Maximum Don (with Alex Isenstadt & Doug Heye)
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What if you are an enemy of, let's not say any current president, let's pretend we've got a new president, totally new guy, in 2028, and this is a common practice now of just rounding up gang members with no due process and shipping them to El Salvador. You're a gang member. No, I'm not. Prove it. What? I've got to go to court. No, no due process. Okay, hackaroos, Mike Murphy here. Welcome to Hacks on Tap. That voice...

Those were the dulcet tones of podcasting god, Joe Rogan, and one of the breakthrough new media forces that I think had a fair amount to do with electing Donald Trump. But to his credit...

You're seeing that incarceration where you ignore the judicial system and ship people to the local friendly dictator may not be such a good idea. So a little crack on the right flank, I thought that was notable and it'll help us figure out our

First of many topics today. Now, both Axelrod and Heilman have somehow, I think it's some timeshare condo scam. They have both escaped to Europe this week. So this is our excuse to bring in some pros who know, uh,

And so I'm very happy to be joined by our friends, former, back in the sane days when two plus two was four and the Constitution was important, the one and only Doug High was press secretary and I think comms director at the Republican National Committee. And before that was a top aide in the House conference for the majority leader, Eric Kanner. Doug, welcome.

Thank you. If you thought my time at the RNC is normal, it just shows you how weirdly we define things now. Yeah, no, no, no. I would call it the end of normalcy there, but it still had an N in it. You were hanging on to the last letter. And also, the senior political correspondent at Axios, our good friend and author of the fantastic new book,

Revenge and Grievance. Actually, Alex Eisenstadt, I'm screwing up your title. I've been so busy reading the book, I haven't looked at the front. Give us the title. Revenge, the Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power. And boy, it is a fun read. I'm becoming obsessed with the crazy lady in the golf cart with the printer bungee to it who chases Trump anywhere to the alarm even of many staff members to instantly print out and hand him

any praise that she can scrape up on the internet before handwritten notes, uh, uh, talking about her, uh, great affection. And, and she's honored to be in the same a hundred feet with them. She now, of course, has an office, uh, in the oval, but we're going to get to the book and all the great inside stuff. But first let's, uh,

Let's rip through some headlines here of the normal parade of wonderfuls. And I want to start with this deportation thing, because I think I understand the politics of it. But you guys will start with Alex, who will bring some journalistic integrity to Doug and I here as we bloviate. But they must think they're winning the politics of this.

um yeah you know i don't know if they're winning any of the facts but an immigration war i think even if they they grab this guy now they allege he's you know the shot caller at ms-13 and murders kittens as a hobby but the fact is he'd never been prosecutor he came here illegally but then he got immigration status because i believe he married a citizen so

You know, they've got a very thin list here, but the guy's riding away in a El Salvadoran jail right now, and they seem quite happy with that. What's your take on the whole thing? And now that the Supreme Court has weighed in, the plot seems to be thickening. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I think they like the politics of this case.

They just, generally speaking, like playing the politics of immigration, no matter what the circumstances are. They're happy to talk about immigration. They believe it's an issue that helped them win the election, that it's an issue that

helps Republicans, helps Trump, and that hurts Democrats. And the fact that you have, uh, what they say is an, uh, MS 13 gang member involved makes that even more of the case for them. There've been a few cracks on the right flank. Uh, you saw Joe Rogan come out. He's made some comments on this that are critical of the matter. Uh,

I believe it was John Kennedy, a senator from Louisiana, over the weekend made some comments critical of Trump in this regard. But overall, it feels like Republicans are generally holding the line here. But I think you're definitely right. This is an issue that Republicans are definitely happy to continue to play ball with and definitely the people who are driving, helping to drive the decision making in the White House, which is people like Stephen Miller.

Yeah, Nate, they would rather have this fight than explain the stock market cratering and the tariff war and all the other economic problems, which was supposed to be the magic elixir for a Trump presidency. Doug, you're very connected to what's going on on the Hill. First of all, and for both of you, and then Doug, I'll zero in on the Hill. Have they produced any evidence that the guy's an MS-13? Because he's never been charged or prosecuted or anything.

No, they really haven't. We've seen some...

sort of oppo dumps from the White House on him, that he's been accused of some various, I think, like domestic crime, not gang activity or anything like that. But accused is obviously not a conviction. And so they're doing oppo dumps to sort of further their case on this guy. But ultimately, every Republican that I've talked to feels that if the debate is about immigration, however you define that,

That's on the Republicans' playing field. That's where they want to be. Now, this gets pretty complicated because Republicans, as you know also, and Alex would see this every day in the Capitol, a lot of them carry around the Constitution in their pockets. And what we're seeing runs pretty foul on basic due process rights. And I understand the argument that Democrats have of, listen, the Dow's down 1,000 points today. We should be talking about that. I get it.

But if you can't talk about this, you've got a bigger problem. And as Democrats are trying to figure out who and what they are, I think this is part of that sort of very public thought process that they're going through. But aren't they stretching the rubber band a little bit here? I mean, I agree with Alex that those of us who have the secret tan stoffel libertarian tattoo...

This makes us nervous. I think that's where Rogan's coming from, which is like careful when big brothers start scooping people up. No questions asked, no due process. And now we have the Supreme Court saying, hey, we do the Constitution interpreting around here. We interpret the law, co-equal third branch of government. And, you know, you're out of line. So this seems to be escalating at least in the real world.

constitutional power politics of the Capitol. Now, will the court back down or do you think the Trump guys think they can win that escalation too? Because to me it looks like they're taking a very workable immigration issue and turning it into such overkill it may no longer be about immigration. Yeah, absolutely. Look, Donald Trump

wants to push boundaries. How far he can go and so forth is constantly in his day-to-day activities. He's pushing to see how far he's allowed to go. The base will go with him wherever he goes. But it's not clear that aside from a few, say Lisa Murkowski in the Senate or Don Bacon in the House, that any congressional Republicans aren't going to go along with Trump. Now, I had a conversation with a colleague a couple of weeks ago who said, well, if the Supreme Court

rules that Trump can't do this, then you're going to see Republicans stand up to Trump. Now, this is somebody who worked for a senator who voted to convict in one of the Trump impeachment trials. So it might be wish casting. Well, I said, OK, if you're going to be right on that, that means that despite every other opportunity that you've seen for Republicans to do that not happening this time, they'll do it. And there's been a lot of this time wish casting for Republicans. And

My other concern is Washington operates in a great deal on precedent. So if and this is what Rogan gets to, if Donald Trump can get away with this, well, what's to prevent a Democratic president from from doing the same? And if I'm supporting somebody who I think has been wrong, wrongly convicted and accused of crimes like most Trump supporters do or.

However, you know, some people define January 6th. I might have some nervousness there about deportations as well. Alex, what do you think? I thought your book, which again, we're going to dive into in a little bit,

But it struck me in your reporting, you're a real Trump expert, that when in doubt, we got maximum Don now. You know, when in doubt, he floors it. So does he think a big constitutional crisis with the court ultimately works for him politically? Or do you think he'll do a late U-turn to avoid that? I think that Trump looks back on his first term.

and feels like he listened to too many people who he included in his administration, who he sees as moderating voices. So people like Jared Kushner, who I have an anecdote in the book, for example, about how he believes Jared Kushner wrongly got him to do criminal justice reform. People like Gary Cohn, he of Goldman Sachs, Dina Powell, she of Goldman Sachs, people who were known as the quote-unquote globalists,

who he saw as moderating voices, especially on issues like tariffs, other people who are more moderating voices on issues like immigration. He looks back at that at the first term and feels like,

There were things he wishes he could have done, but was restrained from doing. And now in his second term, you see a very different structure around him. You see a structure that is much more, his White House is much more stocked with loyalists and people who are geared towards facilitating what he wants to do. Yeah, it seems like a neighbor town there. Totally. Yeah. And and.

So you see a Trump at this point who feels far more emboldened, and you see that no more so than on the issue of tariffs, where he played around with tariffs a bit during his first term. It definitely wrinkled Republicans' –

especially those from agricultural states, others. But this time around, he's going far further regarding tariffs. Yeah, you know, it strikes me just quickly, for a guy who seems to have been very ideological, ideologically, excuse me, malleable during his career, the one damn thing he seems to really believe in are tariffs. And he's in a very small group in that as far as actually thinking they're good policy. But boy, he seems committed.

Yeah. And so to answer your question, I know we're talking about immigration deportation right now, is that...

You see how on tariffs he feels so emboldened. You have CEOs, major companies that are really struggling right now and who are pleading for at least some kind of resolution on the tariffs issue. And so you look at immigration and he is – you have to assume just as feels just as emboldened to push forward on aggressive immigration policies as he does to push forward on aggressive tariff policies.

And so that's what you're seeing right now, a very emboldened Donald Trump. I think the guy they grabbed, and I'm Mr. Garcia, who, again, they will tell me is the terrorist mastermind of the 21st century, but nobody's got any proof of any of that. He's never been prosecuted. I think he is kind of a sympathetic character, though. So, again...

macro it's a great issue for him micro throwing people into hell jails abroad without any due process and ignoring the judiciary i think there could be peril for him let me finish this this segment with a quick piece of sound from senator van holland of maryland who's the guy who jumped the plane get down there to see garcia and has made a lot of media noise about it let's listen to him and then i have a question for you guys

What did Abrego Garcia say that the official in El Salvador told him about why he was sent to that prison and how long he would be there? They haven't told him anything about why he was sent. Or how long he would be there? They didn't tell him anything about that. In fact, I asked the vice president exactly that question. You know, why is he here? Is he violating any laws in El Salvador? Does he, do you have any proof that he's committed a crime?

No. Why? Why are you? Why is he here? Because the Trump administration is paying us to keep him here. So, you know, the whole thing, I don't really mean to make light of it because it's so horrible, but reminds me back in the 80s. I spent a time in Russia. Now Trump can arrest me.

And there used to be a great joke in Moscow. There was a huge children's bookstore called Kniegi Mir, which is Russian for children world. And the joke was Christmas was the most dangerous season because you go there to buy a kid's book. But next door was Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB. And if in the bustle you went in the wrong door, you never came out. And so it.

It reminds me of that, this poor guy. So the question off that tape is, is Van Hollen gaining ground for the Democrats by elevating all this, or should he be talking about the market crash and the cost of eggs? What do you think? Because, you know, the Dems are looking for a message, and Senator Van Hollen is running with this thing. Mistake or bunted single or traction?

The honest answer, Mike, is I don't know. I think we still have to see how this plays out and how smartly Democrats play their hand. Thus far, I think Chris Van Hollen looks pretty good. His trip down there, he was doing the right things, asking the right questions. He looked strong and in command like a senator and so forth. But you have other House members, House Democrats who are going as well. And I think some of that smart messaging by Van Hollen may get lost. The NRCC,

has basically offered to buy tickets for any Democratic member to go down to El Salvador if they want to. That tells you Republicans think that they can win on this. Yeah, they thought they were winning on Joe the Plumber, too. But, you know, we will see. Any final word on this, Alex? Or we're going to pivot over to the Department of Defense, where they're texting like there's another Taylor concert tour coming up. Yeah.

No, I, you know, we'll see. We'll see how all this unfolds. I do think the immigration hawks in the White House are firmly in control, though. Yeah. Oh, I agree with that. And they're probably like, look, we can debate the economy or this. OK, gentlemen, we will be back in a minute, but we have to pay a few bills. OK, hackaroos. Well, Axelrod is traveling. I think he's in Europe sleeping and I'm sure he's sleeping.

He's wide awake at four in the morning, listening to the French horn music coming through the streets from if he's in Paris or wherever he may be. And he is not happy because he is not on his beloved Helix mattress. I mean, the guy's a fanatic for the Helix mattress. We got one of the kid ones for our daughter who loves it too. I've taken a nap on that one. I have to admit it's pretty darn good, but Axe isn't here to wax quite as poetic.

So all I'm going to say is I trust the man. He's from Chicago politics. He's seen the highs and lows. And there are few things in life that my friend David gets so excited about

like he does for the Helix mattress. So we're believers here at Hacks on Tap. So let's talk about the deal with Helix. Well, first of all, the Helix mattress is pretty cool because you get a sci-fi movie when it's delivered. It comes in a box, not small, but not huge and heavy. Much better than having three gorillas try to take a regular mattress and box set up the stairs and knock everything down, scrape up the paint. The Helix thing is in this box and it's compressed.

It's very high-tech materials, and you open it, and then like the classic sci-fi movie, The Blob, the thing just grows out and takes the space. It's really pretty cool. You also, when you buy a Helix mattress, you go on helixsleep.com, and you dial in what you like. Firm, soft, you know, you can take a little quiz.

and that way they match you with the right mattress. And the time I took a nap on a mattress in the afternoon, I was out like a light. And again, I can't get Axta to shut up about how great this thing. And he would tell you that the Helix mattress for him has been a huge, huge upgrade. So get one because there's an incredible money-back guarantee if you don't like it. All you got to do is go to helixsleep.com slash Axta,

They take advantage of their special spring savings event from now through the end of April. So you got to get going. You get 20% off site. Why? You find the mattress, they bring the 20% off and everybody's sleeping happily ever after. So one more time, take it from Sandman Murphy and Sandman Axelrod. Go to helixsleep.com slash hacks for 20% off their entire site. Helixsleep.com.

dot com slash hacks.

Our defense secretary likes to text, including, you know, apparently his brother and his wife. Hey, tomorrow morning at 6.03 a.m., we got some surprises in store. Look for five planes coming from the south. So, you know, this shatters any normalcy the way the Department of Defense. I've spent some time there as a consultant back in the 90s, and it's so far away from the grown-up culture. So I want to add...

ask you there was a lot of media speculation based on a an informed source or a high ranking administration source who leaked to npr that they were they were jumping on uh

I don't know where they'd go, but looking for a possible new DOD secretary. But I think Trump rolled out and did what you've seen a thousand times, Alex, the dig the heels in, never surrender, never admit error. What's your reporting telling you on a fair HEGSEP today?

Yeah. So, so my reporting suggests that you're right there. They're calling that NPR report that you referenced. They're calling that fake news. One of the interesting things that I think looking to compare Trump 2.0 to Trump 1.0, as you'll remember, and your listeners will remember Trump 1.0, you had turnover by this point happening every week. You had people exiting that administration, like a revolving door. It was a revolving door this time around.

There has been there's been some turnover, especially as it relates. There was some reporting on the IRS last last week turnover there. But broadly speaking, there has not been the same amount of turnover in this administration. And Trump does not feel the need or the desire.

to fire people the way he did in, in, in Trump 1.0. And, and it's interesting because you've seen him time and again, come to the defense of people who are under siege or in his view, who are under siege. You've seen that with Elon Musk, Elon Musk, uh,

comes under fire. What does Trump do in response? He throws a Tesla party in the backyard of the White House, right? Yeah, we have a used car lot now, yeah. Right. You've seen it with Howard Lutnick has come under a lot of criticism. Trump stands behind Howard Lutnick. Howard Lutnick is still playing a major role in this White House, especially as it relates to economic policy, right? Now, today, Trump is at the Easter egg roll, calls the reports...

on Hegseth's fake news. So you see another example. And so when Trump sees people who work for him under attack in the press, that makes him rally to their defense. And that's the pattern that you're seeing time and time again.

And as you say, Trump 2.0, wiser, madder, less surrounded by highly professional career staff types who have had for 100 years the ability to say to politicians, you know, Mr. President, maybe we don't order the airstrike and we put the phone down and have dinner and think about it a little. That buffer is no longer there. Doug. Doug.

And I agree with what Alex says about there are not bodies flying out the window every day. But I'd say the one exception does appear to be DOD, Department of Defense, in the secretary's office where they have had all this crazy turmoil. The spokesman lasted like an hour and a half, and he's out in the press saying how screwed up everything is. Two top deputies, I think, were kind of set up to take the fall and suddenly fall.

fired. I mean, it seems like nobody's lasting very long in the secretary's office at defense. What are you hearing in the Washington staff gossip circles about? We're dealing with clown shoes over there or just somebody had to take the fall or what's the talk on the Republican bongos? It's all of the above. And it's certainly chaotic in the secretary's office. And Alex is right.

It doesn't appear unless something new comes out with that whole caveat that you always have to have when you're talking about Trump. He's not going to fire Pete Hagseth. And the bizarre thing to me is Donald Trump's brand that is burned in all of our brains is he's the guy who fires people.

Right. That's that's his TV show. You're fired. That showed him in control and doing things. He's not doing that with any, you know, any of the secretaries who wouldn't survive in any other administration because doing so appears to be a sign of weakness for Trump. So he so he can't give in on that. Yeah, though, though, conversely.

a year from now, if there's piling up economic failure, that's a sign of weakness too. And he might wish he had some fall guys he had fired to be the top. You know, it's an interesting calculation for him. Well, look, I always say that, you know, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, isn't somebody who gives points. He only takes them away one at a time. And you may find yourself like Ryan Sprebus at the airport,

on the tarmac and being told, well, we don't have a seat for you. So that sort of Damocles is always there. But in this initial run, Trump wants to keep everybody that he can of his cabinet because he doesn't want to give in on this. On the staff level, you know, all bets are off. And I will say, though, you know,

I didn't read the op-ed by John Oliot, and I didn't because I just did a quick Google of them. That was the Pentagon press spokesman who got chopped and went public. Yeah. I did a quick Google of them this morning because I wanted to make sure I remembered this correctly. So March 14, 2019, CNN article, embattled Trump appointee resigns from post at VA. That's John Oliot.

So there seems to be a history there. Yeah, though I think the one way through the trap door is for the voices in Laura Loomer's head to mention your name. That apparently is a career ender. All right, well, we will see. I, of course, think he should resign, but we're in a time in American politics, in particular, where shame, honor, resignation, that's all in the dictionary for the past, unfortunately. So let's talk about the Hill for a minute.

You know, the president campaigned and successfully saying, I'm going to run the economy, right? Not this crazy old senile Biden with his inflation. I'm going to take away taxes on tips, on Social Security. I'm going to preserve the tax cuts. You're never going to be richer. It's all going to be great. But now the budget process has started. So these poor cats on the hill on the Republican side are like, OK, you promised over $4 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years.

So how the hell do we pay for them? We can jack the deficit up a few trillion. I mean, this wasn't the Republican Party playbook I grew up with, but hey, you know, so we can blow the deficit out and we can go fire the security guards at the nuclear installations and save $4 million. But, you know, we're getting down to where they have to make some very painful decisions. I hear or I see reporting about they're thinking,

Some are about do we not extend the tax cuts at over a million a year time to finally get even with Medicare and Medicaid? And you and I have been in enough campaigns, Doug. We know that that's it's easier to juggle a gallon thing full of nitroglycerin drunk than it is to get away with that in politics. So.

What are the people who have to deal with two plus two is four saying on the Hill? And I'll add, during a time when they know they've got really tough midterms in the House next year. They don't know what they want to do, and they're not sure how to get there. So you have sort of two problems here for Republicans. And

You know, this issue that's come up of potentially increasing taxes for those who make over a million dollars. It gave me flashbacks to 2012 when in December of 2012, we were coming up on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. And what we proposed, we being John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, was...

All taxes remain simple. This is a Democratic Senate, Democratic president. All taxes remain static, except for those making a million a year or more. Those would then rise. The law was changing, so we had to react to a changing law. And I remember Jeb Hensarling being the conference chair. Congressman from Texas. Used to work for Phil Graham. He said in a meeting, well, I can't vote for this this week because that would be raising taxes. But...

after the tax cuts expire, I can support it then. Then I'm cutting taxes. And I realized we got a real problem here. And it turns out we had to pull the bill from the floor. We didn't have the votes to get there. Republicans, even though now this script has been flipped and they're looking potentially at raising taxes, I don't think they'll do it, but that it's even a conversation is interesting. They're trying to figure out again, what can we do and how can we do it?

And that makes going under reconciliation all that much more tricky for Republicans. And you got a thin margin. A couple of guys in the House, you got 21 of them, God bless them, on a letter because they do want to whack all the EV subsidies and no longer help build factories there in America. That's a massive job killer. It's like swimming in a swimming pool full of razor blades in a very tight

You know, House. You also have the divide between the House and the Senate. You know, regardless of party, the House and the Senate usually don't get along. And you have that dynamic happening as well. On budget stuff, particularly, because there are different interests. What do you think, Alex? What's the latest? I think people have been doing happy talk to avoid the topic, but the shot clock is starting to tick.

because they've really got to get a lot of stuff figured out by the end of the summer. Yeah, I guess just generally speaking, and when it comes to congressional politics, I guess my question is, is

At what point when Trump's if people feel like Trump's if these House members and senators start to feel like Trump's approval rating is if he's starting to falter, at what point do they start to pull back on their support for him and what he wants? If they start to feel like his cuts, things that are coming up are unpopular. Do they start to back away from him? And that to me seems like something that's inevitably going to be going to happen, especially with the midterms coming up next year.

Yeah, and I think Trump is a populist more than a conservative. And since when does he like being unpopular? Trump's never wanted to go after entitlements. And as he's realigned the Republican vote, there are a lot of people with lower incomes now voting Republican who are particularly resonant to some of these entitlement programs. So it's going to be interesting to try to square an unsquareable circle here.

particularly if we have more economic pain from the tariffs. Now, Trump will argue with inflated numbers that the tariffs are going to bring in a lot of money, but generally tariffs cut demand, which also cuts government revenue. So anyway, this is going to be interesting. I'm going to put a plug in for Doug Sosnick, our friend. You've heard him on the pod, former Clinton strategist who has a good op-ed in the New York Times today about

But the 100-day scorecard on Trump may be pretty tough. And I think there's some truth to that. So our junkie audience ought to check it out. Okay, anything else of current you guys want to bring up? If not, I'm going to want to pivot to the book, which is delicious.

All right. I'm ready to talk books. So tell us about, because this book is very focused on the Trump equation. You know, there are a whole bunch of these campaign afterward books out and a couple of them I'm working my way through them are good. I like the Jonathan Allen book. Haven't read the Chris Whipple one, but what I liked about yours was it's all about, or not all, but heavily, heavily, heavily about Trump world and how he changed, how the campaign worked.

Uh, and what made you land on that? And then my second question is, what is the biggest thing about Trump you learned that you didn't think before you thought was a small thing that turned out to be a big thing about who he is and his personality?

So I set about writing this book in February of 2023, and I wanted to create the sense of give readers a sense of being a fly on the wall, letting them feel like they're there. We all knew this was going to be a dramatic campaign, a historic campaign. I don't think we knew how dramatic and how historic it would be. But, you know, this was a time when you go back to early 2023, it was

It was not certain at that point that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee, even. He was in a lot of trouble at that point. Yeah, I remember. Unfortunately, I predicted that all the time on this podcast, and Axelrod will never let me forget it. On the other hand, he told me inflation wasn't going to be a big deal at the beginning of Biden's over even. Sorry to interrupt, but totally. His numbers were not crap, but weak there, which is why so many people got in the race.

Very much so. And this was the rise of Ron DeSantis. Trump was getting blamed for the party's disappointing result in the 2022 midterms. He just had this dinner with Kanye West and and Trump was either going to.

rise from the ashes or he was going to it was going to be the end of him politically. And so I went to people around Trump and I said, I'd like to write about this campaign. I'd like to come and talk to you as much as possible every single day if I could or every week or just as much as I possibly can and just use me as a journal.

and tell me what's going on day to day. And so what I tried to do was, as objectively as I could, write a TikTok of what happened in this campaign, starting actually a few weeks before January 6th to Election Day, basically. And so to answer your question, one of the most surprising things and one of the biggest conclusions, I think, in my book is Trump's skills as a pure political athlete. I think Trump has incredible political instincts.

Is he the most intellectual figure? No. But I think he proved time and time again from a campaign standpoint that his instincts are second to none. The question now is, are his governing skills, can they match his campaign skills? And I think that's always been the question with him. Yeah, and it was a big problem. I always say he's great as a challenger on the attack, not so good

actually driving the locomotive once he gets the job when he lost to Biden in his re-elect. And that's an important thing, I think, your method that people should note. I'm always a little suspicious of some of these books, and I've been a source to a bunch of them over the decades where I've been involved in the campaign, is how much of it is after election day where everybody, you know, I was a genius if only they'd listened and all that. You were reporting the bulk of this in real time.

which I think is an important thing so people can't revise their opinions. I remember there was one Trump strategist who spent election day calling all the media explaining why Trump was going to lose and this strategist wasn't listened to enough and everything, and then two days later out claiming credit for the brilliant success. I was struck, and Doug, I want to get you in on this conversation too. I was struck yesterday.

by how much for a guy who came out of the semi wilderness to win a second term,

And had a lot of luck, too. Trump is just lucky. He was lucky Biden decided to run again and stayed too long. He was lucky, in my view, they didn't have a process to let somebody like Harris get it or at least let Harris earn it so she'd have something to say that she wasn't just a quick replacement in Biden 2.0. But every time Trump has a chance to go for the big ball and not be the grievance guy, he doesn't do it.

He always, from that speech, you know, at the convention where it lasted about six minutes, and then he always at the fork in the road where he wants to go to the dark place, he does. And that seems to me to be very telling about him and a limitation once he's in government. People want a president to succeed. And I think if he tried a little sugar, he would have done so much more. But I think he's just, and your book reinforced this with me, just incapable.

Am I wrong? Is there a possible Trump pivot to the light side that could ever come? Or is he the atomic clock of being him and we're just going to get more of the same? He is the age he's at. I think that he is going to be

He's always going to tilt towards grievance. I think during the campaign that that was an effective political tool for him, whether intentionally or not. He was appealing to an electorate that felt very angry about things. He was appealing to people who felt very dissatisfied with the direction of the country, who felt that they were they were not being.

who felt that the federal government was dismissive of them. And so that campaign of anger was effective during the campaign.

And that's that's where I think he is right now. And so it's it's whether it's whether he's talking about Jerome Powell, whether he's talking about some other element, something else, he is going to veer definitely towards grievance. And that's what he's done ever since he was elected the first time around. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors.

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What do you think he'll do in the Doug? Please jump in. I'm sorry to keep, but I'm fascinated by this stuff. And then I want to get to all the infighting and the fun stuff for political junkies. But what do you think he'll do if he has a lousy midterms and his numbers are down? You know, they're, they're crap loses Virginia governor's race as a proxy and

And then he's really in the soup. Is he capable of a restart like other politicians in that have done, or will he just go into a 35, 39% grievance howl-a-thon and then try to run again? I mean, I just, he's going to have to have some flex like a skyscraper in the wind. And I just don't see it with him, which means he'll get in more trouble. Yeah. You know, he, look, he lost, he lost the 2018 midterms and not much changed and

And one of the problems for Republicans is that they do great or they do much better when Trump is on the ballot. They don't do as well when he's not on the ballot. And so we didn't see a lot of change from Trump between 2019 and 2020. Now, 2020 was a little bit different because you had COVID, which took over everything. But but to the extent that, you know, if you do see Republicans struggle with

in the midterms next year, I don't think you see Trump change all that much. I don't buy into the whole third term business myself. I know it's something he likes talking about. I think he loves driving Democrats and liberals absolutely crazy. I do think. Yeah, that's my theory, too. I think that is a political strategy of his. He knows what buttons to push.

And he knows how to make them distracted, how to get them off track. And that's where I see as the third term talk. I view Donald Trump as one. He's about to turn 79 this summer.

When you're that age, you don't change. And certainly in the first Trump administration and in the first campaign, there were a number of times where we would say, oh, is this the time that Donald Trump is going to pivot? He never did. So Donald Trump won't pivot. He's going to continue to do more of the same. It'll just be angrier and louder and maybe more grievance if that's possible. And look, I think Donald Trump could have, and this is obviously a rewriting of history, but

But he could have been the great dealmaker if he if he chose to be, you know, Donald Trump, given the loyalty of his base, Donald Trump in the first administration. Yeah, he could have stretched it. Yeah, exactly. And he could have cut the deal on guns and on immigration that a President Jeb Bush or President Marco Rubio wouldn't have been allowed to.

And then he gets his infrastructure deal. And that Donald Trump gets reelected with 55, 56 percent because Democrats have no counter against it. All of that is bizarro world. It doesn't exist, though. But that's a that's a presidency based on calculation and savvy, not instinct and rage. Right. And, you know, his superpower seems to be stuck. But what what's going to happen in the House?

And if it is now March of next year, and we kind of know what the candidate recruitment looks like in most places, and the surveys come back, and we're going into the summer with 18 Republican House seats in trouble and a good Senate map still looking a little shaky in a couple of states, enough that even the Senate guys start to worry. What did they do? Well, on the Senate side, your Republicans are feeling pretty good. You know, it's always very map-driven.

Yeah, but you and I have been around, and all it takes is one bad survey. I mean, that's what happened to Stefani, the Faust of the House, because she was running to the U.N., and Tony Fabrizio, Trump's pollster, had a bad poll came back down in the Florida special, and they panicked that...

her special could go wrong and they yanked the nomination. And then by the way, the poll came back. It wasn't, I mean, the results came back. They were better than the poll. Yeah. So the margin of error wiped her out and kind of a hilarious, ironic twist. But you know, that cockiness can go away quickly with some bad polling floating around. Sure. And look, when you have a very small majority, uh,

And history tells you that you don't really need a wave. You just need a ripple to flip the house. My expectation is that Democrats take back the house, even if they do so only narrowly. I think anybody at this point who's predicting waves, I wish we could ban the word wave from from political campaigns. But.

That that's sort of the expectation. How does Donald Trump react to that? I think he just gets louder and angrier because then Democrats, you know, a Democrat majority in the house by definition means that they're more on offense. They can do things right. Maybe, maybe not a whole lot of laws being produced, but they can pass legislation. And they'll pass legislation that's aimed at those voters that they've lost. And that's aimed at Trump specific. My only question on that would be,

Do they go too far?

Do they, you know, does Maxwell Frost file a resolution to impeach Trump? And what then does Hakeem Jeffries do when that happens? And how does the public react? Right. Yeah. How do they tamp down their firebrands? On the other hand, they will have an equal voice in the approves process, which will be a very different world for the White House, even with the challenges they have now. So back to the book that, you know, and this is like political talk.

gossip pack stuff that of course is delicious to those of us who work in the lunatic industry. Some of these, I thought it was interesting that, you know, Susie Wiles, who's a good operative and Chris Lasavita, who's a totally competent operative, particularly if you want to, you know, full speed ahead, challenger type campaign, they both know what they're doing, how much time they had to spend, uh,

playing kind of whack-a-mole with various lunatics whenever Trump was feeling insecure, which is fairly often, who would come up through the floorboards and make trouble. The Laura Loomers, the Corey Leandowskis, the, I would say even Kristi Noem, who, by the way, lost her ID $3,000 in a purse in a restaurant this week, which is kind of hilarious. But my favorite, who I'd heard of, but I didn't, you had great color, and I'm going to let you tell about it, is this frantic woman

who would, I think, like to start a new church around Trump, whose job it is, much to the irritation of everybody else, scurry around with a printer, and every time, you know, the internet coughs up some praise,

uh, prints it and shoves it in front of them. And that, that woman or lady is named harp. I can't forget her first name, but what's the deal there? Who is this? And, and what did you hear about all that during the campaign? Cause it just sounds crazy to me.

Yeah, so Natalie Harp, she's an important character in the book. She's also an important character, by the way, in the Trump White House, because in both cases, in the campaign and in the White House, she prints out things and puts them on Trump's desk. And so she plays a big role in paper flow. She plays a big role in determining what he sees. And so that is what results in

Truth social posts, it results in what he says. It's a big deal. And so she is to say that she's a sycophant is a vast, vast,

understatement of what she does in this campaign. Yeah, the sick offense league would take offense. She is, as described by people around Trump, incredibly obsessive about being in his proximity. You've always had people who jockey for proximity to Donald Trump, but she takes it to such a degree that even he notices it.

And to a degree that it became something that the Secret Service noticed. There is a scene in the book where she goes to Trump's quarters at Mar-a-Lago late at night, which is a place that people staffers know not to go to. And she's going there to deliver some papers, some things that she printed out, going there to deliver him some papers. And she runs into Melania Trump.

who is alarmed to see her there. There are a number of instances in which she basically did not respect the boundaries that Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles put in place in the campaign, but she was an unfireable figure.

And she, she would write them crazy mash notes too. Right. Like, you know, I've given up on Jesus Christ. Thank God I have you. I mean, I'm making it up, but pretty it's in the book and there's some weirdo weirdo stuff. Yes. She wrote him, uh, several letters. One of which was after a golf, a trip to his skull, Scotland golf, uh, golf resort, where there was actually, uh,

a moment there during that trip when she is following him on a golf cart, she's chasing after him on a golf cart with a printer attached to it. And she writes him a letter about her experience in the, in Scotland says that she, she, he is, he is everything to her. She wants to she just wants to live up to his expectations in his eyes.

And so these were the... You know, Doug, you're single. And, you know, I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that one. So, you know, she is one of the characters in this book who is very sycophantic towards Donald Trump. And there are others. There's Boris Epstein. Epstein also plays a role in this book. And so you definitely have had these characters who...

You had LaCivita and Wiles created a much more professional operation. For the first time, Trump had a professional operation. And when you look back at his 2016 campaign, it was very chaotic. White House was very chaotic. His 2020 reelection was very chaotic.

And so for the first time, you had a, for the most part, smooth running campaign machine. There was not really any turnover in the campaign. But the Wiles-LaCivita team still had to manage these personalities on the outside. There's even a point where Dick Morris comes up into play. And so that was still a dynamic. And it's still a dynamic that Susie Wiles is facing today. Yeah, because like Harp, the serial printer,

She's 50 feet off the oval right now in the outdoor office. I mean, she's right there. And we know Laura Loomer, like, comes up to the floorboards once in a while to try to wipe out the national security staff. They're in some ways more around now, at least Loomer is, than during the campaign. Right.

Loomer is an incredibly important figure right now. I mean, Laura Loomer on a near weekly basis is putting out social media posts about she is digging up past comments, past critical comments that staffers have made about Donald Trump. And she is.

digging them up and posting them on social media. And then she is pressuring the administration to make a decision about whether to keep these people on or to fire them. And so she has she's playing an incredibly important role. She has a very well, she has a lot of influence rather on the out playing from the outside. And she's something that the White House has to contend with on a very regular basis right now. And she's certifiable. She's a 9-11 psychopath. I mean, it's a real shame she missed the Inquisition or

or the Salem witch trials, because she would have done just great. We've got to get on to the mailbag and the orchestra, but go ahead, Doug, you close us out. Yeah, you know, one thing that's always very curious to me about Trump is he's remarkably consistent in weird things. And we've heard a lot over the past few months that this is a cabinet that sort of comes from Fox News. And I talked to a friend who interviewed with Donald Trump in 15 to be his press secretary, and he walked in and Trump said,

This guy looks the part. That's everything to Donald Trump. And so where did where did Park come from to join Trump world? She was an anchor on One American News. That tells you all you need to know. Yeah. Triumph of Hairspray. Well, OK, there we go. One more time, Alex, the full name of the book.

Revenge, the inside story of Trump's return to power. On sale now. I am totally enjoying this thing. You know, normally it's hard to get me to focus on Trump because I've been a 20. I disliked, despised Trump since 1993 and 94 in New Jersey when I worked for the governor down there and we had to deal with him in Atlantic City. But this thing is, this thing is good. We'll be right back with Hacks on Tap.

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This is Scott from New York City. Very aware of efforts like the Ford Party and Country First, but do you think a third party could eventually be a viable path? And what could opposition efforts look like in the future for the GOP? Also, this actually is an off-track betting line. Put me down for $50 on the Giffords spirit to show in the first. Thanks. Okay, Scott, you're down. All right. That's very good. To your question.

Uh, the third party thing is kind of interesting because I used to tell a joke and I got in trouble when I found out the guy, the, the big donor I told it to turned out to be in the soda business and the room got very cold. But I used to tell joke back when Hillary was running that, you know, have you ever had Dasani bottled water?

You know, you can't avoid it. It's in every 7-Eleven, every fast food place when you ask for water, every hotel minibar. The problem is it's not particularly good water. Nobody ever walked a mile for Dasani. The reason you drink it anyway, it's often the only water there.

because it's the water of the Coca-Cola company. When you make Coca-Cola at a bottling plant, you need purified water. So some marketing genius at Coke and Aquafina over at Pepsi said, why don't we take all this water we're making for the Coke, put it in bottles and shove it into supermarkets? We can even put it on the same trucks.

So they have distribution power, which means it's very hard to set up Doug and Mike's water company and compete with those guys. So people like the idea of a third party, but it's very hard to kind of connect people to it. That's problem one. Problem two is...

is often the only thing third-party candidacies that have any real size or scale other than niche parties. There's a party in France about a certain kind of hunting dog. But for big parties to work, people have to agree on more than just they hate everybody else.

So a lot of time, you know, the people at the beginning of these things, by the end of it, they tend to melt down. People also think they're throwing their vote away. So the answer is there's a theoretical appetite, but there's not distribution. Now, maybe in the future, if we're all voting on our smartphones and a lot of the distribution mechanism that we have in politics now in the U.S. goes away or gets destroyed,

you know, dramatically disrupted, then maybe the third party thing will work. But my guess is there'll be a lot of third parties with each with a niche, the French vanilla ice cream party, whatever, whatever.

So generally, I'm a fan of the two-party system because I like to force the country to get to 50 plus one. So there's some kind of consensus to move forward. Now, Doug, what do you think? Are you a third-party guy? Let me take your distribution theme a little bit further. That is essentially Coca-Cola delivering to a very rural desert place in Arizona. That's the same thing as being on the ballot.

in that county in Arizona or any county in the country. So if you're a third party, your barrier to entry, getting on the ballot is really hard. And if you want to run in a national election, you've got to be on everywhere. I'll tell you a quick story. I worked for Steve Forbes presidential campaign in 1995. Notice I didn't say 1996 because I got fired because

Oh, you made that joke about the flat tax and you were done standing on the tarmac. At the tender age of 23, I was somehow blamed for Steve Forbes not being on the ballot in Rhode Island. In reality, the campaign hired somebody who worked for the governor who was a dole person and didn't do the work they were hired to do. Which involved a bag full of greasy 20s in Rhode Island, but that's a whole other topic. That's what it should have been.

That's what it should have been and didn't. And, you know, but ultimately, if you're Steve Forbes, you're running for president. You need to be on the ballot in Rhode Island. No ballot, no delegate, no delegate, no nothing. And that's true of mayors and members of Congress and everything else down the line. The other problem is, to your point of, you know, having common common interest or enemies.

You look at a lot of the talk about from third parties and they tend to not make a lot of sense after after a while. I still don't know what Andrew Yang means by the forward party. And I've seen him in interviews where, you know, if the question is on abortion, well, we need to move forward, not backwards. What does that mean? Well, the answer is not right or left. It's American. What? And that happens a lot in third party rhetoric.

You know, the other problem, I remember when Bloomberg, who I'm a fan of, was looking at running as a third party and ultimately didn't. I did a radio commentary somewhere called Mike Bloomberg owes me $10 million because I can save him $100 million.

The problem is if you can get on all the ballots, which is super hard, almost impossible, and you do it and you actually come in first. Let's say you get 37% of the popular vote and the other two guys get 33 and 31 or whatever it is, or 32 and 31. Here's the problem.

You go to the Congress to figure out the electoral result, and in the House, all the states vote is one thing. And I can guarantee you that the Republicans and Democrats are not going to sit down and say, okay, we got to end the franchise for both of us and elect this third party guy. So it's systemically tough. And very quickly on your other question, the parties evolve. If not, you're the Whigs.

you turn into something. So post-Trump,

The party will continue to evolve on the Republican side. Now, I don't know if it'll go populist whack-a-doodle. Hard to do without Trump. But the populist energy in the United States and the electorate that Trump has constructed around it is formidable and will have inertia. And there'll be no shortage of folks, including the next question, we'll get into this a little. Or there might be a little reformation. Or it might split and one of the two parties wins. Not sure. Won't be dull.

And the future is yet to make. So my advice to people on the right who care about the future of the country, rule of law and traditional conservatism is be part of it and get in the fight. Let's grab the future. OK, for you, Doug, from Chris, who unfortunately did not place a bet at the Axelrod Center, but has a great question.

Under the Biden administration, Vice President Harris was primarily silent and stayed in the background, which potentially may have hurt her chances in 2024, as many voters apparently did not know a lot about her, and then she was so easily defined. It appears that J.D. Vance is making himself much more public. Do you think that being much more in the public spotlight will eventually hurt or help Vance

in 2028? The short answer, and then I'll give you a much longer one, is I don't know. And part of why I don't know is he has an unprecedented access to donors. He's basically the finance chair of the Republican National Committee, which means as he's traveling the country doing public events, he's also doing political events. And he's raising money. He's building up a huge network that can be very valuable. But he's also...

potentially being put in a position as being like the border, not the borders are, but the tariffs are. And we know that being the borders are and not really doing anything on the border wasn't good for Kamala Harris. If J.D. Vance becomes the face of tariffs and tariffs do what Republicans typically think that they do to economies, that's not going to be helpful to Vance at all. And, you know, I think we know that J.D. Vance won't back down. He'll continue doing his look at me tough talk. But

That's going to cause a problem. And he will have a lot of people running for the nomination as well who will go after him on those things. Yeah, he also won't be changed. And if Trump hits the rocks, we lose Virginia this year, we get killed in the midterms, the economy, which he's supposed to be great at, goes to hell, and people want to change the channel. That's not Vance. I think Vance has another problem.

which is a special Trump administration problem. If you're advanced political hack, and you know this well, in about another three months, you're going to start thinking about, okay, we got to work a trip to New Hampshire in, we need a pack, we're going to travel in the mid, you know, we're starting to plot the VP campaign. But Trump, who, and we're going to do a quick question on this, but Trump, who

you know, is hinting that he's going to try to run a third time. There will be oval office trouble. He advances out there, organizing the traditional way on the assumption that Trump's a one-termer. So he's kind of held in a frozen cage a little bit to a very powerful force. Now that may not be so powerful. So a lot, and he's also not a great national politician. But,

Babies cry when he comes in the room. So for all those reasons, I think he may not be as strong as the traditional incumbent VP. And a lot of it is in Trump's control, not his. It's very easy to see Trump say in the Oval Office, it's just one of the sort of these impromptu press conferences that he hasn't decided yet.

if J.D. Vance would be his vice president in the third term. Right, exactly. And now J.D. needs to be working. You know, with Trump, and it's going to happen, I think, with Elon, there's always the Icarus thing. You start flying too close to the sun. And, you know, I always use the analogy of Trump and Stalin, the old joke, the worst thing

uh, you could do. Well, the second worst thing was when I lose a battle, the, you know, you'd get shot, but if you want to battle, you'd get shot and your family would get shot because you got in the newspapers. So, uh,

Last question. We'll do it, both of us, quickly. Jack wants to know, it seems like we are looking into a constitutional crisis. What are the chances that Trump will step down after his term ends? Do you think we will have free and fair elections again? Jack, I actually do. I don't believe the third-party stuff, and I'm comforted by the fact that the citizen military of the U.S. swears an oath to the Constitution, not to the Supreme Leader, but

Who knows? I think he'll try and tease it, but I don't think he'll be able to do it. And I think he knows that. What do you say, Doug? I think most of the times that Donald Trump talks about this, it's to outrage liberals. He does it very well, as Alex alluded to. Also, he'll be 82 at that point.

And, you know, he's at an age where you age faster in a job where you age faster. So that would be, I think, a factor for him as well. And yeah, look, I think we had a free and fair election in 2024, in 2020, in 2016, and we will in 2028.

Yeah, I'm with you. Okay, that's the mailbag. I want to wrap up now with our guests and start with just a little memory for Pope Francis, who passed. A good pope. A good pope. Pope doing good stuff. Had a fascinating life story.

So in a full and bountiful and sinful life. So rest in peace to Pope Francis. So I want to thank our guests, my friends, Alex and Doug. Thank you guys for being on the podcast. It was a hoot. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. It was great. And I love this book. Okay, we'll be back next week. And the boys will be back from Europe if the French police can't catch them. There is a reward. You can put in a call. But hopefully we will be reconvening the hacks and there will be no shortage of things to talk about. Thanks for listening, everybody.

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