Ep. 434 — Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the last year was full of unexpected challenges and opportunities. She has led her city through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and when summer social justice protests in Atlanta turned violent, Bottoms gave an impromptu press conference imploring people to go home. Mayor Bottoms spoke to David the day after a string of shootings in the Atlanta area that left eight dead. The two talked about how her father’s time in prison shaped her and her family’s life, how her faith has guided her political career, enacting police reform while pushing back on an uptick in crime, and why she believes “outrageous” voting legislation proposed by Georgia Republicans won’t stop the state from voting blue.

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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.
0:19.0	Mayor Kisha lands bottoms of Atlanta, rose to national prominence during the trials of the past year.
0:24.0	COVID-19 police involved shootings and the movement for social justice.
0:29.0	She's been a frequent presence on national TV and was a finalist on Joe Biden's list of potential vice presidential candidates.
0:36.0	I sat down with Mayor today as Atlanta was reeling from a mass shooting and that's where our conversation began.
0:43.0	Music
0:49.0	Mayor Kisha lands bottoms. It's so good to meet you, to be with you.
0:55.0	I feel like a lot of Americans like I somehow know you because we've seen so much of you over the last few years but welcome. It's good to be with you.
1:05.0	Oh, well, thank you for having me and the feeling is mutual. I saw you quite a bit from a distance during the campaign season.
1:13.0	Yes. I'm particularly happy that you had time to know that it's been a very busy day for you.
1:19.0	And before I so I'm interested in your story, which is a remarkable story. And I want to talk mostly about that.
1:26.0	But something happened last night in Atlanta and in suburbs outside of Atlanta that we should just touch on and that is these horrific killings and these massage parlors.
1:38.0	The first thing that people concluded mayor because six of the people who were killed were Asian women, Asian victims.
1:50.0	That this was part of this string of hate crimes that we've seen across the country aimed at Asian Americans.
1:58.0	I saw your briefing earlier today. That's not exactly clear cut here. Is it?
2:03.0	It's not, but also keeping in mind that we're listening to a confess murderer.
2:10.0	So we, you know, have to take it all with a grain of salt. But it we can't ignore the fact that there were Asian women who were seem to have been targeted at these Asian massage parlors.
2:23.0	There were two shootings, two separate locations in Atlanta and then one outside of Atlanta in Woodstock.
2:32.0	And if there's a silver silver lining in all of this, he was caught on his way to Florida. So he intended to do even more harm.
2:42.0	So it's, it's just been a very, very dark day in our city and still so many things that we don't have the answers to this man clearly was a very sick man.
2:55.0	My understanding is that he had just purchased the weapon that he used. So there are going to be a lot of questions to be asked to verify and make sure the correct background checks were done and the whole nine.
	...

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