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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. He just came up. Are the teleprompters not working? Not even a little bit.
Great job. And then I don't pay the company that does it, right? And then I end up with a story Trump doesn't pay. I don't pay contractors that do a shitty job. And that's a shitty job. That's a shitty job. You can't read a word. All right, there you have it. He's back on the trail after weeks in the courtroom and 34 convictions, Robert Gibbs. Donald Trump is back. He sounds tan-rested and ready, Axe. I mean, that's the soothing voice of a man in control of...
his teleprompter. Ready. He's red-faced, ready, and whatever. But we have with us someone who can tell us
Maybe better than anyone, how all this is going to play with American voters. Sarah Longwell, who does the excellent podcast, The Focus Group, also publisher of The Bulwark and probably high up on the list of people who Donald Trump thinks the DOJ should be investigating in 2025.
a renegade Republican, broken-away Republican. Sarah, welcome. Thanks so much for having me, and thank you for putting into the universe that I'm going to get audited the second Trump is back in office. Oh, that's no secret, my friend. That's circulating. That's circulating. Yes. You better have those bulwark books in order. They are locked up tight. I'll tell you what. I know they're coming for me. I know. Listen,
You know, one of the things, we had Chris Christie on here a few weeks ago before the verdict, and Christie said we were looking at the whole thing the wrong way, that we were focused on how the voters would react to the verdict. He said the most important thing may be how Donald Trump reacts to the verdict. And he predicted that Trump would be angrier and more vengeful and more paranoid. There's nothing that I've seen since the conviction that disabuses me that he was right.
And I guess my question to you is when you hear that and you think about all the voters that you've spoken with and you're talking to a lot of cross pressured voters, voters who are still trying to figure out what they want to do. How do you sort it all out? How does the you know, he was this he was particularly, you know.
and unchained probably because the teleprompter wasn't working last weekend. Does an unhinged Trump help Trump? No. And this is where, look, I'm going to let you guys get to all be right. Chris Christie's right and you're right. Because the thing, it's not how to... I was with Christie just for the record. I'm not saying he wasn't right. It's not how voters react to a conviction in a vacuum. It's how...
How did they react to Donald Trump as Donald Trump sort of comes back into their consciousness? Right. There's a lot of people talking about Trump amnesia, and this is really true. The best thing that ever happened to Donald Trump was him getting kicked off Twitter and having to live over on Truth Social out. And also the media fighting all of its previous battles and fearful of elevating Trump in ways or elevating.
Elevating his lies. Yes, he was in his own little basement. Little bubble. He was in his own little bubble. And you need the voters to see him. We needed him out of the courtroom. I'm glad it came out with the conviction. We needed him out there and in front of people, letting them see the lunatic that he is. And the only way that this, the dynamics of this race change, they're not going to change because of Biden. Biden's not getting any younger and he is who he is and he's done the job he's done and he has the record he has. I predicted, by the way, that he would not get younger.
Yes. Good. Good. This is why they pay you. No, listen, this is what people tune in for, these kinds of incredible political insights that you only get here, folks. You only get them here. Give me a second. I just need to write a few things down that Axe just said. I just need to.
Well, Gibbs doesn't think he's ever going to get old. So, you know, he's he's a little doubtful about this whole thing. I feel it every day. The one thing, one piece of advice I might give Trump is, you know, he's held rallies now in Arizona, Nevada, in places that were reaching or exceeding 100 degrees in temperature during the time of the rally. They had like a dozen people drop out in the Arizona rally. I
I might begin to segue in summer in America to sort of, you know, mid evening rallies across the Sunbelt might be one good place to start. I'm struck this year by one of the things you said, which is basically, and I'm paraphrasing, but you can pick up the words yourself that Biden's not going to change this race. I guess when I hear that as somebody who,
who's been on a presidential campaign, that would be tremendously unsettling to me if I worked on the Biden campaign. It may well be true just based on all we know and whatnot, but the idea that you're going to sit there for essentially four and a half to five months and
And you're not going to be the cause of winning this race. It sure takes a lot out of your hands. Well, let me let me let me expand, I guess, because it's not as though Biden couldn't do damage to himself. He certainly could. And there are things he can do to help himself. But they are things like having a very good debate. Right. Like it is things like when. Well, that's a good idea. Right. Yeah.
good debate show people you can do it like he's got just a very specific line to cross and it is not what message and this or that for Biden is just show people still you can do the job what I mean is but what I'm talking about Trump is that the biggest coalition in American politics is the anti-Trump coalition and nobody brings the anti-Trump coalition together like Trump
Trump is the one that brings those people together and papers over the divisions and the problems. And to do that, we got to see them. Voters have to remember, this is what I watch with the voters, is when you have double haters that we call them, right? People who don't want to vote for either person. You are trying to have them figure out
They all talk about the lesser of two evils. Trump's the bigger evil. Trump's the one they hate more because they don't actually hate Biden. Biden's old. Right. And so you've got to get them focused on Trump. It's not that it's not I don't think it's revelatory. Crazy is worse than creaky. Yeah, I would. But but look, the intensity on the on the Trump side does seem to be a lot stronger than the intensity on the Biden side.
It does. And but here's I think the question is, I don't disagree with you on sort of where this is going to end with sort of the double haters. I don't know that I buy into the fact that I mean, Trumping. Yes. Trumping crazy is dangerous. Trumping Trump.
is is what keeps his vote where it is it is and i'm not again there's a difference between sort of biden and the biden campaign so i i if there's no chance that the last time i was not here i was talking uh about the need for a much more robust and aggressive surrogate game um because one of the things that i sort of lose my mind about uh with the democrats is like
Trump and the Republicans are able to control vibes. They're able to control narratives. Watch how they came out of this conviction. What do they do? They circle up. They're all on the same page. They're all saying the same thing. Not only do they create their own echo chamber, they create their own reality. Right. And when I look at something with Biden, like the economy, hey, Biden, great news for Biden.
The economy is actually good. We are in a vibe session, not a recession. How do you change vibes, right? You change vibes by going on relentless knife in the teeth offense with your entire coalition pushing hard, going out there. Democrats have got to stop wondering about should it be this message or should it be this message?
Just go. Everybody go. Go ahead. Fight me. Fight me, guys. Fight me. Listen, you get a 20-second timeout. The problem is I agree with you completely on the surrogate thing. I've been bewildered as to why there isn't a more focused and organized surrogate program. But if you talk to people who would be principal surrogates,
None of them know what they're supposed to say. They get like 11 talking points. And this reflects what I think. I disagree with you on one point, which is I do think the campaign needs a message and a message is not an issue. A message is a narrative.
And Trump has a narrative, which is the world's out of control and Biden's not in command and I'm strong and he's weak. That's the whole Republican message. All the issues that they use inform their message. So the question is, what is the corollary or what is the I don't know what it
but what is, what is the democratic version of that? What is Biden's message? Now, I think a piece of it, they're sort of getting to, which is I'm for you. He's for him. Yes. And I think that's a pretty, pretty strong element, but it has to, then you do when you hang the ornaments on that tree, it has to be about stuff that people care about that they, and that they're thinking about relative to their future. So here's what you get. If you're with me, here's what you get. If you're with him, uh,
And a lot of it has to be on the economy. I think Biden is understandably proud of the fact that we've done better than any other country in navigating the pandemic and all those economic problems. But that's cold comfort if you're sitting at your kitchen table. Like I say, like if you're talking about democracy around your kitchen table, it's because you don't have to worry about the cost of the food on your table.
And I think that, you know, he needs to be much more on the attack. I'm on your side. He's on. He's not. And it's it's you know, I mean, I think that message has to be something that surrogates all share. And it has to be something that he is prosecuting in this debate. I agree with you. Trump has set the bar so low that if if Biden is standing upright by the end of the 90 minutes, he's
You know, people will triumph. You know, I have what I call the dancing bear rule in politics. Like if a bear dances, nobody says, gee, he doesn't dance very well. They say, wow, the bear can dance. So Biden has a minimal standard to pass. But.
But he can do so much more for himself if he lays down a message with this massive audience that they're likely to have and puts Trump on the defensive. Not on everybody. I mean, I don't think it's on the indictments and democracy as much as it is on other things. And so anyway, sorry, guys.
You got me all. I have had several cups of tea here and I'm like, I was going to say the the tea up there is strong. Yeah, but I but I look, I agree with you. And look, the Republicans have always been good at saying the same thing. I think saying the same thing, if it's wrong, just means a lot of people are saying the wrong thing. Right. And the one thing I would say, again, just to sort of underscore what what David has said, both
Democrats all too often fall to a series of issues as a message, right? We're for education. We're for healthcare. We're for prescription drug costs. And I don't know how many times I've talked to candidates or talked to groups and say, the list of issues is not a message. The one thing, again, I really worry about on the economy. I do not think everybody getting on the same page can talk people into feeling better about the economy. Everybody we know...
uh, is paying something more for something that is important to them, whether they're on the job on people on that. Yeah, you're right. And I think that's the challenge. Uh, I do think to David's point, I do think that the, there are two things that I think that, that Biden has to do in this debate. One is if he, if he's,
animated. And if he performs well, he does take on that central narrative of this guy is, you know, asleep and can't possibly do the job. And that's a huge thing. And I agree with David. The second thing is there's got to be a prosecution of some larger case here. Not that may have everybody thinking totally different about at the end of that night as to that case, but something that they're going to spend the next four months prosecuting. Sarah,
In your focus groups, when you present people with statistics about how good and strong the economy is, do lights go off in their head and say, oh my God, I just got this all wrong. Things are actually really good. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And that's not, let me be clear about what I'm saying here. Okay. I'm not saying that you shouldn't acknowledge that
inflation is real. No, people in the focus groups, and I have this argument with my colleague JVL all the time because he's like, the economy's good, you know, whatever. Well, yeah, it's great on paper and a lot of people are feeling good about it. There's also a lot of people who can't get into a house because interest rates are too high. The cost for getting into their apartments are extremely high. They're paying more at the grocery store
You have to acknowledge that. Here's the way you do it. And to me, it doesn't seem that hard. And this is where you don't have Biden do it. You have the surrogates do it, which is to say this is how you turn a vibe session around. Donald Trump mismanaged the pandemic and drove this economy into a ditch. Joe Biden came in. He got us back on our feet. And we now have the best recovery of any other industrialized country. And we cannot let Donald Trump come back in and give tax cuts to rich people and not do anything to help you. We are fighting our way back. And you got to let me finish this job. Like,
There is a way to do it that acknowledges that prices are still too high for people, but also blames Trump, reminds them of what he did last time that was bad. And like, I think that Democrats have this real problem with like paralysis by analysis is everyone's like, what's the exact right message? And and I think that you have to have a message. Sure. But you to really need is like, OK.
Joe Biden talks a lot about democracy being at stake. I hear Democrats talk a lot about democracy being at stake. I talk a lot about that.
Talking about democracy being at stake is different from campaigning like democracy is at stake. And I don't want to hear about it being at stake anymore. I want the show not tell. I want to feel like everyone has this sense of urgency. And the idea to me, I actually find the idea that somebody's like, I don't know what the message would be. And I've got to wait to get my marching orders from the Biden campaign to be extremely unnerving about Democrats' gut sense of what the problem is here. They can go on offense. They can talk about
about Trump. I mean, Gretchen Whitmer, I just watched, I was on Jen Psaki's show last night and Josh Fierro was on ahead of me. And I was like,
Turn this guy loose. Put him everywhere. He's amazing. He's incredible. They're good messengers. They're good messengers. But again, Sarah, my point is that we we tend to we tend to respond to what's in the news. We tend to sort of say we we again, we tend to talk about democracy. We tend to talk about these things. I think there's a writ large case that has to get made about what the election what the broader outcome of the election is about.
And I don't know that it always gets filled in that way. And I don't know whether Democrats do an altogether good job at prosecuting all of that. I really don't. I think they don't. And I'll give you one example. It's just with the conviction. There's a lot of sort of hand-wringing over. Do we politicize this? Do we talk about it? And I'll just say, just for me, as somebody who came from the Republican comp side, that would never happen.
Like people would just be like hammer and tong over this going after Democrats if Joe Biden had been convicted of something. But let me ask you that question, because, again, I'm I'm very into look, I David and I've watched the Republicans. They're really good at saying the same thing. Three hundred people. I've often thought that they were often wrong, but never in doubt about what their message was.
And I don't actually think that spending a lot of time telling people Donald Trump is a convicted felon is the linchpin for the double hater group. When, you know, we talk about the economy, here's the challenge that Joe Biden has. It isn't just prices. It's that that economy that you're talking about that cratered during COVID, by a two to one number,
Voters in these swing states are picking Trump's stewardship over the economy when he was president to Joe Biden's. That's not because Democrats don't have the right message. No, it's because they don't have the right volume. It's because they're not going hard making this case. Before I make this point, and I've said this a million times on this podcast and elsewhere, I am the son of a refugee.
and I became the senior advisor to a president of the United States. I'm the most grateful American there is. I, I, uh, revere that my father came from, you know, terrible, terrible circumstances, you know, during the pogroms in Eastern Europe and America gave us a future. And I'm incredibly grateful to it. And I,
It scares the hell out of me that Trump doesn't believe in any rules or laws or norms or institutions. He thinks the world's corrupt and that the strong take what they want and so on. I think that the implications of that are dramatic. But I'm already convinced. And I don't think this is necessarily—I think that argument ought to be a part of what is the future we want.
But the voters who aren't hanging out in this race are low information voters who care mostly about the economy. And for whom, by the way, you know, democracy. We did a poll at the Institute of Politics two years ago at the University of Chicago. And we asked a kind of agree, disagree question. It was the government is corrupt and rigged against people like me. Fifty six percent of people said yes.
So one of the goals should be not just to talk about preserving democracy, but also making it and the system work better for more people. And I think if we take that tact, not just saving it from Donald Trump, who would pillage it, but also recognizing that we've got to do better.
I think we're going to do better with those voters we need to get. I think we're talking to ourselves quite a bit here. And I think there's a real danger in that. I agree with that. But I think that this is when I say the volume, like I'll tell you what I hear from the voters in the focus groups, which is that they don't have any sense of what Biden's done for them.
and they talk in strong and weak frames uh and that trump is kind of bad but strong and joe biden is not bad but he's weak and uh this is where i think that joe biden's got to show that he can do the job and i do think something when what you were just saying i do think that
one of the ways that the contrast can be felt by people is that Joe Biden loves America. He wants what's best for people. And maybe he's old, but in a way that he can look back and say, this has been a great, this is a great country and I've loved everything. I've loved being part of it. I love being president and the American people are the best. And, you know, let Donald Trump do his American carnage thing and have that be the contrast. I'm not saying he doesn't have to have
an affirmative message about who he is and what this campaign is about. But I do think it is about, it is about saving the country. It's a compare. It is. And I know that, you know, I know you feel that way and I feel that way, but, uh, I think again, the, to swing voters, to swing voters, uh, there, there needs to be, uh,
A more tangible and gritty contrast with Trump. In some ways, I think his moral and ethical depravity is kind of baked in the cake.
And, you know, the question is, what are the consequences? What does it what does the election of one of these guys or the other guys mean to you and your daily life? And if people believe that Donald Trump is going to lower their prices, even though, by the way, every analysis of his economic plans is going to make inflation go through the roof. If Donald Trump, if they believe that because he's strong and Biden's weak,
you know, I think Biden has to take them on aggressively. I just think he needs to take them on aggressively, not just on the issue of democracy. And yes, I agree that they're competing visions of this country, but there has to be some acknowledgement that a lot of people don't feel the country is functioning in their interest today. And you need to assure them that you're on their side and he's not. All right. Hold that thought. We're going to take a short break and now a word from our sponsors.
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What have you found? Because I think we're all sitting around. I certainly am refreshing polling updates to try to figure out and discern where voters are post the conviction. And I just said this. I don't think that reminding people I don't think there was a lot of article number of articles about this right afterwards, you know, that we should just say convicted felon as many times as we can.
which I think is, you know, saying it, reminding people is important. Again, I don't think this is going to be the linchpin of things, but I'm sitting around looking at these things, trying to discern if there's any real movement. I saw, you know, we certainly see now, I think a little bit of shift in
Some of the national polling looks better for Biden. Hard to tell what that means in the swing states. CBS did a poll which aggregated the battleground states, which kind of drives me crazy, but aggregated them and found Biden slightly ahead. And I thought in that CBS poll, there was an interesting change. I may get these somewhat reversed, but I think independents from the March poll they did were
Plus eight Biden, minus nine Trump. And again, all the usual caveats, national poll, sort of a smallish sample size. But what have you seen in your focus groups around particularly those double haters and how they're taking all this in?
Yeah. So right after the day after the conviction, we just happened to have had scheduled a group of two-time Trump voters, but who were kind of out on Trump. So, and this is a cat, we talked to this group a lot because it is our persuadable window in the work that we do with Republican voters against Trump. We think about the people who, for whom January 6th was essentially a red line where they voted for Trump twice, but they were holding their nose doing it. They didn't like him. And January 6th was just like, they
It's over. And the good news is, is that a lot of those voters are sort of these white college educated suburban voters that there's a lot of them in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, a lot of white voters there. And these and so in this group, they were they sort of said this about the conviction. They were like nothing wrong.
That like, I, I hate this guy. They were like, I'm, I, I already was done with him, but here's the thing about the convention. I can't believe he's even allowed to run again. Um, it just like, it amplified a thing that they already knew. And here's the movement.
In the group, five of the nine people, when you pushed them, binary choice, five were going for Biden. And I think that the conviction takes double haters or people who are really kind of... Are there double hater t-shirts? I get this question from listeners there. I don't know, but it's not great to be a double hater. It's sort of a bleak space to live. I think so, yeah. I'm not sure we should celebrate it. It should be a black t-shirt. A black t-shirt, yeah. And I try to remind people, and maybe I've even already said this, that...
What's interesting about the double-A-ters is, again, they don't hate Biden. They don't want to vote for Biden. And the conviction, what that did, though, is it pushed people into, yeah, I'm going to vote for Biden. And this is, I think, an important point.
key in what I see in these voters is you got to kind of get them from, I won't vote for Trump again because this guy's the worst, to I will affirmatively vote for Joe Biden. And of course, to some degree, those people just not voting for Trump is good. But you want that net voter pickup. You want to hold the swing voters that you got last time. People who voted for Trump at 16 went to Biden in 20, allowed him to win. You got to hold that coalition together. Some of those people have been backsliding as a result of just feeling like
Well, I'm still a center right voter and Joe Biden's governing like a Democrat. Now, I don't like that. And before it was just aspirational. So we see some backsliding in the groups. But the conviction was helping to get people to the place of, look, Joe Biden's the one person standing in between Trump and the White House. So I got to vote for that guy. And I think that is where it helps and is pushing people over. And to go back to our earlier conversation, though.
The number one thing that's going to help the double haters move is realizing that they hate Trump more and people remember that they hate Trump more the more they see of Trump. It is it is a like Trump when he has a debate like that first debate he had last time. Right. That's the danger for Trump in the debate. And it goes back to our very beginning. We were talking about how does the conviction making him crazy impact voters? It's the more that he behaves differently.
like a lunatic. Like right now he's people see him and he's got big lunatic energy and they see that as strong energy related. But you need them to start listening to what he's saying and be like, oh, no, no. Well, let's listen to number two, because it sort of makes the point. But those J6 warriors, they were warriors, but they were really more than anything else. They're victims of what happened. All they were doing is protesting a rigged election. That's what they were doing. Yeah.
And then the police say, go in, go in, go in, go in. How about Scaffold Joe, the guy on the scaffold? Or how about the big FBI guy or whatever, wherever he comes from?
Go on in, everybody. Go on in. What a setup that was. What a horrible, horrible thing. And, you know, that blows two ways. That blows two ways. Believe me. So, Sarah, based on what you say, your double haters would be unimpressed by that argument. They would be unimpressed. Yes. I mean, it's basically a despicable conspiracy theory of the sort that...
President Trump traffics in at times. I have to raise a question because in the midst of our conversation here, the verdict came in in the Hunter Biden case, guilty on all three counts. And we should talk for a few minutes about what the, what, if any, the impact of that is. And you guys, Sarah, what, based on what you've
You've been hearing from people. Does it have an appreciable effect on voters? You know, the thing that voters say about Hunter Biden and it comes up a lot and obviously in the two time Trump voting groups, the majority of people, they're not they're like Biden cried family, you know, that that's that's how they talk about. But the voters are pretty clear that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden are not the same person.
And honestly, voters react with a tremendous amount of compassion around Hunter. They just say every family's got one black sheep. I mean, you just really hear that from swing voters. Well, the addiction issue is familiar to a lot of people. It's familiar to a lot of people. And so I don't hear that. So what? And voters actually there for all the.
the times I talk about how voters are not always super plugged into these things and we overestimate how much they care. I will say the swing voters have been pretty clear that if Joe Biden was implicated in something, he did something wrong, that would matter a great deal to them. If it's just Hunter,
then it's a sad story. And like, that's, that's it. It doesn't matter to them. Yeah. I would say two things. I think we, we both know Joe Biden. I think psychologically this is going to be, I think that's the biggest question just as it was with Trump, but go ahead. Yeah. Is, is really sort of how he reacts and what does it mean? We were texting last night about this two days and two weeks from this debate. And Joe Biden has to have his, his, his head in the game. And I know, um,
his head and his heart and a lot of his family have been in a courtroom in Wilmington. And so this is going to be a big blow, I think, to him psychologically and to the family because they are so close. The one thing, you know, and I hate to talk about it after I just said that, I do think there is some political benefit. I've had Republicans...
We are hacks on tap. I know. I'm sorry. You unfeeling bastard. But but I've had Republicans say to me in the last couple of weeks, particularly after the Trump conviction, you know, and they say this with a straight face, you know, this whole idea of like, you know, isn't hasn't this just this what they call lawfare gotten out of control?
where Joe Biden is basically indicting, you know, his enemies. And I said, if Joe Biden was indicting his enemies, why the hell is his son sitting in a courtroom? Like this whole thing is ridiculous. The notion that he's somehow orchestrating this. Trump will probably say, now he's throwing his own son under the bus just to provide cover for himself. Yeah. So I do think there's, I mean, I do think it helps people grasp
that it's possible to commit a crime regardless of who you are. But I do think psychologically, this is going to be a heavy thing for Biden. Yeah, I agree with you. I think this is a big question. You know, Joe Biden has lost two kids and he's watched his son battle addiction. And this is a blow.
This is a blow. Hey, I want you to listen to what Comer from the House said, the House Oversight Committee, because it goes to, Sarah, your point. Now the Republicans are going to try and square the circle here in that square. They're going to try and stick Joe Biden. Let's let's listen to that. Are you saying that we could expect a criminal referral against Joe Biden for money laundering? Is that what you just said?
Well, I think that it's no secret Joe Biden's committed many crimes. And I think that you're going to see a report very soon. That report is imminent. That'll probably be an interim report that updates everyone on the crimes that Biden and his administration have committed throughout this investigation and through the years of the Obama-Biden administration.
So there you have it. And Biden is criminal music swelling up at the end. Here's my initial thought on that is this is such important, such breaking news, Zach.
that on Fox Business, they couldn't hold the commercial break. They needed to play the Academy Award music to slowly get... No, they were just excited to learn about this breaking story. Listen, these guys, like so many Inspector Clouseaux's, have been trying to tie Biden...
to Hunter and his financial stuff for a couple of years now. They tried to, you know, they tried to, and, you know, this was all under the guise of wanting to impeach the president and so on. And they're desperate to do that. I got to say, I understand politics, but what a pile of crap.
I mean, really? It is embarrassing for them, but this is, I'm sorry, this is like one of the real advantages. But it'll play. Won't it play with your old tribe there? The advantages of being a Republican is that you are shameless. And when you're completely shameless, right, you learn, this is the constructing your own reality, out of lies. And
They don't, they are untethered. We welcome you to the ranks of the easily shamed. So we're glad you're over here. Glad you're over here with us. I've got a question for both of you. Segwaying a little bit away from the Hunter news for a second, but I want to ask both of you this question because I think it goes, Sarah, to what you're hearing from groups, but Axe, I also want to put, I want to put you in the debate prep room. Cause you know, NBC has a story out today where basically, you know, a big part of
the strategy to your point, Sarah, is like, let Trump be Trump, right? Let him go. And again, two weeks and two days from now, we're going to probably have as big a presidential debate as we've seen in our lifetimes, right? Because it's going to be so early. The next one is going to be CNN. Anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry. Get your plug in. But you know, we're not going to see one 10 days or two weeks later. It's going to be two months from then. But to your point, Axe, like
Letting Trump be Trump is part of the exercise, right? That prep and that coaching has to be to absorb what Trump is saying and then come back to how to respond to it and frame it in a way that just makes it not seem...
They see it and it all sort of sounds the same for Trump. And this is where your idea of this message comes in of like, you've got to take what he says and then frame it in a way that those double hating voters, if any of them are watching this early in the race, can focus on what that means. How would you do that? If one of your themes is I'm for you and he's for him, then you've got to turn all these questions back around.
On on him, whether it's the big, you know, obviously on the democracy stuff, but whether it's, you know, because Trump is fundamentally self-interested on issues of of democracy, but also on the economy, on the border. And there are there are many there are good retorts that put it right back on Trump and his self-interested.
motivation. But I'll tell you what the hard thing's going to be, you guys. They did a smart thing by getting no audience and getting some, you know, tried some restraints. And I have tremendous confidence and faith in my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. But
You know, there hasn't yet been a guardrail that holds Donald Trump. And I think one of his ideas is going to be, I'm just going to Hector the hell out of this guy and try and make him look confused and distracted.
And I think that you've got to if you're prepping, you've got to have whoever's playing Trump in his ear at every single turn and trying to get his Irish up and trying to distract him. And that is going to be a real task for for Biden. I actually don't have quite an answer for this, because I think there's a there's a
you have to kind of do two things. One is you have to, you want Trump to be the big lunatic energy, right? So you want him to be like that first debate where he was trying to kill Joe Biden with COVID and he was sweaty and he was out of his mind. I mean, voters, I remember doing focus groups after that and people were like,
what was that? That guy is out of his mind. Like no chance I want him. And so you want to see that version of Trump because you know, the ketchup, but you just can't let it throw you off. That's right. But you also have to be the cool guy, right? So Joe Biden's both got to be fighter, right? He's got to be able to fight. He's got to be able to joust. He's got to show people he's up for it. He could take this guy while also not getting dragged into the mud of the way that Trump does things that makes Joe Biden look
Yeah. Like where he gets thrown off his game. And so that's that's like that's a that's a tough lane to stay in because you got to do both things. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I think he'll jibe him on his son. I mean, if this indictment stuff comes up, you know, I think he knows that that's a point of vulnerability emotionally for Biden. So he's got to be prepared for that. Yeah. I love my son deeply and he will not be president of the United States, though.
But I think it's going to be more, it's going to more come in the, like, he put a big spotlight on his son. He threw his son under the bus. He, you know, that kind of stuff that will, it's a hot, it's a hot button for Biden. No, no, there's going to be a lot of sort of like, how do you get under his skin? How does each get under the other one's skin? How do you throw them off their game? I keep thinking X and I've,
knowing how hard it is to prep a sitting president for a series of debates or under any circumstance yeah right just given the fact that you uh you know you've got and and certainly biden with what's going on all over the world has an increasingly busy day job i look at his schedule you know in france over the last several days yeah i where is the hell out of me the g7 and all that sort of stuff he's going back to italy then they've got a fundraiser in on june 15th in california i
I mean, presumably they'll shut him down after that. But that's 12 days before the debate. I mean, this guy, I think my priorities would be rest and prep, rest and prep, prep and rest, because this thing is a big stakes thing. You know, I hear you hear from people, Democratic politicians who are stout, stoutly supportive of Biden, but who privately say, what if what if it doesn't go well?
What if it doesn't go well? And, you know, I have people Bill Maher asked me on his show. Well, do you know, would that convince people to go to him and tell him that he's got a like, I mean, I'm trying to dream. Yes. I mean, here's what people need to know.
We stopped nominating candidates at conventions in 1968. OK, we nominate candidates in primaries and caucuses now, mostly primaries. They are nominated. Trump and Biden are nominated and those delegates are committed and they have to vote for them in the first ballot. And Joe Biden isn't going to give up that nomination. Joe Biden's going to fight on. This is the choice. So people have to stop voting.
that there's going to be another choice. This is the choice. And now a word from our sponsors. Folks, if you're a regular listener of Hacks on Tap, then you know that I have a ridiculous head over heels love affair with a four-legged buddy named Mac. Uh,
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Let's talk a little third party stuff. You know, we all saw what happened in 2016. Those third party candidates had a material effect, you know, on undermining Hillary Clinton. You've talked to people, a bunch of people probably contemplating it.
run down what your thinking is on the third party and how this all is going to play out. Yeah, I mean, the big problem with double haters, right, is that when they hate both, they're looking for an offering. And that's what the third parties give them. And so, you know, if you gave me a choice, right, I would say if you're building an anti-Trump coalition or you're holding together an anti-Trump coalition, anything that splits that coalition is bad for Biden. It's
is my general thesis. However... Plus, Trump has never has had a... He has a high floor, but he's always had a low ceiling. That's right. That's right. And so... But, you know, you can't keep... You can't keep RFK out. You know, he's in it. And so you got to deal... You sort of got to play it as it lies. And unless he doesn't get on the ballot in some of these 20 states, but he's getting on in some. I think he's going to. I really do. Yeah, I do too. I do too. And so that means...
And here, the good news is, is that I've talked to both Biden voters who are RFK curious. I've talked to Trump voters who are RFK curious. And the Democrat and what happens with these double-eaters is that
rfk becomes sort of like not that important like he becomes just like a rorschach test like people see what they want to see to get themselves there and so the democrats say like oh he's a big environmentalist but then they're right but you know he's also kind of an anti-blocks crazy person right and you can see also on also abortion is a problem for him that's right so you can see the way democrats could with education be moved off of him whereas you could also see how republicans
with some education Trump voters could be very interested because what Trump voters like about RFK are a few key emotional things.
some of these Trump voters, what they love is not a regular politician. They love an inside-outside guy, right? Somebody who knows the inside, but he's on their side. And he's new and shiny to them. And the one thing that Trump did badly for some of the biggest megatypes in the base was do the vaccine, was Operation Warp Speed. And so the extent to which if RFK is going to be there... He inadvertently did the right thing there. That's right. And so, like, there should be, it's not my job, but, like,
To the extent that people are able to educate Trump voters about why RFK is a newer, shidier object for them, you do want to use that to your advantage. But let me ask you a question. Yeah. Don't you think both sides will be making the best case to the other side?
about RFK? Like, won't the Republicans be running ads among progressives and particularly on social media telling them Kennedy's environment? And remember, on the left of the Democratic Party, the anger at institutions is pretty pitched as well. It is. You know what else is funny about an RFK type on the left is that they're very interested in like the wellness side of things. So like,
you'll have these guys talk to you about like how big a deal it is that like people have low testosterone now and that RFK is really raising the ceiling. So this, you know, scourge, Tucker Carlson talks about this all the time. It's like this idea of men not being men anymore, their testosterone's low. And so,
I think that's a different podcast. I think we have an ad about that. I don't know. We sell a cure for that. Just hold on. That's coming in the next commercial break. If you're, if you're suffering, no, I'm kidding. I mean, it's a weird May launch, but, uh, but the point is to your Rorschach point, there's stuff for both sides to manipulate, to try and manipulate these third party enthusiasts. Yeah. Gibbs.
I've got three quick questions for you guys. Ooh, three. I just, you see that? I did like I was at a press conference. Mr. President, I've got four. I know, you've learned something from those.
I've got four questions for you. Jackals you used to administer over. Right. So just for, I'm interested in what both of you think here. Because RFK's numbers, I mean, we've seen them certainly a few months ago. You could see them in like the high teens. Now they seem to be sort of in the high to mid single digits. Do you think, both of you think that that number, do you think he's going to get five or above in most of these places? Or do you think...
When push comes to shove and they realize that, yes, he's an interesting vessel, but his likelihood of being president is only slightly larger than any of the three of us. And therefore, I can't waste my vote. What say? Listen, first of all, I think those who cast a vote for him have made a decision that they
They're not voting for the winner. They're making a protest. So but secondly, I think his vote will shrink, but I think it'll still be measurable. And in a marginal race that has unpredictable impact. So, you know, you look at these battleground state polls in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and on the average, you're talking about under a point.
Will he get more than a point in those states? Absolutely, he will. So this is a complication. And we haven't talked about Jill Stein, who's going to be on the ballot in a number of these states on the Green Party line, which gives, you know, disaffected progressives another area. I don't like the third party thing from a Biden perspective. I think a straight one on one where people have to choose between, you know, creaky and crazy.
works in Biden's favor, particularly if he gets on a message that says, hey, neither of us are going to be around very long. This is about your future, not ours. And I'm fighting for you and he's fighting for him. OK. Yeah. So let me give you a quick answer that I think frames for me how I think about this entire race, which is the voters are going through basically the five stages of grief over having these two candidates. And so their first one was did not or I'm sorry, was anger. Right. Like
No, that's why Biden's got this 35% approval rating. I'm so mad he's running again. You know, that's why you see Nikki Haley's numbers, even then she's off the ballot, still getting people. They're angry. They turn out they want to vote against Trump. So you're in anger and you get to denial. It
It can't be these two people. He's going to switch out Kamala. They're going to switch him out at the convention. Trump's they're going to switch. I hear people saying they're going to switch Trump out now that he's convicted felon. Like, right. That kind of denial. And then there's the bargaining and the bargaining is kind of the third party stuff. It's the no, no labels and RFK. And then right now, here's where we are. We're in depression.
right? We're slightly moving out of bargaining into depression where it's just like, and this is why at the beginning of the podcast, I'm throwing all the knife in the teeth, going off and stuff at you because people are down. I see it in every group. The energy's just not there. People feel crappy. And like, we got to turn the vibes around because you got to get people to acceptance because acceptance is where people live with the head to head. One of the things I hear in the focus groups around the third party stuff is
People want to go third party unless it's going to elect the person they're most afraid of electing. That's when you get there. That's what you need to have the hammer and tong against Trump, because you've got to have people say, I'm not going to do a protest vote because I got to keep Trump out of the White House. Right. That's that's what we're trying to do here. Get to acceptance and then make him have that binary choice. Do you think or do you hear in your groups that the sentence that Trump receives is
Will that make a difference in how people perceive the conviction? Yeah. So the one thing that I hear and we've been sort of giving some of this sound to other media outlets. And one of the sounds that I want to give them is people being skeptical that he'll get any time. Like there's a there's a sense that people have that like he'll escape from this like he does with everything from these swing voters. But look, I think I think they got to walk a pretty careful line. I think too big a sentence. Darn.
does feed the sort of, this is a political witch hunt. Because one of the things that's interesting about swing voters on the conviction is that they do think it was politically motivated, but they also think the jury reached the right decision and they respect it. And so you want to keep them in the jury reached the right decision. I respect it. He gets a month of jail time or something that doesn't feel over the top. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor. We'll be right back.
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You mentioned this just a second ago. You mentioned the two VP nominees. I have in mind, and I want both of your opinions on this, that in a couple of weeks, we're not far from the Republican convention. We'll know Donald Trump's VP nominee. We know
The Democratic sitting VP nominee is the current vice president. How much is that going to matter? Because while whoever is inaugurated, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, will be the oldest person in the history of our country to ever be inaugurated president of the United States. How much are these vice presidential candidates
is the Trump selection going to mean and how much of this is going to be an important backdrop for the remainder of the campaign? I think it matters a great deal. Look, I mean, people in the focus groups are super aware of that when they talk about Joe Biden's age, they talk about Kamala. Like, oh no, she would be the replacement. And that matters to them. It's a problem. Here's what I think Donald Trump's going to do. I think he's going to pick either Tim Scott or Marco Rubio. And
maybe J.D. Vance, but I sort of feel like, I don't know, I've always felt like they are excited, ecstatic that they are eating Democrats lunch, or at least, sorry, let me put it a different way. They are making,
making inroads with Hispanic and black voters. And I think they're going to lean into that. And I think if he does that, you are going to see the level of joy that you would see from the Wall Street Journal set at finally getting Marco Rubio or Tim Scott within a breath of the presidency. Like for them, they would be like, this is how we get it back. This is how we bring the party back. And it would, I do think, create enthusiasm among a certain set right now that is not
enthusiastic about Donald Trump. And they would try to kind of bring those Nikki Haley voters back in under the idea that like Trump will be gone soon and we'll have one of our normies back. So here's the issue. I was a Tim Scott believer for the longest time. He's not really performed that well on TV. And Trump, you know, approaches this as a casting director. And I don't know that he's looked the part with Rubio. I think Trump,
You know, I know Rubio's bent over backwards here to to be the good soldier. And, you know, he could barely contain himself after the conviction he was calling for. It's I think he was maybe one of the ones calling for prosecution of the prosecutors or whatever. But but, Senator, if I'm wrong about that, you can come on next week. We'll talk about it.
But I kind of wonder whether he's not going to land on Burgum. And the reason I think that is, yeah, you're shaking your head. No, Bill Kristol thinks that, too. I understand he's got a lot of money. He can float the cap. It's not just that he has a lot of money. It's that Trump also respects people who have a lot of money. It's not that he wants the money. It's that the guy's a billionaire billionaire.
And Trump respects that story. And he's been better on TV than people, than you, you know, he hasn't been sensational, but he hasn't, you know, coughed up the football either. That guy's so boring, man. Yeah, you think what Donald Trump needs is more excitement? Yeah.
I don't know. I think he needs I think he wants. Well, first of all, listen, I think you're missing the optics that Trump would really love about having a black vice president. And I can see that. Listen, I think what you're saying is plausible. The Rubio thing, I think.
would be surprising to me, given what happened in 2020 and 21. I just think Trump's going to be prizing loyalty. But well, there is also the residency challenge with that, too. He'd make Rubio move. Yeah, it could be his sneaky plot to offer Rubio the job, have him move out of the state and quit his job and then give it to someone else.
Yeah, that would be wouldn't be the first time Trump broke a contract. Yeah. Any female candidates? I've always I've always thought at least Stefanik was going to be was going to be high up on that list. I think she's listed as sort of the seven or eight that they're vetting. But it doesn't seem to me that they think that gets Trump much in an election.
Yeah, I think, look, I was always a big dark horse, Katie Britt person until she responded at the state of the internet. And I also like you hear Kristi Noem come up a lot in the groups like she is somebody that based Trump voters like and notice. And then she shot her talk and I think she shot her chances. So, you know, I those two are out. I had long thought it would it could very well be one of those two, but at least.
I don't think he I think he does just as well with suburban women like that gets that same vibe with a Tim Scott that he does with Elise Stefanik. I'm not sure Elise quite looks the part for him. Yeah, I agree with that. And she also is, you know, there's nothing like the fervency of a convert, I guess. But I mean, she's made such a way out credible lurch from moderate. So gross Republican. So I don't know. Again, it's it's the.
It's the trust factor. But with fervent apologies, particularly from Robert Gibbs, I want to tell our listeners that your questions are all alive and active and they will be thrown back into the lottery for next week's show. So keep, you know, if you haven't sent them, send them to hacksontap at gmail.com or our phone number.
773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. The very lifeline-like stylings of AI pretending to be Mike Murphy, but that's the number. That's also where you can call to pay the ransom to get Mike out of whatever dark room he's being held captive in. I'm not sure I want to pay the ransom. Why do I want to pay the ransom? I'm not
suggesting anybody that listens is going to pay anyway sarah longwell you are such fun and you actually come we're all like bullshitting and you come with like a trove a trove of focus group material each time and uh we so appreciate you and we look forward to having you back soon it's the best i love it thanks guys thank you okay all right gibbs i'll see you next time axe be safe out there all right brother
