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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

On a late September morning in 2015, I met Senator Bernie Sanders at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago

for the ride to an appearance he would make at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

We'd arranged to record the first ever episode of the Axe Files on that ride, which we did,

but only after some negotiation to get the progressive line to reluctantly agree to board the Mercedes RV we'd rented for the occasion.

Next week we'll be airing the 500th episode of the Axe Files.

Thank you to all you listeners who've joined me on that journey.

Now to set the stage for the 500th, we wanted to take a trip down memory lane to episode number one.

So here's that conversation with Bernie Sanders.

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Let me set the stage here where we're in a van, hurling toward the University of Chicago for an event at the Rockefeller Chapel in Edifice

that was built as a monument to the greatest monopolis.

One of the icons of the Gilded Age, the last Gilded Age, John D. Rockefeller, and we're going there with Senator Bernie Sanders,

the bane of the billionaires, the hot poker up the wazoo's of the plutocrats.

Senator, I hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable appearing in Rockefeller Chapel.

No, not at all. I went to the University of Chicago and I've just left here. That is exactly the building in which I brought you.

That's where the whole network is.

I know the building well.

Although this time I have fears of a phantom of the opera type thing where the organ starts playing and we hear the ghost of Rockefeller.

If we do, we'll get you out of the building quickly.

Talk to me about the University of Chicago.

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