YouSaid · the spoken record

Tony Fabrizio

lines on the record: 77
first: 2022-03-31
most recent: 2022-03-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Show them tied nationally or even him up a point or so. The fact of the matter is, being tied nationally, we did an analysis in 20 and in 16 that showed that we could lose the popular vote by as much as four points so long as we won. You know what I'm saying in key states. Given New York and California their votes in Illinois, you know.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He could get a little bit higher, but at the end of the day, you know, when I see public polls that show them tied nationally or trying to, right?”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think the one thing I've learned is you're not going to find 10 people in America that don't have an opinion of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, you either like him or you hate him. Donald Trump is baked in the cake, but I do think that the Democrats will try to use him as a foil in the 2022 elections, much like they used them in 18. And I think they're going to meet with much different results because there is a difference between the White House. You know the difference. You witness two midterms with that.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If he had asked me, I would have told him, Don't do it. Because what's happening now on the Hunter Biden stuff is little by little, it is getting into the mainstream. You know what I'm saying? By you doing this, one, you create a controversy and ask somebody who everybody hates to do this. And two, you only muddy up whatever comes out. Why would you do that?”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He is interesting. I don't know that he's trying to emulate Trump. As much as he's trying to capture the attention of the Trump base while still creating distance. Just go down the list of things where you would expect a Trump loyalist to talk about. I mean, things that are kind of like touchstones, and he doesn't talk about them. Even Russia, he said nothing on the war. He said nothing on anything. He finds these narrow areas where he appeals to Trump people, but in the same token, he studiously avoids the other controversial things that would round out a Trump lawless.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah yes, having worked for him, I believe that of all of them, he's the one most likely to run against Trump, regardless of whether Trump runs or not.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And not by Joe Walsh or something like that. I mean, I think it is more than likely that he gets several challengers that would be considered real challengers. Even people that may have worked for him, even though they say now they won't run, I mean, their actions are completely tell it in what they're doing. I mean, Ted Cruz is hiring people in Iowa. I mean, Mike Pompeo is going everywhere you can imagine going. Nikki Haley is out there handing out money and endorsing candidates in races. I mean, all of these people, you know what I'm saying?”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have told him that, look, you made your point. There are a whole host of other issues that need to be talked about. And Biden is providing more than ample opportunity to talk about other issues. And I think you should be talking about them. And, you know, he believes that the election issue is still a viable issue to help move the ball down the field for him. That's one of those times where he just doesn't listen and he does what he wants.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I honestly don't know. Do you know He and I have had conversation about the election. And like I said, my opinion on the election, we have never had a conversation about January 6th. In fact, I've never heard him in a private setting that I've been in with him talk about January 6th. He talks only about the election.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely. And I was honestly, I was in a state of shock. I was in a state of shock watching it. It was like, like I said, it was surreal. And I couldn't believe that they were getting into the capital that quickly.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To me, they were surreal Couldn't believe they were happening. I was watching them on TV and I couldn't believe what was happening and My first thought wasn't who are these people? And my second thought was how the hell are they getting into the capital so easily? Because I know anytime I've gone to the capital and I'm sure anytime you've got to the capital, you can't get into the capital that easy.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I've told him that. And I have been yelled at several times repeatedly for it. Listen, the people in Trump world, you know, I have my fans and I have my detractors. The one thing that my detractors cannot say is that I don't tell them what I think and that I don't tell them the truth. In fact, you know, I would get yelled at for being too negative. But you know, when you don't have good numbers, it's tough to be positive. Negative numbers. You know that. My job is to report the findings, not dress them up, to please them.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Well, in the beginning, no. The first couple of weeks they were okay. Then when it started to be grievance central, it turned people. And people were watching it and actually his job approval numbers during the first couple of weeks were good. It was when it turned into this, you know, the screed on, you know, this one and that one and the other one. And people felt they weren't getting information out of them anymore that it turned sour. It just turned sour.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had several heated discussions about COVID. And one of the things is, and this was so fascinating, we would ask his overall job approval about COVID and his overall job approval was underwater, depends, 14, 16, 17, 18 points, whatever. But then we'd ask individual like nuggets, like getting PPE supplies, you know, making sure promoting and making sure that pharmaceutical companies have the money they need to do a vaccine or getting aid to hospitals and states and stuff like that. And all of those individual job approvals were double digits higher than his overall job approved. And so it became clear that it was At least as much about how he approached it as what he was doing.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, even before Memorial Day, they can't take it from them. But they were afraid of Bloomberg and his money, and it was a very New York-centric thing. And the Bayette stuff was just, you know, get Appo. Somebody had said that there were dirty dealings and where do you get the Appo from? You know what I'm saying?”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh no, but by that point they thought that Biden was, the funny thing is, is that they were actually just as worried about Bloomberg. And that was a totally New York centric thing. I mean, literally, I remember having a conversation with him where he believed that they could steal the nomination from Biden and give it to somebody else. And I was like, they can't do it. The delegates, the way the delegates work, I literally wrote an entire memo for them laying it out that by the time Memorial Day comes, it's over. They cannot take this from him.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, the thing is that Americans have moved so far past that. It's not a stigma. I don't think it's a big stigma anymore, anywhere. In fact, I hardly, I mean, other than some right-wing blogs where they talk about the hope of overturning the marriage amendment. I mean, who talks about it? I mean, nobody talks about it.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Because I thought Buddhagh, and I told this to Trump, I thought he represented generational change. And I thought he would be more difficult again. He wasn't of Washington. You know what I'm saying? He could easily be the change agent. We were the incumbent only against somebody like Biden, who had been at Washington so long could you still be the outsider, right? I mean, really. The race ever got to that never got to that. But I thought Buddhaj, given his military service, giving his status as being an outside Washington person, his generational appeal.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I would give the memos to him and Gates like, you know, like every other campaign. Where they went after that, by the way, I don't even know who we shared them with inside the campaign, to be honest.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I knew we called him K I knew him as Paul's guy on the ground. One of the deals I had with Paul in doing it was I didn't have to go. I'd traveling all the way, yes. And so I would deal with, you know, KK would be the guy that if you needed stuff on the ground, you know, like dealing with Other than that, getting information like election results or stuff like that, he'd get stuff like that.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Band of swing states that we just weren't going to win, like Nevada. And we had a better shot at actually trying to break the blue wall in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Right.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will say this about him. He put his finger on things very quickly. And he definitely knows the people he's talking to, you know, his base. He knows that. It depends. If he respects you, if you earn his respect, he is much less likely to be combative. You know, he'll listen. He may not agree. He'll disagree with you, but he's more likely to listen. I'm in the place with him where he will actually listen. He may not agree and I'll walk out and do something else. You know what I'm saying? But at least listen. He doesn't like wave his hand and say, yeah, I don't want to hear from you anymore. But what happened at the end of 16. Was I working with at the time Brad Parscal, who eventually became the 20 campaign manager. Several other people, and it became clear to me that we were never, that there were states in the traditional”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All of that kind of became for him a fortuitous event because it kind of crystallized the change thing for him going into the election.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it all surveys, you know, we started asking a question about, you know, whether or not they wanted a candidate that would take the country in a different direction or continue the policies of Barack Obama. And to be honest with you, the first few times we asked it, we got a segment of Democrats that said they wanted to go in a new direction. And we quickly realized that they were more liberal or progressive Democrats that felt that Obama hadn't gone far enough. So we had to reconstruct the question. But there was always this group of voters in every key state that wanted a change of direction and they hated both Trump and Clinton. But the fact of the matter was they wanted a change. And once Trump started focusing on that at the end of the campaign, talking about draining the swamp and things like that and the mail stuff came up, the email stuff about her came up.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. What I thought about him was I always thought that Hillary Clinton was in many respects the weakest Democrat that could be put up for the reason that the one thing Hillary Clinton could never be was change. She could never be a change agent.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, actually, there was another incident that happened in 2014 with the governor's race in Florida, where he was calling me to find out how Rick Scott was doing. And Trump repeats polling. He loves to repeat polling numbers. So he was calling me to find out if Scott was doing it. And I called the Scott folks. And I'm like, look, Trump is calling. Are you guys trying to get money at him? They're like, yeah. They're like, don't call him back. Don't tell him anything. Because at the time Scott was not doing so well. So he remembered.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back to 1976 was an expert on this. Expert. And so he said, no, I really need you. And I said, Trump will never go for it. And he said, I already talked to him about it. He said, after he finished cursing about you, he said he settled down and he was fine.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, must have been in March. I get a phone call from them out of the blue. Keep this to yourself, but I'm going to go, looks like I'm going to take over Donald's campaign. I need you to come with me. And I was like, what? What? And it made sense because while Trump was winning primaries, it was very clear they had no idea how the delegate system worked or how they could get out maneuvered.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't think he could. I didn't think it was serious about it. I didn't think he'd do what it took to get elected, to be honest with you. I didn't think he'd file a financial disclosures. I didn't think he'd take the campaigning. I couldn't imagine him doing a rally. You know what I'm saying at that time? Just all of these things from the Trump I knew to what he did was...”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did work for his casino companies, his development companies on and off. I did work when he was thinking about running as the Reform Party candidate in 2000, in 98, 99. I did some work for him. So it wasn't a surprise that this was going to happen, but I honestly what happened in 2011 was... I had an opportunity to talk to several other candidates and I honestly didn't think that Trump was going to run at the end of the day. And so I didn't want to get used. You know what I'm saying as a prop and then not have him run and be taken off the playing field, if you understand what I'm saying?”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And voters get to choose who they want and who they don't want. They get to choose in primaries. They get to choose in general elections. And voters get what they choose. And it's not my job to make the decision for voters. It's my job. It's our job as political professionals to present our candidates in the best light possible on the issues that hopefully can move voters in our direction. If voters didn't like Donald Trump, they wouldn't have elected him. That is just that simple. And you know what? In 2020, it went the opposite way, right? So voters got their chance. They got their choice. And if we're going to be, I think if we're going to be kind of the moral police, if people are expecting us to be the moral police, I think they're expecting a lot from our professional.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He stood up in the audience and he said, Tony, I've known you for years. He said, How do you justify working for Donald Trump? How did you justify that in your mind? And I looked at him, and I was actually shocked by the question from, you know, a fellow pollster. And I said to him, you know, Mark, I said, we have lectures”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I didn't view it as stopping me from living my life as a gay man because it wasn't taking away something that I wanted at that point in time. It's the only way I could explain it.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now you are. Yeah. Now I am. And at the time, if I had been, or I wanted to be, maybe I would have looked at it differently.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the kind. Was marriage fundamental to That's the key. That really is the key. And at the time, to be honest with you, I could never see myself getting remarried again I just can never see myself getting remarried again”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much attention as the others may, who it just happens to be that we're gay and we don't, you know, we're not as, I don't want to use the word militant, but we're not as activists about it as other people are. Did it disturb me about the marriage stuff? Yes. And I worked against it. Was I going to leave the Republican Party over it? No, I was not.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know you are. Well, thank you for that. But it doesn't matter now. And in fact, I particularly enjoy when evangelical leaders have to sit down and cross for me at the table and talk about politics. You know, one of the things that I've learned is, and I live in Fort Lauderdale, and as you know, Fort Lauderdale has a very large gay community. And I'm married. I have a husband. And one of the things I learned in this process is gay is what I happen to be, not what I am. People approach it two different ways. There are in my community a lot of people who, because they are gay, are very down the line about everything. It is to be gay. And there are people who, like me in the gay community, although we don't get as”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know if you remember this, but Andrew Breitbart and a couple other people resigned from the log cabin board because they outed me and said, this is a group that supposedly protects. And then, you know, you went and did this.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He and Anita Perry were, we don't, you know, doesn't matter to us if you're gay or not. And everybody on the campaign was fine. The thing that was most difficult was, and to some degree, thankfully, social media didn't exist to the extent that it exists now, was, you know, the brickbats on, you know, online and stuff like that. And by the way,”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One is when there was a whole discourse that was written about that ad, when they wanted, when the ad was suggested, I was like, this is crazy. This ad, this is why are we doing it? And, you know, in campaigns, you get. Campaigns and it turned out the ad didn't do anything that it was expected to do. The only outcome of it was I get out it and got outed by Basically, the log cabin Republicans, who, by the way, I was the only person that stood up and helped them in 2004 when they were trying to stop the federal marriage amendment and did polling work for them. So I thought that was kind of odd.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't hide it. My kids knew it. Oh, my kids, yeah, my kids knew it. I didn't hide it if people asked me. I just didn't go around telling people. And by the way, I had done several pro marriage amendments, campaigns against anti-marriage amendments. I had done work for several gay groups.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you see, when I work for Arthur? We never talked about it. It was always, we just never talked about. It wasn't until I came out to him and he almost, I'll never forget, I told him we were at dinner at, what's that steakhouse right off the capitol? I can't think of it. Oh, Charlie Palmer's. And I having dinner, and I told him and I thought he was going to fall off his chair. He was like, what? Are you serious? Didn't want to believe him. So it was a very difficult period. By the time the Rick Perry thing had happened, I had already, you know, my wife and I were already separated and divorced and people in my personal life all knew it. My employees knew it.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“17 years. And so it was, I literally, it was a combination of repression and just like locking it away once it finally started to come to the fore and just focused on building my business and my career.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I didn't. I didn't. And I work, well, I could say I wish I did, but then I wouldn't have had my three children and I wouldn't have my grandchildren and I wouldn't end up.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, just go back to where I said I was raised. And in the neighborhood I said I was raised. There weren't a whole lot of gay people. And there were no gay role models. They just, you know what I'm saying? It was nobody. I mean, it was. And, you know, so.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it had been a white guy or a Latino guy who looked like a craze maniac and had done what he had done, we would have used both of them. I mean, if it had been the Boston Strangler, Albert de Salvo, I think it probably wouldn't have generated the media outrage, but it still would have communicated the same message. And that was Michael Dukakis was too liberal. And that was the point of the ad. The point of the ad was Michael Dukakis didn't share your values. And by the way, that ad led to ultimately attacks on Dukakis about the American flag. You know what I'm saying? That had nothing to do with race at all, the American flag. It had to do with the fact that Michael DuCakis was out of step.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but the assumption was that we thought we were ever going to have enough money to reach all of those people, and we never thought it. We wanted to put it into, when we started it, we thought if we could start the conversation, then have the Bush people pick it up and other people pick it up, that would be great. We never imagined that we'd be the conversation because we knew we'd never have enough money to be the conversation. But it just kind of snowballed on its own. No, we never imagined that we're going to get that much press out of it. Never, ever.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get white flag. It was white flight. There was no question about it. We knew that the media would pay attention to it. We didn't imagine that the media would pay as much attention to it as it did.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ever imagined that earned media that it would generate and it just became this, I mean, I think we spent maybe a million dollars on cable TV nationally, but it received probably hundreds of millions of dollars in free ad time and free air time on the news media. But we knew it would be controversial.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We talked about this stuff because there were several, a number of articles written about Dukakis' record. And we knew that from the polling that we had seen, that the key was we had to push Dukakis to the left. If you push Ducus to the left, it opened up voters to Bush. And the thing that stood out was the Woolly Horton example of, you know, the furloughs. And it was the most egregious of the furloughs that had been granted. because he did go and like on a murder and rape spree after he got furloughed. We literally paid the networks, the cable networks in advance for like two or three weeks because knowing that they're never going to give you the money back. And we put the ad up and even though everybody was calling for it to be taken down, the truth of the matter is the networks didn't want to give us the money back because they didn't want to forfeit the money and they kept it on the air.”
2022-03-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 483 — Tony Fabrizio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source