YouSaid · the spoken record

Judy Woodruff

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96

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2018-08-06

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2018-08-06

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1. “We celebrate what Jeffrey is today. And when we're with him, most of the time he's in great spirits and he's got an incredible curiosity. He's texting me all the time about what's going on in the news. He wants to know, you know, why the Supreme Court pick and not another one. So he's engaged, but you're absolutely right, David. I mean, you can't, we can't allow ourselves to go back and do the what-ifs all the time. You could do that, but it's not good for anybody else.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “And they've seen what Jeffrey's gone through, and it's made them much more sensitive and open to people with disabilities. It's made our whole family. I mean, I am thought I was a sensitive, compassionate person before this, but I now think I see much more clearly what people with disabilities experience. I try to see it through Jeffrey's eyes, that often people don't even make eye contact with people in a wheelchair. They don't look at them. They assume they can't communicate as well. They assume they don't understand what's being said around them and that they can't do very much. And it's very tough. It's very tough.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Lifetime. I agree. It was a lifetime of second guessing and feeling guilty about a lot of things. And having said that, Lauren and Ben are to me two incredibly compassionate people. Yes. Because they've lived. They have an older big brother.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “So there's a lot to, it's interesting. Just the other day I interviewed Joanna Breyer, who happens to be the wife of Justice Stephen Breyer, and she's a psychoanalyst. She's written a book that just came out this month about, it's called When Your Child Is Sick, and she devotes a lot of space in the book to siblings of children. and how parents need to think about the siblings, not forget the siblings, talk to the siblings about what's going on, engage them. I mean, I've second-guessed a lot the way we handled it, both Al and I have, because to this day, I worry that I didn't pay enough attention.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “It is really complicated, and we tried to talk to his younger brother, Ben and younger sister Lauren. Lauren was nine and Ben was 11 when this happened. We tried to have conversations as they grew up, and we still have conversations today. But it's hard to unpack because it has an effect on them of... Yes, I need to step aside because Jeffrey needs all this attention for understandable reasons. And so there's that stepping aside, stepping back, but there's also You know, he's healthy and he's not. And there's some kind of guilt, I think, connected with that, yes.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Go back to high school, finish high school. Took him eight and a half years to finish college. He ended up going to a school for a few years in North Carolina that had a dorm just for students in wheelchairs with just significant disabilities. And then David, for the last seven or eight years, he's lived in a wonderful, supportive community in Maryland, where he lives in a group home.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “it made me, I thought about giving up work altogether and spending all my time being his mom and the mom to our other two children, but a doctor said to me one day at Johns Hopkins, he said, you know, there's really not very much you can do for Jeffrey. You need to be there as his mother, but you can't be there 24-7. He's going to have a life of his own, and you need to be the best person you can be in the way to do that is by staying with the work that you do and living the life that you do. And therefore, you and Al will be the parents that Jeffrey needs.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “I think short of losing a child, which is in itself unimaginable. You have a child who you know one way and then the next time you turn around it's a different person. And yet on the inside, Jeffrey's still the same great guy, the great sense of humor. Perceptive, smart guy that he was, but he doesn't have all the physical abilities that he did before. But it's changed our lives, no question.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Completely unexpected. He had been a young man who skied and swam and rode a bicycle and the next thing we knew he was in a coma for four months and had to learn how to eat again and walk. He's in a wheelchair now. He walks only for exercise. Can't use his right arm. His visions impaired, his speech is impaired, his short-term memory is impaired. It's every parent's worst nightmare. That sounds like a cliche, but it is. It's the worst thing imaginable.”

   2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “And David, you and I have talked about this, and it's a huge part of my life, our life, my husband Alan I, and as I know it is for you and Susan. Jeffrey was born with spinobifida and had a mild case of it and managed very well when he was 16 years old. He had to have a procedure. And he came out of that procedure dramatically changed with someone with profound disabilities. And that was...”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Need a demand for a place that is going to take the time, spend the hour, be thoughtful, be reflective, and put the news in context. And that's what we're committed to every day here at the news hour.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “I think it's in keeping with it, it may not be in keeping with so much of what's available to people now on cable on the internet. But I will tell you that it's in keeping with what people want. When I go out and I try to interact with the American people and ask them what they're interested in, or they come up to me, what they say is I want a news source that will give it time, will give the story space, will reflect on what's going on. I think this hurly burly warp speed news environment that we are in right now where it's like we swim in a sea of news. We're surrounded by it. It's overwhelming. We're asked to pass judgment on it every second. There is more than ever, I think”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “That's right. And Chris on Sundays, Chris's interview show. So I think you look at different parts of the day and different programs and different people.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “I think Brett prides himself on doing a straight news program. There are other people I know at Fox who are straight reporters. Yeah, I did Chris Wallace's show.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “You know, help her on the news operation at Fox. President's very close friends with Sean Hannity, and there are a number of other connections. So I think we know about a lot of those connections. Well, I think you take it into consideration when you watch Fox, but there are different, you know, Fox isn't the same every hour. I mean, for example, I know Brett Baer very well.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “Well, there's a closeness to the Fox News organization and the Trump White House that has drawn attention. There's no question. I mean, the president's hired Bill Shine, who was a vice president.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “They certainly cover the news, but Anne Cable, as you said a minute ago, has become something that I think is now is today not only 24-7, it also reflects the combative, competitive atmosphere of television news. It is the zenith of competition among the television, the commercial television channels. They compete by the hour, by the half hour, the quarter. Every minute they are competing with the audience.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “It's hard to say that going back. I would say, I think going back, it's clear that everybody I know, let me put it this way, everybody I know. Who makes decisions in cable news and across the media spectrum says in looking back that we wish that we had found a way to have some more balanced coverage in 2015 and 2016? Because what happened was the candidate who gave the great speech, who gave the great quote, ended up getting the lion's shield. Well, and”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “He took that talent and it played. And Cable News and the rest of the media. Became in effect a successful playground for him. We gave him the time and the space in the air.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “To take all that, those contacts, that talent, that gift that he has for being in front of a crowd, for holding people's attention, for grabbing people, frankly by the collar and saying, listen to me or somewhere.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “He was able to take his story in 2015 from the moment he came down that escalator in New York City and somebody who's practiced and successful television reality show star, somebody who was the front page of the tabloid newspapers in New York for decades.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “Better than anybody else. They had a team in Baghdad when the war broke out, and people started to take them seriously then. So when Tom came to me a few years later, by then, you know, they were a place of stature. And so cable news was created by Ted Turner, but a few years after that, not But and a few years after that, when the competition came along, MSNBC, Fox News and so on, I think then it began to change because instead of covering the world, I think there was more attention being paid, frankly, to competing with each other and making sure that at this hour we're covering the lead story because if the other channel is covering it and they're covering and of course Rupert Murdoch with Fox said openly that he felt that there was part of the ideal Spectrum that wasn't being covered, and he felt he needed to.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “It's changed it a lot. I mean, what Ted Turner created in 1980 when he went on the air was this 24-7 dream, we're on the hour, we're on the air around the clock, and we are everywhere in the world. We are able to cover everything, whatever you're interested in, we're going to cover it. It was a great concept. Nobody thought he could pull it off. They made fun of him. You remember it was Chicken Noodle News? The networks look down on Ted Turner, joked about him, and said, you know, and remember they were in this little rundown building up on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington when they started out with their bureau here. But lo and behold, they were serious. They ended up and they ended up covering the Gulf War in 1990.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Really tough because I love the news hour. I couldn't think of a reason to leave except for the chance to do something different. And ultimately, that's what I did. So I made the jump. 1993.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Years at the news hour had no plans to leave, really loved being there. But at a dinner in 1992, a man named Tom Johnson walked up who had been a friend, who had been in the Lyndon Johnson White House, had run the newspapers that Lyndon Johnson's family owned in Texas, had gone on to Los Angeles to be the publisher of the LA Times and was then working for Ted Turner, came up to me and said, would you ever think about leaving the news hour and coming to work for CNN? I said, no, I love where I am. But the conversation started, and he was persistent, kept talking. And after three or four months, he talked me into this great opportunity to do something very different. He said, you're going to be, have a chance to work for a 24-7 news network that's international, you're going to be able to do things that you can't do at PBS. And it was a tough decision, David.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “That's right. And Tom brokaw. And I think we all looked at each other at that moment like this is this may be the moment from this debate.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Well, the room exploded, first of all. And then the panel, I was with a couple of actually good friend journalists John Margolis, Tom Brokoff. John Margaro.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “As he had been doing, and Benson was ready, with a senator, you know, you know, I know John Kennedy. I work with John Kennedy. You know John Kennedy.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “That's right. It had been around for a long time. And the expectations of Quail were very low going. That was the debate where at one point Dan Quayle compared himself to John Kennedy.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “Inexperienced running against a more senior. Well, Michael Dukakis was the Democratic nominee, and his vice presidential running mate was Lloyd Benson, who was this distinguished venerable, that's right.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “It was, that's right. I mean, it was George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and his vice president, George H.W. Bush, was running for president, chose this little-known senator from Indiana, Dan Quayle, to be his vice presidential running mate, running against.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “That everything had to be condensed and had to be shortened. And there was just something appealing when Les Crystal and I talked, when Jim and I talked about the idea that they were going to go to a whole hour, which is something the commercial networks that talked about doing never did, still haven't done, that just sounded like a great opportunity to be on the ground floor of this whole new venture in television journalism, to be able to go long and deep in television news, and it appealed to me.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Well, it's interesting. This was 1982. I was covering, I was the Today Show reporter for NBC. I'd gone from the White House to doing interviews every morning from the Washington Bureau for the Today Show. And my good friend, I had gotten to know Jim Lahre and knew Robin McNeill, and I knew they were expanding their half-hour show on PBS to an hour. And it talked to Jim. And more than that, I talked to Les Crystal, who had been a former president of NBC News. He had been lured over by Jim and Robin to be the first executive producer of the news hour. And I love what I was doing at NBC. I love the White House. I'd love covering. But I also was already sensing how on the Today Show, interviews were getting shorter. This is 1982. This is a long time ago. But already I could feel...”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “But if something had happened, if John Hinckley had been successful in assassinating Ronald Reagan, think of what that would have meant for the country.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “I got to be much better friends with her later because as we know Jim had a terrible brain injury as a result of that. But it reminded her the fragility of life and a reminder of the importance of why we need the press covering the president all the time because if something had happened, of course the president was injured and he was in the hospital for days, weeks after that.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “Lovely man that he was terribly he was really in bad shape and and at the same time I had to go file because we didn't have cell phones in 1981 Ran into the lobby. That phone was already taken. You know, they were about eight reporters in the pool, maybe seven. And I had to run across the street, find this government contractor down the hall of this obscure office building across the street, grab the phone called NBC and filed. But it was a moment like no other. I mean, you think you're going to be ready as a reporter. You've covered a president. In this case, I had covered a little bit of his campaign, but mainly I'd covered him in the transition from November to January, and then covered two months of his presidency. And then, boom, he almost died. And nothing can prepare you for that. Nothing can prepare you to see somebody wounded, as Jim Brady was. I got to be, I already knew his wife Sarah.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “And I said, Mr. President, like Valencia said. And right then, there was this pop pop pop sound. And people started screaming, get down, get down. Of course, it sounded like firecrackers, but, you know, nobody's going to shoot off firecrackers. And it was in a blur. The motorcade was moving. They yelled, you know, get in the car and not. And of course, I stayed because I needed to file that somebody had taken a shot at the president. But what happened when the motorcade moved away, I could see Jim Brady. The president had been shoved into the car, but there was Jim Brady down. And one of the police I could see was down. And I knew Jim Brady. He had, you know, was Reagan's press secretary. I'd gotten to know him during the campaign. And I could see that he was gravely.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “He had been in office, as you say, just a little over two months. It was 1981, and I was part of the pool at the White House when the president travels. They divvy up different networks, different newspapers. We'll send a reporter to go and then report back for the rest of the press corps. So it was my turn to be in the pool that day. He was going to the Washington Hilton. And it was just like any other day. I mean, as routine as covering a president can be, but I was in the, went into the building, covered the speech into the hotel, the Hilton, came out a different door and was standing there, and I'll never forget, of course. I was yelling a question at him. He came out the private exit where they would bring out VIPs. I was with the pool standing maybe 30 feet away. And I yelled a question in him about Lech Valencia. He had said something, done something that day, and pulled.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “But Carter was going through a very tough time then. The Iran hostage crisis was still. Raging very, that arguably the most, that in the economy and the way he handled the economy were the two most”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “And Reagan was under greatly underestimated going into that. Yes, he'd been the two-term governor of California, but you're right. People thought he was so right-wing and that he might get in office. And we were going to bomb Russia. I mean, there were these extreme views. Reagan shows up. He's smiling. He talks about, you know, don't make fun of my youth and inexperience. And he walked away with that debate. Carter people were not prepared for that. You could argue Carter either should have agreed to several debates with Ronald Reagan or nothing.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “To run against it, which was a blow to Carter and clearly hurt him in the Democratic Party. I mean, you can argue about whether Carter would have won anyway if Kennedy hadn't challenged him, but I think there's no question that had some effect.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “Chairman of the DNC, and then later on trade representative. Um And I think that really was the seed, those were the seeds of Jimmy Carter's problem in that he felt he could do it alone. He wasn't listening. Listening or talking regularly enough to people who knew they figure this out late in that term, but by then I think it was too late. The resentment had already set in. Teddy Kennedy had already decided”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “I think you have to meet their attitude during the campaign was that they did this on their own. They didn't get the help of the Democratic Party establishment. And so they were going to go to the White House and they were going to recreate what they had done in Atlanta. They didn't really want to reach out for Washington help. They didn't ask for the establishment to help them. They didn't go to the DNC, to the Democratic Party. They eventually established a relationship with Bob Strauss. You know, they had named Bob Strauss there.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “For ABC and then after I had been there a few years, they brought in, CBS brought in Leslie Stahl. So we had, you know, it's funny. Leslie and I have stayed good friends, and Anne, too. I mean, I see her, but we like to joke about the fact that in those days, the networks would kind of pit the women against each other. I was truly competing with the Sam Donaldsons and the Bob Schieffers. But the network would say, well, what about so-and-so? And sometimes in more subtle ways than others, I don't think they would do that. They can't do that today because there's so many women. Around, but in that day that weren't very many of us.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “There were a few. At NBC, a woman named Marilyn Berger, who had been the Washington Post State Department reporter. Was covering that was number one at the White House. So I was with a woman reporter in NBC, a woman named Anne Compton, who was there for years, you know An”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “From the Boston Globe, these were amazing. David and Johnny Apple are gone, but Curtis is still around at the University of Mississippi. But I learned a lot from them. I learned a lot just from asking non-stop questions and watching what they did.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “I was covering the White House and man did I feel like a fish out of water because as much as I had wanted to come to Washington when I got here, I realized Mainly, how much I didn't know and how much, I mean, I'd gotten to know a lot of these great reporters on the bus, you know, the Johnny Apples and the David Broders.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “To cover the White House. I lobbied NBC. I said, you know, I do know these people. So they named me the third man on the totem pole. I was the one who covered weekends, and I did the Today Show and Weekends, but I was in Washington. It was January of 1977, the beginning of this upstart Southern governor had turned out a well-known Washington figure in Gerald Ford. It was a time of seven years.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “Sure, and that was the big lesson. That they took from George McGovern. Then he went into Iowa and basically dissected neighborhood by neighborhood. And that's what Carter went door to door. He slept in people's homes in 1975, maybe even 74, I have to look back, but certainly throughout 75, he was in Iowa. 20 or 30 times they ran a really smart campaign and you know I argued NBC this guy is going to go places I don't want to make it sound like I was a genius but I at least noticed that that they were plotting out where they were going to go. And then of course when Jimmy Carter started doing better I was pulled off the campaign because I was so green. I was the new guy on the campaign. New kid on the”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “And he, I guess he had studied McGovern and the way McGovern lost in 72, and they tried to turn that around to their benefit. But I, I mean, I felt the first guy.”

    2018-08-06 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 262 — Judy Woodruff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source