The Guilties (with Mark McKinnon & Steve Israel)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. Something really wrong is going on here. It's the first one, you are out of order. You're out of order. You're out of order. The whole trial is out of order.

That man, that's so crazy. All right, that was the scene. What? They're handing me a note here. No, actually, we had a cheap impersonation of that at Trump Tower in a press conference after the trial of the year, if not the century, which we'll be talking about. But let's listen to former President Donald Trump. This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.

And we have a president and a group of fascists that don't want to do anything about it.

Because they could right now, today, he could stop it. Okay, well, there you go. Yeah, they can do it to anybody who is convicted by his fears and felonies. We are joined here, and I should do a parenthetical. Axelrod is taking a paid gig to open a water slide somewhere in Oklahoma today, and Gibbs is in the Himalayas. So I'm flying solo. And I knew, hackaroos, I had to bring in the A-team, two great friends of the show to help us

take apart the trial, the politics, all the things that you and we are interested in. So let me welcome our friend, empresario of the circus, former legendary and current legendary consultant and three-time winner of the John B. Stetson Style Award, the one and only Mark McKinnon. I'll hack no cattles. Thank you. And he is wearing the hat, everybody. I know this is audio and you can't see it.

Also, a political pros, political pro, former, God, I don't know, eight-term member of Congress from Long Island, a member of the Democratic leadership, ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and ran it well, I can say from the view across the other trenches. Frequent guest of the show, the great Steve Israel is here. Thank you, Steve.

Never won the Stetson Award, which bothers me. Oh, McKinnon knows people. I've got some extras. All right. Thank you, man. Steve is also the impresario of theaters books, which is a must visit in Oyster Bay. And we got a couple of plugs because he's he's a man of energy. So he's doing a book fair, the Gold Coast Book Fair in Oyster Bay. We're going to talk all about that and a political film festival to my kind of thing. We'll get to that. But first, all right.

Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. A lot of guilties. A lot of noise. A lot of yelling. What does it mean for the campaign? Too early to tell. I don't believe snap polls, by the way. I think it needs time to cook, and so I'll start paying attention to polls in a week or two. But, uh...

It was as bad of an outcome as it could have been for Trump. But in our polarized politics, do you think it matters? Let's start with you, Steve. I think you're exactly right. It's too early to tell. You remember Trump famously said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn't lose any votes. That is absolutely true with this base. There are nuclear levels of support. But I think it's different with independent swing voters who have not decided yet whether they're going to support Trump or Biden.

And here and they break very late, as you guys know, they tend to break in the middle of October. Here, the evidence suggests that the conviction tilts the scales for Biden, but it doesn't seal the deal. So Biden still has work to do. Trump's Trump has a slightly higher hilt to climb with that second of the electorate. And we've got a long way to go between now and November. And the salience even of a conviction could wear off by then. Mark, what's your take on this?

Yeah, well, it is the worst possible outcome for this trial. I mean, this is the trial, if any trial were tried, this is the one Trump wanted tried because they think broadly it's the, you know, people kind of dismiss it as, you know, it's not that serious. On the other hand, it's the worst outcome. I mean, not only they had hoped that at least one juror would hold out and they'd get a hung jury. They weren't really thinking it'd be an acquittal, but certainly a hung jury and certainly not 34, not all outs, every single one of them.

So what does it mean net-net? My view is, and I agree too, it's way too early to tell. This thing's really got to bake in the oven for a while. But a couple of things. One is I think it really gets into Trump's psyche. Two, which is really important, and I think that Biden can artfully use that throughout the campaign and the debate if they're smart about it. And so far they show signs that they will be smart.

But I just try and think, you know, intuitively from my own experience and just sort of, you know, general objective observations that if you think about an election that's going to come down to perhaps thousands of votes, maybe 10,000 votes, but not many in three swing states, and you've got independent voters and soft Republicans who could make that difference, I just think at the end of the day, those voters are

when they go to the ballot box, will not be comfortable voting for a guy who's been convicted of a felony by a jury of his peers under any circumstances. I don't care if they think it's not that important or whatever. It's just they don't want to vote for a convicted felon. And, you know, is that a lot of people? Maybe not, but a few may be enough. Yeah. You know, I was most worried about the great god of campaign ironic punishment showing up.

and a hung jury, which Trump would have spun into. I've been cleared. Not a day in jail for me. They tried to take me down. I'm Mandela, you know, but I'm free now. Where's my peace prize? And that would have been pretty good for Trump. I think he could have done some business with that. Instead, it was the worst outcome for Trump. Now, I don't know if he'll get a symbolic weekend in jail or not or any of that. You know, we're waiting on the sentencing. But

It was about as bad as a judgment from a jury could be. And I agree. I think it has to have a bit of a corrosive effect on them among the tiny slice of people in a handful of states that are ultimately going to decide this thing. Let me ask you two guys, if you were the judge in this case, what do you think would be the appropriate penalty?

You know, for this case and for the country. I give him a week in jail symbolically to show the law counts and for his behavior in the courtroom. But again, I went to Buzz's School of Arc Welding, not law school. So I'm but I think, you know, he's a New York judge. I'm from New York. I think this judge did an amazing job. I also think that he had kind of an informal town.

nothing official, but he made sure that he was absolutely bulletproof in this case. And the sentencing is going to be the same. He's not going to do something that is challengeable,

He's not going to do something that is out of the ordinary. I think he's going to render an appropriate sentence based on the advice and feedback that he may be getting from some of his colleagues and his own read of the law. He understands how fraught the sentence could be. I also hear concern, Mark, from Democrats that if Trump is sentenced to jail, that could have a real backfire effect with moderate voters. They view that as

That's way too excessive. Yeah, I agree. I think most people would think that's over the top. But I do love the idea of community service. Yeah, it would be fun to watch him painting parking meters or something. Picking up trash. Yeah, we will see. I think net-net was negative for him. But, you know, my view, and you guys have heard it before, is the fundamental fulcrum of the election is what I worry about is that it's about Biden.

they're trying to make it about Trump. Trump sure has a lot of drag on him. But if they don't partially fix Biden, they're going to be running the Hillary campaign again. They're going to keep pounding. I mean, they've got a spot. And we talked about it last week on the show with Robert De Niro, God bless him, narrating the thing. But he's 114. And it's all about how bad Trump is, which is sort of baked in. And you can see it. You know, we're in our second. And I want to start with Steve on this. We're in our second big polling panic.

Every once in a while, the New York Times does, you know, and we've all lived this in politics. Front page poll, the swing states, looks bad for Biden. And then a massive panic breaks out.

Um, and all your donors go crazy and your phone melts and you're trying to hold the campaign together, but sometimes a little panic can jolt the organization into action. Uh, one, Steve, what do you, what do you think about this early polling? I'm, I'm starting to bed wet myself a bit, but I'm curious, uh,

What do you think? And this is a good transition. And Mark, I'll get you in on it, too, into the debates, which is clearly their tactic, just like State of the Union, which worked for him after the last polling panic. Well, you know, I spent a lot of my time at fancy Upper West Side and Upper East Side fundraisers for Democrats.

where you literally have to take up your shoes not to scuff the bamboo floors. And listen to my fellow Democrats talking about how horrible these polls are. I feel like I need to bring a grief counselor with me to have any conversation about these polls.

Look, I think the concern for the polling is legitimate. But first of all, we all know you throw out the national polls because the popular vote is meaningless. You take a look at the seven states, the polling in the seven battleground states. I would even narrow the polls down a little more. I think the polling

The blue line is Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. You guys may disagree. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. But I think this is all about those undecided voters in those three states. The bad news for Democrats is Trump is up. He's up three in Pennsylvania this week, up two in Michigan, five in Wisconsin.

The good news is that the real jury pool here, you mentioned this before, literally a couple hundred thousand undecided voters in those three states. They have not yet rendered a judgment out of 150 million.

It may come down to a few hundred thousand. And Biden has a path with them. The conviction hasn't helped Trump with them, which is why I believe this thing is going to be a status quo race until the middle of October when those independents break.

And at that point, we'll have a more informed basis to start making decisions as to whether or judgments as to who's going to win this thing. I don't think we're going to be able to tell until then. Well, I agree with that, except I think something significant could change it. And that's the first debate. I just think that this is a huge high wire act for Biden. I think it was exactly the right play. I think it was very smart, but it's also enormously high risk because

I mean, he had three options. One was not to debate at all, which, of course, that's untenable because he would lose. He could debate in September and go through months of Trump beating on him, why he won't debate, why he won't debate, why he don't debate, and finally fold, do it on Trump's terms, or do what he did, which was, you know, take away the leverage.

But do it early. But it runs the risk of, you know, I mean, Trump could get crushing. This thing could be over in June. I'll tell you, I like it, too. I mean, they need offense. And again, if they don't move the numbers on Biden, Biden can't be sitting there in mid-October. And I agree with Steve when it when it lands.

with people not liking either candidate but thinking Trump is 15 to 18 points better on running the economy. You know, that's an untenable situation. So Biden's got to get out there and move not just Trump numbers, which are hard to move because they're already bad and dug in, but his own numbers. So I like it. But I'm with you.

They're swinging for the fences, I approve. But if the Biden I saw on CNN a couple of weeks ago when he was explaining how we're all wrong about the economy and everything's going great and here's my accomplishments, you know, the spot that every incumbent we've ever dealt with wants to run. Here's what I did for you, you jerks. You owe me your vote.

And I don't – instead, if I get that Biden, not the whose side is who on here, Biden, and here's what you get in the second term from me, Biden, it could be really, really bad. And Axelrod and I think Gibbs scoff at this, and it is a long shot. But if Biden tees this up and goes out and has a really bad Biden night, which, you know, I'm not for Trump, so hopefully he won't. But if he does –

They're going to be calls. This is pre-convention. I mean, can you guys think of another incumbent in a tough reelect?

who's ever put out the big move pre-convention that could set up a panic that makes the panics we've had look like nothing. So they're rolling all the dice on this, I think. So let me pivot to, start with Steve, any reaction you've got to that, but also how would you prep Biden? What would you tell him to say? What should be Biden's debate strategy not to have a disaster that leads to a draft Gretchen Whitmer and Ralph Warnock moment? So, um...

I think he has to remember who the jury is in this. And that is not to belabor the point. It's those undecided voters. And the jury pool is those undecided voters in those seven states. And I think he's got to make two arguments. Number one, because they're undecided, they are by their very nature moderate.

They don't like political violence. They don't like extremism. And so he's got he should set that contrast. And then the second issue goes goes to abortion rights. I look at states where Democrats have performed very well on abortion referenda. Kansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Kentucky.

Michigan. That issue likely moves the needle with moderate suburban women in suburbs of Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Phoenix, back to those battleground states. So I think he's got to have kind of a double punch on those issues, extremism, political violence, and abortion.

And then talk to your point, Murph, talk about kind of reflect on its state of the union, which wasn't a defense of the economy. It was more of a populist narrative of this is what we need to do to stop the special interests from making it harder for you to get by. Yeah. Whose side am I on? Because, you know, Trump's on Trump's side. What do you think, Mark? I think that I think there's a real advantage here potentially for Biden because he will actually prep.

He's good at prepping for these things, and he has a really good prep team. I mean, Klain will be there. So you think he will? I always worry about incumbent presidents. Damn it, I got the president of Botswana on the line. I don't have time for this crap. Listen, I had the same experience Axelrod did with an incumbent president during his first debate. They don't want to do it. I think Biden understands the stakes, and I think they'll do the prep required. And Trump won't. I mean, he just famously just doesn't think he needs it.

And I think the way that this thing goes Biden's way is if he is incredibly calm, that he doesn't unwind.

But he just pokes and pokes and pokes on the convicted felon, the worst jobs record of any president in the country, the only guy to lose the presidency, the Senate and the House since, you know, in 100 years. Just jab and let Trump on one. I think that's the way. Christy was smart. We had him on last week, and he had a good bit of advice, which is to, you know, pick your moment.

You know, don't try to out rant Trump. You know, that's Trump's game. But but pick your moment. And the only other thing I'd throw in is what good actors will say is one of the hardest things to do as an actor. One of the most effective is be present and.

which means don't be thinking about, all right, my next line's coming up. I'm going to stand up extra tall. I'm going to wave a cigarette around. Listen and react to the other actor. That's a great, that's a great. Yeah. That's really good. Be alive in the moment. Don't be trapped in your own head. Yeah. Cause that's, you know, I do, I haven't done a lot of prep. That's what candidates are always worried. They're always thinking ahead. Like what's coming next? What am I not going to know? What am I unprepared for?

And it's all about confidence. And if you can just sit in the moment and, you know, swing at the pitch. It took me a few cycles. But what I learned about debate prep, because I think most campaign debate prep is terrible. It's basically a bunch of angry staffers have been waiting to yell at their candidate in the living room, screaming nasty questions at them under the guise of this is what you need. And the candidate is like, God, if I had a better staff than these idiots, I wouldn't be in this situation. Anyway, it all goes bad.

That's bad model one. Bad model two is you give them 17 briefing books and get them ready for quiz bowl. That's terrible. One, they never read the briefing books, and that's a disaster. What I finally would do for big statewide debates—

I would get a couple of like tax lawyer types and I would have the research staff compile everything the other candidate says because Steve knows this from both running himself and a lot of campaigns and you know it from your work as a consultant, Mark. All candidates basically have about 25 answers. They repeat every time on the stump and they have little bits they like to do that are pretty good. They polished over the years. My Social Security bit, my bit on this, my bit on, you know, whatever.

It's easy to capture all that stuff. So what I would do in debate prep with my guys, without going off on a long thing here, is I would have the tax lawyers not try to be rhetorical geniuses. I would have them play back the hits that the other guy's going to play. Because the worst thing in a debate is you're sitting there and the other guy gets off their line or woman, and you're like, damn, that's a good line, and I'm going to lose. Christ, I don't have a line like this. Oh, my God. And I look fat. And they spin off into panic. But if they've heard the other guy's act so well, they can do it.

They never get flustered. They know what's coming and they can relax and back to the beginning, be present again. So hopefully they got that. It claims good, but I love the psychological operations that somehow sometimes are involved in debates. My favorite story on that front is I served with a Democrat from Arkansas. I can't reveal the name.

Yeah, he was in a debate, very high profile debate with a Republican incumbent in Arkansas. And his campaign had upvoted that this incumbent may have had an affair with his children's babysitter. And they were like struggling with whether to spring this on him during the debate. And my friend,

decided that he was going to spring it on him, but in a very novel way. When they came out from opposite sides of the stage to shake hands, the Democrat leaned into this Republican and just mentioned the babysitter's name in his ear, whispered into his ear the babysitter's name, and then went to the podiums. And that rattled this guy the entire debate. He was waiting for this to go public. He never had to do it. My colleague wanted to be because he just got under the skin. And you can do that with Donald Trump.

Oh, totally. Short fingered felon now, you know, with a salute to Graydon Carter. I'll tell you, you're right, Steve. There are so many, you know, the media really ought to get a lip read around binoculars during the handshake.

Because we all know stories. There's a famous one I can't tell, but in a big primary, not presidential, where the handshake whisper was, it's true. I spent last year screwing your wife, which was also true. And so, yes, I agree on the psychology thing. Well, we're seeing because they are this is an all the marbles kind of debate.

And I'm hoping as an anti-Trumper it goes well for Biden. But if it doesn't, yeah, everybody says what can't happen. I think anything can happen if he has a terrible night because the stakes are so high. Okay, gentlemen, we will be back in a minute, but we have to pay a few bills.

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So part of it, and this is, you know, we're broken records on this here on the podcast. And if you guys disagree, I'm all ears. But I don't think Biden has his economic message right yet.

First, you know, take something everybody hates and put your name on it. Bidenomics is like if I have a restaurant with the world's worst hamburger, I'm not going to call it the Murphy Burger. How do they move that needle? The debate's part of it, but just messaging in general, because I don't see what we get in the second term. And I see too much declaring victory. Am I overreacting to that? Or if I'm not, what's the fix? Because the clock is ticking here. Mark, what do you think? You're a message maven. Well.

Well, yes. I mean, the problem is that Biden's instinct is to just preach on the record and say you just don't understand. It's better than you think. Yeah. Read page 11. Yeah. That never works. But I also don't think that there's any sort of prescriptive stuff that he can talk about that's going to convince people that it's magically going to get better. I think kind of the way to go again is just to go after Trump.

And, you know, I mean, the fact is he had the worst jobs record of any president in history. And just just go after his economic record and let Trump unwind on it, because I just don't think there's much that Biden can do to to gild his own family. But I think he can take it off. They can take the blush off Trump's robes. I agree. You know, I think one of the things that Democrats can do is quit focusing on data and start to understand voters intuitions.

You guys know former Congressman Tom Davis, Republican for Virginia. Oh, yeah, sure. Smart guy.

And the quote that he had is voters may not be that informed, but they're smart enough to know when the shoe is pinching. And right now they feel the pinch. The Democrats talk about footnotes and empirical and lecture people, Hector people. Don't you see the empirical proof? Just read these footnotes.

But people are feeling the pinch. And that is a that's challenge for Biden, which means he's got to focus on populism. To your point, Murph, you know, you know, on whose side are you? And try and shift the narrative as much as you can back to Donald Trump's failures. Do you think we can do it? Because it's been stunning to me. They haven't got him there. It's a lecture every time you're wrong. Let me straighten you out.

And it's poison. You don't you know, when I grew up around the car business a bit in Detroit and when the 82 year old bald guy staggers in and wants a red Corvette, you don't laugh. You get a credit app and move the iron, you know, but he's just not. Oh, you know, I know something about grumpy old Irish guys and I worry. I worry. But I do think the safe space is whose side are you on? And then just just roll off that.

You would think. You would think motive would be the thing. And that fits his narrative, Joe from Scranton, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But there's some block there. It's really – I mean, we've all had the experience where you meet with a member or the senator or governor and they hand you the first ad written on a napkin. I don't even know if I need you. I wrote my own ad and it's an hour and a half recitation of every accomplishment. National round stamp day. That was me. You bastards. You owe me your vote.

And that's incumbent-itis, and we're paid in our business to get them out of that. And I don't know if there are strong people around Biden. There are talented people, but I don't know who's pushing back. The other thing I don't think we've heard a lot of, and we've heard only by kind of the leaked notebooks about the 2025 climate trouble is –

More about Biden's second term and talking about what do we get? I don't think we've really heard much about that. Yeah, right now all they're offering is not Trump. Well, you don't get Trump. All right. But the country thinks you get a 98 year old who's going to start talking about going to the talkies. So they've got to have a shining thing that's related to motive. But it's it's mysterious. I don't know what it is. And it's getting late.

So here we are, the great debate coming. I think after that, particularly if there's not a massive panic, if Biden has a bad night, to give him credit, if he has a good night, they'll get the reset they need. But I think then the big media gaze will turn to VP sweepstakes because we had this spectacle during the trial. I mean, we literally got to Halloween costumes.

people dressing up like Trump. I mean, Doug Bergen's sending his staff out to buy a red tie. So he, I mean, it's unbelievable. Everything but orange wigs. Who's it going to be boys?

Pick your pick your Republican VP contenders, your short list here. I'm going with the Kardashian myself. I have one question after Mike Pence and how Trump, you know, put him out there and eviscerated him and turned on him.

And people allegedly tried to attack him. Who the hell would ever want to be Donald Trump's next vice president? Who wants that job? Yeah, well, crazy people do, and they're lining up. Well, you're absolutely right. And not only anybody, but everybody, including Nikki Haley, I'd say, which is... Yeah, can you believe that one? After all of that, and then, you know, of course, it doesn't surprise you if you've been watching her that long, but...

But, you know, I look at this very conventionally and, you know, I'm the guy that said that George W. Bush should have picked John McCain.

And I love you for it, pal. Yeah. Though that would have been a bumpy, the odd couple would have been amateur night compared to that. Yeah. That's for sure. But, you know, I always think, you know, think about it strategically. Karl Rove's advice is don't do that. Pick the person to be the best VP. I look at it, you know, you need addition. Who can get us more votes? And in the case of the Republican Party writ large, you know, you need more women. You need more, you know, more diverse people.

parts of the coalition to add to it so i you know i the most obvious choice to me is nikki haley i mean she's you know sitting on 20 of the vote out there when she's you know not formally even on the ballots and that's trump will need a few extra food testers though talk about ambition you know i think you'll smell it on her but go ahead it the computer would like that choice yeah yeah but i you know i so then you go to tim scott or there's the rubio pick which is a uh

you know, an interesting angle too. You get a Senate pick there and get DeSantis a pick and maybe we have, you know, Senator, Mrs. DeSantis, uh, okay,

Casey DeSantis. I don't know. I just look at sort of diverse. You're scaring the children now. At least Stefanik is an obvious choice. But, you know, now they're talking about sort of, you know, well, he's really looking at Doug Burgum or J.D. Vance. And, you know, he's really thinking about who can raise money and be a good VP. But at the end of the day, I also think that Trump loves the dramatic. He loves the surprise. Yeah.

Right. I'm going back to Kardashians. There's a there's a constant potential constitutional problem with the sadness, because I don't believe that the president vice president can be from the same state. Now, there may be a way around it, but, you know, I think that I'm reminded of when we all did a kind of like, oh, shit, Cheney's in Texas. We've got to get him to Wyoming quick to reach line up for the voting in Wyoming. So I have ways around that.

He's from Nevada originally. He just swings off to Nevada. Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I'm of the theory that Clinton got it right, which is you pick a slightly worse version of yourself.

Southern white Protestant, Southern white Protestant, center Democrat, center Democrat, because you always want the contrast to work for you. There's only one star of the movie. You know, I tell the joke, if you're Robert Redford's agent and the studio calls and says, Iron Man 11, we want you, time to win an Oscar. And it's a two-hander. Your partner is going to be Zinkman. And we got Brad Pitt. If you're Redford's agent, you're like, you know, we love Brad, but we're thinking Abe Vigoda.

You know, you want one star. But with Trump, I think it's a king rat deal. And, you know, I'm pejorative on Trump. So my my goggles are foggy. But he he's going to smell ambition and he's not going to like it. That's the problem with J.D. Vance. You know, last time I talked to J.D. Vance, we had a great phone conversation about him running for the U.S. Senate as an anti-Trump Republican.

So he's flexible. Marco, great performer. The computer would like Marco like it would like Nikki in terms of the polling and all that. But I pretty much – I was drunk at the time, but I think I saw Marco Rubio once slide under a closed door. And again, ambition, total ambition. He's been anti-Trump, pro-Trump, anti-Trump.

So I think it may be a Burgum. I think – and Steve, you might have an illustration into this, but I think Trump thinks his political antenna is Queens in 1965. And so he's thinking, hey, if I nominate the black guy, I get all the blacks. So I think Tim Scott has a real shot at this. But you're right. Trump also likes a surprise.

And you never know who he'll pull. But I just don't think it'll be anybody who can be construed as a threat, anybody he thinks has any spine at all. I don't think he'll do the electoral thing. We got to get somebody who can deliver Wisconsin stuff. I think you're right. At the end of the day, I think that's right. And I think he would have done Kristi Noem if she hadn't decided that she hates puppies.

you know, and later a goat. If you keep reading this, she offs a goat too. Meanwhile, all the snakes on the farm are doing fine. You know, it's the puppy that's the threat. But anyway, so I think she really had a shot at it because he looks at it like casting and he would like to find a woman. So I guess you have to keep an eye on Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, because she'd already been a staffer and he thinks the VP is a staffer. What about Stefanik? Well, that's another one who...

I know a bunch of people who knew her at Harvard. And, you know, she was in the Mitt Romney policy team. She knows how to let's put it this way. She knows her way around the French cheeses and the complicated country club Republican stuff. And then she hit her head and decided to become the MAGA queen. And it's worked for her in the caucus. I mean, shameful in my view, because she knows better. Hope you're listening. At least you need to read Faust. But Trump will smell the ambition on her, too.

I mean, that's the problem. The people who are faking it to get ahead are more than happy to, you know, do him in. There'd be no deep personal loyalty. And again, King Rat, he'll smell. There's a great movie, The Long Good Friday with Bob Hoskins. The movie made him a star about the London underworld in the 80s. The playwriter wrote it, called it a story of a Thatcher man gone wrong. And he's trying to go straight.

big real estate deal. And he's got this young college educated kind of sidekick. And I don't want to give the movie away, but there's a betrayal. And finally, Hoskins, it kind of peels the layers and he's back to the street thug he was. And he's just with the great cockney, I smell your greed and ambition, you know. And I think that's going to be the problem for most of these. The people are trying to outsmart the system. Trump will smell it on them. But who knows? Who knows? It's Trump. You know, literally, it could be

God knows it could be anybody. So that's coming. But will it help? Is there a VP that could fix Trump's fundamental problems that the spotlight will be on with Trump? I'm dubious. Maybe at the edges, like, you know, a really good performer and Nikki, your point might do something. But I don't know. I don't think in the end it'll make that much difference. Trump, he chose Pence. We began with Pence. He chose Pence because strategically,

He needed to he thought he was soft with evangelical voters and he needed somebody who could fill that void. And so I think he's that guy is strategic. And so I think that's a good decision based on what he needs at that point. Yeah. Yeah. And also try to help him with Congress. Yeah. Let's do the math. I mean, I'm you made this point earlier, Stephen. I think you're right.

And I've been trying to come up with a new moniker for it. So you have the seven that Republicans would say the five now because they think Nevada is pretty gone for Biden. I'm not sure I'd make that bet yet. And the Democrats are intrigued with North Carolina because the Republican gubernatorial candidate there thinks geometry is a dangerous disease. Yeah.

What do you do? Because the metal bending states are a little better for Biden, right? The Sunbelt, the Georgias and Arizonas look a little tougher now. The Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan look a bit better. And by the way, the thing I've been selling is it's down to pop versus soda. If you say pop like Pennsylvania, Michigan, most not all of Wisconsin.

That's kind of the key. The problem is that's pretty good, Mike. That's pretty good. Yeah. And of course, Georgia soda, Arizona soda, Nevada soda. So pop versus soda. Good. The problem is Wisconsin is not totally in the pop camp. It's controversial there. And Omaha, which, by the way, I walk around L.A., all my liberal friends come up. We should talk about this. What can we do? I say move to Omaha. Yeah.

Because they, as you guys know, they're not winner-take-all in the Electoral College like Maine, the only two that are different. And the congressional district, there's a 50-50 district. And it could decide. It could decide the presidency. And unfortunately, there they say soda, which screws up my otherwise crafty analogy. But what do you think looking at VPs against that calculus? Let's pretend Trump is totally rational.

Who's your best Pennsylvania? Maybe J.D. Vance, blue collar populism, Ohio. Yeah. So he's kind of shares. I think he kind of shares that Western Pennsylvania media market to a certain extent. Youngstown, right? Yeah. So Pennsylvania is going to obviously be one of the three states that I think Biden must win.

And then Nebraska, too. You're exactly right. That's going to be the most fascinating race in the country because you have a coinciding House race that's going to be very competitive. Right. The Republican seat now, but up for grabs. Yes. Don Bacon represents it now. One Senator, one Vargas is the Democratic challenger there. Fascinating race. I wish I owned a small radio station in Omaha.

hot right now. So Warren Buffett is now a swing voter. There you go. It's down to Buffett. Somebody who can do well, you know, it's great. You know, Joe Biden is now saying this is this is Scranton versus Mar-a-Lago. And so if you have a J.D. Vance who can run on populism, who's fairly known in the media market, that becomes intriguing, I think. Yeah. And North to Michigan.

You know, a lot of shared culture there other than the football rivalry, of course. You got anybody, Mark? You can solve the whole thing for Trump right here. I was in Bhutan in a tent. Only McKinnon would tip it on. I was in a tent in Bhutan. Somebody reading the chapter 11 of J.D. Vance's book.

Hillbilly elegy. And I was I was it was I was thunderstruck by how profoundly he sort of understood that culture of Kentucky and and Trump. And and the insights were were incredible. And of course, he was he was anti-Trump at that point. But I still thought, man, this guy can pick the lock on a cultural nuance.

So I think that in that sense, he could sort of, I mean, first of all, he's from the region, but I think he can also sort of chameleon himself to be, you know, so I think if you think about it, who's a strategic pick for those three, for the pop region, he's a good pick.

Yeah, I think if you do the regional cultural thing, it's Vance. If you do the macro play, it's the suburbs, which means it's Nikki. Though, again, I think, you know, that would be just making it actually happen. But on paper, it's her. And I keep saying my dark horse is Huckabee Sanders.

because she does bring in, she's fairly adroit, more sun belty. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, we beat that one to death. We'll see. Again, put your money on a Kardashian. Yeah, she meets the loyalty test for sure. Yeah, which is probably in his mind first and foremost. Time to pay the meter, but we will be right back. Now, let's hear from our sponsor.

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Well, let's pivot over to your dojo, Steve, the House races. You know, I'm fond of saying we used to have about 100 members of Congress between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican. Now we might have one. And that's narrowed the numbers. We used to have 60 seat competitive elections. Now they're probably, what, 12, 15 on each side that are kind of in play, 30 total, maybe 33 or 34.

What do you think? Who's going to win the House? I think the Democrats are on track to win the House, not by a lot of seats. But I talked to Republican members, Democratic members.

Democrats seem to be in pretty good shape. To your point about the number of actual competitive seats, when I was elected to Congress in 2000, there were about 100 competitive seats. Right now, there are 22 pure toss-up seats in the House of Representatives. 11 Democratic toss-ups, 11 Republican toss-ups. And so I'll be watching those toss-ups. I'll also be watching the 17...

Republican Hill districts that voted for Biden. Those guys are just there in a vice squeeze. Many of them are in New York and California. And the most fascinating, I'll give you my picks for the most fascinating House races to watch because they have presidential overlap. We talked about it before in Nebraska too, Don Bacon versus Juan Vargas. And in Scranton, Matt Cartwright, Lackawanna County, Biden won Lackawanna because he overperformed from Hillary Clinton.

If Biden can't win Lackawanna County and Matt Cartwright, the Democratic incumbent in Scranton, is struggling, I think he's going to pull it out. But if he's struggling, that gives us a real sense of the overall dynamic in battleground electorates. Steve, can I ask you about a particular race? I apologize because it may be your old district, but I'm interested in that John Avalon race. Oh, gosh. Well, full disclosure, I'm involved with John in the primary race.

So John Avalon, CNN, decided to leave his role at CNN to run for the House of Representatives in Eastern Long Island. That's the first district of New York. I represented some of it. The incumbent is Nick LaLotta, Republican, pro-Trump Republican in a district that voted for Biden twice, but marginally. Nick actually used to work on my congressional staff, believe it or not. And now he's a Republican incumbent.

If Avalon wins the primary against a woman named Nancy Goroff, it becomes market becomes a very competitive race. It's in play for the Democrats. Goroff is a very progressive left of center Democrat, good candidate for a primary candidate for the base. Very hard for her to win a general election in that district, which has become very supportive of Trump.

And so we'll know in June or later this month when the primary is held,

whether that becomes in play. If it's in play, New York gets more complicated for the Republicans. If it's not in play because the Democrat is too far to the left, it's off the boards. I'm glad he's running. Yeah. Yeah. Very good guy. And by the way, because all things go to Steve Israel, the first congressional district I ever did as a puppy consultant was Long Island One, the fishtail for Bill Carney in 1984. Yeah.

After a machine Republican congressman, former aluminum siding salesman, which was the kind of viewpoint we needed, he had almost lost a machine primary over the Shorm nuclear power plant there. Yes, that's right. And then George Hochbruchner, who unfortunately as a state senator had voted for a bailout of the power company, Lilco, so we of course blasted

40 districts worth of New York radio because we had money blaming him for shore and accusing him of having a plan to activate its deadly atomic pile and caused a few car wrecks in northern New Jersey. We did the old war of the world spot. You have one minute to evacuate Long Island. This is only a drill.

And he won. And that got that irresponsible young activity got me into political consulting. So New York won. There it is. The cradle of politics. No, that's great. Your trivia. I'll tell you the view from Bhutan. Yes, please. Please. This is how disconnected I am. But I will say that the one thing that I think that the Democrats can take some, you know, some optimism about is just.

that the problem seems to be much more a Biden problem than a Democratic problem. And we see that in Senate races where, you know, where Biden's down and Senate nominees are way up.

But also, you know, I don't think I'm speaking out of school here, but, you know, pretty good Republican consultant Karl Rove thinks that the Democrats have a good chance to keep the House. Yeah, I do, too. There's a special House Republican brand problem, too, in these districts that are more swing, more suburban. The California races are going to be a big deal. By the way, I think we're going to start a Hacks on Tap thing called Adopt-a-Race.

where interesting people are running. So I'll plug Will Rollins, who's running in a real-time, it's a rematch here in California. But check him out on the internet. Former Republican, well, never a Republican. I'm going to smear the poor bastard. But he was a young policy staffer for Schwarzenegger. Known him a long time. He's an impressive guy. He ought to be in Congress running against a caveman idiot. So...

I think the California and New York races could combine and there could be some special sauce there that despite all the Biden trouble, they might be able to punch through. Though, if Biden would do if Biden can fix Biden or he's in a stronger, not certain, but a stronger position in October, then I think the Dems will run the House. But here's my trick question for savvy Democratic insider Steve Israel.

We have seen what a clown show the Republicans are with a narrow margin in the House. Because as anybody like Steve who's been in the leadership knows, once you have a two or three or four seat margin, a lot of members go into business for themselves and you have 48 speakers or the factions. And, you know, we have the Freedom Caucus in the House conference. And don't think that the AOC crowd hasn't been taking notes on Freedom Caucus tactics. So if the Democrats win by two seats...

What will life be like? Because I have a feeling human nature is universal and it won't be a smooth running machine either. Particularly if they're resurgent wackadoodles on the left. How will the poor people in the leadership handle that?

Well, luckily for House Democrats, the playbook was written by Nancy Pelosi, who had a very small majority, just a few seats, and was able to get unanimity on everything. There was a lot of volume. There was a lot of screaming and shouting, and that's fine because she gave everybody a voice. But at the end of the day, she had the votes locked in. She was able to

figure out how to choreograph her way to a majority. And Hakeem Jeffries, who is a Democratic leader, he has studied that playbook. He has learned from that playbook. They have already shown amazing, you know, every time it's like a I Love Lucy rerun.

every time the Republicans want to replace a speaker. And through it all, Jeffries has not lost a single vote. He put all the votes together that he has needed. And so I'm pretty confident that the Democratic leadership team, which is new, young, kind of a new generation, I think that they're going to be quite successful in keeping the votes together, if and when they're in the majority. I'll give a little free advice that Kevin McCarthy didn't listen to. Whatever. Don't put a few of your kooks on the rules committee.

That was a stupid. The Rules Committee controls the flow of legislation to the floor. It should be a rubber stamp for the speaker. It's kind of like the Soviet proceedings, you know, proceeding. Excuse me. Not not a place to have open discord. But McCarthy did that as part of his survival plan. And we're still still paying the price. Well, let's go to the Senate, McKinnon.

Who's going to win control? Well, I, you know, I didn't major in math, but I think that the math just is so heavily favors Republicans. They're

Democrats are defending 22, and I think Democrats are defending 11, right? Yeah, yeah. The House, everybody is up. Of course, in the Senate, a third of them. And the dice have fallen pretty tough for the Dees' cycle. Yeah. Steve, you may have a different view on that. I think it's an uphill battle for the Democrats. I don't say it's impossible. But look, West Virginia becomes very tough without Jill Manchin. Toss-up states Arizona, Ohio, Arkansas.

are going to be challenging. I think, you know, we can win them. And right now the polling is good in those states for Democrats. What's fascinating to me is the Democrats are at this point as tough as it is for Biden in those states. Democrats are actually doing very well with fundraising and doing very well in some polling. Didn't too early to tell where it lands, but it is going to be challenging to retain the majority. I wouldn't be surprised, Mark, if we end up

with a 50-50 Senate where the vice president, you know, you guys have mentioned some possibilities for the vice president, whether it's Trump or Biden, breaks the tie. Wow. I think that is pretty likely. I'm keeping an eye on Sherwood Brown in Ohio because he should lose, but he's a knife fighter and the Republican candidate there is not particularly strong and that might be the control race. I

We will see. We'll see. Not going to be not going to be particularly dull there either. And, you know, I think a lot of it will be in New York Times made a meal out of this. A lot of in the tough states, the Democratic incumbents fighting to live are running ahead of Biden. Now, the Biden people say, see, there's a Democratic vote. If we fix Joe, we can get which is true. But on the other hand, if Joe's still an anchor, the ability to pull some of those deeds down and have votes.

an outcome where the vulnerable Dems all get wiped out. If Biden can't improve, I think it's also very, very real. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors.

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We have a big mailbag. We have plugs. We have a lot of stuff to do. So I think now that we've solved the House, the Senate, the impact of the trial, the VP choice, we've covered the waterfront here. So it's time to hit the orchestra. It's Listener Mail.

Okay, so if you have a question for the Hacks, all you have to do is email it to us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com. Or you know what? I'm going to blaze new travel here because Axelrod and Gibbs are on a bender in Vegas. I'm running amok. Try your voice record on the phone and try to email us a question. We'll try that. Or if you're a glutton for punishment, but we do want these questions, you can send us an audio question by calling a

an old rotary phone somewhere in an off-track betting parlor in Cook County slash voter registration center that Axe is hooked up for. I can never remember the number, so we have it on tape. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. Just keep it to about 20, 25 seconds and tell us your name. Don't make a long speech because that's our job.

All right. Here we are. Before we get to the mailbag, we're going to do some plugs here because this is cool stuff. Steve, you are involved in the Gold Coast Book Fair, Long Island's preeminent three-day book fair, June 28th to 30th in Oyster Bay and Brookville. Is there a website people can go to? There is, Theodore's Books.

Theaters Books, theater your store. Theatersbooks.com. I own Theaters Books, which is my homage to my favorite president, Republican Theodore Roosevelt.

And, uh, we are organizing a book festival with lots of political and historic authors, Eric Larson on his exquisite new book, Demon of Penrest about the lead up to Fort Sumter. That's fantastic. I'm right in the middle of it. It's, Oh, isn't it great? Oh, he's such a good writer. And, and I, yes, it's fantastic. He's phenomenal. So he's kicking us off Douglas Brinkley, uh,

who did The Boys of Pointe du Hoc. It's now, we're about to commemorate the anniversary of Normandy. Brickley did a wonderful book.

Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, will be joining us to talk about the importance of libraries. So we're doing that on Long Island. I bet you didn't know, Murph, when you were working for Bill Carney, that Long Island was the literary capital of America. I bet that never came up. No, I did not. I did not. I was mostly concerned with local machine Republican guys explaining to me the kickbacks they wanted from the media fund. That sounds about right.

I refused to pay and I got dropped off in a potato field and had to hitchhike to the train station. It was quite a quite an education for a puppy consultant there in the old glory days of Long Island. All right. The other thing you're doing in this this they both sound terrific, but I I want to give a big plug to this. You're doing a.

Oh, and I am so jealous. A political film festival on July 9th through 12th, and you've got three great political pictures here. So tell us a little bit about that, and I guess people can go to thecinemaartcenter.org.

TREcenter.org, cinemaartcenter.org to get tickets and be part of it. Looks great. Yeah, I'll tell you about it quickly, but then I have a question for you guys, and that is what is your all-time favorite political film? I taught a course on film and politics at Cornell University, and so we're doing three films the week of July 9th. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Best Man, and The Candidate.

And we have screenwriters, Republican former Congressman Peter King will be joining me. Those are among my favorite three films. What about you guys in terms of your top political films? I'll jump in because I know that because I'm going to beat Murphy to this one. I'm facing the crowd.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's great. Andy Griffin in a dramatic role. Yeah. And a young Walter Matthau is the angry, angry writer. It's terrific. The three you named. I've always I've always loved all the Capra stuff. I'm a best man is fantastic. The candidate. I'll just throw one more in the pile that just for pleasure. And it's a little lesser known by the kids today, but they should go rent it. There's a Preston Sturgis film called The Great McGinty.

which is a fast-talking screwball comedy. It opens up in a dive bar somewhere in Latin America with people on the run, and this guy walks in and says, I was a bank examiner. I didn't know. I took the money. And the bartender says, oh, yeah, I was the governor of a state. And then they do a time-back thing. And it is magnificent. Sturgis, there's nobody better.

And it's kind of a love story, but it's really a big satire. The great Sturgis cast of character actors in it. The great McGinty. Check it out. And go to this. If I'm within 500 miles of you on those days in July, I think I know where I'm going to be. So go to cinemaartcenter.org and center C-E-N-T-R-E because it's Long Island. We're a little fancy there. In Detroit, we spell it C-E-N-T-E-R because we love America.

But anyway, check it out, .org, and participate. It'll be so much fun, and the curators are people who know the business. So kudos, Steve, for doing that. All right, our first question for the one, the only Mark McKinnon from another person suspiciously named Mark, but it's a voicemail, so we can tell if it's him. Listen carefully.

Hi, this is Mark from Minneapolis. After Trump was found guilty, most Republicans ran to his defense and said this now guarantees he wins the election. Conversely, when Joe Biden gets a couple of bad polls, many Democrats respond by panicking and saying he should drop out of the race. Why is there such a difference in the ways the two parties react to negative news? Thanks, guys. Love the show.

Well, that wasn't you, McKinnon. You're off the hook. What's your answer? I could tell the Minnesota accent. Well, I have a sort of mongrel background, having worked on both sides of the fence. And the one thing that I've learned is that the one thing Republicans do well is when somebody says march, they salute.

And they march off in perfect order. And when somebody says march on the Democratic side, they all jump in a mosh pit. And, you know, we talk about how Democrats are bedwetters. They are. I mean, they're disorganized. They're there. You know, they're kind of return emotionally inside out. And and Republicans are just hardwired to just shut up and march. And.

So that's just kind of the nature of the parties that I think is kind of distinct and reflected in the response to those outcomes. No, you're so right. And the Democrats say immediately, where's the therapy animal? We need a poem. The Republicans, you're training Republican Party. If anything goes wrong, you immediately grab the sharpest thing within five feet and attack.

Just, you know, counterattack is the Republican thing. And the Democrats are thoughtful. I mean, here in L.A., after that New York Times poll came out, all the psychiatrists went 24-7. I mean, it's just the cultural nature of them. Just double the rates, got a surge charge. Exactly, half price all night long. All right. Mike, here's a question for you. Paul says, we keep hearing that incumbent presidents don't do well in their first debate for the president.

second term. That's been proven to be correct. David can talk about Obama. I can talk about Bush. However, why should we assume that Trump is a fine-tuned debate machine? He's debated no one for years. He's done no press conferences. He dodged them in the primaries. I'll add that. He's wrapped himself in a MAGA bubble. And of course, his mental acuity isn't any better than four years ago. So how do we assess...

The debate, assuming that Trump shows, of course. Well, that's a great question. I don't think either of them are great orators. I mean, neither of them really do press conferences. Biden hasn't in a kind of amazing amount of time. So I think it's going to be less a contest of erudite or clever debating points and more about who does the best version of them and who punches through a message about the future.

in kind of a sober way that will resonate with those four or 500,000 voters who get to pick the next president in those places we talked about. And I think Biden comes to that with a better toolbox.

Trump, you can tell that stuff we played at the beginning out of the trial. He is an angry, angry, raging guy. And he's going to he's all his emotions around his sleeve. He's very needy. So there's an opportunity for Biden here. If Biden can get his music in pitch with where those swing voters are.

And that's the question because it's been uneven. So, yeah. And Steve, a related question is Frank asked, do you think it would be wise by that way? The last one was from Paul. This is from Frank. Do you think it would be wise for Joe Biden to open the first debate by asking Donald

on Trump to join him in denouncing political violence and then pressing Trump when he dances around the answer. Well, whether he opens with that or not, I don't have a judgment. But I do think it's an important line of attack. Remember, you guys know this because you've prepped candidates for debates. There are three strategic objectives here. Number one is don't screw it up. Don't make a mistake. And number two, use this as an opportunity to raise a ton of money online.

And three, solidify the contrast with undecideds in the battleground states. Asking Trump to renounce political violence and trying to get a reprise of the last debate where he said, proud boys, stand back, stand by and stand or stand back and stand by. That's a good move. And making Trump squirm on questions about Roe v. Wade in front of suburban moderate voters, that's also a good contrast. So you get a twofer with those questions. You

You animate the base and bring in those online donations, but you also remind those moderate independent voters what they don't like about Donald Trump. Yeah, there is a good prosecution question. I agree with Steve about, well, Donald, you vote in Florida. How are you going to vote on the measure there? You've said let locals decide. You're a Florida local. How are you going to vote?

And just, you know, try to pin his ass down. Okay. One more time for your calendar, June 28th to the 30th, the Gold Coast Book Fair. Go to Theodore's. Is it Theodore's.com or Theodore'sbook.com? Theodore'sbooks.com. All right. To check out everything. And don't forget about that July film festival, the Films of Politics.

Steve Israel, thank you for joining us. Pleasure to be with both of you. Thank you, Mark McKinnon. Yeah, Mike. Oh, it's always a pleasure to have both of you. I'm going to change the locks on the studio so Gibbs and Axelrod can't get in, and we'll be back next week. All right. Thank you, hackaroos. Something will happen in the next week, and we, the hacks, will be back to talk about it. Thanks again for listening. ♪ music playing ♪