Bivalves & Bipartisanship (with JMart)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Can CNN thread the needle? How do you pivot from excitedly promoting your anchor's book to somberly and respectfully promoting

promoting your anchor's book. Biden's health was very much in the news even before the cancer diagnosis was announced on Sunday. That's because of a new book by CNN's Jake Tapper. This was already going to be a tough week and this makes it much harder. And that is a reference to the fact that our colleague Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have a book that's set to publish on Tuesday. This very tough news, this very challenging news,

And at the same time, the backdrop of our colleague Jake Tapper's book with Alex Thompson coming out this week. It's so hard. It's such a difficult time. So unfathomable in terms of the pain this family must be feeling. And yet, if you act now, and you use the code backslash tap that book, you will...

All right, hackaroos, that was satirist John Stewart talking about the book that we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about everything. We're taping this thing in the afternoon. Normally we do it early in the morning and then we edit it and get it to you. So this may get out a little late. And we're loopy. We literally just spent three minutes talking about the WKRP theme song and cast. So this is going to be a fun one. And joining me, of course, the one and only John Heilman.

And a special guest to help us wade through the flotsam, the jotsam, the tidal waves of things going on in politics right now. Johnny, who we got? The flotsam and the jotsam. Awesome. See, I told you we were loopy. I've had a long morning. Fantastic. We got J-Mart, the man, myth, legend, Jonathan Martin of Politico. J-Mart, you're headed west tomorrow to explore the wonders of Seattle, I believe. The Pacific Northwest, yes.

uh, yeah. Washington state folks. If you got recommendations on coffee, salmon, bivalves, you know, send it my way. Go to the Filson factory store. There you go. Time for a new good satchel for you to chase the political animals. So, so Mike, you're, you played, you played the, yeah, you played the, you played the thing introducing, uh, there was Jon Stewart, uh, talking, taking on the Tapper Thompson book. Um,

you know, the topic, Jonathan Martin is the only one of the three of us right now sitting in Washington, D.C. And so I feel like I should just ask him, is it as much of the talk of the town as it feels like it's the talk of the town, that book? Oh, yeah. No, there's no question about it that the convergence of this book and Biden's diagnosis has

made this white hot moment. And I mean, to their credit, they got much buzz about the book Jake and Alex did even before the Biden diagnosis with some wisely timed excerpts that came out before the book was actually released to juice presale. So no, it's been talked about for a while. And look, they did a lot of reporting

I haven't read it yet, but I know the extent of the folks that they talk to.

This was always going to happen. You can't have an incumbent president, Democrats, who drops out in the middle of the race because his party basically forces him to at the proverbial barrel of a gun the summer before his reelection. Yeah, it's going to be a story and it's going to be a story for years to come. And Democrats should not be surprised. Well, it's huge political junkie food, too. You know, who whispered to who that he on one hand, I bought the book.

I like Jake and, um, um, see, I told you I'm loopy. The other guy, Alex, Tapper and Thompson, Tapper and Thompson used to be a vault build team. They, uh, they had a hell of an act, but I'm bored with it. I was bored with it before the tragic cancer diagnosis. I'm just, I wrote something on sub stack way before just saying, Joe Biden needs a friend to tell him not to run. But instead he did the hubristic thing. He ran big mistake, big penalty. Kamala was pretty awful. Um,

Cut to we get Trump, you know, to me, I'll probably skim the book, not read it because I'm just trying to get excited about all this story. It's totally legit, particularly the cover up. But it just feels old and creaky. And now the poor Biden has a pretty aggressive form of cancer. I feel bad for him. It's like, oh, I don't know if I really want to get out the old punditry speed bag on Joe again. We all know what happened.

It's tragic. Here's the thing. We don't know what happened. And I'll say this. This is what we don't know. No, no. Let me just start. What I mean by what happened is you're right. We don't know in the cover-up. We know Biden made a horrible wrong call to run for re-election. Yes, although I think the relevant thing now, and I think, I don't know if anybody will agree with me about this, but here's what seems to have happened. And J. Martin, both of you guys can pick apart whether I think, whether you think this is right.

Those guys put out the Her audio tape on Sunday. The book was going to come out on Tuesday. There had also been the Her audio tape, the four and a half, five minutes that they published on Friday. So they did that as an addition to their excerpts in The New Yorker and Axios. The wave was building, and the Biden people, and then the book was published on Tuesday, as all books are, are

In between those two things came the announcement, and I want to say the announcement, not the diagnosis, because as we sit here today, I have no idea when the diagnosis was. We don't know. And I think that's a pertinent question for journalism and history. I've listened to a lot of these medical experts. There's some consensus about these things, but there's certainly a bunch of doctors who are like,

It's weird to have this advanced the state of prostate cancer and having not known about he could have had this thing for years. We've never seen a PSA test from Joe Biden, unlike a lot of previous presidents, Obama, Bush, others who put out their PSA numbers. We don't know.

A lot of things. And I think the reason why it's relevant, Jamar, this is what's, there are two things here. One, the cover-up thing now has been extended to that question. Was there, is there a possibility that Joe Biden had prostate cancer while he was in the White House and it was covered up then? That's a question. And the other one, the other question that is kind of floating around is the media strategy question, which is if they thought that

And they may, I don't know, maybe there'll be right, but it does feel like they put out this news whenever the diagnosis actually was, they put, no, it feels like they're trying to big foot the other. Yeah. Yeah. To generate, to generate sympathy for Biden. And I'm not sure that it is generating sympathy because if there was actually a coverup, I'm not saying there was, but if there was,

they may have just now shined a spotlight in the press on digging into that question. There's a lot of people in journalism, certainly on the right, there's a ton of them, but also at places like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, who are now asking these questions about when, what, their disclosures about Joe Biden's health were terrible throughout his four years, like very non-disclosive, not a lot of transparency. And I think all those questions are now bubbling to the surface. Good for the Tapper Thompson book,

But not great for Joe Biden. I don't know. I maybe it's not. I'm not sure. I want I think you're probably right. The Biden people might have synchronized it. If they were smart, I would have waited for the book to blow over and then let Joe Joe. If you're going to stall the news, stall it when it make it about Joe and some some sympathy without the book gumming it up where it looks like a tactic. But I don't know. I think it may not be good for the book. And frankly, you know,

I'd like him to have a good book, but who cares, really? It's kind of distasteful, frankly. I think to the average reader. Which part is distasteful? Just...

Okay, he's got cancer. He's got bad cancer. He made a bad decision to run. Now we're going to have 300 pages of what kind of wheelchair they were going to buy and all the gruesome details with appropriate moral outrage over the cover-up. But I don't know if the mass reader appetite is there for all this now. Maybe just leave him alone. J.R., what's your take on all of this, all the various potpourri of issues that I've raised and Mike has opined on? Raises the burden on Biden,

to provide more clarity about this diagnosis, his PSA test as president, and whether there was any inkling at all that he had this diagnosis. Now, people will say, Trump is president. This is yesterday's news. Why the hell did he do that?

Well, I would say that nobody cares more about legacy and perception this side of Donald Trump than Joe Biden. So, yeah, it's in Biden's interest. He's playing for history. And it should because he's not Trump and he shouldn't act like Trump. He's playing for history now. You know, the be no bullshit parent about when this diagnosis came. Why was he doing PSA tests as president? If he was.

Have his doctor explain why it wasn't showing up. And it pushes Trump to release his. Right. Yes. He never has. There's medical privacy issues there, but Biden can unburden his doctor of that. And again, I understand it's not immediate news, but Joe Biden does care about his place in history. And this is going to tarnish it if he does not address it further, I think.

Right. I'd say something further with the other thing I'd say about this, which is, look, I mean, just in terms of public in terms of public perception, in terms of public health, you know, the question of the millions of men out there not getting PSA tests when they should. And the question of like a president who decided to blow it off. And I know there's an argument that if you get to be that age, you shouldn't take them. I've heard those arguments by now. I'm not I'm not even weighing in on that. But clarity about what what.

What is the genesis of this? What's the genealogy of this? I think would be good for the public and would be good for Biden's legacy. But Mike, to your point about why do we care about this? Here's why, if I were a partisan Democrat, if I was a member of the Democratic Party thinking about 2028, here's why I would care.

Somehow it's the case that a thing that millions of Americans could see, that Joe Biden was too old to have a second term in office, that they saw for years before he decided to step aside. The Democratic Party, which presumably is what all political parties are for, which is to win elections and then implement their preferred policies and values. The Democratic Party somehow either didn't see it

Or covered it up or was in deep denial, but basically lost the thread of what they're there for. I mean, what's the point of the Democratic Party if they can't see that

a lethal political liability on the part of a sitting president and do something about it to increase their odds of winning the next election. You know, it's hard to tell the gorilla, hey, gorilla, we need a new gorilla. I didn't say it was easy. So Democratic Party is not, it might be an organism, but it's not a person. It's not five guys in a room. So, you know, you divide and conquer. In my Substack thing, I wrote,

The problem is when you run for president, you sign up for a 20-year journey of slights and being told you're an idiot and being told it's Hillary's turn. And giving up never works. So what do you do? You just grind on. People say, well, Joe Biden, he lost to Iowa. It's over. You just keep going like a psychopath. And guess what? You get rewarded. So then you go to a guy who had that experience and said, Joe, you got to get out.

F you. I smashed my head against the wall for 20 years where everybody laughed at me to get here. Now you're telling me to quit? No way. So they should have.

maybe he had a friend who did, but it's, it's so hard. He was told, he was told repeatedly. He couldn't do X. He couldn't do Y. He couldn't do Z. And he did all three and more. And then here we are. It's January of 23 and the midterms are over and whoa, he really is going to run again at, at 82. Well, yeah. And while we're doing the cover, our ass, you know,

Let me just jump on that real fast and recall that in February 2023, soon after the midterms, I wrote a piece saying directly that no Democrats or at least few Democrats wanted an 82-year-old standard bearer the next year. But they didn't want to answer the next question, which is if you're not providing for Kamala Harris. And the answer was overwhelmingly no. They were scared of Kamala Harris. Yeah, because they knew she was a slow pony. That was part of the problem.

Of course, there is an alternative to all of these things. And by the way, just real fast, John, do you know the Democrat who had the stones to go on the record in that piece? Again, Dean Phillips from Minnesota saying we all we all talk about this guy who got totally hammered for it and turned out to be completely right. I think we need to take a little break right now. So let's do that and we'll see on the other side.

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So I understand all of the psychological dynamics. You know, Mike Donilon said to me once many years ago, back in like 2012, he was like, all Joe Biden's ever done is run for things. Like someone's going to tell him not to stop running. Like he's a runner. That's what he does. He runs. And I understand that. I understand why you couldn't talk Joe Biden out of running. I also understand why there was, what the things you just said, Jonathan, about the dynamics, how this all unfolded. I could see, you know, in real time, you could see it unfolding. The reality is though,

sitting presidents, incumbent presidents, you know, have been primaried by, you know, George Herbert Walker Bush got primaried by Pappy Cannon in a serious way. Jimmy Carter, when he looked like he was bound for defeat, got primaried by Teddy Kennedy in our lifetime. It's not like the answer wasn't, could you get Biden to suddenly see the light? The answer was why? I think, well, I think Democrats who want to consider their future,

you know, going forward, have to ask themselves why of all these supposedly talented people out there, why the party collectively, I know the party, there's no smoke bill back room, but why did Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro or whoever not challenge, not say, you know what? We need a contested primary. Let's run against Joe Biden and see what happens. I'll tell you why it, because in the current democratic party, at least circa then the

The rules of gravity were DEI and nobody wanted to cross Kamala Harris. Well, OK. I mean, I was told that by one of Biden's chief leaders after he blew the debate. Secret media got invited to. I'm yelling. You can't. One, he's got to get out. No, he's doing great.

Two, it can't be Kamala Harris. They said, Mike, you don't understand the Democratic Party. It has to be Kamala Harris. I go, no, it never has to be anything. And, you know, you have to have some process so at least she earned a nomination, should it be her. And they looked at me like I was from Jupiter. These are people running the Biden campaign.

And their tactic, which I think is all over the book, is the Biden guys were using that as their shield. Well, you know, she's worse, so we got to stay in. Problem solved. And they were double wrong. I think that, you know, I just go back to core first principles here. If the election was, as they framed it, an existential election about the future of American democracy, then

It's one way or the other to find yourself in 2024 with a sitting with a nominee, a de facto nominee who's 82 years old and is clearly fascinated

even if you think that he wasn't so bad in 2022, by the end of 2023 and early 2024, it was pretty evident to everybody who watched at that point, the public science was bad and he was not going to be competent to serve four more years as president. And I think for the good of the country and for the good of the party, somebody needed to, someone needed to pull the pin. And inflation and every political thing, it was not a secret, but you know, it's back to what I say about all politicians now. And I love politicians. I've worked for him for four decades and,

but it's about the clowns and the GOP, my once beloved party, as well as the Biden crew and a lot of the people at the top of the Democratic Party. You know, nobody's asking you to land on Omaha Beach here. Just do the right goddamn thing.

Have some guts. Give up the free Senate haircuts, maybe. And none of them want to do it. The common thread in both parties that we're talking about is the leaders' fear of their own voters. They're scared of their own voters. And, you know, whether it was the Democratic governors and senators and House members who were petrified of saying, no, I don't want Kamala Harris to be the nominee.

or Republicans who for a decade now have been rolling their eyes about Donald Trump, but then happily going along with him because their voters like it. I mean, so here we are. I don't want to give up the cushy office. Oh, well, we didn't really need democracy anyway. Now, normally, let me just add one last thing. Normally, when we are here, you and me, Mike, with Jaymar or somebody else, we don't have David Axelrod. He's not around, you know, but sometimes...

you get lucky and acts who appears on, on television with some frequency. We get to hear him kind of from the great beyond. I don't mean he's dead, but beyond of cable news, I just listened to that. I want to ask you this question, Mike, about the consultants around that, because this is one of the themes of the Tapper Thompson book is that we're

When you think about laying down blame, who was to blame? Who engaged in the quote, what they call a cover up? Who's at the core of it? It's his family and his very, very small inner circle of political strategists, which they refer to as they were referred to by some of the White House as the Politburo. Here's David on with Jake Tapper,

And Van Jones on CNN over the weekend, he was asked who's to blame for what happened here. This is what Axe had to say. He was shielded by a coterie of advisors and his family. They were in this confirmation bubble and they said,

shielded. They tried to shield the world from his decline and they tried to shield him from his own standing in this polling numbers and so on. And so I at the end of the day, I have to point the finger at the people around him who didn't do him a service by encouraging him to continue. Jim, does anybody in Joe Biden's inner circle or even secondary second ring of circle of advisors doing those people work in Democratic politics again?

The second ring, absolutely will. I think the inner circle is the family, Steve Reschetti and Mike Donilon, and those were the folks who were at Rehoboth when the end was near, and I just...

think that they're done. The answer is no. And by the way, we should say with all love for our friend and colleague here, David Axelrod, he and James Carville were the two most prominent Democrats who were early and often about Biden not having the capacity to run again. And look, they were ignored or mocked by their own party, including by Joe Biden, who I reported in 2023 was privately calling David Axelrod a prick.

No, no, no. They were not. They were blaming the people who were critical, which is classic palace guard behavior. I just ran across my button that said pricks for Biden that David gave me at one point just the other day. They're going at five figures now on eBay. So you better get one fast if you're curious. Well, J-Mart, you talk to everybody. And, John, you too. Yeah.

Do you know any senior experienced Democrat consultant during that era who was excited about Joe Biden as nominee? Everyone I knew were like, oh, we're doomed.

Which year are we talking about? In the 22, 23 period? Yeah, 23. You know, the beginning of the presidential cycle when you should have got out. No, but I don't think anybody was. But I'll tell you what you didn't see. Again, and this just goes to not to blow smoke up Axe or Carville's ass, but like it does, you know, it's amazing how the unanimity of the consultant class in 2023.

who would all say he should have just, you know, after the 2022 midterms, he should have stepped aside and thrown the baton and had an open primary. A lot of consultants would say that privately. None of them, apart from James and David, would go on the record and say it on television. And don't forget. Excuse me. There's some smoke. Go ahead. Go ahead. You know, and you're forgetting, by the way, I'm going to pat my own back here. You're not a Democratic strategist. That's true. That's true. But.

I was the third op-ed in the New York Times. They went with looks with Clooney, brains of Carville, and then I was the hybrid right after that. We all wrote the same thing, essentially. Yeah, sorry. Jay Mart has something to say. He's waving his hands. It's a little frustrating now for especially folks of bad faith on the right to say the media never wrote this media. I mean, the story about Grumpy Old Men 2, the sequel between Trump and Biden, the race everybody was dreading

Jesus, that was like a recurring storyline for two plus years. Everywhere. Everybody knew it was reported. And people wrote about the polling problems, about the fact that the public was – that was the main political liability that Biden had. And I will say further to that, and this is a talking point the left has embraced, but it's 100 percent true, is that –

In terms of cognitive decline, there were as many signs of Donald Trump's cognitive decline as there were of Joe Biden's. They were just different kinds of signs. He had a stronger voice. He looked better walking across the lawn. But when it came to screwing up names, screwing up dates, not seeming to know where he was at various times and saying crazy shit all the time, Trump was as much. I mean, I think they could be applied to both of them. They both.

Probably both were too cognitively impaired to be the president for the next four years. Trump was just a better performer, though. Yes, he looked strong instead of frail. You don't have to be Freud to figure out that a lot of the obsession among the bad faith crowd on the right, and I separate the good faith folks,

It also has to do with them doing some self-therapy about their own guy, right? I mean, it's a lot easier to focus on Joe Biden and what happened in 2023, 2024, than come to terms with the fact that you've hindered your party over for a decade. To a lunatic, right? For a decade. Well, we had no choice. Biden was crazy. Okay. All right. Stay tuned.

For a trade war. That was my Trump thing was a managed way to get to try to work in the segue here. Yeah, no, good. All right, here we go. We're going to wind it around. From one grumpy old man to the next. So let's have a little grace here, which left in American politics, and wish former President Biden a full recovery and a happy life.

happy life because he is for love him or hate him. He is somebody who has faced a multi-decade diet of tragedy in his life. And someone who, and someone who tried from, from the, from 1972 to, to, to, to the day he left office, who was dedicated to public service and worked really hard and tried to do the best for the American people. Even when his ego sometimes was a problem and various mistakes he made, the guy was a dedicated public service, dedicated public service. Yeah. Yeah. Far from perfect.

I'll tell you one thing about him. He did not try to destroy the American auto industry. I appreciate that. Or American democracy, for that matter. Yeah, that too. We need to take a quick break right now. We'll be right back with more of Hacks on Tap.

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Let's pivot to the current status of the slappy fight trade war architected by the one and only President Donald J. Trump, Jonathan.

I'm sorry, I should really pivot bigger than that. Trendward is a disaster. It's hurting Trump. But more importantly, is the big, beautiful bill going to save us? We had little bumps on the House of Props and Budget Committee here. Looks like some Freedom Caucus guys aren't on board. You got some salt guys. You wrote about that. Give us the state of play. Yeah, state of play, Jay Moore. What's going on out there? Of the big, beautiful bill. It will pass. Something will pass. Trump will sign something. Will it still be beautiful? It'll be big.

It'll be a beautiful, maybe not as big bill. Look, the bulk of this bill is to keep the current tax rates in place. I mean, it's not like this is some massive tax cut. It doesn't change the rates for most earners. The centerpiece of Trump's legislative agenda is largely keeping the current rates in place, which is, by the way, itself an astonishing thing. With the tips fade in. That's the only flashing news. Thrown in tips, thrown in some benefits for seniors, and there are some...

some sort of goodies for business. There's no question about it. Look,

I think this is too big to fail. And here's why. A is just the politics of across the board tax increase at the end of this calendar year if it doesn't pass. But second, this is all they have for this Congress. This is their agenda. You can't not pass the only thing that you got going for the entire Congress. And also, lastly, the underlying details of the bill don't matter. The bill is Donald Trump and they're all for it. Okay.

Like, because they're the Trump party and they'll haggle over Medicaid and salt and everything else. But ultimately, on final passage, they're going to vote yes because the details of the bill are- There's no alternative. Yeah, it's Trump.

So let me ask you a question in the context of that, J-Mart, and I'll throw it to Mike, but I then want to come back to get your answer. Because the most striking thing to me about this is that Donald Trump campaigned on not just on cutting taxes on... Which one are they doing? They're doing overtime or tips. Which one is the one that's going to get through? They're doing that, but they're not getting rid of taxing on overtime. He came out last week and...

basically went to Mike Johnson and said he wanted to raise the top rate on people making over 2.5 million. The Republicans just cruised right by that. He said he wanted to finally close the carried interest loophole. He said to Johnson, I really want you to consider this. They ignored it. And I'm curious about that.

Like it's an those middle class kind of populist. Those are the populist Steve Bannon ideas that Trump that Trump, you know, has a theory been wedded to since 2015. So I know, I know, but he went back and forth. I agree with you, Jay. He never made a big public push for them. But it's interesting to me that in this context that basically he finally kind of enunciated. This is what I want. And they they all kind of just went, yeah, whatever.

We're not doing that. And just moved on. And he doesn't seem to care. In the end, though, the last dollar they need to try to... I mean, this thing is basically paid for deficit spending. Right. Any Republican senator of the 80s would have a stroke looking at this thing. We've become the spending party by a mile. McGovern would be offended. But...

In the end, when they need a few bucks for a fig leaf, because some of the cuts are politically so painful, I think the $2 million up thing may come back. There's real revenue there. On the Senate side. Yeah, because as distasteful as that is for the traditional Republican Party, Trump's not a conservative. That's the biggest word murder ever. He's a populist. He's Juan Peron. And so, screw some millionaires, screw some Wall Street guys, he'll be fine with that. He's not. I mean, that's

It's not a level of consistency that he doesn't really have. I mean, what happened here? Now for the for the surtax on high earners, Newt got a hold of him and said Bush 41 got really hurt. Ninety two on raising taxes. They're going to they're going to kill us on raising taxes. Trump said this out loud and said he's changed his mind because of that. The new conversation.

But we know Trump, he'll change his mind again in the clutch if it'll get him out of a pickle. Sort of a strange thing, though, Jay Mark, when he said that, because it just made me think that like and Bannon himself pointed this out. He's like that's sort of a tell that he's thinking about about trying to get a third term, because the big difference between him and Herger Walker Bush is that, you know, it killed Herger Walker Bush is according to the conservative nostrum is like it killed his reelection. Trump's not supposed to be running for reelection. Why should he care about that?

Yeah, but what really killed him, that killed him with the conservative base, but what killed him was a declining economy and people blaming Bush for it. Yeah, sure, totally. And who else has a declining economy? Trade war master Donald Trump. I'm obsessed with the fact...

If Trump can unwind these tariffs quickly, and of course he made a sucker deal with the Brits because they got him a nice invite from King Charles. I mean, they've rolled them old school. The old striped pants cookie pushers in the foreign office never been sharper. But China thing, he unwinds that powder keg.

Cookie pushers. Cookie pushers. I love that. That's an incredible. That's an old right wing thing. I went to the, literally, I heard an old school politician do the speech where on the back of the truck in Texas, I went to that department of state. They had a French desk. They had an England desk. They haven't had a Russia desk, but I didn't see no American desk. So I told those striped pants, cookie pushers. Anyway, one of my favorite phrases, but let me finish my point quickly. No, I can,

it's an Atchison reference because Dean Atchison would dress like a British gentleman and like the McCarthy, right? Striped pants, cookie pusher. I think Huey Long used it a few times. Now, Mike, are you, Mike, are you suggesting, wait a second. I heard Donald Trump. I want to like play this because I heard Donald Trump today saying,

talking about the state of the economy. And he portrayed the economy in a rather different light than the one that you portrayed it in. He was up on the hill with Mike Johnson as part of trying to get the big, beautiful bill across the finish line, at least out of the House. And a reporter asked him, how do you justify cutting food stamps and food assistance for so many working and poor Americans, including many of them who are members of your MAGA base? This is what Trump said in response to that question.

You campaigned on lowering the price of groceries. How do you justify cutting food assistance in this bill? Let me just tell you, the cut is going to give everybody much more food because prices are coming way down. Groceries are down. Eggs. You told me about eggs. You asked me a question about eggs my first week.

He said, "Eggs." I said, "I just got here. Tell me about eggs." And he was going through them. If you know that eggs now, way down, everybody's buying eggs. Grocery's down, energy's down. Gasoline is now buying, they're buying gasoline now for $1.99. What I, if you look back, you'll see $3.50, $4.

This country, we're going to lose this country. Our country is respected all over the world. All over the world we're respected. We were a laughing stock. Yeah, the funny thing is, of course, it's always the opposite. We're now a laughing stock in any capital that counts. They all roll their eyes. Everybody's buying eggs, though, Mike. Everybody's buying eggs. Well, I will bet my Trump University mail-order economics degree that that's just...

flat crazy wrong. But to finish up my earlier point, if he can unwind the tariff stuff quickly enough, he'll escape the iceberg because a lot of the tariff price shock is

is just starting to hit now going forward in the next month, particularly in heavy goods. But if he doesn't, it's going to get really painful. Your 4th of July is not going to be just Independence Day. It's going to be price shock day. And we'll see, because then he is on Bush 1 bill to be rejected as a fumbler on the economy. He's already got numbers almost as bad as Biden's on handling inflation in the economy. So let's just

Let it cook for a while and see where he winds up. If Biden said he'd be roasted, Trump keeps saying gas is $1.89 or $1.90. It's just not true. The average price of gas is $3.18. Trump keeps saying this. Gas is not $1.90 anywhere in America right now. It's just not true. Here in California, it's $114 a gallon because of all our taxes. I drove across most of the country not that long ago, and I saw some prices that leaned like the mid-twos. I didn't see anything at $1.89. Right.

And you didn't need to buy any gas in that fine EV you're driving around. It's true. That's true. Here's the thing. But he's portraying the economy in this kind of flowery light, right? And again, not like you've never heard other politicians kind of bullshit about the economy. But he also this week, Jay Mark, to Mike's point, he also this week was like...

When Walmart said they were raising prices, I found this the most incredible thing of the week so far, which is Walmart should eat the tariffs. Now, I know that he lies about a lot of stuff, but he has been telling us for literally years that American companies don't pay, that American consumers don't pay, that China doesn't.

pays the tariffs. And now he's telling Walmart, I mean, shades of price controls to begin with, telling a private company what to do. I mean, kind of incredible. But also the implicit thing here is, yeah, actually, you know what? We actually pay the price. It's an extraordinary concession. And it should have gotten more attention because his whole dick has been that, yeah, that the foreign countries were the ones paying the tab. And no, it turned out, actually, it'll be the American company and they'll pass it on to you, the consumer.

Oh, that's good to know. In May of 2025, that's okay. Well, he doesn't even understand when the goods come in, does customs write an invoice to the government of China or France or Britain? No. The invoice is to the person receiving the shipment who's an American. I mean, it's just, it is, fifth graders understand this better than this guy, which is to the mental accruity issue with him. But if he keeps going down this thing, um,

It's going to get really bad. And that's when even some of those safe Republican Senate guys are going to start seeing some scary polls. He said there were going to be all these tariff deals in 90 days. He was like, we're going to do 100 tariff deals or 200 tariff deals in 90 days. They haven't done a single deal. They haven't done a single deal.

They have a letter, they have a memo of understanding with the British, which was like the easiest, like a gimme, like one of those Sam Snead putts that you don't have to actually take, you know, with the British. But we don't have a deal with China. He's not signed a single deal. And he's still talking about 100% tariffs on pharmaceuticals because he's like, we got to start get the pharmaceutical industry back. Do you think he's actually given up that that's

I mean, I know there's like Scott Besson's going around telling everybody, you know, Trump's backing down. Eventually we're going to like, you know, back our way out of all these problems. But Trump keeps talking about various sectors that he wants to have huge tariffs on. It's the only thing he believes in. He thinks tariffs are great. And he thinks that's where all the revenue is supposed to come from to pay. I mean, it's just...

Literally, a really good chimp could figure this out, but he's still struggling. Well, we have J-Mart. We have J-Mart, who's like the best chimp I've ever seen. Yeah, top-notch. Exactly. A secret chimp, Lancelot Link. The summer blockbuster is going to be the backstage drama to get Trump off of Liberation Day, the sequel. Because don't forget, the 90 days expire this summer, and once we get closer to that cliff,

Boy, howdy, the markets are going to be, you know, going nuts, right? Well, isn't Doge going to save us because we're going to save $100 trillion? Is Doge even still in business? Elon Musk. Where are they now? Yeah.

Elon said yesterday in Wall Street Journal, I don't believe him because he'll change his mind, but I'm out of giving political money. I wouldn't say that around the House of Leadership too much. It's been the only reason they put up with it. He had apparently a very bad experience in Wisconsin, unlike Jay Mart and I. And you, Mike, whenever we go to Wisconsin, we have a great time. I think that Elon Musk was a little scorched by his experience in Wisconsin. He could have gotten the cheese curds. That was his fault.

100% in the old style. No, it's actually worth listening, Mike, to the 22nd soundbite where Elon's doing this conference, and he says he's out of politics for now. The tone really gives away the level of disappointment. They don't love me. Yeah, totally. Also, Tesla, first quarter,

down nine percent in sales in europe they're down like 55 the tesla plant in berlin is running at 25 it's a disaster well other evs up a lot the whole market is up 11 most brands up 20 tesla down nine i mean they've got an anchor around their neck they're selling about 100 000 cars a quarter when they used to sell 180 190 so it's uh it's rough he's having a bad time we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back

All right, everybody. Well, Axe is on assignment, so Heilman and I have to handle the pretty litter commercial for the cat stuff. He's literally at a cat fancy show with a lot of other grandmothers learning how to knit. But cats are kind of cool. I'm not a real cat guy, but the cats I've known in my life I like, and I know Axe loves his. Do you have any cats there, Heilman? No.

Not to the best of my knowledge, and I'm not going to say anything negative about cats, but I think the three dogs that live in my house would have some strong feelings if one were to be introduced here. However, they do, they've seen pictures of David's cats, Augie and Twizzler. I thought it was Lennon and Trotsky. What are the names? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's daily and daily. Anyway, he's a nut for cats. He wants good cat litter. He wants good cat food. So, you know, that's why we picked up this sponsor, because the cat world listens to David Axelrod and they're right to. And, of course, using Pretty Litter, it's the best litter and a total game changer. Pretty Litter, this product, helps monitor a cat's health, detecting abnormalities.

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So, Jay, I want to I want to hit you on one on one straight down the middle of political. I was thinking just now about the fact that Marco Rubio, little Marco, is up on the hill. But that led me to thinking about about about twenty twenty eight. OK, so let's put aside the notion. Let's it's never too soon. Well, and it's also the case, but let's do it. Look, on the Democratic side, I think we would all agree. I have never seen in my life.

so many Democrats testing the waters this early. Like there are lots of Democrats out there, not surprisingly, but there's a lot of them. Normally it's like you wait till at least the second year of a new presidency or after, after the midterms, there is a lot of Democrats out there doing a lot of stuff. Okay. That's the first thing. The second thing is there's a lot of speculation about the, about the JD Vance, Marco Rubio potential, uh,

rivalry that could be emerging and will Trump turn on JD Vance and Marco Rubio is now basically running all foreign policy and they almost kissing Jerry or kissing Jerry in a way. Jaymar, what do you see in your travels these days, both parties in terms of people starting to jockey an angle already for 28 and who's doing it well, who's doing it badly? Right.

The speculation about the Rubio Vans tension fueled by none other than Donald Trump himself, who, of course, loves seeing scorpions in a bottle. Yeah. He was the one who floated Rubio for 28. I mean, nobody made him do that. I know. Bivalves in a sock, I think is what you mean, but go on. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The two ways we're going at it. So, look.

I think the Democrats now are headed toward a 2016 Republican-style field. Because of Trump, it's forgotten. But that was a massive field in 2016 Republicans had. It's huge.

They had to get to the kids table because they couldn't have everybody else on one stage together. It was like that for the Democrats in 2022, as you will recall. There were like 19 of them. There is no incentive for anybody not to run on the Democratic side. Look, it's become a down payment on either media stardom or another job.

Is anybody breaking through? Is anybody breaking through with donors or with... It's too early for voters, but at least with donors? Well, you know, at the beginning, in terms of breaking through and noise, it's AOC. But it's very early. I think right now with Democrats, you have a host of governors, senators, folks that want to look at it. But there's no question from a name ID standpoint, star power, AOC does stand out. The question is...

Does she want to do it? Does she go forward? Is there an appetite for her in the early nominating states that are obviously crucial? I think we're just way too soon. People forget this. But if I was to sit here, guys, in May of 2005, after George W. Bush became the red-blue mat,

became emblazoned on our consciousness forever. And if I would have said, you know what the Democrat salvation is going to be in three and a half years? There's a guy with a Muslim name and he's going to be the one who carries Indiana, North Carolina, Iowa, and a hell of a lot of kind of so-called flyover states. Barack Hussein Obama is the answer.

That would have been looked at with great skepticism in 2005. I say that because we sit here in May of 2025. We're so damn far away from this thing. There's going to be, you know, the lives lived between now and then. But there's room for a million little bubbles to entertain the media industrial complex. But you're right. But there's clearly only one real candidate to save America. ♪♪

Mike Murphy's favorite, the pride of the Calamari State, Gina Raimondo. Gina Raimondo, who's actually looking at running now, along with official Haxon Tap candidate Rahm Emanuel. But there are a thousand of them running, and as you say, there's no downside. Hey, Rahm Emanuel, where did I read that? Hey, don't laugh. I'm a cinch for Amtrak if he gets it. So this is...

a personal interest to me. Do you have any guys who read any deep meeting into Pete Buttigieg's beard, which is almost as cool as Mike Murphy's beard? There's a lot of folks who are rocking the beard now. It's sort of the thing to do among Democrats. I'm waiting for the J.B. Pritzker beard. That's what I want. The Carl Magnon look. When's the last time we had a bearded president?

19th century, right? Are we ever going to have a non-bearded president would have been the question. All of those Republicans between the Civil War and Woodrow Wilson, I mean, we're all rocking the beards, right? Yeah, they all look like they're in a Brooklyn steampunk band. Two questions for you geniuses. One, is there anybody who's not teasing it who you think would be?

Because all the usuals, you know, there are like 12 of them out there tickling the whiskers. I mean, I hear Whitmer's telling people she's not going to run on the Dem side. Can I say on the Republican side, which we haven't talked about yet, because it's real fast? The story sitting there in plain view is going to be that J.D. Vance is going to be unable to start the Republican primary because Trump's not going to want to let him go to New Hampshire and Iowa. Right, I agree with this. Because the second he lets J.D. off the White House... He's not running and he'll never admit. Lame duck.

And Trump will kill somebody. I might guess it'll be Rubio in the end, but he's quite capable. As things start going bad, and they will, Trump's going to look for fall guys. And the two guys out front now are in the Icarus position. Now, here's the mega question, though. We're all looking candidate. What about the calendar? Because the Biden guys put a real monkey wrench on the calendar to heavily de-honkeyize it, as we like to say in Detroit. So,

are they going to undo that or or not i mean there's a poll going around kamala pulling almost 40 percent in the democratic primary right now and we're here in california she's taking one last look at the there's a lot of buzz about you're gonna run for governor you're gonna run for governor lately the buzz has been she's gonna decide in august but she also this presidential thing worth another look based on some of these early polls what do you guys think what are they going to do the calendar

Because the calendar is vital. Well, I know what New Hampshire is going to do. And they're going to do what they've done for a century. They're going to have the first primary. And I say all that because I'm not just like, you know, being flippant. I say that because the Democratic Party has got to come to terms that New Hampshire is going to be the first primary state. And you can't keep crying wolf and saying, we're going to strip you of your delegates. It won't matter. It's a media primary. There are no delegates.

in a little state like they're going to give them back every summer at the convention right i'm sure i'm threatening to take them away in the for the sake of harmony and party unity so don't give me the line about we're going to strip their delegates no you're not okay so just come to terms with the fact that they're going to have an early primary and work around it it's just it's not going who moves up though that's interesting and isn't south carolina

I mean, that's the question. I think that Georgia is, you know, on the primary calendar from last time, Georgia was right up there near the top. I think that one thing, one of the changes that will stick, and maybe I'll be wrong about this, and I love the state of Iowa. I love the state of Iowa. I love going there, but I don't think Iowa's coming back to take the first spot. They screwed the poodle so badly with that in 2020 that I don't think that that's going to come back, and especially because of what Jay Moore just said, which is

The Democratic Party can tolerate a small, white, unrepresentative northeastern state as the first primary, but not too small, unrepresentative, largely white states in a row before you get to a diverse state in South Carolina. And so I imagine New Hampshire, New Hampshire, South Carolina. And then the question, you know, Georgia, it was the West is does Nevada still have a place in that first four or do people start looking for a bigger state?

southwestern, a bigger western Latino state. Or a heartland state, Wisconsin, Ohio, something interesting. You go to a Colorado. Harry Reid wired that thing and some of his folks are still out there and basically running the party in Nevada. Not basically. They are running the party in Nevada.

Shout out Rebecca Lamb. You'd be a lot smarter to have it. You're a lot smarter to have it in Colorado or in Arizona. If you were going to have, if you were going to try to do a big Western, an early, an early Western state, do it in one of those battleground states, someone close to a battleground state.

I'll bet the people listening think, God, you guys, you have no life. You're literally talking about the Arizona primary. But you got to understand those early states are the gravity of the process and they do affect which candidates can have an advantage. So it's not a small thing. I can say with some clarity that today, South Carolina and New Hampshire are going to be early nominating states. I think everything else is up for grabs. Yeah, that's what I think too. I agree with that. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors.

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If you want to impress your friends and neighbors and have a question read on the air, or better yet, in your own voice, all you got to do is get your voice memo, record a little question, and email it. Email it to hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com. Or you can type it out and we'll read it. Keep it short. We do the bloviating around here. Or if you're too lazy to even email, so I'm talking to you, 90% of our audience, you can

Call the Axelrod Rahm Emanuel voter registration slash off-track betting slash Hacks on Tap Chicago tip line at this number and record a quick question on our voicemail. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471.

Here we go. We're into the mailbag. And Mike, I'm going to ask the first question to you. It comes from our friend Allie, interestingly spelled A-L-L-I. Never seen that before. Allie asks, so do I. I love alternative spellings of all kinds. I sometimes refer to Jonathan without using either O's or A's in the spelling of his first name.

Allie asked the following question to you, Mike Murphy. Here it comes. What do you think is the worst thing that's happened to democracy in the past 12 years? And what do you think is the biggest threat to democracy in the next 12 years? Man, that's a talk about a PhD dissertation question. That's not true. False, Mike. Yeah, that is a mega question. Well,

Many would say this podcast, but I'm going to take the wider view. Promote it to both. Yeah. Past 12 and next 12. We're the unified field theory on what went to hell. But I do have a unified field theory, and it's a little glib, but the decline of our pop culture.

We used to take politics seriously. It had stakes. Now it's a game show like, ah, they're all corrupt. It doesn't matter. I'll vote for the guy with the orange hair. It's reality show culture, cheap conflict, no facts, no expertise. It's basically the dumbass theory of how to run a democracy. So in the last 12 years, it's been what will be the lost decade of President Donald J. Trump, where all standards are under attack, truth, truth.

justice, facts, not making up your own stuff, all the important things. Democracy has to have reliable facts that both sides agree on or else you can't have a legitimate debate. And going forward, does this accelerate or do we have a reformation?

Will people want to repair the institutions? And politics is cyclical. I think there's a great chance of that. But our politics are never going to be better than our pop culture, and our pop culture has gotten stupid. And I often joke and send all your angry letters to Heilman and Jonathan Martin here, but

If I got to do show trials, it wouldn't be the first person I'd haul up, but I'd have some tough questions for Andy Cohen, who has been the brilliant TV producer of all that junk, real XYZ of this or that.

at cheap conflict adults throwing wine glasses at each other on a party bus really it and trump is a creature of that world he is a cheap reality show his fame is built on sitting in a cardboard set pretending to be in charge firing gilbert godfrey who was paid to work for him so you know pop culture spreads into politics and uh that political culture is under attack now and if only the voters can demand a change by how they act so sorry for the sober bummer thing let's

Let's pivot to that famous political philosopher, Jay Heil, with a wonderful question from Rob. Rob wants to know, if Trump finds a way to run for a third term, I suppose Obama could then run. Would he? Could he win?

Uh, I'll take the second question, the second question, uh, first and the first question. Second, the second question, if he ran, could he win? He could win. Um, will he run under no, there's no chance whatsoever. And I'll tell you why. Um, one, one important thing, and it goes back, tags back Mike to a part of the very top of the podcast. I had a conversation with Obama a couple of years ago, right after he turned 60 and

and we were talking about age and politics and getting older and stuff. And he said, you know, he was just during 60. He said, you know, I could, I could still be a good president right now, but I don't think I could run for president. Well, now not the way I ran back then. I don't, I wouldn't want to put my body through that. I wouldn't want to campaign for it. He said, I don't think I would be a good president in my seventies. You know, I think like we were there, he was not talking specifically about Biden. He was just sort of generally musing about the, the, the, the, the wear and tear of,

And so, you know, Obama's now 63. He'll be 64 a little later this year. You know, if he were to run four years from now, he'd be running at 68. And he does not want to be president in his 70s. And I would then append to that the following point. Eight years as president, man, every president I have ever covered, and Jay Mart, I think you'll agree with this, and Mike, everyone you've ever known or worked for,

If you get lucky enough to do eight years, you're like, I have done my part for my country. I'm not going, I don't want to go back. You have to be mentally ill to want a third term, which of course is one of the main reasons why we think Trump might want one. It's like, you're not, you're no normal person. I mean, you have to be pretty weird to run for president to begin with. But if you did your eight years, you are done. You are not going back. And what the old Paul say is, Christ, they've taken all the fun out of it.

It's Stalingrad now. Also, there's also no question, but that if Obama ran for president again, Michelle would definitely divorce him. Unquestionably. Like, whatever all the rumors are about that situation right now, I don't have any comment. But I'll tell you, if he ran for a third term, done so. That would be over. He'd need a raise for the alimony. All right, J-Mart, here we go. This is a long question. And this question goes down the drain backwards for some reason. It's from...

It's from Mark. As an avid listener of the show from the wonderful city of Brisbane down under, I have a question for the hacks around my fellow Australian Rupert Murdoch.

That's a bad Murdoch, sorry. For fellow Australian Rupert Murdoch's media empire support for Trump and the MAGA movement. Whilst... Yeah, that's excellent. Kudos, Mark. Whilst there have been some isolated criticisms from some of Rupert Murdoch's media outlets at what stage, if any, does he plan to pull his support for the Trump movement and the Republican Party, at least in its current guise? So...

There you go, Jay Mark. And Jay Mark, when you answer that question, answer that question after you tell me when you're going to put another bi-valve on the Barbie. That's what I want. And work a Wilson to your answer here. We got to reward that. I think it's a vital question. I think Fox, which is the most prominent element of Murdoch's empire in the States, has been chasing their viewers. Look, they don't want to...

lose their viewers. And so they tend to follow their viewers more than vice versa. I mean, uh, that's the biggest hell, uh, is that when their voters, uh, when their viewers, I should say are making clear that, that they're sticking with Trump. Well, guess what? Fox is going back to Trump. Now where it gets more interesting to me, uh, is that Fox is different from the Wall Street Journal. And I think the journal editorial page in the first few months of Trump too, uh,

has been among the most articulate, superb critics of this president. And they do it from conservative principle, free market principle, but they also kind of do it with some flair and some moxie, and they just don't take him totally seriously, and that comes through. But that just does not have the pop with the everyday rank-and-file Republican primary voter movement

Because that person takes a lot more Fox than they do read, no offense, Paul, as you go, the journal editorial thing.

page. And Rupert is never going to touch Fox because as long as the Fox audience wants Trump, then Fox wants Trump. You know, it's just that. I'd say even further than that, people just don't, people now overstate the, I think the influence of Fox, even Fox on, on the Republican nominating electorate. I mean, you've run into Republicans all the time who are like Fox is the establishment. We don't pay attention to that. We pay attention to Breitbart. We pay attention to OANN. We pay attention to Facebook. It's more layers.

They still have a big audience and stuff. I think the real question comes down to succession here, doesn't it? The reality is, Rupert is really old. If James gets a hold of the Murdoch empire, you can see a pretty substantial change. And as you guys both recall, Murdoch tried to bail

on Trump when he gave him that. He froze him out of the media after 2021 for the better part of a year. He didn't have Murdoch. He didn't have Trump on once for about a year. He was all on DeSantis' side. And then the Republican voters came up and said, you know, we want Trump. That's the big tell. Where Fox is really going to get interesting is in the next presidential primary on the Republican side. Do they put a shoulder behind somebody? And that, you know, that's going to be the next time I think we see him really affecting things.

Okay. Well, thank you, Hacker Roofs. Do we have some blogs here? Yes, I have a plug. I think, J-Mart, you might want to plug, even Halman, you want to plug this. Friend of the show, and we're going to get him as a guest. Former ambassador, but former White House political director and all kinds of good stuff. Hell, former Georgetown University College Republican chairman, our buddy Frank Lavin, has written a new book called Inside the White House. I think a leadership guide to working with Reagan. But it is a great book. It is...

You're 23, you show up, you're a junior fish in the Reagan White House. Where do you get a desk? How do you get a different job? It is a fun, very personal memoir of the old Reagan days from the inside. And it's a great read. It's on Amazon, Frank Lavin, L-A-V-I-N, now in the Hacks on Tap book,

club. We should get the guy on the podcast, Mike. We should. He's a tariff expert, too. He was under Secretary of Trade. Oh, let's get him on. Let's get him on. I predict he will be on soon. But, J. Martin, I think you've read it. I've enjoyed it. It's a little book, but it is great and funny. Frank is a huge pal and also has a great nose for where to find the best dim sum in Hong Kong, too. Oh, well. Now I'm enthusiastic about having him on the podcast. He's an old China hand. Yeah, no, he's fantastic. That

Two books that are not out yet. I've gotten my paws on both of them. One is called 2024 about spoiler 2024, the election Trump and the Democrats. You ruined it for me. I know. Josh Duffy, Tyler Painter, Isaac Arndorf. It's going to be out this summer.

They have a lot of goods about both parties and the two campaigns the last couple of years. Love that. That'll be fun. That book coming out this fall from my old colleague and longtime friend, Ken Vogel at the New York times. Yeah.

Get this title, Devil's Advocates, the hidden story of Rudy Hunter Biden and the Washington Insiders on the payrolls of corrupt foreign interests. This is all about- Oh, I love it. I love it. The Von Kloberg story. Foreign lobbying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Foreign lobbying, foreign intervention in American politics.

And how all of this works behind the scenes. When does it come out? I'm going to Amazon order it now. That's coming out this fall in October. Ken Vogel, Devil's Advocates. Speaking of your old colleagues, J. Mark, does anybody know when the Haberman Swan book's coming out? I don't know if that's cooking anytime soon. I think that's sort of, I think, waiting for Trump to be in full, if you will.

Right. So that's going to become a that's becoming a longer term project. Who knows if Trump runs again for runs again for a third time? We don't get that book until after well, after 2050. But he's he's going to try to run, but he's not running. It'll end in a day.

U.S. military takes an oath to the Constitution. Let them try. I'll wind up in the back of a Humvee. That's what they said after January 6th. I'll write it down. He may try to run, but it's a joke. Okay, we should wrap up. Jay Martz got a scoop. He's got to go find there on his way to Seattle, a great town. Thank you all for listening. Johnny H., good to see you. Good to see you, man. Axe is on assignment, but we're going to get him back, and we'll see you in a week. Thanks for having me, guys. Off to Scoop Jackson Country. See ya.