This is Glenn Thrush. I'm joined today by David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama,

and by his own description, the official keeper of the message for Obama's two presidential victories.

David's new book, Believer, is just out, and it's an account not only of Obama's eventful presidency and his political travails,

but of Axelrod's own 40-year journey as a reporter,

columnist Chicago political operative, father's son, and turkey leg munching patron of Manny's Deli,

where he has been honored, and I know this because I saw this with my own two eyes,

with his own two-top table, complete with a brass black.

David, welcome.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

One of the things I've heard you say a lot, and you've said it a lot to me,

was that you didn't just want to write another Washington read biography, right, that would

occupy a new cycle and create a firestorm.

Right.

And indeed, much of this, much, if not most of this book, is about your non-Obama life.

Right.

So, of course, I'm going to start off by going in exactly the opposite direction.

Well, I'm realistic about these are the hailstorms one has to navigate through to get to the other side.

I'm glad to hear that you're braced.

Let me start off with a little bit of controversy.

In Believer, you write that President Obama willfully kept his support of gay marriage private

at your urging to avoid the political failout from black preachers and others.

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