And now from the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

'Don Rose is a marvel, almost 95 years old and still sharp as a whip. He's been a part of American social and political history for six decades, from the civil rights movement to the anti-war protests of the 60s to myriad landmark political campaigns. He's also a brilliant political columnist who writes weekly to this day. As the Democratic convention in Chicago approaches, I spoke with Don this week about this political moment and the most famous and notorious Chicago convention in 1968, when anti-Vietnam War protests he helped lead devolved into violent clashes between police and demonstrators and became emblematic of a tumultuous political year. Here's that conversation. Don Rose, my old friend. It's. It's great to see you.

Likewise.

I always refer to you, and I think it actually isn't really completely apt, but as kind of the sort of Zelig, because you've been a part of so much history. You've been there for so much history. The thing is that Zelig was a bystander. You were a participant.

Yeah. So somebody else used the term once. So it was, you know, kind of flattering in a way.

'Yeah. And I should point out to our listeners that you and I did a podcast probably five, six years ago in which we talked at length about the different elements of your incredible life and career, you know, jazz trumpeter in the 50s. You told a great story about meeting Charlie Parker in the men's room. Civil rights and anti-war activist in the 60s. You were Martin Luther King's communications guy when he did his summer in Chicago in 1966. You were deeply involved in the antiwar movement. And when I came to know you, you were already a political strategist and media consultant. You as much as anybody toppled the Chicago machine in the 70s and the 80s. And you've been a practicing journalist throughout, and a great writer, still writing a brilliant weekly column, which we'll talk about more. And most important to me, you were a mentor to a young guy named David Axelrod at one time. I wouldn't be where I am without that mentorship. But for purposes of this podcast, we have a Democratic convention coming to Chicago.

So I've heard.

Yes. And, you were part of the most calamitous. The. Chicago has a rich history of conventions. You were part of the most calamitous and probably historically important convention that Chicago, may maybe with the exception of the one that nominated Lincoln back in 1860. So I want to talk about that for a while, because it's worth remembering as we gather again, and I want you to set the scene, Don, by talking about where America was in 1967 and 68 leading up to that convention, and talk about where you were and how you ended up in the middle of all that.

'The main thing was that this country was extremely divided on, you know, an issue that still pertains in many ways. And that was the war in Vietnam. And we had the unique situation of a president who was doing a good things on the home front, but was, whether he liked it or not, wound up was supporting the war. And the anti-war sentiment was gathering and gathering. And as we know now, it, caused LBJ to finally drop out so it could handle it. A little, a familiar echo. And, the country was, was seriously divided with the youth, as it were, in the league.

Against the war. Yeah.

'Against the war. Yes. The Democratic convention was coming up in Chicago, and, it was felt that the election of a president of the, the winner of the presidency could say yes or no and turn off the war. And, that made this a very, very important convention. And a group that had been handling a lot of, creating a lot of anti-war organizing, the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, started organizing for the protests at the convention in late '67 following demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere.

At that time. I should just point out, at that time, Lyndon Johnson dropped out in late March of 1968. So, it was your, probably it was your thought and the thought of all the organizers that he would be the president that we were, that you were facing.

Yeah. You he was the presumed nominee. And there were various alternatives being proposed. And Eugene McCarthy, although the MOBE certainly, the National Mobilization Committee, known as the MOBE throughout, was not favoring a specific candidate against the war and even would have been happy with a reversal of position by LBJ. But it proved to be a very tumultuous period. In the course of organizing for this, we had the murders of Robert F Kennedy and of Martin Luther King and turmoil going throughout. You know, when that following the murder of King, there were what were called riots or, depending on your position, uprisings throughout black communities all over the country and particularly in Chicago. So it was quite a, a wild ride and a very upset country, seriously divided. Today's divisions over, let's say the Gaza war are serious, but nowhere near, as broad and as definitive.

Well, you had a half a million troops in Vietnam. You know, you had broad. Broad. We had a draft.

A draft. Draft was one of the, I would say a principal force in the breadth of the antiwar movement. The fact that there was a draft was an incentive that like no other that we've experienced since and, you know, a protest against the government policy.

Yeah. You know, I remember that period. I was, a few years younger than you, but I was a kid, and I was, and I remember.

About 25, I think. About 25 years younger.

Yeah, but the sense there was a sense that I really haven't experienced since of an unraveling. And the sense of gravity of what was going on was, I think, you know, unique, at least in, in, in my lifetime, perhaps yours. Talk about these players. You talked a little bit about Lyndon Johnson. You mentioned that, you know, he was the author of some of the most progressive legislation, including the Civil Rights Acts. And yet he was the sort of bet noire of, of these young people and the left and it's, you know, we look back today and we think, look at his legislative work and you say, this guy was a giant, but he was reviled, and it was all about the war.

Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? That was a chant that I understand really bothered him. But in retrospect, we've learned from some people that he said he felt trapped, which I think was an exaggeration, but, yes. And this is the the big blight on the record of, of Lyndon Johnson.

He felt trapped because he had inherited the presidency after John F Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy had first committed to Vietnam, and Johnson felt that he needed to follow through on Vietnam.

Yeah.

Talk about Eugene McCarthy as a figure in this. He was a Democratic senator from erudite kind of senator from Minnesota who.

Minnesota again.

'Yeah. And step forward as an anti-war candidate.

'Yes. And, you know, prior to that, he was not known as a especially progressive guy, but he openly ran against LBJ. And in the New Hampshire primary, he came very, very close to upsetting. And many people still think that he defeated LBJ in, in the New Hampshire primary, but he took a big lick out of him and, you know, came close to defeating an incumbent, well-known president. And, that loosened up a lot of other liberals, including Bobby Kennedy, who saw that Johnson might be vulnerable. And that brought him into the race eventually.

'As an anti-war candidate.

'As an anti-war candidate.

In June of '68, Bobby Kennedy wins the California primary, and it really appeared like he had momentum going into the convention to become the nominee. And was assassinated that night.

Right.

If Bobby Kennedy had not been assassinated and had captured the nomination or had come to the convention as the favorite for the nomination, would it have changed the tenor of what happened on the streets?

'Oh, I think it would have been very different. First of all, Mayor Daley, the original Richard J. Daley, was said to have favored Kennedy. You know, once LBJ had dropped out, and we would have had an, a much easier accommodation and if it was looking like an anti-war candidate was going to be nominated. And, I think it's a fair bet that that he would have been had he lived. I think there might still have been protests against the war, but they, the whole environment would have been very different. It was would not have been an us against them so dramatically. It would probably not have brought in the, what I call the dada element. The so-called yippies, who attacked by making fun, who attacked the incumbency, you know, against the war and the so-called corporate Democrats. It would have been, I think, a totally different situation. I'm sure there would have been protests. And you, we don't know. But the violence came when, Mayor Daley refused to give any sort of marching permit or protest place in and around the convention. He did not want these scum, this anti-war scum dirtying up his city.

You say this, you say this as one of the scum. So we should point out that you're using your imputing to him, the his thinking. You're not condemning them. You're.

Oh, no, no, no, no, I I was one of the scum. Yes, yes. Yeah. Whatever, whatever his adjectives, and he had plenty of them, it was, would have been an entirely different environment. Because Daley himself became one of the targets of the, of the protesters because of his behavior. We saw even early on, there was a spring peace march, a traditional Easter time peace march. And, it was was in the center of the city. It was met with police battle sticks for no reason at all. Peaceful march. As soon as they entered the the then civic center, now called the Daley Center, the police just beat the hell out of the marchers.

That was a prelude to what was going to.

Yeah, that was, when I wrote about it, I called it batting practice.

But, you know, the interesting thing about it is that now historians and, backed up by some of the things that his kids have said to me, but Daley, you know, warned Johnson that the war was a political liability and that he needed to do something about it. A lot of kids of Bridgeport, where Daley lived, were actually drafted and were serving. And we heard from Bill Daley, you and I did a program at the University of Chicago, at the Institute of Politics. We heard from Bill Daley, his son, who was with him during the convention, that he met with the speaker of the California House, Jesse Unruh, who was the chairman of the California delegation at that convention, that weekend before the convention, and they tried to persuade Ted Kennedy to pick up the torch for his fallen brother, and they were prepared to try and shift the nomination to him. It didn't happen. And they all fell in line behind Hubert Humphrey, another great liberal who was trapped.

'I think we have to note here that at that time it was really the party people, the so-called bosses who ran the convention. Named the, named the candidate. There were primaries, but they didn't mean anything. Half a dozen primaries. And as a result of this boss led convention in 68, by 72, we were into the situation we have now. Where it's the primaries that make the determination. But that was the last and the worst of of the boss led conventions.

Yeah, absolutely. And now conventions are largely television shows. Then they they were deliberative bodies in which party bosses had a great deal of sway. We'll get back to what happened during that week. Talk about your own role in all of this and how you came to be really one of the leaders of these protests.

I knew some of the antiwar leaders here, you know, through just general progressive politics. Rennie Davis, who was, turned out to be one of the leaders of the of the MOBE. I had met Tom Hayden in civil rights era, civil rights days when he was working in the South and working in other cities and, ultimately got to know David Dellinger. These were the leaders of the MOBE. And when they started to organize, they had, because of my role as a PR guy or a spokesman or whatever the hell we want to call it, asked me to play that role for the MOBE. To be what we might now call a press secretary. I'm not sure we had an official title, but, I played the role of spokesman in the course of all the organizing that was going on nationally. And it was quite extensive over, you know, what turned out to be tumultuous months before the convention because of all the, you know, the murders and the things that were thrown around. So, almost every episode that was happening, either in Vietnam itself or uprisings in cities, played some part in our own organizing. After the murders, there were some people who felt we shouldn't, we shouldn't have it or we should modify our goals and so on. So I was kept quite busy talking to the media and setting up, mostly setting up meetings for, for the leaders of the MOBE and answering press questions. And so I fortunately, I was, you know, it had some credibility because of my previous role for King and other episodes in Chicago, you know, organizing for the March on Washington. And so.

'Yeah, one of the ironies of is this, I don't know if irony is the right word. We all know now that, part of legend, that there were eight and then seven indicted leaders of the anti-war protests. You escaped simply by a fact of geography. You lived in Chicago, so you didn't have to cross state lines to participate.

Right, exactly. I might have been one of the examples there, but the fact is, I did a lot of crossing of state lines in the course of the organizing. I would go to New York, I'd go to various centers, in the course of, in the course of the work. But I had an excuse because I was also working for a race relations agency during much of that time, and I traveled on its behalf so they couldn't quite get me, even though I had been over a few state lines.

Talk about the convention itself in those days. You mentioned that the the real clash came in front of the Hilton Hotel and around Grant Park in downtown Chicago. The Hilton, which is where many of the players in this drama were staying. The main clash came when this group started marching toward, in the direction of the convention hall, and the police moved in to stop them, and it became quite violent. But there was a lot of skirmishing before that. Right? I mean.

There were some serious beatings in, in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood that I now live in.

A bit north of there. Yeah.

Yeah. I was living in Hyde Park, at that time, but when the groups that were there more or less celebrating with music and so on, with the Yippies, the Youth International Party, listening to bands and so on. Stayed in the park after the 10:00 curfew and the police were immovable on it. Resulted in the first major beating of the convention period. There were at least three days and several other episodes of beating before the famous Battle of Michigan Avenue.

'What were you in the sort of high command to, to the degree that this group could be organized, but in the high command of the anti-war protests there, what were you thinking as the week evolved about what you were facing?

'To invoke a, what is now a famous episode, on the day after the, beating is in Lincoln Park, we were holding a joint press conference with. The MOBE was holding a joint press conference with the Yippies and some of the victims who were, had been beaten in Lincoln Park. And Rennie Davis, one of the co-chairs was to head the press conference, and he asked me, what should we say? And, I said, well, tell him, they can't get away with it again because the whole world is watching. And, well, I was wrong, because they sure got away with a lot more. But, that's where the, a phrase began when Rennie started using it, and, you know, it was attributed to him for many years until it came out that I had actually coined it. But I was not trying to phrase make. I was, it was just seemed like a natural thing to say as the whole world is watching.

'We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more of The Axe Files. And now back to the show. I just read a wonderful book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who was on this podcast a few weeks ago to talk about it called "An Unfinished Love Story," and it was about her and her husband, Richard Goodwin, who you probably met during the that period. But there was a story there that I had never heard, and that you may be aware of, that the police actually went into the Hilton and toward the end of that whole saga and kind of invaded the McCarthy space up in the Hilton and were strong arming and arresting anti-war protesters up there. I mean, the thing kind of reached this fever pitch, the report that was done, the Kerner Report that was done after the convention described it as a police riot. But did it exceed what you feared would happen?

Well, we had, certainly we had good warning and, and, you know, with that spring beating that I spoke of and, when we saw what happened, just, it got worse and worse, something that now is a side incident. As we were gathering in Grant Park where we were having to prepare for the march that we had to do on the sidewalk, because we weren't didn't have a marching permit. As people were just walking into the meeting with nothing happening, suddenly a police group ran in and started beating the hell out of people just taking their seats. So we we learned later that this was done when a police mole dropped the flag. And that was a signal to the police to charge this group. So when I saw that and what had happened before, I frankly thought that we would have more people killed. As we turned out, no one was killed. There was one death associated with it, but it was not from a police episode at all. So, I think when I saw firsthand the, the attack at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon before the whole thing, I said, yeah, this is very ominous. And, I didn't know yet how it was going to wind up, and I had to be, when the time came to march on the convention, I was up in front with the leaders of the group, because I think I was the only one who knew the way walking. I was the only Chicagoan who knew the way to the convention center, and, that's why we were stopped.

It might have been a good time to say, you know, I'm actually from Cleveland. I don't quite know the. I'll just hang back here and let you guys figure this out. Here's a map.

There you go. So while some of these negotiations are going on, and we're telling them we are going to march on the sidewalk, we are going to adhere to traffic signals and so on, as we often did during the civil rights days two years earlier, suddenly came the sound and the smell of tear gas. And that started to break up the whole line. Some of us fled up one direction and others fled in another direction as coming out from Grant Park, there were bridges to Michigan Avenue, and this took various bridges. And by the time one worked one's way, if one could, through police lines and so on, finally made our way to Michigan Avenue. And that's where we began. You know, first we saw a mule train that came in recognition of Doctor King's death. And as soon as a mule train made it to the in front of the Hilton Hotel, all this other action that you now see, the famous, the famous footage of police beating the hell out of people and throwing them in to the police vans and tipping over. A group of people, some of whom we know now, tipped over police van and so on. And it was just, you know, bloody hell all over. And I, we had a press center, which was sort of my office, my headquarters, on Wabash Avenue near the El. And, I made my way back there and it had been turned into an infirmary. The doctors who were on hand to help us, you know, knowing and, you know, just in case, we're tending to people and on the way, you know, we've heard the phrase blood running in the streets. I actually saw blood running in the streets as I passed one young man laying down in the gutter, his head smashed open by a baton and blood literally running out of his head down in into the gutter. And he was eventually helped over to my headquarters and, as I say, now turned into an infirmary, and I moved around as best I could, avoiding some police blocks because I knew I, you know, didn't feel like getting hit over the head. And I managed to avoid it somehow. And, that went on for some hours. And when that subsided a bit, we learned that there had been a march of convention delegates who were on our side, who had been trying to change things inside the convention. So the march of, of incumbent delegates came and were on our way, and, we formed not that I, I didn't organize it myself, actually, I think it was Dick Gregory, the activist comedian many of us know, started leading a group to hopefully we were going to merge with the convention delegates somewhere around 18th Street, which would have been a little not quite half way to the convention center. And so that meeting came and there was, you know, it was violence was avoided there. I don't think many of the I don't think any of the delegates themselves met with violence.

You know, I, I've gone back and I remember this coverage from when I was a kid, but I went back and looked at some of it. And, you know, when you originated this phrase, the whole world is watching, which is what was being chanted as these scenes of violence erupted, the whole world really was watching.

It was.

And this was really what Walter Cronkite and all these venerable anchors were talking about. This was what Daley was being asked, and so on. What was the effect of all that? Ultimately, Hubert Humphrey got nominated. The vice president, as I think I said earlier, ironically, one of the leading civil rights advocates in the Senate when he was a senator, you know, he was considered a young progressive mayor of Minneapolis when he got elected. But he was a loyal vice president and hadn't yet broken with Johnson on the war, and he ended up losing. He did change his position ultimately, but he ended up losing. What was the impact of all this? Did it yield Richard Nixon?

Unfortunately, yes. We, you know, for a long time, or early on in the first, first flush of the event, I thought we had won. I thought the public would have been appalled by what they saw. And, as we know from some media reports and polling and so on, that this antiwar group and the violence. People saw us as the villains. More people saw us. So there was certainly, the country was split on it, and people were horrified. Although, you know, I still have debated some of my friends and activists who do not think that this is what elected Nixon. I feel that it played a part, that it was so close.

Yeah, you lost by a point, Humphrey.

Made the difference. And Humphrey had changed his position a couple of weeks before the election itself. And, his numbers kept improving. And, many of us feel that had he changed his position even a few weeks earlier, he might have had the momentum to win. But sadly, I think the, I think history will probably tell us that, certainly this was not the main reason. You know, racism and other issues that were going on at the time played a significant part. Remember, George Wallace was winning.

By five states.

Five states.

Yeah.

Yeah. So a miserable time. As I say retrospectively, I have to acknowledge that this was probably the tipping point.

You mentioned that this also was the impetus to change the system. You know, I find myself during the weeks leading up to President Biden's decision to step down, I was kind of feeling nostalgic in some ways for the era of bosses, because I think the bosses would have gone into the president and told him, we can't carry you and you can't win, and we need to win. And they would have made a different choice and they would have done that perhaps earlier. But how has that changed our politics? Weigh the pluses and minuses of the system that we now have, where primaries nominate the candidates, the democratization of that process?

Well, I still I still favorite it. It is democracy. But if we look back, just very recently, there is a parallel. I have to say that the the very smooth transition from the day Biden took himself out of the race, if I can bring us up to date, and the very quick, smooth transition, endorsement after endorsement, delegates coming over quickly, quickly and leading up to, you know, what I think has really changed the tenor of the campaign. This was, in a way, the party bosses, if we don't use a term anymore. But the Democratic National Committee and, all the movers and shakers getting together and, organizing it very, very, very well. So in a sense, we can say that this particular campaign was generated or certainly executed superbly by the party bosses.

Yeah. Well, in the lead up to it, it was interesting to me, you know, Nancy Pelosi, people think of her as a liberal from San Francisco, but she's also the daughter of a former mayor and a party boss, if you will, in Baltimore, Mayor D'Alesandro. And she, I think she has some of those skills.

She, she, she she and I, I think she really learned it.

She knows the levers of power.

Yeah.

And, you have a sense of her hidden hand behind some of these events. So let's talk about this. You, as I said, you write a splendid column. And how do people get your column, by the way? I know I get it through my email, but, if people wanted to read your columns, how did they get your columns?

The easiest way to do it is, send me an email and I'll get them on the list. It's kind of complicated, but if people can remember Don Rose 65 at AOL, anyone who wants to do it. Don Rose 65 at AOL. And I'll get them on the list within 48 hours.

You've been chronicling all this. Tell me, what has surprised you, since Biden stepped down. And you were an advocate for that and wrote about that. Are you surprised at how well and how quickly that Kamala Harris has consolidated the base of the party that was fractured before she entered the race?

oh, absolutely. I was gratified by the smoothness of the transition, but I was positively amazed by the turnaround. Kamala herself, who, half the people who helped with this transition a year ago would have considered her a drag on the ticket. She was so unpopular. You will remember those days. I may, I'm sure I mentioned in passing more than once. And the, turnaround in appreciation for Kamala, which I still find difficult to explain, other than the fact that when she grabbed the, she became the face of the abortion issue, I think changed attitudes toward her and made all this possible. But it's still amazing to me. There was something that I have never quite seen happen quite so fast. It may be because people recognize the urgency and the timing, but, she has become a political phenomenon that I have yet to understand completely.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I do think part of it is a sense of relief because before the president stepped down and, you know, maybe there are some parallels between 1968 and this, the circumstances are different, but there was a sense of despair about what the election might bring. And now there is this growing sense. I keep urging people not to get so consumed by irrational exuberance as to assume that this thing is done, because it's a very competitive race still, and we're divided country politically.

I forget, I forget immediately, who first used the term irrational exuberance? I remember it historically.

I don't know, I'm going to have to look that up. I stole it from someone, I know I did. But I always ascribe everything to you, Dan. So. But.

I can't claim credit for that one, I'm afraid.

Yeah. But, so now we're three weeks in. We're headed into this convention. There had been concerns about protests at this convention. There probably still will be protests at this convention. There's been some back and forth between the mayor here, current mayor Brandon Johnson, and protest communities about where they could be stationed here. Do you think, as in '68, you said it would have been a different thing if Bobby Kennedy had been the nominee of the Democratic Party. Do you think that the tenor of these protests will be different now that Kamala Harris is, is the nominee and not Joe Biden?

I think that that may be true, but I think it also depends on, whether the city and the person of, Mayor Johnson actually yields and gives the protesters some semblance of proximity tothe convention. And right now, it's being, as I, as we speak, it's being litigated, and we don't know. If the city continues to stand firm and not bring them closer, we may get some disruptions there. I'm expecting some right now. As it stands, I'm expecting some, perhaps small scuffles, but I don't see any anything major coming out. The police are talking about how they've developed, you know, a less violent method of handling large protests and so on, exhibiting their muscle at the same time, but yet to be told. It depends on how, whether the protesters, find an acceptable route to tell their story. And even with that, I think there is an element in the protest group that some of the really hard headed people on the Gaza issue who may simply intend to disrupt.

There also could be. I mean, we live in a different age, right, with social media, and, and it's very easy for malign actors, foreign and domestic, to throw logs on that fire and try and, and try and incite. What do you think is the most important thing that has to be accomplished at this convention? It seems to me it's a much different exercise than we would have seen if Biden were president, because people knew everything about Biden and everything about Trump. But because of where Biden was in the race, it almost necessitated being a, largely an exercise in excoriating Trump. Seems to me they have a different imperative now.

If I could call the shots, I would say I would like to see 3 or 4 days of continuing the kind of exuberance that we saw yesterday. And we may be seeing more of over, as, as the new team goes around the country, to, what, 4 or 5 battleground states. The sense of exuberance that I saw last night really made me feel very good. And I think continues to move the needle. If we can get any continuation of that through the convention, I think it's a major step toward victory. This is this is something that I had hardly anticipated. You know, I like to think of myself as a political genius, but there's one I missed.

Well, the great thing, the great thing about this businesses, you never know.. I mean, things develop and things happen, and you just never know. It seemed clear that people didn't want to race between Trump and Biden. They were looking for a way to turn the page. And even though she's Biden's vice president, Harris has become the turn the page candidate. And that is a good place to be. We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more of The Axe Files. And now back to the show. How? I want to talk about Trump in a second. But you wrote about, you wrote some columns about who you would prefer for vice president. You landed on Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was high on my list as well. Harris ended up choosing Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, who we all saw last night. We're recording this the day after he was unveiled at this event that you referenced in Philadelphia. Tell me what you think about that choice.

Well, like a lot of people, I was somewhat dismayed. But when I saw him in action, I don't know whether, what what it was, they talk about chemistry or, they liked to, she liked the fact that he used the word weird and so on. But, when I look at the the end product, even though I saw Kelly at a far better resume, I knew he was not as anywhere near charismatic. And I think that might have been one of the factors. But when I look at what, what I saw last night may turn out to have been a genius decision on her part. I just can't imagine anybody who kept the needle moving in in that way. The selection of a vice president. No. It was just. I Keep learning new things every day.

Yeah, he you you will. You are, you know, in addition to the election victories that you engineered in Chicago, you've also elected people statewide in Illinois. He does seem like the kind of guy who could walk into any VFW hall, American Legion, diner, tavern in small towns across these Midwest industrial states and do pretty well with voters.

Well, that's, he came out of that. Midwestern roots, you know, Nebraska. You know, he he he says, I don't know whether he uses it as intentionally, but it he talks about his neighbors and when, you know, he talks about the Trump people. He speaks of them as his friends and relatives and avoiding the whole concept of attacking the people's constituency. You know, one, as you well know, one of Hillary's fatal mistakes was talking about the deplorables. Here we have a guy who knows how to move. He came out of those wonderful, nice guy, nice neighbor, roots and developed a very progressive philosophy in the course of that. So, that's a kind of perfection. You know, the first thing you want is the old saying do no harm. Well, he not only does no harm in his approach, but he excites more people. He he, I think, as they say, is probably going to turn out to be a brilliant decision, even though it confounded some of us when it was first announced.

One of the, one of the sidelights to the run up to the decision was a pretty well organized campaign against Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who, and I among them, he was high on my list, too, because you have to win Pennsylvania to win this election, I think. And I thought he might have help in that regard. He's obviously talented and popular governor there, but a lot it was all, almost all of it was centered around his position on campus protests and his dismay with the president of the University of Pennsylvania, who was one of those college presidents who failed to say yes when she was asked whether, you know, expressions of genocide against the Jews or exhortations or would be violations of the codes of conduct for students. It kind of took an ugly turn, I thought. And you are a man of the left. You're also Jewish. Tell me how you think about all of that.

'I was fearful, of the fact that, A, he was Jewish, which would bring some level of genuine anti-Semitism, which certainly exists. And, that, it was it might be bad enough with th, pro-Palestinian groups so that even if he had perhaps got us Pennsylvania, you could lose us Michigan. So I was a little concerned about that. That's why I prefer, one of the reasons I prefer Kelly. There were other gossipy things have come up. But I think it was. There is a significant manifestation of anti-Semitism here. And I'm not one who calls being anti Netanyahu being antiSemitic. So, I was concerned about what she might bring down and whether it might represent, he might exacerbate the split that exists now in the Democratic Party.

Yeah. The, I'm actually not asking you about the move itself. I'm asking you about the. I mean, I'm concerned. Look, I'm a Jew who's been a critic of Netanyahu for a long, long time.

'He called you a self-hating to you.

'He did. He did, in fact, do that. Because I opposed more settlements. You know, and I'm. I'm also someone who was devastated by what happened on October 7th. Understand the need of the Israelis to to go after the people who were responsible for that attack, but also who weeps for the children of Gaza, and thinks that some that some of the tactics have been over the line and unnecessary. And I think all those things can be true at once. But, you know, I worry about sort of casual anti-Semitism associated with this. And that's why I'm asking you. That's why I said, as a man of the left, how you feel about that and what you have to say to these young people who, frankly, are motivated by compassion for what's happening to the Palestinians, perhaps less so for what happened on October 7th, and who are mixing it all together in a way that's dangerous.

'I agree. That's why I say there is genuine anti-Semitism, even though the Netanyahu people call any critic of Israel anti-Semitic, which which, you know, poisons the mix. But, I believe there is some. I'm, I'm grieved that anti-Semitism should be associated with the left because when I was growing up, people on the left were defenders and protectors of, of Jewish people. And, unfortunately, the behavior of many in Israel has turned, you know, victims into victimizers. And, it's it's it's a mess that I, I can, I can say here we I'm for a two state solution. But I see that that dream fading away.

Yeah, well, let's hope that's not the case. Trump, before we go out, you just wrote a column about his very odd appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists here in Chicago last week, in which he questioned Kamala Harris's identity, and suggested that she had just recently become Black. She she attended Howard University. That seemed like a clue. But, talk about where the Trump campaign's going to go from here. Because right now they're staring down the barrel of a movement. And that is forming. And the momentum has to be deeply concerning. And they seem to be trying out all kinds of negative arguments to see which stick.

Well, that, they're they're back to the old the dangerous left. What we saw, Trump had the opportunity, not only in the wake of his shooting, but, a he has the opportunity going to that convention to bravely state the reasons why Blacks should support him. And it's clear that he is no longer, not no longer, but he is not running a, a campaign to broaden, but he is raising, developing a campaign to intensify all the things that we think are horrible about his movement. Race to the fore, Jews to the fore, whatever. You know, he's telling Jews that they're crazy to vote Democratic and talking about crappy Jews. And of course, you know, Kamala's husband is Jewish. And, so what I see Trump doing, even though some of his party, several of his party, significant figures are telling him to get off that race baiting, he thinks. Now, apparently, the way he acts. Maybe he can't control himself. But his his whole goal seems not to broaden the base of the party, but to intensify it under the theory that he could get a big enough turnout to win by turnout, because people are so inflamed about race and commies and God knows what we're going to be called, you know, and we're going to we're going to see raw language on, on race and religion coming out of this since, you know, probably not since the days when Al Smith ran as a, a Catholic. It's it's going to be there, because that's that's that's Trump's way. And, I think it's a losing way. And some people of his party think so, too. But, that's what it looks like it's going to be.

You mentioned Al Smith. That happened in 1928. It had happened so long ago, Don Rose, that it even predates you.

It even predates me.

But you are a, you are a wonder man. And I, you know, I urge everybody to take that email address down and get on your mailing list, because you're still one of the most insightful commentators on politics that I know. And, I appreciate you.

But you got the paying gig.

Yeah. Well, you see, you mentored me well. I took it another level.

There we go.

Yeah, yeah. It's great to see you, Don. Thank you so much.

Always good to be with you, Dave.

Thank you for listening to The Axe Files, brought to you by the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio. The executive producer of the show is Miriam Finder Annenberg. The show is also produced by Saralena Barry, Jeff Fox, and Hannah Grace McDonald. And special thanks to our partners at CNN, including Steve Licktieg and Haley Thomas. For more programing from the IOP, visit politics dot u Chicago dot edu.