Ep. 552 — David French

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David French has held many roles: religious-liberties attorney, army officer, writer and political commentator, and outspoken critic of Donald Trump. French joined David to talk about the dissonance he felt in adhering to his conservative Christian values in the face of a changing GOP, his decision to leave the Republican Party in 2016, the hate and threats he and his family endured for criticizing Trump, his views on same-sex marriage and abortion, his steadfast belief in the First Amendment, and why he is greatly concerned for America today.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	And now from the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio, the
0:11.4	Axwiles, with your host, David Axelrod.
0:16.3	David French is a conservative columnist for the liberal New York Times, which may sound
0:21.0	like an unconventional role, but not so much for a man whose life has taken some unconventional
0:26.6	turns.
0:27.7	A small town kid from the south who grew up in a fundamentalist church, and attended
0:32.2	a Christian college, French wound up at Harvard Law at a time when there weren't a whole
0:37.0	lot of religious conservatives there.
0:39.5	He spent years advancing religious rights and freedom of speech cases through the courts,
0:44.4	interrupting his career to enlist in the army during the Iraq War.
0:48.4	He left the law entirely in 2015 to write for the Conservative National Review, but when
0:54.6	Donald Trump bulled his way into Republican politics, it was for French a bridge too
1:00.2	far.
1:01.2	I sat down with him last week at the Institute of Politics to talk about his journey and
1:06.7	the state of our union.
1:12.7	David French, it's great to be with you.
1:15.6	Thank you so much for being here.
1:17.9	Well, thanks for having me.
1:18.9	It's an honor.
1:19.9	Thanks for coming to the Institute of Politics, University of Chicago.
1:23.5	It's so great to have you here.
1:24.6	We're going to talk a little later about the great pageant of democracy, but first we
	...

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