YouSaid · the spoken record

Robert Gibbs

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106

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2016-08-22

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2016-08-22

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1

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1. “I enjoyed and have enjoyed your continued friendship. I think there's nobody that I spent more time with in from 2004 through that race in 2012 and even after that thinking about the Obama project and thinking about all of these issues. And I think it's probably in some ways both the journeys of our lifetimes.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “That's scary, and that's going to create that anxiety and that tension for economic opportunity that somebody in this election like a Donald Trump might come in and try to fill. So I could see myself going back at some point and wanting to be involved in. I think it would be a great American project. To get all third graders reading at the third grade level at the end of the third grade.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “And so the statistic that I think is one of the Most interesting statistics in all of our public life is you can basically chart the success of a student based on their reading level at the end of the third grade because that's the transition point where you go from learning to read to reading to learn. And so if you are not at reading at grade level at third grade, the chances of you being able to graduate from high school are not great. Chances of you going to college or even less. Two out of every three kids in the United States in the fourth grade doesn't read at grade level. And if that's the moment in which your educational future is in some ways determined. and two out of every three kids doesn't meet that standard.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “My mother was where I went to middle school. It's called Boykin. And it's surrounded by housing projects. And literally, when I say it's on the other side tracks, you have to go over the train tracks to get there. And I think one of the things that Donald Trump has touched on is this anxiety in our country. And I think some of that anxiety is around the lack of opportunity. And I see, I look at those kids and I think to myself, they... If they don't get a good education, it's going to be hard to succeed in life. And they can't get a job at a textile mill. They can't get a job at a manufacturing plant anymore. There's a Kia auto plant not far from Auburn. Great jobs. They're also highly automated. And you got to know how to be.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “I started reading program, and again, this intersects a bit with my biography. It's the Boys and Girls Club. And so it's for about 60 or 80 kids that are in first through fifth grade. And we basically went to the Boys and Girls Club and said, hey, we want to start a reading program and I'll fund it and I'll hire three people and I'll buy 3,000 books and we'll be part of your program every day. And they said yes, and it's interesting because when I first started it, it literally is on the other side of the tracks. It's down the street from Drake High School.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “I will say I have a real passion around several issues. I don't know what, if you would have said to me in 2004 and 2008, we'd be the president-elect, I would have sought to have you politely committed to a very nice institution. So, I don't know. I mean, I enjoy very much what I do. I have a great passion for Issue an issue particularly around education. So when I left”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Absolutely. It definitely does. And I think it's It's going to be something that I no doubt is likely on the legislative agenda come next year. But again, our investments and our people are tremendously, tremendously important. They are the people that every day greet you at a cash register or in a drive-through. And like I said, as we increase the experience, you see this in different restaurants now. You go in and you order and you sit down and the food's brought to your table. That's going to require having the best people. And I think in McDonald's we have really, really great people.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “You know, I think we will. Because of the steps we've taken, I think we understand the benefit of. And we've seen it in our company on stores that turnover is down because of increased wages and benefits. I think obviously it all, as anything does in Washington, depend on sort of what they have.”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “We did what we did in our company owned stores. We don't control the wages of franchisees. They're independent franchisees. And quite frankly, many of them pay above the federal minimum wage as well because you have an increasingly tight labor market that requires paying more to find good people. And one of the things that we're going to embark on is changing that experience in the restaurant. And that experience is going to require Finding really, really good people”

   2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “A franchisee own store. McDonald's will pay for tuition assistance to either finish your high school education or go to college. And earlier this year, I don't know the exact figure now, but we had more than 5,000 people that were going through getting back into the educational system because of that. I think in many ways, McDonald's is America's first job. It's where people learn the responsibility of showing up to work on time. It's where they get training to do something. And it's something we take enormously seriously. And that's why, again, that's why”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “I think the investment that any company makes in their people is tremendously important. And it's why even before I joined the company, for our company owned stores, we raised the minimum wage to a dollar above the local mandated minimum wage and instituted a program that we call Arch Waste Opportunity that helps whether you're in a company-owned store or”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “And again, like I said, where you have 36,000 restaurants, it could be anything can happen. It can be a car accident in the parking lot. It can be...”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “And I'm reminded of what it means to have a really good team. And I'm in the process of trying to build something like that at McDonald's, which is very invigorating. I will say when you have restaurants at 36,000 locations around the world, Your day is not boring And in that sense, it reminds me a bit of being in the White House in the sense of there's always something. In the moment you get complacent and think you're going to make it through this day or that day in the White House invariably a rock gets thrown into the still pond and the ripples start. And with 36 again, with 36,000 restaurants, that happens.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “As a consultant, where I got to do some of it. It's fascinating. It's not completely dissimilar. It's a different beast, if you will, because I think obviously when you're in the White House, you don't have any trouble getting attention at any moment. You have that great apparatus and that ability to do this. And when you're in the private sector, one, you don't necessarily have a story every day and you don't necessarily have that megaphone. I think it's tremendously exhilarating. It's a unique and interesting experience. I'm reminded every day we had a fabulous team in 2000, really starting in 2004 and 2008, 2012.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “It didn't mean anything But you get charged up every day, and you, quite frankly, each of these campaigns has a sophisticated apparatus to be involved every day in this fight. It's a little bit like... I imagine it's a little bit like trench warfare, right? It's like World War I, right? You all dug your lines and you exch It is the bigger arguments that make a big difference”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “The celebrity and Brittany Spear song. And, you know, I remember everybody rushing to say, oh, what's your reaction to this? Wow, you know, he's really, you know, he's got you, all this kind of stuff I remember we'd shown it to a focus group, and they laughed. Now everybody did the story that day of the John McCain, Brittany Spears, celebrity video. But it didn't”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “250,000 or so people. And McCain comes During the 2008 race, and McCain did a web video with a picture of Obama and the solution.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “And it's having the discipline to understand that just because Donald Trump or just because Hillary Clinton or just because anybody is making an argument that you or somebody else feels like they have to respond to, just because they're making it doesn't make it compelling, doesn't make it mean that a 50 plus 1% of the people believe that. As you just said, there's a vacuum that has to be filled every day. I remember famously when McCain remember we did the speech in Germany.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “A lot of time for reflection, not a lot of time to figure out how to choose your words. Or again, as I said, sometimes not engaging is the winning argument. Not making an argument is the winning argument.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “And so the speed with which it happens and the interaction that it requires has changed the game, maybe not all for the better.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Well, I mean, you know, I don't even think there's a news cycle anymore because I think to say there's a news cycle presumes that that cycle is some period of time. I think that's gone. And I think it's been gone for years. And in that sense, with Twitter and with a lot of social media, I remember when I first worked on Capitol Hill, we had access to the APY. It's fantastic. I spent hours. You could just type in anything and all the stories would come up. This is largely before the invention of the internet. But I remember every four hours I would check the bulletin, which was the AP's top stories. You could check them by state or you could check them nationally every four hours. Here are the top stories in the US or in Alabama. That would be, that's now replace by something that happens probably every few minutes. Right.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “But again, you got to, so that's the thing. It's like it's the difference between being in a White House, in the White House press room or being in a schoolyard. There's something bigger that you're trying to get done.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “No But I don't think any of us. I mean, I think it was because, again, it was very much. Right at the central core and the central argument that this guy's inexperience is too inexperienced to be. Now again, I think you could make the case that look at what had happened with somebody who was really experienced.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Well, I do remember. I think probably in the beginning, you know, Dick Cheney was very active in criticizing us. And quite frankly, I look back and I think, you know what, we probably should have ignored that. We probably should have said, well, it's, you know, doesn't surprise me that Dick Chaney's opinion. But it's having the discipline.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “And you have to think about that. And there are times when you just have to let that go. You have to pick your moments more carefully. And you have to pick your words carefully. Consequences.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “And the truth is you've got to figure out every day what you want to say and how you want to say it because how you say it matters. Whether you say it matters. You know, I think about it. How many times during this the long slog to get healthcare done, every day I'd walk into the briefing room and people want a minute-by-minute update about what's happening and what somebody said about this and what happened in this committee? And not every day. Not every day you can add something to that. And quite frankly, not every day you want to because sometimes the legislative process, you have to allow it to breathe. And somebody has to say something on one side to lay down a marker that if you immediately go and smack away is going to impede the process.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “We'd spend a lot of time in meetings in the Oval Office. After a while, you're in the Oval Office, right? It's the Oval Office. You get used to going in there, but probably once a week being in there, as somebody was talking, you'd sort of look around and go, wow.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “I mean, there's thousands of them. There's really, there are thousands. I will say this, and this is an admonition to anybody working on one of those two presidential campaigns right now. Your worst day in a campaign might well feel like your best day in a White House. It is unlike anything you could possibly imagine. It is because you're in charge now of everything. And what comes at you is remarkable. And, you know, obviously I can remember. Massive job losses on auto industry that's about to go bankrupt. And I... What I took away from it is you go back to the heady times of being on a bus and a campaign 20 some years earlier or what have you and is what you go through and what you see each and every day in sitting in that place watching someone make those decisions. I think I used to tell this to you, but”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “And I thought to myself, Ethan is never going to grow up. In a country that imagines the What I did, which was will this ever happen?”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “When they spill a bunch of stuff, it doesn't make a mess. It was all the presidents and Barack. And I remember looking at that placement and then I remember looking at Ethan and realizing that, and you know, Ethan knew the president. Ethan knows the president now.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “And obviously the other one was Barack Obama is an African American who's now the nominee for a nominee for President of the United States. I always hoped I'd see that in my lifetime. I never knew that I would have. Some small part in all of that happening and it was phenomenal. I'll never forget. After he was elected president, you know, you have those, my son, I think Ethan was probably five at that point. And so he had one of those placemats, you know, that are laminated so they don't, when they”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “I think the whole campaign of Barack Obama was extraordinarily improbable. I've often wondered if somebody ever, what did I think the odds were when we decided to run for president? Maybe two and ten, maybe one in ten to be elected president?”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “And I remember we were in Las Vegas, and I'd usually give him a fist bump for a good debate. And I remember he comes out after Las Vegas and he puts his fist up to bump, and I just went, nah.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “And so you've got to make that connection. And so you can't fill his head with a bunch of stuff that, quite frankly, he doesn't need to think about it, if at all, but certainly not at that point. So how do we figure out how to do that? How do we figure out how to sort of just structurally put this apparatus around him? And then I think also the role I played was able to come out afterwards and say, hey, that was good or also to come out and say, yeah, you missed the turn on this question or you could do... I remember you will recall that he was not a very good debater for the longest time. Right. He would always, I would never go out to the spin room right away after the debate was done. I'd always wait to see him”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “And that sort of started this process of how do we get him, how do we structurally set him up to be successful? How do we get him to do what we need him to do and what he knows he needs to do? And some of it was scheduling and some of it was, again, getting his mind clear before he went into these events. I mean, one of the things that I think I was able to stop was people were going to him for a lot of questions right as we go into a library with 500 people in Iowa where he's trying to convince them to vote for him for president. And as you well know, it only takes about seven or eight of those conversations to convince somebody.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “Right. And so I said to Obama, I said, you know, let's just talk through this. Let's work through this. Let's figure out, you know, and I said, I remember I said, Are you having any fun? And almost as soon as the second I finished the question, he just went, No, not at all. Not at all. And you could see it on his face and you could see it in his body language. And at that point, Reggie's kind of half paying attention. He kind of slaps Obama on the arm. And he's like, I'm having the time of my life. I'm, of course, glaring at Reggie because, Reggie, I've got a whole thing in my head here that I'm trying to go through. And I remember, I think broccoli says, I'm not Reggie. I'm not.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “He knew he wanted to do something differently. So we get on the plane that night, and I'm going to try to figure out how, I need to just have a conversation with him and start to get his mind not just wrapped around. He was clearly wrapped around not doing well. I need to get his mind wrapped around how we get it better. And so I'm sitting, you know, I'm not a good flyer, as you'll remember at that time. And I'm sitting backwards in this small plane. I'm looking at Barack is sitting in front of me and Reggie Love is sitting across the small aisle.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “He knew he was letting people down. And I will tell you, that's what he hates to do more than anything. And I don't mean that innocent. Had greater expectations for himself, and he knew other people did. And I never forget I was in the, I came to the Senate office because I was going to ride with him to Iowa. Meeting up with I go into the Senate office and I hadn't been there a few months. And I remember he's worse sitting in his office just kind of talking and the bell rings to go for a vote. And he says, walk with me to the elevator and walk with him to the elevator and the elevator comes, hey, walk with me down to the subway. Walk with him and say, come over while I vote. And you could tell that he like.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “Yeah, I was going to say that. We're flying to Iowa for an event. And it's very interesting. He knew he wasn't performing well and he knew he was.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “And then you do a 30 minute speech and you answer questions and all that kind of stuff. And I remember you and I and Pluff watching a tape and we went, oh God, this is terrible. Like he's just terrible. He's going to hate when we, if he hears this, he was just awful. And so we hatched this plan. Okay, I'm going to go out with it. One of us is going to go out with him for a week, and then the other person's going to go out with him for a week. And we're going to try to figure out, is there something structural in the campaign? Is there something in his schedule? Is there something in his head that's preventing him from being an effective candidate? My great mistake was I took the first week You have yet to take your week. And I spent the next sixteen months. An airplane and in a hotel.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “Not that happy at all, and he was performing pretty poorly on the stump. Now part of that is people came to events thinking.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “And he became a little bit, he went into Washington in that late 2004, early 2005 as a national senator. And then, as you said, we quickly clamped down on, we did lots of town hall meetings in Illinois. We wanted to be the Illinois senator. We don't want to be the national center. We wanted to help colleagues out raising money nationally, but we didn't, we had a kind of a moratorium on national press. Hurricane Katrina hit. And that changed that because as you said, he felt he had to. And the response”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “like a ballet recital. And I remember then the next thing was like, all right, I got to find a plane that can be at midway so that after that he can get to, I think we were in Orlando. And so then I remember working with you and John Favreau on the speech. It was, again, it was a really good speech”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “That's why Why they're wonderful. And so when Nelson came to ask him to do it, he said, I mean, I remember him coming to me. What do you think? And I said, well, you know, I think you need to spend some time in Illinois. And I think you need to spend some time with your family. And we'll have plenty of time to go do this. But he kept entertaining it. And he kept coming back, what do you think? What do you think? And I finally said, well, what do you think? And he says, I think I want to do it.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “So I remember in the Late fall maybe early winter. I'd have to go back and look at the exact date, but Bill Nelson, the senator from Florida, asked him to come speak to the Florida Democratic dinner, basically two or three thousand people in Florida. And we had just done, we had just finished the election cycle in 2005 and we had Basically, used him three weekends in a row. Away from his family. That was not popular. And, you know, he had campaigned actually for Kane running for governor in 2005, Virginia. We went To New Jersey. We did a couple of other stops. So we'd taken him away from his family. And so we wanted to get back to protecting a little of that weekend family time.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “But she's never heard me curse. And I remember thinking, you and I think we sort of looked at each other as we watched and heard this. And I thought, wow”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “but came to CNN as probably his most famous stint in politics as a speechwriter for Bobby Kennedy. Right. And we probably can't say exactly what he said, but he said, he basically says.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “I remember thinking to myself, that was the last moment I slept past five o'clock until we gave that speech. Because I knew we better get up early and look at these drives. And so you had this sense that he had something really special. Formed off of all of his experiences really throughout Illinois and throughout his life. And I remember you and I standing on the floor and Jeff Greenfield is standing in front of us and Jeff Greenfield at that point was a CNN analyst. Yes.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “And I never forget he calling me one morning and said really early in the morning, and Barack Obama's not an early morning person. And the freeze says, what do you think? What do I think about what? What do you think about the draft? I haven't seen it. And he says, I emailed it to you like two hours ago. This is at like six in the morning. And I remember thinking like, oh,”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “So we had two or three weeks to just write a speech And it's true. I think he wrote most of it in Springfield on a yellow legal path.”

    2016-08-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 74 - Robert Gibbs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source