Murder Genes & Media Gymnastics (with Mike Bender)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. She wants to go into government housing. She wants to go into government feeding. She wants to feed people. She wants to feed people governmentally. She wants to go into a communist party type system. When you look at the things that she proposes...

They're so far off. She has no clue. How about allowing people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they're now happily living in the United States. You know, now a murderer, I believe this,

It's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. It's in the genes, John. I have a question about Jesus. It's that Calvin Klein genes. There's the Jordache genes. There's the, I tell you how old I am still think about Jordache genes, a lot of bad genes in this country, Mike.

13,000 mass murderers on the loose, all thanks to Kamala Harris. But if murder's in the genes, is raping in the genes? I want to ask the former president that. But we have a wise man with us, a titan of American journalism and a good friend, the great Mike Bender from The New York Times, America's paper, here joining us on The Hacks. Mike, welcome.

Thank you very much for having me. I was I was thinking that was maybe a subtle jab at the Obama mom jeans. But is that is that maybe too too much of a deep cut for for Trump out there on the trail? I think there's a certain subtlety, which is not normally his stock and trade. I have 13000 mass murderers. That's pretty, pretty impressive. I had no idea.

Seriously, it sounds like a lot of different spinoffs for Silence of the Lambs. You could have like, he's like, Trump's vision of the world is just a man talking about a dark, barren landscape. Like, why is that guy? I said that guy doesn't go on 60 Minutes. Like, what is the deal with that?

I mean, you know, I think it's the biggest audience. You see, there's almost nothing in broadcast television anymore that guarantees you like a really genuinely large audience. And what is Trump just be like? Yeah, I don't know. A hundred percent. I totally agree. And the, uh, I mean, you saw that they made sure to mention that in, um, in Harris's interview, uh, earlier this week is that they reached out to Trump. He apparently agreed and then, and then, and then pulled out. Um,

You know, so again, thanks again for having me. I am a first time guest. I am a longtime listener. I know you guys were talking the other week about, you know, the possibility of a second debate sort of in the same in framework, right, of how could Trump possibly walk away from, you know, 70 million viewers like that? I just think this is a different campaign for him. I mean, it's always been largely a base turnout campaign.

But, I mean, from what I've seen, J.D. Vance is the only one in the entire campaign, it seems to me, talking about persuasion. And out there on the campaign trail, he doesn't talk about it that much. So Trump not doing a second debate, not doing shows like 60 Minutes, to me, it just reinforces that this is just about him trying to get out the voters he knows are going to support him. Yeah.

I'm still not sure. Go ahead, Johnny. Well, to me, this is a central thing where I know we're going to talk about all this, but Harris has been criticized for weeks by Democrats and quietly. Like, she's not doing enough. She's not doing mainstream media interviews. She's not campaigning hard enough and all that, which we've had some sympathy with. They seem like she's got to be doing more at this point. Trump is everywhere. Harris is nowhere. All of a sudden, it's like just in the last 48 hours, it seems like Trump is nowhere. He's not...

He used to be doing like Theo Vaughn and these crazy, obviously right-wing podcasts, but he was out there doing unconventional channels. Now it's like he turns down Caller Daddy.

He turns down because she goes on and says, I'll have Trump on any time. He won't go on that. He won't go on 60 Minutes. He doesn't want to do the debate. It's like Trump ubiquity has been the one thing you could count on from Trump. Full court press all the time. Take all comers. Ever since 2016, all of a sudden, he's just like really just so narrow casted now. And it seems like his world is shrinking. I don't get it. Well, part of it, I think, is...

You know, we, along with all the other pain in the neck conventional wisdom blowhards, we're talking about go out and flood the zone a little more, Kamala. It's not looking like you're trying to earn this thing. You know, Trump's banging away. But Trump has been banging away on his terms, which is he goes out to a hockey rink somewhere, fills up 1,800 people and does his act.

Now she is flooding the zone. And Trump doing the same old Trump, by contrast, looks a lot smaller than it did when she wasn't doing much and they had waltz locked up, you know, in a Menard somewhere. So I want to get into this will Trump debate thing for a minute because I'm sticking with my guns that we have not heard the last week.

And I now that the Harris campaign and we're going to talk about that first, then we got some advanced stuff to go into. And then we're talking about this new New York Times poll, which for once will not give Democrats heart attack. Normally, it's a terrible news poll and everybody freaks out the line around the block here in Los Angeles to psychiatrist offices for emergency sessions. Oh, my God, Trump's ahead. It's pretty good for Harris. We're going to talk about that. I think.

That poll, plus a couple of the state polls that have popped up, plus Kamala being everywhere this week, Trump's going to start to vibrate. And all of a sudden, the guy was saying no to 60 Minutes and no to another debate. I'm not sure he's with us for the whole campaign. I think we have about a 10-day period here at the end of which there's a window where Trump may think, I'm losing. I got to grab a microphone here. And we might have Trump flood the zone.

copying her. So I'm wild speculation here, but am I crazy? What do you guys think? I think it could happen.

I mean, there is no sort of I mean, what is the definition of crazy in in in in a race with Trump? Like he's sort of he's capable of any of this stuff. Right. And none of it would make none of it would be totally shocking. I mean, I will say I've covered him for almost a decade now. What if I've learned one thing? It's like I no longer write stories that start with Donald Trump will do X, Y, Z. Like I just will or won't do. Right. Like it's just it's.

And that's, in fact, a great way to get him to do the opposite. And a lot of a lot of times everything you said made sense makes sense. I mean, as soon as the words were coming out of my mouth about the previous debate, I was wishing I would have done some more reporting on that on that question before before broaching it in this forum. I don't have any new reporting that that he's that he's any more interested or less interested to change his mind at all since since he said he wasn't going to do it.

The one thing the one counter I would say is when Trump was banned off social media and it was sort of that it was like the year anniversary. I did a story at the time and that, you know, he'd been off Twitter and Facebook and also Pinterest and all, you know, all the other ones and how much his advisors and the people around him.

liked the fact that he was off social media right i mean there there is a construct here there's a framework here where the best trump is is the least trump yeah when it comes to the american public right i mean sort of the idea of what of trump of like a you know of a rich guy who's not beholden to interest and and can do his own thing for the good of the people right i mean the power of that message in a vacuum um is is very is very is appealing um

It's when it's once he gets out here and starts talking about, yeah, 13,000 murders. And yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But isn't there is there any job in America more professionally impotent than Trump advisor? Because they're working for mighty Joe Young. You know, why don't we tie him up with chains and we'll put him on a boat and take.

And then the worse he thinks he's doing, the more he does his own thing, which often makes him do worse again. But his instinct is not to be passive and strategic. So, Johnny, is he – do you think there's a shot of debates again? Because I think you're sympathetic to the Trump breaks loose theory of this if he thinks he's losing. I do. I totally do. And I – again, maybe I'll – everything – every kind of firm conviction that one has –

has always been upended by this race. And so of course I'll be wrong about this, but I, I just, there's been a lot of discussion about this Harris media blitz this week, and especially among, uh,

I won't say people like Mike Bender because Mike Bender is not a conventional wisdom whore. But, you know, the mainstream press, Beltway journalists, right? You know, the playbooks of the world who are like, we want to do interviews. And then when she decides she's going to go out and do a bunch of interviews, she's doing The View, Colbert, and Howard Stern, I believe, all today. Okay?

And the Beltway Press freaks out and goes, those are real interviews. Those are just friendlies. They're not journalists. They're not. You've got to get in front of the Wall Street Journal editorial board for it to be real. And you're like, guys, it's such an antiquated view about how you reach voters in America now, especially the voters who are persuadable left. None of those people give a shit about MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, and God forgive me, The New York Times. Nobody cares.

You're not reaching any persuadable voters through any of those channels anymore. Call her daddy and Howard Stern. Those are vast audiences of irregular voters, right? It makes total sense to me why she's doing this. And I can't imagine those are also places that Trump has always appreciated.

I mean, he appreciated their power. Yeah, he's a pop culture creation, not a journalistic one. Right. And so does he hate the ladies of The View? At this point, yes. They make him crazy. Then he will say that they're all in the bag for Harris. But the truth is, she's going to be— They are, but it's okay. They are, but I guarantee you that there will be things that Howard Stern asks her today that will make her more uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. The Stern one is going to be the gold. I totally agree. Totally.

And he's a pretty good interviewer. That's the little secret of Howard 2.0. That's totally right. And so I think he's going to look at her flooding the zone in person.

places that he actually has always got like those are like those venues are places where trump is like yeah she's gonna feel like she's everywhere for a moment and i think you know if these numbers start to solidify and keep trending a little bit towards her they're not going to get out of control but you know a few more polls like this where she's got a four-point national lead

And she seems to be now kind of all over these kind of, you know, not in forget about the Beltway Press, but she's in like these these these channels that he has long appreciated their power. His head could explode. And I mean, I still my calendar marked for October 23rd. You know, I'm with you. I wouldn't take the downside of that bet. Well, let's let's examine the flood, the zone, zone, zone. If we had a production budget, we'd bring bring a big announcer in to do day two.

She was on 60. She was on the Call My Daddy, Call Her Daddy, Call Somebody Daddy podcast, which does a lot of advanced work in trigonometry and purses. Send your angry emails to these guys. Leave it alone, John. Leave it alone.

No, it's just, it's Mike, Mike call her Dada. I think it's like Dada poetry around here. When it broke through, when it was the two of them before they had their feud and she got the 40 million or whatever. And by the way, podcast industry, where's our fat check?

Anyway, I heard it then. It was a raunchy dating thing. And then now it's the form of form of presidential politics. But anyway, we've got a clip from that. There's hope for this podcast, too, then. I think that's. Yeah. No, no. We're going to get filthier here. That's our secret to get to the real money. But let's hear a clip. Look, the campaign has been.

scared of this. They've kind of been goaded into it. Some of the state polls are, you know, the things are still tight. Don't get cocky, Democrats. And they decided we got to put her out there to look like we're earning this and to kind of flood the zone with message. So they did. But you can see what they're afraid of. She has not made any colossal mistakes, which was the prediction based on her 2019 mistakes. So kudos for that.

But she is an airplane that occasionally you'll find a couple of leaves and branches from trees in the landing gear, you know, because it can be a bumpy approach. Here's one of the big hot clips from the 60 Minutes interview. Big audience. Classic thing to do. Let's take a listen and a look. I'll tell you what your critics and the columnists say. Okay. They say that the reason so many voters don't know you

is that you have changed your position on so many things. You were against fracking. Now you're for it. You supported looser immigration policies. Now you're tightening them up. You were for Medicare for all. Now you're not. So many that people don't truly know what you believe or what you stand for. And I know you've heard that.

In the last four years, I have been vice president of the United States. And I have been traveling our country. And I have been listening to folks and seeking what is possible in terms of common ground. I believe in building consensus. We are a diverse people, geographically, regionally, in terms of where we are in our backgrounds. And what the American people do want is that we have leaders who can build consensus.

where we can figure out compromise and understand it's not a bad thing as long as you don't compromise your values to find common sense solutions. And that has been my approach.

Well, there you go. Not terrible, but wiggly. She just can't, for some reason, say, when the facts change, I take a second look at my position. It's got to be, well, I took a trip. I'm practical. I'm for common sense. I've hired a pollster. They told me this stuff will kill me. You know, a little dose of authentic fessing up, I think, would go a long way, but she just can't do it. So how do we rank that? And do we think

A week of that stuff moves her forward. I think as scripted as she is, it does. But what do you guys say?

I'll just, you know, we've banged this drum for a long time. That was like half a good answer. You know? Yeah, exactly. That's the explanation for why I realized I was wrong. It's the one thing that she did that Mike, you've talked about the cleansing power of, of, of apology and how empowering it would be for her to say, you know what? I had one point of view. I became vice president. I learned more about the country and I realized I was wrong.

Yeah, older, wiser. But the part about being vice president and growing is a nice – that part, if it was also fused with a clear thing of, yes, I did change my position because I learned more in the job and then now I've come to a different point of view. She's just like –

just a third two-thirds of the way there but a third not getting to the crisp thing of yeah you know i you know i've been wrong everybody's wrong she can't quite get there like she can't get there to the to the thing that would be the most humanizing thing she could do because there's nobody out here who hasn't like changed their mind about something no voter hasn't changed their mind when they realized yeah you know what i was wrong i was i was as an error in an honest genuine way and now i've come to a better position she can't say it somehow

Yeah, if she what she wants to be is a change candidate and they're doing a good job of pushing her there. And if she pulls it off, she'll win. But being the non bullshit candidate would be the strongest way to get to being the change candidate. We are running against Donald Trump, who does toxic bullshit all day long.

Bender, solve this for us. What do you think? Well, the question is what they're trying to solve with this media blitz here, right? And to John's point earlier, I mean, this is a – that's a tough question. I mean, that's a fastball right at her, you know, and also just a sort of –

A side point is like I think also for for politicians on both sides of the aisle, sometimes it's these friendly interviews that are are are the toughest ones for them. And we're the biggest gaffes and biggest viral moments come from is. But pulling back to 60 Minutes, I, you know, I think this was a much better answer than if she would have taken this question in 2020. She feels like a better candidate now. I will say I don't know if that's.

Four years of kind of to your point, Mike, you know, she's been vice president and has grown in this in this job and in this career or, you know, it's kind of I would imagine it's a it's much it's a much different dynamic when the entire party's behind you like it is right now, as opposed to, you know, trying to fight your way through a primary.

But, you know, her if they are trying to survive this week and this media blitz, then like this was this was a good answer. If they're trying to connect with voters and find a way to, you know, pull away from Trump. I'm not sure this one does it. It's a fine answer. You know, it's. Yeah, I give it a gentle woman's be, you know, she survived it under the Howard thing, which will be the gold one way or the other. If I had to, like, get one like in like the weeds on one part, it would be that that that

long sort of pregnant Paul she had after she said, well, as long as you don't compromise your values and then sort of left it open there long enough where it was like, well, are you compromising? When your values are carrying Pennsylvania, you're always willing to do a little compromise. And she's a Paul. I don't blame her for it. Did you think that there's something here where they're just afraid of

I know a lot... In our careers, we've seen this a million times. The reason the candidate is afraid to say, I was wrong, is they're just afraid of the 30-second ad. Well, if she was wrong about this, what else will she be wrong about, America? Totally. That's what they're terrified of. And so that answer gives Trump nothing. Yeah.

You know, there's no, there's no ad you can make out of that answer. That's the biggest benefit of it. There's no like, you know, there's no money quote in there that they're going to be able to seize on. But I still don't feel like it's, you know, I mean, it's easy to say from, you know, from the armchair here, but I still don't feel like for people who want to understand how she got from here to there on so many different issues over, you know, since 2019, 2020, I don't feel like it kind of, it kind of completely rings the bell where it's going to put it to rest. Yeah.

It's the tactical answer. I got to survive this interview so the tone of the other interviews is not a pack preying on me. So Hamada, Hamada, say good words. Hamada, I practice this answer. Hamada, a minute has gone by. He'll probably ask a different topic. Now I can stop talking. So it was the survive the interview Teflon answer. But strategically, because she's the one people are still trying to figure out in the race. They know what they think about Trump.

Letting the air out of this thing with the human moment is gold. And I think there's an artful way, especially of her gift for following the talking points. I mean, you couldn't get her off the shtick she did in that answer with the jaws of life device. I mean, she just clings to it no matter what. And again, if she wants to be new politics, try a little new politics. I mean, we were all stunned back in the original McCain campaign in 2008.

because we thought we got Mighty Joe Young here too. We're never going to keep McCain totally on script. So let's bottle what we have. And the first time it was ask any question and

And McCain will answer it. All the regular Pauls were nervous as hell. We thought, well, this could be the world's greatest two-day campaign when he lights the bus on fire and off we go. But instead, we found out the fundamental rule. I learned American politics. There only are 10 questions. And you're going to get them a lot even if you don't try to filter it. And a little authenticity is the best rocket fuel in American politics.

And what's funny is after you do it long enough, even when you have a bad answer, you can recover because you get so many points for being authentic. And the next day you put it back in the bottle. So I think a little of that could help them cinch this race. But I give her a general. She survived the interview on to Stern. And I will say an axis made this point that when she's talking reproductive rights, she's

and things like that, she is more authentic and passionate. She lets her chainmail mask down. And so let's go to Call Heilman Daddy or whatever podcast where she got a question in that zone. And I think she was at her best. I do want to clarify something. In the debate, former President Trump claimed that some states are executing babies after birth.

Can you just clarify that is not happening anywhere in the United States. It is not happening and it's a lie. Just it's a bold faced lie that he is suggesting that can you imagine? Can you imagine he is suggesting that women in their ninth month of pregnancy are electing to have an abortion? Are you kidding? That is that is so outrageously

and it's so insulting to suggest that that would be happening and that women would be doing that. It's not happening anywhere. This guy is full of lies.

There you go. There you go. That's a candidate. So, you know, this week, how do we predict this will end? What will be after Stern, which will be the most interesting, and as you say, Johnny, the trickiest one, but the one with the most power, and then there'll be a few more like the 60 and what we just heard.

Media gushing, she did it. Media grousing, how come she didn't come to our editorial board and address us in French, the language of world diplomacy? Where do you think it'll land? I think it'll be a win for her and people are saying, why didn't she do it a week ago? I think she'll move the ball forward. And she, again, she gets past the, she can at least put, they will now have an answer to the, why is she hiding from the press? And, you know, they'll have an argument about whether these constitute real press or not. Who cares? The reality is she now has something she says she's done.

Okay, gentlemen, we will be back in a minute, but we have to pay a few bills.

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The question that I have, you know, look, the race is super tight. Where are we going to end up? We're going to end up with these polls that are all going to be within the margin of error. But the question here is, if we put aside the question of the debate, like, we don't know what Trump's going to do. We have our instincts, but we're not really sure. And Bender, this is my question.

We've never seen anything like this before if we don't have that debate. Right now, we're exactly a month from Election Day, and there's nothing on the calendar that structures the race. In a normal presidential election, you would still have two presidential debates in the

so that the tent poles would be out there. You'd be like, okay, there's the second debate, and then we got the third debate, and we got this, we got that. Right now, it's like you've got, just thinking about the movie Inception, where they talk about limbo as unstructured dream space. It's like this, we've got unstructured campaign space. A month of just free-form campaigning, it's to me a very weird thing

thing to look forward to a very weird horizon line where there's no fixed point on it and i

this is not a year in which you would expect whatever he's going to do is grind it out for a month and they're just going to go around and do their rallies and try to like get their to turn out their voters what like when you think about how you're going to cover this thing for the next month what do you what do you what are you fixing on here like oh here's a lot we're going to drive towards that peg i don't see it i think the campaigns have the same challenge right now

Yeah, no, I think it's a really good question. I was actually going to ask you guys what I should – for some story ideas. So I guess that's not – I guess that scratched that off my list. Handsome podcasters amaze America with candor and wit would be my hook for the New York Times next week. But go ahead. Yeah, but I kind of circle back to what I was saying before. It just convinces me more and more that this is –

You know, it's it's not like I feel like this is not going to be an election that is decided by, you know, those handful of voters in the middle who are still, quote unquote, still trying to figure, you know, the sort of swing voters who they're trying to like historically, traditionally trying to to persuade up to the last minute. It's going to be the handful of voters on the extremes of each side of the party, like which ones of them actually show up.

And it feels like I mean, Harris is it does seem to be, you know, doing some of the more traditional persuasion

that certainly than Trump is but without one of these kind of major moments it's like you said I mean it's just going to be the rallies it's going to be you know the coverage is going to be around what their message is you know inside under the hood of some of these polls and you know desperately you know sort of dusting off like what kind of last couple enterprise pieces that

I can get done before November 5th. That's kind of scary, though, just, you know, because what that really means, and I think you're right, Mike,

It's going to be all process coverage. Corey Leandowski chains himself to a bus protesting. Let Trump be Trump. New ad uses AI to claim Harris was a communist in college with doctored footage. You know, it'll be all this process crap. No candidate under the hot lights in a moment. That's totally real.

rather than all this artifice stuff that will be created by the campaigns. And that is not a move forward for the process, unless, of course, as we predicted earlier, Trump decides I'm losing this thing, give me the mic, and we have another big debate. Well, Murphy, don't you think that this is – I wrote about this in Puck this week. Don't you think this is kind of a moment that's ripe for October surprise? Oh, totally. Every four years we fixate on the question of there's various – the history of this is rich with things that were –

genuine october surprises that really moved the needle and things that were exogenous events on the foreign you know people are looking or casting their gaze to is there a foreign policy crisis is there a is there a personal revelation they're all the there's a rich history of discussion of what constitutes an october surprise and which ones have mattered which ones haven't and they're not that many that have actually really you know maybe the comey letter is maybe the only one that that where you can really point to it where you can see that it

Right. And the narrative demands it. You know, life imitates art. So the narrative there has to be something. And I worry right now there are some there are some folks sitting in a in a bombed out basement somewhere in Lebanon saying, you know, the American supply, the Israelis, should we make their presidential election about us? Let's blow some buses up in New York and Miami and they could do it tomorrow. And then that, you know, some foreign policy thing like that could happen.

reframe the whole place for the whole debate, the whole race for a week. So yeah, there are loose ends. There's, there's dry kindling here for an October spark. And I think you, you'd probably agree with this, right? Which is that,

I think one of the lessons of American politics of the last of these last three cycles is that Trump is more or less impervious to to big. He's his ceiling. His floor are basically the same thing at this point. Right. I mean, the guy the guy got convicted in a criminal case. We have the first president, ex-president ever to face criminal charges and to be convicted on criminal charges. That happened in the spring.

And then in the summer, he got shot in the ear, right? One thing that should have driven his poll numbers down, one that should have driven his poll numbers up. Those two events both moved his numbers like one point in different directions, right? That guy is like, he is immune to an October surprise, I would say. I can't imagine what would happen.

Well, I would argue with you on one thing. I mean, I think you're totally right, except a big foreign policy thing where he said, well, I'm going to get on the phone and tell that Ayatollah I'm going to hit him between the eyes. And nukes are not out of the question. You know, the big hammer thing in a foreign policy thing, he'd make a lot of noise. She'd be doing thoughtful generals and strategy and folks who went to Harvard. And that's kind of a fair fight. But I

If something big like that happens, I mean, my friend Graham Allison at the Kennedy School runs a scenario for his grad students in governments about a cartel slaughters 26 Americans in Waco. What happens to the presidential race? And so that's the one thing he could grab onto a moment of crazy strength, which actually is the wrong thing to do. But that's another discussion. And that could turn things over. Right.

Right. But I guess what I was trying to say was more that like there's a that Trump's numbers seem like they are. They're not. October surprise doesn't move his numbers very much. Yeah. No, he's the rock. I get it. Yeah. Because she's less formed. You think she's vulnerable. Sure. Or both on the on the upside and the downside. She's got more. There'll be a moment. The lights are on her. What does she say?

And the country doesn't know her as well. So more open minds. Totally agree with that. That was going to be my question for you, Mike. I mean, assuming that in a world where there is no more debates and there is no in the next month, you know, we're past this sort of media blitz from Harris and sort of like now what? I mean, what would you what would your advice be for someone like Harris to to, you know, to like how to finish out?

you know, run through the tape here in the last few weeks. I mean, we kind of know what Trump is going to do. Yeah. Yeah. No, he'll, he'll just sharpen his attacks. It'll get more and more wild and crazy, which, you know, I don't think what I would be, I remember when I was starting out, I had a candidate and we were, you know, congressional race and the opponent was doing like walking with Wilderson or whatever his name was, uh, a lot of door knocks and everything.

And I was like, raise money. We need television. We need paid ads. Raise money. And no, no, I got to go knock on doors. And so we knocked on doors for one day and we filmed it. We put it on television. And for the rest of the campaign, people saying, yeah, he's in my neighborhood knocking on doors. I did two days of door knocking, a whole campaign, and we won. So again, it's the optics of earning it. If she is change, if she is new Ted Lasso politics versus Voldemort, I would close on the sunny side.

but working hard campaign. I would be racing her around a million impromptu. She's everywhere. She's earning it. She's doing the work. She has passion for it. New energy, anti-Biden that way. Zipping and zigging around with a lot, not big gala stuff where Sir Elton John, everybody, but just popping out of buses everywhere.

work in the country, whistle stop to the Midwest. I would just be Action Jackson. Yeah, that's fair. She has the Elton John, Taylor Swift demographics already. I mean, that's where it feels like. It feels like this campaign is sort of stuck between what I thought was a very good point from Heilman earlier of, you know, of her basement strategy. And I know that has bad connotations, but there was a brilliance there.

from Biden and Biden's team in 2020 to not give Trump anything to attack. Right. And he ends up attacking himself. Different terrain, different moments. Totally. She's got to go earn it. And if she's the action kinetic candidate and he's the old crazy guy talking about killer dolphins and everything and murder genes, that wins for him. We see it in the New York Times poll. The other thing quickly, because it's a bugaboo of mine.

I'm worried about Michigan. The local Pauls who are smart there on the Dem side are worried about Michigan. She's got to get into metal bending jobs. Trump is demagoguing the auto stuff to death there. Oh, EVs are going to put everybody out of work. He's got ads. We played it last week.

And they're responding with the typical Democratic neurotic crouch. You know, it's Slotkin running for Senate there who was ahead and now I think could blow the race. She's running a spot. I don't know what an EV is. Yeah. Running backwards. The typical Democrat response when the real response is massive offense. We have 20,000 new jobs on the way to 40,000. It's going to be us or China ruling the future of cars.

Who's side are you on? You know, attack on it. Offense. Trump wants to destroy the American auto industry. I mean, I've done like six statewides in Michigan, you know, three governor races. I've been to this movie and they're letting Trump define this thing. And, you know, tonally, they're wine and cheese dems and they don't get it. And they got to connect with metal benders. That's the one thing Joe Biden knew how to do that she's got to learn to do. And the answer is more often.

And so I'm more worried about Michigan now than I am about Pennsylvania, and I'm still worried about Pennsylvania. Well, the slot can point.

The second point I was making there for a second was that she had been pretty open about concerns about the state and the top of her ticket in that state for several months now. Who's been open? I didn't hear. Slotkin. I mean, there always seems to be, you know, every few weeks there's another sort of thing that leaks out about her, you know, sort of subtly criticizing the, you know, the state.

the campaign in her state or worrying about, uh, with how the top of the ticket is doing in her state. Is there, um,

But do you think there is it just feels like that whole blue wall goes one way or the other. Right. I mean, do you think there's a real possibility? I believe there I totally do. I mean, I call them the pop states because those are where we say pop, not soda. And everywhere from, you know, Omaha, second congressional, all the way across the western and central P.A. And culturally, it's it's a there's a connection there.

And that's the one, the two bells that she hasn't figured out to ring in the Democratic coalition are metal bending jobs and young African-American males. I think she's going to get the young African-American males in the beginning because, look, I get it. She

She's a millionaire from Brentwood, California. You know, she is not, you know, a candidate of the neighborhoods. But she's she I think she's going to land that. But again, it's the kinetic campaign. It's earning it is showing up. It's listening. It's being everywhere. It's 10x the energy of Trump. Well, Trump talks at you. She's out there listening, moving fast. So I think if they can drive those optics forward.

and talk middle-class economics and keep pounding this change thing, which is all over the New York Times poll, and we should talk about it. That's a key, but that's the missing connection for her. And by the way, it'll help her in Georgia, too, help her in North Carolina. We'll be right back with Hacks on Tap.

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H-A-C-K-S. One last time, the number three, D-A-Y blinds.com slash hacks. That's a good place to kind of reframe here, right? We go back to, let's talk about the New York Times poll, but also Mike, to your point about Michigan, which we can spend at least a little more time on.

Last week, we talked about it a little bit prospectively and about the fact that there were concerns about what was happening in Michigan and that there was the Slotkin thing. I think it just become public then, and I'll say to Bender, Alyssa Slotkin also understands about how to keep the donor money coming in in a tight race. And I think some of her complaints about how close Michigan is are designed to make sure that she doesn't suddenly run out of money toward the end of the cycle. And that's not to say it's not close, but just to say,

She's going to be complaining about not getting enough attention all the way up until Election Day. But I do think we did not last week, Mike, because she hadn't been there yet. We had not really kind of – to your point about metal bending. Harris since then made that trip to Flint and gave – and tried to address some of these things. And we should probably come back to that too because she did a pretty good job, I thought, with a more – a sharper –

uh more forceful both positive and negative case when she went to flint i think over the weekend right and did uh yeah she went up and knocked down this fantasy that there's a conspiracy to ban the gasoline-powered car right exactly she said you know she said the things we could come back to talk to that but talk about the new york times poll what you saw there it's the first time you know since she became since harris became the nominee that the times poll which as you pointed out earlier mike is has been giving uh the battleground state polls with siena college have been giving uh

uh, Democrats heart attacks literally every time they come out. And there was a round of those, uh, last week that the conclude the end of the last series of them came out last week and freaked everybody out. But now we have this national poll that has her up three and says, basically she's kind of captured change. Um, uh, again, for once Democrats are not going to be freaking out completely about the New York times. And maybe it'll for at least two seconds, uh,

stop people saying that the New York Times has become a tool of MAGA. But what do you what did you see in that poll, Murphy, that and that that would have beyond the top line that would give you? Well, yeah, because remember, the top line, she's going to win the popular vote. Yeah, the question is the Electoral College. We've had five occasion American history where they're different. And three of the five have been in the last 24 years. So it's a new phenomenon.

So she's 49 over 46. She was tied in the last one. So, you know, pretty good movement. Trump's down a point. She's up a couple, almost a 50 and 49 is the new 50. So that looks really good. But the number that rang my bell and this poll is brand new, by the way, came out of the field on the sixth was the question. And let me call it up in the article here.

She was seen by a wide margin, 61 percent to 29 percent as the change candidate among nonwhite voters, younger voters see her as the change candidate by 58 to 34 percent.

So, you know, she's starting to really get that that grip. She's also seen as more honest and trustworthy. So in the internals there, what she wants, which is new kind of politics moving forward, she's changed. She's more of everything you hate is all going her way. Yeah, I think. Can we just like pause on that one for just to ruminate on that for a minute? Because, I mean, I just find that.

remarkable for two reasons. One is that a sitting vice president is now seen as the change candidate, A,

And, you know, and B, this was like I mean, as much as like as a Trump rally has a unifying message, I guess we could we could certainly say that Trump Vance ticket their sort of top priority these last couple of months has been to portray Harris as the incumbent to saddle her with everything people don't like.

About Obama or sorry, everything people don't like about Biden or or or the current state of the country and and this poll would suggest pretty strongly that that has been a pretty big failure so far.

Yeah, no, no. I think they – to be, as you say, you know, we used to joke when we were working for Terry Branstad, the multi-term governor of Iowa, and we were doing the fourth term, re-elect change. And that's a tricky one to pull off, and they're really starting to do it, I think. So it's –

I don't know. This poll is a good sign, but again, back to the states. Yeah. You know, that's what's going to decide it. And Michigan and Pennsylvania are still way in the danger zone. She's behind in Georgia. I just saw a private poll that troubled me that showed her slightly behind some tracking in Nevada.

And that's the state where she was most of the polling showing a lead. So it's one poll out of a forest. But that that caught my eye. So I'm sitting here just looking at that. I'm looking at the gender numbers in here, which I think are still really fascinating. She's got this poll has her. I mean, her her lead with women is still is still.

really pretty stunning. They have her at 53-38 over Trump with women. But the 11-point gap with men, where Trump is up 51-40 with men, and then he won men by two points in 2020, I believe. And the reason this race is close is her dominance with women is not surprising. Democrats have been dominating with female voters for a long time, and in the wake of Dobbs'

It's even more, it's grown, only grown, but man, Trump is, you know, and that's a lot of that's some of that's nonwhite men. And obviously with a lot of working class white men, but it's fueled this massive lead with men. You wonder, this is part of why she's on Howard Stern today.

That's another reason why that strategy makes so much sense because it's like, you know, that is, you want to try to get, she did all the smoke the other day with Matt Barnes and Steven Jackson. Another podcast that has almost exclusively male audience, a bunch of

weed-smoking NBA fans, trying to get at, if she could just chip away a couple of points with men from Trump, she'd be at a great place. We always talk about the gender gap with women, and Republicans used to joke in campaigns, you know, there's also a wimp gap with men.

Dems can't get any male votes. If she chips away at that, a couple of points, man, all for her. Now, we should quote the overall change number because the groups I quoted were more in her category. She's up 46 to 44, so she's not running away with it. But this is the first

New York Times poll that has shown her leading on the change dynamic, which in an election where a lot of the power is fire the incumbent, which was really what was killing Biden on the economy. It was people were unhappy with the economy, fire him, and he's told to fix it.

If she can build that a couple more points, it really, really could be the secret weapon along with middle class economics. So anyway, this is a I'd be fascinated a week from now where where the media blitz gets her. And one last thing on that. Right. The Times poll has Trump still leading her on on the economy. But the margin now is down to just two points. Yeah, which is which is.

It used to be minus 15 with Biden. Then it was minus nine with her. Now, again, poll to poll, it jumps. But this is big progress. 48 to 46 on the economy, which has always been a traditional Trump of strength. I will never understand why exactly, but given Trump's history as a businessman and, man, his –

It's inflation. They just remember stuff costing less. Totally. No, no, I understand that. It's always just funny to me that it was true in 16 and in 20 and in 24. Right, no, he's a train wreck. It's the businessman thing has just stuck. Trump has dined out on being sensibly a great businessman for a long time. Somehow firing Gary Busey for not selling enough snow cones on TV has convinced people he's the maniac of business. When in real life, if he'd taken his inheritance and put it into index funds, he'd be richer.

You know, he's actually had negative returns. Well, which may only makes like slightly less sense than like giving a president full credit for whether the economy is going well or going bad. I mean, I do think that 2% gap is trouble, big trouble for Trump. And we'll see if it's a, if it holds up or if it's an outlier, but you know, if he doesn't have that, he doesn't. I mean, well, like the, the, the economy numbers over the last, you know,

I mean there's two hundred fifty thousand new jobs right there that was this week.

They've cut the insurance rate for the first time. You know, the Commerce Department... Interest rates. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, the... No, no, I wasn't correcting. I was just chiming in to say interest rates going down are good for... Yeah, exactly. I mean, wages are growing, whether they're fast enough. So you wonder if, like, people are actually starting to feel this. Coming around to reality, yeah. We will be right back. Now, let's hear from our sponsor. Okay, Tom.

Time to talk about the harsh reality of being someone who enjoys the occasional cocktail. At my age, Murphy, at your age, you know. The occasional cocktail. I thought we had a truth in advertising thing here. Okay. After our nightly visitation to the liquor cabinet, given...

our age and advanced atrophied bodies. I, and probably you don't bounce back in the next day, like you used to when we were a little younger. So I feel like I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or I can have a great day the next day. And that is a tough binary. That was how I thought about it until I found this.

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for instance, and be relatively coherent. I can go out and ride my bike. I can go out and, you know, do some, go like Mike likes to do in Chicago and stuff some ballot boxes, all the stuff that you want to do when you're trying to live an active life here in the homestretch for presidential campaign. You can do it all. I kept hearing about pre-alcohol from Z-biotics and I wondered what it was actually like. So we got scientist Axelrod and we did a little experiment on Rush Street and

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One last thing, because we got the mailbag screaming here that it's been neglected. So we got some questions.

Mike, you've been out on the road covering the vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance. What's life like on the Vance trail these days post the rather polished debate performance, which I think has made Trump hate him more? But what's Vance world like? And Mike, how did – and Bender, how was – what was the aftermath of that debate like for J.D. Vance? Did they come out of that debate thinking like, man, we –

Do they feel like they won that debate? Rockstar. He's on his way, if not to becoming vice president of the United States, to being the leading candidate for president in 2028. I understand they have four new food testers just because Trump's rumored to be unhappy. Well, I heard you guys talk about that, and it's the right instinct. I don't know what is going on, guys. Trump...

Trump loved the debate. I mean, you know, he's he's he's prone to changing his mind and, you know, all of that. And, you know, Trump is sort of in love with you until he's until he's not. And I understand all that. But like, it's just sort of the latest thing of like something Vance has done over the last couple of months that would have gotten people in in, you know, in hot water. Right. Like, I mean, J.D. Vance has driven people.

some of the most you know attention grabbing storylines of of the of the election so far certainly on the republican side which is like trump's spot you know you don't take trump's spotlight right but like trump is encouraging him not and not admonishing him over there i mean trump yes trump called him out on the debate stage for getting the detail wrong about uh

They didn't actually discuss whether Trump would veto an abortion ban, which is awkward and weird. And why you would say that in front of a national audience about your running mate, I don't know. But Trump kind of said it, sort of corrected the record and moved on. I mean, if Trump was upset, he would have lingered on it and laid into Vance. I mean, even the idea of another debate, Vance is out there saying he would love to do another debate. At the same time,

You know, a rally is going on at a different state with Trump saying, like, it's too late. It's not going to make a difference, right? Like, I'm upset about the time, the place, the location, all my other grievances about the debate process.

And and J.D. gets a pass. And then again, on the debate night, Trump was on the phone telling people, I mean, Trump liked that debate so much that he was he was praising Don Jr. OK, I mean, he was telling people that

Don Jr. picked, you know, it was Don Jr.'s pick. Now, I made the decision. It was up to me, you know, to be clear. Of course. But Don Jr. was right to push him. I mean, that's how excited... If you're looking for...

If you're looking for a final, decisive piece of evidence that Trump's dementia has fully seized his brain, that his mental acuity has dropped to zero, this is the final piece of evidence. There's a lot of evidence out there, but that is not like, okay, cash it out. That man is cooked. Yeah, bank it. I do wonder on day three, after all the media gushing where he was, but that is a work in progress. All right, well, let's hit the orchestra.

All right. If you have a question for the Hacks, you can email it to us at hacksontap at gmail.com. Hacksontap at gmail.com. You can also record a question and send it to us with your voicemail or whatever audio app. Yeah, we love your voices. This is radio now on YouTube.

So just record it. But here's the deal. We're the Bloviators. So keep it to 30 seconds and use your name. Or you can call our off-track betting parlor slash Chicago Multiple Voter Registration Center at Axelrod Strategies and leave your name and a question on the voicemail.

773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. All right, our first question goes for John Heilman. Hi, Hacks. This is Andy Gus from Salt Lake City. My question is this. If

If Trump decided he did not want to accept the results of this election in the case that he loses after the initial vote count, will the fact that he's no longer in the White House have any effect on what he is able to do in terms of challenging the vote or getting close to overturning the vote? In other words, would Biden be able to make sure the election results stand? Thank you so much. Be well. Bye.

I mean, it's a good question because I think more than ever, Andy, the likelihood that Donald Trump is going to accept a result that does not favor him is de minimis, right? So we are looking at this. And if you think about the way this event he did in Butler over the weekend and Murphy and Bender, I know you guys will both agree.

Watch that. That was an ominous event. I don't mean to wander here on this question, but Trump now basically saying Democrats and the left are responsible for the assassination attempt on him. J.D. Band's coming out and saying that directly. They're still getting ready for

I don't want to say that they want to go quite as far as to say they're getting ready to mount civil war to try to get a civil war going if he loses this election. But it feels like they are getting ready for that. I'm getting more nervous about the post-election period than I have been before. And I am not a generally fearful person or a catastrophizer. So the question with Andy is, yeah, does it help that Joe Biden's in the White House and Donald Trump's not? It helps. But a Republican House...

And the kind of activation that these guys are seeking in terms of what were the real we didn't have in 2020 was disruption of on the ground of the attempt to polling places. Nor did we actually have until January 6th any sign of any kind of violent activity.

uh, protest, uh, around the country. I think, you know, the worry now is that if, if Harris wins, uh, in the three or four days after election day is that Trump being out of office in some ways can provoke more, uh, conflict than when he was in office as president, you know, it was a lot harder for Trump to actually stir up, uh,

I think it was harder for him to actually stir up boots on the ground kind of political violence in battleground states at polling places. He kind of was like kind of in some ways compelled to go through the courts where he then lost everything. In this case, I think he's more dangerous in some ways in terms of trying to create genuine kind of conflict on the streets.

at state capitals, uh, than, than he was in fact, four years ago. And that's where I think, you know, you're going to have a very, very fraught period, uh, that might not be, uh, fought out in, as I say, in the kind of in the, in the courtroom, but in fact on, uh, you know, on the streets, uh, in that period from election day to, uh,

to Christmas, man, that's going to be an edgy time in America. I think if Trump loses on election day, maybe you guys are more sanguine than I am, but I'm getting more. I'm a little less worried, but the old radio free GOP bunker is still stocked and ready. You've got, you've got ammo. You've got cans of, uh, uh, pickles and tomato sauce. You're all set out there at the radio. It would take a Marine division to get me out of here.

I mean, Biden is Biden voiced this, you know, as much as you know of what you were saying, John, within the last few days saying he wasn't sure. He was unwilling to guarantee a peaceful transfer here. Yeah. And I will say I do think Trump is a little less potent out of office that he is that he is in office. You know, I'm not I'm not trying to say that this is a zero risk here. Far from it.

uh... but but but he doesn't have the bully pulpit like he did in the white house a and be like that that really he had he walked out of the white house great at net you've got a car drove two blocks to the rally

In a similar situation, he would have to get out of his, you know, his Mar-a-Lago estate, fly to Washington, hold the rat like that's a little and that's a little bit more trouble for him, too. So I think it's a little bit less, but, you know, still, you guys feel better. Perhaps let's let's pray not. And I don't want to sound like Talleyrand here, but the organs of the state have formidable tools against the rabble if it comes to it.

And I say give no quarter. All right. This is from John for Mike Bender. Hacks. This is John Selvin in Austin. I'm just dying to know why politicians don't go to the sites of these national disasters. We've got another hurricane coming into Florida. Why doesn't Kamala Harris put on some boots and go down and muck out houses or feed

Feed people or whatever. I know she's doing that the other day, but it just doesn't happen enough. Trump would never do it. It's a no brainer. Let me know. Thanks. Bye. I think John's right that this sort of thing is a no brainer. And, you know, these politicians sort of.

do these kind of events. I feel bad for John. I feel like he's eight years too late for the Jeb Bush campaign. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who really perfected this role

uh... in florida as governor uh... you know putting part of the it's it's a it's an opportunity not just get people what they need to uh... to address issues to also appear above the fray and and and and you know or that earned goodwill as as a governor as a leader for all people not just your party uh... obviously there was the there was the it was the very

iconic moment in 2012 when when president obama was running for re-election went to new jersey after a big storm up there uh chris christie was so was so gracious to see him there that he gave him a big hug right and and christie was uh uh scorned for that inside his party amazing that obama even survived that but uh you know harris has been to georgia uh to survey damage from the from helene she

She's been to North Carolina recently to survey damage there. I don't know that she's going back ahead of the next storm coming to Florida, but I would caution that politicians should probably evacuate with everyone else and then show up afterward to figure out what needs to be done instead of getting caught down there in a Hurricane 3 or 4.

three or four category hurricane. So Murphy, I noticed that a bender, there's basically a three year bouquet. Basically that was his way of seeing that Jeb Bush comment. There was basically, you know, under the tutelage of Mike Murphy, Jeb Bush understood how to be a man of the people. Conservative who cares about people. I can only say by comparison, there was, I got a funny story from a DeSantis staffer during the pre-presidential DeSantis boom and

that DeSantis went down to inspect some storm damage where a guy had lost his house and everything. And the staffer was ecstatic. Well, it took some prep, but he actually asked the guy how his family was doing. They thought like, you know, they'd achieved a moon launch by getting DeSantis to ask somebody about jug. Jeb would have, would have hugged them and,

gone and read to the kids because that's why Jeb Bush should have been president. They had to do four days of prep to get DeSantis to do that. A full-on debate prep. They built an alternative. They built a fake disaster zone. No, no, no. You

don't push the kid away. You hug the kid. I don't know. I don't know. He's got peanut butter on his fingers. This is a new suit. Governor. All right. All right. Enough beating on DeSantis. Let's let's do the last question. All right. We got a question here for Mike Murphy. This is the one that Piesta resistance because Mike loves the mailbag. Murphy loves the mailbag like no one else. Bender. And he always like nails it. So here we got Bill. Yeah, these are good questions.

Bill, who wrote this in, he wanted Mike Murphy specifically to answer because of Mike's rather checkered history in the realm of super PACs. Bill says, we know that super PACs are not supposed to coordinate with the campaigns.

Does that happen in reality? Or would we be, quote, shocked, shocked to learn that coordination does in fact happen? Who enforces those rules? The FEC seems to be feckless. Are they in a position to perform any real oversight? And the last answer to that is not really, which is part of why Mike Murphy has so many cans of tomato sauce in the radio-free GOP bunker. Mike? So, Bill, the answer is the law is—

Pretty, pretty exactly. Talk to. No, I they've never touched me. I have been held in front of a grand jury as a witness on the old Christie Whitman, Ed Rollins thing. But nobody's ever nobody's ever made a case on this. So here's the deal. Most campaign stuff is the FEC. They're split.

on a partisan basis, so they can't even get a vote to order lunch. Worst thing that the FEC can do is fine you. But if you coordinate with a super PAC, it's different law. You're dealing with the feds. People have gone to jail for this. So believe it or not, there is a pretty aggressive culture of not fooling around with this highly dangerous third rail. But if you're bored and you want to do a little investigation there,

Start looking at big campaign Senate races, big House races. Look at their website. And if you go down, you will find a couple of clicks down deep in the site. There will be a page with links to download a lot of pictures, a lot of raw video of the candidate. Those are designed for super PACs to pick up that material and use it in ads. And by the very material they post, it's a hint because you're allowed to publicly say

say things that then the super PAC can watch. So let's say you're doing, we're doing a Heilman for Senate here. Naturally we're 10 points behind. It's looking grim, but the super PAC has $4 million. We want to run an ad. Heilman puts out a press release with the campaign manager saying, you know, one thing that's really working is when people learn about his record on the metric system, people know that John Heilman will make a great center, particularly as historic vote on October 4th, 2011.

The Super PACs can take a hint from that, even though the press never prints the story. They can go to the website and download the video. So there is an incredibly complicated kabuki theater of hints. And sometimes they buy one radio ad for one day and hope the Super PACs

hears it and copies it and runs a thousand of those radio ads. So there's kind of an art to complying with the murky law about this. But what doesn't happen, at least in grown-up politics of real money, is somebody whispering to somebody. Now, it has been done that somebody tells somebody it tells somebody, and it winds around the super PAC really wants a dancing peanut ad. But like a game of telephone, it's

You know, one, that's borderline. You shouldn't do it. And two, by the end of it, God knows what comes back. Another problem, and this was an urgent and disanesthing, is sometimes the Super PAC does whatever the hell it wants. In that campaign, the actual campaign of Super PAC were at war doing different stuff. So the whole issue of Super PAC control is much less than you'd suspect.

with secret handshakes and all that, though there's a lot of this kind of phony public communication designed to do it. And quickly, I want to answer Liz in 30 seconds because she wanted to know, like millions of Americans... Just one second, Murphy. I just want to say, just for the record, given when the book is written, the story of how the Heilman for Senate campaign...

Despite the fact that the candidate was both in jail and in rehab during most of the campaign. The fact that it was only a 10-point loss credited to Mike Murphy's brilliant dancing peanut ad. When he pulled out the – I didn't even understand the logic of it. I was like, a dancing peanut ad? How's that going to help me? Turned out, boosted my numbers across the board, and I was able to finish at a respectable 9-point deficit. Not so bad. It was –

The peanut doing the Charleston explaining that Heilman's crazy, but he's not nuts. You know, what's so viral? We frankly, if we'd had another two weeks, I think we would have won the damn thing. Sorry, Mike, you wanted to take it. Mike wanted to get another one from the mailbag because he's like he's a mailbag addict. Murphy's like, let's get a mailbag addict. But also, I feel for Liz, who speaks for the nation here. And Liz wants to know and all you guys chip in and we're in with this. Like.

Like millions of Americans who have donated to candidates, we are being deluged hourly with requests for money. Some are desperate sounding, some are aggressive and mildly intimidating. What is the strategy behind the frequency and is it effective? It's effective because once you give them money, they know they're much more likely to get you to give them again a repeat donor than to recruit somebody out of the phone book to be a first-time donor. And they know the more they pound on you, even if only 3% answer, the

the more money they're going to get. And all that stuff about desperate or clever or we really want your opinion on this poll is what in the direct response business is called technique. Yes. It's tricks that they know and they track all this stuff. So the best answer is stop because that'll kill the techs off. I do it all the time because I get all these Trump fund or talk about a wasted effort, Trump fundraising efforts.

But it's technique and it works. It's all about brute force. You know, you have people ask me all the time. It's like you get these emails. One, it's like, John, do you realize we're losing in Michigan? And the next one, there's ones that try to guilt you. There's ones that try to make you fearful. There's ones that try to beg.

And the reality is it's a brute force thing because what it makes, what drives open rates on email is, is variegated across different kinds of potential donors. Because you're working on two or 3% response rate. So you mail a million, irritate a million people, but you raise money, right? You just pound it. You pound it. People go, God, I get so many of them, but they're like, we just, they know there's some formulation that might get you to open that, that, that email. My favorite new technique that I see a lot now as well is,

I never thought this day would come, but I'm here writing my concession speech. It looks so grim out there. Pendergast is now running four ads for every one I have. A volunteer was crying today, and I just put my arm around her shoulder and said, it's going to be okay.

So you're our last hope, Bob in Kansas. Please send HPC, which is direct mail code for highest previous contribution, which the computer types in so we can save this thing. I'm still trying to figure out how to get get off some of these lists. I mean, I still get regular emails from Mike Pompeo raising money. I don't know. So but I know we're at it. Maybe I'll just send that in for the next reader. So here's the old trend here.

Two quick things, and we got to get out of this. We're going late. One is in the old days of direct mail, when this stuff was all, you know, send the check back, the hardest job was to do what was called the white mail, which was when you open the business reply envelope pre-internet and you shake out the check for $19.95 from the nice little old lady in Euphoria, Kansas.

something else would fall out in the caging center and there'd be a handwritten note. I don't have much money to give the president to keep the communist out of Texas, but this is my husband's wedding ring. I don't think I need it anymore. It will break your damn heart, the human end of this thing. So the way to get rid of it in the old days was go get a cement cinder block and duct tape the business reply envelope to it with the permit.

And then the people at the other end who sent you the solicitation get the $47 bill on their BRE permit when the center block at Reiser's headquarters. That used to be the fail-safe way. And I don't condone this kind of behavior, but I know back in the old days when we'd have a little fun with this and we weren't trying to steal democracy.

Certain congressional candidates would find 30 or 40 cinder blocks showing up for $500 worth of mail cost from mischievous opponents. So that's the way we used to work with the Internet. Now, a lot of that cost is gone. So it's very cheap to do the brute force that Johnny's talking about.

Anyway, I think we've had enough brute force on the listeners' poor suffering ears. Mike Bender, thank you for being a hack on Tapper with us today. You were great. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I got my gift bag here. It's a couple of coupons for free penny stock trades and a couple...

whoopee cushions and pinwheel hats so i i do appreciate we're gonna send you one of our beer mugs that's the that's the the friend of the show gift and we should tell our audio listeners he has been wearing for most of the podcast a cleveland hat super fan yeah there's plenty of room on the bandwagon mike um when we uh when the guardians dispatch with your tigers here this week

No hard feelings. Tells you everything you need to know. Tells you everything you need to know about a year when we've got Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, these exciting teams that normal baseball fans care about. All I'll say is Tigers eat Indians. That's all. I'll leave with that. Yeah, exactly. Three central teams. Delicious. Send more.

And we should mention before we go, because we like to plug great books here about politics. Mike is the author of the fantastic political book, A Must Read. Frankly, we did win this election. The inside story, and it is an inside story of how Trump lost by Mike Bender. Check it out. It is a must read for political junkies. I got to tell you that, you know, there were a lot of books written about the aftermath of the 2020 election, and some of them were better than others. And Mike's was right at the top of the

Right at the top of that quote that I love a long book title too, because it's not the fashion in the business. And frankly, we did them with this election as a great book title. And man, when I read this thing, it was, there was a lot of, I thought I do a lot about that period. Mike broke a lot of news and it had a lot of stuff in it that I'd never seen before. So it's fantastic.

And don't forget to check out the Directly Current podcast where David Axelrod will be assisted by Max Patton on trying to figure out the right EV for him. I had no idea he was a drag racer. Check that out. It's on Apple and all the podcast platforms. Directly Current. And stay tuned for the magic guest appearance of John Heilman talking EVs with Max Patton.

Man, I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking for them. This is going to be the highlight of my election year. Thank you, Hackerooz. We'll be back next week as we cover the wild race. Johnny, great job. Stay out of trouble. Try to stay out of trouble between now and next week, okay? I'll try, sir. I'll try. All right. Thanks, everybody.