Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Somebody said that about me the other day. He said, who doesn't know me very well, they said, you're such a kind person.
And I said, say that again. They said, you're a kind person. I said, I've never heard that before. It was a weird statement. I was kind. I've heard of words that, I don't know, I better not tell you. You know, I've heard of, I've been called a lot of things, but it's sort of a different kind of a word. It's like an old-fashioned word. Isn't it?
There you go. He's honestly, John Heilman, he seemed bewildered by the suggestion and almost took it as an insult, it felt like. Well, I thought it was strange how candid he was, David. He said he's never heard that before. For once, I think he's telling the truth. He probably has never been called kind before. But one thing I noticed about Trump is that whenever, and I learned this the first time I ever spoke with him, he called, he wanted to, he wanted to take over the oil leak
project down in the Gulf. And he called and he said, hey, you know, that Admiral down there, he says, seems like a nice guy, which I now know is a prelude to he's an idiot. And he said, but he doesn't know what he's doing. But Trump doesn't think words like kind and nice are... Speaking of kind, how about a word of kindness about our buddy Mike Murphy? He was supposed to be here.
He had a little battle with bronchitis that apparently took his voice out, which is like, you know, secretariat breaking a leg. Hopefully it ends better. I've never thought of Murphy as particularly kind either, you know?
Oh, I thought you were going to say you would never thought of him as, as, as fit as secretary. Well, that's certainly, I mean, God knows. I mean, although now he's not, all of those parts have been replaced, right? He's got like, you know, new hips, new knees, new everything. He's like, it's like bionic secretary. Yes. When you talk about hip with Murphy, it's, it's mostly about, he doesn't want to break one is the anyway. Hey, listen, we've got, he's going to be disappointed because we have a legend who,
with us today, Jeff Greenfield. Jeff, has anyone ever called you kind? I think back in 1954, perhaps when I helped somebody in second grade or whatever. But you got over that. Maybe. That sounds about right. Any of the people you've ever written about or covered called you kind? Well, actually, at least...
One former president, not the one you worked for, was less than enthralled by some of the stuff that I wrote. I bet. You know the story about Bill Clinton that when he says nice tie, it means do something physically impossible to yourself. So the one time I was at the White House for a dinner, I don't know why, he said, Tom Hanks came over and said, the president wants me to tell you you have a nice tie.
And you interpreted it immediately as a... I didn't know at the time. Dave Maraniss later explained what that was code for. Which is like, go hang from it. So anyway, look, the last thing in the world, as you know, from the other side, you know, we're seeing this now in a unique way that this president in particular, you know, takes umbrage
at virtually anything other than worshipful praise that somebody will say. And I've asked presidents who've just told their reporters what they can do with themselves. This one seems...
Yeah, well, we're going to get into that. But I just have to say, I want to give you your full due. Right, here we go. Former speechwriter for Robert F. Kennedy, the real senior.
By the way, we got to ask you about that, about what RFK would have thought about his namesake. I'm afraid, David, that Junior is also all too real, but yes. And then a practicing political consultant for seven years. And then a great, great national political correspondent for...
Myriad or for many outlets, including CNN, CBS, ABC, what, New Times Magazine? Did you write for them? No, that wasn't me. Oh, that wasn't you. I just couldn't hold on to a job. No, that was High Times Magazine you wrote for. No, not that one either. Anyway. Well, listen, guys, the thing about Trump is...
it's very hard to have a weekly show, Heilman, because every day is a week.
uh with this guy but we got a big thing coming up tomorrow we got some a big thing coming up tonight but the bigger thing is tomorrow these tariffs yes these tariffs uh president was talking about that uh as well and uh let's listen to what he said nobody knows what he's going to do which is driving the whole world insane but uh including the stock market but let's listen to uh
What he had to say about his tariffs, previewing them. The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America over the decades. They ripped us off like no country's ever been ripped off in history. And
We're going to be much nicer than they were to us, but it's substantial money for the country. So, first of all, guys, like, does the victimhood ever end here? It is really something, but that still does. It still leaves open. His idea of generous may not be their idea of generous, Jeff Greenfield. But what what is what is it with Trump and tariffs?
This is one of the things that he has believed from the very beginning, I mean, for decades. It is rooted in the victimhood notion that he personally, but more than that, this country has been ripped off. This was a major theme in 2016. You know, we've been helping these other countries. They've taken our jobs. They've, you know—
taken our money. They betrayed us. They don't treat us right. That is one of the few absolutely consistent things about what Trump has believed. And it's rooted also in what you have to
I think, fairly conclude it's a rather unique definition of reality. I mean, every, you know, actually every honest has said to him, you know, you're going to, you're going to create trade wars. This is going to be inflationary. It's likely in the long run, despite what you think to lead to, to stagflation. There's just a report out this morning. I saw it.
that a group of manufacturers are predicting that. And he still believes that the other countries pay the tariffs. He doesn't understand how the economy works. And it's, look, this may seem trivial, okay? Trump's office building, Trump's Fifth Avenue building is 58 stories high. It's in the department of buildings. He says it's 68 stories high. And as a reason, and what happens if you get into a Trump Tower elevator, I'm pretty sure that simply skips 10 floors.
So there's nothing about this guy that says he is capable of being told, look, here's the reality of what you're going to do. Because he knows in the Trump definition of reality that tariffs are great. Yeah. I mean, I think that he's, you know, he believes that he can define reality by insisting on
his version of reality. But Heilman, I mean, as a political matter, what he's selling is, and we should explore this. Will this actually, you know, and you hear it repeated by some of his supporters. If we, if we,
put these tariffs on and we stop and we force manufacturers to come back into the American market. We'll restore all those manufacturing jobs that have been, you know, flowing overseas for decades and we'll reverse the, you know, the degradation of working class people and so on. That's kind of the story line that he's
That he's telling. How much power does that have? Well, the power, the story has power as long as it exists. In the real world. Yeah, well, as long as it exists as a story. I mean, I think there is, look, Trump, I think, is...
He's pining, as he does on so many levels, he's pining for an America from an earlier time. You know, there was a period before, around the time of the McKinley administration, there was a time when the American economy existed more or less as an island, and globalization was not a real thing. Actually, globalization started earlier than people think, but global supply chains, a world in which we're wholly integrated in terms of
the flow of capital, the flow of parts, the flow of goods, the flow of people, all of that, you know, was hadn't started yet. And Trump liked that, that version of America. That was an America that was not, didn't have a lot of immigrants in it. Didn't have a lot of people with brown skin and it had had where America could be self reliant. All of its industries were contained domestically and entirely within the four corners of the United States. The idea that you can go back to that,
is bonkers. It totally misunderstands the way the global economy works and how thoroughly integrated pretty much everything is. It's not about American manufacturers coming back to the United States. It's like...
whether it's a car or most of the simplest consumer products, they're all stitched together from all over the world. 60% of the components in an American made car come from Canada, come from Mexico, come from elsewhere. And it's even more dramatic on something like the iPhone where the thing comes from like 160 different countries. They're there. Then they are the miracles of modern technology. And the modern economy is exactly this kind of integration where, uh,
comparative advantage means that, you know, certain things get assembled in one place and certain things get assembled in another place and we knit them all together and we can do that now. Unwinding that
is a fantasy, and in trying to do it, to get to your point, Dave, in trying to do it, he's going to inflict an enormous amount of pain. Jeff used the phrase stagflation. If he really does this and is bloody-minded about it and does it for six months with significant tariffs on all the goods he's talked about, he will crater the American economy, and the story won't matter then.
Because the people who because the people who are working class in America will be suffering at such a level that they'll be like, OK, this was not a great idea. However great it sounded in theory. But I do think we this needs to be put in a slightly broader context. And it's part of the reason why Trump is the president of the United States again, which is that for for decades under both Republican and Democratic presidents, the cost of globalization has
to American manufacturers and to working class Americans has been severely underestimated and ignored. And I think a large part of what the of why Trump seems so appealing, however, unrealistic, this is he's saying, this is what happened to you. Right. This is what the experts did. Sure. Under Clinton, under Bush, under Obama, under whoever.
And we kept hearing about, well, we'll retrain and, you know, the workers will get. Yes. Which was which was a lie. It turned out to be. Yeah. And I remember when I was at your Institute of Politics, Dave, I asked, I think it was Austin Goolsbee. I think we had dinner at his house. And I said, if you were a 50 year old, if you're a 50 year old factory worker, what do you what do you have to offer him? And Goolsbee basically said, honestly, I don't have anything to offer him.
Maybe his son will get up. Maybe we can do an apprenticeship program. Maybe there'll be ways like to make manufacturing better the way it is in other countries. We can't.
And the cost of that, in part, is that when Trump says, you know, I'll bring American factories, there'll be rebirth. There's a hunger to believe that based on an awful long time of being let down. Absolutely. Listen, I think I think this I've said it a lot here. You know, there's reasons for working people in this country to be pissed off.
And and it hasn't just been it's been over decades and through Republican and Democratic administrations. There is a systemic problem here.
And, you know, you can nibble at the margins of it, but it's it's really big. Now, this isn't going to help. But I'll tell you, I mean, you know, the biggest thing that motivated people to vote, if you believe polling and focus groups and what people told reporters and what people tell you across their dinner table is that prices were too high. Yes.
So this is a peculiar prescription for that. Just to say, like, I'm not sitting here saying, I'm not looking at some neoliberal fantasy land where I think that everything about globalization is great. Jeff, you're totally right. The pain of it and the cost of it has been woefully ignored by the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and everybody through a lot of that period. My only point is that you can't disassemble it.
It's not going away. The global economy can't be taken up, can't be chopped down to its studs where we have all national economies again. That's never going to happen. So the question is, how do you address...
The kinds of issues that have given rise to all this anxiety and frustration and pain and addressing it by pretending like you can go back to 19 to 1920s is not a is not a is not a helpful policy prescription and not going to lead to making anybody's life better. Yeah. But, you know, part of this is the same folks who.
sort of suggested that a rising tide would lift all boats are the ones who are telling them that this is a bad idea. And so they're kind of like, fuck you. We, you know, we, we, we've heard this before. And so, but I do think that, you know, I think the high likelihood we, they're saying cars will cost on the average 11 or 12% more than,
But, you know, you know, there's going to be huge impacts on groceries. The biggest
sectors of the of the economy are among the biggest that are going to be decimated are uh farmers in the agricultural sector and it's going to run right through the heart of trump's strength which is why you're going to you're going to begin to see there's some stirring among senators about this uh yeah right you know and uh you know so this is going to get more complicated uh
this is going to get more complicated for him, but let me suggest another motivation. I think the biggest thing on Trump's mind is this tax cut and extending this tax cut and deepening this tax cut. And he needs money to offset the revenues that he is going to lose because of this tax cut. Uh, you saw Peter Navarro now, uh, having served his time and out of prison and working in the white house again. Uh,
said yesterday, or I think it was two days ago, that these tariffs will produce $6 trillion over 10 years. Well, that would probably cover the cost of these tax cuts. So the other thing that Trump is doing is he keeps selling, as Jeff suggested, these tax cuts as something that foreign countries pay.
No, it's paid by the importers, American importers, who then pass the charges along as much as they possibly can to consumers. He said he's told the automakers don't pass the costs along. Yeah.
And threatened them if they did, which is a peculiar kind of capitalism and isn't going to work. I asked Jeff Greenfield in your history of being involved in politics, writing about politics and participating in it. Have you ever heard of the situation where a Republican wanted to
cut taxes for rich people and on the down low, raise taxes for working people to pay for the taxes that have like tax cuts that he's given to rich people. It's like the oldest story in the world, but that's what the, that's all this is. I mean, Peter Barrow can say whatever he wants when he says we're going to raise, it's going to raise this amount of dollars. It's a tax increase on, on, on, on consumption. That's all it is.
And what gives me a kind of perverse chuckle, if that's the right word, is when a guy like Steve Bannon, the avatar of working class heroes, you know, says we got to have to raise taxes on the rich. And to me, that's like the ultimate, you know, blowing smoke. Show me in the first term.
As Steve Bannon tells us about his father, who was screwed by the big shots and how, you know, Trump is the working class hero. Show me something Trump did in his first term when he was president that actually said, I'm going to afflict the comfortable in order to comfort the afflicted, to use an old phrase. You know, show me something where where the guys at the top were promised anything other than I'm going to cut your taxes more. But that's but that's.
That's just basic. You know, the question that I raised in this piece I did in Politico today is, will this— Great piece. —if things don't work, and Trump tries to sell his people on, well, again, I have to sacrifice a little bit. The history of that theme is not one that should give Trump encouragement, not that he has ever tried to rally people behind the greater good. He's sort of the anti-John McCain, you know.
person over country is basically Trump's theory. But I think the one thing that I think politically could conceivably happen is if in fact Trump doesn't get what he thinks he can get from this program and starts telling his people, just stay the course, you know, you'll have to, you know, the secretary of commerce says, well, my 94-year-old grandmother won't mind if she misses a social security check. Of course, he's a billionaire.
I'm not sure that history gives much comfort to Trump in thinking, yeah, they'll sit. My people will stay with me. I was stunned, actually, when he acknowledged that there might be, he said, temporary sacrifice. But, yeah, I mean, this whole issue of who pays is going to become clear when all these people,
prices go up and it's going to really test his ability to sell a different kind of reality. You're, you know, you're, you're comforting the afflicted. It extends also to what Musk is doing, uh,
this chaos at the social security administration is going to begin to touch, uh, uh, it's touching people and it's going to begin to touch the politicians who, uh, serve them $880 billion in cuts in Medicaid is going, you know, they can call it waste, fraud and abuse, just as they call this taxes on foreigners. But when those cuts start pinching people who are in nursing homes or, uh,
others in need that's going to be. So this is going to get harder, but, uh, I do think that the money for the tax cuts is a motivation, uh, for, uh, for his, you know, eagerness. And it may be that once he, once he gets the, uh,
Who knows how long these tariffs will stay on once he gets this reconciliation bill. And I'm a little suspicious about that. We need to take a break, but we'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
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You know, we talk about the last time, the Gilded Age, which is really also in the last era in which tariffs were celebrated and was a major source of revenue. It also was a time of great polarity and disadvantageous economic policies for working people. Nobody, I always love this, in America the Beautiful, the poem on which it was based, the final stanza, which didn't make the song, but people...
and people rarely note, ends with, and remove the stain of selfish gain from the banner of the free. And I wonder whether that same impulse is going to begin to overtake people when they realize that there is a kleptocracy that has been wheeled in in a Trojan horse of populism. Hey, man, look,
Elon Musk is writing million dollar checks to people in Wisconsin. Like what's the problem here? Excellent segue. What are you doing? What are you doing? Look at a gift horse in the mouth. You are so kind of like cynical, David. Like the man is public spirited. He got a big slice of cheese on his head and he's
Dancing around and he's writing million dollar checks. He's got plenty of cheese. That's not a Trojan horse. That's a good man. That was a professional segue from John Heilman to the next topic, which is the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin today. Elon Musk has become a big player. I think he's up to maybe 26 million.
spent on a Supreme Court race, a state Supreme Court race between a Republican Democrat for control of the Supreme Court that has also become sort of a surrogate battle between the pro-Trump and anti-Trump
uh, forces Musk handing out million dollar checks to voters. It's pretty clever. Actually, Jeff, he, you know, the, what he did, he did it in Pennsylvania. He gets people who are registered voters. You have to be registered, uh, to sign a petition. This was against, uh, activist judges, what he calls activist judges. Interesting. We can talk a lot about that, but the, uh,
But the point is to get the data from these people and then cross-match them with people who don't generally vote in these kinds of elections, who they know are their supporters, and then they target those voters for turnout. It's pretty smart. Yeah, I thought Taylor Swift would do that last year. Yes. I thought that was a way to – except it turns out that those younger voters were not as pro-Harris as one might have thought.
Yeah. Just one point. I don't mean to jump the gun, but one of the things about that Supreme Court race is if I'm right, over the next several years –
More and more, a number of these Supreme Court judges come up for retention or if they retire. So we're going to have this fight in Wisconsin, which is now approaching $80 million. I think over $100 million, Jeff. I think it'll be over $80 million just on television. All right. Really? Okay. Thank God I don't live in Sheboygan. No, no, I know. Everybody, the people are fleeing. The big takeaway here is that I got out of the media business way too soon. Yeah, that's exactly right. Me too.
I quit way before you did. Decades. Yeah, but you... Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. You were one of the originals. There's no off year anymore. No, I know. This isn't even the mid... This is the off year election. I'll crank out...
there's no off year because we always have these ballot propositions, but every year there's going to be this kind of fight for control of the Supreme Court, which controls perhaps what congressional maps look like, which controls... And it'll happen in other states as well. We saw a lot of activity around the North Carolina Supreme Court race. Also, a lot of this is an artifact of the Citizen United decision by the Supreme Court. So there are really no limits to what
Any person or corporation or any entity, for that matter, can spend. There's been a lot of spending on the part of progressive donors in Wisconsin as well. The real meaning of Wisconsin to me, Jeff, is less about how people react in the moment and more about whether Republicans solve the question of how they can get...
They're irregular voters, people who don't vote but for Trump in presidential races, whether they can motivate them to come to the polls, because the strength of Democrats right now is that they do well in these midterm and special and off-year elections when the voter turnout has been lower.
And that's what Elon Musk is trying to engineer with his petition drive. That's the question that will arise from this. And if Democrats win this, I think the answer is despite all the spending
that Musk is doing, and Democrats for sure spending a lot as well. They haven't solved that. And perhaps that'll continue to be an advantage. I think Democrats have to do a better job of talking to the people who they're not talking to, instead of relying on, you know, their base of college educated voters and older voters now to come out and vote. But
That's one of the things I'm going to be watching for tonight. You know, right now, if David Shore is right, the theory that if we could get our people who stayed home to vote, we would have won is not right. David Shore's numbers suggest that if everybody who was eligible to have voted, Trump would have won by more. Right. No, but that's the flip side of this. That's why there's a pool of voters who he can motivate personally who came out in the election who voted.
Democrats weren't going to win. The point is, the smaller the turnout, the better Democrats do. Which is not what Democrats normally have thought about. Yes, it's flipped the whole equation around. But as they've lost their hold on and also younger voters. So, you know, they have their own issues to solve. But right now, Republicans are trying to solve this one. But Elon was in there in there last night giving out his million dollar checks. He's like,
He's the new political version of the publisher's clearinghouse. And here's what he had to say. The reason for the checks is that it's really just to get attention. It's like we need to get attention. And it's somewhat inevitably, when I do these things, it causes the legacy media to kind of lose their minds.
And then they'll run it on every news channel. And I'm like, I couldn't pay them to the cost like 10 times more or, you know, to get the kind of coverage that we get. So here's the thing about Musk, right? He basically says in that in that in that thing last night, he said he asked the question why he's doing this. He points directly to the redistricting thing and says, you know, this is.
The future of the United States House of Representatives is here in Wisconsin. How these lines get drawn, it's unambiguous. And who controls the House of Representatives controls the future of, you know, American democracy or something. And he makes some kind of overweening claim. Here's my question for the two of you.
The White House is worried about this race in a way that they're not worried about the Florida races and not really worried about much else. They think they're going to lose. Now, we'll see what happens. But if the Republicans lose, there will be some celebration, I would say, among some Republicans in Congress who are worried about having to run with Elon wrapped around their neck. They would like him to go home soon.
And him losing this race would be fine and dandy with about two dozen congressional Republicans who were in vulnerable districts. But I guess the question that I have for the two of you is if this race has basically become not just a referendum on Trump, and Trump is really much more a referendum on Elon Musk. That's the Democratic messaging. That's what they've been spending money on their ads is like trying to basically – they think it's more fruitful to go after Musk than go after Trump.
Is that what is that? What does that teach the Democratic Party? And what does that make the next year and a half look like? Number one. And number two, do you think if they that Elon will, in fact, basically be done if he ends up losing Republicans, ends up losing this race? Well, one clue is something that Trump said, I think, just yesterday. So, you know, he's got a big company and sooner or later he's going to want to go back and run that company. Well, he's got to actually he's going to run out of he only can be a special candidate.
assistant or to the president, wherever he is, for like 130 days or something. And that time is going to run out. And I think Trump will probably be fine when that day comes. Get his office back, you know. The greater point, John, is the one that
I think among Democrats who are looking for some kind of salvation, some kind of reason for optimism, is that if that Supreme Court race goes toward Crawford and Musk loses, and if the race in Florida is closer than it ought to be, and if, in fact, the approval ratings do crumble, I think the notion is that
These Republicans in the House and Senate who, you know, who have had a spinectomy for the last several years, if they feel that standing with these policies is as big a threat to them as magomite, you might conceivably see...
more resistance if i can share with you guys you know i love to write alternate histories and stuff yes but you and you and trump yeah well mine is made up but but the the aaron sorkin frank capra alternate history that occurs that that sort of floats in my mind is okay things really go badly for trump or or his authoritarian impulses grow to even greater lengths that um
Senator Cassidy watches Bobby Kennedy Jr. eviscerate the vaccine program. And Senator Tillis says, my God, I voted to confirm Hexeth and he's destroying, you know, our secrets and a couple of others. They leave the Republican caucus, form an independent bloc, make some kind of deal with the Democratic Senate leadership to say, all right, no social programs allowed.
but we're going to start resisting Trump's more crazy ideas. And that's my Frank Capra, Aaron Sorkin. I was going to say, Jeff, that's not Frank Capra. That's Timothy Leary. That's what that is. That's the heavily... Well, I mean, look, the vice that they're in
is obvious, which is while Trump is only he's not popular among two thirds of the country, he's very popular among Republicans. And he is obviously willing to use every leverage he has to keep people in line. I mean, you know, Tillis, according to people I know, like Mitch McConnell thought he had Tillis's vote against Hegseth until the very end. And they just beat him up and said,
Dude, you're going to get primary and you're and this is, you know, you're going to lose your seat. And, you know, I'm sure they had some some, you know. Now, with Cassidy, the interesting thing about Cassidy is he voted to convict Donald Trump. It is really hard for me when you see the lengths that Trump is going to punish people who are involved in prosecuting him.
Is he really going to give Cassidy a pass when the time comes? You guys mentioned, by the way, there are a couple of things, Jeff. I mean, John, you said Republicans will be happy if Democrats win in Wisconsin. Some Republicans. The House Republicans will not because they're worried about redistricting and they're worried about losing a couple of seats. So that's one element of this. Well, I think a lot of safe Republicans, David, will not or will.
All I was trying to say, I was trying to say there are a couple dozen Republicans who are going to have to fight or who are very happy to have. We'll have maybe have Elon Musk off the public stage. That's all I'm saying. My point is that they're redistricting states here, state, state, state, legislative and congressional. We need to take a quick break right now. We'll be right back with more of Hacks on Tap.
The second thing is that this race in Florida, which we haven't, Jeff, touched on it. There's a special election. There are two, one for Matt Gaetz's seat, which is really not expected to be much of a contest. But the one for Waltz's seat, the now famous Mississippian,
Mr. Waltz, former Congressman Waltz, that's competitive in north central Florida. And it's a district that he won by 35 points. Republican polling had the race within three. The state senator who's running is not really from the district.
And that and is not a good candidate. And the Democrat outraced him like 10 to 1. Yeah. So although the super PACs are filling in that gap. So this has become a concern, so much of a concern that Trump that Trump pulled his U.N. ambassador out.
Elise Stefanik nominee back just as she was about to leave for New York because he didn't want her to quit because he's afraid of the special election up there and he's afraid of leaving that seat vacant for too long. She had a godfather moment there, you know, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. For those of us who have watched her metamorphosis, there was a certain... The Harvard-trained Elise Stefanik? Schadenfreude about that, yeah. So...
But guys, assume for a moment that
that that special election is won by the Democrats, which is probably not going to make the assumption that because the Republican candidate, Mr. Fine, apparently has the political skills of a baked potato. If that is won by the Democrats, it's going to be an enormous, oh, Trump's in trouble now. There'll be, as often happens in these special elections, as you guys know, an enormous overanalysis of what this means. Yeah, I
I keep having to remind myself as I read all the speculation about the midterms, the midterms are a year and a half away. So there is that. The other thing, which I know I'm leaping ahead, but forgive me, is the Democrats only have so much time before the 2030 census comes up, which is going to make a major shift of political control away from places like California and New York and into places like Florida, California,
and Texas, which really makes the attempt of Democrats to say something to the voters that they have lost really a matter of some urgency. Listen, Jeff, I don't want to
do too much on this because I've said a lot here on this show, but I think if Democrats simply wait for Trump to implode, they do so at great peril. They really have to ask their question about how the party of the work of working people became seen by working people as the party of elites and institutions that have failed working people. And if they don't,
And if they don't recognize the depths of people's contempt for a government that they think has been corrupted and tilted against them and institutions that don't work for them, they're going they're not going to make inroads with those voters. And now those voters include Latino voters, include black voters.
So, you know, I think there's a great challenge for the Democratic Party. And so I agree with you. They'll be the part the Democrats are so desperate for any good news that there will be lots of champagne available.
popping tonight if Judge Crawford wins up there in Wisconsin. But your cautionary notes are right. Well, let me stick with the cautionary notes and just ask Jeff this question, which is really, we've been talking about some news of day here and we've been talking about trees. I like to talk about the forest a little bit. So given what you just said, what both of you just said, which we all would acknowledge and we think is correct,
I would say it's fair to say that I've been struck by the lack of
what felt like after Trump's win in November was kind of inevitable that there would be a period of, of deep soul searching and, uh, the kind of thing that happened in the period leading into Bill Clinton's election in the late eighties into the early nineties, you know, where the party needs to really figure out it's lost its way. It's no longer what it once was. It's not connected to the working people of America. This is not the cold. The old democratic coalition is dead now.
What are we going to be now? Those conversations don't really seem to be happening. That's not to say the Democrats aren't fighting back and that people aren't concerned and worried. But Jeff, my question is sort of like, what do you see? Like when you survey the horizon among Democrats, is there any sign of the kind of root and branch reconsideration of what the democratic party stands for and how to reconnect to its old coalition, how to become the party of working people again? Are you seeing that anywhere out there?
I see a lot of people making that effort, whether Senator Chris Murphy has gone all in on we've got to get back to economic populism. And you've got, you know, Bernie Sanders and AOC out there rallying to a kind of left progressive notion. And you have you have I guess this one amused me. You have the New York Times editorial board telling the Democratic Party they were too woke.
I mean, given the history of The New York Times… Pot, meat kettle. Kettle, meat pot. Yeah, exactly. But I think that, I think the, you know, the idea that you can fix this is really hard. I mean, a lot of Democrats, you know, you have Gavin Newsom saying, well, you know, I don't want my…
my daughter to be playing against trans men. So is the Democratic Party going to walk away? I honor him for that, by the way, because he's had six years as governor and eight years as lieutenant governor to really think deeply about this issue before he took a position. So he must really, really have thought about it. David, sometimes your sarcasm is so dry. It's like the Sahara Desert. I'm like, where am I? Oh, my God, I'm just parched.
Anyway, sorry, Jeff. I mean, I'll go back because of my age. More than 50 years ago, Jack Newfield and I wrote a book called A Populist Manifesto. And our basic argument was the Democratic – you know, the movement on the liberal left had to be focused on economics. Who has power? By what right? Who makes the money? Who –
And I think, you know, we've seen fits and starts of this. And the problem, I think, for the Democrats is, is there going to be the equivalent of a Bill Clinton who stands up and says, we have been wrong on some of these key issues like immigration? I'll tell you what, I will bet the ranch on that. I will bet the ranch on that particular issue that there will be because it's so obvious you can't deny it. The fact that
Biden waited for three years while, you know, millions of people a year were breaching the border. I mean, it was ridiculous. And everybody I think everybody knows it. I think some of the other issues, you know, I mean, Democrats generally don't do well when the when the thrust is about cultural issues, because cultural issues and
tend to be more divisive and economic issues tend to touch the broadest number of people. And, uh, I mean, it's just, but I, um, you say, uh, you know, John, you're talking about the new version of Democrats. I think Democrats have to reconnect with the fundamental, uh,
Yeah, but the problem, David, is I'm now hearing echoes of the 1980s.
When the third straight Democratic loss, I remember listening to Richard Gephardt was on the Democratic leader. He said, you know, when the people understand our our plans to get people to college and lower drug prices and all of that. No, no, it can't be that. And the point is, culture trumps economics in to the sense that, as Bill Clinton once said,
you know, people don't care how much you know unless they know how much you care. It's a kind of cliche. And I think for a lot of these issues, as soon as voters hear some of what the more outlined Democratic or left notions are, they say, don't tell me about your drug plan. I don't believe it. Well, we heard that. We heard that from Kamala Jeff. That was how she ran. But the problem is that people...
Don't believe it. They don't actually they like the idea of affordable housing and and and child care. They don't believe that's actually going to happen. They believe the system is corrupt and coagulated and you never actually get that doesn't operate in their interest. They believe that that's.
Democrats are more consumed by sort of niche social issues, cultural issues than they are about these. And until you know, one of the things that's going to happen is Donald Trump is going to do for better and a lot for worse. I think he's going to do a teardown of a lot of what we know about.
of American government. And that is, there's going to be a lot of damage to a lot of people as a result of it. But after teardowns, you have an opportunity to build something better and newer and more responsive and less corrupted
And Democrats can't just say we're going to restore what he's taken away. Democrats have to say, here's a vision for what we can build. And it starts with throwing off the kind of pernicious influences that have taken us in the wrong direction. We're going to fight that. I mean, that's sort of where Murphy is going. But here's a more point. Let me put this in a slightly more pointed way, just on the basis of what the two of you were just saying. Jeff, I direct this to you because of your connection to
to the person that David called Bobby Kennedy, the real, I'll just call him, I'll call him RFK senior. My favorite politician ever. Yes. So, you know, the, the guy, you know, cut down tragically short before he was able to realize the, the, the capitalize on and pull fully pulled together the coalition that he was building, which was a coalition of white working class people.
and non-white voters, right? Right. So that coalition now basically belongs, maybe only temporarily, but today belongs way more to Donald Trump and way more to the Republican Party today because we now have a world where the Democratic Party is the party of college educated, the Republican Party is the party of non-college educated, and the cultural, to your point, Jeff, the cultural issue of, like, I agree with you,
Politics is downstream from culture. The cultural part of that is that the working class, whether you're white, brown, or black, basically looks at Democrats and goes,
You know, you guys are a feat, snobbish, condescending, elitist, moneyed assholes. Is there anything that is there anything the Democratic Party can do about that? And if so, what to get the Bobby Kennedy coalition back in the Democratic side of the aisle? Well, it's not exactly a 90 day plan, but part of part of what is required, I think, are that the emergence of it from the Democratic Party is.
Of people who are much more connected with the old party. I've often I have said more than once the problem with the Democratic Party and its thinkers, there are too many people like me. I've said I've said that often. I say that all the time. I say that practically every day. All right. You guys know what I mean. That's as well as the way.
famous way to put it, people who shower before they work rather than after. People who have not real connections with people. Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay. One thing, by the way, interestingly, you mentioned this term. One thing nobody ever said about Robert Kennedy Sr. was he's a feat, he's snobbish, he's weak. One of the things that impelled his power and the people who didn't like him was that he meant what he said.
And people had a sense of that. And it's why even more than 50 years ago, we did find that some of the people who voted for Bobby Kennedy in the primary in Indiana voted for George Wallace because they wanted somebody to do something. He was authentic.
He was willing to speak truths that others weren't willing to speak. And he would have offended a large number of the Democratic Party base. He didn't like spending money on public schools when the schools were warehouses. He thought welfare was demeaning and presented by people who paid for it. Those are kinds of views that came from him and that clearly resonated with people who today—
You know, say, no, I'm with Trump because he doesn't he doesn't buy all that defeat stuff. Well, and he's also he was also a mean son of a bitch, too, which was part of that. That that reality was like, I think people, the toughness and the meanness that he sometimes projected is another reason why people looked at him and thought this guy can get shit done. Listen, I think the point here is he was willing to challenge Trump.
shibboleths of both parties and he was fearless about it. And that's what Democrats need. They need that kind of leader and we'll see. But let me ask you, because I raised it earlier, what would he have said? I feel sad watching Bobby Kennedy Jr. because he's like a bizarro version of
of he's a bizarro version of Bobby Kennedy. In some ways, you know, he is, you know, he's taking on corporate interests and so on. In other ways, he's just gone way off the bend on conspiracy theories that are going to hurt people. I think one thing that has to be said just on the sheer humanity of it is
If Robert Kennedy had lived, I don't think Bobby Kennedy Jr. would have become Bobby Kennedy Jr. Yeah, absolutely. Right. The heroin addiction probably would not have become so easily. Yeah. So now just today, this morning, we read of massive cuts.
in Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Community Control, you know, the fact that a measles epidemic has broken out almost exclusively... Canary in the coal mine. Yeah. I mean, it sounds so melodramatic, but the policies that Bobby Jr. is putting into place are going to cost lives. And to that extent, you know, it's just unimaginable to me how a Robert Kennedy...
senior would have looked at that. It's so, it is sad. You know, you're so right. I mean, what a terrible, I mean, the whole family has been, uh, star crossed. Uh, and what a, what a, what a painful, terrible story, but, uh, the pain is now going to be inflicted broadly, uh, as a, as a result of that. I got it before I, we got to get to the mail. I just want to ask you about one other thing, Jeff. And,
And so glad you're here. I hope you come back often. You're a repository of wisdom.
and insights despite the fact that you're, despite the fact, despite the, and useless facts, yeah, but despite the fact that you are exactly the kind of elite that working people are pissed at, as is everybody on this call, so on this Zoom. But what do you think about this war on law firms situation?
Because it's not a thing that like everyday people would look at and say, gee, I don't that really. I mean, that's not going to motivate people. But the implications of it are really stark. They are the most this is all of the authoritarian moves that Trump is making. And there are many. This is the most frightening that you say to a law firm, if you represent people I don't like, I will make it impossible for you to do a lot of your work.
I will intimidate your corporate clients who will jump ship because they're interested in mergers and taxes. And I will make it impossible for this legal system, the guardrail that protects people from authoritarian governments to function. And the fact that two of the biggest law firms
you know, have said, OK, tell us who we should help with a few million dollars or several million dollars. A few million. One firm, a hundred million. Yeah. You know, in another, maybe not even a Frank Capra, Aaron Sorkin rule, you would have thought that some Republicans who claim to be enemies of authoritarian governments and are more libertarian and don't like overreach might have something to say about this. This is
you know, look, Democrats and liberals for a long time have cried wolf. You know, if Nixon wins, I'm moving. If George Bush wins, he's, you know, he'll cancel the elections. And the problem is this time, you know, it's not crying wolf. This time there's a wolf. And I'm encouraged by the fact that some law firms have banded together. We're not going to, we're not going to tolerate this. But in so many, as in so many other ways, guys,
If the Republican Party or what's left of it doesn't begin after all these years to say, no, that's enough. You've crossed a line here.
we are in deep, deep trouble. To those firms, you know, one of them's here in Chicago, Jenner & Block. I know some of the folks there well, WilmerHale, others. The firms that are fighting back, you know, one thing to watch is will their clients stick with them? Will other clients come to them? Will the legal community come?
rally to them. There's just so much at stake here. And I admire the courage they've shown in resisting because there will be retribution. And I think that, you know, Jeff, you were trained as a lawyer. I got to believe the Supreme Court
if it gets there, is going to disallow almost everything that Trump has done. He still he has the ability to take away security clearances and I guess bestow them. We've learned that. But but it could be too late for these firms if their clients, you know, on mass say, I can't I can't afford to stick with you because they're threatening me.
So this is a big moment. David, I'll tell you it's another moment is that, David, you're a brilliant man and I love you to death and your capacity to do clock management is not – is one slight flaw in your personality. Just one, just that small one. Introducing a really big topic like the rule of law and the future of American democracy absolutely.
at the buzzer. Like, right. It's like, Hey, we got a few, we don't have any time. Listen, brother, we don't have any time to waste here. When, uh, when the rule of law is at stake, you can't just wait till next week. I had a couple of things I might've wanted to say, but I got to go now. So I'm going to say goodbye, Jeff Greenfield. It's awesome to see you. Um, uh,
David Axelrod, it's awesome to see you, but we're going to need to get you some kind of a shock collar for you. I would fill a buster. Yes, the day that I take lessons on brevity from you is the day that I will be... Anyway, go ahead. That's a fair point. I'll see you later. Bye. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back.
So we do have this tradition, Jeff, of taking some questions from our listeners, and I hope you'll stick around and answer some. I'm here. So let's hit the music. Listener mail.
There you go. That's vintage for you, Jeff Greenfield. If you have a question for the hacks, send them to hacksontap at gmail.com or call this number. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. Just so we remember what Mike Murphy sounds like before...
The bronchitis hit. Hopefully he'll be back in full voice next week. Let's hear this voicemail question from Nathan, because it speaks to what you, Jeff Greenfield, were just talking about.
Hi, Hacks. Nathan from California. There's been a lot of discussion about the erosion of guardrails amid Trump's push to remake the federal government in his image. I was wondering what guardrails still remain if Trump, his endgame is to override the Constitution and
become effectively the emperor of America, what institutions and guardrails still exist to stop him? Thanks. Professor Greenfield. Well, you mentioned, David, the Supreme Court, assuming it stands up to what Trump is trying to do, is a guardrail, although we don't know what will happen if Trump simply says, I won't follow it.
What was supposed to be a couple hundred years ago, the most obvious guardrail was a Congress that institutionally pushed back against the president because the folks who wrote the Constitution could not imagine that party loyalties would override a senator's institutional notion to protect the system from overreach. That's been eroded, by the way, by both parties over a very long period of time. But if the Congress does not begin to
take back its traditional role, and the odds are not very good that it will, then it's really going to be up to, I can't imagine I'm saying this, David, you know, John Roberts and Amy Barrett and possibly Brett Kavanaugh, and maybe what's between standing us and a kind of Hungarian, Viktor Orban authoritarian regime. Yeah, I've said here often, you know, when Trump said during the campaign, when he kept extolling Orban as a kind of
exemplary leader, people should have paid attention to that because so much of what's going on here, you know, the, the, this, this assault on law firms and on judges, the, the assault on the media and so on, the dismantlement of, of inspectors general who might put pressure on all of that.
is reminiscent of the kinds of things, the cultural, the culture wars and the expropriation of cultural institutions. All of this is out of the Orban playbook. You know, so he's operating off of two playbooks, 2025 clearly and,
but also Victor Orban. So Jeff Bryan asks, wouldn't it make sense as Trump starts floating this third term thing in earnest that Democrats start just floating the idea of running Obama fire with fire? Well, Brian, there actually is a constitutional prohibition, number one. And, you know, one of the disadvantages that a lot of Democrats have is that they take that stuff seriously.
and kind of observe it and don't... Well, one thing that you need to know is that Lawrence Tribe, the Harvard law professor who has been, I think to put it mildly, a no friend of Donald Trump, thinks there are a couple of loopholes here. And what are they? Well, the 22nd Amendment...
doesn't say that a two-term president can't serve as president. No, but the 12th Amendment says... No, no, uh-uh, hold it. I know where you're going. Okay. Well, they don't. The 12th Amendment says that if you're constitutionally ineligible to serve as president, you can't run as vice president. But the 22nd Amendment doesn't say you're ineligible to serve. The most obvious example, David, again, you understand, we're into fantasy. Uh,
If next year Trump gets elected speaker of the House because you don't have to be a member of the House, the winning Republican president and vice president both step down. He becomes president. 12th Amendment's irrelevant in that. But the answer to all of this is I think this is Trump trolling. I think he's just, you know. One of the things he's doing, Jeff, is he is creating so many fires that people don't know where to put their hoes.
And I think that's part of the tactic. Uh, but, uh, as to Obama, uh, also, I think if he were on this podcast right now, what he would say is the democratic party needs to develop new leaders, uh,
And there are plenty of talented people in this party. And there really are. And you can see some of them surfacing now. I'm not in panic about that. I really do think the party is going to produce some strong leaders going into 2028. One of them is going to win a primary. I think the Democratic Party will have a good candidate in 2028.
You know, we can't, I mean, what should we, maybe we should disinter Roosevelt and see if we can. Yeah, but much more to talk about Jeff. And so grateful to have you here. You're really a leading light. I appreciate it. We didn't even get to talk about the new baseball bats. Yes. Yeah. Well, I, we could do it. We could do an hour on that, but great to have you. Yeah.