And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your

host, David Axelrod.

I met Dennis McDonough almost ten years ago during the Barack Obama campaign when he came

on board as a foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama.

And he has been with him ever since, first as Deputy National Security Advisor in the

first term, and then as Chief of Staff for the last four years of the Obama presidency.

Dennis has been involved in all the major decisions of the administration for the last four

years.

And now as the days wind down on the Obama administration, we sat down to talk about

the journey he's taken.

Dennis McDonough, my old friend, thank you for being here, a momentous time in your life

and the life of the country.

We ran into your brother, Kevin, in Chicago one day, and we were talking about you, and

he said, yeah, dude is really, and then I forget what the rest of the sentence was.

But I'm interested in the dude thing, and your family, which is enough for its own football

team, 11 kids back in Minnesota.

But how did the dude thing happen?

Also, my second oldest brother, Billy, when I was born really liked the cartoon, Dudley

Dewwright.

And so he called me Dudley Dewwright when I was first born.

But that quickly turned into dude.

And what's interesting around here is the only people who call me dude are people from

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