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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. Did you see Trump last night? I mean it sincerely, the most lies told in a single debate. He lied about the great economy he created. He lied about the pandemic he bought. And then his biggest lie.
He lied about how he had nothing to do with the insurrection of January 6th. We all saw it with our own eyes. We're going to walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you. We saw police being attacked, the Capitol being ransacked. He did not a single thing to stop it, nothing. Folks, I know I'm not a young man, but I know how to do this job. I know right from wrong. I know how to tell the truth.
I know like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. All right, Mike Murphy, there it is. That's called break glass cleanup. It's a new spot, new advertising from the Biden people. A team of 80 people probably put that together to create the perception that there he is, sharp as a tack.
I'm not sure I'm convinced. And I think to figure this out, we need to get one of the great, great... Provocateurs. I call them provocateurs. Traveler, food and wine expert, nationally ranked ballroom dancer. He can do it all. Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Martin.
Hey, guys. Coming at you from Saddle String, Wyoming at the HF Bar Ranch. Hope you cowpokes are doing well. This dude is always somewhere interesting. I want his life when I grow up.
Jonathan Martin, he's a man about the world. But anyway, go ahead. Thanks for having me on, guys. I'm thrilled to be here and hope the Wi-Fi is flowing through the Big Horn Mountains effectively. So what's your lead there, Gernot? Where are we with President Biden, the debate of infamy?
The Democratic Party is in crisis. I mean, I think we're in extraordinary times politically. It's now July. The nomination of this party is next month. And
The highest levels of the party, the elected officials, the donors, the strategists in the party are beside themselves with concern. Actually, it's not concern, it's panic that their nominee is now irretrievably damaged and that this is going to be a very difficult election and that effectively American democracy is now teetering in large part because
their incumbent president insisted on running again and serving into his mid-80s. And he showed the other night the gamble that
That clearly was. And so you've got this remarkable split screen, guys, where these members of Congress say one thing on television and on the record and something totally different in private and private. Hold it. Biden is doing this and that he's not reconsidering. And, you know, at some point, the big question becomes, will those private comments become public and will it take time?
a real, a real, you know, cratering in his polling for those folks to actually speak out loudly and clearly on the record. You know, I have to say, just as a Republican insurgent living through the Trump era, sounds familiar to me that they're cowards in public and patriots in private. And I, I, I take a very dark pleasure that I trade away for this problem, not being there that, that,
A lot of the Dems who would always kind of look down on the cowardly Rs, boy, they won't even tell the truth about what they really think. Well, here they are. Here they are. A little symmetry, which is unfortunate. There were a couple of Ds who were more forthright, uh,
Jamie Raskin. Let's listen to him and then let's listen to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. There are very honest and serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party. Congressman Jamie Raskin saying there's a world where Biden is not the party's nominee.
But Biden himself would have to choose to step aside. Whether he's the candidate or someone else is the candidate, he is going to be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be the figure that we rally around to move forward and beat the forces of authoritarianism and reaction in the country. I think like a lot of people, I was pretty horrified. I think people want to make sure that this is a campaign that's ready to go and win.
That the president and his team are being candid with us about his condition, that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days. So those guys, Jay Mart, were more out front than than others about these concerns. But to their credit, by the way. Yes, yes, yes.
But everybody's phones are blowing up, you know, and there's great concern. What do you think the Biden reaction will be to all of this? Well, the reaction so far has been a furious pushback at the staff level and trying to allay concerns and make the case that dumping Biden would create a larger mess.
likely ensure that their VP is the nominee. We'll talk more about that later. It's honorable that the White House spin in part is you wouldn't want the VP. It should be even worse. But that's obviously inherent in their case. And that this is survivable, that, you know, the country is so dug in, so polarized that Biden can still gut out a win. Guys, here's the problem.
That's the case the White House staff is making. But where's Biden's case? It's now Tuesday. He's not done anything really in public except for brief remarks about the SCOTUS decision on Monday. He's not calling congressional leaders or governors to make the case or reassure them. He's missing in action five days later. Yeah, one of the president's biggest weapons, any president, is the telephone.
And there are 30 people he could call that would tamp this down if they could hear and listen to him. I thought the remarks that he made on the SCOTUS decision, which we're going to talk about later, Monday night were quite sharp, but they were on prompter. And I, for one, am uncomfortable with the prompter operator running the country. He should have stayed for a few questions, but I don't know if he could have. That is the open question that, as you say, only he can answer.
Yet, you know, why wasn't he on 60 in a long interview with Leslie Stahl on Sunday night? Why haven't they set up a CNN town hall? And I'm coming to the conclusion, sadly, that he's incapable of that. They think it's too risky, which is the real story here. And by gaslighting everybody, they're making it worse. Now they're going to have all the bad public polls trickling out.
So they think they have a panic now. Wait till it's pretty concrete. He's losing every swing state by better than the margin, and he's still semi-hidden other than the prompter. So their plane is losing altitude, not gaining it right now. But the window here is small. Right.
You know, and so delay is helpful to him if he wants to stay. I mean, the question he has to think about, obviously, is can he win? Can he still win? Was this just a bad 90 minutes in a long campaign? Or was it something that deeply embedded the fear that people already had about him? You know, because they're sort of asking people to
discount what they saw with their own eyes. And what is the cost of continuing? They may believe that he has the best chance of anyone, but the question is, what is that chance? And how do you assess those risks? Well, that's ultimately Biden's answer to the question of
Why do you think the American voters should believe that you can serve four and a half more years? It's not a 16-month lease on this car. He's asking for four and a half more years. And if you look at his comments and his imagery the other night,
Just think it's a very difficult case for Biden and his aides to make to the country that it's someone who can handle a crisis, the most difficult job in the world for four more years. Yeah, it's a marriage, not a date. Yeah, exactly. In his speech the next day, he said very affirmatively off of the prompter, you know, I wouldn't be running if I didn't think I was prepared to serve, you know, four more years. And it sounded...
So discordant with what people had seen the night before, nobody really believes that. And that's, that's a problem. And it was telling to me that, well,
I was on the tube with Mitch Landrieu, who's a great guy who I really, really like and is doing his best for Biden. And he was on and he said something that the first lady said, which is, you know, we're not going to let 90 bad minutes erase the, you know, three and a half years of a great record. Well,
you know, the thing is about these elections, we're not electing a president for the last four years. We're electing a president for the next four years. And that is the, that is the problem. You know, setting aside the fact that I think he's done many great things. Voters are not
of that mind right now. Totally. And you know, the thing about 90 bad minutes, well, the clock is still running on bad minutes. If he can't take a press question, if he can't do candidate stuff and interact with people in front of television, the bad minute is it's not 90 bad minutes. It's going to be 90 bad days.
And that means you lose. Do you think he can still win the race? I won't rule it out. And I still, in the next 48 hours, if he can come out and do some stuff, which doesn't involve a teleprompter, I think he can do a lot to help his own problem. I just don't think he has the toolbox. I hate to say that, but I'm waiting to see it like most of the country. So if he can't, if he can't, and he's a prisoner of the prompter,
I think he can win. He could win, but I think he won't win. Yeah, I think it's unlikely but plausible because A, he's running against Donald Trump and B, because the country is so divided and the people who will literally vote
or a frigging ham sandwich over Donald Trump. So he benefits from both of those things. I just think it's a lot harder now. Best not to be a ham sandwich, though. The challenge, as my God, is you've got to have someone make the case against Trump, and it's not clear if he can do that remotely effectively. Also, why is Trump going to give him a second debate? He
He's not. He already said he isn't. And he said exactly, I think I may have said this on our show on Friday, our special on Friday, Mike, but he said exactly what I thought he would. He said, I wouldn't put Joe through that again. Yeah, exactly. Well, the whole Republican convention is going to be an ad for Pleasant Acres retirement home.
you know, they're going to have doctors at the podium. It's going to be brutal. And if Biden can't get in front of that, I think it's bad. I mean, look, let me put it this way on the win or lose thing.
I actually think at this point, Harris would be stronger than Biden. That doesn't mean I think Harris is a good candidate, should be the nominee or can win. But I think she'd be marginally better than Biden in the condition I'm seeing him right now, unless they change that perception by putting him out there. But for me, it was a huge inside tell.
after his State of the Supreme Court reaction remarks, which were tight, on prompter, and fairly well delivered. Yeah, they were. He just wandered off. Well, didn't wander. He knew what he was doing. He turned and went away to the shouted press questions. That was a telling minute to me that, oh boy, he can't do it. Guys, last Friday, I got an impromptu call from a long-serving House Democrat, policy-oriented person, who I don't think has a real relationship with Kamala Harris to speak of,
And this person was in a total panic and wouldn't want to go on the record. But I said bluntly, I said, all right, so your choices are Biden or Harris. You know, who would you prefer? And this Congress person said, I think at this point, a lot of us would say Kamala Harris. And I couldn't believe what I was hearing. There's obviously so many congressional Democrats have been so down on the VP. That was the clear answer.
the clear state of how Democrats last brought. And I think still today, yeah, I think some of them, maybe even the majority of them would at this point prefer Kamala Harris to be their party nominee. Well, let me, let me posit a question to you. You wizards. We'll put on our amazing Kreskin tuxedos here and we will look into the future. Do either of you think that,
We're recording this on Tuesday morning, as we often do. But I'll call it a week from today or even a day or two before that. There will be a bunch of credible public polls out, I believe. Do you believe that Biden will be ahead outside? Excuse me. Trump will be ahead outside the margin of error in the swing states or will there be any state Biden is even narrowly ahead of the big six states? I do not.
I don't either. Jaymar, you haven't voted here. No, I think Trump is going to be ahead in every swing state. Bullitt will be ahead by at least three points, if not more. Yeah, so then we're really going to have the boiling cauldron because it's being litigated, and the litigation is not helping drive those polls. And then there'll be proof that it's bad. And if Biden hasn't been out there and off a prompter doing some stuff, then...
The argument I believe, and David, you're hearing from everybody, you're hearing from all your sources, they make is it's a binary choice, Biden or Harris. I personally don't believe that, but we probably ought to talk process, right? About if the panic doubles because the polls are rendering a verdict the American people are very unhappy with Biden.
And the discussion is turned up. I mean, there's this DNC plot to try to rush it ahead, but they won't get that done by next week. So if things boil over next week... That would look very bad, I think. I agree. That's Soviet stuff. One thing that's tied to the polling is the role of the biggest donors in the party. I think they're sort of cool people. I think if a polling does come up later this week, I...
I think contributors start to do the poll. I think that could create the sort of next the next turn. Yeah, I mean, I think that we are treading water right now. But one thing that's interesting is the two groups that are fighting the hardest here are for Biden to continue are the Biden campaign, as they should, and the Trump campaign.
I mean, Laura Trump was out there yesterday saying it would be an affront to democracy if they replaced Biden. And it's like, well, I'm glad you guys have gotten on this democracy train. It's a little late here, but, uh, uh, but, uh, but that, that is, that was, I thought telling, I think it's an odd, uh, argument that, uh, you know, you hear this is going around that the, uh,
that the campaign, the Biden campaign is making that, well, if it's not me, it's going to, it'll have to be Kamala. And if it's Kamala, she's, you know, worse off than me. I, I, I find that odd in a number of different ways. One is it's good. It's going to become more and more known that that is the argument that they're making. And you're basically undercutting your running mate and you're,
You know, that raises the question, well, you chose her. And secondly, it causes, you know, ill will with constituencies within the party. But it just seems like an odd argument to make.
The vital African-American voting bloc will abandon Biden. I mean, what's she going to be Trump's VP now? I think that's very patronizing toward black voters. It is. This is a good and good versus evil race. And I think they understand it more than anybody. Stakes are high.
So the idea that if Biden decides not to run, and you can argue a lot of process methods of how it could be done, and it would be messy and democratic and exciting, that no, no, sorry, it's decided. It has to be this way. I don't buy it. And I think they're either deluding themselves or they're treating...
black voters and constituencies who care about black voters as sort of a robotic, you know, organism incapable of thought and decision. So I find the whole thing offensive. At some point, doesn't the vice president, her husband and her inner circle get a little tired of hearing the all but explicit case of
Hey, Democrats, if it's not Joe Biden, guess what? You're not going to get to win a murder for Gina Romano. You're going to get stuck with our crappy VP. I mean, that's really the case, and it's barely fake. Well, I mean, the other problem with it is if people presume that Biden can't serve another four years, you're kind of making the point the Republicans want to make. You know, you're betting their argument. I honestly think she's—the VP is—
Of the two of them, she's made the case more effectively lately than he. So... Well, she hasn't made the case. I mean, it's now Tuesday. This debate was Thursday night, since that he's done a series of private fundraisers that we have cool reports of, but that's it. And then he gave a four-minute...
you know, epistle last night in the White House about the Supreme Court decision. There's nothing else. Yeah, unprompted. And he did a great Annie Leibovitz shoot. I understand he's got a velvet tuxedo that's killer. Yeah, that was unfortunate timing that he repaired to Camp David after this debate. And the picture of the First Lady. To do a film shoot for Vogue. Looks like a movie still for the Imelda Marquez story or something, you know, on the cover of Vogue. And, you know, I'll defend her. That's not who she is.
But but anyway, yeah, the whole thing, it's like we've gone into it's turned into a pitch for Zach Galifianakis movie where the White House prompter operator is running the country, you know, and Will Ferrell is the out of it president. I mean, the whole thing is like a dark dream.
The Jill Biden picture in Vogue, the Annie Leibovitz, that is pissing off younger people who are working for Joe Biden's keep. I've heard from some of them, and they're out there, traditional Democratic operatives, and they look at this and they say,
Who are the folks that we're working for? How tuned out are they? Why is this happening? So there's real frustration, and it's not just the Biden folks would have it, pundits or the Belvley. The podcasters, those insipid loudmouths on the interweb.
You know, they're inside the house. It's their own campaign. I was offended for you, Murphy, at that podcaster remark. That was totally untoward. And I'll defend you to the hilt. I want you to know that. Well, I'll tell one joke here. I, you know, it's been I'm not I can't and won't and promise not to talk about it.
but it's been published, uh, that there was a meeting between some of the Biden high command and a few of us on the Republican anti-Trump side in DC. And I'll just say when I made my remarks, it was a very respectful, but very blunt meeting. You know, uh, I said, I'm going to, I have eight things I want to say. I'll say them quickly because at noon I'm due for a cover shoot on bedwetting podcaster magazine to their credit. I got a good laugh out of them, but, uh,
Yeah, yeah. We're the problem. Well, the bigger question is, how is the shoot? And when is the magazine coming out? Did Annie shoot it, too? I'm talking about, yeah, Annie shot Murphy as a bedwetter. Yeah, Annie did it. I borrowed Biden's velvet tuxedo, and I'm like repelling like Tarzan on a big string of pearls into a soggy mattress. It's quite dramatic. Okay, then let's take a break right here, and we'll be right back.
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Jaymar, you got into a little hot water, or someone got into hot water, maybe not you. Because you did a piece on Friday that said that Whitmer had told
I guess, told the Biden campaign that Michigan was gone. And she went into major damage control. That was really interesting to me from a variety of standpoints. One is obviously, that's a battleground state. That's a must-win state for him. If she actually said that,
That should be a pretty significant warning. Here's what happened. And this is why I think it's an interesting piece and why I wrote it. You can check it out at Politico. Whitmer on Friday night had a conversation with Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who's the de facto Biden campaign manager. And the purpose of the call
was that Whitmer wanted to disavow the draft Gretsch chatter that was already blazing by Friday night and say that she doesn't like it, she doesn't like hearing about it, and she hates it. She's not for what Biden hears. She also wanted to convey that Michigan is going to be difficult now, and obviously that's clear to see.
Here's where it gets interesting. That's what actually happened on the call, according to my reporting. I got over the weekend shot to me by a future potential rival of Governor Whitmer, a much
different account which was it was an sos call that michigan was gone that biden can't win here and obviously that was shopped because her future rivals are trying to damage her by portraying her as a being that invited in his hour of need sounds like pritzker to me by the way that's a chicago move there um what was interesting to me was that the nines are already out and that potential opponents to whitmer see her as as a real threat and are
They're trying to sort of nick her up a little bit ahead of our 24 or 2028. So the kind of backstage blade work already going on in the Democratic Party, I think, speaks volumes about what this moment tells us about just the sort of sheer panic and also the impulse to get to high ground, to find the best possible solution.
in safest position for yourself. And in Whitmer's case, of course, that was, you know, trying to really push back hard against that plan to say, of course, I don't think Michigan has lost. Biden can still win here. He doesn't want to be seen as, you know, somebody who's throwing the towel for Biden in this moment. Of course, the irony is, with a lot of respect for Whitmer, who I think would be the best choice to replace Biden of the usual suspects,
I'm not sure she or many of the swing state governors could pass a polygraph saying right now they think Biden could win their state. You know, I'd like to I'd like to hear what Warnock thinks about Georgia, et cetera, et cetera. Of course. But that's the case for all of these folks, money. Yeah. But, you know, they have to. It's the posturing. And the other seer is a threat because she is an interesting gender story.
as president, which a lot of the white dudes who would like the job don't have. Part of the appeal of her, I think, especially with the kind of big donor set, is that, hey, maybe it'd be easier to sneak her past customs in Chicago next month than it would be one of the white guys. Because, obviously, if we're going to bump Kamala Harris, better to do it with a woman. A bit of a crude assessment, but clearly...
that's part of the thinking you know i wrote in my column by the way if you're whitmer and biden you know does ultimately withdraw she ought to make a run at this thing for this reason i think she's better off running this year than she is in 28 because there's gonna be less competition by 28 whitmer runs the risk of being yesterday's news yeah listen uh she uh one of the things that
What probably recommends her is that she's not a coastal candidate and she speaks in a language and an idiom that regular people get. And she displayed that in her tweet in response to your story, J-Mart, which was anyone who claims I would say that we can't win Michigan is full of shit.
Let's go. Yeah, that's that's Detroit talk there or in her case, Lansing talk. Here's a little tidbit, Jay, just quickly that that'll sound like your life. I got a call yesterday from a high ranking advisor to one of the others basically saying, how far out on this Biden limb do you think we ought to go defending him right now?
You know, which is interesting because they're trying to figure out how to trim their sails a little because they don't want to look like an idiot as the days click by where you don't see Biden in public. Everybody's trying to figure out where they should be, what to say, how to say it. And they're like, you know, ducks furiously treading underwater while trying to appeal plastic on the surface. Right. I think there's another thing there's and, you know, part of it is respect and affection for Biden.
And part of it is giving him some room to make a decision because Joe Biden is a proud, proud guy.
And he doesn't want to he's not going to let anybody push him anywhere. He is also a guy, I think, who cares about the country. I don't think he wants to be the guy. His legacy right now is he's the guy who beat Donald Trump and routed him from the White House and accomplished a lot of great things in the years after. His legacy, if he continues and loses, is going to be different.
And, you know, he needs to consider that. But I think that a lot of people want to give him room and give themselves room to figure this out. And there are two elements to it. One is what is the risk of changing as opposed compared to the risk of staying? Secondly, what is the process by which you would replace him?
And, you know, that is some some improvised process is going to have to take place in which there is some ability for potential candidates to present themselves to the American people in a truncated way. This is the always been the problem that concerned me that if Biden were to be forced to decide late that he couldn't make a go that.
that he would deprive the party of a... it would deprive the party of a primary process, which is how you vet candidates. You know, look at President DeSantis. Right. And get buy-in. You know, I mean, this is how you find that you pressure test them, you vet them. This is how we learn about candidates through primary processes. The question is, is there any way to at least simulate that in a warp speed fashion?
in five weeks or four, you know, soon to be four weeks. And that is, you know, that's not an inconsequential question, but it's definitely one people are thinking about. Yeah, I think there's a fork in the road. You either open it up and have some sort of primary among the delegates, right?
Or Biden tries to Buffalo somebody strong through with a surge in public support, which I kind of favor that being essentially anti-democratic, I guess, in my right wing heart, because I worry about what a modern democratic contest would look like among the universe of delegates, because it'll be...
it'll be a circus. But, you know, David, as you said before, and I totally agree, the whole thing is a risk burger. But with Biden, if Biden becomes untenable, you kind of have to have to pick your scary route. Well, that's why people are waiting on these polls. Yeah. You know, the problem, Jaymart, that worries me, and I say this respectfully because, you know, I do think that Biden has done great things. And I think that his the the
The experience that he brings is meaningful and most meaningful is he's a guy who actually believes in rules and norms and laws and institutions and believes in the fundamental tenets of democracy. And you can't say that about Donald Trump. All of that is true.
But I think people are waiting to see these polls and see just how lasting the damage is. But also, there's no assurance that this won't happen again. I guess the only way you assure that is to keep them on a prompter 24-7. And then the prompter becomes the candidate, which is deadly, too. I mean, I think one of the biggest threats in all this, if they can't show Biden and undo it, is—and we've talked forever about it—one of the best messages that Biden has is
is I'm for you, the working middle class. He's for himself. But if Biden is an 81-year-old clinging to power for no good reason, then it's about him. And that all goes away. And it's just a pair of egomaniacs, the better one and the worst one. And that is not the campaign you want to have. Speaking of pressure testing, I think what you're seeing implicit in some of these comments, especially for folks like Sheldon Whitehouse, is, let's see it, Joe. Let's see it.
If this was an anomaly, get out there. Do a live interview. Do a town hall. And I think, speaking of pressure testing, maybe that's how this is resolved, is that Biden does have to go off the prompter. He's got to put it out there. And, you know, in some ways, if he can survive... Yeah, sink or swim. If he can give the checkers speech effectively and show that he can sort of push back, then maybe he can save himself. But if not,
then that could make this easier on Democrats. If he obviously doesn't have the capacity, then maybe it's easier to get him to drop out. I do think, Mike, that if he can't go forward, I'm sure he'd try to save face by ensuring Kamala Harris is the nominee. He'd want to have some imprint on the nomination, right? Why does his imprint on the nomination have to be her? Well, because she's his vice president. He picked her. It's his legacy, effectively. Hmm.
I don't know. I think he could say it's time. I promised a bridge to the future, and the Biden-Harris team has done that. It's time for a new team. I'm not sure that he should be stepping away and putting his finger on the scale. If there's a process, she may emerge from that process. Like I said, she actually has been, you know,
She has been tested the last three and a half years, and she hasn't always passed that test, but she's grown. There's no doubt she's grown as a performer. I wouldn't discount the fact that there's a process, and she does pretty well in that process. But here's the thing I was going to get to. There is no, you know, first of all, time is wasting. So, you know, for him to go out and perform,
prove that what the people saw wasn't the norm. You know, there's just a very short runway here. Secondly, as I think I said just a few minutes ago, there's, you know, if there is this fear that it comes and goes, that what they saw comes and goes and that it will display itself again between now and November. But listen, guys, look at his schedule this week.
Yeah. Lack of schedule. Right. I mean, I don't have it in front of me, but it is very, very light. And this was a week that probably demanded a very heavy schedule if you wanted to reassure people that you're up to it. And as Mike says, a schedule that, you know, I mean, he's now...
He did a couple of fundraisers, and he now reads remarks off of Promptor at the fundraisers. Yeah, which is a terrible tell, and they all talk about it. It doesn't take questions other than— Well, he's been doing that for months now. I talked to somebody in Chicago two, three months ago who had seen him—
previously to that by two or three months and i got this extraordinary account of did you know that even in private homes biden's reading from a prompter so that's that's been going on for a while now right yeah so i've been hearing about it you have ax has it's been they've got him in a prompter bubble he is a prisoner of the prompter right now and i don't think that's sustainable after the debate okay let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back
Okay, let's face it. After a night with drinks, I don't exactly bounce back now in my dotage the way I once did the next day. I'm still feeling it. I have to make a choice. I can either have another great night or a great next day.
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For any reason, they will refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash hacks and use the magic code HACKS. You go to zbiotics.com slash hacks, use the code HACKS, and check out for that 15% off. And thank you, ZBiotics, for sponsoring this episode and all of our good times. I think, Mike, what you're saying is right in that, you know,
If you want to reassure people, you've got to flood the zone and do a bunch of interviews and go out and do a bunch of things where you are speaking extemporaneously, where you're handling questions and responding to questions. The fact that he's not, the fact that he's not making calls, that's a big concern. Yeah, well, it's a huge tell because you don't have to be the greatest political strategist in the world the morning after that debate to say, book him for an hour with Leslie Saul on Facebook
or something equivalent, CNN, something big, and they didn't do it.
It wasn't like they hadn't thought of it, I'm sure. It's that they didn't have confidence he could do that, which is the real story here, which is why we're in this situation. Hey, guys, can we just talk real fast about what other Democrats are saying and doing? To me, it's such a real deal of where their heads are. And you guys have worked in politics long enough that you can decode some of these euphemisms and some of these sort of
you know phrases that say more that they actually may seem on face value uh the one that got me was andy basheer who on monday he's the governor of kentucky on monday he was talking to reporters and he said two things about biden he said well only he can make that decision and then he also said that he was for biden as long as biden is the nominee i mean when you say those two things
It sends a blazing. Right. It is. And that's pretty common. I heard, I heard Debbie Dingell, who's nothing, if not, you know, a strong party Democrat and,
saying essentially the same thing, you know, saying, you know, Biden's been a great president. And, you know, as long as he's running, I'm for him, you know, and in a choice between him and Trump, it's not even close. But there was this sort of ambiguity. And a lot of folks are now worried as much about that, the chances of
winning the house and holding down Senate gains for Republicans than they are about the presidential race. Totally. I mean, if you open your window, you can hear the screams coming across the country from those poor down ballot people who are tough races already. The testers, the
You know, Sherwood Brown in Ohio, though he's an exceptionally shared, shared branch, excuse me, et cetera, et cetera. And that dam may break soon when the polls start to bubble up in the next few days and somebody is going to say something.
Yeah, we all thought that the famous ad that down-ballot candidates to run when they know that the top of the ticket's going to lose. And you guys have probably written this out over the years, which is, I'll be a check on President X. And President X is the president of the other party. You know, we all thought that that spot was going to run in September.
in some of these states or districts, hell, you can see that I'm going to be a check on Trump at this summer. Right. And then when they bring Biden in the state, you get the incredible galaxy of creative excuses. My thought being dental emergency wanted to be there. But the Senate had a dental emergency. Sock drawer rearrangement. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, I think I don't think I mean, I've heard from people saying, you know, I can't go out there.
I mean, I'll do what I have to do, but I'm not going to go out there with the same level of investment and enthusiasm and, you know.
Because I'm I'm trying to live. I'm worried. But let me ask you guys one last question before we hit the mailbag. The Supreme Court made an extraordinary decision yesterday that essentially does provide immunity for the president to do all told things, you know, that are.
That that are really sort of mind boggling if they're in execution of his official duties, which will now forever be a source of contention, whether something was a public litigation. Yes. But, you know, to a guy like Donald Trump, it's like go to town, brother. If you make it go, you know.
And he'll he's done if nothing else, he's shown that he can expand the parameters of laws beyond recognition. He, you know, so there is these fears of Trump and Trump sort of Trump autocratic practices and vengeance and retribution and, you know, going after his political enemies, jailing his opponents and so on. I mean, yeah.
That seems a little less hyperbolic today than it did yesterday. No, it puts an edge on the knife, no doubt about it. Now, I will say it looked to me like a cynical punt by the Supreme Court because they didn't open it up for all future. They just said, well, let's take a pause, which lets Trump off the hook.
and go fight about what down courts and then probably back up again about what federal actions are. But it, in effect, puts a very cheap padlock on the gate containing a second Trump presidency, which is an extremely troubling thing. And that should be a political weapon for the Ds, assuming that debate can ever move back to Trump and not on does Biden, is he able to carry on a conversation about a serious issue? Which is why he was out there last night, of course. Right.
Without a conversation, though. Without a two-way press conversation. Just reading the prompter. By the way, I have a terrible cold. Well, that's explaining your performance here. I think I'm sitting under... It was from sitting under a rainstorm on the set at
in Atlanta, the CNN said there was a hole in the roof over my chair. So I just want to explain my raspy voice here. I actually do have a cold, and it explains everything. People are starting to tweet, we need a change. Well, I think our thing that this...
Court decision does is it emboldens not just Trump, but it emboldens the people who Trump's going to surround himself with. And that's always been the risk of Trump.
is people taking his impulses and actually putting them into action it's like the opposite of you know nixon and at his high command which kind of like rolled their eyes and ignored him at the end it's the risk that like the opposite would happen and trump would have people who would very much be thrilled to carry out some of his major impulses and now they're gonna
They have legal cover to do it. Or looking for an excuse to carry him out, even if it isn't Trump's real influence and, you know, just a hint. And then they can go off on their fantasies. So the Biden campaign theory has always been that people would focus on this and on the on the extraordinary risks of an unfettered, unchained Trump campaign.
During the final stretches of this campaign and they would whatever their concerns about Biden, they would choose him. Do you think that is still valid? And I asked in the in light of the Supreme Court decision, will people say, yeah, he's he's he's old. I don't know that he can make it.
But he's not going to turn this into, you know, Victor Orban's Hungary or worse. No, I wish. I think it's a single. Dobbs is bigger. That's the court issue. And now there's no issue but Biden until he resolves this one way or the other, in my view. There's been this sort of journalistic lecturing going on for the last year that the press recovery –
the stakes, not the odds, right? That's sort of the ivory tower. How dare you horse race hacks over the odds here? But that's precisely why Biden's debacle of the debate matters so much. It's not because of the odds. It is because of the stake. Because...
Biden has now made it much more likely that Trump is going to thrust this country into a constitutional crisis if he's president again. And that's why so many Democrats believe that it's profoundly selfish and irresponsible of Biden to go forward. By the way, horse race hack, I think, ought to be your new moniker. That's exceptional. You can put my hat right now. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors.
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If you have a question for the mailbag, we have given you a cornucopia of ways to contact us. First, for you old schoolers, Mr. President, you just email us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com, or you can record a voice memo, a quick one. We're the bloviators on your phone, and email that to us. Use your name so we know who you are. Or finally, if you have a question for the mailbag, we have given you a cornucopia of ways to contact us.
In the back of a Cook County Democratic Turnout Center, where I've been enrolled to vote for several decades, you can call our machine and leave a message. Again, keep it 20-25 seconds with your question and give us your name. That number, 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. We want to hear from you. And extra points if you do it as a song. Yeah.
So, Jaymar, we have a question here from a person appropriately named, when you hear the question, you'll know why, Banksy. Banksy. All right, let's hear from Banksy. Hello there. This is Banksy, fan of the show. What happens if Biden and Harris step aside to the $100 million-plus that Biden has raised? What happens to that war chest?
I was understanding it could only be used if Harris decides to take over as the candidate. Thank you. So party money, the money that has been given to the DNC, could be used for whoever the nominee is. Where it gets more complicated is the folks who have cut a check to Biden's re-election itself. Now, with that money, it can be transferred, as I understand it,
to a super PAC that already exists or could be created. But of course, the super PAC can't be used to coordinate with the campaign. And then I suppose Biden could also transfer his individual contributions to the DNC, and the DNC could just have a larger reward chest to spend as well. Let me say my view of this is that if there is another candidate,
there's likely to be a big outpouring of funding. I think people are so intent on beating Donald Trump that I don't think money is going to be the obstacle. So it's a valid question. I think a lot of that money could find its way to the candidate. The campaign said, well, the vice president would control that money, but I think that's in keeping with their
message that she would have to be the nominee. But yeah, it's a non-issue. It's the internet fundraising world. If you had a Whitmer book or what they would explode. Well, and I think big donors too, Mike, I think I've heard from a lot of big donors who said, look, we'll, you know, if there's another candidate, they should know we're going to be there for them. So
I think you can hear a lot of that. And by the way, you can refund the money. You can send the donor money back and the donor can give to the new entity. This is, in my view, a huge non-issue. All right, for Axe, this is from Steven. Why hasn't anyone, all caps, from the Biden team been fired after the debate? Not one person. We would all feel better and it would definitely help, says Steven. Axe, what do you say? I say that...
I've worked with Ron Klain on a series of debates over the years. I've worked with Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer. These are the people who've been identified in press reports as being in the crosshairs of the Biden family because of the debate. I don't know what went on in that debate. I know these folks, though, and they're very, very professional. I don't think...
They instructed the president to look slack-jawed during his reaction shots. Exactly. Yeah, that was the Trump debate team's advice. I don't think... This struck me as fundamentally a user error problem. I'm sure that the issue was not the strategy that was urged and practiced. He did have a bad night, and I don't know... It's always...
People don't like to blame the candidate. And so the first instinct is to blame the staff. Now, the one question, you know, you have to ask yourself in retrospect is, was it wise to...
to, to debate at all. Right. That's the mega question. I mean, from a strategic standpoint, they set this up to be essentially an oral exam to show America that Biden was up to it and he flunked the exam. And so, you know, knowing what they knew and they must, they must know more about, you know, Biden than, uh, than anyone else. Uh, what, uh,
Were there reasons to say, hey, maybe we should, you know, Micah, for months, I was urging on this podcast that they delay, delay, delay on making a debate decision and only do it if they needed to break glass. And they made that decision pretty early.
And they did it out of weakness, David. I mean, they did it because they had to change the trajectory of the race that was getting out of hand. Well, that's the thing. They may have decided they had to break the glass early. Which made sense. I mean, if you have a candidate and you're up against Trump, that made sense. But I have a crazy theory on this. The staff has to know the Biden they have.
They're the ones who said no Super Bowl softball interview, which was strange. They're the ones who haven't done a press conference forever. So all of a sudden he does a preemptive debate. I think it wasn't the staff. I don't think they would have been for this. I think it was the president and the first lady. I think that, you know, tough old Irish bird said, get me a debate. I'm going to teach that orange son of a bitch a lesson or two. And the first lady, who we know is a enthusiastic proponent of a Biden campaign, says do it.
And nobody in the staff could stop it, which is another question about the staff. I heard somebody, it might have been Tim Miller, somebody, I think it was Tom Nichols actually made a good point,
It looks like the White House runs like a Senate operation where you don't have advisors, you have staff implementing. And so that's my conspiracy theory of how such a horrible debate happened. Because I tweeted I was for it early because they must have a good Biden and they can reset. And if not, we're all going to see it. And it's before the convention and something can happen. And unfortunately, it's outcome number two.
Here's a hybrid theory to that, which is both and. The White House staff didn't have a huge appetite to debate. Biden wanted to debate, said on live radio with Howard Stern that he was going to debate. And the Biden folks wanted to make the best of it. And they're watching this trial. It's not getting any traction at all. And the Biden folks said, the old man wants to bring in debate. We have no choice.
How can we leverage this the best possible way? Here's an idea. Let's preemptively come out and say, we'll do it early in June and we'll try to change the nature of this race and we'll satisfy Biden because we're doing the debate that he wants. And hopefully it works out. We can change the course of the race. That's my sense. Yeah.
Yeah. So, Mike, Kim has an interesting question for you. If Biden dropped out and she put in parentheses, and that's a big if, which is right, could the party prevent fracture by instituting ranked choice voting amongst the delegates to select a nominee? All candidates can throw their hat in the ring and through a series of rounds use ranked choice voting, a selection would emerge.
Additionally, in the event Kamala Harris does not win out, could the party stipulate that she would remain on the ticket as VP to prevent an exodus of African-American voters? It's a pretty thoughtful question. Yeah, it's an excellent question, Kim. And I think you're right. I think if they do go the convention route, and Carville's got an idea, they pre-select four candidates.
So it's a multiple choice, not an essay. But the idea of rank choice voting, which I'm for and support, if that was involved, what it really does is incentivize candidates to have a wider repeal. It makes you care a lot about who's voting for you, but also being a lot of people's second choice, which generally makes you widen your message. So I think that would actually be
you know, the process and the fight on the convention floor could be something. But I think that is an excellent idea because it would create buy-in. And I think you should immediately telegram that to Jamie Harrison. Now, in the second part,
In the event Kamala Harris does not win out, could they stipulate? I would be against stipulating. If you're going this way with a wide coalition rank choice kind of structure, I would let that be the story.
Um, all the way across, I would get out of the stipulation business because that's the opposite of the spirit of rank choice voting. But I think if I prefer, I'm an old political boss kind of mentality. I'd rather grab Whitmer, organize it, go public, create a huge polling surge and whip through the convention because conventions are risky. But there's a good argument for buy-in that with a mini primary happen. And I think rank choice in the convention would be an excellent way to actually conduct the balloting.
in the world where this would happen, which is still a stretch, but another week and some really bad polls. And I don't think we're going to throw this question out. It may become relevant for real. Jaymart, you know, I've heard James Carville talk about this. And I guess my question is how and who arrives at the final four? Well, clearly we do, David, the hacks, we take control of the situation. Yeah.
It's like the college basketball tournament where they have the play-in game in Dayton, and that could be effectively a tax on capital. Yeah, exactly. I think the idea of having to kind of try out the first night of the convention makes a lot of sense. But yeah, how do you winnow it down to five to six? That's the real challenge. You can't do it with money or polling, I don't think. So what's the metric by which you do that? Which is why I come back to... I'm not advocating for that. I just think it's the most realistic scenario...
If Biden is his hand is forced, I think he would try to secure the way for Kamala Harris as the best possible face saving thing he could do. That's my sense. Out of the frying pan into the fire. It's going to be an interesting few days. And guys, let's not lose sight of the fact that we are in the midst of all of this. We're going to celebrate the nation's victory.
on July 4th. And I think now more than ever, let's take a moment to appreciate what America means and what we need to do as citizens to perpetuate and strengthen and hand to our kids that great project of democracy. Yeah, which doesn't happen by itself. It's based on citizens doing their job. So,
We'll be here. Pogacar is not a spectator sport, as the late, great John Warner once used to like to say. All right. Well, J. Meyer, thank you. Enjoy Wyoming there. Go on the Malcolm Wallop Senate Drive. Thanks, guys. Appreciate y'all. Thank you. And, David, we'll talk soon. Talk soon. The Wallop Senate Drive begins here. Three riders with a proclamation. The Wallop Senate Drive. It's Wyoming to the third.
The Wallops Senate Drive. For Wyoming, Malcolm Wallop. Tell them in the United States Senate that the people of Wyoming are proud of their land and life and that a Wyoming senator will fight every intrusion upon it. That you, Malcolm Wallop, will serve the nation best by serving Wyoming first. The very special needs of this great state. And by so doing, share its blessing with America. The Wallops Senate Drive.
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