Ope There It Is (with John Anzalone)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Vice President Harris has made a decision with four people close to the process saying Tim Walz of Minnesota is her choice. So...

There you have it, Mike Murphy. You know, people don't recognize how awesome this powerful machine we've built is because our producer, Hannah McDonald, arranged with the Harris campaign to actually allow the story of who she picked for VP to leak minutes before we recorded.

So we would have it for our use, which is fantastic. We control the world. I wish people would understand that. You know, we send a little signal. OK, tell the country we're ready to record. Exactly. And now we know that it's Governor Tim Walz. Right. The Minnesota, the weird choice. The anti-weird choice. He is the inventor of weird.

He made my life easier today because my wife is from Minnesota. So we've got the rouser playing and she's bouncing on the walls and everything. And decidedly un-weird other than that she married you. Yeah, very weird. Very weird. Yeah, but we have with us a guy too. Who did we get? We didn't get a weirdo. We got the most normal guy on the planet. That is true. John Anzalone, pollster and strategist par excellence, a journalist.

Well, pollster for the 2020 Biden campaign and a guy who understands this, this crap at a very high level.

Uh, and so, uh, welcome. First of all, good to see you. Yeah. Brother Axe, brother Murph. Good to see you. We're three guys, you know, in our sixties who all have nicknames. I always worry about that, but it's all good. Yes. It's very weird. It's weird. It's totally weird. It's really weird. Yeah. But what do you make of it? Uh,

of the choice. Yeah. You know, I got, I gotta tell you, I love it. Um, I think America is like in desperate need of relatability. Right. And this guy, that's why we do so well here. Yeah, exactly. And I, you know, I mean, if you look at the trajectory of the last two weeks of, of Tim waltz, it's pretty spectacular, right. Within at least the democratic community and social media, et cetera. I mean, we've learned a lot about them and,

And you just get this sense that he is a very real guy, whether he's riding the slingshot at the Minnesota State Fair or he's literally fixing his car going to AutoZone. But his story is great, right? I mean, his story is actually great.

Also, what I think we need, America, I'm sorry, Democrats have had real problems in rural America and small town America. And this guy has that story. He lived it. And, you know, I don't know if you remember, Axe, in 2012,

You sent me on a research project with Tom Vilsack and the Obama reelected rural America. It was really the last time I think Democrats have taken a real serious look at this. I mean, Jeff Link does a lot of work with David Binder in our party. And so I just think it's really important when we were doing Roy Cooper's.

Governor's campaigns, we always had a rural strategy. And I think that Tim Walz helps us have a rural strategy so we're not losing 75-25. You know, even if we're just losing, you know, 70-30, it's a big deal. But I think he's just a relatable guy who America is going to take to.

I think the word avuncular comes to mind. Oh, $20. We don't use that in Taito, brother. But Tim Waltz would never use avuncular. He's regular folk. Yeah.

We can borrow a trailer hitch from him. But he sort of dropped out of a Norman Rockwell painting, right? I mean, the small-town guy, social studies teacher, geography teacher. National Guard. I mean, let's not forget that. Master Sergeant. And I'm pitching his nickname after a week on the trail. Ought to be Sarge. Yeah. Enlisted when he was 17 years old. Came from a military family. Served 24 years. Chairman of the House Veterans Committee, by the way, when he got...

to Congress coached the high school football team, took a losing team and made them state champions. I mean, where's Gene Hackman? Yes. You, you kind of this, it's, it is all kind of central casting stuff. Okay. Okay. Now let me rain on the parade. No, no, I was setting you up for that. I think it's a solid choice. I, my spider sense was, it wasn't going to be Shapiro for a variety of reasons. Um,

So I thought he was the most likely governor of Pennsylvania. There's a lot of like, oh, we win Pennsylvania no matter what. You know, I don't think the vice presidential thing matters a lot for win a state, but it does send a big message about you. And I think Walsh is a perfectly solid choice, extraordinary moment of communicating ability, which is worth a lot. And I agree with everything Johnny said about

um rural america and trying to push the march i remember i was uh i got a call during the hillary convention from a gold michigan democratic salt and said god i'm watching this convention and nobody giving a speech i don't think anyone can change the tire on an f-150 well waltz clearly can so i think he sends all those tone messages just right but the interesting thing

is this thing might wind up being an assist to the Trump campaign, which has been stumbling around like a drunk sailor AWOL.

In that now it's they're going to go with ideology because Waltz also has a classically liberal record. He has a very moderate, super authentic tone. That is a great weapon in politics. That is a help to the ticket. But he's also, you know, we're now between her original campaign and she is undefined. So she has room to maneuver. And his record, we're in more liberal world. So I think the Trump guys will stumble into that. They already kind of have.

And that is not a bad path for them. So that puts the ball in her court to send the right dog whistles to preempt that. Because an ideological campaign is a better campaign than he's had yesterday. Now, whether or not he'll do that, whether or not they open the door to it, we got to see. Yeah, I just say if you take a look at the commercials now that the Republicans are running or the Trump campaigns or the independent expenditures, they're

you know, you know, they're running that on Kamala Harris. And I don't think that they're going to Trump that with a Tim Waltz, right? I don't think that there's going to be anything extraordinary about Tim Waltz in his record that they would use that instead of,

Right.

Right. He's not naturally a cool dad, but they see that he's real and as important. I'm thinking about the second look after the convention. Here's the Trump war room tweet to Murphy's point. Tim Walz allowed rioters and arsonists and looters to rampage through Minneapolis. Kamala Harris then turned around and encouraged contributions to bail to a bail fund for the few that were actually arrested. Kamala Harris is a San Francisco liberal and Tim Walz is a self-proclaimed

is a self-professed socialist. They had a tweet prepared for Josh Shapiro. They had a tweet prepared for everyone that was going to find it. And so, yeah, right. But they've got sheet music there. He was for driver's license for undocumented, as you guys would say, immigrants. There's some stuff because he had a rubber stamp legislature and it's a progressive state.

So they just they have some ammo. And I'm curious to see how the campaign handles that. You know, he he for a bunch of years, I forget how many terms from 2006 through.

whenever he ran for governor, he was, which was 2018, I guess, he was a pretty moderate member of the House because he was running from a swing district in Minnesota and actually took out a Republican from that seat. So, you know, they'll be pointing to some of that. Yeah, there's some targets in that. I went through that record. This is, you know, he's sort of a cultural signal

as much as anything. Yeah. Well, that's the key is it is tone. That'll define them. The Sarge, the regular guy, the moderate Minnesotan football coach, or will it be a member? Cause she has a record too. She was to the left of Biden. Now she gets to define who she is. That's the point I'm trying to make. It's now on her. When we get past the free ride she's having now, and she's handling that beautifully. And,

Maybe it's not a free ride. I mean, like, you know, I mean, maybe it's well earned and she's meeting the moment and, you know, she'll have another two good weeks, which will make a month. But to get back to Waltz is that

We've all been in a lot of campaigns. Where the attacks on being liberal or whatever is troublesome is that if you don't have good pushbacks. And this guy is still the man from Mankato, right? With an amazing story. No, he's fast on his feet. I agree with that.

Not even just fast on his feet. I think the proof points of him, again, being a National Guard, being in the military, being in the veteran affairs, you know, being, you know, a guy who can, you know, clean a carburetor. Right. I mean, like he in rural America, small, like when you graduate from a class of 25 people in rural Nebraska, you know, no one's going to it's going to be a little tougher to.

Tag you as a liberal. There's another dynamic here, and we don't know how all this is going to play out. But the run up to this was progressives basically rebelling against the idea of Josh Shapiro as vice president. Yeah. And they and they they were for him. They gravitated to Waltz.

as their choice. And I mean, I've gotten, you know, pinged by a million people saying, well, I guess the progressives won out on this. And that's going to be part of the storyline. Well, yeah, that's his narrative. Whether that's an enduring storyline is another question. But that is definitely going to be one of the early storylines coming out of this appointment that basically she took the path of least resistance

did not want to take on the left in the party. That's what's going to be worked. No, and that's my point. It's going to ideology now, and now it's going to be on her to handle it. But I want to get back to when I talked about her free right, because I want to be very clear about that.

She's earned a lot. I don't mean that kind of free ride. I meant the party was in incredible despair over Joe Biden because they thought he was definitely going to lose to the hated Donald Trump. So then Joe does the heroic thing and gets out.

Now there's a 500-foot hurricane of joy, and that kind of picked her up and propelled her right forward. She hasn't had to do a lot of political work because that moment has been so powerful. It's like Twister 3 picked her up, and she's flying at 400 miles an hour, and she's handling it really well. I give her better than I thought she would.

But eventually the twister is going to go away and then it'll be her engine moving her forward, which I think is the great opportunity. And that's what I mean by unearned. She kind of won that prize from Biden. Now it'll all be her and we'll see what she can do. So it was interesting. Again, listen, we've all been in this a long time. I just needed to go see this. Like, you know, I flew to Atlanta and I went to the Atlanta airport.

event where there was 10 or 12,000 people in this arena at Georgia State University. And I've been to a lot of events in 40 years of politics, and I'm not sure I've ever been in something that was so electric. And this wasn't, you know, I mean, this was incredibly, I was sitting with the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, Stephen Reed, super, super impressive guy. And one of the things he said to me was he was surprised how diverse the crowd was.

How many kind of middle-aged white women, for example, there were, et cetera. And again,

The the the environment was electric, but Kamala Harris looked like a Democratic nominee for president. I state she looked I mean, she her it wasn't just, you know, momentum carrying her. She was on message. Her economic message was really, really strong. You know, her message overall in terms of the contrast with Trump was really good. She felt very, I think, comfortable in her own skin in this position.

And she's continued that, quite frankly. And I think that the waltz nomination, we can, you know, I think that, oh, it's the progressives ones, this, that. I think that that's a very opinion elite thing, which I know we are all part of. I think I think the the, you know, the run of the mill Democrat is going to be really excited about this because he's good at.

At the message, he's good at the theory of the case and taking down and Trump advance in a very kind of matter of fact way that doesn't seem political, doesn't seem harsh or vitriolic, which is really helpful.

Yeah, no, I think she's going to be president by Labor Day. My head's now on to the second look. Of 2024. Yes. And, you know, they're going to be able to say, and who knows, Trump may just go racist thug the whole time and blow himself up and, you know, have a defeat that he richly deserves. But if they get a little control of the rudder again, and the after Labor Day look, when she'll be the frontrunner by then,

Will, you can argue this is the most progressive ticket since Dukakis and Benson. And how do they handle that? Do they use tone and regular, you know, Home Depot dad waltz, and she sends a few signals that she has evolved from 2019, or do they go re-litigate that? I think that's an open question and strategically really important. Yeah, listen, man, I think they go...

hard on sort of kitchen table economics. Right. And, you know, I think what John was referring to in her speeches is some recognition of that's the case. Now, look, you look at their website or her her her X feed or whatever it's called. She you know, the theme is still more conservative.

It's very tilted toward freedom and less on the economic stuff.

But her ads have been, you know, by and large on economic stuff. The ad they've been, the future forward Super PAC has been running in, you know, that ran in the Super Bowl. And so it was her talking very much about the middle class and middle class economics. So, but John, let me ask you this question. She has been on a roll. I've been in the Olympic mode here. So like, and I've said that she, it felt like she got a tremendous dive out of the blocks.

and a big thrust. And she, you know, she moved right. She was moving forward at a rapid clip. And now the swimming part comes. But tell me where you think, I mean, where do you think the race is? Yeah, listen, I think that, you know, we've kind of all had whiplash, right? The last month, really the last several months. And I think that

We're probably... You know, if you're in politics, you've been surprised at how quickly the public polls have moved. I mean, this race is actually...

a coin toss today. It's a toss-up. And I think that the conventional wisdom was going to be, oh yeah, the polls are going to nationally close a couple points. But when we get these state-by-state battleground polls, they're going to still show a pretty big deficit. And the reality is that it's a dead-even race or a little advantage nationally for Harris to

But we're seeing all of these state polls, including a Fabrizio poll, who we all respect, who does Trump's polling. And I do AARP and Wall Street Journal with Tony Fabrizio. Came out with a poll in Pennsylvania that either showed a dead even or her ahead. There was another Republican poll showing Georgia winning.

within the margin of error. Neil Newhouse with POS, a real respected Republican pollster, showed all the battleground states literally tighter within the margin of error. And so,

You know, I think step one happened quicker than anyone would think, which is the consolidation for Democrats. Right, right. Yeah, it was a 72-hour Democratic primary. But the Democrats had three problems with the base. We had, one, there was going to be a universe of people who were going to sit on the couch and not come out. And so literally the election universe, how it looked, was going to be different and more Republican and more old and more white.

And then we had a universe of, of Democrats who were voting third party. Right. And then we had some bleed and Kamala Harris, when she became basically the nominee or the, the, the candidate consolidated, um,

the Democratic base with young people, African-Americans, Latinos, who her numbers have always been better with than even the president, and then AAPI, who had dropped off quite a bit for the president, and women. And so that step one came really quickly.

It's always step two, which you know is the most difficult, which is independent swing voters, persuasion voters. But that's always been a post-convention, post-Labor Day kind of adventure for Democrats and Republicans. And I think that, you know, our old friend who taught me well, Joel Bennett, said, what did he always say about democracy?

presidential campaigns. They're about the future. And she's talking about the future way more than Trump will ever be able to do. And so I think that, I think that that is where we get into the step two, where we're going to have advantage talking about who she's going to fight for and talk about the future. And,

And I don't know who, you know, talked about the Kamala curious. I think that that is a great term. And I think that she has a bigger universe of Kamala curious who are looking at her right now than Trump ever will. There's no doubt about it. Listen, the thing about this is that, um,

And anybody who's been involved in presidential politics understands this. Every time the bar gets raised, every time the bar gets cleared, the bar gets raised. There are two tests coming up that maybe, maybe two tests. One of them has to do with the convention and elections.

Let's talk a little bit about what we think the convention will bring. Let me say parenthetically relative to what Anzo just said that one of the, and we'll talk a little bit about this later with the, when we talk about Bobby Kennedy and the bear convention,

which is like, it sounds like a series, but Bobby, Bobby Kennedy eats a dog. Bobby Kennedy, you know, he's over her, her young energy thing is snuffed out his oxygen. He's got saran wrap over his head for people who might be, who might wander over to Trump. I mean, the third party thing was so menacing to Biden.

Because she is a draw, because she's drawn people back from Jill Stein, back from Cornel West, back from nowhere. All of a sudden, that third party thing is shrinking and actually may be slightly beneficial to her.

You know, two hairs. Yeah, Vax are nuts. Maybe it hurts Trump more, but it's not anywhere near the... I saw polls pre-debate where he was doing 17, 18% of the vote in some mountain states. Not that Biden was going to win them, but yeah, there's no market for it. Yeah, it's half of what it was.

pre-Kamala getting into the race. And what's left is, again, I think some anti-vaxxers, super conservative people who, you know, think JFK Jr. is going to come back to Dealey Square. So it's the tinfoil hat. Okay, then let's take a break right here and we'll be right back.

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So the convention until three weeks ago, they were planning a convention for Joe Biden. Yeah. Now they have to turn a battleship around and turn it into a Kamala Harris convention. It seems to me that strategically it's a much different exercise, because if you had Biden in the condition that Biden was in politically, you would have made that convention 80 percent about Trump.

they have an opportunity here to further introduce Harris and, you know, give more dimensionality to who she is. Tell the story of her, her, uh, you know, her upbringing, tell the story of her as a prosecutor, tell the story of her as an attorney general in the fight she's fought and for whom she fought them. Uh,

done right. I think it's a great opportunity. But man, I don't envy Mike, our old buddy, Stephanie Cutter. No, no. Trying to turn this battleship around. She'll get another Emmy nomination because Stephanie Cutter is as good as they come in this business. She's driving the program. One other thing about the convention, which I think is really important, and I sat there and watched

Republican convention, and I was impressed by the energy, enthusiasm and the consolidation that they had. But the one thing I think that we're going to have kind of going on presidential campaigns or about the future is that we have a tremendous future bench and the people who are going to be around supporting us.

Harris and Tim Waltz, you know, whether it's Gretchen Whitmer, whether Shapiro, whether it's Roy Cooper, whether, you know, all these names, Warnock, Booker. I mean, we have a party and messengers who look like the future of America. And I think it's going to be really important.

It's an incredible amount of work, which Stephanie is ultimately capable of executing. But strategically, it's not a hard one. You have to tell her story and you have to connect her to middle class economics and point the campaign that way. And you got to send some dog whistles, the people who do not want to vote for 2019 Kamala Harris.

If you can define a right like that and then weld it all together with the choice of on your side or on his side, go into the future or go back to 1950s America where men made all the decisions for women's African-Americans were half citizens, et cetera, et cetera.

That rocket, and I think they're going to do all that. I think they're going to do it well. I think the real test will come after the convention in September when it's into the trench warfare. But there's no doubt she and now Waltz, because he'll be a star at the convention because he'll do his hardware dad thing and it'll play great. That'll be the moment after the convention.

That's the test. You can see this in the TV commercials that the Harris campaign is running is that America still has a lot to learn about her. Right. I mean, Joe Biden served as president for eight years. And when we did research, we realized no one really knew much about him. And that's just kind of normal. But the fact is, is, again, if you watch her, her rally speeches, is that she's talking about when she was a prosecutor putting bad guys.

Yeah, she's talking about, you know, her time as attorney general taking on the big corporations and pharmaceuticals. She's talking about her time as senator. No, and by the way, kudos to Brian Fallon, who writes a lot of that stuff and has launched her on the speech dimension, which is the most important single thing she's done. He's so talented.

I mean, I got to watch Brian Fallon for over a year in the Hillary campaign, and I'm telling you, this guy is super talented, really good at what he does, and so lucky to have the VP is so lucky to have him on his team. But I mean, there is there is a great story and an economic narrative for the for the convention.

Yeah, they just have to tear down what they were doing and build that very, very quickly. That is a great, I mean, I think the convention should be, look, what conventions are now are long commercials. And the question is, how creatively and how strategically can you use the time that you have? Stephanie proved in 2020, she's very, very good at that.

And I expect to see that again. The other thing that's hanging short term that we know is the question of debates. John, you mentioned that you were in Atlanta. That was when Trump had announced that he was, you know, pulling out of this debate on September 10th on ABC. And here's what here's what the VP had to say about that. So he won't debate, but he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me.

And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird? Well, Donald, I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage because as the saying goes, if you've got something to say, I face it.

It's just so good. I mean, she turned it right around on him. This is something you would expect from him. And it was spectacular being in that room when she said that. So they then they did what you would expect and tried to take the terrain back, went to Fox News, agreed to a debate with a crowd and the Fox panicked.

panel on September 4th, six days earlier than the debate that was planned and said they weren't doing that one. And does she have the guts to show up for this one? The initial the initial attack or I'm sorry, the initial response from the campaign from the Harris campaign was we'll see on the 10th and we're going to show up whether you show up or not. What do you guys think she should do?

Oh, pound on the 10th. You know, his thing looks transparent and weak. I would be chicken suits and just pound. The 10th is the Super Bowl. Where's Donald? Afraid of a girl. Every Chinese restaurant in America is now named a dish after Donald Trump. Orange chicken.

I would just pound him into applesauce. Well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's the new Peking duck. You know, Donald Trump doesn't like to have his manhood hit. And I think that this is a great opportunity, right? I mean, it really is cowardice. I mean, you know, um,

And I would probably, you know, again, I think that they're doing that and they'll keep pounding that. But, you know, he's put himself, you know, kind of in a corner here. And if he doesn't show up on the 10th, I do think that it's going to hurt him and no one's going to, you know. Because his brand, too. Mr. Tough Guy. I would make the 10th the Super Bowl.

And let Sergeant Walz get out there and say, come on, Don, it's not the draft. You don't have to hide. The question is, does she gain from a debate? I think she does because Trump's going to be the adult old man on the stage. But don't give him the Fox win. Yeah, but here's my question to you.

I posit this. What if she goes back and says, you know, you want an adaptive debate? I get it. You don't want to you're afraid to have a straight up debate. I'll show up on the fourth, but I'm not going to do it in front of the Roman Coliseum. Let's go in a studio. I'll take the Fox announcers and let's go.

I don't know. And call him on it. That's a win for him. I don't know. Give him a win. He's the chicken. There's one big debate. He's chickening out. Then you can have another debate, Donald. I'll have a Fox debate the next night. I'll see you the night after that. We're doing them all week long. What are you afraid of? Bok bok. Yeah, I mean, I'm not so sure I wouldn't, again, chicken out.

challenge him to a couple. The fact is, is that, yeah, I don't, I don't like the fact that he would win. I think that they'll come to a debate because I think that at the end of the day, you know, we've all been in a lot of campaigns. I mean, how many times have you had a campaign where you actually ran that the guy was afraid to debate? Right. And at some point he's, I, you know, again, I don't know that I'm not part of the debate team or negotiations, but he's going to need, he's, he knows he needs to, uh, the thing that he has, uh,

But the whole essence of his appeal is about strength. And if you look like you're the strong one, I don't think it looks like you're weak. If you say, OK, I'm going to play on your court. Yeah. The problem is, I get it.

I get it. But I would say if he ducks the big debate, which he's doing, he's the weak guy. If he is able to dictate the new debate schedule, then he's in the strength business. Yeah, I think you're an inside baseball thing. I think if he shows up, if she says, I'll debate you.

Anywhere. You pick what debates we do, Donald, and I'll be there. Yeah. Right. That's strong. I don't want—no, see, I think it's weak. I think she had a big debate. He agreed. He's backing up. That's gold. Pound him to death.

I don't think she needs to go in a rig Fox debate. Sean Hannity, the announcer, Kamala Harris, how many people have died on the border? And Fox says, no, Fox says, no, we want we're bringing in Tucker. He needs this debate more than her. She's the one with the momentum. And the fact is, is that he doesn't like having to abide by the rules and he doesn't like, quite frankly, you know, to have to, in his probably mind, kowtow to her. But the fact is, he needs this debate.

And he's going to figure... He's eventually going to come to a conclusion that he does. I wouldn't give in. There's stunts she can use on Fox. She can say, fine, we'll do ABC. An hour later, we'll have a doubleheader. I'll meet you over at Fox. She can raise the ante, but she shouldn't back off letting him debate a new debate schedule. You do it that way. She's winning this. We've got to play on my turf. I think a fearless person says...

You know, I'll freaking debate you anywhere, man. Yeah, I don't like giving him control. Well, I just I think this is a bully tactic and he's always a bully. And, you know, you can't let the bully win here. And I think they've been pretty clear about that. Well, they have been clear. So it's sort of an academic discussion. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors.

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Speaking of Trump, and you guys hinted at it earlier, the guy has gone bonkers, you know, starting from as soon as Biden dropping out, wanting a refund on his money for having spent a year attacking Biden and now not getting to run against him. But, you know, he should get a refund from his lawyers.

Matt, let's just play a couple of clips from what he said in the last week, starting with something that was completely nuts about he's in Georgia, a state that he needs that is now competitive, and he decides to go down this road. Because he's a bad guy, he's a disloyal guy, and he's a very average governor. Little Brian, little Brian Kapp. Bad guy.

But think of it. I got this guy. Just think. And then that's it. I got this guy nominated. I then got him elected without me. He doesn't get nominated and he doesn't get elected. He had no chance of winning either one. And all he had to do is sign something where the Senate would like to look at election integrity. So this is a guy in the public in the public polls. Brian Kemp job rating is over 60 percent positive.

I mean, think about that. Yeah. I mean, not a real deal. It's insane. And Kemp is a very good operator. He has been tying Trump up in knots for years. Trump tried to muscle him on the Senate nomination. He went on. Right. So, and now he's decided, you know, and this is...

First of all, when President Biden courageously, I'll give him a lot of credit for it, put the country first, moved out, Georgia got back in play with a new candidate. The soda states, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada are now back in play. They weren't with Biden. And then Trump...

Decides to blow up Georgia to help him more by declaring war with a very powerful, adroit Republican conservative governor who has a lot of support in the machinery there, which he controls, not Trump. So it is the stupidest single thing of a long, long, epic Olympic level list that Trump has done politically in my recent memory. And it's a huge blunder. It's a huge blunder.

It's incredible. I can only imagine how folks in the home office felt. Oh, yeah. Luckily, the windows don't open or Chris would have been airborne from the ninth floor. So can I give you a number which I found fascinating and talked about how quickly this race has changed? And I think this was a CBS News number that right now only 50 percent of America believes that Trump has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president.

64% believe that Harris does. So, I mean, talk about, again, this is just turned around completely. And the fact is that now some of this crazy stuff is going to be a problem. Listen, part of, I always believe that part of the Democratic's

job was to ignite kind of the PTSD of the Trump years, right? And listen, each side's going to have a billion dollars to do that. And so there's, you know, there's real contrast on reproductive rights and who you're fighting for and he's out for himself, etc.,

But there's a whole universe of the fact that this guy, you know, just causes America anxiety if he was president for four more years. Now the Prozac presidency. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think we're going to see that. I think we're going to see plenty of commercials to remind people. But, but Enzo, you're onto something really powerful that I think is a huge undercurrent. When, when Joe Biden's age became an issue, we kind of created this monster issue of age and it ate Biden.

The monster issue is still there. You know, the country's decided we don't really want old guys as president. Now, Trump appears to be a little more vigorous, but the age thing is now all about him. And it's a bad weapon. It has got blood on its teeth from Joe.

So that I think, you know, the Harris people ought to think about that optically and how they do stuff, because old man who doesn't get it, old ideas to take us back. I think it's really powerful rocket fuel. And Trump is just running into the wood chipper. Yeah. And again, it's the future. It's about the future. And, you know.

That's important. This is this is why getting him on a debate stage would be great. So anyway, Trump has he's also had a lot to say about Kamala Harris. He's sort of tried out a whole bunch of stuff at that same rally in which he decided to go after the most popular Republican in the state. Here's what he had to say about Kamala Harris. Harris has the most ultra left wing agenda of any presidential candidate ever.

ever in history. There's never been anybody like this. She is considered more left wing than crazy Bernie Sanders. Look at her. She's worse than Bernie. And she happens to be really a low IQ individual. She really does. She has a very low IQ. We don't need a low IQ. So where does that get him? Where's that get him? First of all, in the polling that I've seen, people give her more credit for intelligence than they give him. Yes.

Right. The public polls show that people think that she's intelligent, that there's no doubt about it. So he's pissing in the wind. It also sounds it sounds like a racist attack. I mean, that's what I think. It sounds like a crazy old guy losing it. And the other thing is, is that when you listen to the crowd, I mean, I don't know if you've seen side by sides. The two events that Kamala had and Trump had were in the exact same arena.

And if you've seen again, one was electric and, you know, Trump always would talk about low energy. Well, his event was incredibly low energy and he really didn't get much response from the crowd. Even from that clip, quite frankly, if you watched the whole thing, that Georgia rally.

was not the rally you would expect from Donald Trump. It was really a hit and miss. The camp thing, there was almost silence when he was doing it. And it drives him crazy. It's all about rally crowds. So the more big rallies they have, which are hard to do, you know, they ought to even think, Stephanie's going to hate me for this.

But if they had a way, and they probably don't have time now, to rip off your old Obama scam from 2008 where you did the final night outside in a huge—I was there that night. The place was electric. A huge outdoor arena with a massive crowd. It might just put Trump into the rubber room.

I want to find out who let you into that rally. Oh, I was deep undercover, my friend. He also made this appearance last week, and I presume it's because they think they can still hang on to an appreciable status.

you know, minority of the African-American vote, but he went to the Black Journalists Association and he said this and it got a lot of attention. Why didn't he wear a white robe and just commit to it? She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.

So I don't know. Is she Indian or is she black? She is always identified as a black. I respect either one. I respect either one. But she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way. And then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went. She became a black person. Just to be clear, sir. Do you believe that somebody should look into that when you ask? All right. All right. Yeah, the ref's going to stop the fight. So I got to tell you guys, Andy Borowitz.

The humorist in The New Yorker put out a little piece shortly after Waltz was named, and the headline was, Trump claims Waltz was never white before. Yeah, that's great. Well, apparently to him, the real sin is an Indian person and an African-American married.

You know, that was that's too much. But but, you know, they his people insisted that this is a thing. And I mean, I'm just I really was trying to understand, like, how could it be a thing unless they thought that somehow they can create a wedge among African African, some African-American voters? I mean, the whole thing. I think I know this one.

During the last presidential primary, there was a focus group of African-Americans in, I believe, South Carolina, some video that got around a bit for one of the other campaigns. And it had a lot of it was all African-American focus group and a lot of harsh talk about Kamala Harris being Indian, not really being African-American. So some moron in Trump's world, which, you know, you swing a dead cat, you hit 50 morons there.

probably had seen it or got a hold of it or was some somehow and said, no, no people hate her. Cause she's really Indian. And that bubbled up to Trump. And now he thought it was a big master stroke and he went out, lit the grenade and then, you know, held it to his chest.

So I think it's an old echo of kind of an old thing that's no longer relevant and no longer reflective of reality, but they're grasping at straws. And let's look at the numbers right now. The public polling has been really clear that African-Americans are consolidating at nearly 90 percent in Trump's African-American vote and the third party vote.

that was African-American, has collapsed. And so, again, you want to make sure that in all of these states, on election day, you want 31% of the Georgia electorate be African-American. In North Carolina, 21%. In Michigan, 10 or 11%. So there's a lot of work to do. But the fact is, is that the consolidation happened pretty quickly. You want to keep it there. And you want to make sure that

The percentage of the total electorate is where you need it to be. But this was just this was crazy, Bill. This is a candidate whose opponent has gotten under his skin. And I think we've seen that for the last two weeks. Yeah. No, no. She's in Trump Tower psychologically. No doubt about it.

And again, I think that the key is, is that not only is Kamala Harris consolidating early, close to 90% of African-Americans, which is usually in polling something, a dynamic you don't see until post Labor Day. Right. But the fact is, is that.

you know, the enthusiasm level of among Democrats. So if you take a look at Trump voters and you take a look at Harris voters in the public polling, the enthusiasm or the motivation for those candidates are now almost equal. And that becomes really important. And there was a 20 point there, but I think this is important. There was literally a 20 point drop off with people of color. And now that is equal is 20 point hires with Kamala Harris.

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I got in trouble, as I often do with our friends on social media, because I said on TV that Democrats should not get carried away with irrational exuberance, that she's had a tremendous start. The race is sugar high, I think, was your million dollar phrase that you're going to know. It wasn't it wasn't mine. That was that was no, no. But the the point is, this is a.

it should be treated as a tough race. And now there's sort of this, there is this sense that, oh, we're on a glide path to victory here. And I keep talking about the second look and I'm worried.

I'm finding it dangerous. I'm not feeling that. You're in orbit, man. No, I mean, listen, I think that there is an excitement, and I think it's well-earned. I think that, again, she's—again, I just believe it's a little bit more than meeting the moment. I think she really gets this. And I think that this pick is actually also part of that with Tim Waltz.

And I think that the Democratic community and the campaign in Wilmington, which has been incredibly nimble, by the way, in the last two weeks. Yes. And they're bringing in reinforcements. I feel like everyone is taking it very seriously. All right. But let me let me do a little of the hard hitting journalism we're known for here on Hacks on Tap. Let's redshirt this. You're now Fabrizio. Fabrizio.

How do you beat her with Trump? How does she lose? What goes wrong? I would ditch all of that sort of left wing shit. I mean, you can use it with your base, but I would tire of Biden and I would, you know, I would I would tire to the Biden record. I would you know, she's the right now. She is the turn the page candidate and you can't let her be the turn the page candidate. So I would tire to. So you'd be doing back to Biden.

Yes, I would. I would make her. How about you? Well, listen, I think that, you know, one of the things that we learn from 16 to 20 is that, you know, we didn't lay out an economic message in 16 that I thought was intense enough.

or proportional enough, quite frankly. We made it all about a risk. And in 2020, Joe Biden competed on the economic message. And I think that, again, you don't have to win the economic message. You're talking about what she should do. We're asking what you would do if you were... Take your blue hat off for a second. No, no, no. I'm setting the table, which is... Well, I'm hungry. I think the fact is that in 2020, he never...

did the F-150 ads about the economy and how good he was and the businessmen, etc., and contrasted it. And I think that we're going to see whether he tries to make that contrast on the economy and ties it to Bidenomics, etc., etc.,

You know, they haven't really been good about using their biggest strength. And I hope they continue to fail there. So yesterday, interesting you should say that. Yesterday when the market took a tumble, they did a quick crash ad that they threw up online. Let's listen to that. Here we go. Look at them go down. What some would call history in the big story. Don't say that. We have never been down a thousand points ever, not even intraday on the NASDAQ. Bidenomics is working.

It's working. The stock market just taking a big old nosedive this morning. Dow Jones is down about 1,010 points. That is called Bidenomics. The Dow fell more than 600 points Friday on a weaker than expected jobs report. 5%, Meta 6%, Amazon 6%, Apple 9% down. Bidenomics is working. Fears of a recession began after Friday's disappointing July jobs report.

report. Bidonomics is working. A rise like that is historically a sign that a recession is imminent. This is Bidonomics. What you're seeing right now, the stock market is what Americans have been feeling for the last three years. It's just a manifestation of it right now. All that Bidonomics. So there you go. I mean, yeah, so they're doing it right.

Yeah. Well, the stock thing, that was tactical. But, you know, the stock will bounce back if that's tricky. But they're doing the economic thing, which is smart right now. People still think Trump. Well, I haven't seen new data. Maybe it's changed. 20 point leads still. Yeah. So, you know, who do you want to run the economy? Left wing Kamala with the Biden plan to ruin the border or Trump?

Yeah, and she's got to do what we did with Obama in 2012, and she has to own middle-class economics. Who's fighting for you? Who's looking for you? And she's done a good job of this. I mean, she's actually, this is a central part of her message. And I will throw this out, not that it necessarily matters in the long run, but I don't know if you saw the Trump tweet, like three days ago, taking credit for the Biden stock market rise. And then it crashed. I thought that was kind of...

kind of funny. I think it is astonishing how different the world looks today than it looked three weeks ago. Or, uh, I guess it's a little more than three weeks ago. Uh,

And this thing is a very, very competitive race. Dems have won the lottery here. She looks like she's on the way up. He looks like he's coming down. And, you know, it's a completely different thing. We talked earlier about the third parties. And, you know, RFK Jr. seemed to be a bigger factor in the race than he does right now, partly because of crazy shit that he's done along the way. Yeah, he's still called nuts.

Yes, that's a problem. But the market is gone. Kamala has sucked up a lot of that oxygen. But he himself put out this little tape that he did with Roseanne Barr at her kitchen table yesterday. Well, let me just set up the context, though. So the New Yorker was doing a big profile on him, and he got wind of it.

that in the profile somehow, which I think he suspected would be hostile, was the revelation that when the big media frenzy over the dead bear cub found in Central Park with bike marks on it was discovered, he, it turns out, was the mystery assailant. So he went and he called, of all people, Roseanne Barr to tell the story and then preemptively

put out this video to somehow diffuse the New Yorker story. He wasn't, as you'll hear, he wasn't the assailant, but he was the depositor of the bear. Allegedly not the assailant. It might have been...

a falconing accident gone wildly mad. But, but anyway, it's, it's incredible. Let's hear the bear man explain it himself. I was taking a group of people falconing up in Goshen, New York, up in the Hudson Valley. And I was supposed to meet them there at like maybe eight or nine. I was driving up maybe, you know, really early, like seven. And that woman in bed in front of me hit a bear and killed it. A young bear.

So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. And it was very good condition. And I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in New York City. You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear. And so then we went hawking and I had the bear in my car.

And then we had a really good day and we went late. We were catching a lot of game and the people really loved it. So we stayed late and instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner at Peter Luker's Steakhouse.

and at the end of the dinner it went late and i realized i couldn't go home i had to go to the airport and the bear was in my car and i didn't want to leave the bear in the car so then i thought

You know, at that time, this was the little bit of the redneck in me. There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes. And a couple of people got killed. And it was every day. And people had gotten badly injured. Every day it was in the press. And so I thought...

I wasn't drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea. And I said, I had an old bike in my car that somebody asked me to get rid of. And I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike. It would be fun for people. All right. Okay. So he did that. He did that. But I have two questions for you guys. Oh, there are more than two, but go ahead. Two questions. Wow. First of all,

Did he valet park at that restaurant? And by the way, what happened to the Falcons? Are they locked in the van with the bear? I mean, and then the bike, who wants some, you know, it's just, and where was he flying to?

Did he get there? He name drops the steakhouse. I love that. He name drops the steakhouse. Did he take a shower? He's got a bike in the back. He's in the back. He is stone cold nuts. Okay. No, out of his mind completely. No. So, uh, yeah, I think the, uh, Bobby Kennedy boomlet is, um, I mean, he lost me on the eating of dogs. My dog was infuriated by that. By the way, he killed the damn bear.

You know, I don't believe for a minute that there's a mystery killer he's still looking for because she's in for one side. Some woman hit him with a van. And then there's anyway. Yes, it he he is going to depart into crazy land and maybe get his two percent. But the two percent is going to come out of Trump. It's not going to come out. It'll come more out of Trump than Biden. Yeah, because it'll be.

crazy option B. Yeah, I mean, he actually I actually so this goes back to the point, Anzo, that the third party stuff suddenly it's either a non-factor or it may actually be helpful to her. And there was a time when it looked like the thing that could kill Biden.

Yeah, I mean, there was a universe, without a doubt, of young people and people of color, again, who remembered his father as a civil rights icon, etc. And that's all evaporated. Again, his third-party numbers have been cut in half. And what is left is, you know, the anti-vaxxer tinfoil hat crowd, right?

again, who believes that, you know, in these weird conspiracy theories that JFK Jr. is going to come back and Dealey Plaza at some point. I mean, this is real. You got to watch the videos, right? And so I think that this at this point hurts Trump. All right, boys, I got to

Yeah, we're going to have to skip. We had so much news to jaw over. We had to skip the mailbag, but we will be back. If you have fresh questions off the VP, just email them to us at AxonTap at gmail.com. Or you can leave a voicemail on your phone and send it to us. Or you can call our secret Chicago. You can also place a bet and register to vote the secret Axelrod tip line and just record a short 20, 25 second message there. Here's the number.

773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. So, John Anzalone, let me just say, you're not only one of the smartest guys I've ever known, but you're also one of the best guys I've ever known. Thanks, brother. It's always good to have you here. And come back off, and now that you're unshackled,

Now that the Biden saga is over and you're unshackled, come back often. Absolutely. Great. Great to be with you guys. And the best thing about you, Anzo, is you're from Michigan, the crown jewel of states. Yeah, we're both from Michigan. From Michigan. She was just up in Traverse City last week. He is a Michigan, though he's lived in Alabama for three or four decades, he's a Michigander through and through. He never, ever lost it. So good for him.

That's right. Well, onward. I think we should go out with the rouser.

All right, enough already. That's a former Bobby Kennedy supporter who has switched sides now having heard that story. I think that was Bobby Kennedy. He might have drank bear blood and he's out right now crawling around a building. Hey, let's play the Minnesota fight song. Finish this up. A little salute to the guy who won the lucky phone call. ♪♪♪

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