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

host, David Axelrod.

She's been a ubiquitous presence on the airwaves for more than a generation, a pioneering

woman in broadcast journalism and a leading voice on American diplomacy after nearly a

quarter century as NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent.

I sat down with Andrea Mitchell this week at the Baker Institute in Houston to talk about

her career in journalism and the current state of affairs in Washington.

Andrea Mitchell, it's so good to see you.

It's great to be with you, David.

So getting ready for our conversation, I learned a lot about you.

One is that we are both natives of New York, indeed.

City.

And your family, deep roots in Judaism.

So tell me, so my guess is Mitchell wasn't really the original family name.

We don't really know what it was.

We know that it was Mitchell back in the day, but we don't know.

When did your family come from?

Where did they come from?

Yeah, my family came from my father's family came from London, but we don't know before

that.

So there was, that name was metric and it was eventually changed.

And my mother's family, Rubenstein, came from what they thought was Russia.

...