YouSaid · the spoken record

Mark Salter

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93
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2018-11-15
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2018-11-15
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  1. “Just do the kind of work he would have done and try to add a lot of voices to make one collective voice that stands up for the things he believed in. You know, you kind of keep his presence alive that way.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “How Yeah, are you sure? But you know, it's weird. I've been busy since he passed away and we were very busy during that whole sort of week, 10 days where we had his services. I was telling a friend the other day, you know, it really hits me at discrete moments. I haven't really acknowledged internally, you know. He's not here. So there's still this sort of sense, his presence is still to me. There have been a couple things when the whole caravan thing, I thought a hundred times I wish he was here. I wish we write the hell out of this, you know. But he's not. I'm involved in McCain Institute. We just launched a new initiative. On human rights. Yeah, on human rights.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Well, I live about half the year in Maine, so I see myself living in Maine. We just bought a new house up there so we can be there in the winter if we choose to be. I'm not sure we'll choose to be, but I'm going to write another book. I'm going to write a book about John, too. It's something I've done every other year for a long time, and I just signed a contract with Simon Schuster to do one. I'll do that. Then I've got a lot of clients. do communications work for and writing for.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “But it wasn't, neither wasn't the people. I think that they attribute the blame to either. It was just a decision made above all our pay grades.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I don't, yeah. I don't know. That was not my decision or my pay grad. I'm sorry that any, and I'm always sorry to see friendships wrecked or ruined by politics or shared experiences. I wish were otherwise.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Trumpism has been around before it, no nothingism, whatever you want to call it, isolationism around in the 20s and 30s, and protectionism has been around a lot episodically throughout the history of the country. All these things are new. We've stood against them before. We'll stand against them this time. And that's what he's dragged on. As a personality, I think you looked at Trump with sort of. idle curiosity, maybe, but not any raw anger or anything.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, I guess you could say it's a rebuke, but it really meant to say, I'm not for any of that stuff. I stand opposed to it. I stand opposed to Trumpism, you know, that it's wrong for this country. It's not the first time.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “No, because His view of politics, I don't know that he has a he doesn't have a governing philosophy. I don't think he has a political philosophy. I don't think he has any philosophy. I think he just has a selfish, greedy, acquisitive approach to the entire world He sort of represents the antithesis of that philosophy. You know, he's just not, he wanted it, you know, he wanted it known.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “No, it was to emphasize over and over again that we live in the greatest country on earth, that America Indispensably important to humanity and always should be, and that we have common problems and common responsibilities to solve them. That's what it was meant to be. These two guys defeated me for the highest ambition I had in a professional ambition. And yet we have more that unites us.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “And once he thought we had his funeral well in hand, like he gave me, I'll trust you with the music, but here are a couple of things I'd like and I'll trust you with the scripture stuff and Carlo was the unsung hero of it, although she did most of the work. But I think we gave him, he wanted to, then it was that same meeting when he said, I said, well, who are you thinking about speaking for you? And he said, well. I thought I'd ask Obama and Bush. I said, okay. And I think I called you. You did, yeah. Yeah.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And the federal government, the elected parts of the federal government. One for me, which would have been Annapolis. And I remember he said something. I can't even, I wish I could, but I Would have put it in the book. But. He said something that he's always joking, so you're always kind of upbeat around him no matter what. But it got to me, and I got a little, not really weep or anything. My voice throat got thick. And he just put his hand up. He goes, we're going to man up you and me. And he stayed that way.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “But at one point, it was just me and he was talking about his funeral and like, he had this notion that I'd do a service for Arizona and one for Washington. And by Washington, he meant the country, but he also meant the Senate and the Congress.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Chance conversation with you. It's bad. It's really bad. And, you know, I immediately Googled it and Kennedy had. But, you know, he's like everything else. He addresses it with activity. So I flew out there and he was joking around. And, you know, he had to fight with the doctors. I mean, he got an airplane with a hole in his head. We sort of wrote the speech on the airplane together. And then not long after that, like he went back to Arizona after that, you know, because we recessed for August, I guess. So it would have been September. Later on in August, he came back, and I was sitting in his office, and he then wanted to start planning what to do with his papers and his funeral. And that was usually Ricky, Rick Davis, me, and Carla U”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “The Affordable Care Act. Right. And I want to talk about how stuff like this we have to do together. And let's talk about what should be in that speech. I said. Have you gotten the results back yet? Yeah, yeah, not good Like defined not good. We had worried it was melanoma again because he'd had it before. But they've made a lot of advances, obviously, especially with immunotherapy on melanoma. It wasn't curtains. And he said, I don't know. It's just, I think he said glioblastoma, but either he didn't know what it meant or I hadn't heard it. So I hung up. What's he talking about? He said, but come on out here. It's okay. And then Rick called me. Rick Davis. He said, Cindy just called me and relayed.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Well, I didn't even it was weird because he almost mumbled it. I said, hey, look, the call was action-oriented. He called me up and said, I want to go back. I'm going to fly back to Washington. The doctors are going to clear me. They haven't agreed yet, but they're going to agree. They're going to let me fly back to Washington, and I want to give a speech. They're ramming this skinny repeal thing or whatever it was at the time.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “It started right away really shortly after his diagnosis. The first thing on his mind was to get back to Washington and give that regular order speech. I mean, he called me and he told me what the diagnosis was. So he'd had the operation. How'd you feel?”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I know what's going on. I mean, every politician wants, you know, unless they've been persuaded it's time to retire, wants to get re-elected. But I think, you know, I haven't talked to Lindsay about it or anything. I'm very fond of him, as John was obviously very fond, and he was very close to him I imagine he thinks he can stop 10% or 20% of the crazy stuff that he can protect certain things that matter. I know he lobbies very hard with Trump on immigration, on DAC and stuff. I know he rebuked Trump to his face on the shithole. Comment he was the guy that was there. And strongly remonstrated with him. And I think he thinks, well, I can make things a little bit better. Would be my guess. I'm just guessing it is motivation.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Does and he is everything Trump is. But he manages to get single pair onto the floor in Congress. Do you vote against it? Because he's offensive or ruining the country? No. I don't think you do. And I don't think Flake should be held to that standard either. What I would like to see from Republicans is stand up and say no. I would like him to protect the Mueller investigation, pass more sanctions over his objections, even if he had to overwrite his veto. Those sort of affirmative things I think Republicans ought to be doing, but I don't think they have to vote against conservative jurists or tax cuts if they think they're right.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “He's going to kill us. It's not going to be forgotten. I don't know that I can forget it. I don't know that I'll ever feel comfortable being a Republican again after this. I'm not a Democrat, you know, and I can see problems in your party that are tending to go off in a direction that would be worrying to me. But I don't know if I can ever feel comfortable again in a party that let this happen. And I'm not saying you have to vote against tax cuts or vote against judges. I'm kind of offended when somebody, a good and decent guy like Jeff Flake, who stands up every day and rebukes this president. Why Jeff Orest? And I always put this, I'll ask him, what if this guy Avenetti somehow manages to get elected president as a Democrat? After 2016, Stranger Things have happened has never been a truer clich ⁇. So Avenetti.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “That's what happened in this election. So, you know, everybody gets two senators. You can have 10 people living in the state. So you might be competitive. A few of those, but you're going to lose everything else. Everybody moving toward jobs are and the racial demographics in this country are changing rapidly. And we're going to be a majority-minority country.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I think the party will wake up eventually. He's deaf. He's poison. He's a terminal cancer. And this Trumpism, it's the way to extinction eventually. It's just demographics and time working against us. There's this terrible, and I don't know how Democrats make inroads in it, but it was rural versus urban, and we fought over the suburbs. But what's going to happen? It's going to be suburban and urban versus rural.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Trump in this, I think it hurt him. The party will eventually feel it. I mean, I sort of made this. Vote for Democrats statement because the important thing is to rebuke this guy and to resist him.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Sits at home watching Fox all day. And the president's on Fox saying this stuff, of course it's true. It's got to be true. He's the president of the United States and he's saying that we're being invaded by an army of gang members, terrorists and lepers. It's just a disparate group, desperate group of women and children fleeing violence and poverty. But they don't know that. And there are millions and millions of people that are convinced he's not breaking norms. He's trying to save them. And I think John found that offensive, as offensive as I find it, is wrong and is whirring and is...”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “And what that does to this country and to people that don't. You know, there are some people that are just cynical about it. We'll get tax cuts or we'll get whatever. We'll put up with this idiot and then they'll be gone and we can go back to normal. But then there are a lot of Americans who I was talking to a friend whose grandmother's a kind-hearted, very elderly in her eighties.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, and that had a fair bit of Trump in it. You know, I think Trumpism. He wanted to avoid if he could personal up. Animosity with Trump, although that couldn't be avoided at times. He wanted to take on Trumpism. Know nothingism is how he viewed it, ignorant, dishonest, anti historical, you know. Both a lack of decency and a lack of practical sense in Trumpism and just sort of an illusion, a world that's an illusion. So he wanted to take that on and he did. And at times Trump would say things that would offend him so deeply. He couldn't avoid. Making it sort of personal in his criticism. Trump is obviously chronically offensive man. But I think for me and I assume for him too, It's the utter lack of decency and constant total complete dishonesty about everything, small and large. Every day”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “I have to imagine, and I call him up in that fucker, you know, that piece of shit. Just calm down. Just calm down because he's an idiot. He's just an idiot. He doesn't know anything. He's an idiot. Why should that guy bother me? I said, well, you can't let him get away. He goes, all week and long, people are going to talk about what a war hero I am. So what? And it really didn't get to him. He did make a comment publicly like, you know, I know a lot of guys a lot braver than me that suffered a lot in prison and, you know, that. Trump ought to know better than to say something like that, but it didn't bother him personally. It didn't hurt his feelings or anything like that.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yes, she is. But yeah, I think Let me put it this way. If Sarah Palin had never left Wasilla. All this Trump stuff would have happened anyway.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Governor of a rural state, a big one, and took on a lot of the rough customers to do what she thinks is right. That was our theory of the case with her and the way we viewed her in the beginning. And the fact that she didn't know how to handle a crowd that got, yeah, it's not really on her, again, it's on us. I mean, she may have tapped into something that Trump tapped into or something, but it was there waiting, you know, and you can tap into things inadvertently, which I think that was actually things.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “McKenna was always prepared to address it. So the talk radio dude in, I think it was Cincinnati or wherever that was hitting on Hussein over again, we told McCain what happened. He goes around the stage and rebukes the guy. So it was out there, and she's not, she didn't. She didn't have the experience. I don't think or the chops. Put an inexperienced candidate, our mistake. We did it with good intentions. We didn't do it with malevolent intentions. We weren't trying to incite anything or we just, you know, we thought, oh, here's a woman with a lot of Moxie who”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Yeah, I mean, but it was out there. It was always out there. So we did an event I know. I think it was post convention in Albuquerque where it was a McCain event, not one with her. And for the first time, we were standing in the back. We kind of heard some of the stuff. Because you don't really hear it when you're up on the stage. And we heard some of the stuff and we knew that was a live crowd. But all along, you know, like we had this guy that was introducing him. McCain wasn't even there yet and he was emphasizing President Obama's middle name over and over again. McCain had rebuked that. But we had been encountering it. It's always out there, unfortunately, in American politics.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “She had a hard time answering questions, and that's on us. I mean, it's not on her. And that was John's view of her always was, you know, she didn't force her way on the ticket. She did everything I asked her to do and tried as hard as she could. So he never had a harsh word to say about her privately or publicly.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “I thought, well, maybe she can do it. And, you know, I thought she did a fine job in the debate. It was a stressful. I mean, you know what those are like. Anybody ever asked me, what's your least favorite part of a campaign? I'd say debates and debate prep actually being the worst. But because you make one mistake in a debate, and that's curtains. And that's really.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “We've just got this in the debates to get a piece of the change message this pick in the debates. That's all you've got. If we don't get a piece of it, you're going to lose. No matter. We can run a perfect campaign. You're going to lose. And so that was essentially the deal, you know, and he offered her the thing. And I'll be perfectly, you know, I had my reservations. I got on a plane with her and Steve, and we flew to a little town outside Dayton, where we brought in Matt Scully, one of the great speech writers in the Republican Party. And he wrote a great speech for her, which she was very involved in drafting. And when we rolled her out the next day, the day after your convention had ended, she hid every note perfectly and then went on to do a fantastic job at the convention. Lot of my worries were allayed, assuaged by that.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “How it went after, so McCain spent about 90 minutes with her, and then he sort of caucused with Steve and I and said, okay, go. And so I made a case for Plenty and Steve made the case for her. And his case was essentially, and it was somewhat convincing to me. We can teach her what she doesn't know, you know, her instincts are fine. She can handle herself. She's conversing enough on all other issues. And she'll be a lively, you know, be a big so we can do everything right.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “No, we had spent that night with Now, obviously, you'd like to spend more than a night with her, but we were up against, it was decision time.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Well, she was quite forthright about. That she was a remarkably confident woman, very personable. Had a lot of spirit. Could handle ourselves on most domestic issues, I thought, but had a big black hole on foreign policy. And she said it. You're going to have to tutor me if I were to be to pick me because I don't know that much about it. And she was quite honest about it. And we did. We put waves of guys on Earth, Steve Began was kind of the lead guy who did a great job trying to get her up to speed on stuff. But that, you know. That was worrying. It was known to all of us. It wasn't because”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “And I don't think she kept anything from us she may have downplayed a couple of things, but it wasn't, I don't think she kept anything from us. We pretty much knew what we had. We asked her, Steve and I walked through a lot of issues with her and then tried to impress upon her that were she to be offered this. And she has to go into eyes open that nothing in her life has prepared her for. Nothing, nothing for this kind of scrutiny. So you got to tell us everything that might be a problem, even if you don't think it's a big deal. And literally went through it till the morning. And then Steve and I left to go to the McCain's ranch and she followed about an hour later.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “I think he's going to nominated the ambassador to Australia. But good guy. and a capable guy, good of job vetting as he could in a week's time. But she comes to Flagstaff. We meet in some condo and Flagstaff on a golf course, and we go all night with her. Steve and I, and then on the phone with AB and his lawyers.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “For Steve and I to go. Now there had been a public document vet, and I think we'd give an AB Culva House and his lawyers about a week. Washington”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Steve, I don't know that he knew her, but he knew what she was. And the choice wasn't made because she was very conservative or a populist or something. She appealed to him and appealed to us as a reformer. She had taken on the Republican establishment. She'd taken on the oil companies. And, you know, and as we discovered later, I mean, I think we had seen her give a speech and do a good job or something, but we had no idea. She's quite talented at that. And at the retail end of politics, I've never seen anybody work a rope line like her. It takes forever. She has a word with everyone on it, but it's really those things, I know they're all anecdotal, but those things can Matter So the plan was to bring her to Flagstaff first.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “So we thought, well, that was one. And then when we persuaded him, he was quite upset about it. You know, he argued, and it took some doing, you know, but he was too bad. To convince him that he couldn't have him. And then he just sort of he was upset about and distracted from the decision. We were a week or something out, 10 days out from the convention. We didn't have a vice president. Romney was among the finalists. Plenty was among the finalists. And then I think Steve, who had had business. Alaska. McCannon met Palin, I think, that summer earlier, that somewhere to RGA dinner or something, but didn't really know her and I didn't know her. Rick didn't know her, I don't think.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “And we would have gotten some piece of the change message, and maybe not as great a chunk as you guys had. It was President Bush, good man that he is, wasn't popular at the time and the wrong track number was. About as bad as I think I've ever seen it. And, you know, the war was very unpopular. Had a young guy, an African American, you know. Old white guy at the time, who opposed the war? Who would oppose the war? You own change.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “I mean, there's a lot of commonality, too. It's correct. I think we're all comfortable with or wanted Joe Lieberman, but it was made clear to us that there'd be a challenge. We might win it, you know, but we'd be leaving Minneapolis. Yeah, with a divided party. And you can't do that. The environment was terrible for us. It would have been unprofitable.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Fighting for what he believed was the right course for the country. And, you know, little by little by little by little, he started getting crowds back again until he was in a competitive position in the fall and won.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Very unpopular war that I'm defending. I'm going to go up there and every reporter you know is going to be there seeing if I actually literally clutch my chest and drop dead of a heart attack. You know, and then I'm going to go there with no staff. I think his son Jimmy was the only person traveling with him. He's about to, or yeah, Jimmy. He was about to deploy to Iraq. And then, you know, and then I'm going to fight this fight. I'm going to do everything I can to win. I'm going to get my ass kicked. I'm going to be humiliated over the next few weeks. And at the end, I'm going to get my ass kicked. But I'm going to give up and give it everything I got. Why are you such a wimp? And so I went with him on the trip, he and Jimmy. You know, and he was going from one little tiny event to another. Defending the surge almost exclusively.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Yeah, yep. Weaver left. And. And so I said something like, God damn, man, maybe you're right. I was sitting down with them the day that happened and I'd sort of encourage them to take a slower decision. And he had said, no, I want to get this done now. We're not running the kind of campaign I want to run. I said something like, well, maybe I should take a hiatus. Maybe I should get off the campaign. And so he had this, he said. Let me tell you what's going to happen tomorrow. All right, I've got a, I'm supposed to give a speech in Concord, New Hampshire on Iraq.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Where rarely pleased him in a weird way, but there was all these friendships that were sundered over that experience was tough, tough on everybody, tough on him, tough on them, tough on me, tough on Rick, tough on Weaver, tough on everybody.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “And we got the Republicans got the hell beat out of us. He turned up me and Rick and Weaver and said, I don't know if we can get lightning in a bottle twice. And I think he had genuine reservations. He was uncertain about doing it again. But he was also a fierce competitor. And once he's in it, he's going to fight as hard as he can to win. Oddly enough, the campaign imploded and we lost two-thirds of the staff and we were written off and Charlie Cook says something like he's a corpse. They're just waiting for the doctors to pronounce some DOA. Yeah, and because you know, I had advised that.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “But there were, yes, manifold compromises you make when you're the front run and you think you might actually be president. You probably don't make when you're running an underdog campaign. The odds are stacked way against you. There's no doubt about it. And he would have to bite his tongue or I don't think he owned major issues that he cast any votes that compromised his principles. And we fought for immigration reform. And he was getting the hell kicked out of him by not just Tom Tancredo and nuts like that that were running, but from the Romney campaign. They were pouring all their advertising on us was going after him for sponsoring immigration bills with Ted Kennedy. And stay true to the torture debate, did all those things. And he would have, but it was just a style. He said when he was mulling it over after 2006 elections.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “To make amends. Don't think the Liberty College one wouldn't have viewed that as a compromise. Yeah, he criticized him and Falwell came to see him and said, hey, that was really Robertson that was going after you in South Carolina. And he said, would you just come down and talk to the students or give the commencement to the students? He goes, yeah, sure. And we gave a speech about tolerance. Everybody remembers him going to, but nobody listened to the speech. But he gave a speech about tolerance.”

    2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source