At a moment when opposition party members rarely appear together on television, when most political interviews are fleeting, and when elections may be the last of the digital town squares, David Axelrod’s podcast has been an oasis.
Now, after an incredible 605 performances over nine years, Axelrod is concluding the program by interviewing fellow Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel.
I’m sad to see “The Ax Files” go. In part because it is more essential than ever.
Yes, it was polite and produced more light than heat. There were no food fights. But I’m here to praise Ax, not bury him in nostalgia for a bygone era of civil discourse.
What made the program so compelling and unique during this period was his candid, personal, and extensive interviews with leading figures from both political parties. Where else can you find that combination today?
A brief political interview
It should be disclosed here that Axelrod participates with various figures in the media along with other walks of life and attended one session in 2016. That’s the right word, because the show has always been equal parts therapy session and journalistic investigation.
Axelrod had no psychiatric training, as far as I know, but was once a prominent political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Ink was in his DNA, so it came out on every show when he was trying to make news or at least prompt reflection. I could always tell that he hated shows where guests came on and made their point. (Been there!)
But this was not an interrogation. Axelrod usually began his interviews by asking people about their background (“Tell me about your people”) and where they grew up. The son of immigrants, regardless of politics, Axelrod invariably found common ground with people just a generation or two removed from the spark of freedom.
You can see why the show is so important. He revealed people as full, complex, and contradictory human beings. If you were looking for a red or blue tribal caricature cartoon to determine your preference, there were plenty of other options as well.
Axelrod is a partisan and is deeply alarmed by the return of President-elect Donald Trump. But I know he was proud of how many Republicans, reluctantly in some cases, said yes and sat down for an investigative interview with the former Democratic strategist and architect of Barack Obama’s political rise.
These Republicans agreed in part because, if we’re being honest, Axelrod is an elite figure on the American political scene, and the invitation conferred a certain level of status on the invitee. He was in the proverbial room filled with smoke, even in parts of Illinois that weren’t proverbial, and political practitioners of all stripes respected that background.
But Republicans also said yes because Axelrod is, to borrow a word from his faith tradition, a mensch.
He challenged guests but never punched them. The point was for people to tell their stories, to reveal something about themselves, and to tackle the difficult task of discussing what politics is today. It’s fitting that two of Axelrod’s final interviews were with two of the most prominent Republican figures in this year’s campaign. Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and Axelrod-turned-CNN commentator Scott Jennings (not personally, but if you’re listening to Kentucky Republican primary voters, politically, that makes sense).
Who were these two characters that many people have read or heard about this year? Well, listen to their “Axe Files” appearance and you’ll learn a lot about what shaped them.
Like all the best podcasts, there was something else that made this show so compelling. Axelrod respected the intelligence of his audience. This wasn’t level 101 stuff. If you can’t understand why it was so poignant that 90-year-old Abner Mikva, the legendary Chicago lawmaker and jurist, appeared on a podcast just months before Mikva’s death, then maybe this show isn’t for you.
To put it more clearly, the leap from a lot of TV news shenanigans delivered as political insights to podcasts like The Ax Files was similar to a teenager’s transition from a laugh-track broadcast TV sitcom to a premium program like The Ax Files. the sopranos and breaking bad. Who could go back? Who would want that?
Take as an example Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who often appears on TV news. Well, do you know what Sanders isn’t discussing in his seven-minute interview? The three names not discussed in his Brooklyn childhood home were Hitler, Stalin, and Walter O’Malley, who moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles.
Oh, and he might not have the same voting record on guns if he represented his childhood home rather than rural Vermont.
Sanders revealed as much when he was Axelrod’s first guest in 2015. He also discussed the student civil rights movement at the University of Chicago, Axelrod’s alma mater and home of the Institute of Politics, which he founded.
“That Ford set the tone,” Axelrod said this week.
He also got the late Sen. John McCain to talk publicly about all the time McCain spent visiting, chatting and reading Arizona news clips with ailing former Arizona congressman Mo Udall, who spent his final days confined to a nursing home. Because it’s not specified, but it doesn’t have to be, can you imagine a prominent Republican showing up every week to comfort a prominent Democrat with the disease?
Axelrod knows that politics is not a beanbag, and although he is out of the campaign business, he is still close enough to politics to pay for some grudges. That’s why you won’t find any current presidents in the Ax File archives. President Joe Biden was the only major Democratic contender to skip the show in 2020, a cynicism rooted in the (now revived!) hostilities between Bidenworld and Obama’s orbit. .
But if Axelrod’s proximity to the highest echelons of politics had some side effects on his reservations, his prominence also ensured his best interests.
My favorite was the amazing conversation he had with basketball legend Bill Walton, who passed away soon after, in 2016. I found Walton to be a great American character. His devotion to the Grateful Dead, West, and John Wooden needs no further explanation, and Axelrod met his match that day. Do yourself a favor and join the chat. You will get over it and feel exhausted and satisfied. It’s like playing a 3-on-3 game against Big Red.
I listened to it as much as I listened to Axelrod’s Ford during long drives. Good people had their time. The great ones made me feel like I was pulling up a chair to his table at Manny’s Deli and eavesdropping on two guys shooting shit into half a cup of Reuben and a bowl of matzo ball soup.
It’s not that Axelrod shows up like Larry King talking to an unprepared Kato Kaelin, asking whatever comes to mind while he fills the time with a few calls from Walla Walla and beyond.
Axelrod read deeply about his guests and was often surprised at how much he knew about their backgrounds. It took several hours of work, so you can see why he wanted to finish more than 600 tasks. Especially when he hosts a separate podcast (talking about kivising) along with Hacks on Tap with Mike Murphy and John Heilemann.
But I will miss “Axe Files” and I know others will too.
Introducing Emanuel on his final show, Axelrod said his goal was to provide “a little antidote to the harsh nature of today’s political and social media culture that turns people into negative caricatures and robs us of our common humanity.”
Mission accomplished, brother.
