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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. But I agreed to all these things that I normally wouldn't agree to. Now they have Kamala, who they say has many deficiencies, but she's a nasty person. The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. The way she treats people is horrible. But the way she treated Justice Kavanaugh during that hearing...

In the history of Congress, nobody's been treated that way. So, Mike Murphy. Hey. How you doing, brother? I'm good. How's my pancake look? Are we allowed to mention we're trying YouTube this for the first time? Well, we should. Here's what happened. I mean, let's explain it to our listeners.

We bring on John Heilman and all of a sudden everybody wants to see the eye candy. Yeah, it's not good enough to be audio. So so we're now we're doing YouTube as well. So that's where he is. The matinee idol himself. Here we all are. Next thing you know, I'm going to be replaced by Scott Jennings.

Yeah. There's Axelrod in his Lincoln shrine, Abe spinning in his grave right now thinking about it. I'm in my underground anti-Trump Republican bunker somewhere west of the Mississippi, and you're in there in Ondax or somewhere. This is a very, very nice. Yes. There you go. I like it. Mid-coast Maine. You need a Floyd R. Turble hat, though. That would add the...

the perfect uh i've got the atlantic ocean i've got the atlantic ocean to my east and tucker carlson somewhere to my west i don't know where somewhere somewhere in central rural main central i just that's the part of the state i avoid he's going to drive you to into the sea there so be careful but uh murphy you said you you were uh in your underground but thanks to youtube at least you're not in your underwear which is the way we usually find you don't know that yeah you

Yeah, don't stand up. Don't stand up. No, no, no. We're saving that for the pay-per-view. This is the first time we've worn clothes for one of these things, so we're cleaning up our act. I did break out my Chicago sky cap. Oh, there we go. Yes, my pay-on to the WNBA. But what about that clip? I know. It's so shameless. Can you imagine being Mike Pence and sitting there and thinking,

dude you almost got me killed pence must look at that and just think you know yeah they were erecting a gallows but but he thinks she was a little rude in the debate i mean it's just unbelievable but but i i have to admit i enjoy it now because he's flailing and emotionally that's satisfying you guys know there's literally only one thing i will be remembered for after i die which is the bartlesby we'll uh we'll have bartlesby is that their quotes things let's

What's the famous quote? Bartlett's. Bartlett's, not Bartlett's. Not Bartlett's be the Scrivener, but Bartlett's and James the wine maker, the wine cooler maker. Bartlett's will remember one thing I ever said my entire life, which is everything with Trump is projection or confession.

And that is projection of the highest caliber. That thing, which is like, man, Kamala Harris is so mean. She's so mean to Mike Pence. Oh, she was so mean to him. God, she's the most cruel, brutal person ever. She's such a thug. Jesus. Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing about that is you knew he was going to break out nasty because whenever any woman offends him or stands up to him, he calls her nasty. So you knew that that...

that that was going to happen. So where do you guys think here we are after Labor Day, the traditional start of a campaign? This is the weirdest campaign ever. I mean, the most unusual campaign ever. Let's just check in and ask you guys where you think we are.

Well, we got through the scary CNN interview. That was the first big post-convention thing. And there was a lot of kind of, at least in the chattering class, anxiety about it because everybody watching Kamala Harris now, knowing she's doing pretty well in my view, is haunted by the memories of old Kamala, the world's worst candidate. And they're just waiting for that to happen and throw everything into despair and

Look, I thought it was a B-minus performance. Before we get into the interview, let's do the 20,000-foot. Where do you think this race is at? And then let's get into that interview. What am I, an Airbus? Okay, I'll try to do that. But I think that

It is, they're doing okay. They got a little bump because most of their bump was pre-convention. They're running a Ming Vaz strategy of trying to take as little risk as possible. They're doubling down on the Ted Lasso thing. Happy, happy. And she's pretty good at that. Waltz is great at it.

You know, and they're avoiding anything tricky, anything tough. And they're just trying to flood the zone with happy new future change, which is their core rocket fuel. And I think they're going to try to sustain that all the way. And it's a short enough election. You know, we talk about 60 days of early voting. We're in the 50 day thing now to when you want your campaign to surge. I mean, the peak.

You know, am I nervous? Sure. You know, watching the great Rolanda go across the rope here. But fundamentally, I think they're in good shape as of today, right now. I mean, who would win this race if the election were today?

Oh, man, it'd be so close. I mean, look at the polling. We had this ABC News Ipsos poll that just came out. It's the newest national poll. It has Harris up by four, right? That's the most recent one. The polling averages, the New York Times has it at 49.46. Nate Silver has it at 49.2%.

to 45.7. I think if we, if we look at the, at that, that's the, that's basically if that hell and the battleground states are all like one to somewhere between dead, even, I mean, all margin of error, they're all toss ups, but they're on, they're tighter than the national poll, you know, on that basis, if, if, if history is, is our guide, you know, Hillary Clinton,

you know, had a, had a narrower lead and a lead in that range roughly and, and, and lost and, and Donald and Joe Biden had a bigger lead than that. And, and barely, barely won. I think, I mean, I would ask you guys, I think the conventional wisdom is she's gotta be up, you know, three, four in the battleground States to win and nationally like six to win just because the electoral college tilt to Republicans. So like today, uh,

I mean, but she's got all the momentum. She's got all the energy. The Democrats are way more engaged, enthusiastic right now. The momentum's on her side. We only have an hour here. You're going to land the plane and take a guess here. The arc is going her way, which is why I say, and I hate guessing right now, and it doesn't mean anything, but I give her the edge.

That's so hard to guess. I mean, I guess maybe the enthusiasm and momentum would put her over the edge, but boy, would it be close. I mean, it would be, you know, we'd be still waiting for a result eight days later. Yeah, which is scary given the environment that Trump has created. But, you know, I think that there's no doubt that she has been on a good trajectory. You know, she was on a good trajectory going into the convention. She came out of it on a good trajectory. I don't think she...

gain that much from it because there's not that much elasticity in the electorate. But I think she has more work to do. I would say he would he would

If I had to guess, but it's just a guess. You asked the question, landed, baby. This is a coin flip. I think he would win today. But I think that that is today. And what was a landslide for Trump is a coin flip today. And the question is, what happens from here? But these battleground states are very, very tough for Democrats. Let me ask you the sidebar.

Looking at them both going forward to election day, who has the best set of tools in front of them to win the best ingredients, the advantage? I would say her, whether or not she can, she can exploit them to win. Yeah. But yeah.

On issues, enthusiasm, and candidate skill. And his vibe changed. She's now the change candidate somehow. I don't think people get up and blame her for all the Biden economic stuff, at least to the degree they blame Biden. That gives her a way to escape the news. You know, that's the big problem, that economic perception. They've been from the start of her deal hitting middle-class economics hard and I think pretty effectively. Yeah, I agree. That's the best thing they can do. To blunt that. I mean, listen.

I think candidate performance is going to be a big deal here. And as you point out, he's gone nuts since she became the candidate. He thought he had the ways to race one and he's like constantly acting out. Now we'll get into that a little bit in a second. But.

But and she's been pretty good. But this is a decathlon. It's not a single event kind of thing. And so she she one of the challenges was this interview that she did. So you were starting, Murphy. Yeah, I'll be quick. Just it was not great, not terrible, better in the second half. Always good to finish better when she got to her vibe, Ted Lasso, the Voldemort stuff.

But boy, oh boy, defensive in the first thing. And a little note to their otherwise crack advanced team, and I'm sure they know this. There's a thing called a seat cushion in television. So you can actually get higher in the frame and look stronger and not look like you're a little person next to Walt.

I don't, you know, this is television. Pictures count. Had a cult Gulliver's Travel feel to it. What's going on? I have to say, just to your no diss, now I don't want to diss your pals at CNN, David, but man, it was badly lit. It was badly set. It was just, it looked like, you know, I mean, I know they did it on out of the field and that's not cable strength, but man, I thought their makeup on both of them looked

bad. I don't mean to be too superficial, but it just didn't look good. And I think I put that on CNN more than I put that on Harris. First of all, I'm contractually proscribed from answering your question, from responding to you on that particular point. But let me say this. I think the campaign has done remarkably well in many, many respects. And

but why there wasn't someone in advance, an advanced person there said, no, you know, we're not going to make her look like she's two feet tall and right. And, and no, we don't like this lighting and no, we don't like the shot. You, you know, a presidential campaign has folks,

who should do that. So that was a, that was a miss, but let's get to the substance of it. Too defensive at the beginning. That was the problem. She would accept the premise and she wouldn't do the great purifying move, which is I've grown, I've learned more and I've changed that position. I now believe instead it was hemming and hawing again, no disaster. So that was the win, but you saw a little, the old rickety, rickety Kamala there at the beginning.

And then she overcame it. I mean, look, you can't almost talk about this in a vacuum in the sense that, you know, and I were going to talk about Trump and abortion at some point in this podcast. But, you know, when she's been given a great gift, if the media calls the thing fair and square, you know, Trump is one of the great flip-floppers of our time. And so I find it a little wanting as an explanation, having listened to someone –

like Mario Cuomo described how he went from being pro-life to being pro-choice on the merit. So they would give a really nuanced, excellent answer. The notion of my values haven't changed as being an answer to basically everything. I find it like personally a little wanting as an explanation and not like sort of like, yeah, I get why she's evolved. I thought you could do better work than that, but it's still better than anything Trump ever does on any issue that he flip-flops on. He flip-flops on everything. She did get one question.

That I agree with you guys. I thought she could have done a little better on the sort of a little smoother on the sort of transition on issues and so on. Could have explained the fracking thing a little bit more in terms of geopolitics and American energy issues.

capacities and all of that. There were things she could have done. But there's one thing I thought she did really, really well when she got asked the question about Trump's race baiting. Yeah. And I thought this was... No, I agree. This was her best moment. This was really smart. Let's take a look at that.

said that you happened to turn black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity. Any same old tired playbook. Next question, please. That's it. That's it. Okay. That was smart. And she's been smart throughout on this and not taking the bait and not letting Trump turn her into an identity candidate. And I really, I,

I thought maybe she could have done one more turn of the wheel and maybe she will in the debate and say, whose problems is this going to solve? You know, how's this going to move the country forward? I have nothing to say about that. That's Trump. But I thought that was really smart. Well, it showed her core instinct is to go the Obama way, not the pure identity way, which is a trap. So that made me feel better that she gets that.

And went there easily, which means she won't fall for that trap later because that's one of the best ways Trump could get her off track. So, yeah, I'll give her that totally. So here's a here's an interesting question about this and acts like, you know, you you guys to Murphy's points. I'm going to go. You guys handle this in a different era.

with a great discipline, focus, consistency when it came to Obama and race. She's obviously a candidate who has two dual identities, one as a person of color and another as a woman. We are looking at this extraordinary gender gap in this race. If she wins the presidency, she's going to win it on the back of women's votes. And the abortion issue is fueling a lot of that, but she's also got this massive, historic, unprecedented gender gap. Is there a way? Is it a...

By not leaning into her gender at all, is she leaving anything on the table? That's A. And B, is there any way for her to lean into her gender without also having to lean in to the thing that would go much more into Trump's wheelhouse, which is race, which is where he really wants to go here, not just on the gender thing? Is there a way to do that or not? Or is there those two questions are out there for you guys? There are ways to do it, but not ways that help her get elected. She gets all that for free.

It is built in. Doesn't need to spend a nickel on it. She's not leaving anything on the table with the gender gap. No, no, no, no. Okay. It's all there. And Trump, of course, is a gift because basically Trump sees the world in 1958. Grab your aprons, strings and cook me dinner. You know, that gets to the back of the bus. Smell that. Yeah, yeah. Right. Exactly. So no, no, she's got to put her bandwidth into her problem. Is she part of the Biden economic disaster?

That's Trump's one rock. And I also think, and this was our philosophy in 2008. Yes, Mike's absolutely right. You get all that for free. Everybody who cares about her being a woman can see that she's a woman. You don't have to draw a line into that. I think actually the...

energy behind the abortion rights movement helps that along. And she's obviously very strong, a strong advocate on that. But you're trying to draw as large a circle as you can and invite as many people into it as possible. And you don't want to limit yourself. You

In any way, she's running for president of the United States. She's not running to be the first woman president. She's not running to be the first woman, black woman president, the first Indian woman. I mean, she's running for president. And I think she's carried that very, very well. And she's looked and sounded great.

like a president, which I think is so important. So basically, strike fight song from the playlist, from the campaign playlist. Anything that was on Hillary's playlist, we should strike from the campaign playlist. We're doing fine without it. This is not a race that has as its principle...

as its principal mission to shatter the glass ceiling. This is a race to move the country forward, and that's what she's articulating. So on this abortion issue, I mean, you're absolutely right, John. It's head-spinning to think about Harris being attacked for flip-flopping when you've got Trump who has taken...

I mean, you know, there used to be the he's not pro-choice or anti-choice, he's multiple choice. But he's taken this to a whole new dimension. And I want to play back to back. There's this Florida initiative to restore abortion rights in the state where they've passed a six-week bill.

abortion ban. And he got asked about it. And he's, you know, wants to run from this, having toppled Roe, he wants to run from it like a scalded dog. And so when he got asked the question, here's how he reacted on the question of how he would vote.

You over everyone does. And you want abortion to be a states rights issue in Florida, the state that you are a resident of. There's an abortion related amendment on the ballot to overturn the six week ban in Florida. How are you going to vote on that? Well, I think the six week is too short.

It has to be more time. And so that's and I've told them that I want more weeks. So you'll vote in favor of the amendment? I'm voting that I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. OK, so that's what he said. I think that's what he said on Wednesday. I'm not sure the sequence, but 24 hours later, here's here's what he had to say.

Voting yes or no on Amendment 4 in Florida. So I think six weeks you need more time than six weeks. I've disagreed with that right from the early primaries when I heard about it. I disagreed with it.

At the same time, the Democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation where you can do an abortion in the ninth month. And, you know, some of the states like Minnesota and other states have it where you could actually execute the baby after birth. And all of that stuff is unacceptable. So I'll be voting no for that reason. There you go. It all makes perfect sense. You want to clean that up, Heilman?

Well, I mean, first of all, one of Trump's most disgusting and gratuitous lies is this lie about the fact that there's any state in the country that allows babies to be born, to be executed after birth. I mean, I...

It makes me just it makes me furious that that that he somehow somehow still manages to keep saying that without paying any price for it. But, you know, whatever the obvious what happened in between those two clips, which is the key element here, is that Trump has been trying to get out of the the the mousetrap he created for himself by getting Roe v. Wade overturned. He knows this issue is toxic for him and for the Republican Party. He said so in 2022. He is trying to wiggle out of it.

And then he got slapped by people that is based the pro-life, uh, part of the, the anti-abortion part of the Republican coalition stood up and said, we have smacked him publicly. And he then just ran away. As you said, like a scalded, um, dog, I think was your, was your, was your phrase. It's called a dog. Uh,

And he now is back and saying a thing that makes no sense whatsoever, which is I should be longer than six weeks, but I'm going to vote for an amendment or a vote against an amendment that would make it longer than six weeks. I'm going to vote. I mean, I effectively support the six week abortion ban, but he's just wrapped around this axle as tight as anybody could ever be wrapped around it. And I don't see a way out for him. Yeah, no, he's dove into a wood chipper. But let's back up a little because there was a there was a plan.

The original plan was, you know, and there was some of this in the Senate. Well, basically, Trump looked at that and said, why don't I just say send it to the state? So let the people decide. Then I don't have to have a position. Other Republicans have hit that iceberg in the past, too. So they tried that for a while. And then people said, well, you vote in Florida and there's a Florida one. And meanwhile, I was pitching this months ago. I like this idea. The Dems are raising so much money they can afford to open a little place.

side front in Florida just to draw in Republican money and trouble and drive Trump crazy because he lives there. So they're doing, you know, they've got that great hammer, the thing on the ballot. So finally we wind around. He can't dodge the question anymore. How are you going to vote in Florida? And his own pro-choice instincts kicked in. And he said, well, I don't know, a little too much. Then there's a panic inside the Trump campaign.

And they've already steamrolled the traditional Republican Christian conservatives on the platform at the convention. So, you know, internally, there's some screaming phone calls. So they try to get him to wiggle out of it by being back. And so now he's just flailing on the hook, which only makes it bigger in the campaign. So I agree. I think, you know, he's he is feeding an issue that's killing him.

and it's good for her. She doesn't have to do a lot. Now, what he tried to do, just to wrap this up, because I know I'm babbling on here, he tried to do the old Republican playbook, which used to work pretty well, which is, look, you know, the real issue in this campaign is the Democrats want taxpayer-funded abortion, no parental consent,

late-term abortions, all the stuff that gets you 65%, 70% on your side in a poll. And you move it to the edge issues where you can go on offense. But he's just not adroit enough for that. And we know in his heart he doesn't believe any of this stuff. He's totally pro-choice. I think that the whole Dobbs thing has shifted this thing to where that's not all that effective. Right. Well, it's made it relevant. That is the refuge for most of the Republicans now. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors. ♪

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outrageous lie about execution of babies, that abortion in the ninth month is exceptionally rare. And, you know, Trump says, I want exceptions. I don't know whether life of the mother is the one he generally recites it. I mean, when there is an abortion in the ninth month, it's usually for a very profound medical reason. Nobody carries a child to the

the eighth month and says, I want to, you know, I'm not into it. I don't want to build that crib. Yeah, exactly. Usually the crib is built and the room is decorated and it's a tragedy and it's a tragedy. So none of that is true. The fact of the matter is that they are the dogs that caught the car

And now the car is backing up and rolling over them. You know, I want to quickly, and then John Sawyer's plug a podcast because there's tension in the Christian conservative or social conservative world that

world. Christianity Today is a good podcast called The Bulletin, and I pop up on it once in a while, mostly to do a sacred and profane thing, and you can guess what side of that I'm on. But it's really thoughtful and smart, and I was on a week or two ago, I think it was last week, and some of this tension was debated. It's a good place to listen to a thoughtful discussion about this stuff, because there are people of good faith in that movement, and they're troubled by Trump. Well, let me say one last thing about this, which is

The numbers are really staggering. The gender gap is historic, and the numbers are now, among certain subsets of female voters, this is now the most important issue over the economy, which is not a normal thing in a presidential election year. The economy almost always trumps everything else across basically all subsets of voters.

Here's the two tricky things about it. One is the thing you guys have both mentioned, and I know you guys are super familiar with this, but essentially, among under 45-year-old Republican women, 50% are now pro-choice. What keeps them from this being the salient issue they vote on? One thing is they don't believe Trump is actually pro-life, and they're probably right about that. They look at him and go, this guy's not really. He's not going to pass the national abortion ban because he's not really on that side.

In the focus groups, people are constantly saying they think Trump has paid for abortions. You know, that comes up all the time in the campaign focus groups. That's one thing. The second thing is five out of seven of the battleground states have Democratic governors, which gives a lot of voters who might be really worried about this.

the kind of who are Trump curious or Trump pro-Trump, they go, yeah, you know, Josh Shapiro is never going to let there be an abortion ban in Pennsylvania. Or yeah, you know, Gretchen Whitmer's never going to let that happen in Michigan. Obviously she's already taken steps or Wisconsin, whatever. Those are just the two things

They kind of countervailing things that that that are that Democrats have to overcome if they really want this to be the killer issue, because those are like little bumps in the road that cover the most salient issue. That's why there's a focus on passing a sure a national abortion standard to keep states like Florida from doing that.

what it's doing. And that's something that Trump already has disavowed. His thing is let the states do whatever the states want to do. What this, this, but the, the, the other element of this particular sequence of events is it does underscore, you know, for the guy who's supposed to be the strong man,

He got healed like a Chihuahua on this issue. Being multiple choice is not a signature strength. But you're onto something, Johnny, by the way, my favorite,

trot tab in all this is the most pro-choice group in America is young men, by the way. I think you guys can put that together. But you're right. It is not the laser sword issue that wins everything because people do see those other things. And so if I were, I'm all for the Harris campaign mentioning it every day because it brings money and energy, which are very useful in a campaign. They also just said they just launched a bus tour, not with the candidate, but with

Amy Klobuchar and a bunch of other people, there's going to make 50 stops on this issue. So they're definitely going to keep it in play. Yeah, including in Florida, more of that dumpster fire they're trying to set there in his backyard. But if you are that voter in Michigan or Wisconsin or Arizona, whatever swing state you want to focus on, who is pro-choice?

but, and it's female and you're 42, but you're also in the great American middle-class feeling an economic squeeze. And you don't think she'll fix that. You're not going to get her. I don't think, or you're not going to get enough of them. You're not going to have a big enough margin. Abortion alone won't do it for you. That's why middle-class economics is everything in this race, along with change and abortion policy is a tool of arguing for change. He is a 1958 Scarlet letter. He doesn't get it. Women don't have an opinion. Men tell him what to do.

it fuels that larger theme, which is the gold. I got to say though, to go to the gender gap issue and the, the, the, it's the related ancillary issue, which is the IVF thing. I mean, Trump's thing on IVF last week, a Republican nominee for president standing up and saying, we are going to mandate, uh, that we're going to either pay by the government's either going to pay for, or we're going to manage the insurance companies pay for IVF. One of the most, you know, I mean, of, of commonly, uh,

commonly used medical procedures like one of those expensive things going out no no exactly he went socialist for a day now it's a handout for both it just shows how transactionally corrupt he is and i'll give lindsey graham somebody i criticized a little bit of credit for blowing the conservative well wait a minute what are you doing every republican that said it just had a giant theatrical eye roll as soon as he said that like yeah that's gonna pass congress yeah

One of their objections to the Affordable Care Act was that it did mandate sort of basic services, preventative care and basic services. So, you know, but listen, it just underscores the fact that Trump has no ideology. He has the ideology of Trump, which is whatever advances him at any given moment. And this gets back to the fundamental question, which is.

Can he drive a message in the campaign? You mentioned Murphy, these economic issues. He's being implored by his team to stick to them and the immigration issue. He can't stay on a message.

Yeah, his team is irrelevant. Nobody controls them. There was all this stuff about how great they're doing. They were doing great when he was cruising ahead in a primary. The minute Biden stepped down and put the tongues to dart into Trump's political future, to praise Biden for that, now he's running wild. And by the way, I want to start a hacks on tap pool here. Which Trump

General is going to be the first to leave to save their own skin. I think Lasavita might be out of there any minute on his own accord.

It's amazing we made it to Labor Day without anybody getting fired. Yeah, Trump always fires someone over the summer. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, look, the fact that Corey Lewandowski is back, the kind of let Trump be Trump crowd, is, you know, that's exactly the wrong message. I mean, you know, Trump won in a way in 2016 because they managed to not let Trump be Trump in the final round.

of that campaign or the final six weeks of that campaign. He was pretty disciplined. They don't need Trump to be Trump. They need Trump to stick to a message. And he is panicked. Yeah, they need Trump to be not Trump. And Kamala's better at being not Trump than Trump. And that's what the IVF thing says to me more than anything. It just shows panic. It's like he's free. He's seeing these numbers. He's seeing this gender gap. He's seeing these issues and her ability to marshal them, Harris's. And he looks to me like he's just...

The combination of his mental decline, which I think is actually significant, and his state of political panic, which is well-founded, is creating this kind of indiscriminate flailing. And to David's point, I've seen no evidence suggest there's any world where Trump can pull it together. Maybe he will. John, you had raised before we started today, you had raised the issue of this.

uh, flap at Arlington. Uh, he set up an event. He says at the request of the gold star families of people who lost of the service men and women who lost their lives at, uh, in Afghanistan at Abbey's gate in that, uh, hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. And, uh, it was quickly turned into a

political ad by the campaign or a video. And there was a dust up there with personnel from Arlington who said you can't shoot political ads.

by these grave sites. It struck me that this was supposed to be a clean hit on Harris and Biden on Afghanistan that turned into a fiasco. Totally. Well, just actually, when I saw this ad that they ran with the Gold Star families, if you take it, if Trump hadn't, if the campaign hadn't done what it did at Arlington, just play this just so we can get a sense of it. Because I think

Well, I want to hear what you guys think about it. But to me, it's not unmoving to listen to these Gold Star families. Our kids were murdered because of your administration. You were not at Dover for the dignified transfer. And no time have you reached out to me to offer your condolences, to offer thank you for Kareem's sacrifice and service. You have 13 families who have been waiting over three years to so much as get a phone call.

There's so much to hear our kids names said aloud. You failed for three years and eight months to acknowledge our kids. Where were you and Joe Biden on August 26, 2024? Nowhere near Arlington Cemetery. You couldn't be bothered to be with us or even say our kids names just as you had done for the last three years.

So, I mean, look, there's a lot of things to say about whether you can really make the Afghanistan withdrawal stick to Harris. But there's a lot of questions about that. But there's also the fact that they, you know, that the Gold Star families have a sacred place in American life. When you hear them saying that no one's, but they have been called, they're raising this issue of why no one, Biden or Harris, has called them over three years. That's a potentially effective thing. But then they go to Arlington and just like, just make a giant,

I think we're supposed to say now, fuster cluck here instead of the other word to be sensitive to her. But you know what I'm saying? It's like they have this thing teed up to whatever. I watch that and I go, okay, like, it's hard to make that stick to her, but that's not an unaffected piece of political communication. Yeah. But you know, the thing that, I mean, it is powerful and it has, it is shades of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth thing.

that Lasavita ran so skillfully in 2024 to blasphemy John Kerry, who was a war hero, and it had some effect. But you're dealing in a guy with, I mean, if I'm on the Harris side, I mean, again, as with the flip-flops, this guy has not exactly been a champion of

of the military. He has not been a champion of those who've lost their lives in war. He's demeaned them. He demeaned John McCain for being a prisoner of war. There are a lot, you know, they're not on, you know, they're not a super solid ground here. But the main point is the main point, which is they turned what was supposed to be a solid hit into a fiasco. And that's the bonus for Harris. They're going to keep doing that because they can't change Trump.

And that ad also, and you made this point, I just want to reinforce it, Johnny. It is hard to hurt her with ricochets. You know, they got a great hit at Biden there. But the people really think, and, you know, this was a perceived weakness of her, that she was calling any shots in the White House or she was there doing National Cub Scout Day, you know, the first year and cut ribbons. So it's hard to make her the evil mastermind.

it's a good hit and it damages her, but boy, most of the thrust has to kind of go to him and then get to her. And that's tricky. It raises, it just raises a larger question, right? Cause the other thing that in, in, if we talked about before about like what could stop her momentum, right? There are three possible things. One is she fucks up the second, sorry, she screws up. The second is, uh,

is that Trump gets disciplined. And the third is some external events intrude on the campaign in a way that, that, that, that either causes her to screw up or that changes the dynamics. The gold star family thing is a historic thing. Um,

The death of the Israeli hostages is a current event in – that's a classic example in that third category of external events, exogenous realities. They have this video of her saying, you know, we told the Israelis not to go to Rafah. There will be a disaster. Don't go to Rafah. And, of course, then the hostages get killed in Rafah. And this is what the Trump people are now leaning into, which is she's the co-author of the disastrous, you know, anti-not-sufficiently-pro-Israel policy.

I ask you guys this question kind of in a broader sense. We know that they're going to go after her on trying to tie her to Biden's economy or the perceptions of Biden's economy. Is there anything in the foreign policy realm, Murphy, to your point, that can stick

her or is she other than immigration which is not really a foreign policy thing or is it she's she's just not ever going to have to own those because biden is seen as the architect i think she has a very yeah very long leash on this stuff i do think they're they're it's typical trump all tactics desperate clinging so uh it's her fault well actually they're in the netanyahu business trump is

Now, they've had their personal conflicts, but fundamentally, he's been doing the tough guy stuff. And what's happening now in Israel, shaking their politics to the foundation, is about Bibi putting the interest of holding his coalition in power together, as you guys know, over the hostages.

And Bibi just kind of manufactured an issue about the control of the Egyptian border for smuggling arms when all the IDF generals and everybody said, we can take that thing anytime we want, get the hostages back. We can go back on next Tuesday. So I think there's more radiation spilling over both Bibi connection with the Republicans and Trump's strongman schtick is not unlike Bibi's strongman schtick. And I think strongmen who get kids killed

because of their own personal greed. I think there's more harmonic vibration there heading Trump's way than hers. That's my gut on it. Okay, then let's take a break right here, and we'll be right back.

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I said this on TV because, you know, my buddy Scott Jennings was trying to make the point that, you know, she was there, she was in the room and so on.

Nobody believes the vice presidents make these decisions. Nobody believes that. And I mean, nobody talks about the Pence years. Okay. Nobody thinks vice presidents are basically the person who stands in the background behind the president. So

I think it's a very hard case to make, but it leads me to a question for you guys, which is she was out yesterday on Labor Day campaigning with Joe Biden. It was at a union event in Pittsburgh. Biden has a constituency with labor, particularly in that in that area. I think it was at the electrical workers, you know, the trade unions. But how if you're sitting in their strategic hub, right?

How much do you want her appearing with Biden? You don't, but you have to do minimum sufficient or you create a big where's and then you put Biden back in the story that way. And I thought they were smart to put four electrical worker bosses between the two of them to constantly deny the video a strong two shot. I mean, they work the crowd together, but...

They've got to do minimum sufficient. I thought you meant to provide electricity. But I, no, I'm pro-IBW. But bottom line is they're going to check this box a couple of times and that's it. And I don't think you're going to see it in October. I mean, Labor Day was an obvious day to do it. Right. The effort to keep them slightly separated might have been confounded slightly by Biden referring to how he and her were going to

to continue to work on whatever. Let's take a look at that. We're going to let that son of a gun do that again? Folks, we made a lot of progress. And Connell and I are going to build on that progress. And she's going to build on it.

I'll be on the sidelines, but I'll do everything I can to help. You know who got very excited watching that was Donald Trump. Oh, Joe Biden is back. I get to run against Biden again. For a second, Biden and Trump were living in the same deluded fantasy world there where they thought they were still running against each other. So we're going to talk about the debate next week, but

We're doing a double. We're doing the old club sandwich. We're going to do a pre and post debate show. So we're going to obsess over it. Yeah. So look for us on look for us on what, Monday and Wednesday. Is that what we decided? But I think for now we can just say this is huge. This debate is critical because she is still an unbaked cake and Trump is a cornered animal. So this is going to be a critical, big, high stakes debate. But David, to go back to the Biden thing that you asked, which is.

You know, she's been, you know, she didn't take much to avoid stumbling into the artful trap that Dana Bash set for her when she said, are you saying you would support Bidenomics? And she's like, well, I will say that I support the elements of our economic program that worked. I will not use that word, Dana. Well, that was in the bubble box. She didn't exactly say that, but go ahead. But you know what I'm saying? It was kind of like there was a little bit of a trap set for her there to try to say the wrong thing.

But she does. She has basically been very loyal to him. Right. Which I actually thought in that interview, by the way, guys, I thought one of the finest moments of for her in that interview was toward the end when she would she gave a full throated sort of defense of Biden and tribute to Biden in a way that I thought was really appropriate about how history will remember him.

And to me, she came across as loyal. She came across as someone with character. And I wouldn't have predicted that. I'm not sure I would have predicted that that answer would have played the way it did. But she clearly meant it. She felt it. Even as she was saying, I'm looking forward, I have my own idea about where we're going to go. So I think there's an argument that many voters like the notion of loyalty.

even at some personal or political cost. Especially at it. I will ask Mr. Murphy, however, if part of what you're trying to do, as I've been speaking up to a classic hack here, you know, if you're trying to, what you're trying to do is create a little bit of a little bit of space between you and some of the things about Biden's, the perception of Biden's economic record that are maybe your most, one of the couple of things that might cost you the election is

Is she doing enough to do that, to be both loyal to him, but also make that space on the economic issue and on immigration?

Not yet, but they're going in the right direction with their plan forward stuff. Now, they stumbled. They got into this price control idiocy for a day or two, and then they stuffed that back in the dumb Marxist can. But I think the debate is when she can talk about her forward-looking plan for the middle class. New president, some new ideas. Not a hard argument to make, and I think there's more work to do. But they're showing me they understand this and they're working on it. So I think...

I'm optimistic. But that's the real... If they can move that needle and stay on his right on grown-up foreign policy and keep the lasso vibe thing going, that's how I think they win. Yeah, let me just say...

I've been thinking a lot about the presidential debates and, you know, we all get really invested in the issues. And I think the narrative is very important. Like, what is, what are you about? Where do you want to lead the country? That's important. But, you know, when you think back to the Kennedy Nixon debate, which was the first big presidential debate and almost all the debates subsequent, the things that people remember about,

are rarely, you know, big policy treatises. They are who commanded the stage. They do remember lines that suggest who commanded the stage in the moment. I think it's important

Who commands this stage? And the question is, how do you do that with Donald Trump? And I think the answer is you are unbothered by him. You have you're talking to the American people. Yes, you're going to have your exchanges with him. But the vibe you want to send is enough of this.

Oh, totally. Change the channel we've lived in. And that's what I mean about, I'm not pitching her to do an 18-point plan and bring out a flow chart and a slide rule. I want her to look at the camera and say, beyond all the noise you're hearing, what does this mean for you and your family? Let me tell you what I'm going to think about every day when I walk into the Oval. What can I do? And I have some new ideas.

ideas like your parents ought not to go into bankruptcy to afford their diabetes medicine. I am being, being, being connected to the camera and talk to the folks at home, rise of break the wall, rise above the antics. So I think we're saying the same thing. We are. Cause then, then you get the adult versus the toddler.

And the toddler is exhausting. Yeah. I love it when Axe and Murphy both are on the same page. I have a question I want to ask before. I know we're going to run out of time soon. So I want to ask one last question. It goes back to the very top of the podcast. But before I do that, I'll just say in the realm of flip-flopping,

One of my favorite quotes in the history of politics is what Jesse Jackson said about Bill Clinton. When he comes to a fork in the road, he takes the fork. I just think it's one of the greatest things ever. It works on so many levels. So a ripoff from Yogi Berra, but yes. When we go back to the top, when we talked about the state of the race, David, in Milwaukee—

uh, yet one of your, uh, ax and Amy briefings, you had, uh, Tony for IOP and cook. Yeah. Yes. IOP and cook political report. And Tony Fabrizio, Donald Trump's pollster of serious guy, uh, it was up in the, at the peak of their Rio about, and kind of delusional, uh, hubris about, well, we have, we have, I, we stopped counting our, our number of ways to 270 electoral votes when we get to 25 or something. But he did say, here's the easiest way. The easiest way is, uh,

We win Georgia and Pennsylvania. Right. We don't have to win anything else. Right. And if you look at where they're spending money, they're spending money in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Right. I understand why Georgia is going to be a hard, Georgia is a Republican state. That's why it's going to be hard for Democrats to win. Kamala Harris could win it. She's put it in play, though.

You know, it was not in play before. 30% African-American population in that state. She can win, but it's certainly hard. Right. So I'm not saying, all I'm saying is I understand why Georgia is hard to win for a Democrat. Him crapping all over the governor there helps as well. But my question to the two of you is, why is it that every Democratic strategist I talked to who is good at this,

All of them, including on their campaign, says, man, Pennsylvania is just tough. Pennsylvania is going to be tough. You get this refrain over and over again. I'm not totally ignorant here, but I want to get your guys' view. Why is Pennsylvania so much harder than Wisconsin and Michigan? Why is that so much harder for Kamala Harris to win? It goes to Carville's point.

you know, ancient but still wise reference to Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama stuck between them. I mean, it's a tough, tough state. The middle of the state is tough for Democrats generally. She's not culturally akin. You know, Biden was more culturally akin to those voters. So it's, you know, it is a challenge. It's not an insuperable challenge, but

but is a challenge. And if she doesn't win it, then she not only has to win Georgia, but she has to win another state.

And so, you know, it is a big wound. If, you know, this goes back, I don't want to reopen the Waltz Shapiro issue on VP, but this is why, you know, a lot of folks, and I may have been one of them, thought Shapiro would have been a smart play. It won't matter if she wins, then it'll seem like she, you know, made the right play. I think she can win it. I

I think this is somewhat overrated. And I think if she gets the campaign together that works in Michigan and Wisconsin, she can win there too. And I think she's in the hunt in Georgia. It's tougher, but demographically, if she can electrify the African-American vote and put it together with suburbs, there's a definite, she's put it back in play. It's a margin of error now. And finally, something good is happening for the Democrats in,

in Nevada. I'm not sure what it is. The Senate race is totally breaking D. That is another state where voters of color are a big deal and Biden was struggling. She's not.

So, you know, we will see. I've even seen, you know, margin of error stuff in Arizona where the Senate race is also breaking the right way. So, I mean, I agree that none of the swing states are difficult, but they cross pollinate. Easy, you mean? Yeah, easy. Excuse me. But they cross pollinate. So and by the way, if any of them are listening.

Go to AmericanEVJobs.org. I can't resist. It is in Georgia. It's a huge issue that nobody's using to their advantage. $30 billion in new plants, and it's a secret. Why the campaign is not jumping on that, I do not get. Talk about a guy who's electric. It's Mike Murphy. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back. Heilman.

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All right. If you have a question for the hacks, all you got to do is email us at hacks on tap at gmail.com hacks on tap at gmail.com. You can send us a voice memo so we can hear your dulcet tones. Just make it short. We're the windbag bloviators around here. And finally, you can do it by voicemail in the back of some Chicago off track betting parlor slash

turnout center. We have set up a number I can't remember, but you can leave a 20, 25 second question right there. Just use your name too. Here's the number. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471.

All right. So since this guy name checks you, Heilman, we're going to take the first from Josh. And it's a voicemail.

Hey there HACC, this is Josh from Iowa. I actually ran into Mr. Heilman in the Chicago airport coming back from the convention. My question this week is, has Kamala Harris found her stride because of the political environment we find ourselves in in 2024 instead of 2020 where she can be herself and just find that stride?

Uh, governor Shapiro. So it was good to run into the airport that day. And, uh, uh, uh, kidding. Uh, I remember running into Josh, the airport is very nice gentleman. Um, uh, look, I think there are two things to say about this. One is, you know, there was pre 2020 Kamala Harris. Um, and, uh,

Everybody in the world who saw her thought she was potentially a president of the United States and thought she had a great future ahead of her. And she was not, contrary to some of Mike's comments earlier about her candidate skills, she was a strong California candidate. She was strong, I thought, as a United States senator.

The campaign was a bad environment for her because basically every Democrat, except for Joe Biden and Michael Bennett, bent over backwards to try to appease a progressive wing that they thought was going to dominate the primary. They didn't. They were wrong. That was a huge mistake. And I think that sent her on a downward spiral that she then got into the vice president's office, which is a crappy job, better than a bucket of warm piss.

And then she lost her way. And, you know, it's that Haley Barber thing of good gets better and bad gets worse. It's like how life is. When you're on a roll, you get better, you get more confident, you improve. She got on the downward spiral. And then Dobbs came along and I think saved her in a sense. You know, Joe Biden having to hand over that issue to her. If you watched her performing before for the last year, basically, from Dobbs forward on that issue, she was quietly...

refinding her footing and getting better and better. And the combination of the combination of her finding her

her feet again. She was in exactly the right position to blossom in some ways when this moment presented itself. So I think it's a combination of the moment and also the candidate who was on a trajectory that you guys have seen a lot of candidates go on, where they had a lot of promise and a lot of hope. They got smacked down, and then they bottomed out and bounced back. It happened to Bill Clinton. It's happened to other people in our careers. Yeah. Well, in fact, most of the candidates who won have had...

suffered losses. Barack Obama lost a House primary by 30 points. You know, Bill Clinton lost a couple of races for the House and re-election for governor and Nixon, Joe Biden. Yeah. I mean, it's like it's very common. It's part of the graduate school politics. You lose to learn. Yeah. But I will say this. You have to there has to be

a high level of authenticity about your message and your candidacy when you run for president. It's just too hard. I said years ago, it's an MRI for the soul. If you're faking it, you generally get found out. And she wasn't, as you point out, John, who she actually is in the 2019 campaign. She's a center-left Democrat. She was a middle-of-the-road prosecutor who antagonized the left in some instances.

She, you know, she just wasn't who she ran as. And she therefore seemed disconnected from the words she was speaking and the position she was taking. And people sensed that. And she failed. This time, she seems very organically linked to her message.

And it's very much built on who she is. And she's not running away from her bio. And Murphy, you know something about this because you worked for Mitt Romney, but not in 2012. When he ran in 2012, he got the advice to run away from his bio, from his governorship, because he did the health care bill from his business and from his faith. And basically, you took away so much of who he was. What else was there? You can't win like that.

Oh, there's a lot left, as we all know now. No, I could go on for hours about that. It's right. And I fundamentally agree, though. I want to push back on my pal Heilman here on her candidate skills are getting better. And I think she's now surfing a wonderful wave she did not create, but she is.

using it well because it's a vibe campaign. So she doesn't have to really talk about ideology, which has been good for her. But when she ran for California attorney general, she was not a good candidate. She almost lost to a Republican in California. She only won by about 90,000 votes out of, I think, almost eight and a half million. So she, uh,

That is the that's the ghost that's haunting the Harris machine. Will the bad candidate in the clutch of debate or something pop up? And so far, other than a couple of stumbles in that interview, which were not material, it hasn't. So people change. It could be that.

that, you know, she improved. She never really had a contested race after that 2010. You know, in California, the way you run a good campaign is win the Democratic primary, and then you win it for free. Murphy, a guy named Unnamed sent in a voicemail, has a vaguely Russian accent. I don't know why. But anyway, let's take a listen to this. Hello there, Hacks. Who

Who will be the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028? I'm wondering if MAGA can survive another Trump loss and whether the traditional GOP can rebuild itself. And might your answers depend on the margin of victory for Harrison Waltz? Thanks. I love the show. Keep on hacking. Bye-bye.

So he's already got Harrison Waltz elected here, but go ahead, Murphy. Yeah, that might have been Governor Waltz. I thought it sounded a little familiar. We're asking him to come back on with some gutter advice. So, look, who knows?

It's going to be, I look at it like it's going to be the Chinese civil war. There's going to be a lot of warlords running around in the wreckage of another loss. In the beginning, the media will say Trump's still in charge, but no, he'll be a two-time loser. And there will be some son of MAGA, somebody trying to grab that. I think, as usual, look to the governors because they're outside Washington. And there are a whole bunch. Obviously, you have kind of the perennials.

DeSantis will try again. Haley will probably shamelessly try again. Of course, in Florida, you got Rubio out of the Senate. Well, I was about to go there. You're stepping on my big finish. I'm sorry. Brian Kemp of Georgia is the contender. Near South Carolina, which counts. A very adroit politician, conservative, hard to get at in a primary. Now, the rumor is he's very focused on running for the Senate in two years. Uh,

not that interested in presidential stuff, but on paper, not a super fundraiser either. But boy, oh boy, the talent is there, I think, to do well. I would keep an eye on Sarah Huckabee Sanders, too.

What about Glenn Youngkin? What about Youngkin? Youngkin? Yeah. Yeah. A little, you know, part of it is what, what is MAGA 3.0 look like the new populism post Trump? Who will that be? Who are new stars that could be created as opponents to a Harris thing, maybe out of the federal side, but,

Does the Dan Crenshaw on the House start to superstar in that role? You know, it's pretty wide open. I think the question will be the factions. There'll be the chamber business world trying to come back. The socials will say, you know, OK, we had this faker Trump who was good on some policy. Let's go with the real thing. And people will chase that. Ted Cruz will pop up to the floorboards.

So it'll be a mixture of old and new with nobody standing like a colossus, at least from what I can see now atop the primary. And then we'll have a real Donnybrook, which we have to have to defend, you know, to rebuild some sort of grown up right at the center party. I'm looking forward to it.

I think the party is so debauched and so corrupted and hollowed out that it's going to take more than one cycle. I think that there is a rebuilding thing that will happen and probably something like that resembles more of old-fashioned Republicanism will come back. But I don't think it's four years off. I think it's like that's a couple cycles off. But the first big defining battle is that primary.

It depends on who wins this election. Of course. If Harris wins and you have two terms of a Democratic administration, there's a... Well, we don't know about two terms. Let's see. No, if, you know, what I'm saying is if she wins, there will have been two consecutive Democratic presidencies. She would have to scramble to win re-election. If she goes three terms, you know, that's more vulnerability. History suggests...

But if Trump wins, the question is, you know, is...

Is Vance the crown prince, as they seem to indicate at the convention? No, Trump will eat him. Scorpion's in a bottle. The minute Vance does well, he's a dead man. Unless Vance eats him first. 25th Amendment in, like, February of next year. Yeah, yeah. Who knows this light schedule Trump's on? I'm starting to think of the cognitive issues going to wheel around on him big time after the debate.

We got to go, but Mike, just give me Luther here, and then we'll skedaddle. Luther Vandross? Luther Vandross listens to Hacks on Tap. All right, Luther, here we go. This is from Luther. He's an inventive guy. He nailed this question to the door at Hacks on Tap World Headquarters.

Okay, clearly, you guys, you know, history. All right, Luther wants to know, from David Axelrod, this is a completely unscientific metric. Well, that's never stopped X before. But who's winning the yard sign and bumper sticker war in the battleground states? Good question. Yeah, I don't know. I've been roaming around rural Michigan, and there are a lot of Trump signs, but I've been surprised to see some Harris signs everywhere.

uh as well but i'll tell you something i got a buddy one of the smartest guys in politics saul shore in in uh in philly does races all over the country uh and he is obsessed with yard signs and he thinks that yard signs not only are a sign of of support but also have a psychological impact when you're driving through your community and you see uh all of these yard signs so he

he is absolutely obsessed by it. And he's in Pennsylvania. He'll be keeping an eye on that. We should keep an eye on it. And, and listeners who are,

sending their questions and keep an eye out in your own communities and let us know what you see. Send us pictures now that we're on YouTube. I don't believe the yard sign, guh. All I ever do is geo-target where the candidate I'm against drives to the airport and put up a thousand there so they blow all their money on yard signs. So I'm very proud in 88 in the Heiler race I invented the negative yard sign, which I believe. Spoken like a true media man. Ha ha.

More money for ads, less money for yard signs. Yard signs that can talk. They're called television sets. When I'm up here in the Pine Tree State in Maine, I like to take the measure of things by exactly this route. I go look at all the yard signs. And then I was told that every yard sign that I see in central Maine is actually just all from Tucker. All Tucker Carlson's house.

So I'm like, okay, that's, that's just skews the sample. I will say this having driven across the country yet again, a couple of weeks ago from New Hampshire to Chicago to vote. And then, then home to LA, I did do a little yard sign counting and my unscientific yard sign poll in rural New Hampshire, Trump's sound signs down 50%, no democratic stuff, but the Trump stuff, the big four by eights gone.

Rural Iowa, eastern Iowa. Apparently indicated that New Hampshire's done for them. Anyway, it's not like 2020. It's not like 2020. Same thing cutting through the Midwest. Northern Ohio saw a couple, saw a couple in Iowa, saw a handmade Harris sign painted. It was like this during the primary. There were Trump signs during the Republican primary in South Carolina and New Hampshire. The question is whether the Trump campaign has adopted the Murphy theory.

and isn't pushing yard signs. But we'll see. It's a measure of something. We don't know what, but we do know we're out of time. Guys, you look terrific. Nobody's ever looked, as Trump would say, no one has ever seen anything like this on YouTube. Sir, sir, sir, sir, he came up to me. I had a tear in his eye as he looked at us. Yes. I'm not sure if it was a good pity. Nobody's ever seen anything like this. All right, guys. We'll see you next week. Going to be a big week.

All right. See you guys next week. Debate time. Doubleheader. For all you YouTube watchers, just one note. This podcast will be posted a day after we drop it on audio. So Wednesday, you can look forward to seeing Hacks on Tap on YouTube. But we love you audio people the most. You get it first. You've been with us. We're loyal.