Ep. 535 — Sen. Mark Kelly

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2023

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly never planned to go into politics. But in the years after his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, was shot in an assassination attempt, the former astronaut decided to put aside his space suit and run for office. Sen. Kelly joined David to talk about gun violence, moving forward in the wake of Gabby’s injury, immigration and the Arizona border, the debt ceiling, and the importance of believing in science.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files,
0:12.5	with your host, David Axelrod.
0:19.0	It wasn't that long ago that Arizona Senator Mark Kelly saw his future as a husband, a father
0:24.1	in astronaut and Navy officer.
0:26.6	But the tragic assassination attempt in 2011 on his wife Congresswoman Gabby Giffords set
0:32.8	Kelly on a different course.
0:34.5	I spoke with Senator Kelly last week about his journey, his heroic wife, and the many issues
0:39.8	from Ukraine to drought in the southwest, on which he's playing a central role in the
0:44.8	Senate today.
0:54.5	Senator great to see you.
0:56.5	It's been a while.
0:57.9	And it caused me to think about the first time that we met.
1:01.6	And you probably don't remember this, but I do.
1:04.2	Because you weren't a Senator, you weren't a politician.
1:07.3	You were accompanying your wife, Gabby Giffords at a White House reception in 2009, probably
1:15.2	maybe 2010, and you were in your dress Navy uniform, and she proudly introduced you to
1:23.9	me.
1:25.4	And I was thinking back to that because it's so much has changed.
1:29.0	Yeah, in those years.
1:30.0	Yeah, it's been 14 years.
1:33.6	And I was thinking about the fact that at the time that I met you, you were an astronaut.
1:38.1	And she was a star.
	...

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