David Axelrod Explains What Went Wrong in Iowa

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, in all the things you’ve seen, have you ever seen this kind of a mess?

DAVID AXELROD, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: This is beyond anything I could imagine. You know, Iowa for me personally, provided the purest moment of joy I ever experienced in politics, which was the night that Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucuses. It propelled him to the presidency. And the whole Iowa experience was a joy for those of us who were associated with that campaign. And it’s heartbreaking to see the system break down as it did yesterday. But what’s worse is how they’ve handled it. My — you know, things happen. There’s no excuse for the systemic breakdown that they experienced. But worse has been — you know, they implemented that system in the name of transparency and they have not — they could not have been less transparent about what was going on. They clearly were overwhelmed and they just weren’t upfront about their problems. So, everyone was left in the dark about what was going on. And I think that, as much as the problem itself, contributed to a sense of something profoundly wrong.

AMANPOUR: Yes. I know the Democratic Party in Iowa has said no. But do you think there’s any chance? You know, people are really scared in this country and around the world, frankly, of interference from abroad, ala 2016 from a foreign hostile power, ala Russia. Do you think there’s any indication or concern that people should have on that level?

AXELROD: Well, look, that’s the first thing — that’s the first place people’s minds race to and there are people — you know, certainly the president and some of his — the folks around him want to stir that pot and create a sense of distrust and — about the process. And that’s tragic, because this is a sort of foundational institution of our democracy, the vote. And so — you know, but I take them at their word. They’ve got paper backup of everything that happened. So, they ought to be able to verify their results. I take them at their word that this was purely a mechanical breakdown and not one that was induced from the outside. But, you know, you’ve had campaigns, the bidden campaign most notably, suggesting that they wanted to be able to evaluate the results before they were released, sort of vaguely hinting, darkly hinting that there might be something wrong with the count. All of these things are really damaging to people’s sense of confidence about the system. And I think that’s a bigger problem than this — than who won and loss in Iowa on Monday.