Overtime Oration
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day. What shall our legacy be? What will our children say? Let me know in my heart when my days are through. America, America, I gave my best to you. Yes!

There you have it. That was, you know, there were a lot of things to talk about last night in the convention. And there we can there's a lot of ways to critique what I think was two speeches by Joe Biden, Mike Murphy. One was the speech he wanted to give on Thursday and the other was the speech he needed to give last night, which was disappointing.

giving a send-off to Kamala, but that was poignant. Oh, it was. It was the last hurrah. You know, it was an Irish Paul taking the swan dive. There's no doubt. You can see where they kind of spot-welded the requirement to the big speech he wanted to give. So, as a

exercise and brilliant speech writing anything. It had great moments, but it was the emotion of the moment that did it. And, you know, Monday night is always tough. I call it homework night or chore night because they do all this stuff that they have to do. So it's never, I never did so much homework in my life. There was a lot of homework. Speaking of swan dives, um,

We have in our presence. We have the swans. I didn't even know that swans dove. Is that a thing? Swan songs, they sing, right? They dive? I don't know. Well, it depends what swans you hit. It's what you hit them with. But anyway, we have here our pretty new swan.

Oh, boy. Right? There you go. The King Swan. I was thinking about doing a cannonball into the pool. That's how I'm going to do it. I swan. That's what I feel like saying when you call me pretty. John Heilman. Hi, guys. Heilman, great to see you. Hope you guys are enjoying my beautiful city. And here we are. Well, not just your beautiful city. I voted twice. We're in the citadel. We're in the mecca of politics in Chicago. We're in Manny's. And the greatest deli in Chicago, Manny's. Manny's, it's the best.

And I can think of, I was saying to David's team earlier that I was trying to recall the number of meals that I'd had with David over many years here. And if there was ever one that we left where David didn't end up with some kind of a stain on his clothing. No, it's remarkable. If you don't leave here with a stain on, without a stain, you haven't eaten. You haven't eaten. By the way, there's a guy over here looks about...

6-4-3-20 who's got a couple of questions about your tab, Dan, before you're out of here. This is a great city, though. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I share a tailor with that guy. Yeah, me too. Haven't been mugged. Voted twice already, and I'm only warming up. But all us Detroit people have a secret affection for Chicago. You only haven't been mugged because you've eluded the people we sent after you. Chicago is the best.

I mean, it's the best. I love New York and I love L.A. I'm from L.A. I live in New York, but I went to college here and it's still in some ways my favorite city in America. Twenty six conventions. No other city comes close. Baltimore is second, but no other city comes close to Chicago as a convention town. And and you can see why it's a it's a great place to get together. It was originally because it was in the middle of the country.

Now it's just because it's the greatest city in the world. Yeah. And the outfit is a great host. So the organized crime convention. And it's so funny that everybody's like, well, you know, the 68 convention, we'll go build these shades of 68. I'm like, what about 96? 96 was a great love fest here. It was a love fest, a great convention, a love fest for bookworms. 68, you know, not only was it calamitous and historic because of all of the mayhem that went down in,

It also was the last real convention in American political history because after that we went to a different system of nominating presidents where voters actually do it in primaries. And these became big TV shows. No more smoke-filled rooms. I miss the smoke-filled room. Oh, it was much better. It was rational. If you want to see a smoke-filled room, come to my hotel room later tonight. There's a little...

bit of dust and grease involved, but you know, things work. By the way, this is an important convention, I think, for convention historians like you guys.

it is the ultimate finish of the big turn because now it's totally a TV show. Even the roll call vote is meaningless. They're doing a fake roll call vote to create the TV show of a roll call vote. And it was really done by a conference call a couple of weeks ago. Well, I feel for Stephanie Cutter, our friend who is in charge of the convention four years ago, she pulled off a miracle of a virtual convention, but it had,

its benefits which the main one being timing it was a tv show and you could control timing right what happened last night was that uh every single speaker in primetime save two aoc and andy basheer spoke twice as long as their allotted time and once they're up there

Yeah, you guys, I will tell you this. Back in 2004, when Obama was giving the keynote speech in Boston, the Kerry people were being really, really tough on time. They wanted him to do the keynote in eight minutes, and we had a big negotiation, and we got to 18. But he runs into Al Sharpton in the hallway at the convention hall, and he says, how much time did they give you? And Sharpton says, well—

He says, they gave me six minutes. He said, but you know, you never know how the Lord may move you. Well, the Lord was moving a lot of people last night, including the Reverend Warnock, and they all...

ran over and because they all think they're going to save the day and they're churchill after work well in fact is most of them are pretty mediocre well the other thing that's happened i think is there's there was way too much accommodation of ue dewey and louis politicians who wanted to get time on the platform you got to be ruthless no no you got to be ruthless about saying no

For Chicago, it was remarkably unruthless. Man, you've got to quit these stereotypes. I know, I'm wrapping up now on that. But who got to tell James Taylor, hey, sorry, we're going to cut you for Chris Coons and Jamie Raskin. Here's the bad news, James. You don't have a friend here. Yeah.

Yeah, that was really rough. I will say that Jason Isbell was one of my highlights. And one of the few elements of last night's program that spoke directly to non-partisan Democrats was a very, that's a very swing. Steve Kerr. Yeah, let's run him for something, man. Steve Kerr and Jason Isbell. I think I sent a clip on to, so let's listen to this clip of Steve Kerr.

I know very well that speaking out about politics these days comes with risks. I can see the shut up and whistle tweets being fired off as we speak. But I also knew as soon as I was asked that it was too important as an American citizen not to speak up in an election of this magnitude.

Steve Kerr, first of all, he's been on my podcast. I know him well. Amazing human being. His father was Malcolm Kerr, who was the president of the American University in Beirut, who was assassinated by the forerunners of Hezbollah. He was born in Beirut.

He also went to high school in Egypt and Steve Kerr speaks Arabic. He'd be a good running mate in 2032 for Snoop Dogg. The Snoop Dogg-Steve Kerr ticket would win like 80% of America. Steve's speech was perfect. And spoke to a broad swath of America. Can I come back to the...

the run of show and to get back to Biden, who we did start with, by the way, the Biden bite. It was Biden's night, right? So I'll say just two things to kick to you guys. The first is that, like, I don't know if either one of you was among the

I think Murphy wasn't in the hall last night. Oh, hell no. And actually were up in the catbird seat. I was monitoring it from the wrist. I understand. I'm not actually being critical. I'm just saying I happened to be in the hall. And I will say the emotion in the hall down on the floor and at the second level, the third level up, it was real. I mean, there were people. Because they saw you and they. No, I think. Yeah.

I mean, there are people I saw people with tears in their eyes a lot over the course of the night. There was a lot of genuine emotion in the room for Reverend Warnock for and for Joe Biden. I'll tell you that abortion segment was powerful. That was number two to occur. Yeah. So that was true. Completely aligned, Murphy. It's scary. Right. I know we got to shake that up. But to go to your point about ruthlessness, about timing, David.

I mean, Joe Biden, this is supposed to be his big night, right? And everybody's saying the praises to Biden and his record and his heroism and his self-sacrifice and having handed the baton, as we say, to Kamala Harris. But man, he didn't just wander out of primetime. It wasn't like he started at 10.30, a few minutes late and kind of drifted past 11. He started at 11.30 Eastern time and finished well after midnight Eastern time.

That is like a kind of catastrophic kind of fuck up question. Back in the day, you guys know, like if the big speaker on a given night would drift five minutes after primetime, people would freak out about, oh my God, well, five minutes of Obama's speech went over

You guys don't remember when you're too young to remember when George McGovern gave his acceptance speech at three in the morning. Right. In Miami. So that was a metaphor for that campaign. But I want to zero in on it. I don't think that Stephanie Cutter, I think Stephanie Cutter is a genius, but these people know how to run conventions. They know how to build in timing. Listen.

Let's put all your thoughts together. We should only take a second, by the way. Was it a plan or not? I don't believe it was. I don't think it was a plan, but I think it was. It was a fuck up. It was a big fuck up and one that I think was in a way kind of disrespectful to Biden. Well, the guy should have been. The guy should have been. That should have been sacrosanct. Stephanie was selected to do this by Biden. Yes.

The last thing she wanted was what happened last night. She, in the course of the night, cut 45 minutes of programming out, including JT. And but the problem is when you do when you're when you do have to stick you and Louie on the program to satisfy, you know, politician X and politician Y it and then your politicians get up there and.

They filibuster. Yes. That's a huge problem. That's what they're going to try to do, though. That's why you ruthlessly got to kill somebody early. Yes. To send the animal signal, nope, not today. I remember. Maybe someone by the stage with a taser. I was working for Arnold, and we came out to Ohio to do the big one for the Bush reelect.

And we were in a fight during the rehearsal because even though they cleared the speech three weeks ago, they wanted to change some stuff. And I said no. And then increasing people came down to argue. Carl doesn't want to. Well, where's Carl? So finally, they said, we will turn off the prompter. And Arnold said, turn it off. And he started doing the speech because he'd been practicing the thing for a month, didn't need the prompter, you know, from his acting days.

So every Paul is looking at this thing like, what can I get away with? And I want to know this. This is a theory, no facts. But when they were going late. That's what we do here, brother. I know, exactly. That's what's great about opinion journalism. It's all about opinion. That's the bread and butter. No facts getting in the way. The bread and butter attacks on tax. Gloviating. Yeah, exactly. They knew. I mean, I was tweeting this and I knew they were thinking that. Christ, we're going to push Biden late.

And then the stupid narrator is going to be snubbed to Biden. Everything we don't want. Right. So let's start chopping. But I wonder how Biden...

a personal problem backstage said no don't cut cut Warnock don't cut Coons I think Warnock I'm I know Coons was his request yeah I think Warnock uh may have been as well but I don't know what he was thinking backstage I would have been pissed let's let's put it this way I don't think there was I really don't want to suggest there's not some conspiracy but I do think that you know Huey Dewey Louie all could have just been like you know what

We don't need fucking Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Let's make sure that Huey, Dewey, and Louie go on Tuesday night. I don't know who makes those calls. I don't know who makes those calls. But I... Let's make sure that Biden has his time. So Kathy Hochul, for crying out loud. No, I don't know. All I know is her speech was great. You know what they say? Hochul springs eternally. Because she sure did. Okay, so what did you guys think of Biden's speech? Uh...

We give it to Grump. I mean, look, I'm torn. I took that question for a reason. I felt the affection. Historians are going to be much kinder than this guy. And boy, oh boy, I haven't seen anybody in national politics say, yeah, let me put myself aside. Now, it took him a while, and it took a couple of crowbar beatings. I wrote one of them in the New York Times. You've been out leading on it. But it was not...

If you look at the text, it's like, well, here's speech he wants to give, and then we bolt on some goodbye stuff. So it was awkward and clumsy, but the emotional powers, it was too long. It also was a reflection of...

why he was speaking Monday and not Thursday, though, as the evening went on, I thought he might actually be speaking on Thursday. He's the only president to give a speech on two days. But it does remind you why it was important that he stepped aside because he, you know, one of the things that happened to him late in his career is

is that he lost the ability to modulate. And so he was either screaming at you or whispering, but he never could find anything in between. And, and I think he, he, you know, now he may be genuinely angry as well, but he always comes off like Clint Eastwood and grand Torino chasing the kids off the lawn. And he was in full, uh,

Gran Torino mode last night. I mean, the whole speech was shouted. You could do a remix, you know, and it would just be somebody else or the subtitles. That was all the nonverbal was all that kind of stuff. But let me let me throw one bone again. If last night was chore night.

now the gear shift today and everything they want to sell. Hillary Clinton, who's not going to help them get anybody elected president, still, she was at the top of her capability last night. I think it may have been the best speech I've ever heard her give. Honestly, I've heard her give a lot of speeches. I thought it was great. The one thing that bothered me, and maybe she's entitled to it, I think the best thing that, one of the best things that Kamala's been doing out on the road is when the crowds burst in to lock them up, she says, hey, you know what?

We don't do that. The courts will handle that. We're just going to beat him in the fall. Totally. And Hillary was reveling in it. And, you know, she, I'm sure the schadenfreude is, uh, I would be hard to resist it in the moment, but there's no doubt that like, that was a point of contrast. Yeah. One of the things that you liked that, that Democrats should be able to say about Trump is the fact that he would go,

that he would call for the jailing of his political opponent in a presidential campaign was beyond the pale. And it's good for Democrats not to be in that same position. I want to just say one quick thing about Biden, though.

that, that bite, the thing that I gave my all is that I gave my all, I gave my best. I gave my best to you really powerful. There's just, but I, I, the, the line about how he ended up being too young to be a Senator at the beginning of his career and too old to be president at the end, man, that is just, there's a tinge of not just regret, but bitterness, but also, you know, just facing reality. to me, that's like the, that's a very rich line.

in every direction. And it felt like a little bit like on paper, I think when people read that later, it will seem more bitter than it sounded in the room. I thought it was poignant. Yes. I thought it was poignant too. By the way, he inserted a line after he said, I gave it my all. He inserted a line saying, I've made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave it my all. And that too, I thought that was a really interesting example

incursion. Listen, you could feel the bitterness, though. It's an Irish thing. Because he doesn't think he's too old to be president. That's the one thing that's been clear. He doesn't believe that part. This was forced. That was kind of like, I was too young to be sworn in as a senator, but other people thought I was too old to be president. The irony of it is that everybody who watched that speech would have to conclude

Yeah, he's too old. He's too old. Every time he performs. I watched that and I just kept thinking of the old Kipling thing. A toast to the Irish, the race God made mad. Their wars are all happy. Their songs are all sad. And you could just feel that over Biden. But it was time.

And he did it. Can I get you a potato? And a shot of Irish whiskey. I understand our people. Let's put it that way. So, all right. The curtain drops on him, Hillary. Well, before we leave, let's just focus a little longer on that. We can do that. On that abortion issue.

Very powerful. People whose health or the health of their child were at stake and because of laws that were in place were forced into situations that nobody should have to finishing up with that.

incredible young woman from Kentucky who was the victim of incest. So brave to do that. We have a little clip of Hadley Duvall, that brave woman from Kentucky. So let's listen to that now. He calls it a beautiful thing. What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parents' child? There are other survivors out there.

who have no options. And I want you to know that we see you. We hear you. And Andy Beshear, who frankly was very good. And great to have the men up there too in those abortions. Like to have the men standing beside the women in the abortion testimonials, I thought was really important. Yes. One of the most powerful segments in the Republican convention, I could argue on the merits of the issue is,

but you had people up there who had, Oh no, well you had the, you had the families of the Afghan, Afghanistan. Yes. People who died in the Afghanistan. Yes. And that was the gold star families. And that was one of the emotional highlights of that. Right. One of the,

One of the sadnesses about the time crunch last night is you would have wanted to let that abortion segmenter breathe a little because it really was. And that's the kind of storytelling you're trying to do in the arc of the convention is not nobody remembers most of these speeches, even the good ones. I mean,

I thought AOC's speech was great and reminded you of how much talent she has and how much she is underestimated at anyone's peril in terms of her future. And was focused on middle-class economics, which is center-cut. If they move that, they're in business. 100%. But the storytelling just matters a lot, more than any of the individual speeches and that human stuff. So why weren't there five or six less Tier B congressmen and governors? Because I think that was, you know...

dictated by the political people in the campaign. You know, Jeffries, Schumer, whatever. They said, here's our list. You got to get them in there. And I think a decision was made. If we've got to do this, let's get it done on Monday and move on. Yeah. Got it done at two o'clock in the afternoon, it seems like to me. That would have been a much better slot for those people. The political people have to stand down here.

Because you can't, this is a convention killer. They got to have the guillotine out this morning. Yes. You guys remember that when it was going to be Biden's convention, there was a discussion about the fact that they were going to take a bunch of the ideas from 2020 and make the convention like half virtual convention.

That was like, there was a whole discussion of it would just basically be primetime speakers and a lot of prerecorded video. And I remember thinking that's kind of a good idea, not just because of potential, you know, conflict or contentiousness of the convention, just to have, if it's a television show,

run the fucking thing like a television show and, and have it timed so that like you add the most powerful shit cut to time in prime time and no need ceaseless needless. I mean, they won an Emmy or they got an Emmy nomination for what happened.

That sounded like a good idea to me. They probably should have kept it for this. But you know, I think what happened here is once Biden stepped aside and she became the candidate, all of a sudden, you, he, doing Louie wanted to speak at the convention. No, no, none of them had tickets here. They were all at dental emergency. Couldn't make it. So now they got it. But, but,

They got their one. It's like the rush for hotel rooms this week in Chicago. They had their strike last night. They get a little of this story out there. The repubs will scream it, that they're trying to put the old man in midnight so nobody can say blah, blah, blah. If they get back on track today, which is what counts going forward, the big future. Oh, but if they do it again, if there are more ham and eggers there clogging everything up, then this thing is going to grow a bit in the inside world. There's nobody bending metal in western Wayne County who says, you know, if they could only adhere to the clock,

better but still it screws up the tv show it's opportunity cost though exactly it's not that like anybody out in the country most people in the country have no idea they're not going to complain about it being badly programmed or running over but that's opportunity cost for right you know like that's why 2020 was so good every minute of the convention of that virtual convention it was it was exceptionally well done let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors

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BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash hacks. BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash hacks. You will not regret it. The other thing they should be thinking of, I know they're press shop hits, the process media, as little as it means to voters, but they want to fillet the campaign now because they've had it so good for so long. So don't give them a convention screw-up to run with bigger than it ought to be. That is very true. And let me ask you this question. Tonight,

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are going up to do an event in Milwaukee, which I remember when they announced that this was going to happen, that it seemed like, okay, that's a bold thing to do. They're going to go up to Fiserv where, where the GOP convention happened. But again, does that not, I mean, you got Michelle Obama speaking tonight, you have Barack Obama speaking tonight. It just seems like, is that maybe like trying to shove too much sausage in the case in here? I think what happened here is they realized they had to be in the hall when Biden spoke. Right. Be,

be out of respect. Otherwise, they would have done what every campaign does. They would have, like we beamed in from around the country on the way to the convention. They had to be there. So they're just picking up where they would have left off. And they'll probably beam in from there. I think she'll be part of the convention every night. I don't think you're going to out

I wouldn't worry about upstaging Michelle and Barack Obama. Well, I'm not saying so much upstaging, but I'm talking about like, are you just trying to jam in too many things where... Yeah. Does it end up pushing those speeches late? But for the cables, it gives them a very good colorful remote. I like the idea. I like it, having them up there. I just think to Murphy's point, though, if you're going to have...

two foci where you're going to have a camera on. That doesn't sound like an expletive. Yeah, I had to take a cream for that. If you're going to have a camera, if you're going to have one focus of attention be in Milwaukee and one focus of attention be here at the United Center, it sort of really drives the notion of you probably have to keep the program pretty sparse here in United. But the cable will cut away to where the cheers are. Let's see what happens. I think it's foci, by the way.

But anyway, we'll look it up later. Fosai. Fosai. Fosai. Let's... Yeah. I thought you said Fiserv. Hannah is giving me the thumbs up. I said Fiserv. I don't know. Fiserv. Let's move on. Anybody still listening? No. Let me ask you guys a different question. I was uncomfortable...

with the tenor of the grinding on Trump. And like, nobody loves wailing on Trump more than I do. Well, I don't know. Well, that's true. That's a big competition. That's a big competition. It's a tough category. I'm not going to. All right. But let's say we're all like, there are like 100 million Americans. I know where you're going. It's built in. Yes. You don't have to tell them 100 times what they already know. I mean, I think if this were Biden's convention, you'd want to spend everything.

80% of your time hitting Trump as hard as you can. Yeah, I agree. As often as you can. But this is about making people comfortable with her as the alternative, because there's a majority of people who want to vote against Trump. Yeah, that's 99% done. I got a text message from someone close to me, might even be married to me, who was with a bunch of friends in California.

in Arizona who are watching, who are more, who are very interested in Kamala, but you know, they're more independent voters, not partisan Democrats. And they were, they were uncomfortable with the tenor of that. Now the stuff, Jasmine Crockett, Jamie Raskin,

My guess is that stuff went viral. Yes. And that was stuff for social media. But I'm not sure the tone is the right tone. I'm with you. Look, they got this rocket fuel going, which is Ted Lasso versus Voldemort.

And so when Ted Lasso starts throwing insults, it undercuts the thing. I totally agree. I love all that love stuff. And by the way, she didn't. When she spoke, she was pitch perfect. Yeah, yeah. But this gets to a deeper strategic question, right, that you guys will have opinions on that will be sharper than mine, which is,

To your point, because I heard from someone close to me who is in a family of very partisan Democrats. I said, what do you like about the convention tonight? And she said, well, we like we loved Hillary. We loved Jamie Raskin and we love Jasmine Crockett. I was like, OK, well, that's those are all, you know, for the base. Yeah. They're for enthusiasm. Kamala might win the primary now. So what's but what's but what is the the mix of in the course of this convention?

The base has not fully come home to Harris yet. She's not at the numbers that she needs to be. She's obviously gaining in all those categories, but she's not all the way to Biden 2020 levels yet. She also has some persuasion to do. So when you guys think about this convention, what's the ratio of consolidate the base red meat for the partisans and on the other side, persuading, trying to tell stories and persuade persuadable voters in the battlegrounds? I would say 70, 30 storytelling on her side of the equation is,

You know, soft contrast in that. But I also would I would use the I would put the red meat not in primetime because the red meat is going to be seen on social anyway. It's not like the people you're trying to reach are watching television.

So just make sure that it's available, you know, for social. But don't, don't, and you know, the Trump folks tried to do that. They got, it got ruined because, you know, the Trump brothers, Uday and Kusei had to speak. I think it's Kusei, like Bosai. I think it's Kusei. All right, I'll take your word. Uday and Kusei. All right. Whatever. Okay. Bosai. Bosai.

That's the third brother. So, uh, those, they, they sort of ruined the tenor, but you know, you had, uh, Sarah, uh, Sanders who made this really, uh, uh,

soft speech in primetime about, you know, the Trump she knows. And they had other people talking about the Trump they know, you know, he's, he's kind to small children. He pets puppies. He, you know, all that stuff. Um, and there was a reason for that. They, they, uh, they did a lot of red meat stuff at the beginning of the night that they carved up into social. I think that's the right approach. I, I, here's the answer.

Finally, I was just stammering, waiting for you to come in. The ambulance has arrived. It's 100%. The worst thing we do now, and it's not fair. Is it the answers you're agreeing with me? I'm improving your answer that's essentially right. I'm taking your B to an A here. Thank God you're here. That's my purpose.

When you treat base voters like swing voters, that is not her problem, Democrats. Are you crazy? She's riding on a hurricane of Democrat relief and just happiness now. They got to tell a big story. And the big story is really simple. She is on the side of the middle class, and she has her own plan to move forward on that. So she's not totally bolted to Biden's economic numbers, which are such a vulnerability. And Trump's not on that side.

And they've got dops. That's it. And rather than have these hack members of Congress get up and play primary games all day long, repeating the same damn speech 11 times, some better than others at it, use the bandwidth, particularly, you're totally right, primetime, to tell that big story. Rather than tell people what they already believe about Trump and shout it at them.

Remember, there are some polls now showing movement. I don't know how much of this is sugar. Hi, though. I want to see more. That she's catching up to Trump in perception of running the economy. That is gold. If they pull that off, they win. But that's very wet cement now. So let me improve on your improvement. Yes.

I think that is primary. The middle class messaging is primary. There's a secondary thing that's less about issue than about tone and tenor. I think the grinding of Trump, and it's particularly loud right now, is something that reminds people why they didn't want him in the first place. Right, right. It killed the last something. So you want to counter Trump.

We can turn the page on the grinding noise machine. And you don't do that by trying to compete with the grinding noise machine. I totally agree. It's bad for the category. It's like back in the Republican convention era, the Republican nomination fight era. I know you and I talked about this at some point. John Ellis would always say that the only way to beat Trump was to give him a gold watch. You had to praise him before you buried him.

in the Republican or gold anything. And, and, and that there's some, there's some of that that carries over here too, which is like for people who are really want to put the era behind them. Part of what they want is they want to put the harshness and the talks and the, and the negativity of it. And so they, they want to be rid of Trump, but they're fine with basically saying, okay, I don't need, like, I get it. You know, I'm, I get that he was that,

that we did a bunch of shit that's fucked up. I just want to be done with him. So let's just like, you know, give him a, give him a gold watch and let him go off. It's the real power. This is the smartest thing Walt's ever said. It wasn't the weird thing. It was, wouldn't you like to be able to have Thanksgiving again?

Yeah. Yes. Totally. If they can bottle that and not screw it up by, hey, we make family Kool-Aid. Isn't that great? But how'd you like some vodka in it, too? If they can stay out of being their version of Trump, which turns them into angry liberal wackadoodles. He did follow up by saying, so get rid of those turkeys. Okay, then let's take a break right here, and we'll be right back.

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Murphy, the first thing he says to me when he shows him Chicago is, I'm trying not to get mugged here. I didn't mean it. I know you didn't. I thought it was funny. When you come from L.A. and you feel secure, didn't you have your home broken into? Yes. Unlike Mayor Bass, we didn't have a 45 we could pull out and arrest. This is an incredible story, by the way. I'm sure she's packing her chrome here in Chicago. She was kind of casing the hall before.

Because she thought she might run into you. There should be a bonus episode of this show where Murphy just tells the story of getting his home broken into because it's incredible. Oh, by the way, DA gets to let the guy go after two nights. There gets to be a point in the story where somehow Mike is contemplating the possibility of actually having someone whacked.

If I remember correctly. Well, there was an organized crime element. You know, they came twice on the same day. Well, this is my point. Thanksgiving. So here's my question for you. They came on Thanksgiving. They did a double. Yeah. They cased our house. We left for Thanksgiving, cleaned us out. We came back. They had come back. They were upstairs when we walked in the house.

Yeah, it was... Smoking your cigars? My 10-year-old hyperventilating garage when I'm grabbing shovels. These are sort of... These are the thieves who I... You were going to shovel them out? These are thieves operating at the mental level of Trump. Come back for a second, hit on the... Here, my question for you, Mike, though, because you were talking about Harris and the economy. I saw a headline on some piece in the Washington Post.

talking about her economic plan in which the person noting that Trump last night tweeted a thing about the democratic convention, which basically had Harris standing in front of a hammer and sickle standing in front of a kind of a communist hall and someone in the post, a mainstream economics writer who said something like, uh, I believe it was AI like those weird images of him, uh, and, and a pregnant, uh, Harris. I don't want to get into that. Um,

Those are, have you not seen those? No. Oh my God. We're not on your browser, obviously. Dude, it's on Elon's Twitter feed. I'm going out to millions and millions of people. This AI thing of Trump and Harris as if they're a couple, which ends up with her with a baby bump. That was my dream journal. How do you feel about electric cars now? Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming around. The Washington Post headline said, if someone's calling you a communist, this is directed at Harris.

If someone's calling you a communist, maybe it's better not to have an economic plan that relies on price controls. Right. And I wondered, I immediately thought of you. Well, I thought there...

The plan thing is good for them because it lets them a long leash from Biden. I'm new, so I'll improve. I'm not more him. It's very good. They do it right. The price control thing, which they kind of skirted, was really stupid because it just opened up a whole course of silly crap they don't need. And they're not saying anymore. I put a stake right in it. There will never be price controls in my administration. If there's collusion to fix prices anywhere from dry cleaning or whatever, I'll go after it. It's already illegal. Boom, boom, I'm a prosecutor. But it was a fumble.

And they've been pretty good at bearing it. They never should have done it. I think the motivation was what you said, which is we've got to put our own spin on this so that we're turning the page and we're improving. And addressing inflation. They pulled it together so quickly. Yeah, there should have been a political type saying price control. Who'd fire that intern?

You know, so somehow it got through the screen. I'm sure the economists were incensed or some of them about that. The good news is there aren't that many economists. And my guess is that actually the concept probably tests well with voters and so on. I don't think she needed that. No, she didn't. All she needed was empathy. I mean, she's just trying to address the question of rising prices in the last three years. Policy and campaigns.

in the main are not about details. They are surrogates for

principles, values. Politics are a way... Who you're fighting for. Yeah, they're just a tool to explain who's side you're on. She has one answer, which is, here's my standard administration. Everybody we appoint who has power in administration will have to answer one question. What will you do every day in the morning to help the American middle class reach the American dream? If you can't answer that question, you're not going to work at my administration. She'd be 90% of the way there. Exactly. By doing the thing that Biden would never do, which was to say...

We know that price that prices are too high. We feel your pain. He was he was unwilling to say that for three and a half years. You know, I want to show Biden grace, OK, in this moment, because it is it was hard. However, he got there, it was hard to do what he did. And he did commit his life to this country. And I admire him for it. And I appreciate him for it. And I think history will be kinder to him than voters.

But part of the problem is from the moment he got there, he was playing for history. He was demanding his place in history. And therefore, when he talked about his policies, he was asking for credit. Yeah, always.

It was always a laundry list. And it was about him and not about voters. Let me tell you what I did for you, Mac. Right. That was always the core thing, and that was a disaster. When he finally got to the part in the speech after midnight Eastern time when he said that when he started talking about her and how, I mean, it was, I thought it was, it would, if in a speech half as long, the part where he eventually said that he had had this long career and that she was the best, putting her on the ticket was the best decision he'd ever made.

that could have been like a home run. Well, maybe he wanted to push that part of the speech beyond midnight.

Well, he knows the tabs. Who's being snarky now? Jesus Christ. The biggest problem they've got is the insomniac vote. So they fixed that tab last night. I thought when I heard him say that, I'm like, wow, that's quite a statement. Yeah, look, there are a lot of sleepless Americans out there worried about their futures. And they probably saw that. Every offshore oil rig in America now on the midnight shift. You know what would have been great? Just fantasy. Alaska is now in play. In Juneau, it was probably like noon when it was. The speech played great on shortwave. Yeah.

So here's just fantasy for one minute. Boy, oh boy, if they could ever get him to do it, if he had done a tight 12-minute

poetic speech yeah or even 25 even 25 i was told he had a short speech it's just he had two it was you know it's i'd give him a half an hour but in a half an hour that was just less could have been so much more yes but i mean that's mostly always true but yeah 55 minutes i just would just cut it in half i mean all of that and focus much more on her i don't know i mean look

He has the right to do whatever the fuck he wants. That is the other side of it. It was his night. He made the hard, really hard, correct decision to do this thing that was like, that's unprecedented in our lifetimes. I give him, I basically say, dude, you have the right to do whatever you want to do. And so go ahead and do it. Yeah. But I think someone said that to him, obviously, but it wasn't maximally effective. No, it didn't. It didn't. It would have been better for him and it would have been better for her. And look, if he'd been tighter enough,

Yeah. It was enough. They didn't sink the boat. Now it really starts tonight. This is when they sell tickets. If they got their act together and they got their blowhard congressman locked in the basement now. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back.

This podcast is sponsored by the Washington Post. Right now, go to WashingtonPost.com slash hacks and you can subscribe for, get this, just 50 cents per week. Come on, 50 cents per week. What a bargain for your first year. So, look, I mean, anybody who listens to Hacks on Tap can barely get through an episode without someone, one of us, Murphy, having a

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Who do you think Democratic delegates are looking forward to more tonight, Barack Obama or Michelle Obama? Look, I mean, I don't want to get I don't want to get I don't want to get between those two. I didn't ask you to. Michelle is a you know, Michelle is a cultural figure. I mean, she's you know, she's achieved Oprah esque status and she doesn't speak that often. So she will get the bigger pop.

He will move the needle when she enters. Murphy, you're so smart. I can't believe the Republicans threw you out. I'm your life raft, Terry. Obama will do a lot of lifting for her message wise. I think on the sort of level of people like, you know, kind of attestations, like, you know,

for Kamala as a person versus Trump as a person. I think Michelle will do a lot of heavy lifting. And she, by the way, delivers the middle class message, though they're not middle class anymore. She, the way she grew up and the reverence she has for hardworking people and so on. I mean, she'll deliver the middle class message very well. Since we won't actually be, there won't be another episode of this podcast before we will also have heard from Bill Clinton on Wednesday night. I asked both of you.

memorably in 2012. Bill Clinton was made the most important speech of the 2012 convention doing the economic argument in some ways better than Barack Obama. Dieter could, as Obama acknowledged, called him secretary for explaining shit. Is Clinton still, is Clinton going to have a, does he have the possibility to move the needle perhaps? I would let the big dog hunt. He has a toolbox. I haven't seen him lately, but talking middle class economics. The big dog hunt. That is, that's his skill. So put him on the field, give him the ball and let him run. The big red dog is off his leash. Yeah. Yeah.

If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch. Anyway, I'm just... I don't know. That's apropos of nothing, but you reminded me of that. I don't know if I've told this story before, but who cares because...

We won't remember it anyway. I'm now making up 20 big dog stupid announcements. He barks the loudest and shits the worst. You know, that's the big dog. Shits the worst. My point is these are nonsensical. We're Manny's drunk here. I've been up since five. They count me in the morning. Joe, I'm barely awake. It took me two hours to do the 18-mile hike through all the cops. Murphy just wants the podcast. Can I tell my story? He's got a yacht.

Pop over time. That's the economic plan. So back in 2012, Plouffe and I had this idea that we want Clinton to deliver the nominating speech. And we tell Obama this and he embraces the idea. But he says, but he points to me, he says, you got to keep an eye on this speech and make sure that it's not.

a million minutes long and that it's on point. So, so I'm for weeks, I'm in dialogue with Clinton and his people. Uh, the day of his speech, I still don't have the speech. I finally send Gene Sperling and Bruce Reed who had worked for him over there. And I said, you've got to disgorge this speech. Uh,

They disappear into the vortex and they're not answering my calls. Finally, at like seven o'clock and he's speaking at nine, Reid calls and says he needs a couple more minutes. And I said, fine. You know, we gave him 25. Tell him to take 27. They send a 27 minute speech over. It's very, very good.

We say, "Great." I go over to the hall and I'm standing beneath the rostrum when he's speaking and I'm watching his prompter, but I also can see the closed captioning.

And as he's speaking, I noticed this weird thing, which there are big, long periods of time where the closed captioning is moving, but his prompter isn't. And it took me a while to realize this guy had a 54-minute speech, but he just memorized the parts that he didn't say. They just wanted to get the goods through customs. Now, our fear was that we'd go off primetime and so on. It was a great time.

Speech. Speech. And every word was powerful and impactful and important. But, you know, the big dog will run. Yeah, so bank on him, you know. Don't let him do his thing. He's a bullet. Let him fight. He can colloquialize these things like nobody else. Yeah, he's got a genius for it. So turn him loose. Yeah. I mean. And cut some members so you're not surprised when he. Yeah, of course. Keep him escorted in and out of the building.

No, no. I mean, it's 12 years later, too. We'll see, you know, what's on the. Well, that's I think one of the questions is 12 years later. And and and, you know, he's not a young man at this point. I have been seen couldn't give a speech today.

I'm assuming he's still got the fastball, but I haven't seen it. That's the question. I have no reason to doubt it, but I also haven't seen him give a speech or survey. Well, like a good pitcher, he may throw in a curve and a change-up there, and he may compensate for that. He's going to turn into— Just want to get baseball references. He's going to have gone from being like Nolan Ryan to being—

What's that guy? Who was that pitcher who was like 112 years old? The Cuban pitcher who was the... Oh, yes. Louis Tien. No, I was thinking about the one more recent one. A younger vintage of that. The guy who pitched for the Yankees. I think he pitched for the White Sox. No, no, he pitched for the White Sox, yes. All right. Senior moment here. Yeah, forget it. But I know the guy you're talking about.

I think it'll be interesting to see because I haven't seen Clinton on a big stage. You know, the CGI doesn't really happen anymore. So it's like he's not global. And he doesn't he doesn't go out. You don't see Clinton in public doing big things very much anymore. And I know he's

He's still in, I believe, good health, but he's not a big public schedule. I'll tell you something, though. He's not the principal speaker in primetime. That's Waltz. So there's a little latitude there. It'll be interesting. I'm looking forward to it, though. He is one of the most gifted of all time. And it goes to Murphy's thing, which goes, if she can really get an upper hand on Trump on economics...

If you add it together with all the other things that she has going for her right now and all of the other problems that Trump has. One of the lines that I remember from 2012 that I loved was he said, you know, it's so weird. He's so funny. He said, you know, when I was president, the Republicans were fighting me all the time.

He says, now I'm rich and they can't do enough for me. And it was just such a perfect way. That is a good line. I said that out there. This is why Heilman so excited about him speaking. He can break out his old impression. I mean, I can't, I can't do a, I can't do it. Any other impression of any other presidents is good. So listen guys,

So Friday boys, we'll wrap this whole thing up in a great package with a special hacks on tap bow and everybody will be entertained. If not educated. The only regret is I won't be here at Manny's cause like pretty boy Floyd and baby face Nelson, I'm going to barrel out of Chicago with your violin case. Exactly. And a bag of cash. All right, boys, we'll be together. Uh,

It's going to be interesting. A lot of steaks. It's the end that we started the podcast, and David didn't have mustard on his shirt, and we ended the podcast, and David still doesn't have mustard on his shirt. Only because they wouldn't let me eat during this podcast. But there's two forms of mustard sitting right in front of you, David. We used to do these late-night ones after debates, and Gibbs and I or the guests would go, what's that noise? Because we'd be in different places. And then we'd turn on the Zoom, and we'd watch a double Reuben vanish between pundit moments. It was like watching a wood chipper. It's good because I'm actually dieting.

You look good. Yeah, I'm working on it. You do look... You look... Svelte. Well, let's not go crazy. Well, svelte enough. No, I've had to buy new belts. That's good. Well done. Yes, I'm outside the beltway. Oh, new belts. Okay. It's time to pull the plug on this thing before the cops get involved. Talk to y'all soon. See you next time. ...