Executive Disorder (with Marc Short)
01:07:42 Share

Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Some of the things you're reading about in Los Angeles, thank goodness we sent out some wonderful National Guard. They've really helped and a lot of problems they were having out there. They were afraid to do anything and we sent out

troops, and they've done a fantastic job. So I want to thank them very much. There you go, Heilman, President of the United States. I don't know about you, but I was having 2024 kind of

uh, watching this whole thing unfold. 2024. What happened? What happened in 2024? That made you, I think you're flashing back to office. I have 2020 flashbacks. No, I agree as well. There's that, but, um,

Well, let's first bring in our guest, Mark Short. Yeah, let's do that. Mark Short's not the kind of guy who has flashbacks. I don't know about that, Tom. I bet you that's wrong. Oh, hey. We could do a whole show on his flashback. I'm thinking more about the kind of flashbacks that I have, which usually involve more like, you know. Well, forget about it. I don't want to hear. Because they're chemically induced, probably. 100%.

Uh, Mark short. Good to see you for a former chief of staff, the vice president, Mike Pence, former, uh, legislative director for, for, uh, for Donald Trump, for president Trump in his first term. And now a star of, uh,

cnbc and nbc and is that he was he was also one of my men he was also chief timekeeper for k bailey hutchinson for a while kept her on kept her on hers on her very prompt and punctual schedule all right she was she was pretty good at that she was pretty good at that but i did serve in the texas delegation too um so uh

No, Mark, the reason I'm thinking that is I had this feeling watching the coverage last night that a lot of folks were sitting in the White House thinking, I like what I'm seeing here. This is helpful to us. Am I wrong about that?

You know, I don't know how much people like seeing police cars on fire and seeing the riots, but I also do believe your second point is accurate, that politically it is helpful to them. And I think that, you know, as you were

is suggesting as flashbacks to 2024, I do think President Trump is good at finding these issues that are 80-20 issues that Democrats seem to dig in on. And I think he did that effectively in the campaign against Kamala Harris on things like transports. And I think that for the vast majority of Americans, whether you think the National Guard or Marines should be sent in, the vast majority of Americans see police cars on fire and say, hey,

that's not what I'm for. I'm against that. And I think that, yeah. So I think politically there are people in the White House thinking that this is playing out well for them. And Heilman, you know, uh,

I guess my feeling is, and the reason this was sort of a flashback thing is, we live in such different worlds. I mean, Democrats and Republicans and have such different worldview. I mean, a lot of the people you and I hang with and know were freaking out, and I think with some justification about what it means to send Marines into an American city. And we're focused on the fact that this really wasn't

the kind of not legally and not really just facially the kind of situation that required it. And so what kind of precedent is being set? But I used to say during the campaign, and you heard me say it, if you were talking about democracy over the kitchen table, it's probably because you didn't have to worry about the cost of the food on your kitchen table. We have a very big divide. And I think that he is masterful, as Mark suggests, at sort of finding those divides and mining the hell out of them.

Yeah. And I mean, look, David, I think that all the divides, a lot of the big cultural and political divides in the country are all on display here. You know, we have a red-blue divide. We have a coastal versus middle-of-the-country divide. We have an elite versus working-class divide. We have a lot of these divides, and they're all kind of overlaid on top of each other.

And then we have the media split, right? Where if you watch the images of what's going on in Los Angeles on Fox News and all of right-wing media versus all of CNN, MSNBC, and all of what the right would call left-wing media, you're seeing very different pictures. And I'm from Los Angeles, so I'm talking to people all the time about what's out there. And the view from most of Los Angeles is...

Yeah, we don't like these pictures of what's going on in DTLA, but these are very isolated. Even now, where they've grown much bigger and have become more violent and are troubling to a lot of people, including people who are blue in L.A., but this is not like the city is not on fire. If you're living in Santa Monica or the San Fernando Valley where I grew up, this feels very far away to you as well, yet the administration is painting it as the city has been invaded.

It's this invasion discussion again that Stephen Miller and others are leading and the discussion of insurrection and invasion as a justification for what's going to go on over the coming weeks. I'm not just worried about the – I wasn't just worried about the deployment of the Marines yesterday. I'm worried about it today, and I'm worried about it heading into the weekend as we're going to see protests at big cities all over the country.

some of which will be peaceful and some of which will probably get out of hand. And what will that lead to as a pretext in Chicago, in New York, in other places? If you're a Democratic officeholder or a Democratic organizer, I think that you should

really be working to try and make sure that they don't become, they don't go out of hand. But huge responsibility. Mark, the whole thing about these, the pictures that John's talking about, you know, I thought this, I woke up this morning, I was thinking about William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish-American War. And he said, you know, he sent

an artist, Remington, named Remington, to Cuba to send back sketches of the revolt against the Spanish there. And the guy cabled back and said, you know, there's not much going on here. And Hearst's response was, you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war. And that's a little of what's going on here.

Well, I mean, I'm not in Los Angeles. I don't know, David. I think that there's a lot of sense in a lot of Americans. They've seen challenges in Los Angeles for quite some time. And as you said, if the president was going to pick any sort of foil, having Mayor Bass and having Governor Newsom as his foil is exactly who he'd pick. And, you know, I

As we're talking about politics, for Gavin Newsom, if he wants to run in 2028, he wants to fight with Donald Trump. Right. They're symbiotic here. Yeah. Well, I agree with you that a lot of mayors should be looking to make sure that things don't go out of hand down the road this weekend. I think that for Governor Newsom—

I'm not saying he wants the riots, but I do think he wants to fight one-on-one with Trump. And if he's looking to appease his Democrat base ended at 28, he probably feels like this is, as you said, symbiotically good for him too. Sure. But David, wouldn't you tell me, actually, David, let me ask you this, right? If you're a governor, I want to come back to, to, to the Trump motivations around this, but just as we're talking, I'm talking about Newsom here real quick.

If you're Gavin Newsom, you want to fight with Donald Trump for sure. But you can't imagine the fight that you would want, right, is to be able to say these protests are peaceful. Get these Marines and get these National Guards out of here because we've got this under control. The perfect picture would be

What the Trump administration is doing is clearly out of proportion with what's going on in the streets. And Newsom has the state under control and they're behaving badly. And he could then get in Trump's face. The pictures of things on fire and Mexican flags and some of those more apocalyptic images that we see, those are not images that Gavin Newsom wants. He's smart enough to know that that's not his long-term political self-interest to be seen as defending riots and the people that Stephen Miller likes to attack.

Yes, Stephen Miller, A Battle to Save Civilization is what he calls it. I want to ask you about Stephen Miller. I mentioned this before, Mark, but I want to ask you about Stephen Miller in a second because you worked with him. But

you know, if I were Newsom, yeah, I, you know, he's trying, you can see Newsom is, is, is very transparent and improvisational in a way, in the same way that Trump is, you know, and he said, it kind of goes with the moment and he's trying to figure out a way to be both tough on the lawbreakers and tough on Trump. And it's a hard,

balanced to strike. I have no doubt that he feels that might be advantageous and maybe even necessary to be really tough on Trump here if he's going to be

if he's going to build his constituency for 2028. I'll tell you one thing. I think this thing, you talk about other cities. I'm sitting here in Chicago. They made plenty clear that Chicago is another target on their list, and I expect we'll get the same treatment. And if I were the mayor and the governor here, I'd be studying this closely and figuring out what they're going to do. But, Mark, what about Stephen Miller? I mean, he is...

And he speaks only in apocalyptic language. He believes that our, you know, or at least he conveys that everything we hold near and dear is at stake here, that these invading immigrants and, you know, Frank from all these places of color, I would add, is usually what his target is, but that they're destroying our country. I mean, does he believe that?

He does. I think Stephen's a sincere person, David. I think that the left demagogues Stephen. I think Stephen sometimes embraces that. But, you know, I confess to you that when I joined the campaign in 2016, I envisioned that I would have, you know, a lot more probably personality and policy differences with Stephen. But I think Stephen is somebody who is underappreciated in the sense that

When I joined the campaign in 2016 and Pence was tapped to be vice president, it was a miraculously small campaign. I mean, there was Stephen Miller and there was Hope Hicks, and there wasn't a lot else. And Stephen was the one who saw the opportunity for Trump before anybody else did, and has been the one who's been on that team from the very first day. Stephen does believe...

sincerely of these policies that he advocates. And, you know, I grew that there were times that I felt like I was arguing a traditional conservative viewpoint when it came to trade or other issues that Steve and I disagreed with. And so we had

disagreements but i i came to respect steven a lot more actually working with him in the white house david um and i think he even if i disagree with him on some perspectives i don't i don't question his sincerity and his belief on these issues you say democrats demagogue him but he's a pretty pretty proficient demagogue himself isn't he yeah

I would accept that. I mean, I think that that Stephen is somebody who is, you know, he came up through Jeff Sessions office and in the Senate. He again, he was one of the first ones who who got behind Trump helped with the very first Alabama rally of Trump. But but Stephen sees opportunities as well to advance his his view on immigration and other issues.

I mean, he's not only an effective demagogue, I'd say he's also effectively opens himself up to that kind of demagoguery. I mean, I don't doubt his sincerity, Mark, but the portrayal of this thing, if you read, just scan through the Stephen Miller Twitter feed, the political leaders of California and Los Angeles are siding with the insurrectionist mobs fighting to dissolve America over the heroes of ICE fighting to save America.

You know, he basically said he says over and over again that the Democrats and that the left are are now in armed revolt against order and the United States, the apocalyptic nature and the consistent nature of that rhetoric. I'm you. He may be sincere, but it is inflammatory for sure. And if and if one of the things that we would like to think about our presidents is that they will try to bring the country together. Steve Miller does not seem to be very interested in that. But.

but that's not their political project. I mean, their, their political project is to, they, they believe that they have a voting majority in the places they need it. And to maximize that, add, add to that, but there's no element. There's no place in which I would say Mark may disagree that, that, that the goal is to unify the country.

I don't think that's what the Trump political project is about. He thinks division is addition.

Yeah, I would agree with David's analysis. Like I didn't anticipate to come on your podcast to be defending Stephen Miller, but I, as I said, I put you in that position, Mark. No, no, that's okay. No, I, I look, I, I, I came to respect Stephen a lot more working with him and I think he's a, he's incredibly bright, but I agree with David's assessment that, you know, that their view is, is that the president, I think, um, uh,

It somehow excels in division more so than in unity. And so I agree with David's assumption that this is part of an us-against-them narrative as opposed to a unity narrative. One thing that worries me a little bit, and let's move on from Stephen Miller, but one thing that worries me about it in particular is

all of his comments about judges and suggesting that, you know, these judges are liberal usurpers who are trying to stop Trump from exercising his rightful authority. And his rhetoric is so overheated that he's, he's really putting a target on their backs. And it worries me about that. I mean, I also, you know, I think,

uh it has impacts on them you know on how the judges feel uh they have the the latitude they think they have but anyway if i can that's an important point because i i agree with you david i think that one of the greatest accomplishments of president trump's first administration was reshaping the courts and when they attack the very judges that they actually got nominated and confirmed i

I think it's incredibly counterproductive. I think that, you know, on the one hand, if they're attacking judges, they have been for decisions such as they've had on trade issues and said basically that that constitutional responsibility belongs to the legislative branch. I think the Constitution is crystal clear on that.

It's the flip side of the same coin that basically gave them their victory on executive privilege because the same judges were basically granting broad authority on executive branches, also saying the Constitution is crystal clear where these responses belong to the legislative branch.

And so they're basically attacking the same people that gave the rise of possibility for Trump to have a second administration who ruled in his favor on executive privilege. But I think, again, that one of the greatest accomplishments was the legacy of reshaping the courts. And so to tear that down, I feel, is incredibly counterproductive. We need to take a quick break right now. We'll be right back with more of Hacks on Tap.

You know what? At this stage in my life, I'm focused on staying sharp, healthy, and let's face it, keeping up with the grandkids. And Momentus has answers. The Momentus 3 is made up of protein, creatine, and omega-3. Expert research shows most people don't get adequate amounts of any of these nutrients from diet alone, yet they form the critical foundation to long-term health and performance.

Taken daily, this routine supports every cellular function of the brain and body from muscle recovery and growth to focus and energy, making Momentous 3 an easy way to drive the biggest impact on healthspan and help you continue to do what you love for longer.

Momentous ensures every product in their range adheres to the Momentous standard. Rigorous testing backed by science and the highest quality ingredients. No gums, fillers, artificial flavors, or sweeteners ever. They never compromise. So don't you. So take it from a guy of a certain age. If you're ready to switch it up to a company who is doing it differently and putting you first...

Head to live momentous.com and use hacks for 35% off your first subscriptions. That's code hacks at live momentous.com for 35% off your first subscription. David, before we move on from, I don't want to go to Steve Miller. Now I want to go back to the thing of kind of looking forward as to where we're going here in the politics of it. Right. So,

Mark, one of the things that, you know, in the various, we talked about Stephen Miller. Talk about for a second about Miles Taylor, who was the chief of staff at DHS, right? And was just out. He's been kind of back in the world because of this fight with Trump over the investigation, the Trump order with his executive order. But he was on TV yesterday saying that people are going to start to,

come to the realization that over the next few days, this is the big one. This is the one that people like me and we at DHS in the first term were worried about. At the top of the list of things they worried about was deploying the U.S. military on U.S. soil to enforce domestic law. We felt like that was a dangerous, slippery slope and that Trump would end up taking control of national law enforcement. So...

You know, you were there when Trump wanted to, in the summer of 2020, I talked about that flashback earlier, when he wanted to deploy the military in Lafayette Square. And Secretary Esper and Mark Milley pushed back on that. This has been a thing that he's kind of wanted to do in similar circumstances. And you saw him yesterday kind of talking about back in 2020 that he wished he'd done more in Minnesota. He wished he'd done more here and there.

Do you think that it's fair putting all that together, that this project, speaking of projects that Trump wants, that that is where this is going, that what Trump wants to do is to, in these situations, to try to nationalize, federalize law enforcement in a bunch of places? And if that's true, what are the politics of that? And is that just a very dangerous place for the country to go? Yeah.

If that's where he goes, I think it's dangerous. I'm not convinced that that's where he's looking to go. I, you know, for your audience, they may or may not be familiar with Miles. He was the author of the book Anonymous. And and I think that there's been certain executive orders targeting Miles. I confess to you, John, I have a lot more sympathy for Chris Krebs, who I think was doing his job at DHS.

And Miles, I think with somebody writing a book called Anonymous while he's still serving the administration, I had great concerns about that. And I'm not sure that Miles is always seeing things that he had

profess to see and write about. I have a much bigger concern, frankly, that I think the second Trump administration has walked away from so much of the record of the first administration on issues like, you know, can't really get a deeper depth on this, but on national security, frankly, on fiscal responsibility, on taxes, on judges. I think there's a long list litany of things. And actually, Ramesh Panuru has, he's an editor of National Review, has an op-ed in Washington Post

today, it touches on this too, that I think the administration and second administration, they have eschewed conservatives and there are very few conservatives left in the administration and it is a far more purely populist appeal. And so, yeah, I have concerns about the direction of second administration, but they're probably not the same concerns that Miles has. Well, again, I don't want to personalize it. I'm more kind of pointing to the substance of the concern. And again, just to come and David, you know, you can weigh, whoever wants to weigh in on this,

I said before I had this flashback to 2020. Those well-reported stories about the middle of the George Floyd protests of Trump basically saying, let's invoke the Insurrection Act. Maybe we should shoot some of these protesters in the leg.

And that'll calm things down. And Mark Esper and Mark Milley pushing back on that and saying, no, we can't invoke the insurrection act. We're not going to roll the U.S. military out into Lafayette Square to take over this crowd control scenario. That to me looms very large in my mind about what we're seeing now and what we could be seeing going forward.

And my point, Mark, and my point, Mark, about about Miles Taylor isn't to personalize it, but that he's giving voice to a set of concerns that conservatives in the administration then. And now I would imagine had that that the notion of Trump taking control of federal of national basically making law enforcement and crowd control a and riot suppression a national issue.

that that was a dangerous road for the executive to go down and one that Trump has some inclinations towards going down. As a matter of substance, that seems there's some evidence for that. A sense of depersonalize it and get to the substance. Let him answer. No, no, I'm just saying that just to clarify what the issue is. Well, again, I'm not convinced that. I do think that the president has a propensity to escalate in order to de-escalate, and he's able to draw out the most, I think, critical,

hypersensitize attacks on the left when he does something again i think that most americans look at the george floyd riots and feel like they went way too far and and and again mack david's point these are not what's happened in los angeles even if even if the even if the

testimony from y'all is that it's not as severe as some of the reaction. It's not like there was an artist set there. There actually are visuals of cop cars being on fire. And so I think there is support in many cases. Americans say, yeah, if they're not going to control it, send in the National Guard. But, you know, I do think as well, some of this allows them to

clean up their own record on law enforcement. Because, you know, when you see the administration say that anyone who touches law enforcement will be prosecuted and sent to jail,

I think it runs very contrary to the very first action administration of pardoning everybody who actually assaulted police officers in the Capitol. And so I think there is a vulnerability there that in some ways this is allowing them to kind of move beyond their first actions and be able to reclaim the mantle of one. Well, the other irony of that whole thing, of course, is that they didn't send the National Guard in, of

When the when folks were assaulting the Capitol and threatening to hang your boss, you were there. There was no National Guard and the police were assaulted and those people were pardoned. So, yeah, I mean, that that's a problem. But listen, for Trump, everything it strikes me, I think Donald Trump looks at the world through the eyes of a producer.

And he sees these scenes and he understands how they're going to play. And he's not really you know, we know this. He doesn't really believe in rules and laws and norms and institutions. They kind of he thinks they're sort of for suckers and that you the strong take what they want, how they need to take it. And but so those are the two things. If you want to understand Donald Trump, at least through my eyes, those are the two things you need to understand.

But listen, on this issue, you raise such an interesting point, which is the degree to which conservatives are being asked to swallow their fundamental principles right now. And it seems to me that some of that's coming into collision with.

Well, in a, in a lot of ways, certainly trade is one of them. We can talk about that, but this tax bill, and I want to ask you, cause you're close to folks on the Hill. You were the legislative director, you know, that it seems to me that there's this Rubik's cube of populists and, uh, versus deficit Hawks. Uh, and, uh, all of it is sort of colliding here. And, uh,

I'm wondering where you see all of this going. Well, David, I think that ultimately the prospect of a $4.5 trillion tax increase will be enough to get sufficient votes to pass an extension of the tax reform bill. But I think inside the bill, there is a different perspective.

than I think what we advanced in 2017. I know from my conversation with you at University of Chicago, you and I will probably disagree on this, but I still think there was, in 2017, an effort to simplify the tax code. There was an effort to try to eliminate deductions. I see in this one, you actually have an effort to actually add deductions, to add direct payments to children under some sort of Trump ideology.

I think there's a there's an effort to say we're going to give you a special deduction if you buy a car manufactured in the United States. And and and John, I were talking earlier that there actually was a push in the administration to raise the top rate. Yeah. Which would have been a shrewd, shrewd political move.

Maybe, David. I think that George Bush tried that in 91, and it worked out pretty well for your side in 92. And so I think that if Republicans want to start raising taxes, that's not very conservative policy. Mark, that's a different – it's a different scenario. He was a different –

a different person than Donald Trump. You're telling me if Donald Trump, given where the Republican base is now, which is basically lower income, blue collar workers are the core of his base. You're telling me those people are going to walk away from him because he asks people

people like John Heilman who make more than two and a half million dollars a year to pay a little more in taxes? I don't think they'll walk away from Trump. I think you're getting to the core of what my argument is. I think Trump tapped into blue-collar working class voters in ways that other Republicans can't. But I believe that was largely a cultural message. I don't believe that was largely an economic message. And so I don't think those voters should walk away from Trump. But I think

other Republicans would lose other traditional Republican voters if they started raising taxes. Wasn't the bigger problem that he, that there are still members of Congress for whom that's orthodoxy? I don't know what, I candidly, I'm not sure what orthodoxy is for a lot of our members of Congress. I think that, uh, there's been a pretty dramatic reversal on a lot of positions. Um, and I, I, you know, I, I think that ours was, was a party that, uh, that,

used to stand up to, um, to former KGB officers who were invading other countries and, um, and would, would take a position that when you're, when you're stealing children and taking them across, um, country lines and you're killing women and children that you should at least allow them the opportunity to defend themselves.

I think ours is a party that actually used to believe in trade and thought that actually that lifted all boats and it actually helped us stay out of foreign wars when you're actually trading with partners as opposed to believing that, you know, all of your closest allies should be assessed, you know, taxes that are even higher than communist China. I think that that that

you know, as we talked about before, we used to have a belief that actually reforming the courts was what we were hoping to do in the first administration. Now we attack those same confirmations. We used to believe, I think, as a party in social issues. And now I think we have the most, you know, pro-abortion HHS secretary in American history. And there was not a Republican who actually stood up and voted against that. So I do think that the president has transformed our party significantly. And I do think that those, you know,

tenets of conservatism, I think a lot of our elected officials have walked away. So, David, here's my question. Here's my question for you, though, about this. But to get to this question of economic populist economics, right? If you look at what the Trump White House has been in favor of before the bill started to go through, what they were for, Trump would have had his way. Now, none of these things are consistent with

with the cost. They would do nothing to put the deficit aside entirely and explode the cost of the bill. But this is what Trump would have been in favor of. No taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, ending the carried interest loophole and raising the rates on the richest of the rich.

And now you have Josh Hawley, as Mark and I were talking about before we started the tape, calling for an increase in the minimum wage. That's a right-wing— And speaking out for Medicaid. And protecting Medicaid from cuts, right? So that's a right-wing populist economic agenda. I would guess that almost everything on that agenda is something that you agree with, that you would think would be good, and you think would be good politics for the new Trump coalition, the Republican Party.

And yet almost none of that is going to end up in the bill. In fact, the House ignored Trump on almost everything that he wanted when it when it came to passing the first version. Yeah, I mean, because I think those were positions that he took to position himself politically. And what he really wants is the tax. He wants to extend the tax cuts. And so, you know, I think that's his big goal.

And he'll get as much as he that he can get. Here's the interesting thing about Trump. Part of the way that they are justifying. I mean, there are a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans, who believe that the deficits are now getting to the point where the debt's getting to the point where it really does threaten, threaten the sort of country's financial stability.

foundation. And this has become a big discussion, big discussion among some Republicans in the caucus. And the answer you hear is, well, we're going to have we're going to raise to two point eight trillion dollars over the next 10 years in tariff money. And that tariff money will offset the

you know, the, the, uh, the deficits where, well, first of all, what are you negotiating with other countries for? If the tariffs, if you think that those tariffs, if that revenue is so reliable because you're never going to change those tariffs, what exactly are you negotiating? Uh,

I mean, I find, and there are a bunch of things like that. He promises low gas prices, and that's a thrust for his approach to energy, which is basically one source only, you know, fossil fuels and old energy that is spilled into a cultural issue about climate. But the truth is that the Saudis have turned on the spigot

And and they have lowered gas prices to some degree. There is more production now, but the incentive for actually drilling and and and doing the things that he wants American oil producers to do are low because they can't make any money doing it. So there's all these contradictions and you can go.

down the line on this that makes, you know, that creates Rubik cubes wherever you go. I don't know, Short. I don't know. Well, I think there's a lot in there. Look, I think that the president— I hope I talk long enough. Yeah. I'm fully supportive, frankly, of the president's energy policy, and I do think it combats his trade policy because I think lowering energy prices does bring down inflation in ways that offset some of the tariffs. But

I think that the trade policy is nonsensical right now. I think that you basically, again, at this point, we're threatening higher tariffs on EU nations than we currently have on communist China. I think that's a big difference in the first administration where you rallied international nations to focus on China. But I think where you started your question, David, was on fiscal sanity. And look, I don't think either party is being honest with the American people.

I think, you know, I remember when I was a young staffer, we used to talk about needing to have fiscal responsibility when our debt was under $10 trillion. We're now at $36 trillion. Both parties have contributed to that. And for the first time ever, if you just add up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt, it's more than 100%.

of the revenue we're bringing in before we even touch discretionary spending. So these conversations in Congress are often about government shutdown over a small fraction of discretionary spending, and that's not what's driving our debt. And neither party is being honest about actually trying to take on entitlements. Neither party is. I'm not making a partisan argument here. I mean, I think that this is a serious question. It deserves serious attention.

Well, let me just ask a political question to both of you. Why don't you just answer some questions? All you do is ask questions. John wants to preserve. He doesn't want to be polluted by being a hack. So he feels like he has to posit everything as a question. I'm just trying to move our conversation towards that. It's something we can get. We can plant our feet on here.

Right. I'll take a position on this, David. How about that? The central question, it seems to me in the, in terms of getting this bill into law is that you've got the, in the Senate, you've got these, these deficit Hawks, you got these populists. There's a big disagreement over the size of Medicaid cuts. There's no way you can, you can extend the Trump tax cuts forward without taking a big chunk out of Medicaid. I think that's the math of it, right? This is what Mark is saying. You have nibbling around the edges and having these conversations about these smaller things. But in the end,

It's a very large tax cut that if it doesn't get enacted or extended, it's going to be a huge blow to the economy and a huge blow to Trump and Republicans going forward. So the stakes are really high, but no one can figure out how to get there without taking the meat axe to Medicaid, which is bad politics for Republicans. So again, I'll tell you what my point of view is, David. I think they will get the bill through, but I think they're going to end up taking a big chunk out of Medicaid, and it's going to be really bad for Republicans in the midterms. What do you guys think?

I think they're going to get the bill through. He finished with a question. Look, I still think they're going to get the bill through. I think the prospect of the tax increase is too significant. I probably don't agree with you, John, that this is a huge cut to Medicaid. I think if you're actually asking able-bodied people to have a skin in the game, I think that's the pretty legitimate base level. That's not the entirety of what they're—nobody believes that that's going to cover Medicaid.

all of what they're asking for. No, but that's my point is it is not even like we're really taking significant cuts, David. In 2016, there were 50 million people on Medicaid. Today, it's over 80. This is unsustainable, what we're doing. And yet, and yet we're basically nibbling around around the edges. This is a philosophical difference. I actually think what's untenable is the

tens and tens and tens of millions of people without health care, because you know what happens without health coverage? They end up in hospital emergency rooms. Hospitals get overburdened. You're going to see rural hospitals negatively affected if this bill goes through as as as planned. But it's not just the Medicaid cuts.

But what's going on in the Senate right now, and you're probably following it closely on behalf of clients you represent. But you've got people who you talk about energy before who don't want all of the all of the energy tax credits that Biden and the Congress enacted taken away because they have projects in their state, hydrogen and carbon credits.

sequestration and so on that are valuable to their states. And so when the Senate bill comes out, it's going to look different than the House bill. And the question is, how do you make all of that coherent? The answer to your question, though, is to get to get it through. There's no doubt Democrats and Republicans will agree. We you know, we should continue those tax breaks for

people who are making, you know, under a million dollars a year or under two and a half million dollars a year. But Trump's idea was a good idea. What's wrong with Trump's idea?

I mean, I think that I think it'd be a lot easier politically for Republicans if they weren't taking big cuts out of Medicaid, if they weren't eliminating projects that are important to these states and simply said, OK, we're going to raise a trillion dollars by asking very, very wealthy people to go back to the tax rate they were paying before 2017, which was two points higher.

And that would have support of about 85% of the American people. Right. And I think those are our nation's biggest job creators. And I think the tax increases. You think they'll stop creating jobs? I think they usually don't. Yeah, I do. David, you keep raising tax on people. They do stop creating jobs. I do believe that.

I think one of the reasons we had as much job growth after 2017 is because we actually lowered the corporate rate in ways that it was out of sync. We had a corporate rate that was higher than communist China. So, yeah, I do think that creates jobs. The last three years of the Obama administration produced more jobs than

the last uh then the first three years of the trump administration but anyway and you were coming off you were coming off of you were coming off a financial collapse and so yeah so we did we did and by the way no one's talking about raising the corporate rate right now we are actually talking about individual individual rates on on very very rich people who would certainly continue doing the economic work that allows them to continue to get

be the richest people in the history of humanity. I just think, Mark, we have more problem. One of the problems we have in this country, one of the reasons there is a big divide is that people look at health care, housing costs,

costs for food, costs for education, and they are not keeping up. The vast, you know, the majority of working people in this country are struggling with those costs. And to say, well, we're going to take 11 million people more and we are going to take them, you know, basically take their health care away. Or to say we're going to, and among those people are going to be people who are

Well, beyond those people, we're going to make the Affordable Care Act a lot more difficult to access. So that'll be millions more people coming off. That, to me, is not a prescription for progress. That is not a prescription for a healthy country. David, I think you're putting positions, you're making straw men that I've not argued. I'm not saying we should be taking away everybody's health care. I didn't say everybody. I said exactly the number that the CBO said. The reality is that is what we are doing.

is we are crowding out private insurers in favor of government. And I think the vast majority of Americans also believe that if you are physically able to be working and you're not trying to, they shouldn't be subsidizing you with tax care. No, I think that's your best argument is I think that that will pull well. Able-bodied people should work if they're going to get Medicaid.

Don't want to get into. I mean, we can have a discussion about what all that means. That is the best. I mean, that just doesn't cover a large part of the Medicaid cuts that are going to take place. So but if you put up politically, it's a it's a you're right.

Politically, that's the best argument. We're going to hear it again and again and again to justify all of it. I don't think Hawley and those guys are buying it. They think it's going to damage their states. For a second there, for a second there, Hacks on Tap turned into an old edition of CNN's Crossfire, where we had Pat Buchanan and Michael Kinsley going at each other. OK, then let's take a break right here and we'll be right back.

Folks, I want to talk about Delete Me, and I don't mean deleting hacks on tap. I mean a service that makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable.

DeleteMe does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites, and those are legion. They're everywhere. DeleteMe knows your privacy is worth protecting. So sign up and provide DeleteMe with exactly what information you want deleted, and their experts take it from there.

They send you regular personalized privacy reports showing what info they found, where they found it, and what they removed. I can tell you as someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. That's why I like Delete.me to keep my personal information personal, not for the public.

So take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete.me, now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20% off your Delete.me plan by texting TAP to 64000. The only way to get 20% off is to text TAP to 64000. That's TAP to 64000. Message and data rates may apply. ♪

Can we move on to a unifying subject, which would be Elon Musk? Let's talk about Elon Musk. How about that? Elon Musk was the fight with Trump, was everything we were focused on until Trump changed the channel and started sending National Guard and then the Marines into Los Angeles. But Musk is still out there, right? Still the richest person in the world. And now apparently trying to get

back, potentially scrubbed his Twitter feed of all the most incendiary things he said about Trump, including Jeffrey Epstein things. And he seems like he might want to try to get back in good graces with him. But, you know, here's Mike Johnson. Let's play this sound, David, of Mike Johnson kind of sending a warning shot across the bow to Elon Musk about any future relationship between Trump and Musk and what what must role should properly be.

Do not doubt and do not second guess and don't ever challenge the President of the United States, Donald Trump. He is the leader of the party. He's the most consequential political figure of this generation and probably the modern era. And he's doing an excellent job for the people. We are America first and we're going to get that agenda delivered in the one big beautiful bill and we're going to do it by our deadline.

So, Mark, there's Mike Johnson basically saying, please, dear God, Elon Musk, don't stick your face into these congressional negotiations and stop telling us to kill the bill and you're going to primary people who don't do what you say.

Do you think that Elon Musk is going to get what he wants, which is to eventually worm his way back into Donald Trump's good graces? Is that romance going to be brought back together again in a sequel down the line? Or is Trump now basically done with Musk and he's out of here? Jeff.

John, I think, as David said, the president is very keen on moments made for TV, and I think he knows reunification moments can be good TV. But I also don't think he's somebody to actually ever initiate that, like whether or not, you know, it was the first administration, you saw a lot of these public firings of Jeff Sessions or Bill Barr or Esper or, you know, Mattis. And so I don't

I don't recall any of those reconciliations. So I think the chances are probably not great. But I mean, I do think it's pretty amazing how quickly this escalated from two days before getting a key to the White House to basically having threats of all government contracts taken away. And two days before saying-

Two days before. Turn in your key, Musk. Saying you're the greatest president ever to saying he should be impeached. So that was a pretty quick escalation. No, it was. But you know what it reflects? It reflects the fact that Musk is not a terribly stable guy.

I mean, and that was true when Donald Trump put him in a position to be the most powerful person probably ever private citizen and gave him all of the authority. I mean, he was unstable then. We know that now. But, you know, Trump was asked the other day about Musk and his language was a lot less combative. Musk's language, Musk has sort of stood down.

though maybe not on the bill. But he's clearly, I mean, I think both these guys have looked at this and said, this isn't profitable. Let's move on. And we'll see where it goes. I mean, he, you know, Trump has not been known as a forgive and forget guy. But when it's in his interest, he often, you know, Trump often like, you know, cast people out of his orbit. And then if they suck up enough and they bend the knee enough, he lets them back in. You know, there's only a few people

I don't imagine there's going to be a Pence-Trump reunion anytime soon, but Mark can probably comment on that. I think it's much more likely that we'll have Trump and Musk back in bed together again than we will Trump and Pence because ultimately Musk is bruised from this. Yes, he's bruised. He wants back in, and that's clear. And he's incredibly useful in a way that almost no one else is. Trump has said many times here.

Trump is totally transactional and utilitarian. And in a transactional utilitarian sense, Musk's money and his platform give Trump enormous assets in terms of the politics and the media penetration that he needs and wants. I think the only question is when those two are going to be back reunited, not whether. I mean, again, I think he likes the moment. But, John, to your same question,

in a lot of ways, I feel like must money could be more helpful to Republicans than it really is to Trump moving forward. Because I don't know what the Trump is as concerned as to who his succession is. So like, I don't, I think that that plays less value to him. I think he like, he would love to see the moment because it'd be good TV. Well,

Well, Mark, I think he uses that. I think he uses Musk's money to enforce loyalty and the congressional wing of the party, because what the way that Trump has used that, that war chest is to basically say to Republicans, if you deviate from what I want, Elon Musk will put forward the money to primary you. And so it's not about really Trump's long-term political future or, or even a successors, but about how do you keep Congress in line between now and the midterms. And that's helpful to Trump for sure. I want to ask you guys about two or talk about two things.

race is one that's happening today, the Jersey gubernatorial primary. And then the other is this interesting mayoral race in New York city, Jersey today,

big, big Democratic field. And the I guess the betting, but not super strong betting is that Mikey Sherrill, a congresswoman, will win that win that primary. Trump, or I should say, the ICE tried to and the federal authorities there tried to arrest the mayor of Newark at a

immigration demonstration there, Raj Baraka. Matt, maybe that gives him a boost. I don't know. But you're closer to this, Heilman. What's your guess on what happens today? My guess on what happens today is not so much a guess, hopefully an informed speculation here, is that I think Mikey Sherrill's going to end up winning the Democratic primary in New Jersey. And I think that Cuomo's going to sneak in

buy, although I think that margin is going to be very tight. Let's wait on the mayoral thing. Mikey Sherrill is going to be, if she wins the governorship, she'll be a big voice right away. Oh, yes. Former Navy pilot, moderate. She's going to be a thing.

Right. Well, I mean, if you think about the likely the Virginia gubernatorial race and the New Jersey gubernatorial race of those two Democrats. Abigail Spanberger and another congresswoman in Virginia, former CIA agent. Right. Also, class of 2018, two very kind of moderate candidates.

Democrats with a lot of national security background, those two women are both going to have a huge voice in shaping the party going forward if they end up winning those races in these off-year elections. And I think that both of them will have a pretty good chance of doing that. Not a slam dunk. In either case, I actually think Spanberger is more clearly a favorite in the Virginia race. Especially after all these federal workers got fired. Right, exactly. Mark, the governor's race, there's a primary for governor in Jersey as well.

But it looks but Trump has endorsed the guy who almost surprised last time by came and go. Jack, you're telling what's your sense of that? And do you have any do you have any big hopes for.

For either of these races. I wish I could be more optimistic for Republicans in either of these races. David, I do think, you know, John asked a question earlier we didn't answer about the midterms and whether it'd be Medicaid cuts. And I, you know, I'm not suggesting that the Medicaid issue is going to help Republicans.

But I do think that if history would portend, when you have one party in power, it's going to be a pretty ugly midterm for Republicans. And I think you've seen the last several cycles, whether or not it was, frankly, in your first two years of your administration, y'all accomplished a lot legislatively. There was backlash in 2010. I think there was something similar with

2016 and then the 2018 midterms. I think there's something similar with the Biden midterms. And so I think if we're gonna continue, if that trend plays out, Americans typically prefer divided government. They don't want one party in control

And so I do think as we talk about things like the tax bill, if this everybody's talking about a July 4th deadline, I think that's incredibly optimistic. If this drags out later in the year and you see Democrats win decisively in November, it's going to have some repercussions on legislative agenda as well. Can I ask you something about the tax cuts? Let's assume that it does go through. And I think the odds are that it will for the reasons that you say it. It really isn't a tax cut. It's an extension of the current tax bill.

So there isn't going to be I mean, for selected groups that, you know, if you get tips or what is the political impact? I mean, the political impact of them going away would be clear.

What's the political impact of the status quo? Can you sell that? I think it's a great question, David. I think that the administration is way oversold saying this will be the biggest tax cut in history. It's not. As you said, it's basically extending current law. And so when they talk about the amount of growth that's going to come out of this, I don't think there's going to be significant growth. I think the cost of not doing it

would have a very damaging impact on the economy. But that's different than saying this is going to propel a significant amount of growth. I think that growth you already incurred after 2017. And so, yeah, you might see a small benefit of full expensing, but I don't think it's going to be the same comparative. And I do think that actually there's a lot of Republicans will tell you behind closed doors. One of the reasons they want the July 4th deadline is because they're very worried

of what the economic impact of this trade agenda is going to be in the second half of the year and would make it harder to get it done. And so that's one of the reasons they want to get it done the first half of the year, because they are anticipating more negative economic news in the second half of the year.

And I don't I don't think this is going to generate some growth again. I I'm for it because I think the consequence of not doing it would have significant harm to the economy. But I don't think there's going to be a giant boost from it. I would say that Trump, you know, despite what some Democrats may feel like, he's held pretty firm here. I think that there's a lot of people who voted for him who said, well, at least he's doing stuff.

We're seeing a lot of action here. He's doing stuff. He's banging heads. And and they're saying, yeah, I haven't benefited from it yet, but it's only four months. Let's give it time. I think he's raised expectations now that some at some point they're going to feel it in their own.

paychecks and in the costs that they pay. That doesn't happen between now and 2026. I think it could be a really bad election for Republicans, but we'll see. We need to sneak in one more quick break right now, but we'll be back with more of Hacks on Tap after these words.

Folks, if you're like me, you've discovered that sometimes after a night with drinks, you don't bounce back as quick as you'd like the next day. So you have to make a choice. You can either have a great night or a great next day. But you ought to consider Z-biotics. Z-biotics is a pre-alcohol probiotic drink.

That's the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration like a lot of people think.

That's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best the next day. Every time I have pre-alcohol before drinks, I notice a difference the next day. Even after a robust night out, I can confidently plan on getting up early and doing hacks on tap without worry. At least not that worry.

And now summer is here, which means more opportunities to celebrate the warm weather. So before that backyard barbecue brew, glass of wine watching the sunset at the beach, or a cocktail by the campfire, don't forget your Z-Biotics. Pre-alcohol, drink one before drinking, and wake up feeling great and ready to take on the next day and all that summer has to offer. Go to zbiotics.com slash hacks.

To learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use the code HACKS at checkout, ZBiotics is backed with a 100% money-back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, head to ZBiotics, that's the letter Z-B-I-O-T-I-C-S dot com slash HACKS, and use the code HACKS at checkout for 15% off. Listener!

If you have questions for the hacks, send them to hacksontap at gmail.com or you can send them to the following number and your voice will be heard by millions of listeners all over the world. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471.

And our thanks to Mike Murphy for leaving that message for us so we can always remember him even when he's not here. John, Andrew has recorded a question that requires your wisdom, and here it is.

Hey, guys. Andrew from Cincinnati here. Just wondering if someone could explain the disadvantage of hosting a presidential primary all on the same day. You know, everyone talks about the advantage of which states get to go first or who gets the momentum moving forward. And then, of course, the last states to vote don't really have a say.

So why not just host it all on the same day? Thanks. Andrew, the very logical and rational question, and people wonder about why our primary system is structured the way it is, and it's basically the same question as asking why don't we let battleground states go first or why don't we let California go first, you know, have the biggest states, the most important states should get to vote at the front. And the reason, the answer to all of them is that if you had a national primary or a primary in which big giant states like California, Texas, New York were early in the process, is that it would become a, the, the,

importance of raising money would be through the ceiling. So if you couldn't raise many, many, many tens of millions of dollars at this point, probably close to a billion dollars or something, you wouldn't be able to be competitive. A national primary would be incredibly expensive, and that would essentially take

out any prospect of less well-known candidates, candidates with less of an ability to raise big money early would just be excluded from the process. And that, I think, many Democrats think would be not the best way to find the most competitive candidate, a small state governor like Bill Clinton, for example, with someone who had never been able to compete in a national primary coming up. And I would imagine that even Barack Obama would have had a

harder time against Hillary Clinton in 2008, right? Yeah. No, we would not. He would not have won. He would not have won. The other element of this is that when you have a campaign, even if it's a shorter campaign, the campaign itself is a test. The campaign exposes things about candidates under pressure, you know, a lot

A campaign of some duration, a primary campaign, is a proving ground in which you find out who has game and who doesn't. Remember after 2022, and Mark remembers this well, I mean, there were Republicans who were ready to anoint Ron DeSantis because of his win in Florida.

And the campaign proved, you know, underscored some vulnerabilities that he had as a candidate. Someone famously once said, David, I think someone said that a presidential campaign is an MRI of the soul. Someone said that. I don't know who that was, but someone said it, and they were not wrong. Let's put it that way. Yes, thank you. I appreciate it. Mark, someone named Madison, and I think it may be a distant relative of James Madison, someone named Madison said,

Mike Pence has recently emerged as a vocal conservative commentator critiquing President Trump on tariffs, founding advocacy groups and accepting the JFK Profile in Courage Award. So what does this renewed public role signal about his ambitions? Is he positioning himself for a potential 2028 presidential run or is he aiming to redefine conservatism from the sidelines?

Well, thanks, Madison, for the question. I think in his recent Meet the Press interview, Kristen Walker asked him that question, and Mike said he has no intention of running again. Now, I think that Mike is a very prayerful person, so I don't want to say that's like a blood oath, but I think that's what his true intentions is. He doesn't see that in his future. But before Mike

he's ever ran for political office. He had founded a public policy think tank in the state of Indiana. It was a state-based think tank. I think he's very committed to it. And I think he feels that the roots of conservatism are kind of being uprooted by the current political moment. And many of the gains of the first administration on conservative policy, as we've talked about in this podcast, I think are being walked back. And

And I think that he feels committed to building a larger and larger voice for conservatives, not because it's like, hey, we want to have a label of conservatism versus liberal versus populist. It's our belief that those conservative viewpoints is what founded this nation, is what has

prospered our nation. And we want to return to that. And so I think you're going to see his time and voice be far more committed to the public debate, because not only is it a matter of what's happened to electoral politics, but candidly, if you look around at many of the think tanks in Washington, those who were traditional conservative groups have abandoned that foundation as well. Many of them have embraced this current moment and have abandoned positions they held for decades. And so I think you're going to continue to see him step into that gap and be a voice for conservatism.

Let me just add as just a disclosure, which is I was on the –

nominating committee of the profiles for the Profiles in Coverage and Courage Award. I've been on that committee for a long time. And I was very much happy that the award went to the vice president. It's for an act of courage in which the recipient risked their political careers to do something principled for the country.

Honestly, by that definition, there was no one who was better, more deserving than Vice President Pence, who not only risked his career, but also his life to do what he thought was right. And I will always admire him for that. Although, to be fair, David, to be fair, Mike Murphy made a pretty good case for himself. He lobbied pretty hard for that. But you and the NG decided...

In the end, you decided that Pence was more courageous than Murphy. He misunderstood. Let me just say, he misunderstood. He thought the award was for most loquacious, and I can tell him, no, it's courageous. I was fortunate enough to be there that night, and it was a great ceremony. The Kennedy Library did an amazing job.

And I think David, as you know, he values his friendship with you. And I think the comments he gave to the audience was to say, look, there's probably a lot of things that we don't agree on, on economic policy, on social policy. Even he did speak into the Ukraine moment. But

He said, what should unite us all is a love for our Constitution. And I think that that I think that's what that night was about, is that we can be just we can disagree on a lot of the political levels, but we should all revere our Constitution. Hold on. Well, it is what allows us to disagree. Yeah.

So it's appropriate. All right, you guys. We got one more of the mailbag here. This is for you, David. Something you should have strong opinions about, given that one of your many homes in the United States of America, I forget how many states you have homes in, but one of them is Michigan. And Steve writes in to the Hacks asking, should Democrats in Michigan...

be worried about Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan running a spoiler, running spoiler for down ballot races as he runs as an independent in the 2026 Michigan governor's race. What say you? I say I'm not sure that he's a spoiler in that race. I think he's a legitimate contender in that race. I

Last last year, I was in Detroit and I did a podcast when I was doing the X Files, a podcast with Mayor Duggan, who I've known for a very long time. And.

What he's done in that city is really impressive. And he's got a constituency there and in the area around where a lot of the vote comes from. And it may be that there is a taste for a candidate who's willing to challenge some of the orthodoxy of both parties in 2026. I also think he'll have a lot of financial support from some of the Detroit area. So

I would take Mike Duggan serious as a candidate there. You know, the secretary of state is running there and she's a formidable John James. A congressman is running African-American Republican congressman, you know. So but I would not rule out the possibility that Duggan becomes quite a factor in this race and may win.

David, let me just for the sake of the questionnaire here, just for the sake of our friend Steve, I think what he was asking more specifically was with Duggan running as an independent, what are the potential spoiler effects of that for down-ballot Democrats? Yeah, well, for down-ballot Democrats, I don't know that it'll impact down-ballot Democrats. It could have an impact on the race. Obviously, if he doesn't win,

because he was a Democrat before he became an independent. If he doesn't win, there's a likelihood that he'll take more votes from the Democratic candidate than the Republican candidate. So I think it's a very interesting situation and I think highly unpredictable.

Michigan is super interesting in this cycle. Maybe the most interesting state in the country. Yeah, big Santa race as well. Hey, so do you have a final ruling here on the last question, David? I already said that I thought that in the end Andrew Cuomo becomes New York's mayor.

forgot about you're you're a new yorker but you have roots everywhere uh you're a new yorker by lineage yes you think i'm right about that that cuomo holds on and becomes new york's mayor and everyone kind of goes okay i guess there is this feeling that that this thing is slipping i mean the polls reflect that and you know we're still i think a couple of weeks away right john from the primary a couple of weeks away and then there's a november race and i think both uh

Cuomo and the mayor, who's not going to win this primary, that's pretty clear. Adams have their own lines on the ballot, additional lines on the ballot. So if Zoran Mamdani, who seems like the likely guy to win if Cuomo doesn't, a very, very progressive candidate,

Social Democrat, Socialist Democrat. Progressive would be putting it mildly. No, he's a left candidate. He's the capital L left. It's recently endorsed by AOC. If he wins the primary, it'll be interesting to see what happens in

The general I've been looking a lot. This is ancient history, but I've been looking a lot recalling for purposes of another project, the mayoral race in New York in 1969, when John Lindsay, who was a Republican, was beaten in the Republican primary, was on the liberal party line and got elected in a three way race against the Democrat party.

and a Republican. So, you know, I imagine that Cuomo will hold on. I don't think he's going to be like the second choice of a lot of voters. And this is a ranked choice voting thing. Well, you know, that's what that's what progressives are trying to do. They're trying to knock him out so that nobody are going to knock him out. I don't don't rank him at all. Keep him off your ballot. Don't don't give many votes at any point in the race. Right. And that could be that could be effective. But he is the best known. He's probably the best funded

There's so much that we'll talk more about this in the coming week before this happens. I will say, David, last night I was at a leaving a dinner party last night and I took my suit jacket. I threw it over my shoulder and someone

Even older than you said. This is starting off like such a New York story, but go ahead. You look a little like John Lindsay, he said to me. That's kind of a John Lindsay pose with your suit jacket over your shoulder. And I was like, man, you are old. You should be an ax or an ax. You are tall and you had your jacket over your shoulder. John Lindsay had like matinee idol looks. Okay. I'm not saying. What are you saying there? I'm saying we're out of time for this week.

Okay. Mark Short, great to be with you. Thank you. And John, I'll see you soon. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me on. Axe on tap. Appreciate it.