Ep. 543 — John King

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After seven years as the host of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” John King is stepping away from the anchor desk and returning to his reporter roots, traveling the country to talk to Americans across the political spectrum ahead of the 2024 presidential election. John joined David to talk about his start in journalism at the Associated Press and his move to television, his multiple sclerosis diagnosis and his decision to speak out about the disease, and the challenges of working in the news industry during the time of Trump.

To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

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	Y'all know John King. Many of us are transfixed on election nights when he mixes technology in 37 years of experience as a political reporter
0:27.0	to break down the returns on CNN's Magic Wall. I've spoken with John here before about his life in career, but two things have happened.
0:35.0	He decided this summer to give up his anchor duties to return to his first love, which is covering presidential elections from the field, actually going out there, talking to voters, and sharing the story of what's going on in our country.
0:48.0	The second is that he publicly disclosed during the pandemic that he's been battling multiple sclerosis for more than a decade.
0:55.0	We talked earlier this week about the challenges John's faced and the challenges are democracy faces heading into the 2024 elections. Here's that conversation.
1:13.0	John King, great to see you, man.
1:15.0	Great to see you as well.
1:17.0	I was accustomed to seeing you every day at noon, so I need to check in on you.
1:23.0	You know, you did this show, you established this wonderful show inside politics, which really was and continues to be with Dana, the smartest kind of political conversation there is, but then you just disappeared on me, man.
1:38.0	Why'd you do that?
1:40.0	I mean, a transition about to hit the road more. We've known each other a long time. I love the show.
1:46.0	I had the inside politics platform. It was such a treat and an honor for me to bring the name back to CNN, because when I switched from print to television, that was Bernie and Judy.
1:55.0	It was a great political show on CNN. It was my home when I was a White House correspondent in those early days for CNN.
2:02.0	And it's where I learned to go from being really horrible at television until I hope approaching the whole approaching media.
2:07.0	You did all right.
2:09.0	So it was really a privilege and an honor to bring that name back, but I did it for seven years for five and a half of those years.
2:14.0	It was seven days a week, because I was also doing the Sunday version of it through the 2016 campaign, which was wow.
2:21.0	And then through the 2020 campaign, which was again, wow.
2:24.0	And I was gearing up to do it again. And David, we've known each other a long time. And I just said, you know what?
2:30.0	You can't answer the biggest questions. You can't answer in Washington.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CNN, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of CNN and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.