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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Hacks on Tap.
Any questions? How was the golf tournament? Very good. Because I won. It's good to win. You heard I won, right? Did you hear I won? Just to...
Back it up over there. I want... What's your handicap these days? I like to have a very low handicap. So, Mike Murphy, I just... There's so much gloom out there and so much bad news that I wanted to start with the good news that will cheer all Americans that the president did well in his...
golf tournament this weekend down there with the Saudis in Florida. So, you know, America still can win. Yeah, no, remarkable athlete. Thank God he's in office because, once again, a high shining example to all of us as we've suffered through a stock market crash. Well, he's been a fairly successful political athlete too, but the question is can he brook this hurdle that he himself has encountered
created and nobody can answer that question more readily than john anzalone polster extraordinaire that's a lot of pressure that's a lot of pressure i know you're in the hot seat here at hacks on tap i know we want to we start right away by putting pressure on the guests uh
John, everybody knows, was a pollster in 2020 for President Biden. He now does the Wall Street Journal poll with Tony Fabrizio, who is the pollster for Donald Trump. And you guys just did a really interesting poll last week as this tariff story was breaking. What is your sense of where things are right now? Because
This seems like a heap of trouble. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that there's a lot of conflicting tension with voters right now in this poll. I mean, you see it, right? And you see it in focus groups. I guess what I would say is that this poll isn't as bad as Washington Democrats think it is, and it's not as good as D.C. Democrats think it is or want it to be. And I think the summary of the poll, if I had to do it, is like,
Go ahead. Well, I was trying to untangle what you just said, but go ahead. Well, because listen, there actually is some good news in here for Trump.
And the Democrats just think that, you know, it's all shit for Trump. And there's some real warning signs in it for Trump. And I think that the Republicans, you know, are putting on a good face in terms of D.C. And I think that there's three things. A.A.W. Action, anxious, wait and see. And sometimes we have to remember that we're only whatever, 80 days into this presidency. What we see is that people do like.
The action, like, I mean, he is out there doing things, the strength of it. And I heard in a focus group, the lights are on in the White House. Right. And he benefits by the comparison of Biden, where people didn't think anything was going on and the president wasn't in control, etc.,
But they're anxious, right? They're really anxious. They feel as if tariffs and the economic policy will increase their costs. They don't believe that he is actually making the economic his priority, and therefore he was the economic president. And so that is a concern for them. And then there is a wait and see. I'll talk a little bit about the numbers. There's about a third of voters out there who say,
They're anxious. They're not seeing the pain yet. They're worried about it and they're going to wait and see. And it's very much like the language we saw in April of, you know, 21 or April of 17 with a new president that they're going to give him a little time, even if they're anxious about what's going on. And so, you know, the world, you know, in D.C. and Pennian Elite's
Is is burning because of the stock market and all this type of stuff. And they understand that, you know, McKinley and the retaliatory trade across the country. But at the end of the day, real voters, while they're anxious, they're going to wait and see whether he's right or whether Democrats and the economists are right.
And Enzo, when were you in the field on this? It was kind of at the starter gun, right? Yeah, but I mean, April 27th through April 1. Okay. April 1. March 27th to April 1. They had all of the tariffs on Mexico and Canada and all the steel and stuff like that. Yeah, so it was kind of like a couple innings in. Yeah, so there was definitely, and I'll point out two numbers in this poll, which I think are really important.
One is, is that when we say, do you believe the president's economic policies? One is, you know, create economic difficulties with little benefit. 48% say that. But another 48% kind of fall into this either, hey, you know, they're going to be great benefits or this middle universe, 35% create some economic difficulties in the short run, but economic benefits in the long run. 35%.
which is his argument. That's also about the size of his base. Yeah, well, it's actually a little bigger when you add those people who say create economic benefits with very few economic difficulties. But why I say this one third is important because that universal potentially move. If we do a poll in June, that's going to be a really interesting number. But there's also another question we say, which is thinking about you and your family, which of the following best describes you?
your situation when it comes to cost of living. And there's another third that say it's not a problem for you now, but will become one if costs keep going up. So those two numbers, those two thirds, I think are the ones that are kind of hanging back and saying, OK, let's see what happens. And I think that that's where Trump is going to be judged, because at the end of the day, you know, all of this has happened and his popularity rating hasn't moved.
His job rating on the on the favorable side, the positive side hasn't moved. There's been a little bit of universe who back in January when he was president elect seven percent who couldn't rate his job. He was doing his president elect who moved to the negative. But
The fact is, is that we haven't seen a ton of negative movement. But at the same time, you know, guess what? And you got to kind of give the do. This is the action part of it, right? The whole universe of people. I mean, we've been in this business a long time. I've never seen the right direction, wrong direction move this much.
In January, you know, it was 70% wrong direction, 19% right direction. It's now 41-51. And that's just not Republican-based, guys. I mean, you know, that's independence move. Hispanics move, right? 41-51. We haven't seen that in a hell of a long time. We've been saying this here, you know, for the last several months, that just the contrast of a guy who's, like, moving the furniture...
Yeah. Compared to what they saw at the end of the Biden administration is is working to his advantage. But Murphy, the reason the guy got. I mean, yeah, this is where I'm going to. The reason that guy got elected was because shit costs too much.
And, you know, he's very cavalier now. I mean, he said it again in the Oval Office yesterday with Netanyahu sitting there that, you know, I'll take the short term, you know, I'll take the short term hit. But I don't know how how people who are trying to get by out there feel about that. When, you know, we're all focused on the stock market. They're focused on the supermarket.
And if shit starts costing more, you know, I got you wonder how durable all of this is for him. Well, just let me interject that the strength of the economy number just as a setup, Mike Murphy, is Biden territory. Right.
63% giving the economy a negative job rating. And why that's important is expectations. I think where he's not meeting is that 51% don't believe he's making the economy a priority, the economy precedent. And that's why we still see the...
the troubling number. Yeah, I look at this poll and I see a lot of dry kindling that can ignite on them. Yes, that's a good point. You know, there's worry about the economy. He was elected as Mr. Fix the Economy. And I agree, the reason the stock market freaks out is that usually, but not always, smart money in the stock market knows the grocery store is going to go to hell in 30 days.
You know, they're trying to get ahead of Main Street. So, I mean, Stellantis just dropped 900 guys into a layoff in Michigan and Indiana. The U.S. steel producers dropped 1,200. You know, it started, but it's going to take a while. And then Main Street is going to feel this because, you know, in Trump's world, we're going to have all these new plants. Well, the next president may cut some of those ribbons. It takes five to ten years to build a major factory.
In the short term, we're going to have shortages. We're going to have price explosion. We're going to have all the stuff that he was elected not to have happen. And so I think it's just a matter of...
He's put himself with his love of 18th century economics. It's odd to me that the one thing he really seems to care about is mercantilism. On a path. You're unfair. That's actually 19th century economics. Mike, your kindling number, the kindling number I see in here, again, that's kind of the anxious kindling.
is do you think new tariffs on goods from other countries would generally make the price of things more expensive, less expensive, no impact? 75% say more expensive. Again, they're not necessarily feeling it now. There's that, again, that 35% who says,
Cost of living is not a problem for me now, but will become one if it keeps going up. So that is the kindling here. And they know it's tariffs, which means they know it's Trump. They know it's not good for them. Yeah, they know it's his. And so tariffs are pretty much built into this, into this poll, I believe. This is a tough one for Trump because.
His political motto, Saperanda, is to never admit anything, attack and deny, and then claim victory. And the question is, how does he find he's now ignited this thing? It isn't going well.
How does he get out of it? I noticed this morning he posted right as the markets opened. He had a post announcing that he had a great conversation with the acting president of South Korea. They talked about all of this stuff. They're sending their top targets.
team, not just a team, but their top team, uh, to Washington, the treasury secretary said yesterday, the Japanese. So after saying, after people in the white house were saying that there's no negotiation, these tariffs are going to stay the, uh, the, uh,
The intimation is that there is going to be negotiation and maybe the tariffs won't stay in the market sort of even out here. But Mike, yeah, the market bought it at least this morning. Where's the end game here for him? He really believes this stuff, by the way. Yeah, that's the problem. The one thing he chooses to believe. I did a sub stack on my bloviator sub stack about this because I he's at a fork in the road. Is it actually called bloviator?
I think it's Murphy's Blab Fest or something like that, or Bloviating Blab Fest, but it's on Substack. You can find it there. And I said, look, he's got this bad fork in the road because fork one is he keeps pushing his arm into the wood chipper here and turns into Biden deluxe, you know, orange Biden with economic pain down the road. That's going to be, you know, the Republicans already know it could be a massacre in the midterms.
or he does what Trump can't do, as you said, he retreats. You know, they put out a big smoke bomb of rhetoric. Oh, I showed them, I'm gonna pause the tariffs because I showed those foreigners I mean it. The problem is he's given up his leverage.
You know, and I painted a picture of you sitting down with some wily EU diplomat. You know, of course, I made him a caricature Frenchman. And he's saying, OK, I've frozen the tariffs, but you've got to surrender and give us highly advantageous trade deals or I'll bring all the tariffs back. And he's like, well, mon ami, go ahead, blow your brains out. Sure, bring them back. You know, it hurts you as much as anybody. So be my guest.
You know, he's your leverage on a tariff or is the threatened to do it, not to actually do it. And so either way, he's going to pay a heavy price here. There's no clean exit for him. He may or may not. And again, I think the real thing is we don't know. It's the wait and see is like here's the myth of Donald Trump with voters is that they believe that he very well either a know what he's doing.
or have a trick up his sleeve, right? And this is this universe that kind of hangs out and buys his, hey, it might be some short-term pain, but in the long run, it's going to be some economic benefit because they see his strength and they see his action and they believe he's a businessman. He knows more than I do. This is going to work out.
So listen to his. This is what he said. I think it was yesterday. It may have been Sunday on what he's up to. We have a tremendous deficit problem with China. They have a surplus of at least a trillion dollars a year. I think it's like a trillion one. And I want that solved. And no other president's taking it on. I had to take it on the last time that we had a rigged election. No other president's taking it on.
And so China is, you know, they say the market's broken. The market, China is right now taking a big hit because everyone knows we're right. They have to pay tariffs because otherwise we have a surplus and they have a surplus with us that is not sustainable.
So that's one that he has different strategies. That's one of the strategies, which is this is all about China. And that's something I think people are more receptive to. Absolutely. Doesn't explain Canada and the islands where there's nothing but penguins and all these other countries, some of whom are close allies of ours that he's.
uh, as well. Uh, but the China thing, I mean, and then the, the other element of his messaging that if you stuck with it, you could see where it would land with some people in the Midwest, where we all are from, uh, that, you know, they stole our factories and our manufacturing and we're going to get it back, whether that's realistic or not, or desirable or not. Uh,
that's going to land with a lot of people who feel they got screwed over by globalization in places like where we all grew up or not where you guys grew up anyway. No doubt about it. I mean, the reality is if you showed this clip to a focus group, people would go, hell yes. China's our number one economic enemy, our number one national security enemy. And so that's kind of a layup for him. But if the bottom line is, is that, you know, people react to
what they live in their own lives. Yeah. But this is a fairness like they're, they're screwing us. And I'm going to, I'm going to correct that. And, you know, the, the ghost of NAFTA lives for, you know, all of us in the Midwest and also those people in kind of the Southern textiles down furniture towns, et cetera, et cetera. So again, I think that that's why we see people buying into, you know,
um uh or at least the wait and see attitude of hey it's not a problem you know it's gonna it's gonna create some economic difficulties in the short run but economic benefits in the long run that's where they are now murphy that you know maybe maybe voters have changed but that churchillian formulation that we're gonna fight this war and we're gonna come out better on the other side that's
Really hard to pull off. Let me be. I want you to comment on this. This is a clip from the campaign that it could have been from any single day in the campaign. And it seems to me this is the specter that hangs over all of this. Starting on day one of my new administration, we will end inflation and we will make America affordable again because the prices are too high. The prices are too high.
Murphy, isn't that the sort of the gorilla hanging? Yeah, it was the core offer of his... Inflation kills politicians. When people have a bad weekly trip to the cash register, they take it out on the incumbents, and that ate Biden. It can eat Trump. You know, the problem is Trump has rhetoric people like. I mean, you can turn on Fox News and hear him saying, oh, these Chinese, they're cheating, there's a trade deficit. Trade deficits aren't that always bad, by the way, but...
You know, they're a good boogeyman for the rhetorical side. And then they go to the Walmart and they buy stuff that suddenly costs a lot more because it's made China their tariff center. So, you know, they're going to be in this cross pressure of rhetoric they like, but a daily economic life that is stuff is more expensive and more pain. You go buy your F-150 with these tariffs, you're going to pay another $7,000 to $10,000 for it.
So it, and that kind of sticker shock was a big factor in Biden's trouble. So I, you know, the rhetoric is the sugar calorie, but, but the, the daily economic life of prices is what will break you. And, and his rhetoric can't save him forever. And I think, again, this clip is a great example of where people are, which is the potential of making his strength, his weakness, the economy, because that clip says,
set up expectations. Voters expect the economy president to make their lives better, to bring prices down or stable, et cetera, and make the economy stronger. And the fact is, is that his job rating's at minus five. That's not bad. That's pretty basically a straight line. Yeah.
You know, the job, the job rating on the economy is minus eight. Yeah. Well, no, no. Here's the tell baby is minus 15. Right. So, I mean, it's, it's five, eight, 15. And now listen, he's got a plus 11 on the border. He's got some good stuff out there. And, you know, I mean, he there, but again,
There's a possibility of his strength becoming his weakness. And the Democrats, whose numbers are horrendous, I mean, just terrible, have an opportunity if they would just every day talk about their economic policy and building trust again.
with working people and stop chasing the noise. They should be doing nothing except economic policy. But they should be getting that signal now. Even they ought to be able to unravel with what's going on in the last seven days that an economic hammer message is the obvious thing and it's got a tailwind now. I would hope they'd figure it out. They need to actually lay out their economic agenda as well as the contrast, and that's what we need to see.
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D-A-Y blinds.com slash hacks. They're trying to rebuild their fallen jet in midair here. They're trying to get back into flight and rebuild it. And this is definitely a working project. But one sign that is interesting is,
You know, whenever you want to kind of divine where things are going, keep an eye on how politicians act. And you look at the Republicans in Congress and they're beginning to separate themselves.
from him. These farm state Republicans are bucking on tariffs. Even Ted Cruz, here's Cruz on his podcast. There's music in the background. I don't know why, but... We are living in extraordinary times. This past week, President Trump announced tariffs on virtually every country on earth. The highest tariff level since 1933. Every country is freaking out.
The American stock market has been in dramatic decline. Six trillion dollars of value disappeared in 48 hours. And now we're in the second week. What is going to happen? And there is a choice. There is a fork in the road as to what's going to happen.
If President Trump uses this moment as leverage, he's got an extraordinary opportunity to lower tariffs of every country on earth to U.S. goods and to lower our own tariffs in response. That would be a great outcome, a massive victory for the American people. On the other hand...
There are voices in the White House that want high tariffs forever. There are angels and demons sitting on President Trump's shoulders. Who does he listen to? I hope he listens to the angels. You know, Ted actually has a small band that travels with him. That's his walk-on music. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but I mean, it's really interesting because he's very forthright there. I mean, there is a real battle going on there now. You know, pretty soon you're going to see, if he hasn't already, I haven't listened to his podcast today, but I'm sure Bannon and the populists are going to assault Wall Street and others on this and say...
you guys, you know, want to give into the globalists and don't do it. We've got to win this fight. But, you know, Elon Musk was, yeah, he took a poke at the tariffs. He went after Navarro. Yeah. And, and he's, you know, it was reported this morning that he personally has urged Trump to take a different, uh, path here. But so this thing is, uh, you know, and then there's people like Mike Johnson who, uh,
Probably reflects, Anzo, some of your research when he says, let Trump rule.
Let Trump deal with all of this. We elected him. He's super smart. We'll just follow his direction. I think you've got to give the president the latitude, the runway to do what it is he was elected to do, and that is get this economy going again and get our trade properly balanced with other countries. So I think most of the American people understand the necessity of that. Listen, we had a...
a $1.2 trillion trade deficit in 2024. I don't think that's fair to our country. I think the American people understand that, and I think they see a president who's engaging and trying to fix that. So we're going to give him the space necessary to do it, and we'll see how it all goes.
That was him, Anzo, resisting the call from some members of the House and Senate to grab back some of the power over tariffs that Congress has given away. He seems to be reflecting what you're saying in your groups, which is that people are willing to give Trump money.
some running room here, but the, but the thing they wanted him to fix was costs. Well, those two things are on a collision. That's the point. This is add 80 days here. I mean, listen, I think that if we sit here and talk in June, whenever we do our next poll,
And, you know, potentially we see some of these numbers move. Right. But 80 days in again, there's still a kind of a wait and see attitude. They know in there they know instinctively that tariffs could really raise prices for them. Right. At the same time, I really do believe that if we got into focus groups, some of them are going to like he knows what he's doing.
You know, I mean, there's a trust there. I mean, there was actually a trust. For example, when Biden got elected, we saw it because of the failure of Trump that he had a plan and he would put a plan together for COVID. And there's a third of voters right now are like, you know, we got to see whether what he's doing is working. And that may not help us in the long run. That's a good point about the trusting, because where the danger is for Trump now is, you
You know, he's been able to weather scandals on personal behavior, on chaos, but the economy is his bread and butter. If they lose trust in this guy on running the economy, that's his raft. That's what's holding him up. And if he loses that, he's got nothing.
Because even his own supporters don't vote for him because he's the high lantern of the presidency. And what he needs right now, politically, quite frankly, is something else to talk about. Right? Because all we're doing is talking about this. And the one thing that we saw in our poll, which was one of the most popular, was they floated ending federal taxes on tips, Social Security benefits, overtime.
If they somehow pull that off or Trump pulls that off by not giving the upper incomes the extension, et cetera, that would, without a doubt, take some pressure off what he's dealing with every day. That's part of the fetish for tariffs. He sees income there.
Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, they need to offset what could be five or six trillion dollars in revenues lost because of tax cuts. You saw Peter Navarro say this will raise six trillion. We're going to raise six trillion dollars in tariffs over the next 10 years. And, you know, you can see it's a it's an attempt to say we're going to offset taxes.
But on your point, this is what you see Republicans saying. We've got to move, you know, because of the tariffs, we've got to move quickly on the tax cuts because politically, you know, that will help. Well,
well, economically, it'll help offset the jolt of the tariffs and economically and politically we can deliver something. It's sort of like that old story that Lincoln used to tell in court about the
The the or the the guy who killed his parents and then pled for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan, like they've created this economic crisis and now they need to to they want tax cuts to fix the crisis that they created. Those there are a whole bunch of problems with those tax cuts. But he what you say needs to talk about something else. And so, I mean, the one thing that he likes to talk about and that they keep, you know, this whole.
shipping of immigrants to Venezuela, I mean, to El Salvador and so on. I mean, he loves that debate. He'd love to keep the focus on other things than this. The problem is that now you've created such a big story, such a big thing that it's pretty hard to avoid that people now you've created a drama and people want to know how it's going to turn out.
Well, the fact is, is that at least in the short run, people we see in this poll, he gets a plus 11 on handling the job at the border. I mean, that's a pretty damn good number. We see individually when we test some of the things that he's done or wants to do on immigration, even kind of generic language about deporting immigrants is very popular. Where he gets into trouble is, again, right now, what do we see on TV? It's basically people
criminals or supposed criminals or supposed gang members being shipped away. No one's crying about that. People are, people are, you know, very supportive of that. But when we tested, you know, if he starts, um, a deporting, uh,
illegal immigrants who have been in the country for 10 years. All of a sudden, people are like, hold on now, 63% oppose. So if there's a switch to families being separated, the guy in a small town who's illegal, who's had a small business for 10 or 15 years, or the kids on the soccer team, et cetera, you could see a real switch in people's attitudes.
But right now, no one's crying about, again, the gang member going to El Salvador, even if legally, you know, there was some type of, you know, debate on who had the authority or not the authority. And he's been living pretty high on that. The trick for the Ds will be not to take the bait. Don't take the bait. He'll want to go start culture war stuff, which they always run to and fuel his fire.
But will they finally understand that they're in the cash register business now? Right. I mean, listen, his numbers on, you know, almost 60% support, you know, banning transgender women in male sports, et cetera. The DEI stuff is good for him. So he has a combination of actions, whether it's on the border or on the social issues that work for him. But the fact is, is that
In some ways, that's all old news because all we're hearing about is tariffs, tariffs, tariffs right now. I think that he's created the sense of, as you point out, the sense of action, which has been really, really central to holding up his numbers, which are good for him, okay for an incoming president, not like hugely high, but they've created a kind of...
ballast for him. The thing he never, he has not for every time that he talked about the cost of living in the campaign, he has barely talked about it at all.
since he got elected. And tariffs fights this issue of cost. I mean, he has been single-minded on the border. The border is a fairly direct thing that you can do and do something quickly about it. Numbers were coming down even as he took office. But the cost of living thing is hard. And he has not... If you were advising him, you would have said...
talk about that every single day. Yeah, he actually was very Biden-like the other day. I don't know if you saw his comment on this, where it's like, eggs are going down. He listed a bunch of things. Yes, yes, yes. Inflation's not a problem. Yes. And what we've always found, and what was a little frustrating about President Biden, he never acknowledged the problem up front and then said he was working on it, right? He basically talked about how
build back together, whatever, you know, here's what I've done for you. Yeah. Right. And so, I mean, again, there's not really an acknowledgement every day that this is a problem because he's, you know, he's not on the defensive very often, but he's on the defensive about what the byproduct,
of tariffs. And 75 percent of Americans believe that the byproduct is increasing prices. And so he's not he's not really done anything to alleviate those concerns. The other thing about it is, Mike, Joe Biden gets mentioned in almost every answer that Donald Trump gives about anything. I have to do this because Biden was an idiot. I have to do this because Biden was, you know, asleep. I have to do this because
And the economy is something that he wants to ascribe to Biden. Now that he's done this tariff thing,
It's really going to be hard not to own the economy because he is he is the central actor in the thing that seems to be driving a lot. Yeah. Yeah. The Biden stuff has a half life and we've hit it. Because isn't this a big question? Whether it was Obama, whether it was Trump won Biden. When when does a president own a bad economy? Right. It seems to me he's accelerated that.
Yeah, because he made a big move. So in the narrative, it is, well, Trump took his shot with tariffs because he's been talking about bad foreign deals forever. You know, Trump never talks about economic pain through empathy. He doesn't talk the way Democrats do about working people and the cost of prescription drugs. He talks about we're getting screwed and I know how to straighten it all out.
So now he's set it up. He's done his big move, which is tariffs. Look out world. Here I come. And now the jury is going to come back. And so it's very hard for him to, you know, he grabs the central stage well, and he's done it now in the economy. So I agree. I think he's going to own it. On the acceleration. I think that our poll actually points to, again, um,
turning his strength into a weakness. In January, he was president-elect, right? The poll came out of the field the 14th. So people are thinking, you know, in terms of him. At that moment, would you say the economy is getting better, worse, or the same? And at that time, 24% said better, 37% said getting worse, 36% stayed the same. And now it's only April 1 when we did this poll
It went from 37% saying getting worse to 52%. So he's owning that, right? I mean, he actually is already, that acceleration, because of his economic policies, he's actually owning the economy right now at a much faster pace. I don't think anyone did that to him.
Obama, when you guys were what, losing 700000 jobs a month, right? Or even biting at the beginning because you were COVID. So I do think the acceleration is there at a much faster pace because of these policies. Yeah. And I think when you when your whole thing is I make things happen.
I am the man in charge. I'm the that you invite that. So at some point, this is going to be very this is going to grow very tinny. This blaming Biden. Well, it's David. It's easy right now because Biden is still and always will have a 60 percent negative popularity rating.
Negative job rating. I'm like, it's really easy. But he's a melting ice sculpture as Trump takes the spotlight. It's just how much time it takes. But Mike, the party isn't. And the Democratic Party is minus 21, where the Republican Party is minus five or six.
The big difference in focus groups that we did in 2017, it was all about Hillary Clinton. And we're doing it now. It's all about the Democratic Party. They're not listening. They're too woke. They've moved away from us. You know, it's all we never hear about Harris. It's all about the Democratic Party. And that's a problem. Mike Murphy knows this. And you know why? Because when he was a young firebrand,
in the 1980s. And into the early 90s, he dined off of Jimmy Carter. He dined off of the Democratic Party. And it was delicious. Yes.
You gorged yourself, my friend. They were the chicken that jumped into the fryer. Yeah, well, the question is whether the party continues to jump into the fryer. And so you said people should be focused, Democrats should be focused on the economy. I think smart Democrats understand that. But there is a Pavlovian instinct to chase all of these cultural issues down the rabbit hole. And Trump...
is Pavlov. I mean, he loves making them do it. Time to pay the meter, but we will be right back. Now, let's hear from our sponsor. So, gang, you've heard me say it before, but my cats, they're outdoor cats, Augie and Twizzler, are great old cats, huge part of the family, and we always want the best for them, and especially the best food. And that's why I am
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Again, that's promo code HACKS for an additional 50% off your first order, plus free shipping at Smalls.com. Meow. I am as concerned as anybody about the sort of systematic dismantlement of democracy. I'm as concerned as anybody about the persecution of vulnerable people and, you know, for political sport. I'm as, you know, but...
You know, you can't change that. You can't change that shit unless you win. Well, I would also say that you can't change it unless like, listen, it's tough to be a critic when the Democratic Party has a 60 percent unfavorable.
Like, you have to build trust with voters that you are the party of working people. And again, I think that you start by listening to him, laying out your economic agenda. The one thing I really liked about Alyssa Slotkin's response to the State of the Union was the proportionality of it. Like, she understood that up front, what American voters needed to hear was,
economics, economic agenda, how we're going to help, you know, help you. And then she went into some of those things that you were talking about, which is important. But the fact is, is that the red meat for hardcore Democrats is,
activists, liberals, you know, opinion elites is Musk and the Doge and all that type of shit. The fact is, Elon Musk has a much better favorable rating than the Democratic Party. That should tell you something again. Great for the activists, but not really great for the middle of the road people like who we're trying to get back.
And we're just chasing noise at that point. Yeah. Listen, one thing I want to get to Wisconsin and Florida last week's results and what what augerings, if any, you see in them, you guys see in them. But, you know, on the Doge stuff, I guess the one slight disagreement I have with you, I mean, the idea of Doge, I've said it a million times here and elsewhere, is
There's no percentage in defending bureaucracy. There's no percentage in being the party of the status quo. There's no percentage in standing in front of government buildings and saying not one inch because everybody knows that there that, you know, that there is a need for change, that there is a need for reform. But where I think Trump has problems and you're beginning to see him crop up, John, is around.
how these cuts actually, you know, waste, fraud and abuses is a beautiful concept at 20,000 feet. But these people now are
People are now seeing the Social Security office in their town closed. They're seeing things cut that actually affect their lives that are not waste, fraud and abuse, but fundamental. And so I think that has that along. That is part of the economy in some ways. So no doubt about it. But here's the thing is, it's like, what do we focus on? I wouldn't focus on Musk, who, by the way.
Musk's favorable, unfavorable have not changed in this poll since January. All the talk of Elon Musk, his numbers haven't changed one bit. Now, 55% believe he has too much power. That's great. But at the very end of our poll, and you can find the baseline on the Wall Street Journal,
goes to what you're talking about, which is we ask about whether the services of each of the following, you know, whether you're concerned if they're going to get cut. Medicaid, 58% concerned. Medicare, 61% concerned. Ready for this? Social Security, 62% are concerned that the recent cuts to the federal government might impact those, including 49%, say, very concerned. So
Going right to what you're saying is that people want waste, fraud, and abuse cut. People actually believe, I think it's over a majority, that you can balance the budget. We know that's not right by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. But the reality is that where people, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, those are economic issues to people. They're concerned about federal cuts and about the way they're going about it.
That's where you should stick. My advice to Paul is always on this rhetoric, fight the macro, never the micro. Because the macro is waste, fraud, and abuse. The micro is they just fired 1,000 baby food inspectors. They just fired Social Security check printers. You know, you get the stuff into the meat of the program people see their direct interest in rather than the global stuff, which is where...
You never want to be, and you said this already, David, on defense. Mike, also, I think Elon Musk is the macro. Yes, I agree. He's the macro. I agree. It's interesting. I do a lot in EVs and everything, and there's something really going on with Tesla, but that's not going to win the national election. And he's not Trump, by the way. You know, I mean, it's, you know, and you can see those storm clouds, by the way, post-EU.
You know, I'm trying to throw it to Wisconsin now. After embarrassing Trump with a loss where they put all their chips on the table and got their ass kicked, it reminded me of the scene from Apocalypse Now where they're sitting there talking about the insane Commander Kurtz, one of the finest, you know, G.D. Spratlin, finest young officers we ever had, but he's become, thinking's in sound, he's become a liability.
And I'm sure that conversation started in the White House. I wanted to ask about that because there is no doubt that Musk was a big player in that Wisconsin race. He spent $25 million. He made it about him. He showed up. He did make it about him. And if you talk to people in Wisconsin, you know, at best, at best, they'd say it was a wash, you know, the $25 million versus Musk.
So he was a rallying cry. But the makeup of these—I mean, the biggest thing to me about that Wisconsin election, the fact that these two Florida congressional races yielded Republican margins, half of what Republicans won last fall in those districts, is they still haven't figured out how to get these—
infrequent voters out when Trump isn't on the ballot. And, you know, what Musk was trying to do was kind of engineer a larger turnout of infrequent voters. They did get a larger turnout, but not nearly enough. The Democrats won by the same margin. Essentially, they did in 2023 in the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. So, you know, this is if I'm a Republican, what I'm thinking about is
We are headed into a midterm election where historically we should lose the House. We now have these economic headwinds that we may or may not be able to change. And we got to think about how we're getting our people out who come out to vote for Trump, but don't come out in other elections. Yeah, don't. You know, it's such an ironic thing because forever that was the Democratic problem in midterms.
How do we get our young voters who only show up in presidentials to vote? Now the equation's flipped. It's Republicans who have the marginal voters. We used to have all the grumpy old retirees who would always vote. And so, yeah, and I can tell you in the staff level, even in the House, you know, the panic is growing because they can see they're in a rock and a hard place. We either lose the general on the economy or we lose a primary by bucking Trump.
Yeah. I mean, that's the vice Republicans are in. Yeah. It's and it's a bad vice and they feel it coming. And listen, Virginia is, you know, this year. Yeah. And the fact is, is that the cuts. Yeah. The cuts to federal workers are going to throw gasoline on the current environment because the state of Virginia has so many federal workers. Yeah.
And so, listen, we saw this four years ago, right, when Youngkin won. It deflates a party. It really deflates you. And they could get deflated. We do really well in special elections. The sad part of it is, is that we never get off our ass unless it seems, you know, Trump is elected president when we didn't never could imagine him being elected president.
And we saw it in 17 and we saw it here in 25. And kudos to the by the way, the Wisconsin Democratic Party. And they they know how to do it up there. Right.
It wasn't just all must. These guys did it in 23. They know how to do it. And, you know, we tend to, again, Trump helps us get our people off their asses. Ben Wickler up there, the state chair, probably should have been, not probably, I think he should have been the Democratic National Committee chairman because he's a great political technician. He really knows how to use the technology.
various technologies of politics. And that's really what the DNC should be doing. By the way, the DNC announced yesterday that they've set up a war room to respond to Trump. Well, I mean, we're 70 days in, 70 days in.
And they're saying, geez, maybe we ought to be active here, which I think reflects in some ways the state of the party. It's a good idea, but it would have been a good idea from day one. So, you know, that sort of caught my attention. You know, in terms of kind of what happens in these political environments,
is where donors also smell blood, right? You guys know that. John Ossoff, $11 million in the quarter, right? He's the incumbent up in Georgia. Again, money kind of follows, and that's going to be a tough race, don't get me wrong. If Kemp gets in there, there's no doubt. But Democrats are raising money
off of everything that's going on right now. Yeah. Well, there's a bit of a vibe shift. You know, they have the weird Amish special in Pennsylvania, then Wisconsin. Now we're going to have, uh, um, uh, Virginia gubernatorial race where Northern Virginia is on fire with Doge layoffs and they've got a strong candidate in Spanberger. So the Democrats are looking, um, like it reminded me a little in 93 of the Republicans when the steam was building, uh,
And that money will follow that. And, you know, all this terror stuff, unless classical economics don't mean anything anymore, is going to create pain, which is good politics for Dees. The wrong track's going to get to 60. I mean, you can kind of see it all unfolding. And the question for Trump is, is there an escape? And he's so pigheaded, I doubt it. But, you know, maybe. If I can get on my soapbox for one second. Go for it.
As a Democratic Party, my message would also be, other than put out a frickin' economic plan and only talk about economics, is that we can't be a party who only wins when the Republicans lose. In 18, we won because Trump screwed up. In 20, we won because Trump screwed up. In 2022, we won because the Republican Senate candidates were so extreme we had never seen anything like it in our lives. And we're winning now because
Again, mostly because of the political environment and the Republicans are screwing up. We have to build our party branding. We can't have a 60 percent unfavorable and, you know, a minus 21 to the Republicans minus six. It's not a long term strategy. Winning by them losing is not a strategy. I agree with you, but I want to say something further. And, you know, I may have said it here before. I've said it elsewhere. Yeah.
There is something fundamental. I mean, Democrats need to, everybody says, well, you know,
It's all about Trump. Democrats need to do some soul searching about why it is that so many working people walked away from them, including Hispanics, including Asians, including younger black men. Why did they walk away from the party of working people? And what is the disconnect between
And, you know, the fact is that there's a danger here. And the danger is Trump is doing this tear down and he's tearing down some things that are essential and it will be painful and it will hurt. He's also tearing down some things that probably needed work.
to be torn down or at least reformed. And if the democratic party's messages, we're all about restoration, we're all about restoring the status quo. That's a bad message. If the democratic message is, uh, you know, this guy is tearing down, uh,
he's tearing everything down. We're going to have to build something and we're all about renewal. We want to build something new, something that's more responsive to the concerns of everyday people of working people. That's less subject to corruption by big money and by lobbyists that will center the, uh,
center the concerns of working families across this country in a way they haven't been that will bring some fundamental change. I think that is absolutely essential. And the candidates who are going to succeed in 26 and 28 are the candidates who are thinking about the future and how to fix what people see as fundamentally wrong
and the imbalances that people saw. Yeah, you don't want to be the party of the right track, you know? And they have a generational talent there. They can merge that with a forward-looking message, get out of the woke stuff, and be the party of meat and potato economics again. I think part of the problem is
is the Dems assume we're the party of the working class, and they grab lapels and shake. Do you owe us your vote? No, they're disconnected from the working class. Trump has done that, and so they've got to earn it back. They can't just claim it. I think you hit it on the head. We have to earn back the trust of working people, seniors, and small businesses. I mean, that should be everything we do every day. But you have to do that by being authentic, by listening, by showing respect.
And not just showing up with what your poster says you have to know. No offense, Anzo, with what your poster says you have to say. I mean, you have to feel what you're you have to actually feel it. And you have to listen to blue collar culture.
You know, Mark Melman often says that we make the mistake of thinking politics is always about class when so often it's about culture. And that's where the Democrats, who tend to be an elite party of highly educated people connected to the faculty lounge, tend to get the tone of the music wrong. And they just get to your point about listening. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor. We'll be right back.
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773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. We have a question here, John, from John, and I don't think we'll hear it, but I don't think it's a question from you for you, but let's hear what John has to say. Hey, Hacks. My name's John, and I'm calling from Nashville, Tennessee. I absolutely love the show, and I've never missed an episode.
I'd like to ask a question about some of the books that have been coming out about President Biden and his decision to run for reelection and his health at the time. How much reckoning do you think the Democrats need to do with his decision to run for reelection in order to move on from the future? Do you think we're past everything, or do you think a greater discussion needs to be had? Thank you.
Thanks very much, guys. Appreciate everything you do. Yeah, I think on that one, I think we got to look forward. I mean, I think that there's been plenty of discussions about, you know, you know, him not making the decision to run. I think these books are going to be rough. I mean, they're going to be sad for a guy like me who's known Joe Biden since I was 22. And so there's not going to be anything fun about that. But the fact is, is that
People have kind of mitigated that, and we need to look forward, and I don't think it will really be a big part of us moving forward. I think right now what's going on all across the Democratic community, and I'm part of it, is that everyone's doing research. Everyone's trying to listen and figure out what voters are saying about the Democratic Party and how we move forward, as David was saying, and how you build. And unfortunately,
um, uh, former president Biden isn't necessarily part of that narrative. Yeah, I agree with that. I, uh, but I, you know, I think the books are going to create a, uh, a stir for sure. And the, and the Republicans will treat it like a ball of yarn, uh,
And, you know, as because they're going to be looking for ways to distract. But I think voters are concerned about their own lives and they're asking, you know, where are my best chances? And Democrats will be smart to focus on that. And I think you said it earlier, David, President Trump is going to use it as gasoline.
He's going to use all of these books, unfortunately, to continue making his case. Yeah, the consultant class is going to love all the gossip and backstabbing, and some of it may be deserved, but I think it'll pass quickly. It's history now. Now, for you, my friend, Paul, all the way from Australia among our far-flung listenership has a question for you.
Hi Hacks, this is Paul calling from LA, originally from Sydney, Australia. When I was growing up, Reagan was president and the US had moral authority. If we saw an aircraft carrier pull into Sydney Harbour, we knew America had our backs. Unfortunately, that's out the window now as America's reputation takes a hit under Trump. And my question is whether the American voting public really cares about that at the end of the day. And if so, how the Democrats can use it to their advantage. Thanks.
Good day, Paul. Excellent question. We're in a bad time where we've decided to abdicate some of our historical leadership of the free world. I think we will be back, but we're doing a lot of damage by this. And unfortunately, there's not a lot of outrage in the electorate. I think there is a sense of wariness about retreating from the world.
a sense of American weakness that I don't think will play long in American politics. So I think we will have a reformation of our place among the world democracies, but we're in a stormy time now. So you got to bear with us to your question about the American voters. They're,
They've become narrow into self-interest, and if their self-interest isn't served by the Trump administration, and I think we made an argument today that Trump is risking really blowing that, then the wheel will turn and the next president will be kind of an opposite of Trump.
And you may see us regain the place we ought to be and the place the world relies on us to hold, the free world. But I'm an optimist. You know, the blast radius from this epic in our history is going to be very wide. And one of the things that's going to be badly damaged is America's standing in the world and our relationship with our closest allies. This president has a wholly different attitude today.
about the allies and a wholly different attitude about our adversaries. He's talked about sitting down with
Putin and Xi and sort of dividing up the world's fears of influence and so on. That's really not what we're American Americans or American foreign policy has been for the last 80 years. But in fairness to voters, a there is a there is an isolationist feeling. And some of that has to do with 20 years of war.
A lot of it has to do with the economic pressures that people have felt through a financial crisis, through the pandemic, you know, several years of punishing inflation. And the attitude is we need to focus at home. We need to focus on our own problems. And the truth is to build a consensus for inflation,
our alliances and for America's role in the world, we also have to be strong at home and deal with people's concerns here. And as a political matter, those are going to be the most important elements of any sort of winning a Democratic campaign or a comeback. Okay, Axe, for you, a question from Beckett.
While listening to the podcast, you were discussing Robert Kennedy's, the sane one, the original, role as a politician who sought to unite working-class whites and minorities.
And I was intrigued. I sought to learn more and listen to some of his speeches, but I couldn't find more information on him. Is there a book or anything like that with more on him you would recommend? Along with that, who do you think could do the same from the Democratic side and play a similar role?
You know, that's a great question. Your last question is an important question. I think about it all the time. You know, there are a ton of good biographies of Robert Kennedy. You know, just go on Amazon and you'll find a bunch of them. But I really love the it's not a long book, but it kind of summarizes who he was by the time he reached the end of his very short life.
uh, in 1968. And it's called the last campaign by Thurston Clark. Uh, and it's about the 80 days of Robert Kennedy's campaign for president. But you really get a feel in that book for, uh, what drove him for his passions, for his intolerance, for, uh, elites who, uh,
you know, were, were disconnected from the experience of working people. Uh, we had Jeff Greenfield on here last week. I think that's when maybe I was talking about this, who worked for Robert Kennedy. And he talked about the fact that Kennedy was not wedded to, uh, shibboleths of either party, that he was very critical of, uh, of, of welfare. He thought that it created a, a, a culture of dependence, uh,
He was, you know, there are other elements of the Democratic platform, but he was deeply, deeply committed to helping poor people and fighting for working people. And he because he was willing to take on.
you know, some of the positions of both parties on behalf of people and stand up to his own class for that matter. He was really embraced by white working class and by black voters across the country. So really an interesting character. And yes, I think in many ways a role model. You know, sadly, his son who
It does not reflect that. The anti-Kennedy. But we could use another guy like Robert Kennedy who's willing to challenge the status quo in a very unflinting and honest way and ask, how do we actually achieve that?
what uh you know the goal of a country in which hard work is rewarded and everybody feels like they're going to get a fair shake he was also a ruthless politician he wasn't used yeah he was a rule breaker too to the point of uh extremity but i'd also recommend the evan thomas bio of him which is very solid great bio uh anyway beckett thanks for your happy reading uh
I'm keeping my eye open for another Robert Kennedy. We'll follow along here, and I'll tell you as I progress what I see. Anzo, it's always great to have you, and it's fun when you come with numbers in hand. Come back often, and we're going to go through this drama together. Yeah, Anzo, always the best. Thank you.
I appreciate that, Mr. Michigander. And always, I want to say thanks to Tony Fabrizio, who's my partner in the Wall Street Journal poll. He's a tremendous bipartisan partner. And Murphy, it's good to hear. I've been missing you, brother. Yeah, well, I had a week off and then I got this bronchitis thing. I'm still...
fighting the cough that never goes away but it's good to be back because i can finally talk again i heard some of those snide remarks last week i don't think don't think i don't have people who listen to you when i'm away and turns into radio free dnc around here with you and johnny left-wing propaganda well i'm worried i mean i just like murphy murphy without a voice it's just hard for me to imagine it's like that's like tampering with the forces of nature it's
See, there you go. I sound like I need a cigarette and I don't even smoke. Good to see you. Take care. Yeah. Talk to you later.