YouSaid · the spoken record

Tim Shriver

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69

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2018-07-30

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2018-07-30

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1

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1. “Thank you, David. It's a sacred trust, I think, no matter what your religious tradition or nationality people come to this work feeling that they've been given a sacred trust. This is at 50 years. It's our chance to give our legacy to the next generation, to hand it on in a way that the movement is strong, that it is a movement, not just a program, that it is a way of life, a holy, if I can even use that language, way of life, we're an open heart and a generous and gentle heart allow people to see the world at its best. And to hope for the best and bring out the best in others, these are gifts that the world needs now more than ever. And so we head into our second half century, confident that we've just begun, that this population of people has a lot to teach the world, and we intend to give them the chance to do it.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “That's right. That's right. I mean, I think the thing, you know, people say, well, your parents taught you to service. I think we've all, I would say, I think I speak for all my siblings. That the work you've just described is the best work you could get. There has been nothing but joy from this work. Anthony's extraordinary work with best buddies all over the world. Mark on advocacy for children. I mean, Maria on women, Alzheimer's Bobby with the music and entertainment world, trying to bring their energy with Bonn and others to issues like AIDS and disability. I mean, this is work that is...”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “I think we've taken, and my brother Bobby also has raised over $100 million to help the Special Olympics movement grow throughout Africa and Latin America and so on.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Of course, but all I mean is, you know, to hope for and to have that be an outcome on any given day. I mean, it could change tomorrow, right? You're a dad. For any kid. For any kid. But on any given day to think your children are happy and healthy is the greatest joy you can have. So she's living in a place where she's happy, where she feels belonging, feels a sense of purpose, maybe has work that she likes. I mean.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Wary of labels that stigmatize isolated humiliate, but we should not be as so strident in our view of what the right or the wrong solution to that is, that we don't recognize love when we see it, and we don't seek belonging in community when we can get it. And for our population, as well as for the rest of us, I mean, you say your daughter's happy and healthy. I have five children. That's all I want from my children too. Yes, I have two others.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Because we've seen abuses there as well. Of course. But loneliness also is a plague for our population. Yes. Yes, it is. And, you know, you have great examples of community living, Missouri Cordia, but also the large communities that are growing up around the world, which were founded in France by Jean Vagnier, who's a living saint, where people with and without intellectual disabilities live in community together in homes designed for their shared community life. I mean, these are models that people are attracted to, and we should always be”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “But that's what's missing for so many people in the world today. Forget whether you have a disability or not. I think there are, look, people don't like larger group living facilities like your daughter's in for one reason. They think they're vulnerable to creating abusive relationships between staff and residents and those kinds of things.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Where they should live. I visit communities that are the battle that I've had. Of course, I know. And there's a lot of ideologues in our field that feel very strongly that only one solution is right. There are vulnerabilities to the large congregate care facilities. And we've seen those. And I'm sure you've seen them. But there are vulnerabilities to the lowness is mentioned.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Yeah, I don't think inclusion means any one particular strategy. To me, inclusivity is a way of thinking. So people sometimes would accuse special Olympics of not being an inclusive worldview. People come to these events. There may be only people with intellectual disabilities on the track, but that doesn't mean it's not inclusive. That doesn't mean it's not respectful. That doesn't mean there's not room for difference. I like the term diff ability because it's actually more scientifically correct. Your daughter may have some things in common with other girls or women her age, but there may be other people who she also has things in common with that have very different patterns and ways of thinking. People with Down syndrome are not the same as people with autism. They're not the same as people with Williams syndrome or people with seizure disorders and so on. So different abilities to make the country safe for difference.”

   2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “That for us, so we're very much in the inclusion revolution way of thinking these days. And so we're kind of expanding the universe of opportunity to people all over the world. Join the Inclusion Revolution, pledge to be a person who grows up learning how to include, play unified, learn to live unified. Sometimes people say, well, it sounds like you're getting political. And I said, look, we're not partisan. We're not, you know, we don't have a system of government we support. We don't have a party platform. But if being inclusive is political, then we're political because we will not compromise on that. And we will not allow our athletes to live half a life. And we will not tolerate the injustice and discrimination that Tus frequently persists.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Olympics teams for 10 years. Every year, every winter as athletes, not as volunteers or as coaches or as donors, not as though they were coming just to help, but they came to play. This is a future that I like to think we've got a Title IX type movement in front of us. Maybe we won't get the legislation. The Title IX produced that allowed girls to have equal access to sports that boys, we think that's shocking that it didn't exist, but it did, and it required a federal law to change it. Maybe we don't need a federal law, but I hope someday every high school in America will have a boys team and a girls team and a special Olympics unified sports team. And young kids with Down syndrome who are five foot tall will get a varsity letter for playing basketball and they'll be roasted and toasted at PEP rallies and they'll be written up in school newspapers and they'll be heroes of the school walking down the hall on the bus and in the lunchroom just like any other kid might be. I think spirits can do that.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Talk about that. I mean, I think the main message of our movement today is that we're a movement not just for people with intellectual disabilities, but from them. And the idea of a movement that focuses on inclusion, most of our growing programs are what we call unified. So the team might be a relay team in a swim race or a soccer team or a basketball team. members of the team might have an intellectual challenge and some kind of difference and the other half don't. But they're learning the sport is teammates. They're competing as teammates. They're winning and losing as teammates. And all of a sudden the labels and the stigma starts to yield at a whole new level. And all of a sudden, Special Olympics becomes a movement not for people with intellectual disabilities, but for everybody. And so my wife Linda started a local unified sports basketball team when our kids were young. And all five of our kids played on special.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Yeah, if you're listening, we've got the 2021 winner games, which we're still finalizing a site for and then 23. We'll be looking for, we've got some interest from Russia. For 2023 and Germany, so we'll see how these things land. But we don't cost anything like the Olympics. We don't build stadiums. We don't build museums to ourselves. We don't have billion dollar television contracts and all that kind of stuff. We just bring the best of the human spirit.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Yeah, you can do whatever you want. We can do some good podcasts. I mean, that's an interesting country. They've got a minister of tolerance in that country. They have a minister of happiness in that country. They have a minister of youth in that country. It's not because the country's perfect, but the country is on an agenda, focused on an agenda of transforming itself into a place where an ancient religious tradition, Islam, an ancient political culture that comes from the desert there can become a modern contemporary tolerant, open democracy. I mean, it's not there. No one there would say that, but it's a fascinating.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “They've been judged the most harshly, and they tend to be the least judgmental people in return. And that's true, again, in every country. So, you know, today, David, the movement is cradled to grave. We start at two, you know, six months to two years old with programs that support early childhood development. We continue through schools and all the way through the life cycle. We have programs that empower our athletes as self-advocates. We have health programs I mentioned earlier. And these are programs that are growing all over the world. Our next World Games will be in the heart of the Arab world and the United Arab Emirates where there's never been an Olympic event of any kind.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “The sense of purpose, the sense of joy, the sense of lacking in judgment around people, just the chance to be free for even if it's for an hour or two, of all that dualistic, negative, stereotyping, judgment.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Well, I think people say, how did it grow? It grew because the idea is irrefutably resonant in the hearts and souls of human beings no matter where they grow up or where they live. There's something about a special Olympics invitation that says I've got something extraordinary for you. And you may be a volunteer or a coach. You may be a sponsor. You know, everybody thinks they're giving to the athlete, but almost There's not a single volunteer I've ever met who doesn't say, oh my God, what I got back.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “And let them play that the city would see them, and the mayor would welcome them and the unions would applaud them and the powers that be might say to each other, let's change the city. And that's exactly what happened in 1960.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Do. Let's remember the primary way in which human beings learn is through play From infancy onward. And Anne and my mom both had this common conviction that in play we could do a lot more than score goals on a soccer field. We could learn about one another. We could transform the way we think and feel. Get out of our heads and all the ways in which we're judging what's your syndrome, what's my syndrome. No, no. On the field, you're a striker. You're a goalkeeper. You're a point guard. You're a breaststroke swimmer, whatever you are, you get a new identity. Anne knew this. You know, she knew that if she could get those kids out from behind those shadows.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “On the Supreme Court here who Well, I mean, Anne is an absolute hero of our movement and a hero of the larger disability rights movement. She got hired on a grant that my mom gave the city of Chicago because the park district had no adaptive physical education and no programs for kids with special needs. So my mom Kennedy Foundation, the small foundation that she was leading, gave a grant and they hired, went out to look for a physical education person who could work for the summer and work with kids with special needs. And Anne was hired. So the link between the two of them goes back really to the beginning of Anne's career. And Anne from everything I can tell just had the same kind of fierce determination. She'd not gone doors. She'd go down to the big shots in the Chicago Park district and union halls and so on and say, I've got an event. We need you. And people would ridicule her and say, that's outrageous. How could you put those kids on display? This is embarrassing. This is shameful. And she just saw what sports and play could do.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Senator Hatch was fond of saying that if ever he wanted something from my uncle, Senator Kennedy, he would just call my mother because he knew that my uncle Ted could never say no to my mother.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “I mean, you know, the mayor daly, the city was tense, a race, violence, poverty, the war in Vietnam. I mean, these were things that were toxic at the time. Dr. King and my Uncle Bobby, both having been murdered within the last previous few weeks. I mean, most people would say, hey, let's put this off, not her. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to change the world for people with intellectual disabilities, and she was determined. She just saw it from within. And you know, when people see things from within, it's a different kind of mission. You know, it's, you can almost detect it in folks. They're like, oh, when that person walks in the room and they know what they want and they're not negotiating, they're just, as you might want to say, pile driving, your job is to either get out of the way or help. And my mother inspired people to help. Some people got out of the way. I mean, people would often say that, you know, even in the Senate, you know.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “She was a force of nature. She was formidable. And she didn't really need much validation for her ideas. She was kind of, she shaped them on her own, and then it was up to the rest of us to try to keep up. Because, I mean, even the first games here in Chicago in 1968, just six weeks after my Uncle Bobby lost his life, I mean, who wouldn't have decided to postpone?”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “I mean, that's what my mother was not a parent. But she was a sibling and she saw her own mother with that heartbreak and she saw her own sister with that. And I think it was some combination of those things and she just got that one phone call that were too many. And she said, hell with it, you can't bring your child to my house. We're going to have a summer camp right here. You can't get your child anywhere else. Come to my house starting next week. And I don't think she had a clue where that was going to end up. But I think she had the fierce determination to overturn that horrible shame and loneliness experience because she knew it was unfair. She knew it was unjust. It just wasn't right. You know, it's not like circumstances provided for these things and you just had to live with it. No, she didn't see it that way. She said, this is wrong.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “I mean, I just was with one of the volunteers who was 16 at the time of the camps driver was started in 1962. She's still around, has wonderful pictures of those days. I mean, you know, my mother basically had one too many calls from a mother of a child with an intellectual disability who said there's nothing from my kid.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “And so she literally put her on airplanes and literally brought her to the dinner table and literally took her into the swimming pool and literally made us walk with her and give her, you know, spend time with her in the living room and so on. In order to confront all that pain with her own determination to change it”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Well, my mother did, I mean, Rosemary was a constant guest in our house. She'd come two, three, four times a year for a week or ten days. Let's stay with us with a nun, and my mother would go back out to Wisconsin. So we grew up with Rosemary, probably the most common visitor to our house more than any other aunt or uncle. So, you know, my mom, I think particularly after the election of President Kennedy, saw her opening to sort of pull Rosemary back, you know, almost from the dead, I would almost say, you know, that she had been in some ways lost to the family, but my mother was determined to resurrect her.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “What all her Rosemary's brothers and sisters did with the rest of their lives, the commitment to disability rights and the ADA, the commitment to 94-142 and inclusive education, the work of Special Olympics to transform hearts and minds all over the world, the tireless efforts of my grandmother to visit institutions and vocate rehab centers and places like Misery Cordia here and to support financially all this work, it's clear to me that their love of Rosemary never diminished, but it was in some ways I think changed by her.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Well, I have a hard time understanding it too, honestly. But I think the best sense I have of it is that he was so deeply ashamed of himself. And so deeply ashamed of what had happened that he couldn't bear the pain in all likelihood. That's my only guess. Was there a calculating political? People want to attribute all kinds of malicious things to my grandfather. Obviously, they have the right to say whatever they want. But I think when you look at...”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “For a short time, but then to the nuns in Wisconsin, where I just visited St. Coletta's, yes, to St. Coletta's to the Sisters of St. Francis, where my grandfather built her a house there, which I just visited a few weeks ago. It's a beautiful place. She had a beautiful life like every young person in some ways. rebuilt her life there after leaving home. You know, it's a heartbreaking story in some ways, David, but in other ways, it's a story of its time. And it's a story where I would say, at least for those first 20 plus years,”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “So, in her early 20s, she was given a prefrontal lobotomy, which caused her to lose her speech and a lot of her mobility for the rest of her life. And significantly made her more challenged than she had been beforehand. So it's a heartbreaking story. I mean, it's a terrifying story.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Yeah, well, I mean, it was a tough time, so my grandfather, who was a fix-it kind of a guy, you know, he was a take no prisoners, very successful businessman of cutthroat operator and a very active political actor and so on and so forth in the 1920s and 30s in the Roosevelt administration and others. He wanted to fix his daughter. He wanted a cure. He wanted to get things done. He wanted to make life better. So he was all about getting the solution. So at one point he was advised by doctors by giving her an operation on her brain that maybe they could correct everything. This was after dozens of dozens of other strategies, medications and therapies and so on and so forth.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “So every day they woke up and saw that there was no school for their sister. And every day they were told by their mother, if you're going out to play, touch football or go sailing, you include your sister. So these powerful words include your sister, I think resonated through the almost the DNA of that generation. And I think there's good enough evidence, at least from my point of view, that President Kennedy and my mother for sure felt not just the anger that came from seeing their sister treated unjustly by the culture, but also the intense joy they got from being with her. And so, you know, I think the first moment in which the president might have thought that it was better to give than to get was probably sitting on a sailboat with their sister Rosemary, having been told to take her sailing and having learned that he could find his best self by giving himself a little bit to someone who needed.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “Who don't know tell her story. So, my aunt Rosemary was born with an intellectual disability in the early part of the 20th century, 1921, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly. This was an era when people with intellectual disabilities were routinely institutionalized, sterilized against their will, allowed to die in neonatal wards, and so on. So it was a very draconian, very harsh period. Eugenics was capturing the public attention in very open and explicit ways. In that context, nine children, my grandparents had, and they decided to keep their daughter at home. There was no school for her, no doctor for her, no therapeutic program for her, but they kept her at home. So there they grew up. Jack and Joe and Bobby and Teddy and Gene and Pat and Eunice and Kathleen all grew up with Rosemary.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “Well, I mean, I am of the, I think I'm the only one in my family who might say this, but I believe that the inspiration for President Kennedy's ask not for my Uncle Bobby Kennedy's persistent commitment to people living.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “Table, they are coming into the mainstream, their voices, even if they don't speak, are being heard and listened to by their peers and their teachers. It's a beautiful transformation. Our politicians... Is the administration on top of it? I would say it's hard to believe that that's the case.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “Well, I mean, it's hard to know, honestly. I mean, in our work in Special Olympics, we try to promote social inclusion in schools. The administration's budget has eliminated the limited tiny little bits of federal funding we get every year, but the Congress, Republican-controlled Congress, restores it and grows it and believes in it. I meet with Republican members of Congress all the time. They're full-throated supporters of the idea of making social inclusion a standard of American education. So is that, I don't know, the Secretary of Education has been a supporter of the Special Olympics movement. So I'm like everybody else. It depends on what you listen to on any given day. Is the work moving forward? Yes, it's moving forward in very important, I think, ways. We are listening to the margins in schools now, people who have sat in the short bus and sat in the special ed wing and sat alone at the lunch.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Well, it's the only path I know, honestly. I mean, it's, I mean, I would love if the question is what I like to have the ideas that emerge from the athletes of Special Olympics and their unified partners be paid attention to in public discourse? Yes. But I like to have schools become places where we educate the head and the heart, which is my professional work. Yes, what I like to see inclusive healthcare as we're working on in Special Olympics through our work with the Galasana Foundation and others around the world to end discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities and healthcare systems, all disabilities actually. Yes. Do I find myself sometimes constrained by people dismissing me or these messages as just the message of a cause or a charity or thank you very much? I'll give you 20 bucks and I'll leave me alone. That drives me nuts. So I'd like to have our voices more heard in the public discourse. But how to do that? I'm like everybody else.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “I think there's a healthy skepticism, and I think we need fresh eyes, fresh ideas. So look, I have cousins that have gone into elective office. I have brothers who have sought elective office, obviously uncles, and I admire it. It's super important. Nothing could be more clear now how important elective office is and how we need good people. But I just chose a different path.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “We're powerful, we're important, we're right. I grew up thinking that giving myself to the Democratic Party was giving myself to a cause larger than myself. I don't think there's a 15-year-old in America. I mean, maybe there are, you probably know them, but I don't think there's many who at 15 would approach either political party. I don't mean there's.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “Yeah, so I think we've got to get better people in, but I think we got to get when the system is as gerrymandered as it is when it's so polarized, when the congressional districts are so pushing to the extremes of both parties, when the leadership in Congress and so on is so aggressive about using every possible issue as a weapon against the other guy, we need some kind of a breakdown that will allow us to rebuild. I think we're hitting the end of the potential of the system as we know it right now. I mean, we see it right in front of our eyes. The system dissembling every single day. We don't know who the president is loyal to. We don't know who Congress is loyal to. We don't know who the Democrats, what they believe in, what Republicans believe in. We're watching the dissolution of politics as I grew up thinking of it. I grew up with the party lever. I grew up thinking Democratic values were considered.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “I think it's a great question. I don't know the answer to it other than I think we need almost every system in the country has.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “You know, I really never thought a political office was for me. I thought I wouldn't be good at it. I thought I'd be much better at doing what I'm doing. And I think I was right. I think this is the right work for me. I think it's important. I think for me, it's fulfilling. I feel like I have a front row seat of the best of humanity and I like it. I don't like the divisiveness. I don't like the vicious, mean-spirited nature that politics has adopted across the country. I don't think it's healthy. It doesn't make people happy. It doesn't make people good. It makes people angry, scared, anxious, depressed.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “The school system because I thought I could teach more and better, honestly, through the Special Olympics movement. I thought I could teach the same lessons I was trying to teach in classrooms through the experiences of unlocking the gifts and potential of people with intellectual differences and allowing them to become in effect teachers on their own of their own gifts, of their own message. And I saw that as a very, you know, it's the same lesson I was trying to teach in a classroom. I thought I could teach through these playing fields. And they have more than fulfilled the bill.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “It's the only place where almost every American family has an interaction with. It's 13 years in the life of the average child. It's 10 months a year, some plus hours a day. I thought to myself, if you want to try to make a difference, if you want to work on the peace and justice and equality issues that my parents and their generation had been talking about in the day-to-day, it seemed to me that the school is the place to go. And I still believe that teachers are American patriots. I still believe that teachers are the most profound people who can affect the life of a community outside, of course, parents. I still believe that schools have an enormous capacity to build.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “She's so central to Well, I didn't leave. I just changed job descriptions a little bit, but I didn't leave. I chose teaching, I think, because I'd grown up around people talking about making a difference, policy, big ideas, speeches, grand forums. But I wanted something a little bit more hand to hand. I wanted to look at child in the eye and see if I could make a difference if I could tilt my little tiny piece of the arc of history towards goodness, towards justice, towards opportunity, towards equality. I wanted to get underneath the skin of the rhetoric I'd grown up listening to and try to make a difference in a more personal, at a more personal level. So for me, the most powerful institution in the country is the school.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Yeah, yeah. I think President Obama did inspire, particularly during the campaign, that same ideal, that, you know, I could go into this work of building up the country and I will be happier. I will find meaning in my life. I will see the purpose, not just in my country in a nationalistic or in an arrogant way, but in my country as an ideal that the whole world could play some part in. Does it sound jingoistic or arrogant? Maybe it does to some, but to others it sounds like an invitation to find your best self.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Service, there's no. He wasn't encouraging an ethic of service, but he encouraged an ethic of service that didn't feel like a duty or a guilt trip or a burden. I mean, people came to Washington after his election because they were so excited, right? I mean, they were like.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “In New York City. Did you give him a line or did you give him a strategic shift that made the difference in Chicago? I was not a strategist in that. I'm sure you are. I'm sure you are.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “Lived this life for decades, and if not centuries past. But no one, again, it's not a headline story. It's a slow burn story. It's the slow transformation of the culture, the country, our hearts and minds, but it's a very, very good story, in my view at least. So what President Kennedy invited people to do in 1960 or 59, maybe you saw him during the campaign? 60, it was 12 years.”

    2018-07-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 260 - Tim Shriver · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source