cover of episode W.T.F., Man? (With John Heilemann)

W.T.F., Man? (With John Heilemann)

2024/5/14
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. And we have a judge who's highly conflicted, and he's keeping me from campaigning. He's an appointed New York judge. He's appointed me.

You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He's appointed. He's a corrupt judge and he's a conflicted judge and he ought to let us go out and campaign.

and get rid of this scam. So Gibbs, I guess if you want corrupt appointed judges, he wants to appoint them, not those Democrats. That was four-year-old Donald Trump, mad that he had to go to bed early last night. I don't think he didn't complain in that one about how cold the courtroom is. This one is, that's really frying him and he brings it up all the time. I think he may be a tad

out of sorts because michael cohen's they're diming him out john heilman i don't know what do you think about that well i think first of all a guy who's afflicted i can't tell which of his afflictions is is uh more troubling the uh the narcolepsy or the flatulence like they're both like seem to be equal problems the other thing is like the when you have the lined up and you say do you know who appointed him you're expecting him to say david

Axelrod. But no, he says, Democratic politicians. It's like, it's a lot of people let down, right? I was thinking there was going to be a big reveal here. Democratic politicians. Yeah, he's grumpy. You know, it's Stormy Daniels one week, Michael Cohen the next week. You'd be grumpy too. Yeah, fair point. Dude, Gibbs, if those are the ghosts of your Christmas past, right?

Right. And then you're sitting 12 feet from them as they testify. I don't feel like I'm saying I'm sympathetic to him, but like you realize, man, what have I done with my life? If this is what this is, these are the ghosts of my Christmas past. If I projected sympathy, I misspoke. I'm sending the wrong vibes. My sympathy is for the American people having to sit through all of this. But now there's this added comic element.

or perverse element of Republican vice presidential wannabes coming to

You used to audition by making a speech or going on a TV interview show. Now you've got to show up in court to support the frontrunner for your nominee. Mike Johnson's coming today. The Speaker of the House will be in the House. You know what it reminds me of, though? It reminds me of, do you remember at the very beginning of the Trump administration when there was the whole, the live cameras were set up in Trump Tower?

and all the supplicants were coming in during that period during the transition it's like again how are the mighty fallen you know before it was like it was a trump tower and everyone was showing up here's kanye west and here's so-and-so here's so-and-so and now it's like he's at the manhattan jd vance does the criminal court as he gets tummy total great so vek ramaswamy is there today yeah and and bergum you know here's a guy bergum just a kind of

country guy from North Dakota, made some money in the tech business, became governor. Now he wants to be VP and he gets dragged into a courtroom in New York City. Tell me you're thirsty without telling me you're thirsty, right? You're right though. No longer do you turn over your medical records and talk to the candidate about your views on foreign...

foreign policy and whatnot, it's being graded on your press conference, denigrating Michael Cohen outside of a courtroom in New York. In fact, you're not allowed to turn over your medical records to anyone because that would embarrass the nominee who will never turn over his medical records to anyone. But listen, guys, what is the impact of all of this? David, you and I were chatting about this the other day. I

Until last week, first of all, there's a huge thing about this, which is the American people aren't being subjected to this for better or worse. It's not on TV. And so it's all – the coverage of it, as I have spent a lot of this trial – it's been a month this trial has been on now. This is the beginning of the fifth week.

And I've spent a lot of that time not here. So in places other outside the Acela corridor. And my impression for the first, until last week before Stormy Daniels, was essentially no one was paying attention to it. I mean, except for political reporters, cable news legal analysts, and diehard partisans. People just were, no one was talking about this case in the rest of the country. Just it wasn't really sinking through, sinking in.

I think Stormy Daniels changed that a little bit just in terms of the late night coverage. You suddenly had the two Jimmys and Stephen Colbert talking about it all night long, and that's always an indicator of something. And this Cohen thing is a high voltage thing.

a more familiar face. But I just, I continue to think by and large that Trump, that all of this feels like old news to people. Like they know this story. They basically think, yeah, Trump, you know, Trump did all this porn star and he paid her off.

We know he's a, we know he's tawdry. And so a lot of it's priced in the stock and, and, and not that it's not, not that the case hasn't actually been as a legal matter. I think they might actually win this case and that would have real consequences, which we can talk about. It's the only circumstance where you might, what happens if Trump gets convicted?

other than he appeals? That's a question to me because it's, again, uncharted territory. But right now, it feels like a lot of this is that you look at the way what persuadable voters seem to be concerned with. It's not this. And there's just so much of this behavior that I think most people think, yeah, he's guilty. We already knew that. We kind of knew that a long time ago and have kind of moved on from it and retreated into their typical kind of partisan polarized views of the whole thing.

I agree. I mean, I think not being on TV is a huge thing. I don't think this is front and center.

in a way that certainly would be on TV. You've got to be a pretty religious cable watcher to get a lot of this. I think my larger answer to your question, Axe, is tell me what the outcome is, and I think we can predict a little bit or have a little bit better sense of how to predict what it might mean. And this is where I think there's a—I mean, look, to some degree, it's a huge risk for the prosecution because if he is not convicted or there is a hung jury,

There's a lot that Donald Trump's going to spend a lot of time talking about, and he won't just be ranting in the hallway about it. He'll be very front and center on it. I think, obviously, if he's convicted, we've seen the polling suggests

Certainly the severity of other cases is much different. But I do think that the polling has suggested that this isn't going to reflect well on him and that people will begin to think of him differently if he's convicted of a felony. I tend to believe that that's the case. This is, of course, the purpose of the histrionics in the hallway outside the courthouse and of the guys showing up in his support. The whole message is...

to impeach the proceedings, you know, there, I think to some degree, he's probably successful in doing it, certainly with his own supporters. He is branding this trial as it happens, so that if it goes wrong for him, he can dismiss it

And if it doesn't go wrong for him, he's going to call it vindication, meaning even a hung jury. Although there will be an irony to that, which will be, I've just said this trial was, you know, this trial, this is a corrupt justice system and it's totally fixed and it's a witch hunt. And now they've let me off. And well, I guess my indictment of the criminal justice system is basically revoked.

wrong. Yeah, John, I'm sure that I'm sure that, you know, they'll correct the record soon after that consistency being his watchwords. I'm sure that he'll be flummoxed by the fact that the listen, he'll just shift feel. He'll say even even the corrupt prosecutor and judge

couldn't sell this dog to a jury. But I ask you guys this, though. What happens if, I agree, look, if Donald Trump is convicted and next thing you know, he's in an orange jumpsuit, which I doubt one way or the other. At least his hair will match. I was going to say, does it match his hair or is it a little off?

Have you looked at the jumpsuits that they use at Rikers? There's a lot of orange jumpsuits. I know Axe is very familiar with those jumpsuits. I'm not nearly as well. But he's going to appeal this case, right? Leave my childhood out of this. A lot of what you see in a lot of the grandstanding, a lot of what the judge has been saying, everybody's getting prepared for this to be appealed, right? They're like all laying down a record for appeal. The things the lawyers are saying, the things the judge is saying to try every time that he appeals.

officer ruling on contempt or on a mistrial. He's speaking in a way that's trying to lay down a record knowing it's going to be appealed. So if he gets convicted, Trump appeals, he's not going to be in jail between now and he's not going to be serving a sentence between now and election day. And he appeals on the grounds that, you know, on legal grounds that he's going to make the political case.

Does that, I agree with Gibbs. I, when I see the polling that says it would materially change on the margin, some, some support for Trump and it would have political impact if he were convicted. The next question is, does a conviction with a vociferous appeal that delays the actual outcome until after election day, does that not blunt the potential impact? I have another question and I haven't talked to any pollsters about this, but

Aren't there a certain number of people who just aren't going to say, yeah, I mean, the guy's convicted. So I think people are who wants to admit that it doesn't matter to me. I think that, you know, so I don't know how you actually measure this, especially in this case. I think the one thing we probably all agree on is if you think back many, many months ago, certainly lots of Democrats and maybe even a good number of people covering the race would have would have surmised that the legal process

gauntlet that Trump was about to run was deeply perilous to his candidacy and may well save the country from this idea of another Trump presidency. And I think

that's all but played itself to zero, right? That we're not going to have any of these big federal cases before the election. To John's point, this thing is going to be met with an appeal if it's successful and no immediate prison time. And therefore, I think it'll be on the margins, as John said, but this does not save the republic. I mean, in a marginal race, at the margins could matter. Yes, yes.

But if that feels like the big news to me of last week, which of course is obscured by the Stormy Daniels thing of last week, was we had not that – my view had been for a year that none of the cases that we cared about would get – would be litigated.

and decided before election day. But it really became 100% clear last week. The Florida case, the documents case, which is the strongest legal case, the one he's clearly guilty. There's no doubt in anybody's mind. He violated that. There's not even an argument about the classified documents case. We're not going to hear that. The Supreme Court has fucked the country on the January 6th case. That's not going to get heard.

And the Georgia case also equally clear last week when you realized that the Fannie Willis thing had led us into this place where that thing was, I think, given the size of that RICO case, it was never going to get heard this year. But there was a lot of clarity last week that that Rumsfeld thing of you go to war with the army you have. We're sort of in that place now. For anybody who cares about Trump legal accountability, this case matters now if you care about legal accountability because –

It's the only one that is going to take place where we're going to get an outcome before election day. But man, what a travesty that four years later,

The other three cases, which are all hugely consequential as a matter of democracy, the law, and our politics, that none of them is going to get decided in time for voters who want these things to be decided before Election Day. There's lots of polling on this. People are like, I would like to know whether the man is guilty of insurrection before Election Day. We're not going to get that. That's the thing that pisses me off the most, frankly. Or guilty of mishandling top-secret documents. Documents, right.

when he's about to get a job to do it again. It is a pisser, but there are two things that I would say about it. One is, I think in a very perverse way, and maybe I've said this before, I think that, you know, we all said that, oh, this helped him in the primaries. I think it's helping him in the general as well in a weird way, because his whole message, what is his message? His message is me strong, the other guy weak.

And this is adding to the mythology of his indomitability and strength. He's basically defied the whole system and he's winning. And, you know, it's perverse, but I think it's real. And the second thing is, yes, these trials have been pushed off. Yes, it's a travesty, but it also adds to the stakes for Trump.

and the desperation that he's going to bring to this thing. And it does portend a really ugly fall if this thing is in the same place that we were. We're going to be in a lot closer election, I think, than we were four years ago. I think there could be a lot of questions after Election Day, not just on Election Day. This thing could—I mean, it's not a trivial possibility that this thing could end in a tie, right?

go to the House of Representatives. I mean, there is so much fodder here and you got a guy who's staring at serious jail time and trials if he doesn't win this election. I think that it's a it's

it's a powder keg and it's worrisome. Well, to your point too, Axe, I mean, everybody, and part of this is VP trials that we talked about earlier, but this is now extended beyond our VP aspirants, which is you put a microphone in front of Republicans these days and say, will you accept the outcome of the election in November? And there's anything from utter silence to befuddlement to

to lots of blah, blah, blah. So, I mean, they've already set up, as you said, this kind of post-election period of chaos all over again. Do you guys, neither one of you guys lives in the Asala Corridor. And so I ask you both, I ask whether you both, whether you both feel the same thing that I feel, which is what I felt this entire year, especially being in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina during the primaries.

It continues to be the case that my perception of this is that the largest disparity we have is the thing that Axe just described, which is huge stakes, powder keg, going to be super close, everything on the line. Trump, you know, facing, you know, will he be reelected president or will he go to prison?

And that what you feel out in the country is that most of your people are like, I don't want to pay attention to this. This is, I'm not engaged in this. This is the disparity between the stakes and the level of engagement. I've never seen anything like it. People are basically just like clueless.

Call me closer to election day. I don't want either one of these people, really. This election bores the shit out of me and depresses me. I know I have to focus on it at some point. And even those who were very clear Democrats who were like, of course, I'm voting for Biden because Trump's a menace and a threat to democracy. But they're not like riveted by it. They were riveted in 2000. Even during the pandemic, they were riveted in 2020. In 2016, they were riveted. In both of your guys' elections, they were riveted. Nobody's riveted with this. Everyone's just kind of dyspeptic about it.

This is the theory that you can hear from the team Biden that, you know, when people focus, they will focus on what the reality of four more years of Trump would mean. And at the end of the day, they will not.

Let that happen. That is the argument that they offer. And this morning we learn in Axios after another spate of arguments

New York Times battleground polls, which we'll talk about in a minute, but which were not encouraging that the president doesn't believe in the polls and he and his team believe the polls have been consistently wrong and that in public and private Axios writes Biden has been telling anyone who will listen that he's gaining ground and is probably up.

on Donald Trump in their rematch. It's like WTF, man. It's 180 degrees out from 180 degrees out from forever. Four years ago, the polls that were Biden never was, I'd never trailed Trump and the Biden people would just be saying, well, you know, look at the polls where we got this thing. We're, we're in control of the Trump people were like skewed polls, skewed polls. And now it's like, we're back to where the completely the opposite position where the Trump people are like, and Republicans in general, Trump's got this all good. And, and, and the Biden campaign is going a skewed poll.

We don't believe the polls. I wonder, too, if that Biden line isn't partly grounded in this notion, because you hear him talk a bit about it, of where the national polling is, in which we've all discussed that Biden can win the national vote and still lose the electoral college. Again, we've seen that movie play out a few times in the last 25 years. It does seem to me to be...

As an ethos, I'm glad inside the campaign they're not, like, debilitated by these things. I think the notion, though, that you're not...

Well, I don't know that I totally believe that they're not buying this. That doesn't seem to be, you can't be a mostly data-centric campaign. That's bullshit. These got smart people around them. They know the score. Totally. Totally, they do. I wonder if they tell him. I wonder if they just go around with little signs on them saying, don't tell him, because they don't want to upset him. I mean, the thing about it is statements like that sort of make him seem more out of touch, which is the last thing.

that he needs. But these Times polls, we should talk about them. Basically, it's not dissimilar to the battleground state polls that we saw a year ago. Not a year ago, half a year ago in November. Remember those battleground state polls that showed Trump winning in all of them? This

These polls show him winning, and I guess depending on whether you look at the registered voters or likely voters, he's winning almost all of them, Michigan and Wisconsin being in doubt. The races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are close. Those are the states that are going to determine this, but there's no doubt that

Biden is going to have to pull something of an inside straight here because Nevada seems out of reach. I think it was a double digit lead here. Georgia and Arizona challenging. This is a this really close race. And the thing that was bracing about them was that the Democratic candidates for incumbent candidates for the Senate were all running well ahead.

of him. They weren't necessarily in, uh, out of danger. None of them were over 50, but they were well ahead of him. And, you know, that, that, that would be worrisome to me if I were

If I were in the bunker there. A lot to unpack. Let me give you a Senate statistic since you brought this up, Axe. Because I looked this up a couple weeks ago. I had it in my head and I wanted to do a little research to make sure the facts weren't getting in the way of my story. In 2016 and 2020... This is a new policy, obviously. Well, you know, better late than never. In those two elections, 2016 and 2020, there were 69 U.S. Senate races. 68 of those races...

were the winner of that of the senate race was the same as the electoral votes for president the only the only race was susan collins in maine in 2020 that was different so if if the senate numbers are hold you're literally going to have split ticket or or if these numbers are right you have split ticket voting uh in a way that we really haven't seen in in eight or ten years

And it's interesting. It augurs for based on the statistics, it augurs for the fact that if the Senate candidates are going to win, that maybe in the end Biden's right and he pulls the states out. It does seem to me hard to believe in the polarization we live in, that you're going to have four Democratic Senate wins and Biden lose four.

three to four of those states. It defies gravity for sure. Let's take a short break and hear from our sponsors. Folks, Mother's Day just passed, but are you looking for a great Father's Day gift idea? If you are, I've got one for you. It's called Paint Your Life. With Paint Your Life, you'll have a hand-painted portrait created to fit almost any budget. And it's a great gift idea for anyone, for your father, for your mom, or both. Paint

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You know, people were very jaundiced in these battleground states about the system, right? About that the political system, the economic system is failing and needs, you know, major changes on the one hand. And on the other hand, they said they want to return to normalcy. And, you know, I was trying to think about how those things work.

I think normalcy in this case is a surrogate for some sort of stability of some sort, which which was working for Biden four years ago, maybe working against him now. But the other thing about sort of the system and jaundice about the system, and this has been nagging me for some time, Biden, you know, for all of the Joe from Scranton stuff,

has spent 52 years in Washington, and he is the ultimate institutionalist. He believes in them. He has faith in them. I have faith in them. I mean, I, you know, I think they're tested and struggling, but I believe in them. But I don't think his sort of

steadfast belief in these institutions and offering himself as this sort of institutional candidate is necessarily an advantage in these times, in this particular moment. Well, yes. First of all, first of all, let's, you know,

Let's say this. As you guys know really well, incumbent reelections tend to be referenda and incumbents try to, especially when they're not in a position of strength, because they often aren't because the country is terminally... We have this...

This amnesia with this anti-institutionalism that means that basically incumbents always are kind of go into their races sort of in a state of weakness because people are just constantly wanting change, change, change, change, right?

So you go into these races in that position where you're in a referendum scenario, which if you look at the Times poll, something we've seen all throughout, it's like what's the issue? People are not putting democracy at the top of the ballot. They're not putting – they're putting the economy, the most traditional thing in the world, at the top of the ballot. And the economy 3 in 10 is the most important thing to 3 in 10 of the voters there and people in this country, especially voters.

voters who are more economically insecure think that it sucks and they blame Biden. They think inflation is too high. They think price of things too high. He's getting a traditional, the incumbent is being judged on crime and immigration and abortion. Right. And there's two of those. I want to stop you for one second because it's a good place to insert. He was asked about this very thing by Aaron Burnett last week.

I want to play that and let's talk about it on the other side because it goes to your point, I think. Cost of buying a home in the United States is double what it was when you look at your monthly costs from before the pandemic. Real income, when you account for inflation, is actually down since you took office. Economic growth last week, far short of expectations. Consumer confidence, maybe no surprise, is near a two-year low.

With less than six months to go to Election Day, are you worried that you're running out of time to turn that around? We've already turned it around. Look at the Michigan survey. For 65% of American people think they're in good shape economically. They think the nation's not in good shape, but they're personally in good shape.

The polling data has been wrong all along. The idea that we're in a situation where things are so bad. I mean, we've created more jobs. When I started this administration, people were saying there's going to be a collapse in the economy. We have the strongest economy in the world. This helmet drives me nuts. And I've been talking about it for a long time. It drives me nuts. He is not linking up to the reality of people's lives, which is...

How much they're paying for groceries, how much they're paying for, for gas, how much they're paying for rent, how much they're paying for. How much it costs to get a mortgage. I mean, all the things like out there, it's not, it's not, this is not a made up thing. You know, the cost of the cost of a bag of groceries is the, the eggs, the butter, the milk and the, and the price of the pump. Plus how much it costs to refinance or buy a house.

are all high and everybody people are not delusional about this not a made-up thing by the media we're not reporting it accurately it's more expensive and i just it makes me it makes me that's the i'm getting to the point where it's making me mad it's like guys you've got to lead with i know there are still people in pain we've done a great job but look and the prices are still too high you gotta lead with what people actually feel to be lead with greatest economy in 20 years people go

Dude, I mean, take a look at my bills. You're out of touch. Especially if empathy is your calling card. But Gibbs, this is something, you know, this is a trait of Biden's, you know, and we remember back in 2010 when he urged us all to call the summer of 2010 Recovery Summer.

And nobody was feeling a recovery. And we got laughed at for it, and justifiably so. I think he has managed this well in the sense that we have done better than other countries. We haven't had a recession. It doesn't matter. Soft landing, no recession. It does not matter anymore.

if people are seeing it through a different lens and it just makes him look out of touch. Yeah, if you look at the numbers in the Times Fall, I just pulled them up.

Those that think the economy is either excellent or good in Nevada, 17 percent, Michigan, 19 percent, Arizona and Georgia, 20 percent, Pennsylvania, 21, the outlier, Wisconsin at 29. So even if you I mean, let's let's assume that all of those people are Democrats. That's still in most of those states. Probably half the Democratic vote is thinking that it's it's.

It's a bad economy. And so I totally agree. And Trump has a 20-point lead right now on the economy with Biden overall. And he has a 33-point lead over Biden with 18- to 29-year-olds. It's like...

I mean, guys, like this is it's killing you. You know, the irony of this whole thing is if Trump Trump actually did what he says he wants to do, which is slap, you know, 60 percent tariffs on China and 10 percent tariffs on everything else from around the world and extend in perpetuity his tax cuts for the wealthy. The inflationary impact of all of the things he's talking about, it would create a huge

inflationary crisis in the country. And all these predatory interests that Biden rightly was talking about there would get a free pass because, you know, as we know, last week Trump offered, you know, in exchange for a billion dollars in campaign money, told the oil industry, you can write your own

Go back to the poll on this for just a second, just to go back to the politics of it. To say again, three in 10 voters in the Times poll say the economy or inflation is the most critical issue in deciding their vote. 13% say immigration. That gets you up to close to half the people picking one of those two issues where Trump is dominating. And then you've got abortion with 12% of people saying it's the most important issue.

You look at what that's doing to him, that issue set with the coalition that put him in office. These numbers are kind of stunning, right? He leads with young voters by four, Hispanic voters by five, and black voters by 52. In 2020, those numbers were 24, 21, and 84.

And that's to me, to go back to your question of are they taking this poll seriously or not? It's like, how do you look at this poll? The consistent thing over the last two years is that the groups that put Biden in office in 2020, he's just bled so much support with them. And that's, whatever you think about the head-to-heads, national polls versus battleground polls or whatever, the polling on the constituencies has been super consistent for a long time. And they got to fix some of that or they're going to lose. That's, I think, the biggest takeaway from this poll. I think, John, you're

a thousand percent right. It is, it's not just that the economy is viewed poorly. It's the pressure that it puts on non-white voters and young voters, a huge, huge boom for the, the, the, the president in 2020 when he was running. And now quite frankly,

the depth of support that those that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is getting from those voters and to some degree that Trump's getting from those voters, there's going to be the Biden campaign is raising a huge amount of money and they're going to have to spend a bunch of it, if not all of it, on trying to wrestle a few points away from

on those voter groups from Trump and from Kennedy, and it's going to be expensive and hard. But it's going to be impossible if what you say and do on a daily basis conflicts with that goal.

and just exacerbates your problems, which is... Now, the other news he made on Aaron Burnett's show last week was about Gaza. And you're right, Gibbs, that if you look at polling among young people, Harvard just had a poll. Others have

noted the same. You know, it's not Gaza that is most disturbing them. It's the economy and their place in the economy. But nonetheless, this is obviously getting a lot of attention, these campus protests, which

are not nearly as enveloping as the ones that I remember in previous, during the South African divestiture protests, but particularly the Vietnam protests. But they're creating an impression of chaos

That adds to the border and other things that is central to the Republican message, which is things are out of control and Biden's not in command. And on this, I have on the Gaza situation. We can play the clip of Biden here from that. Have those bombs, those powerful 2000 pound bombs been used to kill civilians in Gaza?

Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers. I made it clear that if they go into Rafah, they haven't gone into Rafah yet. If they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem.

So this caused an earthquake. You know, I said before, and I had this debate with Murphy and Scott Jennings when they were on a few weeks ago, you can hold two thoughts at once. You can be devastated, as I was, by what happened on October 7th and still grieve for the kids.

of Gaza who are starving and displaced, uh, and for the victims of indiscriminate, uh, bombing. Uh, you know, I don't, I think genocide's the wrong word because I don't think the Israelis are targeting civilians. I just think they're not spending much. Uh, they're not, uh, they're not being, being, uh,

as assiduous as they should be, as careful as they should be about the collateral damage that they're inflicting. But he's in a terrible spot. And, you know, I think, I know this is hacks on tap and we're supposed to be side of the mouth and cynical, but I don't think

I think to say Biden is just responding to the student protesters because that that's what the Republicans want to say. And it fits their message. Right. He's weak and he's being led around by his. And, you know, you might make that case on some other things on this. You know, there he told the Israelis from the beginning, he warned them.

You know, be careful. Don't don't make the mistake we made going in Iraq and so on. Well, and on top of that, if the if the politics were leading you on this, if that's what Biden was doing, making all these decisions on the basis of politics, he would have abandoned Bibi a long time ago. The politics on this. I mean, if you were if he was just being craven and political.

You would have been like, man, this is a problem. He's stuck with Israel in a more four-square way than he ever should have on the pure political calculation of it. I mean, there's not... I agree with you, Axe. I think it's... I'm not trying to say he's handled it perfectly. Either way, I would say either as a matter of substance or as a matter of politics. But, you know, trying to walk that line of America is going to be four-square behind Israel. They have a right to defend themselves. What happened on 10-7 was terrible. And I'm generally...

Like, yes, 100%. But there's no question that, that Bibi Netanyahu is, is in his own way. He's a menace. If Biden were craven and political, he'd be Bibi. Right. Yes. And, and I think that's the other distinction that people can't make is the thing that you said before that the, you can be both, uh, uh,

believe that an atrocity happened on October 7th and that Israel is right to want to get rid of Hamas out of Gaza and also think that they have conducted this war in a brutal and indiscriminate way, just as you can also support Israel 100% and think Bibi Netanyahu is a terrible leader who's also being governed and talking about politics and has created a radically unstable situation in the Middle East. This is not an either-or thing. There are a lot of and-boths here, and people are not good at those.

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I saw Gibbs last week, or the weekend before, I was at the Sedona Forum of the McCain Institute, and Tony Blinken was there. When does that guy sleep, by the way? I have to say, you know, he's our friend, and I love Tony as a person, and I respect him so much as a public official, because there's a guy who

who has no, who subjugates his ego to the greater good. And it's just working his ass off, uh, trying to deal with one hot mess after another in the world. And I, yeah, I don't know. And I, there are four of him. They, they have, they figured out the secret is that there are actually four, there are four identical Tony Blinkins. Yeah.

But he said, you know, here's the reality of the situation. We're dealing with two traumatized peoples here. You know, the Israeli public is traumatized. And if, you know, I talk to my friends from left to right in Israel and they say, we can't live with this across the border. We can't do it. And so there's support for going hard after Israel.

the leadership of Hamas until the bitter end. And Bibi is channeling that. But it's also true that, you know, what's being visited on Palestinians who, yes, they're being used by Hamas as human shields and all of that, but that doesn't

you know, mitigate the terrible harm that's being done. And they're traumatized as well. And that makes any sort of, you know, move toward peace very, that much more difficult. So I feel for Biden, I feel for Blinken, I feel for all these guys who are trying to handle this in the most responsible way. And I wonder, last thing, Gibbs, and I apologize for doing what I do.

I wonder if these young people, I understand the passion of these young people who see and they're being bombarded with it on TikTok and social media. But these images of what's happening in Gaza and they feel passionately about it. They ought to think about how exactly this would work if Donald Trump were president right now.

And whether they think the Palestinian people would be better off under those circumstances. Because I think it could be a lot—it could be even worse than it is. Yeah, and I think you'll certainly—I think at some point you'll hear the campaign make that in a more forceful way. I think—look, I think to go to the policy of this, I mean, I think they've done as—

a pretty good job of navigating what is to your point, almost an unnavigable set of things. You know, if there was probably one thing you would change both policy wise and politically, and I'm not surprised that we did, they, they didn't do this, but I just think that my, my, my guess is what he's told that Yahoo, we've read what he's told that Yahoo is just very different than what he's communicated to,

to the broader American public and the broader world about the level of warning and the concern that he's had. It's always hard to sort of go backwards and say, well, wait a minute, you don't realize that in February I was actually saying...

And that's what I mean about how it could be worse. But it's just, you know, one of the things I'd say about these student protest gives is also, you know, if I'm Hamas and I'm looking at what's going on in the U.S. and I'm thinking about the pressures on.

Biden, you know, I don't know if I'm in any rush to to agree to a ceasefire right now. You know, I think they may want to see this play out. Can I just ask you two guys this, though, because we can you David, you made up a political point in along the side of that of your comment. And I'm curious, Gibbs, what you think about this, both of you.

So your side running comment was, you know, we know that actually what's driving young people in the Democratic coalition, that they were more focused on the economy, in fact, than they are focused on this. But this is a very high, very visible issue that creates this sense of chaos and that and also that Biden is being to your other point that he's being jerked around in some way by by the politics of it, even if we disagree with that.

I just, I just do. Where do you guys think the, the, the ultimately we don't know. I can't really predict where this comes out in the wash, but yeah,

What do you think the actual political consequences of this are for both the general election and for the stuff that happens between now and Chicago, where there's the possibility of a lot of – even if it's a relatively – about a very small minority, but a very loud and potentially violent minority that could be disruptive? How does all that – how do you see this through the political lens, the two of you, because you've been in this –

in real time, in the real place. I think the worry, and I go back to where Axe kind of brought us in on the polling in the larger political situation, which is this is going to be a closer election than the last one. And if you really, we sort of gloss over the fact that if

It really was about 40-some thousand votes in three states. It was a pretty close election last time, I thought. If we're setting up that 40,000 votes is a larger buffer than what we're going to get, the concerning political thing for this issue, for the economy, for anything you deal with, is if you lose just a little slice of things, that can add up very quickly. And I think, you know, whether it's a third-party candidate, whether it's losing votes,

some of these constituencies or voters that were there for you in the past. Anything you're not getting, whether it's for Kennedy or anybody else, is one you're not getting. And you've got to go find more to make that up. And I think that gets really hard. And so I just worry that you don't have to have one silver bullet issue that loses this election. It could be a lot of little things that peel enough voters off to make it

to make it a losing election for President Biden. I think the polling shows how close this really is. But Heilman is driving at something else here, which is, will this continue to be kindling? And, you know, this convention, I think, you know, I say this as a Chicagoan, I'm very worried about it.

Because it's not just those people who are earnestly coming to protest. It's also all of these forces, including the Republicans and malign state actors. There are so many people who have an interest in stirring that up.

and encouraging it. And you add on top of that, the migrant problem in Chicago, that is going to be a focus. I mean, so it is a caustic mix. And again, I think that you ask what role will it play? I think

Anything that contributes to a general sense of chaos. And therefore Biden's weak. And therefore the Biden is weak. That is the challenge. And what Biden has, what he has to do

It is urgently important that you said earlier that these races are referenda on incumbents, and the goal for incumbents is always to turn them into a choice. And that's what we did in 2012. That's what, you know,

Bush did in 2004. I mean, that's what you have to do. And they have because they haven't really focused their message and no one could really say, oh, I get what the Biden message is. They also haven't been able to set the contrast in a consistent way. What is it about? And I think they have to come in with a really hard message.

economic contrast. But the problem is they do everything one-off. This week was ACA week. But they need to drive things that consistently. Gibbs is a master communicator. He understands in this environment, like,

you know, you do it once, it's like a ripple in the pond. You've got to do it again and again and again for it to get through. So what is the message? What is the contrast? And how do you just drive it relentlessly so that people have something to think about here and it's not just a referendum on you? And to pull it forward, you know, if those voters that we talked about at the beginning are so deeply disengaged,

uh you know it is entirely possible that this thing doesn't get truly formed until we it's quaint to say maybe after labor day because you know that's always been the like oh the 1960 running for president the whole thing started on labor day when in reality it starts like two labor days before that and in modern time but it may be that this thing look i think these polls show

It's clear Biden's behind. It's clear he's in a pinch when you look at particularly voters that support him. Do I still think there's a pathway to win this race? Yeah, I do. It won't be easy. Very expensive. To your point, Axe, you've got to throw like

a damn near perfect game the last six innings inside straight we're talking about an inside straight in his newsletter which i get reliably and i'm i want to be perfect i'm going to say this if all these words matter dan pfeiffer's newsletter is very good and he's very smart and he's not and he's a he's a he's he's not an alarmist and he's a he's a voice for for talking to democrats in a kind of clear-eyed way about what's going on um

And so I say this, why I give Dan so much credit in his, in his, his reaction to the times poll yesterday, which was underneath the heading, the good news, his thing of the good news was there's still a path. Here's the path.

If Biden loses Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, he can still, if he wins Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and wins Nebraska too. Omaha, yeah. He wins Nebraska, the second congressional district in Nebraska, that gets him to exactly 270. Now, that is true. That's true what he just said. But if that's the good news in a poll, hey,

If we, you know, we could pull that's the inside straight. You guys are talking about you win those three, the three blue wall States in the upper Midwest and you win the second correctional district of Nevada and you've got to 270. Exactly, man. That is a narrow. No, no, that's not, that's a path. It's a real path, but it's man. That's the good news in a poll. That is a bad poll. He's still breathing is encouraging, but it's not, it's not, but it's not a great headline. Yeah.

And I just, yes. And so I just, the, the, the biggest, the other thing I just wanted to say is I listened to you guys talk about this. You both may remember, um, uh, back in the spring of 2012, I did a big New York magazine cover story that was basically about how the, the, the Obama campaign was destroying Mitt Romney in the spring. And,

And, and, and defining him in the spring gives to your point about when these things are, it's not after labor day, you guys were spending all this money to find Mitt Romney as a guy who like killed. We moved money from after labor day to the spring. And, and it was Mitt Romney is a, is a corporate greed head and he's a, he has no soul and he killed the guy's wife in Ohio and you know, all that stuff. Right. Which actually kind of then later became the conventional wisdom. You guys had defined Romney in the spring. Right.

And it's just useful to think about it because it's so different now because of the nature of Trump. You can't do that. Trump's already defined. I mean, there was no, you can spend a lot of money at any point in this race, but so much of the Trump of the bad stuff about Trump is baseless.

baked in already. Yeah, but some of the bad stuff isn't. Well, I agree with that. David, I'm not saying it's all over. I'm just saying you guys had a relatively unformed national image. Usually when you have a challenger and you're an incumbent, you can shape the view of that challenger because the country hasn't really thought about them very much. This presents particular challenges because of Trump's

universal perceptions of him. No, there's no doubt about it. Right? It's just different. No, we were painting on a blank slate. This slate is largely filled in. That's what I'm saying. And that makes it harder. Not impossible, but harder. No, but you've got to fight for every inch. But they need a sharp economic contrast with Trump on specific things. We know the tax cut was...

was highly unpopular and he wants to, this is a real choice. He wants to renew it. Biden doesn't want to renew it. We know the affordable care act is now popular. He wants to dismantle it. Biden doesn't want to dismantle it. He wants to repeal the act that, that lowered the cost that's lowering the cost of prescription drugs and the cost of, uh, uh, of, uh, insulin. Uh,

you know, there's a story to be told here that may be a story that people are willing to hear because they do believe Trump is a corporatist in the end, despite his populism. It's social populism, not economic populism. But

whatever it is, they've got to get to it. I mean, they've got to get on it and they've got to drive it, as I said, relentlessly. And also, you know, if Trump wins, Hacks on Tap will go away because all of the hosts and co-hosts will be in jail. I mean, to me, that's the main thing that a voter would care about. The disappearance of Hacks on Tap as Axe, Gibbs, Murphy...

We've recorded the show from worst places, Heilman. So don't count us out. All right. Hold that thought. We're going to take a short break. And now a word from our sponsors.

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But I'll tell you what we can't do is count out our listeners who, for two weeks, we've not taken their questions. They're mad. They're outside the door right now. I'm holding, I'm barricading them off. I'm like a college president here. So we got to do it. So let's play the music. Listener mail.

If you have questions for the hacks, send them to hacksontap at gmail.com or leave a message, even better, a voicemail for us at this number and we will, if your question is good, you can hear yourself on the air. And what's that number, Mike Murphy? 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471.

All right. So we have for John Heilman, we have a voicemail message from a guy named Mike

It may be Mike Murphy. Not sure. But we'll let's give it a listen and find out. I'm Mike from Louisville, Kentucky, and I hate to put you on the spot, but I've got to ask Axel Ride why David Pluss is doing the new podcast with Kellyanne Conway. Doesn't it normalize her, allowing the use of alternative facts as she defends Trump? What say you, David? Will the other David go through with this travesty?

I guess that was directed at me personally, but listen, I don't want to get you. Let me step in on your behalf. I'm happy. I'll defend my pal, but you guys are both, but you guys are both are both a form of colleagues of Davidson. And I can come at this from a, from a different position. Here's what I'll say about this. Here's what I'll say about this. Number one,

I absolutely despise the notion of like, there's this notion of platforming. Oh, we can't platform so-and-so. We can't normalize so-and-so. David Plouffe is a person of strong convictions. He was not going to give any quarter to Kellyanne Conway. I can predict on this. If she says things that are untrue, he's going to call them on her. He's going to call her on them. I think that the spirit of

I would never, I don't want to co-host a podcast with Kellyanne Conway. I think she's, you know, she's lied and filled the air with a lot of noxious alternative facts all throughout her service to Donald Trump. But David deciding to engage in a,

in a serious way with someone from the other side is only to be saluted, in my view, in this country we have right now, which is so divided and so polarized. I was at a Steve Earle show last summer in LA, and Steve Earle got up and said, "The thing that's the greatest threat to our democracy isn't just that we're siloed and we only talk to people that we agree with. It's that

as soon as we see someone coming who we know we disagree with, we just walk away. We refuse to engage now. Our reflex is that when you see someone who you know is on the other side, you don't even get into a spirited argument with them. You just say, you know what? It's too much fucking hassle to deal with that person who's obviously out of their mind. And Plouffe's enterprise is being birthed in a spirit of the opposite of that, which is a spirit of engagement and a spirit of like,

you know, yeah, of course I disagree with her about almost everything. And that's fine. It's fine for us to disagree. I'm going to take this on in this way. Again,

He's a better man than I am because I wouldn't want to do a podcast with Kellyanne Conway in a million years. But I got to say, you got to applaud him for doing it. And all the truth will come out in the pudding. Will David, you know, take her on when she spouts bullshit? I think he will. And if he does, it'll be for the best. I couldn't agree more. I applaud him for taking that on. And as you say, he won't give any quarter when there won't, it will not be an alternative fact zone for,

when Plouffe is there to fact check. But secondly, I applaud you for acknowledging that he's a better man than you. You're a better man than me for doing it. So good for you, Heilman, on all counts there. The only thing I would add is, I think, I hope, because I think all of us would agree, there are very few people in politics smarter than Plouffe.

And his experience speaks for itself. I do hope that the podcast allows David to share that wisdom and those insights with

And he isn't just worn out pushing back on what we know is going to be said by Kellyanne that is disconnected from the truth. So that's my hope. That's my hope. And there's always a chance. Look, back in the day before Trump, Kellyanne Conway was someone who you could have a reasonable political conversation with pre-Trump, you know, where she could have a discussion about polling data. You could have a discussion about strategy and tactics. And if David can, if they can have the conversation again,

there where it doesn't have to be a fight against alternative facts, where they're having the conversation with David Plouffe as the practitioner of politics, master practitioner that we know he is, with the Kellyanne Conway who used to be a respected pollster on the Republican side and talk about things from that perspective where she's not spouting our alternative facts. I mean, again, I find it hard to believe that'll be the case, but you can imagine a conversation like that. You could have imagined a conversation between the two of them in 2015 that you would have been very interested to hear.

Yeah, she's not stupid. You know, I actually had a public event with her in Chicago a couple of years ago when the whole DeSantis boomlet was happening. And she said, we will see if Governor DeSantis loves people as much as he loves his press conferences.

That turned out to be a really pressing thing. Prophetic, yeah. So, you know, the question is if you get those kind of insights or if you get a bunch of Trump

bullshit. Bullshit. Yeah. And we shall see. And, you know, at some point, Plouffe may say he hasn't he's had enough, but we'll see how it goes. Actually, I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you not one, but two questions. All right. Question number one from David, not you, I hope, writes in Reagan was known as the affluent president, but Trump has taken this to a new extreme.

Why does Trump not get blamed for anything and Biden get no credit for anything? There's something troubling in there. David, what do you say to David? There's no doubt that there's something troubling in there. Uh, and, uh, uh,

You know, there are a whole bunch of factors here, including the general mood of the country post pandemic, which has been sour. And that's a tough environment in which to be an incumbent. You know, but as between the two of them, you know, Trump.

is a master brander. He understands the modern media environment. The things he says sometimes are absolutely insane. But he also speaks in an idiom people understand, and he understands what his message is, and he basically drives that message in a way that Biden simply hasn't or can't or hasn't. And

And I think Biden history will be kinder to Biden than voters are right now for the accomplishments that he's shown. But he needs to get on a message, as we discussed earlier, that really is a comparative message and an understandable message and goes to the things that people are concerned about right now and worry less about getting credit and more about driving his argument. Yeah.

And I think he'll get more credit in the comparative context than he will if he's simply out there asking for credit. Only thing I would add to that, Axe, is remember the Teflon president was reelected and Trump was not. All right. Question number two from Daniel. The polling six months out seems to consistently show Biden ahead among likely voters and behind among registered voters.

historically, do presidential elections tend to look more like the likely voters model or the registered voters model? Along these lines, did the assumptions change behind these polls as we get closer to election day, i.e., are people currently assumed registered voters converted to assumed likely voters? Good question, given all the

static in the polling. No, no, this is a really, really smart question. And I think that there is some risk in looking at likely voters six months out because, as John Heilman said earlier, there are a lot of people who are tuned out on this election. This is an election between two unpopular nominees. People aren't really engaged in this election. They're going to focus on it when they have to focus on it. And so, yeah,

you know, the likely voter model will change over time. And I would,

I would take likely voters more seriously in late summer and early fall, right before people actually start voting, because early voting will start, you know, weeks and weeks and weeks before the election than I do now. What these models have suggested is that Biden does better among the likelies than the registered voters.

or like most of the models suggest that they're, they're all over the place and that these, that the most engaged voters are,

favor him, uh, in greater numbers. And that makes sense because his constituency now, he has to get some of his old constituency back, but his strongest supporters are, uh, among college educated, uh, voters and, uh, who are habitual, generally more habitual voters and seniors. Uh, he's doing relatively well among seniors and they vote. Uh, so, um, uh,

As this likely voter pool expands, you know, we'll see how his support fluctuates. But yes, after the after, you know, late summer, early fall, I'd pay a lot more attention to the likely voter model. Now, Gibbs, I got one for you, Austin.

asks, what should the Trump campaign take away from Nikki Haley continuously receiving roughly 20% of the vote in the primary, despite her already dropping out? And I'll add the words months ago. And we saw it again in the Indiana primary last week. She got, I think, 22% of the vote. I think in the Indianapolis area, it was much higher, maybe in the 40s.

So, Gibbs, what do you make of all that? We talked a lot about a lot of things on the podcast. I think this is probably one that we should have talked about, and I'm glad, Austin, you wrote this question in, because I don't think it's just the Trump campaign takeaway on this. I think it's also heavily the Biden campaign. As you mentioned, months after she dropped out, she's pulling 22% of the vote in Indiana. It's a flashing red sign, a flashing red light for Trump.

for Donald Trump. And I mean, if you look at look at this Indiana roll numbers, 128,000 people took the certain Republican nominee and voted against him. If you're Joe Biden in a state, you're not going to win Indiana, right? But if you've got in one of these battleground states, if you can find 10,000 of that 130,000 vote group

and get them to vote for you rather than her, uh, rather than Trump, uh, that could make a huge, huge difference. A Trump campaign has to understand that they have to know it. They have to be super focused on this. Um, I don't think Trump's handled his outreach all that well. They, uh, to Nikki Haley, they haven't talked. Uh,

since she dropped out of the race. I think that's a huge mistake. And for Biden, boy, I'd be rushing to identify those voters and figuring out what, if anything, you can do or say to them to turn them for just one day. I have a hard time feeling like these are going to be RFK Jr. voters.

And it may be really hard to make them Biden voters, but it's worth the money. Well, and, you know, in the last few days, there was a report in Axios that got shot down within an hour by the Trump campaign that Haley was being considered as a running mate to him. Yeah, I mean, I would be concerned about that. And part of the theory of the case for the Biden group is that these are among the voters who at the end of the day,

uh, some portion of them, none of them are going to vote for Trump or very few. And some portion of them are going to, uh, shift to Biden and their, uh, that, that is, uh, that is their hope. Why Biden hasn't connected with Haley. Uh, I don't know. They probably have more in common on some issues, uh, foreign policy, for example, then, uh, then does Trump. But, um,

But in any case, I think this is something that that, you know, we talked about Biden's softness among some of the supporters, some of the people who have supported him in the past. This is a real issue and it's one that deserves monitoring. Also, what deserves monitoring, Gibbs, is the time and.

And it's time to say goodbye. Heilman, it is always a pleasure to be with you, brother. And we got to make it a regular deal. I'm always honored. I'm always honored and delighted to be on the show. And I haven't been on with Gibbs for a very long time, if ever. It's like I usually get stuck with Murphy. I mean, the upgrade as an experience is so high.

I'm like, hey, if you could just, I'd love to come back anytime as long as it's with Gibbs. Now it's going to be another year before you get back here. Mike, I love you, Mike. I love you. It's okay. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. For your benefit and for mine, I'm just going to say thank you. And I hope we get to do this more often. How about that? So we don't get in trouble with our good friend, Mr. Murphy. 100%. Love you, Mike Murphy. Love you, love you. And both you guys. Thanks a lot. All right, brother. Thanks, John. Bye.