Ep. 481 — Erin Burnett
The Axe Files with David Axelrod
CNN
4.6 • 7.7K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2022
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CNN anchor Erin Burnett grew up on a farm in a small town in eastern Maryland, but her career has taken her around the world, covering major events from the Arab Spring in Cairo to the Bataclan shooting in Paris. She talked with David about how a letter to a stranger helped her get her start in journalism, her relationship with former President Trump, joining CNN at an unpropitious time, and her recent reporting from Ukraine.
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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 Axfiles with |
| 0:12.5 | your host, David Axelrod. |
| 0:19.0 | Any great broadcast journalist brings two things to their work, a healthy skepticism about |
| 0:23.6 | people in positions of power and compassion and empathy for people in distress. |
| 0:29.1 | Aaron Burnett displays both in her nightly show on CNN and her reporting from war-torn |
| 0:34.5 | corners of the world as she just displayed again through her work from Ukraine. |
| 0:39.5 | She also has an interesting backstory as you can hear in this conversation we recorded earlier |
| 0:44.6 | this week. |
| 0:52.4 | Aaron Burnett, it's great to see you back here in the US after spending time in Ukraine, |
| 0:58.8 | how's your head after that experience? |
| 1:01.8 | I have to say it was really, you know, of all the places I've been in, you know, stories |
| 1:09.0 | I've covered. |
| 1:10.0 | I've never been in a war zone before it was a war zone and seen it transform. |
| 1:16.3 | You know, when you go to Afghanistan or you go to Iraq, those places were, you know, |
| 1:21.3 | incredibly challenged places. |
| 1:22.6 | I was in Ukraine and it was under a lot of stress and fatigue, but it was a normal place, |
| 1:29.5 | right? |
| 1:30.5 | People going out to pizza, people going out to bars, people were, and then you were |
| 1:36.0 | awoken by missiles landing and everything just changed and I've never experienced anything |
| 1:42.6 | like that. |
| 1:44.4 | You know, literally being in schools, we were at a school, David, and you know, there's |
... |
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