Crazier & Crazier
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. From Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn't voting for her is a Nazi. We're Nazis. You know, years ago, my father, I had a great father. He was a tough guy. He used to always say,

Never use the word Nazi. Never use that word. And it say, never use the word Hitler. Don't use that word. It's like, I didn't even know why. Don't use that word. And then I understood it. And yet they use that word freely, both words. They use it, he's Hitler. And then they say, he's a Nazi. I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite of a Nazi.

I don't know. Yes. Yes, young Donald. Don't use that word outside of the home where we use it frequently, which is why I have to warn you.

Yes, exactly. He didn't say his father didn't say it's wrong to use the word. He said, just don't use his father who was arrested in 1927 at a Klan riot with a Kaiser mustache. I mean, Google a picture of his dad and you see everything but the jackboots. But anyway, moving on.

That's why his father said that. He said he wanted to be really clear. He said, we are not Nazis around here. We are Klan members, and proudly so. I don't want to raise my son to be a Nazi. I raise my son to be a proud Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. I do want to mention that we are now in the last week of the campaign. And as I looked in my campaign handbook,

If you're denying that you're Nazi in the last week, that's probably not the way you want to kick off your closing drive for the presidency. But more than that, you guys, Trump had his big closing rally this week in Madison Square Garden and made a, I guess, a local comedian say,

uh famous with this no he's an la guy he's a pro comic and lazy jokes and of course he uh rather than being funny which is work he uh he went to the cheap puerto rico material and defined the whole thing let's let's hear let's hear the joke that's was heard around the world

A lot going on. Like, I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico. This has, I mean, the whole thing was just like a bunch of, it was like a standup night for bad, angry comedians. Well, it was funnier than the original German, but yeah. Yeah.

Let's give him his credit. His name is Tony Hinchcliffe, I believe. Yeah, he's a roast comic. Now, let's be clear. He also not only said that, but he also had a black person watermelon joke. Yes, yeah. And he was like reading the room. They didn't seem to like the Puerto Rico joke. So he kind of tried a couple other racially insensitive jokes. Then he found one that people seemed to like, which kind of led him down the path towards watermelon. That's what you get when you do a Trump rally. Those are the jokes that play in the room, but not so well outside the room.

Yeah. I mean, it's side and, you know, you had other people standing up and calling us essentially talking about the pimps who run Kamala Harris and a bunch of other stuff. They called her the anti-Christ.

Right. I believe, you know, an incredible array of his his let's say his surrogate operation isn't all that strong. Let's put it that way. You got to look at it from a couple of angles because it really is kind of a magnificent, you know, train wreck.

One, it was Trump's favorite day of the campaign because he got the day he totally wanted. He got to be the star of attention in Madison Square Garden in New York. In a state he's never going to win, in a city that pretty much hates him, with a crowd of political tourists who came in to see him for the spectacle.

But it is who he wants to be. And he got to bring the gutter snipe crew in to be the opening acts. And everything was a race to the bottom. So all of us who know how to run campaigns are like, a great way to blow not just –

the last closing argument day, but the 48 hours now where he's got all this incoming, he's totally clogged up the messaging with, so you hate Puerto Ricans and Latinos and blacks, huh? Even to the point where the Trump staff are leaking, you know, we never knew this guy. He mugged us with the joke. Um,

But he's from, of course, Trump world where you can never apologize. So it's been an unmitigated political disaster. But it was also the purest moment of Trump being who Trump wants to be. And in that way, I think it was incredibly revealing. And that's probably pretty good for Harris. Yeah, it comes came at the time, by the way, that the Trump campaign was releasing like a four or five minute video that was very.

that was a positive video about him and kind of uplifting. It was a, it was an assault on the Biden years as well. But, you know, it was clear that the campaign wanted to do one thing and Trump wanted to do another thing, which is sort of a microcosm of the whole camp of the whole season. I mean, this is the,

challenge that they've had it also complicates this you know there are there actually are a lot of puerican voters and hispanic voters in states like pennsylvania uh so it was like too it's a big problem for senator scott down there is in a race that's why senator scott immediately denounced it i mean you think about this there's reporting that that

that they looked at his script. They found that he was going to refer to Kamala Harris as a see you next Tuesday. And they were sensible enough to cut that out of it, but didn't apparently think that some of these other jokes were worth cutting or he ad-libbed them. But look, you know how bad this is.

Not that it's, you know, who knows in a race like this, maybe it'll actually cost them enough Puerto Rican votes in Pennsylvania that it could tip the state because there are a couple hundred thousand. And it was awesome to see a direct mail guy go on Twitter and say, I have every single registered Puerto Rican voter on my phone. Just send me X number of dollars and we'll contact them all within 24 hours. The guy immediately got that money and sent out text messages to every Puerto Rican voter in Pennsylvania. So who knows whether it will matter?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

You know, I think we all got to get over ourselves here and stop being offended by everything. But the rest of the campaign was like, oh, no, no, no, no. We don't have anything to do with this guy. They cut him off. And that, I think, signifies the fact that they thought it's problematic because they didn't want to. Well, they called a press conference today. Trump had a press conference. We don't have sound on it, but the reports out of it are.

Not, you know, this wasn't exactly an apologia. This was a, he cannot do it. He doubled down on it. Well, his campaign yesterday was apologizing for it. Now Trump is going out and throw them under the bus this morning. Blaming Kamala for his assassination attempts and for running a hate filled campaign.

Uh, so I mean, that's my act. How dare she? He was very offended. She's stealing his best material. So, so, uh,

This was obviously kind of a disaster for him. I guess if someone were arguing his point, it would be this energizes the base. But I'm not even sure about that. No, it or, you know, the core of the base. But again, he's burning hours on going backwards and jamming up the campaign, which at this moment is exactly what you don't want.

It's the opportunity cost, which is going up in flames. And if you believe that he has a ceiling, this tightened the hatches on it a little, which is good for her. Yeah. By the way, he didn't take any questions. Fifty five minutes of a press conference that turned out to be just another kind of him, you know, free associating his his stuff about immigrants and

And everyone else on his list of menacing people and themes. But this comes as we speak today, there's going to be this rally at the National Mall tonight.

she's going to make a speech my initial reaction because it came last week at a time when um the that we were into full out you know trump's a fascist kind of themes was uh you know i'd rather have a suburban mall than and then the national mall talking about uh people's lives but all the

sort of talk and chatter about this speech is that it's not going to be about, uh, July, uh, about January 6th, but it's going to be about, um,

about bringing the country together and about a president who's going to come to work every day thinking about you. Yeah. And the enemies list versus the to do list. And it could be a really big moment for her, given what's happened in the last, you know, 36 hours. I think it's thematically right. I still hate doing it in Washington.

That's where the people America wants to fire hang out. And she's part of an administration they want to fire. So I think I don't like that, but I like the messaging. I love the to-do list versus the enemies list stuff. And Heilman, you know, every candidate has strengths and weaknesses. I think she's shown that her strength is this kind of speech. I mean, we saw it at the convention. The same folks who worked on that speech are working on this speech.

And, you know, it is kind of a jujitsu moment. He's out there this morning fulminating at this press conference, and she's up there giving a big Americana unifying speech and talking about people's lives. Presumably there'll be a big economic component of this speech. How much is that worth?

Well, I think it's worth something. I mean, you think about the, it's worth something. Who knows what's for, I mean, it's really hard to calibrate at this point, but you know, it's there. The main thing that I, that I keep thinking about is how much noise there is right now. I mean, even as we guys, as we sit together, we all get together and try to think about what we can talk about on the, on the, on the podcast this week. There's so much, I mean, the noise level is so high. We're at that place where the super surrogates are all out, you know, and every time you turn around, you've got, you know, Harris has got,

uh you know whether it's bruce springsteen or beyonce or michelle obama or or maggie rogers last night in michigan it's like there's some new super famous person on the trump side you've got the the what we just talked about the rally at madison square garden cutting through right now with a big speech is really hard given how much noise there is out there so i actually i agree with like my all my instincts are where you guys are at in terms of you know washington really the mall

But I think it's one of the few things they'll cut through where people will look and say, we'll give it attention. And David, to your point about what is what is Kamala Harris proven to be best at since she became the Democratic nominee? This.

Right. So you're leaning into a thing that's going to get attention and where she's at her best. And then we'll judge it on the basis of how well they weave together the various messages they're trying to weave together to pick off the number of the votes in those very discreet pockets of persuadable voters, very discreet, very small pockets that are left in the battleground states. We'll see how it how what the message of it is. But I don't think it's a crazy idea to do it in this environment.

No, I think it's, you know, look, I think one of the things they need to do, Trump's going to be crazier and crazier this week. And I think Murphy jujitsu is the order of the day uses negative energy against him. He's modeling the behavior that worries people. And so, you know, be the,

The happy warrior is going to take us beyond all that and refocus, you know, the country's attention on the problems of everyday people. Yeah, no, no. The big the big contrast is strong. And Trump does a lot, including the Bund rally to make it stronger.

but it's still important that she connect the pain out there is not National Public Radio, Jeepers, man pain. It is how the hell are we going to make the car payment and grandma medicine. So do it with a economic tilt as well as the tonal contrast and do it in Independence Hall for Christ's sake, not Washington. Well, like I said, I mean, I would like to see her in an RV doing it.

in small communities across the Midwest. Well, that should be the campaign, a million impromptus and all that. But you know, that ship has sailed and I'm with Johnny. I think a big speech, the right big speech will break through. Just careful of Washington, man. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so, so John mentions the celebrity. She, she's been surrounded by high profile speakers at her rallies. And of course they're a big draw to these rallies. Um,

Is there any danger you guys with being so, you know, you talk about the lace curtain campaigning is is is there a high tone element of the celebrity campaigning that is has a downside to it?

It can. You know, it's a tricky blend. All right, Hollywood billionaires line up for another Hollywood millionaire. But I think they played that pretty well. I think they're at the edge of too much. It's all a little precious. But hey, Bad Bunny's on the warpath.

You know, that's a rally I want to go to in Philadelphia. So I don't think they've made any toxic errors, but the Dems always fall for, you know, being a little too precious on that stuff. So I think they're right up at the edge. So, you know, there was an interesting juxtaposition last Friday. That was sort of a, you talk about one day that may explain a lot of this race, not all of it. Both candidates in Texas,

Trump's sitting down with Joe Rogan in Austin for three hours. She's got 30,000 people in Houston with Beyonce as a featured speaker at a reproductive rights rally. And, you know, it's so interesting. You look at the huge gender gap that's evidenced itself in most polling, not all polling, and

You know, there you have it. One guy talking to young men on the, you know, through Joe Rogan and her talking to not all just women, but this highly targeted to women. So here's Beyonce making her first big appearance for Kamala and endorsing her at the at the big rally in Houston. I'm not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother.

A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies. A world where we're not divided. Our past, our present, our future merge to meet us here. Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what's possible with no ceilings, no limitations.

Imagine our grandmothers. Imagine what they feel right now. Those who have lived to see this historic day. She's super popular. Hyman, you're a pop culture guy, but probably not unexpected. But the event itself was pretty energetic. Were you down there? I was not. I was in Michigan at the time when it happened. I mean, look, she's...

Obviously, massively popular, and she's in that Taylor Swift category of superstardom at this point. You guys actually probably have as clear an idea about – let's talk about jiu-jitsu. It's like they decided to go down to Texas on the sort of theory that now the media is all national. Neither one of you guys in a presidential campaign you've ever run would have ever sent your candidate in the final round.

you know the final two weeks to a uncompetitive state um but you know their decision to kind of to use that as a stage to try to make a point really about about women's health and reproductive freedom and abortion you know i again in the new world that we live in i to mike's point before i think that the notions of like the old ideas that somehow democrats get dinged for hanging around with hollywood celebrities i don't think that's meaningful especially not to you

young voters who basically look at their, their, these celebrities are aspirational to the kind of young voters that the campaign is trying to reach with a message like this. And I don't think anybody who thinks that it's bad for Kamala Harris to hang around with, with Beyonce is someone who's never going to vote for Kamala Harris in the first place. So I look at that. Is she a great speaker? Is she a great surrogate? No. Is, is that a get that's worth getting? I mean, who wouldn't put Taylor Swift up there regardless of what she said, you know, these are now with the voters that they're trying to reach and,

Breaking through and having some connection to the shine of these people is, it seems to me, valuable, even if they're not traditionally fantastic political surrogates who are going to give a great speech. We'll get to Michelle Obama, who is. But these kind of people, does that help her with low-propensity voters and maybe break through with them? Worth a shot, sure.

Yeah, I don't think it's unhelpful. I think people who are psyched up about voting for Kamala love the Beyonce thing. I think bros who like Trump love the Rogan thing. You know, it's all incremental at this point. But the thing about mega celebrities is they push you to the front of the news if you use them well, so you get the hit. And that's not a bad thing.

Um, so I, I, but they're often treated like H bombs that are going to change the whole campaign. I don't believe that either. It's interesting because, uh, you know, just to extend your point, John, uh, Trump spent three hours with Rogan on Friday and ended up delaying his arrival at a rally in Michigan by several hours. You may have been at that rally. Uh, and, um,

It does show you the ordering of priorities because he's he'll reach tens of millions of people through that Rogan show. And so, you know, his view is if I have to keep a battleground state crowd waiting a little, they'll wait, as he said to the crowd. Well, we got to win. So I'm sure you understand.

I mean, a big Trump rally in Traverse City, which is where that rally was, was, you know, he probably had 9000 people there or something. I believe that Rogan thing has generated more than 30 million views, churns on our views on YouTube. You know, it seems like pretty smart. I mean, if I'm Trump, that's what I do, too. Yeah. Let's listen to a little bit of that. That conversation with Rogan.

Can you imagine Kamala doing this show? I could imagine her doing this show. She'd be laying on the floor. She was supposed to do it and she might still do it and I hope she does. She's not going to do it. I will talk to her like a human being. I would try to have a conversation with her. If she did this kind of an interview with you...

I hope she does because it would be a mess. She'd be laying on the floor comatose. You'd be saying, call in the medics. I think we'd have a fine conversation. I think I'd be able to talk to her. I wouldn't try to interview her. I'd just try to have a conversation with her and hopefully get to know her as a human being. That was my goal, having her on. Trying to get her to express herself just as a human being. I don't know if these...

I don't think these formats are good. I don't think that two people... First of all, I hate the idea of the presidential debates because I hate the idea of a time limitation on complex ideas.

Also, you have to break. I think you have to have the debates. Right. But the way they do the debates, I think, is the wrong way to do it. I think they should have a conversation. I think you and Kamala, you sit across the table with no one in the room but the two of you. And by the way, I've been wondering, why didn't they do the Rogan thing? I would because he's he'll pull punch. It would not have been. I think she would have done pretty well. And she'd be playing on Trump's side of the field, which is good.

I think that they didn't do it because Rogan wanted them to come down to Texas to do it. He wanted three hours like he got with Trump. I think Rogan said that, you know, that they've been negotiating about time. And there may have been some suspicion. I mean, he was, you know, he wasn't he wasn't he did not challenge Trump, but it was a very friendly conversation.

I think it would have been the same with her. Maybe. Maybe. Three hours and 30 million people. Maybe. Maybe. You mentioned Michelle Obama. She was in Michigan on Saturday and pissed Trump off. We now know. But she was she was tough. She was tough. I think we have a little bite of that as well. So I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a little frustrated.

that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump's gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn. I hope that you'll forgive me if I'm a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon.

a known slumlord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse, all of this while we pick apart Kamala's answers from interviews that he doesn't even have the courage to do, y'all. - You know, this has always been, this was a problem for us, you know, because Michelle's so circumspect and she doesn't really say what she feels. So, and there, you know, I'm joking.

I'm joking. That was a pretty, that was, that was a pretty tough assault. And the whole speech was very, very edgy, very, very edgy and, and effective. I mean, look, I was there for it. And, you know, you think about all these super surrogates who, who have come out, she's the last one, you know, she hadn't spoken. She hadn't found the campaign trails until that day in Kalamazoo and

I think maybe Kalamazoo because her husband had just been in Detroit a couple days earlier, which speaks to a larger thing about the focus on Michigan. So, you know, the county is important, Kent County. No, I understand. I just think— College town, yeah. You could imagine that there are a lot of places that she could have gone in Michigan. I think there was a—I mean, I—

I don't think it matters in some sense because she got covered statewide. It didn't really matter where that event took place. But I think, you know, Harris was going to be in Ann Arbor a couple days later and Rackabob had been in Detroit a couple days earlier. Again, I think that speaks to a larger issue around how much the campaign is focused on Michigan right now and its sense of they have some confidence they're going to win it, but it feels a little bit more dicey than it did, I think, to them a month ago or two months ago. Oh, it's the new Pennsylvania. It slipped, no doubt about it.

So, but, but I would say that I would say, you know, in that room, she again did what we all talked about, what the three of us talked about in Chicago, uh,

I thought her speech was incredible. And it was incredible not just because it was fierce and her dragging of Trump was as effective and compressed a way of taking Trump on as anybody when she was in contrast mode. But the stretch of the speech, the long, about eight or nine minute long stretch of the speech,

speech where she talked about women's health and directed all of her comments to the men in the audience and said, this isn't just about abortion, it's about women's health. And let me tell you in a very emotional and unusual terms, unusually graphic terms for a political speech. I don't think I've ever heard anything like it in covering politics, how kind of graphic and direct she was about the complexity of women's health.

and how direct she was about making this a men's issue. I mean, I sat there with a couple people who've covered a lot of presidential campaigns, and we all were sort of agog at it, not just how unusual, partly how unusual it was, and partly how the room was riveted. And if you watch it on camera, there have been a lot of people on social media saying, go back and watch this whole segment. It would be worth your time. It's got millions of views now on Twitter.

I think it was incredible. She did an incredible job. The thing that makes her effective as a speaker is that she's not a politician and she's generally, you know, she's genuine and she's very blunt and she speaks in very plain language.

about what she thinks and what she feels. And yeah, that, you know, in that bite you're talking about, she talked about, she basically talked to men and she said, your rage is going to cause us harm if you make Trump the president. And it was, yeah, Murphy,

You have thoughts on all this? You're a Michigander. Yeah, well, it's interesting they went to K-Zoo. I think that was smart, just tactically. It's a college town, but it's in Republican West Michigan.

And it's an area that is becoming more secular. Originally, you know, it's Dutch Protestant out there, a strong pro-life area. But that's been melting away as Kent County adds more Democrats and becomes less rock-ribbed Republicans. So she went to the college town in a Red Sea that's turning more purple.

to do full-on offense. And I always like full-on offense. I don't think any of these surrogates are that big of a deal at this point. I think people are lined up.

But yeah, I think it was a smart use of her. They're not, they, they're, they are lined up. I think all of these events are more about, uh, turnout and about, you know, energizing people to come out and vote. And dominating the news cycle. We've only got seven of them left, which is why again, the, the Bund rally was such a mistake because it's costing Trump three days. So let's talk about where we are, uh,

we were sort of hinting at it there. You've got three states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the famous blue wall, all of them on a, on a razor's edge there. And you see various polls that basically add up to the fact that those states are, are tied. I think there's particular, particularly,

Concern on the Democratic side about Wisconsin, although all the states are very, very competitive, but Wisconsin was thought to be a strong, stronger state. I don't know why people thought that it's the it's the it's the whitest of states.

The of the three, but more white Democrats. So it's like Minnesota. It's kind of that upper Midwest thing. But you're right. It is by the normal calculus. It should be no easier than Michigan by history. I mean, it's been razor thin for two straight elections. Right. The polling, the polling miss in Wisconsin was greater in 2020. There wasn't any of those states. And

And it's not only the whitest day, but it's also the least college educated. So it should be, by some accounts, the weakest of those

Three states, if you think about it just demographically. There's a very strong Democratic Party, though, in Wisconsin. That state party is very strong, and there's been a lot of growth. All the growth around is in Madison there. So there's been a kind of thing that people have leaned into. I think if you asked people inside the campaign and other Democrats who really know what's going on in those three states, they would say exactly what you just said. I think they think that they're all...

that if the data that the campaign, the Harris campaign and the public data is correct, they can win all three of those states on the basis of their field operation because their field operation is very good in all those states, especially in Michigan and Wisconsin.

I think they all think there's a chance that the data is off and that Trump could then, if that's true, and that there's a bias in the data, a non-response bias that's shown up in Trump. The same thing happens as in 16 and 20. Trump could win all three of those states by three points. Non-response bias meaning that people who supported Trump just didn't participate in polls. Yeah, they're not as loud.

You know what the truth is? Nobody knows. Well, nobody knows. This thing is totally—we're all looking at the margin of error. Of course. My gut is Trump has a ceiling and it'll break to her, but that's only a gut thing. And it's based on the Dobson has always shown Election Day power.

that wasn't there before. So if I had to bet, I'm to the point where I'd bet on her. I think she's definitely going to win the popular vote. It's the Electoral College, of course. But only by a whisker. I'll tell you some bad Michigan news.

So in my EV life, we did a poll there and two to one Michigan voters think EVs are bad for Michigan. Trump has won the argument there. Now, the Harris campaign is not engaged in the argument. They've let him run wild. Whitmer's let him run wild and to some extent Slotkin has. So she has a defensive add up.

And when they think when the auto industry, what's good for Michigan auto industry is breaking two to one against you, that would trouble me. You and I disagree on the slot can add. I actually thought it was pretty good because basically she said, I don't drive one because I live in a rural area and there's not a lot of charging stations around here, but

She said if... Yeah, but she doesn't want to... But if these cars are going to be manufactured, I want them to be manufactured right here in Michigan and not in China. And I thought it was a pretty good way of dealing with it. It's better than not dealing with it. No, true. There should have been strong offense. But the problem is...

And after that, the committee came in and clobbered her two to one with the spot showing her vote is saying she's lying to you about this because she does have a vote for some of those mandates, which which is a distortion. But she said, well, no one's going to force you to drive. Yeah. So it's just anyway, that is two to one, which is depressing. All right. But getting back to the main issue.

main issue here. We have identified, I think, when people say what's going to happen, some of the variables. One is, is there for a third straight election going to be a hidden Trump vote that we see on Election Day of people who weren't adequately polled? The answer that you hear from

a lot of folks but with no great assurances that they've that posters are so sick of being wrong that they've done a lot of things to try and guard against that and may have over corrected and that they may their numbers may actually be conservative that is one element of this the other element of it is this

hidden, uh, Harris vote that we, I think talked about before, which is, uh, are there women who don't want to say, uh, that they're voting for, uh, Harris Republican women, white non-college women. Uh, uh, there are these stickers that are going around sticky posts, uh,

that are being put in, uh, women's restrooms in Michigan and maybe the other battleground States saying you don't have to tell anyone who you voted for, which was Liz Cheney's message when she, uh, when she did her thing. So that's another element. And then the third is, are these numbers among minorities, among, uh, African-Americans among Hispanics, uh,

Are these numbers going to hold up to the point where Trump is getting, you know, between 15 and 20 percent of the African-American vote, where Trump is getting significantly more Hispanic vote? That's another thing that we don't know. I'd say there are two more hidden votes, too, real quick. And then, Johnny, it's all yours. One is race.

You know, we're all very sophisticated, but first African-American woman. Second, get this crowd out of there. The economy sucks. I paid a lot less four years ago. And that is a big thing. And it's the motivating thing that's propping up Trump. And it is powerful. Let me just say that I want to ask you both a question here. Okay. Stipulating that Mike is, of course, right.

- Of course. - I don't want to stipulate anything like that. - I know, I hate, listen, it pains me. It pains me to say it. But Mike is right only to the extent that he said, "Nobody knows." - I mean, stop clock is right once a day. - So it's kind of a gimme that when I say it, 'cause he said, "Nobody knows." Nobody knows.

So nobody knows, right? I think there are people on the Democratic side who are starting to feel like a little bit confident because they think that the polling is basically, that their numbers are basically right. And that because they really feel, especially now that they're out in the field doing all this stuff, they look at the turnout operation on the Republican side and think it's just a joke what Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk have, when they're privatizing this, what they're doing. And they look at their operation and think, state of the art, if it's a really close race, we can win this race. And then...

there's the possibility that, you know, there's the hidden Trump thing. Here's my question to the two of you. Trump is doing events, not just the massive square garden event, which you could kind of write off either to Nazi fetishism or, Hey, I'm a New Yorker. I'm planning to play at the garden, but he's headed to New Mexico this week. He's headed to Virginia this week. I, so I asked the two of you when you, you know, given what we've seen from the Trump campaign in total professional people running it, but it's still Trump.

At least in my training, you can tell a lot about what a campaign thinks is in play by what they do in the last week of the campaign. You see Kamala Harris is living in Pennsylvania and Michigan right now. I mean, she's occasionally able to make a stop in North Carolina. She'll make a stop in Nevada. But really, she's in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,

pretty much exclusively or predominantly. What do you guys read when you see the Trump campaign going those places? Either is it, is it lunacy? Is it a head fake or are they actually, I think there are two things. I think there are two things. One is, um, that, uh,

And I think that Trump wants big crowds and he wants to go to places that are sort of virgin territory where he hasn't been a lot because he's more of an attraction in those places and we'll get bigger crowds there. I think that's part of it. And part of it is, yeah, maybe they are taking a fling to try and flip Trump.

But I don't know if that's an expression of confidence, like we've got those things nailed, or if it's an expression of we need some insurance. Because I'll tell you one thing. The Harris campaign cut its media buy in North Carolina today. I suspect that money's going somewhere else. I think that they...

And I kind of believe that there are five states now that are going to actually determine this. And that is the three northern tier states, the blue wall states, Georgia and Nevada. Yeah, totally. And Georgia.

And so they are, they are, I think, going to focus on Georgia and as a potential insurance policy against a chip in the blue wall, primarily Wisconsin. And

And, you know, Trump may if his people are thinking rationally there, they could be saying we maybe we can steal one somewhere. Yeah, I think the Trump thing is totally whim. If Trump wins, it won't be because of his campaign. It'll be because the fire, the Biden crowd force and the wrong track is too big.

Yeah. So they're not running the rational chess game like the folks over at Harris are trying to do. But they're tactical. They feel something going on. And we got a radio talk guy in Virginia who's killing her. We can get a crowd there. Go, go, go. And they also, I think, have a theory that no matter where Trump goes, it's national news.

So the local targeting stuff is just not as important. Well, if you light yourself on fire or wherever you go, that's a pretty good. Right. Right. You can go to Guam and make news. You know, one thing I hate worse than the Puerto Ricans, these Guam people. OK, then let's take a break right here and we'll be right back.

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padded paws. Well, here's a question. Other than Madison Square Garden on the Rhine,

Has anything big happened in the race now in the closing few days? I don't feel like it. Well, those are pretty big things. That's like, how's the play otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln? No, no, I'm just trying to think. Any other big development? Yeah, but that hasn't played as big as, well, I guess, but I don't think it broke through. No, no, but they pulled their punches. They could have been more destructive. Iran could have...

more violently. But the point is, did it break through? No, no, I don't think it broke through at all. I don't think it broke through at all. I don't think it broke through at all. But I do think that that rally, I think the focus is on these candidates now and what they're doing. And I think that rally at the Garden was big. I think the speech tonight is going to be

Maybe bigger than you guys think it's going to be. I just think there's going to be a huge focus on the two of them. Now, media, the media they're doing is going to be sort of on, you know, subsidiary to what they're doing more than it has been in this campaign.

But the one thing I would say that I wonder about is, you know, someone torched a bunch of ballots up in Oregon and the mood, you know, you see all these stories. It was a drop off box kind of where you could drop off your ballot. Somebody lit on fire in a pretty tight congressional race there and burned a couple hundred ballots that they're taking apart to try to revote them all.

But you also hear about all these precautions that, you know, the vote counting centers are taking bulletproof glass, snipers on the rooftop in Philadelphia. And it does underscore the fact that this is the environment is very, very rife with, you know.

negativity in a way that someone or some group of people could be provoked to do something that could impact on the race. I go back to and I wish this on note. I am not wishing this. Don't all you people out there don't say I am. But, you know, when poor Paul Pelosi got attacked right before the midterms, I think it had an impact.

And so, you know, there are those kinds of things that you just can't predict. Yeah, you can't see until it happens. And God forbid it does. I did remember one thing that you jog my memory on, which is you said, you know, you talked about the rally again, the rally in front of the White House.

And you also talked about the drag that Biden is on her. I mean, one of the risks of doing it in front of the White House is that he lives there. And, you know, we're talking about a country with a 28% right track number. His numbers are low. And in a contest where you're trying to disassociate yourself from him, do you inadvertently trigger that association?

I'm worried you do, which is, again, why is it so hard to go to Independence Hall and do the same speech? But, hey, I'm getting a note here from go ahead, Johnny. But the musicians union says they're here to play or it's overtime. I won't. I will. I will only say that I think that, you know, when people are going to think about this event, they're going to think about January 6th. And when they think about January 6th, they think about Trump. All right. Let's hit the fugal horn. Listener mail.

If you have a question for The Hacks, send it to us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com. Record a voicemail, email it to us, just keep it short, use your name, or call our special voter registration center slash question line in the back room in Chicago of Axelrod's office.

773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. Mike Murphy, a caller named Ira has a question. I don't know where he's calling from, but I think it's directed to you.

Hello, Hacks. This is fellow podcaster Ira Glass from This American Life. I'm reaching out because there is something I genuinely do not understand about the election. Okay. Harris may lose because inflation, people don't like the economy under Biden. What if she got more honest and more real about the economic policy choices that Biden made? Like, what if she said like, okay, yeah, we did pump a ton of money into the economy during COVID. And yeah, it added to inflation, but we

We did it for a good reason. We were trying to prevent a recession and it worked. We stopped the country from sliding into recession. And very important to say, most of the inflation would have happened even without our spending. Economists agree most of the inflation came from problems in the supply chain during COVID and other reasons. No president could have stopped that. But people would have suffered way more if we slid into a recession, but we still would have had a ton of inflation no matter what. Is that just like,

too subtle and too much detail for a presidential candidate? And more important, would that actually even help her with the voters that she needs to get? Okay, thanks.

Well, Ira, thank you. We're big fans of you and your podcast. We have a shrine with candles and everything here at Hacks on Tap headquarters. So I'll take a quick shot at it, and the other guys probably want to jump in. I actually believe a little more authenticity about this sort of stuff and kind of doing the old Bill Clinton explainer-in-chief routine, which is here's where we were, here's what we did, and here's where I'm taking us, which is a better place.

versus chaos, which will hurt your wallet, would have been a good strategy for her. I think they've kind of talked past the economic stuff. They've been good about motive. But I think a little bit of that would have thickened out her image of understanding the problem and having a new plan to do about it. So yes, I think it would have helped.

Yeah, I don't I mean, look, it is the argument you make is absolutely true. It is it is, though there is an old adage in politics that when you're explaining you're losing. And this is doubly complicated because the truth is she she wants to claim credit for the positive things that Biden did, but she doesn't want to necessarily bear the burden.

of the negative. And the truth is vice presidents don't make these decisions. Presidents make these decisions. But I would make a different argument because I don't think I do think this has hampered her. And the argument is that, yes, inflation aggregated over the last few years after the pandemic was costly to people and they're paying a lot more now than they were. But

This is also on top of decades in which the economy has been

the economy has changed rapidly because of globalization, because of automation. And, you know, the middle class has often been the loser in that exchange. A lot of working class communities have been losers in exchange. And the question is, are we going to build the kind of economy in which hard work is rewarded? In the future, hard work is rewarded and everybody has a fair chance to get ahead. And that's what she's fighting for. I would sort of

That also is a reality that I think is informing. This is our constant argument. I want to do the economic explanation. You want to do class warfare. It's why we're going to tumble through time together arguing. You guys have been tumbling. You guys have been tumbling long enough. Can I just say one thing quickly about Ira's glass? What that sounded like to me, and I

I was a glass. I'm a massive fan. He's a brilliant guy. Yeah. That sounds to me like a, that sounds to me like a better communicated, more articulate version of what Biden in fact said for three years, which was kind of like, you know, Hey, look, you know, we did our best. We, we've taken some knocks, but look at how good we actually came out in a pretty good place. We didn't have a hard, we didn't have a soft landing. We didn't have a recession and compared to the rest of the world, we did a great job. I mean, Biden didn't convey it with that degree of clarity, but

I just, to me, the bigger question on all of this is, and I think what, if you look at the ads that the Trump campaign has been running against Harris and the biggest question, which is, has she done enough to separate herself from Biden? What he's suggesting in that answer is go back and go back and relitigate the Biden, go back and relitigate the Biden policy and sort of say what we did on this. And here's why the choices we made. I think the bigger question is, has she done enough to put distance between herself?

Joe Biden just said it's related to what I was talking about. I think she needs to do what she's been doing, which is talk about the future and and about a bigger project than just what you're going to do about inflation, although lowering costs is part of it. Yeah. And that is, is are people going to get a fair shake?

And Murphy-Columbian class warfare, I think it's a reality. I think that the economy has changed. Go through your own old state of Michigan, Mike. Yes, yeah, I get it. I mean, we have gone through lots of dislocations, including a financial crisis that damaged many, many Americans. All right, all right. But let me just wind back to this so we get to the next question. What I like about the pitch Ira made is,

was as the new person on the scene, she had a moment to make a better version of Biden's argument that I don't think would have stitched her onto Biden. It would have credentialed her as somebody who understands what happened, can explain it, and then can run with what's going to change what I'm going to do. So I actually think it could have worked. But anyway, on to the next question. You could also do it shorter, by the way, which is just to say, listen, we were faced with, in addition to the pandemic, an economic catastrophe

catastrophe. And the question was, do you do it in such a way that people don't drown in the midst of the crisis and that we don't have a recession at the end of it? And, you know, we can argue about whether the dials were exactly right.

But that's the situation the president faced. You could do that. But I still argue, I would argue that what I'm arguing and what Heilman argued. Okay, I'm going to argue to keep cranking here. This is from Andrew for Axe. Andrew wants to know, in light of the recent news around the Washington Post non-endorsement in the presidential race, L.A. Times, too.

Could you comment on how impactful newspaper endorsements or non-endorsements have been to campaigns that you've been part of in the past? Well, look, I mean, I think presidential races are one thing. And, you know, it is a news story when a newspaper that would have endorsed someone didn't endorse someone. I think endorsements are important in inverse proportion to the amount of attention the races get.

So if you don't know much about a race and you're looking for a clue, these endorsements matter more. I don't know that this race or any race is going to turn on presidential endorsements. But there's another element to this that is important to me, which is why now Jeff Bezos, who owns The Post, wrote an op-ed today and talked about it and explained his thinking, which is that newspapers should be

you know, objective purveyors of truth and therefore shouldn't be in the endorsement business. So the post continues to endorse candidates for other offices. I worry about major federal contractors and

people who own businesses that are subject to influence by governmental decisions. I worry about in an era of Trump who's unbridled and using these levers, what that means in terms of not just editorials, but in terms of news content. And so I do, I think this is an ominous moment, but Heilman, you're a, you're an old ink stained wretch yourself. So what's your view of this?

I think it's really, I think it's very, it's hugely ominous. And I don't think editorials matter at the national level. I don't think any of these editorials move a single boat. I don't think this is not a consequentialist argument. If you look at what happened, Donald Trump did a public meeting with blue origin, one of the, one of Jeff Bezos's companies on the same day that this op-ed got killed. That is a, that is an act of public, uh, enforced obeisance where, uh,

If there was a legitimate argument, if the Washington Post or any newspaper doesn't want to publish editorials, that's totally legit. If they'd announced this a year ago, two years ago, on a reasonable time frame and said, you know, we want to get out of the business of editorials, that would have been completely legitimate and totally fine. Instead, at the very last

By the way, Blue Origin competes with SpaceX, so...

That's another element of the story. But this is a very 90s kind of Russia thing. This is the optics of the onset of oligarchy. And I think Jeff Bezos is interesting to listen to Marty Baron talk about how tough and how unyielding and unbending Bezos was for all the years through the first decade.

uh trump administration how he never bent and there was a lot of pressure and all of a sudden he snapped and i'm not saying i think there's necessarily a quid pro quo but i think jeff basis look at the situation and seeing what all of us have been seeing which is that a trump in a second term would be unbound and the kind of consequences that could happen to him not just the washington post but to all of his business interests could be extraordinary it's the it's the oakum's razor of this thing here is that he's like

He's ducking and covering here and trying to limit the potential fallout of what would happen if Trump gets a tough anti-Trump editorial and then Trump wins the election.

What else is it? They're still doing endorsements in state races, by the way. No, no. It makes no – a year ago is when to do it. It was incredibly clumsy, and it's terrible for The Washington Post because their brand is built on not doing stuff like this. But I don't think it's quid pro quo. I think it is kind of arrogant and stupid. Yeah.

And my guess is they really regret it now because it was a huge brand deal. I bet you there's going to be a lot of post talent on the market. Who's they? Who's they really regret? I guess Bezos, whoever talks to him about the post. But I don't believe it's some deal. I don't know if he's going to keep the post. I said exactly the opposite. It's not a real problem.

Yeah. I don't know if he's going to keep the post, but anyway, go ahead. And by the way, I should add the L.A. angle on this. L.A. Times did the same thing where the owner actually spiked an editorial supporting Harris. Well, they did here, too, apparently. And they had a—part of it is the owner's daughter is a big loony leftist who meddles in a lot of paper stuff. You hear a lot of complaints about her. And she's very upset about Gaza. And Kamala has not been—

Tough enough in her view on Israel. So anyway, I think she wins the useful idiot prize. That said, I don't think it has any impact. And I think anyway, it is what it is. And the post is going to pay a price for it, unfortunately. Yeah.

Okay, we got one more question for John Heilman. Steve says, all this talk is of the seven swing states. I just reduced them to five today. Is there any state which might surprise you by going against the norm, even as a long shot?

Well, if Trump is a – if Trump actually – if it all turns out that Trump actually has a big sweep, polls have all been wrong. It's not really that close. Trump wins all seven of the conventional battleground states.

I think it's not impossible that a state like Virginia, if that were the case, that a state like Virginia or New Mexico, the states that he's going to might be in play. But I don't I'm not saying I believe that outcome, but that those would be the ones he's going to the states that are the New Hampshire, I guess, the ones that would be most on the bubble. And they're all ones that would be on the bubble that would tip Republican if they tipped it through suddenly an unexpected landslide. I don't think there's a single one that would tip into the Democratic column right now. I don't know if you guys disagree.

No. Can I ask you guys a question that occurs to me sometimes? Does the campaign think it's a good idea to send Trump to these other states because he's not helping them in the...

battleground states when he shows up. That's an interesting idea. I'll bet that thought has gone through their heads, but I don't think the campaign's in control of anything to do with Trump's schedule or personal messaging. But I'll bet they might think that way. That was kind of the question when I raised this earlier, which is, you know, what does it reflect? Does it reflect Trump's caprice

Or is it, you know, if you get Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles on sodium pentothal, would they say, no, no, we're so confident, rightly or wrongly, we're so confident about the battleground states that we're trying to expand the map. I don't know the answer to that question, the sodium pentothal version of it. I don't know what they think. I still am trying to get my arms around the fact that you use the word caprice. That seems like a pretty uptown word for crazy, you know.

I would say after the weekend, Wiles wants it to be over. That would be my guess. End this thing, please. Please, dear God. All right, guys. All right, wrapping up. Hey, one plug, real quick. Axelrod, where are you election night? CNN, right? CNN, yes. And Heilman, where are you? Hiking my bags for Portugal.

NBC. I'm trying to plug our election night appearances here. Why? Because not only can you watch me on election night, you can buy a rake. Send your Bezos angry mail to Heilman. I'm going to be with Brian Williams on Amazon Prime Live along with Carville and a cast of characters. We're going to try it live on Amazon. I think it's going to be fun. A cast of characters. Yeah, we're going to have an oddball crew.

It's going to be great. With Brian Williams back anchoring. No wonder you were defending Bezos. No, no, totally unconnected. I've criticized it. No, they can fire me if they want, but we're going to have fun. We're going to get together later this week. Yeah, special. Special episode, end of the week. We don't know which day yet. We're working on that. Yes, as events warrant. But we will be back later this week with another edition of Hacks on Tap. Hacks on Tap.

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