this company is everyone should get healthcare as a right, a basic package, kind of like what people have with Medicare. And then they should be able to buy supplemental plans on top of that. So if they want additional bells and whistles or things like that, they can buy that in the private market. But everyone has a basic portable government healthcare system that they get as a right. And you can pay for a system like that or begin to pay for a system like that by de-linking healthcare from employment. In other words, taking away the corporate deductibility of healthcare.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Well, you know, healthcare is one sixth of the U.S. economy was its own country, it would be one of the largest countries in the world. So it's a very big, complicated system with lots of different things. And there's clearly the emergency area that you're talking about or the responding to a condition. I think the root cause problem with healthcare costs in this country is the fact that so much of it is linked to employment. That's a really bad model because, you know, my dad was a unit electrician. Maybe it made sense for him to have his healthcare tied to his job because he had one job for 60 years. But for most Americans, I think my kids might have 10 jobs. So, why in the world is a matter of good economics would we ever create a system where one of the most important things you get is to get your job? So”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I learned healthcare is really three things. Access quality and cost. So, you know, I think the problem we have in our healthcare debate now is we talk exclusively about access, which I'm all for universal healthcare and having universal access because I think it's a right of every American. But as much of the healthcare debate should be about quality and cost because healthcare costs, I mean, I saw how we were reimbursing healthcare services in that business and the fact that it really didn't have any correlation with quality or cost or outcomes. And it really is not like anything else in the business world, right? We're pretty much everything is based on the quality of your results. Where in the U.S. healthcare system there's almost none of that. The Affordable Care Act introduced some of those things, but there's a real lack of alignment in healthcare policy.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that business really took off and built it up. It became a national business. I took it public in 1996. I think I was the youngest CEO in the history of the New York Stock Exchange at the time. And then I ran that business until we sold it.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So after law school, we stayed in the DC area because April didn't want to move up to New Jersey or New York. She wanted to move to California, so we basically stayed in D.C. I practiced law at a big law firm for a year. And then myself and two law school classmates, we actually bought a very, very tiny business. It was in the home health care business. It was sending nurses and nurses' aides into effectively Medicaid recipients, homes in DC and providing basic medical care. And the reason we bought that little tiny business is not because we knew anything about it, but because it was for sale in the Washington Post for $15,000. And the three of us wanted to start a business, and we each come up with $5,000. So we bought that company and I ran that business, turned it around, and we sold it. And then I realized from that experience that my small...”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, you know, I was, it's the first time I'd ever really been that far away from home, to be honest with you. You know, one of the reasons I was in Columbia is my parents wanted me to be close to home. But that was the kind of family where I grew up in. I met my wife at Georgetown, which is the best thing that ever happened to me. She had had much more exposure to the world than I had. She grew up in Idaho. She was the daughter of a potato farmer, but she had traveled all around the world. She went to Northwestern here, where two of my daughters also went, by the way. And so we met in law school. And that's why we actually stayed in the DC area. But I didn't become that involved in politics. I kind of figured out in law school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I had to work through law school and I was working at a law firm where it was a small law firm and half the lawyers were practicing law, but the other half were kind of engaged in businesses and doing startups and stuff like that. And that's where I effectively got the itch that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the same conversation, I was like, so let's sit down here and I've decided I'm not going to be a doctor, but I'm going to go to law school because in my view back then in their minds that was something that they thought would be good for their son who they had primarily.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, I just didn't like it. I mean, it just didn't, you know, it just didn't really, I didn't have a real, I mean, I had enormous respect for the profession and I found the science interesting, but it just didn't feel like that's how I wanted to spend my life. I was probably searching for what I wanted to do, but I kind of knew I didn't want to do that. And I was living with some kids who were going to law school. And so I basically decided to go to law school to tell my parents.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did So, what happened there was my mother had a brother who was a very successful physician. He was an academician. He ran an apartment at Harvard. It was a leading researcher in gerontology. He was one of the founders of the field in gerontology. And he was kind of the success in the family. And I was a good student. And so my parents wanted me to be a doctor. So they worked really hard for me to be a doctor. And then I was at Columbia, and I was doing research at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. I was working in St. Luke's Hospital in the pediatric emergency room. And in my sophomore year, it became pretty darn clear to me that I didn't want to be a doctor.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But again, it's not what I want to do from a social justice perspective isn't kind of a doctrine of my church. It informs who I am as a human being.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But, you know, my approach with everything is to be really honest and upfront about it. And I think when people hear something from you first, if they're not going to agree with it, and I'm sure my Paris priests, you know, but that's how I handled it. So I haven't had any issue with it because I'm a strong supporter of gay rights. I'm a strong supporter of women's reproductive freedom and pro-choice. I'm also a strong supporter of other things that I think my church cares deeply about, like taking care of the immigrant, taking care of the poor, making sure we have the kind of basic social contract in our society that gives people a helping hand and gives them the basic rights to food security and housing security and things that I think are so essential for human dignity. So I've just dealt with it in a very open honest way, and I'm very comfortable talking about my faith, and it's important to me. But again, that doesn't mean I agree with everything on my church. And it certainly doesn't mean that my personal religious beliefs should influence.”
2019-01-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 304 — John Delaney · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source