Cynicism on Steroids (with Jonathan Martin)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. The setting sun where the wind blows wild and free. There's a lovely spot just the only one that means home sweet home to me.

Robert Gibbs, do you recognize that earache masquerading as a song? I feel like I was going to say I could guess this in four notes, but I can't get it, Murphy. What is that melodious... I can't remember the name. It's like, don't bet on a hard point or something, but it is the official stage song of the great

rigged primary of Nevada. That is the Nevada state song where today is Nevada primary day in the Republican party. Can you believe it? Uh, I can't, I've almost forgotten about it. Well, it's rigged. It's totally rigged. So we're putting an official hacks on tap submission into the Nevada Republican state committee because with a totally rigged, meaningless primary, we've got a new song for him.

A meaningless election besmirching the once honorable Republican Party of Nevada. Today is indeed primary day in Nevada with a caucus in two days that actually controls the delegates rigged from stem to stern by the Trump guys. We're going to talk about that. Everything primary, everything polling, everything everywhere. That, of course, hackaroos is the the

The timeless hit held over in Eastern Europe for over 48 years. That is the Soviet national anthem where they know all about rigged elections. So there you go, Nevada, maybe. And I'm going to switch back to Nevada.

only because I know it's wrong and we get angry mail about it. But I'm pissed. I don't like rigged elections. And I know you don't either, Robert, but we have a guest who really hates rigged elections, the Oracle, the man who knows. Yes, who's batting down the hatches, not worried about the rain in Murphy's LA, but getting ready for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the one and only Jonathan Martin. Jonathan, greetings.

Good day, comrades. There we go. I mean, normally you have to go to a Cook County Democratic Central Committee to get that kind of chit-chat. But now I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Everybody drink.

Yeah, drinking game. All right, so we have the primary today. We're dispensed with it quickly, and they've adopted a crazy two-point thing, right? Correct me if I get this wrong, Jonathan or Robert, but today is the meaningless primary where Nikki is not contesting.

where your vote means no delegates, so there's no reason to have it. But on Thursday, they go into a dank cave somewhere, and there is a caucus which will award the delegates as long as your name rhymes with Thump, right? Isn't that pretty much the way this thing is set up? Because Trump and his lieutenants wired this thing months ago with the state party.

which is effectively an arm of the MAGA organization. And so there's not been much suspense and there's not been much in the way of news or even keynote attention. Nikki Haley hasn't gone there once. Trump went there one time. But this gets to the heart of the kind of lackluster opposition to Trump. And I don't say this automatically,

only to pander to Murphy, although that's part of the game. You think about 2000 when there were similar efforts to limit ballot access in New York, I think it was, and you guys, Murphy, brought McCain to the Russian consulate. Yeah, we had a big street theater. A dog and pony show to say that

This is Soviet-style, you know, politics. Like, have some fun. Take a risk. Be creative. And there's just none of that. And that's part of the reason why this whole primary is so damn depressing.

You know, never wanting to not beat a joke to death. Back then, I tried to find a band we could get to show up in this crazy scrum on the ice in front of the Russian embassy where McCain was hoping to get arrested with all the cameras to play the Russian national anthem. But the only band that knew it was a Polish church in Brooklyn, and they hated the Russians and wouldn't play it. So our musical accompaniment plan went sideways, but it worked.

I'm beginning to think that your Spotify contains a lot of versions of the Soviet National Anthem. You have no idea. I recommend the Paul Robeson version, by the way. Genius singer who had certain proclivities on the left, but who was a great American. And he belts out a pretty good one.

America, if you need a good Bay Day soundtrack, Mike Murphy is your man. I want to roll the missiles through your own Red Square. For all your Bay Day parties this year. This is a trivia question. Who was standing in Red Square when the flag dropped to half mask and the troops showed up to clear it because the great dictator Chernenko had died, bringing in the new dictator?

Me, I was there that day. I sent all my friend postcards. This is all before the fall of the Soviet Union. The mission win is ordered. And three of them never spoke to me for a year. They were so pissed. They thought they were on some KGB list. You were on a KGB list. You can't send a postcard like that from Moscow. I was actually. I was officially declared anti-Soviet. But that's for another time. We have gone down a bad red rabbit hole here. Yes, yes. Jonathan, so...

You mentioned this. I mean, I think that you can kind of sum up the entire primary in many ways in what you just said, which is nobody in this race was ever either conditioned to or prepared to take a risk in order to figure out how to get this from Donald Trump. And I'm even amazed as we sit here and record this.

I've almost forgotten that South Carolina is in the midst of a Republican primary. It's hard to forget South Carolina politics for reasons that we all know. It takes a lot of work to have a sleepy South Carolina. I haven't fully given up hope, Robert, that South Carolina is going to be a sleepy race. There's still a lot of February to go. I

Trump is not fully engaged there. Let's see what happens there before the end of the month. But you're right. The fact that we're talking here on February 5th or whatever it is, 6th, and there's still no real action in that state beyond just sort of Nikki stumping around, it tells you a lot about the sort of nature of this race. Because...

This race is no longer about physics. It's not a momentum game. It's a pure matter of chemistry and the chemical appeal of Donald Trump. And because of that, it does kind of lack for suspense.

it's a numbers deal, right? Like Trump is locked in. He gets a certain number of votes that are committed to him and events and outside facts are just don't matter. Like his support's impervious, right? So like Trump could tomorrow pull the head off of a chicken and like, that's not going to change him from getting 67.3% in already counted, Robert. So it's like, like,

if events don't matter as much and these races are basically driven by demographics, then the contours of the race don't matter. It's as fake as the cardboard boardroom in the Apprentice set. Is there anything on the ground going on? Nikki's in L.A. today raising money in Santa Monica, which tells you pretty much all you need to know. She's doing a West Coast swing. She was in New York raising. She was in Silicon Valley. Now she's in Southern California raising money. But as you guys know,

she's not gonna lack for cash there's plenty of republicans and indies who will shower her with money she'll have tons of money for tv and she'll make payroll that isn't the problem it's that like the money doesn't change the the basic math of the race which is there's a finite amount of people who are willing to vote for somebody besides donald trump right and so to me guys is like

the drama there is, is she going to wind up with 37.2 or 40.8? You know, it's like, we kind of know what the window would be. The, the, the, the, the band of possibility for you, uh, South Carolina newbies, uh, Horry County is the home of Myrtle beach, big Republican area, uh, on the coast up in the, uh,

northeastern part of the state. Jonathan spent a little bit of time there. The Grand Strand. Home of the Shag for all you dancers out there. I think up there she might get as high as 42.8 because it's those coastal communities are the only place she's got anything. She's going to get slaughtered in the upcountry and everywhere else. Yeah, she'll do better in Charleston, but I

I mean, it's all education, right? And then it's like, if you take the biggest college educated counties in South Carolina, that's where she'll get her most numbers, you know? And that's that. Here's my question. Do you actually think in two and a half weeks, she's going to still be running this race on February 24th? I, I, I,

I don't honestly see what she gets out of losing by a large margin. I think she's already going to be the leader of the I told you so caucus, whether Donald Trump goes on in November to lose, whether he wins and it's a chaos mess. She can say, look, I was there to try to prevent this from happening, but I just don't know what is in it for her to keep going.

doing what she's doing in terms of antagonizing the Republican base, especially in her home state. Well, there's a tipping point. Right now, she's the most interesting dead cat bounce in American politics. Why don't you scamper down the street with no real purpose for it other than entertainment? And she's clearly having the most fun she's had in the whole campaign, which you often see at the end when they know they're going to lose. So

There's a point though, where the focus will be, why is she turned into Joe Biden's, you know, cat's paw inside the Republican party, just trashing him all day long. And she has to think down the road right now, she gets out. She's the one who warned the party after, you know, when Trump inevitably either loses or collapses and she's got another bite at the apple down the road, but she could turn into Jerry Brown in 92 who won't go away. And, uh, that,

that even though I'm enjoying the Nikki show now a lot, it's just not in her interest. I think she's got to get some more coverage here and got to figure out ways that she can draw attention. This has been the challenge, guys, for the last year is basically there's two categories and nobody can figure out a third approach, right? The one category is do sort of imply gentle approaches.

very sort of gloves on attacks on Trump that don't really change the race. The other approach is the Chris Christie would

which is like, you know, the sort of chainsaw, like raging at each hand, like double-fisted. And I'm like, you know, obviously that gets media attention, but it limits what you can get inside the Republican tent. And nobody's figured out a third approach where you can actually make some headway against Trump, but do so in a way that you don't alienate team red. And she's not done that yet. And she's trying to figure it out. And God, I think the challenge is,

There's just not that many folks up for grabs. Like, we know what the universe is. We saw it in Iowa. We saw it in New Hampshire. And we're going to see it in South Carolina. And by the way, it's not small. It's not like this is a 10% or like a Dean Phillips, like 2.3% deal. It's like a 35% to 42% band deal.

Depending on the state, that's a lot of votes. Which is the real story, I think, which is how much of that goes away in the general. Exactly. That's the real story here is how many of the Nikki voters is basically Biden going to capture in the fall.

In South Carolina, like four. But maybe in New Hampshire, a much bigger set. And three of them are south of Broad and Charleston. Exactly. Yes. Yes. But yeah, you know, the old back-in-the-envelope map is in a general election.

You want your nominee to get 90% of your party's vote. You know, 92 or 3 if you can. You can live with 89. But if Trump's the 65% choice of the Republican voting electorate right now and the reluctant choice of what percentage, it starts to get interesting. Does Trump become an 80% candidate in general election time? Are there defections, college-educated suburban Republicans who just can't do it?

But if I were Biden, I'd be worried about, all right, they hate us, too. And we're going to get into that in a minute. Is there going to be some wine and cheese independent candidacy they can all waste their votes on? And that speculation is still out there. Murphy, can you is there any is there any polling that suggests that Donald Trump in a general election isn't pulling in the 90 percent? I certainly haven't seen anything.

No, I've seen a national poll where he was in middle 80s. Yeah, I think it's a little below 90, Robert. Yeah. Okay, okay. But the problem is neither is Biden. Biden isn't ringing his 90 button either. Well, but we should spend 10 seconds on Biden in South Carolina because he just got...

More than 96% of it. Jonathan just said Dean Phillips at 2.3 or 2.6%, which is probably actually double what he actually got in the race. I think we should spend 10 seconds on Dean Phillips because it should be the last 10 seconds. He finished not in second place, but in third place behind Marianne Williamson.

And his tweet said how great it was to get four digits worth of votes, meaning he broke a thousand. And then my favorite part of the tweet, Murphy, you'll love this. He said,

addressing it to joe biden see you in michigan see you in michigan for what like a hot dog what are you talking about see you in michigan tony the dog in the droid exactly are we going to we're going to meet him at cody island like what in the world see you in michigan you just got like maybe just above a thousand votes out of about 140 000 is schmidt still around that is there like money left in the town leave

Oh, shocker. Yeah, exactly. Unbelievable. He went over to Marianne Williamson. That's the new move there. He's being paid in crystals, actually, by Marianne. It's all crystals. And I said, no, look, it's quality Sedona crystal, though. It's fantastic stuff. No, look, he...

He, I think it was a New Hampshire-centric candidate, turned out to be more Andrew Yang than John McCain in New Hampshire, which is the difference between getting 20% and getting 40% in New Hampshire. And now he had no business in South Carolina. But look, it does show that among Biden's core support, which is...

you know, moderate whites and African Americans, which is basically the South Carolina Democratic demo, like Biden is still pretty strong, especially in a low turnout universe. And guys, this is why Biden, speaking of wiring races, this is why Biden wired the primary to kill off Iowa, push New Hampshire back in the line and start South Carolina, because

Because he was trying to preempt any challenge. It didn't work. It really is the year of the wired primary. I mean, it is crossing a new threshold that would have been unthinkable two presidential cycles before on both sides. Well, yeah. I mean, Iowa unfortunately helped Iowa disintegrate. And look, the one thing I think that is true, and I said this in 2020 and certainly believed it strongly in 2008,

is in a Democratic primary, you've got to put together a multiracial coalition. It's why in 2020, even though Joe Biden had done poorly in the first two races and lost to Bernie Sanders in Nevada, it was clear that he had the capability to still build a multiracial coalition. And if you can't in the Democratic primary, then you're toast. And South Carolina is certainly a much better measure of building that multiracial coalition than Iowa and New Hampshire are.

Will ever be. And I have great affinity for both those states. And Robert, people forget that the South Carolina primary in 2020 was narrowly majority white. The shorthand that's taken up is

that Clyburn delivered and black voters overwhelmingly voted for Biden, which is true. But like it was not a 70-30 demographic. It was basically 50.1 white because Biden, to your point, does well with like the kind of moderate whites, what's left of the old white Democratic Party in South Carolina plus African-Americans. And that is his coalition, you know.

And it has to be if you're going to win a Democratic primary. So one last Nikki Haley question. We can go on a general election stuff. We got a lot to talk about. Day after the South Carolina primary, she loses 60-40 or maybe in a shocking upset 56-44. Is she in or out of the race the next day?

I think her temptation will be to get to the Super Tuesday so that you can pocket the most delegates possible to hold off and say, you know, I was the... Yeah, I got 118 delegates when I got out. Undisputed runner-up. That increases your leverage.

uh, in a sort of post-reformation, post-Trump, you know, after the Reformation arrives, which, you know, maybe, uh, any day now in 2037, um, she can, she can say, you know, it's, it's my turn now, uh, because I was the one who was the last person standing.

That said, if she loses by 20 in her home state, that's tough to go on, right? That's tough to go on. That's kind of how I see it. But, you know, there will be a lot of dead-enders who tell her, you know, keep going. You never know. Trump's going to fall off a cliff. Fall off a cliff or run in front of a jury. But to Robert's point a minute ago, Mike, I also do wonder if she makes it to South Carolina. If there's not going to be more attention paid, if this is not going to be a truly contested race...

And Trump can effectively set it out. The press doesn't cover it for the next two weeks. I do wonder if she then, you know, throws him a thought. Oddly, Jonathan, I would say if I was her, I would say this. Either get out this weekend or stay in literally as long as people will keep giving you money. Because to your point, Jonathan, the other side, one side is protect it. You know, you made your point.

you, you, you, you sort of very few people come out of these races. John McCain being the, the real, the real good case of it is that very few people go into these races, don't become the nominee, but come out bigger than when they went in. Most of it, most of these people get cut in half. Yeah. But she made it to the top. She'll have the second turn dynamic. If she doesn't rock the

which is why if I were her, I'd think about after South Carolina declared victory. Because remember, Michigan's rigged too. It's another Nevada. She won't win any of these states, but I think to Jonathan's point, and I made this a few weeks ago, like, look, yes, Donald Trump could have a hamburger tonight and have a heart attack, but he could also wind up in front of a jury of his peers and find himself no longer the nominee. And so...

you know, I can see wanting those delegates. One final point about, this is a small thing, but how Trump has transformed politics, chapter five, volume seven. Like, this is interesting, right? Historically, the old line that you guys know well goes, campaigns for president don't run, they run out of money, right? That's the old song. Yes. Like, that, that,

That whole line is actually null and void now because in the current day where the party is bifurcated in the 65-35 deal, the 35% candidate is also the money candidate because a lot of the financiers of the party are horrified by Trump and want a non-Trump candidate. So like the Wall Street Journal candidate

who is never going to get majority share of the voters, will always have money to stay in the race. So she actually now has a real challenge. No, no, she can keep a heartbeat, no doubt about it, but it's just like yelling into a phone five feet down the phone line. It's been cut and it's not going anywhere, you know, delegate-wise. Like a robust campaign with like well-funded TV ads for months and months and months. I mean, she raised $15 million in January and she wasn't, and she was called

close in either state, right? It's fascinating. That's what always makes me laugh when there's these breaking news alerts that some huge Wall Street donor has decided to put in with either, in this case, Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. Like, that's not what's going to decide this primary. No, and it's often bullshit, too. Most of the donors who are speed dialing the New York Times talk about what they're going to do.

are not big producers. I mean, I've lived that world. They have their own press secretaries, but the checks are thin. One last point on if she stays around through some proportional outcomes and win one delegate in congressional allocation, because a lot of states do it by congressional district. There are three. The person gets one if they, you know, blah, blah, blah. I'm not sure if Trump was locked up in prison or whatever.

And she had 107 delegates to the convention that she would actually be the nominee. You got to remember part of what the Trump people have done is an old Pat Robertson trick that we used to sweat back in the old dole and other regular days, which is the bodies of

are actually, in the old days, many of them were Pat Robertson bodies. So after a certain number of ballots, they turn into who they really are. The primary instructs them how to vote, but those instructions, depending on the state rules, can melt away. So there are going to be MAGA bodies there

who through caucuses and other ways were the delegates casting what the primary tells them to cast that when the when midnight hits they all turn into vampires and they may not be on train nikki they're going to be more maga and there'll be a lot of movement christian there so it's a weird thing to kind of figure out all right hold that thought we're going to take a short break and now a word from our sponsors so

Well, look, let's go to the general election because I was here in California building my arc, getting ready for all the endless rain we've had. Took my submarine out for a drive down Wilshire Boulevard last night. Another Soviet relic, I'm sure. Yes, yes. I saw a flash in the distance across the country and a low rumble moving through. It was like an atomic weapon went off, but it was an NBC poll.

showing Joe Biden on a slide from about 48 down to 42 over the last couple of, and this is the hard Mac interface, legit poll, one Republican, one Democratic pollster. It had the number that I think Robert and I both talked about a lot for a year. Okay, you hate both of them. Who's better on the economy? Has Trump beating Biden by 20 points, which is,

really a problem that that's the equivalent of like having keith richards x-rays you know the doctor just starts to sob because you know it's a miracle you're still moving uh

What's it like in Democrat world and in journal world about this? Because this is the scariest single Biden poll we've had at just a moment where they were hoping to kind of turn the narrative a little, I think. Yeah, I think in Democrat world, it's I mean, well, I think there's two things going on, right? The Twitterverse is full of people saying it's a bad sample. It doesn't mean anything. Stop talking about it, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, pretend it doesn't exist.

Right. I think the reality is there's a set of genuinely sobering numbers. As you said, Murphy, it's the...

It's not just that, I mean, I worry less about being five points behind in, at the end of January than I do to your point that the trend is not heading in the right direction. The economic numbers, um, except one, which I'll talk about in a second, are not all that good. Uh, and, and even the great salvation for Democrats was, and they pulled this, this idea of, you know, if Trump was convicted, what would the race be? And it went from a

plus five Biden to only a plus two or plus five Trump to a plus two Biden. So it wasn't this like, you know, 7.0 Richter scale earthquake where everybody just moved away from Trump because of it. The one sort of silver lining, I think in the poll, if you're looking for it is the number of people pessimistic about what's going to happen to the economy over the next year is a, has changed in a big way. 50%.

in the last poll in November said they thought the economy was going to get worse in the next year. That number's down to 36. If you go back another poll in July, it was 52. So the consumer confidence numbers we've seen are beginning to show up underneath

But no, Biden is still not getting the credit he would hope or want to get. Well, they think that'll be the cavalry and it might, but it's not there right now. Nothing but arrows right now. I mean, I looked at some of the comparisons securing the border, you know, all that immigration Biden minus 35 compared to Trump having the necessary mental and physical help to be president minus 23.

Dealing with the economy, minus 22 under Trump. Crime, minus 21. It just keeps going. And even the one that, and I'm sympathetic to this personally because I think it's legit, but we're talking voter land here, protecting democracy. That's the issue. It's going to turn it all around. No, they basically think you're both clowns. Biden is only two points ahead on that.

It's not a cutting issue. We did Democrats did well in abortion. Look, I think one of the things, Jonathan, I'd love to get your point of view in on this, but I think one of the things both in this poll and maybe even more deeply in the CNN poll that came out a few days before that is that there's,

The Biden campaign is going to have to figure out more than just a few cute intro lines on how to deal with age, because it's a genuine sticking point. And you see it in here. And, you know, it's a challenge because...

if Axe was here, he would say he's not going to get younger between now and Election Day, and that's not untrue. Jonathan, what do you think? Yeah, no, look, I think in terms of the reaction from Democrats, it can be summed up with one word, which is panic. Precisely because of what Robert said, it's like voters appear to be impervious to external conditions, and they're in some ways making clear that they've made a judgment on Biden. Now,

That's a referendum on Biden today in February. Could that change when it's more of a choice after Labor Day? I mean, that's what obviously Democrats are hoping. I think that's certainly possible, especially if Trump is yanked back into the camera frame. Uh, if others get, get a reminder of, of what life is like with, uh,

La Grande Orange, as they used to say about Rusty Staub in Montreal. But for now, though, it is... Former Tiger. It's really sobering for Democrats. Yeah, I was going to say, J. Mark, you had a great column on this that the thesis is forget about no labels, worry about the younger, more liberal parts of the Democratic coalition. And you saw that in

In the NBC poll, I think the approval on the war with Israel and Hamas was extraordinarily low. I don't have the number in front of me. I can read it to you because it jumped off the page to me. Among voters under 35, only 15 won 5.

percent approve of Biden's handling of the Israel Hamas war, while 70, seven zero disapprove. I mean, those are devastating numbers for a cohort of voters, you know, Gen Z and millennials, which you have overwhelmingly in your pocket if you're a Democrat trying to beat Donald Trump. And thanks for the plug on my column, Robert. I mean, I

Biden had a very tenuous, delicate coalition in 20 that included everybody for Murphy's pals at like the, the legions and, and, uh, and wing tips country club, uh, center, right. Right. To like,

you know, the young socialist, uh, in Williamsburg, uh, who came out because they were trying to get rid of, um, trying to get rid that's Brooklyn, by the way, not Virginia, trying to get rid of Donald. Well,

Like you're unifying Manchin and AOC in one coalition. That's like FDR style coalition stretching, right? That includes like the courthouse segs plus the socialist mayor of Milwaukee. That's a broad coalition. And it was basically a free vote because Joe Biden wasn't Joe Biden. He was a vehicle to stop Donald Trump and end COVID. Well, Joe Biden isn't a free candidate anymore. It's not just a vehicle. You're voting for somebody and something and a set of policies.

And part of that is a Democrat who is much more resolutely pro-Israel in his guts as any Democrat today still in office, and much more so the younger voters. And guys, that's the math, right? That's the math.

and the suburban world, which is much more centerist. That's right. And either one is pain. Both are essential. By the way, I've been laughing here on the country club gag, and I agree with you totally on the politics, but I have to inform our listeners. The last time I was at a starchy wasp country club, I was sitting on a Periondak chair with you in your seersucker outfit at Bold Peak up in Moultonboro, New Hampshire. So...

You were going undercover. Some of my best friends, exactly. Yeah, exactly. This is a map issue, right? So you look at Michigan and Wisconsin, and how do you keep the Arab Americans in Dearborn, the college kids in East Lansing and Ann Arbor, plus the suburbanites outside of Detroit all in the same head? Michigan is the crucible. It's going to be the most interesting state this year. There are so many forces at work there. Oh, my gosh.

And there's a tendency to overreact to the large and influential and heavily assimilated Arab vote there as one issue on the Palestinian thing. And it's even more complicated there. There's also a very strong Jewish community. I mean, it is going to be ground zero, I think, of all these forces.

Plus Biden's hope for labor renewal and the fact that UAW is not uniformly popular in Michigan. His numbers went down after he hit the picket line, not up. So yes, I agree with that. They are in a problem and they have a candidate with limited resources.

abilities because they really need a political master to be able to thread this needle. Now, the Republicans have an insane candidate who may be, you know, campaigning from inside cell block 14. But boy, oh boy, this is going to be a fascinating, if depressing election. And it just, it's a matter of margins too, guys. If you just look at the 2016 and 2020 results of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and you know,

Obviously, 20 is a different race because it's more of a head-to-head race. But if you include 2016-level third-party vote share, it was Jill Stein and Gary Johnson then. This time, it looks to be Jill Stein, Cornel West, Bobby Kennedy, and I know Abel Skinner to be named later. If you just throw that in, you know...

If Trump is getting 44, 45, that may be enough to win those three states. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I totally believe that, yeah. And you mentioned this, Jonathan. I think it's worth talking about just for a second because I think it was interesting. I was texting on the NBC poll because I thought it was interesting they didn't put Cornel West and Robert Kennedy Jr. and Jill Stein into the poll. They tested them.

Only basically as either open-ended, volunteered, or they tested parties, Green Party, Libertarian Party, to show the five-point race for Trump went to six. But it was interesting. The reason they did that was because they were worried that it's too early to start putting names in the poll based on whether or not they're going to qualify for the ballot. The biggest news, I think, in the last week has been Robert Kennedy Jr. flirting with becoming president.

or joining the Libertarian line on ballots, which, quite frankly, would guarantee him access to a far larger number of states. And that, to me, I know Axe and I spent a decent part of our weekends on the phone talking to each other about that because that was sort of a five-alarm fire. I don't think Cornel West is going to get on that many ballots.

No, that would bring him up to a whole new level of trouble because the librarians have been at this for a while and they're actually, of all the third parties, they built the most

incredible and long-term ballot access. Yes. So I think you just called them the librarians, but no, it's an old Republican joke. Oh man, the librarians are getting agitated. Tan stopple to my libertarian friends, tan stopple, the secret code name. There used to be, when I was in Georgetown, the CRS, we were close to the libertarians and they had these great t-shirts and said tan stopple, which is there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, which I thought was always a great bit of libertarian business. And,

There are some responsible people in that world, but they have their nuts too. So that'll be an interesting internal libertarian brawl. Yeah, one of the great stories of the next three to four months is not the last days of the Republican primary. It's the ballot access chase with Stein, West, and Kennedy and what they're able to pull off or not in a half dozen states could really drive this campaign more than most people

And it may be that a lot of ink three or six months ago about a Cornell West was overblown because he may get on just a few ballots or none. But if a Robert Kennedy Jr. is on the libertarian line and if the Green Party has established because of the way they've done in previous elections,

Yeah. To Jonathan's point, you know, every vote that Biden doesn't the Biden that Trump gets or a third party gets is a is a vote Biden doesn't get. And he needs every one of those. Yeah, right. Now, that that is a promise and escape valve for votes that in the end would be for Biden, but don't want to be. So you give him a lark.

and then you burn up a vote that Biden desperately needs. For Biden to win, he has to be the candidate of very unhappy Biden voters. The holder knows Biden voter. Yeah, right, right. I've talked to the Biden people about this. And guys, they say that they are all too aware of the threat

You know, Liz Smith, who I think both of you guys know, a very hard-charging Democratic operative, is now working for the DNC. And part of her mandate is to really go after the third-party candidates. And their whole mission, they told me, is basically you've got to grab voters by the lapel, especially younger voters, and tell them,

You're effectively voting for Trump if you vote for Stein, West, or Kennedy. And they're going to try to force the issue. And they're going to do digital ads. They're going to get on TikTok and really try to press this of don't vote for Trump by voting for Jill Stein. Well, this needs more than just a good staffer. It needs a damn good budget.

It needs a, uh, uh, it needs a very, uh, focused super PAC. Totally agree. But you know, we, this is what always happens in politics. We go, Oh, get Liz Smith on it. She'll talk to the kids on the MTV or whatever. And, Oh, we got to do this. And you know, it's all the mechanics.

If they weren't choking on the Biden peas and the peas had more sugar on them, they'd do a lot better. Biden's numbers are driving all these problems. That's why they're not... Sure, they can try all those tricks, but if they don't fix Biden...

and refocus it vis-a-vis what you get with Joe versus what you get with Trump and get the message and narrative right. Although we've got new, we're doing hemp t-shirts. Don't give up on Joe. Hey, that's not a bad idea. You know, we have a new computer distribution. I'm sure they're working on it. That's all deck chairs on the Titanic. You got to fix the fundamental. And now a word from our sponsors.

One of the things that I was thinking about earlier, and Robert was nice enough to plug my column, which hopefully folks read at politico.com. I was talking to a Democratic consultant who both of you know, who's done a lot of races over the years, who said something really striking to me, which is part of the challenge with Biden's messaging is that people can't hear what the actual message is because they can't get beyond the appearance of

Right. I call it the antlers problem. He could cure cancer. And I'm like, wow, you're old. You've got antlers coming out of your head. Yeah. And that's a hard damn thing to move. The metaphor he used was,

they can't get into the house because they're still stuck at the front door. Right. They can't, they can't, you can't get them in the house for the sale because they're just gawking at the sort of like Liberace style architecture, you know? So Murphy, Murphy, you're, you're the grand strategist. What I'm going to, I'm going to draft you over to, uh,

to the Biden side for a second. Look, I'm for Biden against Trump, so it's not hard. What would you focus on in the next two months? Because to me,

Look, I think the poll is obviously concerning for an end of January poll. If this is a beginning of April poll, I heard somebody say, well, then it will be really time to panic. And my question to that person was, what the hell can you do in the beginning of April? Right. You've got to start now. So, Murphy, what would you what advice would you give? What would you start doing?

Well, my surefire plan is to call up DARPA and get the time machine and go back four years and, you know, have a great term and not run you selfish SOB. But assuming that they, they don't have the wiring set up for that. There's no easy answer, but there's something I've been talking about for a while that they just, it's not the normal American style, but I'd run a cabinet campaign. I really would. I would surround them. He's got a bunch of a level communication stars in his world. The great, uh,

sting please gina ramundo pete put a judge mitch landrop one of the best natural politicians democratic party is invisible and all he's flying around the country giving out money i would i would run a team i would surround biden with these people i put them all on the road together he can be professor xavier and so i would have the team of talent versus the team of drags

I would also refocus the whole race on motive. Whose side is who on? Trump is on Trump's side. Joe Biden is on your side. And every time he's in the frame, I see Buttigieg there. I would surround him.

Less Kamala, but sure, her too. And the point being, the White House guys would say, wait a minute, that'll just make him look old, surrounded. Yes, he's old. It's done. It's over. So instead of a lonely old man shuffling alone, weak, surround him. Run a team.

and just flood the zone. Team normal. Yeah. I like that. And he's got a... Well, that's what... Nikki has those t-shirts now. Yeah. But not just like, hey, we got a surrogate director and we got Kate Pennington back and who the judge is going to do. No, no, no. I want them physically together out touring the country. I want to do a package show. In fairness to the Biden campaign, I should add that Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans who was the infrastructure czar, has actually moved to the campaign.

Good first step. He is going to be out there as one of Biden's go-to campaign surrogates. Now, to Mike's point, I'm not sure if that means that he and the rest will be physically with Biden, but he's going to be more active on TV and doing retail events for him. Which is good, but that's conventional. I would commit to this strategy and literally put them all together and do the action team and go visit plants together and put on a whole flying variety of shows. The other thing, this is just tactical. I would get a couple of...

you know, Gen Y good standup comics. And I would get them a bus and I'd follow Trump around and insult the hell out of them. Uh, viral hits every day. And,

and be rough about it, and Trump will go nuts, and it'll be a thing. Well, James Carville is trying that on YouTube. If you guys have seen this yet, Carville is doing some YouTube work about Trump. Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not sure he's not exactly Gen Y. He's closer to the baby boomers. But he's got some X-rated material, though, about Trump.

No, no. Turn him loose. Turn, you know, get Trump fighting all kinds of crabs and, and, you know, uh, ankle biters. The final thing is Biden at the right moment needs the line, which, you know, on an impromptu somewhere where he just turns and like, you know, people worry about your age. Look, we're both old. He's crazy. Just, just do it and get off the joke about it. Self-deprecating diffuse it a little.

And, but make Trump old too. It's shameless plug, but last October, like the, it's the elephant in the room. And Biden refuses to engage in any serious way about it, which is the age issue. The polling shows overwhelmingly. That's the biggest concern. Uh, Democrats have about him. And, um,

It's just puzzling to me that it's February and there's still no effort to address that issue in any serious way. I just want to say to our listeners, you heard it here first. Mike Murphy is full on crazy.

Populist, whose side are you on? It does my heart good. All that shrubbing for once in SC. I mean, he has traded in the dinner jacket at the country club for the pitchfork of whose side are you on? Last time I was in the country club, I was helping my grandfather install the plumbing.

We're Catholics, remember? So anyway. Big pharma, big everything. Yeah, all right, you commie bastards. Look, I'll suffer any indignity to keep Donald Trump out of the oval, but I have said for a year and a half, Joe, you shouldn't have done it. It was a selfish act. You're putting the whole thing at risk out of your own damn ego. So don't write me down as a fan, but as a necessary nose-holding supporter. Now, we ought to talk immigration for a minute because...

Under the inspired leadership of Republican knife and fork eating Senator Lankford of Ohio, excuse me, Oklahoma, sorry, Senator. They actually got a, you know, somewhat ugly camel designed by a committee, but a Senate bill with bipartisan support to fix the border thing. It came out of the birthing chamber into the sunlight and poof, dead on arrival. A crossfire of Republican senators and particularly the

The caucus in the house just couldn't wait to rip it apart. And we saw the answer. I think guys, you can tell me in the polling from NBC, securing the border and controlling immigration, Biden, 35 points behind Trump. They're not going to give up the issue. Just like Democrats hate to give up social security. When they got Republicans on the run, they're going to beat this thing like a government mule to election day, which of course is a tragedy because we can do things about the border, but that's, that's our,

This is another thing that I would add to your list of things that Joe Biden has to get out there and do. And I know this isn't going to be natural to him, but like this is where this is where we need a viral moment. And this is where we need to take them on because.

This is cynicism on steroids. Republicans set this up. We're not voting on foreign aid unless or until we get something strong for the border. And now you hear them say, well, wait a minute. Hold on. Let's go. I've got your bill over here for Israel, but we're definitely not doing the border thing. This is such a big crisis. Let's wait nine more months before an election.

And look, I got news for Republicans. I got news for Democrats. Whatever happens in November, nobody's going to control it all. There's going to be a split government. And so if you think that somehow some magic deal is coming together next year that's appreciably different than the one you got now, I've got news for you. Read the rules of the U.S. Senate. It ain't happening.

So the notion that Republicans aren't taking the win, again, this is where I think you have to have, this is where we're going to have to see whether Biden has the political athleticism, diminished or not, to drive some of this contrast. You know, fly to Texas, right? Fly to El Paso. Do this speech.

Draw the contrast and call them out. Look, fly the whole squad there. Have five cabinet members and Biden on the border saying, we're ready with the bipartisan bill to solve this thing tomorrow. But Donald Trump, like in all things, it's about him, not the country. But the challenge is you can't do this in a two-paragraph statement from the White House. No, I agree. Pictures. We have television now.

Robert, my thought was the day the House tries to impeach Mayorkas, which, by the way, looks...

Looks increasingly tenuous if they have the votes. You know, my thought was that's the day that you're nimble enough to fly Biden down the Eagle Pass and surround him by border agents and say, the other guys want to talk politics and go after personnel because they want the issue. I'm here because we got to get a solution. Right. But you need images, you know, and it's not happening.

The conservative Border Patrol Union endorsed the bill, saying it'd be a lot better than what we're dealing with right now. You're flanked by those guys on either side. Hell, bring Asa Hutchinson with you and give him a job as your border czar or whatever, because you can troll Trump that way and you can get somebody with tough-on-the-border credentials working for you. That's a bit of a fantasy, but be creative. Yeah, you know who I'd call, by the way, just being an optics guy?

Jim Mattis, we're going to put a Marine in charge. All we need is a congressman to get off their lard asses and pass the bill. Yeah. Robert, you make an important point, though, about the Republican Party. It's not a functional political party in any traditional sense because it's not shaped by issues. It's entirely now shaped by a cult of personality, and they don't want to transgress. Not just Trump, but transgress Trump's support

And so everything is thought through by what's our basis and what are our voters going to say. And, you know, issues or the journal or the chamber endorsing a set of policy proposals, it just has no real impact anymore because everything is...

The primary voters. It's all direct to primary voters. And there are no now every general election is seen as a version of the. We can't compromise with the other side on this issue because that confuses everything, because this is our issue. And if we say that they're half right, we lose the issue.

The problem is the calculus has changed from really any interest in like running the government for one ideology or another into just the constant politics of, it's like a catalog business. How do you please the home shoppers who belong to the $9 a month club? There's nothing happening the rest of this calendar year. They're going to fund the government. Because there's no percentage in it under this new model. It's basically just.

titillate your court-based supporters and whip them up into a frenzy every day. But my point is, it's not going to change a lot next year. It's not going to change a lot the year after that. I mean, again, it's sort of like Q Schoolhouse Rock. What does it take for a bill to become a law? I mean, you can't... Well, it takes patriots, but we don't do that much anymore. Well, it takes a Democratic House, I think, right? Because Biden's first two years, they did get some stuff done.

because you had a speaker willing to move bills through the House, and you had a Senate that was 50-50, but in which on some issues you could get compromised and get stuff through the Senate with Republican votes. I totally agree, but will a party whose president is 20 points underwater in the economy win the House?

That people want to fire? I mean, this is the great question, right? Yeah, because it's hard to calculate based on the double crazy. Trump loses by 3 million votes nationally, but wins...

electoral college victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, do the Dems still get enough House seats in California and New York to flip the House? That's going to be one of the most fascinating sub-themes. The challenge for Republicans in keeping the House is it doesn't take Democrats all that much. No!

No, it's a knife edge right now. Right. I mean, the reason that the impeachment of Mayorkas may not happen is, I mean, the number two in the Republican Party, Steve Scalise, isn't even there. They have a zero majority. Right. Yeah. Which is why I'd argue the most important for once.

The law saying, well, you can argue statewide, but California counts again because it's those California congressional races that make the side. They're huge guys. And in a state where Biden, although his numbers here are not great, he's still going to clearly win the state and the electoral. The question, can he run up the popular vote, which is lagging a bit right now?

underperforming. So my math could be slightly off here, but this is roughly correct. Of the 18 House seats that are held by Republicans that Biden carried four years ago, 10 are in California and New York. So they don't have to get a lot, Robert, to your point. Democrats don't. And

And it's in two of the bluest states in America where folks will be coming out of their frigging woodwork to vote against Donald Trump. So totally plausible, guys, that 2025 opens with Donald Trump taking the oath of office at the Capitol, going back to the White House, pardoning himself on all federal charges, which then prompts the new House Democratic majority to move impeachment articles, which then prompts the new Republican Senate to set a trial date in which they have to acquit.

Trump of this third impeachment. Totally plausible. Oh, I agree. I wouldn't bet against it. And again, it plays into what we talked about before, the new incentives to put on a show for the people at home and your party base one way or the other rather than actually doing it. Not only did our listeners get Mike Murphy's first dalliance with populism, but they just heard Jonathan Martin's next column

On the air. There you go. Look at the kind of benefits you get. A glimpse into the ghost of Christmas future, exactly. Yeah, I was going to say, it's definitely worth the price of this. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors. All right. If you have a question for the Hacks and our esteemed special guest Hacks like Jonathan today, you can email us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com, or you

You can call our impossible-to-remember number in the back room of the betting parlor at the Cook County Democratic Party headquarters, provided by Mr. Axelrod, and we actually taped it because I can never remember the number. What's that number, Mike? 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. One more plug, I'm doing this great thing, evpolitics.org.

Find out why we're getting Republicans to drive electric cars because we don't want China to rule the world. And why buy gas from our enemies? Check it out at evpolitics.org. All right, questions. We're going to start with the one and only Robert Gibbs. Marshall, Robert wants to know, since the Biden campaign didn't actively knock on doors in 2020 because of COVID precautions,

How much would a robust field operation in 2024 impact turnout in the 2024 presidential race for Joe Biden, especially in the swing states? Well, I think it's imperative that the president has a robust field operation, door knocking, phone calling, uh,

you know, targeted mail, targeted ads. I think there's no doubt that Democrats got a little bit better at getting back to this in the 2022 race. The 2020 race clearly made this really hard to do, though I know some friends who led door knocking in some places like Pennsylvania. But I think, look, here's the thing. You're going to have tons of money. And this race, as Jonathan mentioned, is going to be

decided by the slimmest of margins in like six places in the whole country. So invest in and create a robust digital or excuse me, a robust field campaign that,

and see if you can't get a half a percent or a percent in the final numbers. It makes all the sense in the world. They should be doing it in every place that they need to, which is only six or seven places. I can remember, you know, in 2008, Jonathan, when you're covering us, there's like 17 swing states. Oh, it's incredible.

I mean, we're down to counties, not states, you know? Right, right. You can do it in very small places. You don't have to do this thing statewide. So there's no excuse not to have a really, really, really good ground operation in 2024. Jonathan Russ asks, in the unlikely event that Nikki Haley captures the nomination, wouldn't Trump be so infuriated he would do anything to get revenge on her, including telling his MAGA followers to stay home in November?

Russ, you put your finger on something that's very important about today's Republican Party, which is Trump is forever. And you're not getting rid of Trump by simply beating him in a primary or a general. He's never going to acknowledge losing. He's never going to, you know, the fantasy about Trump showing up at the unity breakfast at party headquarters the next day and like raising his arms triumphantly with the worthy, the worthy victor.

Well, you know, we gave it a good shot and we're all coming together because it's not about me. I called Vicky last night to, no, no, no, don't vote, folks. Come on, Gina. Give me a break. The whole shtick is that he's a winner. He's never going to concede losing anything. So the idea that if she wanted somehow to pull out a victory, that he would rally his troops for her and be a good soldier. Like, have you been watching Donald Trump the last 40 years? That's not who he is. The point being that

I think the party is stuck with Trump, at least this cycle. And I'm not sure he'd go after losing this like either of those. Buckle up. I think, yes, exactly. Buckle up. Murphy. Yes, sir. Will writes into us, most Republican state parties in swing states, parentheses, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, et cetera, are broke or are in debt. How will that affect the elections?

In 2024. Well, it is a factor. You know, there's such Titanic forces swirling around. It's not the biggest factor, but the Michigan and Pennsylvania Republican parties, the Arizona party, and to various degrees used to be quite confident. The old days in Michigan or Pennsylvania would be a couple of people in the back wearing Star Trek years or aluminum foil hats. And we'd say, well, do we have to let one of the nuts speak before the end of the meeting? Now you look around as wall-to-wall nuts.

They're broke. They can't raise a dime. Those voter programs are gone. There are some attempts to prop them up with other entities. The RNC staff rips their hair out on kind of some of the basic work that state parties do. And you add these nutty characters. We've had certifiable people running the Michigan party. They're doing all this Banana Republic stuff where they replace each other and, you know, print their own money. Carrie Lake is out there secretly tape recording things.

grassroots people. She got booed at her own convention for doing that to a well-liked person. So it is not a good thing. You know, if I had to choose between getting those parties back to what they were, not the shameful drag fest they are now, or fixing Biden, I'd still fix Biden. You know, that's the bigger factor. But this stuff does count, and it's a real problem for the ours because they've got

They got the children of the corn have taken over. If I could, one fast prediction here, looking at the crystal ball, because Mike mentioned Arizona and Cary Lake. Kirsten Sinema was never going to run for re-election because she doesn't want to risk coming in third, and it's very difficult to win out there in Arizona when you're not part of the

the party duopolies. But I think now that this big border deal is collapsing, she's going to use this as her grand exit to say, well, clearly I've tried, but Washington doesn't want folks who are pragmatists who can get deals done. And there's no place here anymore for a pragmatist. I'm going to walk away until they get serious again.

That's right. Yeah. I agree with this. I'm going to go lead the national outboard motor association where we really are going to take care of our fine dealers in the Phoenix area. But she was never going to run, but like, this is the obvious exit strategy now for her. Right. And, uh,

It's up until now, she said, how dare you ask me about crass politics when I'm trying to solve America's real problems. And of course, now that the deal has gone up in flames, she can say, well, I tried. You folks don't deserve the audios. Keep an eye on her and no labels, by the way. Prediction, too. All right.

I've got to run, Gibbs. You're going to run. I'm just going to add that I think, Murphy, your RNC, State of the Republican Party in the States news must have finally gotten to Mar-a-Lago because not once, but now twice in the last few days, Donald Trump has said he is envisioning a change at the top of the Republican National Committee. So, Ron Romney McDaniel, your great consolation prize for being the longest-

Serving Republican chair in modern history and deeply loyal to that crazy nutmeg Donald Trump is, he's about to fire you.

So way to go. You get later before the primary is even over. Poetic justice. I'm telling you, she welcomed the eel rules, Rah. That's how it works. No loyalty would be given. And I still remember the great chats we had about your love for Jeb Bush during 2016. There you go. One last torpedo in the water. Thank you, Dr. Martin. Always good. Gibbs, you're the best. We'll talk to you all soon. Murphy.

Keep your pitchfork shiny clean. And Jonathan, thank you for, we got not one, but like three columns of stuff right there. So I hope your employer understands that you're giving out good stuff. Happy Mardi Gras, folks. Try the king cake. Bye. Bye. Later, guys.