Ep. 399 — Tina Tchen

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2020

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tina Tchen, CEO and President of TIME'S UP, didn’t set out to become a champion for women’s rights. But in 1978 she fell into a job in Springfield, Illinois, which happened to be at the center of the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. Her involvement in the movement helped set the foundation for a long career in law and public service. Tchen joined David to talk about progressive politics, her time as chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, how the Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women, and how to make the most of this pivotal moment as the country faces a reckoning on race, sexism and treatment of essential workers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Music
0:06.0	And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.
0:15.0	Music
0:19.0	You may know Tina Chen as the CEO of Times Up, the organization that sprung from the Me Too movement and has become in just a few short years, a major force against sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual discrimination.
0:33.0	You may know her as Michelle Obama's Chief of Staff during the White House years, spearheading a whole array of programs for the first lady.
0:41.0	I've known Tina Chen for decades as a powerhouse lawyer and as a progressive activist in Chicago.
0:47.0	I sat down with her last week days before Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris as his candidate for Vice President to talk about the battle for gender equity that Tina Chen has helped lead for so long.
0:58.0	Here's that conversation.
1:05.0	Tina Chen, my old friend, it's great to see you. You're hanging out in Chicago.
1:11.0	I am. I am.
1:13.0	Have you fared during this siege?
1:17.0	Well, you know, we've been lucky. As you know, we live in a city with a good mayor and a good governor.
1:25.0	So, you know, they're doing the right thing.
1:27.0	Political advertising right at the beginning.
1:29.0	Well, I just have to say I think the mayor's in the governor's who are doing the right thing in this quarantine need a little love and positive reinforcement.
1:37.0	So, you know, I feel good. You know, when I travel, you know, like I've got a place over in Beverly shores in Indiana and I go to Indiana and all of a sudden people aren't wearing masks.
1:46.0	You know, it's a little under make so I appreciate, you know, what's happening in Chicago.
1:51.0	I've my grown up daughter with me, so I'm not alone.
1:54.0	And, you know, so, you know, we're some of the lucky ones.
1:57.0	Yeah, I think about that all the time because it gets, you know, the isolation is, it gets strange. I mean, I've been with my wonderful wife Susan, who you know, and my family off off and on.
2:12.0	And that's been great, but it is strange, you know, to be, to be unable to congregate with people to have the days bleed into each other, days bleed into weekends and all of that stuff. It's not, it's, it's strange.
2:27.0	But to complain about that knowing what people are going through in this country would be an unbelievably obtuse and on feeling thing to do.
	...

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