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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axfiles with

your host, David Axelrod.

Any great broadcast journalist brings two things to their work, a healthy skepticism about

people in positions of power and compassion and empathy for people in distress.

Aaron Burnett displays both in her nightly show on CNN and her reporting from war-torn

corners of the world as she just displayed again through her work from Ukraine.

She also has an interesting backstory as you can hear in this conversation we recorded earlier

this week.

Aaron Burnett, it's great to see you back here in the US after spending time in Ukraine,

how's your head after that experience?

I have to say it was really, you know, of all the places I've been in, you know, stories

I've covered.

I've never been in a war zone before it was a war zone and seen it transform.

You know, when you go to Afghanistan or you go to Iraq, those places were, you know,

incredibly challenged places.

I was in Ukraine and it was under a lot of stress and fatigue, but it was a normal place,

right?

People going out to pizza, people going out to bars, people were, and then you were

awoken by missiles landing and everything just changed and I've never experienced anything

like that.

You know, literally being in schools, we were at a school, David, and you know, there's

...