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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Mark, would you have something to say? Yeah, I mean, Steven, I don't understand what the confusion is.
This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country. That's where you deport people, back to their country of origin. Except for Venezuela that wasn't refusing to take people back or places like that. I can tell you this, Mr. President. No, the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It's that simple. End of story.
All right, here we are, hackaroos. Quite a day in the Oval yesterday, as you just heard. That was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with a legacy that includes freeing imprisoned authoritarian Cuba,
Now, talking about this poor gentleman who's been dumped in an El Salvadoran hellhole by the local thug Presidente at the request of our Presidente, Donald Trump. And by the way, he does have legal citizenship status. And he's never been convicted or even accused or prosecuted for any gang behavior. Yet they scooped him up, admitted it was a mistake, and now they won't let him come back from hell. And they had a little party to celebrate it.
President Trump and I have not bothered to learn the name of the El Salvadoran guy. I'll just call him El Fugo. They're kind of chortling over the whole thing. And as you heard the president even saying time to start popping some homegrowns, as he put it, I believe, to El Salvador.
So there we are. Welcome. Good to have you all here. David Axelrod and John Heilman are on assignment at Mulligan's Bar somewhere, so it is I, Murphy, but I decided we're going to bring up the A-team to figure out
Really a stunning week in a time we've already been stunned. But now I'm feeling double stunned and so much going on. So to explain it all, we have from CBS News and now special correspondent on CBS Sunday Mornings, as well as all the other stuff he does, the great Robert Costa is here. Plus...
From Politico, you know him from every diner in every state capital in America, scooping out the story with some cheese fries on top of it. The great Jonathan Martin is here, too. Gentlemen, thank you for elevating the outfit. Thank you, Mike. I'm going to go vegan after that intro just out of guilt alone. No, you and I put a lot of damage into a lot of Blue Plate specials on the campaign trail, so I'll be there when you are.
If Jonathan ever goes vegan, that will truly be the last norm in American politics to be shattered. I will be so disappointed. Yeah, me too. I'm waiting for the Martin Guide to Campaign Eating. I think it's a bestseller. Okay, we have so much to get to because, you know...
Something happened to America, and we definitely had a few definitive things rattle on last week. So let's go to this whole, how should I call it, presidential right to grab anybody off the streets and throw them into a hellhole jail in El Salvador with his little mini-me. How do you pronounce that guy's name? We might as well, for the listeners, get it right. I'm saying El Thuggo, but it's President...
beer virella i'd have heard of bob none of us the the guy in the in the all-black cat suit looking like he's trying to go to manhattan i've pronounced it president naive bukele but i apologize if i mangled that yeah no no well you're at least the only one who had any idea of it you know it's actually interesting a bit of a uh a digression here he's actually a palestinian roots um
I'm not sure how his folks got to El Salvador, but yeah, his roots are Palestinian. The reason I know that is because Jim Zogby of the Zogby political family is very unhappy that his fellow Palestinian descendant is representing El Salvador this way. Of course, Zogby's a...
a big Democrat, longtime DNC stalwart. He's kind of an interesting guy. I follow El Salvador in politics because a long time ago, I got called down to the presidential palace there by the current president and later convicted of the
the corruption, Federico Flores about doing the presidential race for the next guy, Tony Saka from the arena party on the right, which had kind of cleaned up its act. And to make a long story short, they told me it was cat in the bag. So we did this big pitch, uh,
And then they locked us in a room for five hours and told me they decided to go with a bunch of Mexican laser show guys, which they had insult to injury. They actually won the campaign. The laser show guys would do a big rally, which is what the elefantes, who are the old political bosses, all wanted. And in the smoke over the rally with the free T-shirts and the band, they would laser paint cartoons of the party symbol like, you know,
winning a fight or something. So there, there you go. But this guy started out with the hard left.
the coalition of the communists and the socialists and everybody, the FMLN. And then he's kind of morphed into a Trumpian populist. And he's quite popular down there, but he's dismantling all their civil liberties, too. And his favorite thing to do is throw anybody who, like, you know, seen jaywalking into one of these hellhole prisons. So it's definitely a bromance there with Donald Trump. Not so good for the people who care about democracy in El Salvador.
So the Supreme Court has said, you made a mistake. You got to bring him back. Trump says, court schmort. I'm the boss around these parts. What happens? Well, I think yesterday was such a prism, such a microcosm of what has gone on in the United States with the Trump administration since day one of 2025 and their his inauguration. Because what you saw in the Oval Office was everybody sitting around.
The key issue for President Trump, immigration at the fore. And who was hovering over the couch? You played Secretary Rubio. Interesting. But who was hovering over Rubio on the couch? Stephen Miller. And he is the mastermind. I mean, Jonathan and I.
We're covering Trump 10 plus years ago. And Stephen Miller was this unknown aide to Jeff Sessions, the Alabama senator, who would write these long, long emails to reporters about immigration policy. You remember those, right, Jonathan? I mean, he was the press secretary who kind of wrote essays.
He is now arguably one of the most powerful people in the country, if not the world. His remarks yesterday in the Oval were striking because – and it almost is undercovered in the press. He's reframing how the Justice Department responded, how the court decision is being interpreted, all on his own terms and kind of framing everything as a victory for Trump.
And he was blaming the Justice Department for mishandling the deportation and for misunderstanding the court and then framing everything as this victory. And you have him in a sense like Elon Musk, not part of the cabinet, but such a confidant to President Trump that he's almost like a super cabinet member. You could tell how he manipulates Trump.
You know, the way he well, another victory for America's lone great patriot here. I don't think it's manipulation, Mike. I would argue it's almost simpatico. Like they're two. They both are in the school of never declare it, never agree with that. So another win. Everything's a win. And the facts were murdered in the Oval. There's blood on the carpet because many of these claims they make are simply untrue.
I thought Rubio, that's one reason we played the clip, was just completely shameless. And if you think about his legacy of his family, it's even more depressing. But does Roberts at the court escalate this? Does he play for time? Because they're completely ignoring the judiciary here.
Yeah, the appellate court judge was clearly impatient about this. There's more action to come in the lower courts, I think, before we say the final word here, Mike, on this. But it illustrates that Miller and Trump want to push the envelope, especially when it comes to migration deportations beyond Mexico.
the letter of the law. They want to see what the system will tolerate, what the courts will tolerate, and what Congress will tolerate. And they believe the politics are on their side on taking a hard line here and that there is no large upside for Democrats to take the side of the sort of soft on migration angle. The challenge here is that he's not a gangbanger. The fact
the facts. Some, some guy. Now he came to the country illegally, but he married a U S citizen, got legal status is never been connected by prosecutors to anything at the MS 13. You know, he's not totally sympathetic because he did come here illegally, but he means not part MS 13. So, uh,
you know, it's a real difficult situation politically because Democrats don't want to get into a protracted fight on, frankly, the issue that Trump has the best advantage on right now, which is migration. And by the way, if Trump had just come out and done migration, a hard line on the border, go after the trans issues, and then brought every corporate executive and his or her uncle to unveil some new investment in America,
Trump would be at 55% right now. Yeah, and they're trying to press the immigration bet because they think it's their topic. But with their scissor hands approach, they still create trouble, even on something that ought to be an easy home run by going too far. And, you know, the Elon Doge and Tariff stuff are what have driven Trump's numbers down. Not a hard lie on migration. But here we are. This was inevitable. They're going to send somebody, not just deport them, but have them go to a prison and
uh, who broke the law by coming here, but otherwise, uh, was, was not part of a gang. And, and,
They're going to go to the mat on this. Guys, one last word on this. I think this is all part of testing the system for what Trump wants to do. And we know he wants to do it because he said it out loud, which is deport Americans and deport American criminals to foreign places. Yeah, we heard him. As you say, he said it out loud. And he's found a partner in this little mini-me down in El Salvador. And that obviously is a bright line, right? So we'll see if that happens.
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pivoting to our trade war that is a, it would be a comedy if the economic consequences weren't so big. We've wiped out the stock market. We've had a comeback. We've had tariffs on, off, half on, backward, going to change next week. And it's now really narrowed down to a big, other than Canada and Mexico and the steel and
dangerous automotive stuff, which is a job crippler here, China. And, you know, it looks to me with my home scorecard here, like China's won round one.
By cutting off the critical minerals that they have a chokehold on, that's got everything from national security to electronics and automotive manufacturing, huge consequences. I don't know. This is one of these things where did Trump think about the chess game or not even give him that credit, maybe checkers a couple steps ahead.
because the Chinese have done a pretty good job escalating this. And there's another tough guy at the other end of the thing. I'll never forget a joke that Erskine Bowles told me, the former White House chief of staff years back when we were doing a speech gig in the UK together. And he said, you know, I'm tired of those Chinese. They're stealing our IP. They're tricky trade negotiators. I've had it. I think we need to invade China and I've got a two point plan to do it. Point one, we're going to borrow all the money from the Chinese to pay our army.
So where do you think this thing is going politically? Trump clearly has gotten a little scared, and that's why they've lightened up some of it. But he's pressing the thing on China, which means it's going to be felt, along with the auto stuff, another 30 days when inventory burns off on imported goods. Trump wants this war. I mean, I've been talking to Donald Trump, President Trump, since 2010, 2011, and
He has been obsessed with the major confrontation with China since then in almost a zealous way. And so this is the least surprising part of the Trump presidency and all the reverberations from it should. I mean, it's the one consistent part of Trump. He. Yeah, it's true. It's the one thing he really believes in. Yeah. And I talked to him years ago. His father was a protectionist. He's believed in protectionism for going on four or five decades now.
And it comes up, it cuts to the core of who Trump is, which is he believes so much of life, not just politics, is transactional. And he wants the blunt confrontation. And he's willing to deal with the headwinds in the meantime. Yeah, part of the great coping mechanism among Republicans in Congress is always to find the staffer who's to blame. And of course, like that was
An old game. The Reagan folks did this. The conservatives blame Jim Baker and the moderates would blame Ed Meese. It was never Reagan who was at fault. Right. And it's the same with Trump now on Capitol Hill. They roll their eyes about Peter Navarro and sort of refer to him as this quack, you know, fraud, fraud economist.
It's not Peter Navarro. It's Trump. Like, Trump wants Peter Navarro around him pushing protectionism because Trump believes in this shit, right? But, you know, you can't blame Trump because Trump can never be at fault. Trump can't fail. He can only be failed. And so if you're a, you know, normie, you know, conventional GOP senator, you got to point the finger at Navarro for a policy that you hate. Never mind that Trump himself, as Bob mentioned,
has been wedded to this terror regime for literally 40 plus years. So do you think Navarro, being the brake pads here, gets thrown out and they find a new fall guy? Because, you know, Trump is getting the war he wanted, but the battlefield is the Walmart cash register. I don't think Navarro is the one to watch. Navarro is someone who went to prison to defy his agenda on January. He's a soldier. He's a soldier. He's exactly right. He's the soldier, the one to watch is Secretary Besant.
does he leave who knows better but best since let's knows better is a complicated phrase i
Besson's been on Steve Bannon's podcast recently talking about how much he's in step with Trump on trade and how much he wants to maybe consider raising tax rates or to be open to it. So he's signaling to MAGA that he's one of them. And, you know, even though he has the demeanor of someone who, quote, is a Wall Street person who knows better than protectionism, I don't action speak louder than that kind of persona. So.
Let's play this thing forward. If it continues and we do get a price shock, which every economist thinks we will on so many imported goods, plus exports could be hurt. The critical minerals thing is a real strategic strike. The political price will rise. We saw what rising prices did to Joe Biden. You know, it erased him.
So will Trump take all that pain? Will he be? Yeah, he will, because he is a believer and he thinks there'll be 100 new factories in a year. No, I think Trump is at the day to day figure and really an hour to hour figure. You can only tolerate so much of a hit. Yeah, that's my view. So much of a hit in the economy. Look, he was going to the mattresses on Liberation Day and then it lasted all the week.
And it went to the tape. It took a few days of, of real going South in the Dow, but what it really took was the, the bond market suddenly seeing red and, and Jamie diamond, uh, seeing red himself. And then, and then, and then Trump moved, right. They couch it in, uh,
We're going to do a 30 or 90 day moratorium. But really what it is, is Trump responding to the marketplace. I think this is Liz Cross UK fall of 2022. But we don't have the same, obviously, parliamentary system. Or the resignation culture. You know, nobody resigns here. There's nobody that's going to push Trump to resign. But what's similar is, ultimately, the check on Trump is not
the courts, it's not Congress, it's the markets, and it's the bond market especially, and they're going to have a veto on whatever Trump says or does. Now, Mike, this week, the market is fairly stable. Yeah, I mean, China and the EU are striking back, but the markets so far haven't sort of convulsed. I think...
If the market convulses again and we do go into a recession, then yeah, Trump's going to push somebody out. Well, you're getting that. The Trump guys have figured out that the market hates these tariffs so much that the slightest signal that it's all kabuki theater shoots the market up. So you advance out, you know, an hour ago saying, well, we're on the cusp of a great trade deal with the UK. See, it's all going to go away. And that should, you know, bump the market until people figure out maybe that's not true.
We will see. I just know the consumer confidence numbers, which is a poll, is going through the floorboards here. Oh, yeah. You know, the auto industry, they're in a complete panic over this. And the projections of recession are everywhere. So, yeah, look, I think Trump takes this day by day, or as our pal Maggie Haberman says, you know,
Trump lives in 10-minute increments. News cycle to news cycle. Yeah, that's his existence. But yeah, if the economy does go south here, Trump looks for somebody to blame. I think the first person to hold target is Jerome Powell and hold Hector Powell to lower interest rates. I think then he'll turn his fire inward, and I think he'll blame Ludnick or Besson. I think Bob's right. I think Navarro is...
He's a made man here, and Trump's not going to dump him. So who's the first body into the ocean? Elon or one of these economic team guys? Oh, yeah. Elon's going to sell up the board here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had just announced it turns out they got the math wrong, and they're only going to save one-seventh of what they thought they were. And I predict they won't even get to that. The beauty of Doge and Trump and Elon is,
The actual number doesn't matter. It's all public relations. They'll come up with some ginormous-
yeah, you know, Elon did a great job for America. He's a patriot. He found X number of, you know, condoms being sent to the Gaza Strip or whatever. And he saved us $7 trillion. Of course, it's bullshit, but it's going to be enough to declare a victory and get Elon back to Tesla. Well, I think I'm not sure Tesla wants him back, but go ahead, Bob. Yeah, just to build on what Jonathan said. I mean, the big thing I'm hearing, Mike, on
on Capitol Hill is the Republicans are trying to figure out, okay, so Elon does doge. They come up with some cuts, but is it really enough to cut if you're going to really move forward with sweeping tax cuts? Something else must be done. But the most intriguing thing I'm hearing from so many of my top sources is
Medicaid is not just an issue for blue states, as some people might kind of cast it. It's a red state issue. You go to the West, so many Trump voters, so many Republicans are dealing with Medicaid. They have Social Security issues. So and Republicans are so sensitive because Trump's the opposite of Paul Ryan. They don't want to touch these long term federal spending programs.
And so there is talk about, well, if you're not going to touch long-term federal spending program and Elon can't come up with enough cuts, well, how are you actually going to pass major tax cuts without kind of blowing up the deficit? Right. They've got about a $4 trillion 10-year hole that maybe they could deficit their way in accounting trick down to $2, $2.5 trillion. That's still a huge, huge amount of money unless you want to cut Medicare.
You know, it's just the math doesn't add up. Yeah, you can go after electric cars and try to save 100 billion there. You know, they're looking at Bernie Sanders. I know we're going to talk about this, but they're looking at the populism on the left and they're wondering, do they do the Republicans privately now start to talk about what I'm hearing? Just letting the top rate
Yeah. Back to around 40%, 39.6%. Yeah, we're now the tax-raising Republican Party. That'd be Armageddon. Armageddon. But I'll tell you, it's where the numbers are. You know, it's where... So the argument, and I think there was a piece in... I can't... I think it was the Times today. So, you know, what happened is the top rate was 39, and they whacked it down to like 37.5, over 600K a year, I think, approximately. Yeah.
And so the idea is let it pounce up like it's set to, back up to 39, or raise it to over a million. If you make over a million bucks, you're back at 39. So it's a tax the rich thing that any Democrat would be super comfortable with, but that is very new mojo in the GOP. But we got a bunch of populist knuckle-draggers now running the party. So I think there will be a bit of a discussion about this internally. And the regular Wall Street Journal, what's left of it,
Kempean, you know, wing will go bananas, but their, their hands coming off the hill. There were some people quoted the story. So, yeah, I mean, they've got a square, very tough circle. I'm not, I'm not sure the votes are there to raise the call. I'm not sure they're there either, but the very fact that it's like being talked about is something. Yeah, no, no, because it's the easiest way to find revenue. If you don't want to touch Medicaid and you're going to have, yeah,
Yeah, or entitlements and all the entitlements. You know, you're going to have a handful of senators like Josh Hollidley, Sir Markowski and Susan Collins who are deeply uneasy about cutting Medicaid. And so you're going to have to find ways. I just think if you go the path of the top rate, you're going to unleash lobbying hell. And a lot of normie Republicans who are just still just uneasy being seen as
a tax increase party. There's enough who would be uneasy about it, who wouldn't want to do it. And I think Thune and Johnson and Scully skipped that. And for all Trump's boasting about all the trillions in tariff revenue we're going to get, which is tariff kills demand, will all be lower than projections. The economy slows down, revenue slows down across the board. And so the hole gets bigger, not smaller.
So, you know, I see a lot of these potential political storm clouds a year away for the Trump administration. What's the bright light? Is there anything they're doing that could make their political future better in a year? I mean, I think the immigration stuff is probably the most popular. I think that the Democrats not having an obvious leader and the Democrats sort of, you know, being seen as the party of Bernie and the left.
I think Trump can take advantage of. But that said, that doesn't matter as much if the Republicans are the party in charge and the burden's on them to govern and we go into a recession and
And people and people are paying more for goods. And we got so-called stagflation here. That's just a recipe for political disaster for the Republicans. And by the way, this is why a lot of the traditional Republicans in Congress are so eager to move on the Trump tax bill, because they know the markets are really about to shutter.
And the market's got to be fed good news. And the best good news they have at their disposal is getting a big, beautiful tax bill done and signed. I think, though, if anything, Trump's doing well politically, I think objectively you could say, is that if you take all the controversy, put it aside in a sense, the day-to-day economic and political and cultural controversy, he is creating a
a movement, whether it can be sustained by J.D. Vance or others is very much TBD. But we haven't seen anything like this, I would argue, in a long time in American politics, a presidential level movement that is almost bigger now than the man at the helm. I mean, you go to Florida, Texas, parts of Pennsylvania, other parts of the country. Trump
It's not just a person. It's like a way of life. You ever go to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville's like these communities. It's like a way of life fins up. Jimmy Buffett's not even around anymore. Rest in peace. But fins up as a culture persists. Maybe MAGA becomes kind of this remnant.
That's not really mega heads. I don't know. I mean, I see so many Republican parties nationwide are in the spirit of Trump and kind of this confrontational cultural confidence that seeps into their political views. And it and it kind of Stephen Miller with the way he has that bravado in the Oval Office, the way the cabinet members act.
It's not so much just about reverence to Trump. It's kind of this movement that's countercultural. And but they are trying to become the culture. And when you see cultural institutions, whether it's universities, law firms, Hollywood, media organizations, when they're struggling to kind of compete with this movement, you've got to recognize that Trump has built a movement and it has to be reckoned with. And that's part of the challenge I received with Democrats is they don't
They know how to compete against the Republican Party. They don't really know how to compete against this. They don't have to again, Bob. They don't have to again. And that's the thing is that Trump's not going to be on the ballot again. And, you know, this has been the tradition for 10 years. When Trump's on the ballot, turnout jumps. Republicans have an advantage in sort of traditional sort of soft voters who only show up for presidentials. And they take a hit in non-presidential years. And that's the risk for the non-Trump party is,
20, you know, 25, 26, 27, it's talkable about Trump on top of the ticket because you're left with the people who otherwise wouldn't show up. Well, I think Trump has got an intense movement in the sense that there's 33, 35 percent of the country that loves the guy and he can do no wrong. That's his floor. Trump's challenge is he won because of the rest of the 15 percent that are not Trump heads, but
but just didn't like inflation or thought Biden was too old or Kamala was too weak. And that 15% to me makes all the difference in the world. Where do they show up, if at all, in the midterms? And where do they go in 2028? That, to me, is the key question ahead. Yeah, no, that's where I think that, you know, Trump's blowing his future up. But I'm with Bob. The cultural bind...
of Trump world, and I'll borrow Parrot Heads and turn them into MAGA heads with the Buffett example. Oh, it's intense. It is unlike... We have not... And you know the other thing, I think the glue that... It's kind of the revenge of the white working and Latino working class. You know, it's just a big protest scream where the arms are locked, and it's very cultural. But...
The thing we don't, you know, it's hard to talk about is this guy is the biggest authoritarian we've had in public office since Huey Long. And that has an appeal, that strongman stuff. And it's very anti, you know, our democratic history and culture. But it...
He's selling some tickets with that stuff. And that's very troubling. We're not seeing Bob and I were talking about this before we came on. We're not seeing kind of the shock and horror at some of this stuff. The country's kind of in a haze about it, writing it off as politics. Now, on the on the left and the educated elites are in sense, but accordingly.
But across the whole country, it's hard to find a Walmart parking lot full of angry people about the institutions under attack. You use the term authoritarian. I don't hear that from voters. And I agree. They look at Trump and they see someone with the perfect phone call that led to the impeachment. I say that that was Trump's phrasing that the January 6th.
the criminal conviction, and they shrug. And so outrage, whether it's for the Democrats or whether it's accountability journalism, doesn't have the same push it might have had. I remember in 2017, 2018, when I was at the Washington Post, every night we seemed to publish a story that was like a launching an explosive. I know Jonathan at the Times, and it was like every night was like another bomb of news. Now a bomb of news goes off and the country is kind of
I don't know if they've been inundated with too much information or what is going on on a psychological, moral level in this country. But that word authoritarian, it doesn't carry the charge, if you would say, 10 years ago. I agree. That's my point. Shrug is the right word.
You know, but his style of strength, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah, let me challenge you, though, because I think I think painting with a broad brush and saying America doesn't mind having an authoritarian leader. I think that's I think the country is deeply divided. Trump won 49 plus percent. He didn't win 49 states. Yes. If you ask the average voter in a Walmart parking lot, they're not going to say that they're troubled by this sort of air to one type tilt that they're seeing among Trump.
That said, there's a hell of a lot of people who are troubled by it. Look no further than Bernie and AOC getting boffo crowds in Utah and Idaho. There is a group of people. Yeah, 30,000 in Utah. Yeah, look, the President of the United States talking about deporting American citizens who come to the United States.
who commit crimes to foreign prisons. That simply doesn't happen in this country. Mainstream presidents don't say that kind of stuff. That is the kind of thing that would have gotten one of those stories Bob was talking about in the first term. And yeah, a lot of folks are a nerd to it because they just roll their eyes and say it's just Trump.
But not everybody. It's not everybody. There's tons of people who are appalled by this. And I think it's significant, you know. The story is more how many are shrugging. I agree. There's a whole bunch of us who are bananas about it. But in the old days, everybody would be bananas. Yes. That's the story. Now we have a pluralism among people accepting anti-democratic ideas.
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And while they may not be a superpower on the football field, they are economically wealthier than many countries, a massive endowment and a huge important position in America and the ability to fight. And they're fighting. They're saying, no, you don't get to dictate things to us about what we teach and how we manage our university.
Is this a turning point? Are we going to see other universities step on? There have been a handful. A lot have been quietly suing for peace. I'm waiting for ferocious Georgetown to fall in behind Harvard with our tiny endowment, but seriously, I hope they do. Could this spark a wider fight, or is Harvard going to be alone? Well, Harvard isn't alone. Princeton's president, Chris Eisgruber, has also been fighting for
But we saw Columbia University buckle in a sense. Look, I sat down with Bernie Sanders a few days ago at length, and I said, what does it mean when you have universities and law firms kind of cutting these deals with an administration? He says it's indescribable in terms of the country's democratic fabric.
And look, Harvard has the capital politically and economically to take this kind of stand. But it was, in my view, only a matter of time. I mean, are all institutions, major institutions, corporations, law firms, universities going to
deal with this administration in a transactional way. I mean, it was at some point going to have to break because there's so little upside. You mean you, you maybe protect yourself from so-called scrutiny from the justice department or getting your federal funds revoked. But at the end of the day, if you have reputational loss, that's devastating, you'll end, you'll end up collapsing. Anyway, I was heartened. I got a call from one of the big law firms, uh,
And they were like, no, we're not going to give them $100 million of pro bono stuff. I mean, they were quite tough, and I was impressed. We'll see how it all plays out. A lot of law firms and universities are going to say, to hell we are, and they're going to tell Trump to pounce the end. They're going to take a hit. But, Mike, let's just take a second to think about the damage that's being done to the country here. When you go after socialists,
Science, technology, innovation, like we have with the RFK regime, like what Elon's doing at Doge. Would you target the most prestigious universities in the country? It's not just that they're elite campuses that a bunch of grinds in high school want to get into. These are magnets for the best research and minds in the world.
Right. And key to our economy, another win for China here as we screw this up. It's a gift for China. It's a gift for China. Because guess what?
what, a lot of the best and brightest want to come here, you know, and Trump wants to put the cuffs on them. It's just so self-defeating. And think about the previous century. All right. Think about the 20th century. What happened when other countries, you know, had their own authoritarian regimes? Look who came to this country. Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger. Now, Kissinger's a bit controversial. The point being, I'm with you on Henry.
We were enriched by migration in a way that gave us competitive advantage to win the fucking cold war. All right. And we're now turning our back on that. It's so self-defeating. It's just indescribable. No, I agree. It's been the most depressing week, I think of many depressing weeks, but I'm, I'm proud that Harvard is, and you know what they all know, and maybe Harvard gets some credit along with, you know, Princeton and Wesley and a few others, but,
In numbers, they're stronger. So there could be a flocking to the cause now. They kind of have a path. If you're in an elite private university, you now have an army to join rather than have to lead the charge and maybe fight.
Maybe that will help. All right. We're going to go to our special segment here on whoops. I blew my fingers off starring the governor of Michigan, a friend of mine, by the way, I will say an old family friend, but wow, this was a, this was a stumble. And I'm talking about Gretchen Whitmer's
Trip to the White House. She went over there to negotiate, I think, money for Selfridge Air Force Base, which is a big deal in northern Macomb County. And some crafty, cynical Trump aide said, come on in the Oval. And that led to the world's most iconic photo of her standing in the corner like a plant, holding a briefing book in front of her face as if it was...
She's the Marvel superhero. We haven't heard of Governor Disappero, that she somehow vanished. And that photo's everywhere now. Let's hear the governor talk about her take trying to spin her way out of what was a very embarrassing day for a Paul with national democratic ambitions.
Someone asked me, what was going through your mind at that moment? And it was, I don't want my picture taken. That's all it was. I kind of wish I hadn't put my folder up in front of my face, but whatever. You know, I was there. I mean, I just wrote a book about learning to laugh at yourself, so I'm pretty good at it. And we all make, you know, we all have our moments.
Yeah, there we go. We're throwing a little canned laughter there. But what do we think about this? She is a good Paul. She's normally pretty sure-footed, occasionally, in my view, too timid. But lasting damage? Because this is the kind of thing right now that...
will stick to you as you become more and more famous. What do we think? Yeah, I think that picture doesn't go away. And I think more to the point, there's the issue of why are you talking to Trump at all? And her answer is going to be, I'm looking out for my state. I just think that that doesn't age well, the longer Trump is president and the more he tries to consolidate power and sort of break the constitution. I just think
democratic politics is just not going to reward that kind of approach. You know, nobody's trying to cut a deal with Erdogan in Turkey right now. The opposition is not trying to, like, beat him in the middle on infrastructure. And I just think with Democrats today, it's not going to age well. And also, it does sort of reaffirm the quiet democratic buzz
that she just doesn't have what it takes to play big league baseball. Bob, what do you think? I think it's so early. It's not helpful, obviously. I'm not here to spin for Governor Whitmer, but she's a political talent and she's
This will be a testing moment. I think this reminds me in a sense of like Bill Clinton in 1988 giving a terrible Democratic convention speech. Can she really play it in a fun way? And can she come back? I mean, it's to me a classic example of a political test. If she crumbles and kind of fades away and
doesn't really have energy and political spark moving forward, well, then she was never going to probably be president because say what about Joe Biden or Donald Trump? I mean, they have endurance politically to come back from slight after slight mockery after mockery. Yeah, I, I like her and I think she's got charisma and she's in the right state. Um, but
But she's hopelessly cautious sometimes or too clever by half. And this one was classic too clever by half. I'm going to be kind of for Trump and I'm going to be against Trump. Not if you're a national leader of the Democratic Party. The party wants fighting. And even if you want to save Selfridge, you don't have to go to the White House campus to do it because that's too clever by half. The other thing is kind of what you both hinted at.
What you would hear about national Democrats is charisma, but not always super, you know, clever, you know, you know, just one click. Unclever. Now, the move for her and.
I'm surprised nobody pitched this was she should have been behind a news desk on Saturday night, live on Saturday, making fun of herself, holding her folder up and let the writers and and and make it a thing and take the dunk in a smart way up front. You know, instead, they retreated to, oh, you know, I wrote a book about laughing at myself. It's just.
It's AAA baseball, and she wants to play in the major leagues. And that could be the bridge too far for her. But they were misreading it, and she actually wants to serve out her term as governor, do the best she can for her state. This is putting Michigan first. It isn't going to run at all. You know, which if that's the case, it makes more sense, right? I couldn't resist sending an idea into them earlier in this when the auto tariffs actually hit and panic. I work a lot around the auto industry, evpolitics.org.
I've said, you know, you should declare an automotive state of emergency in Michigan.
and be the spokesman for, you know, I mean, you know, it's just the jobs that are good. Stellantis dropped 900. There are a bunch of dealers that are going to have huge problem because they can't get any inventory. It's bad. And the response that came back was we're giving a great speech on, you know, tariffs. I don't hate them, which in my view was wrong in every possible way, but you know, they're going to play their cards their way and we'll see. It's got her as far as she is now, but
I think, I don't think, I'm kind of with Bob, I don't think it kills her, but I also think it's pretty indelible and it's taken some of the shine off and that could last for a while. And I don't know if they have the toolbox to get out of it. Time to pay the meter, but we will be right back. Now, let's hear from our sponsor.
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So you guys mentioned before, there we are in Salt Lake City, wonderful place. I like it a lot. I've worked there. And there was AOC and Bernie packing in 30,000 people. They've been on this tour of big rallies, big energy. Are they now the leading spokespeople for the Democratic Party?
in in kind of the confused fuzzy era we're in i mean i don't think it's hakeem jeffries on the public stage and you know schumer to some extent but i don't know how well that's gone uh am i overreacting to this but they they seem to be the in the in the pet store window right now in a big way and they seem to be selling tickets what do we think bob i've covered senator standards for a long time i just did a sunday morning profile of him i know
Some people are skeptical. How can an 83-year-old who has run for president twice and not won the nomination be a force? And look, I asked him about 2028. Obviously, he's going to be in his mid-80s to late 80s by then. And it's hard to see him running for president in 2028 at all. That all being said, he is the most energetic, tough politician on the left right now.
I mean, going to all these rallies has a message that's not about Trump. And that's so different from the Capitol Hill Democrats who kind of are fascinated with Trump's character, conduct, morality. He's about class. And whether the Democrats embrace Sanders or not, there's a lot to be learned from Sanders, I would argue, as a reporter, because.
Class is so often kind of brushed aside by Democrats. You look at Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. He has this long speech on the Senate floor, the longest ever, and it gets a lot of attention. But he's someone who's long been friendly with business interests on Wall Street. He's been more of a moderate Democrat on economic issues. And then you see Sanders focusing on class, and he's drawing tens of thousands of people in red states and red cities.
Sanders is getting at something that drove people to Trump on the right, and he's getting crowds on the left. If Sanders was 73 instead of 83, it's hard to see how he wouldn't be a frontrunner for the nomination in 2028. But AOC is someone who's definitely drafting with him and getting crowds. But Sanders is the leader at this point of that movement. He's the most authentic populist.
in the lefty way, you know, in American politics, because he has a totally thought out. I disagree with most of it, but, uh, well, Trump just has the, the tone and resentment part of it. And she's a lighter version, but we're seeing, I agree. If he wasn't 80 at a recession to his shtick in this moment, and that would be a huge accelerant. I think Jonathan,
Bob alluded to this, but it's sitting there in plain view. He's a class warrior. He's never gone for the identity stuff that was so dominant on the left. And this is a moment at which Democrats saw that identity politics was
was a loser and that they're better off trying to reclaim their old working class base on class appeals. It's a tailor-made moment for Bernie, and of course he is too old now, but it does raise the great question of who is the heir because there's going to be a candidate on the left in 28, and it's not obvious who that is right now.
unless it's the one who's traveling with him and packing arenas in Salt Lake City and Idaho. So we'll see. Yeah, maybe he's passing the torch. I wonder if someone like Pete Buttigieg is watching this and saying to himself, can I lean a little bit into the class issue? Because Buttigieg or someone like that or Whitmer, who has more of a moderate kind of presentation message, has to look at what Sanders is doing and wonder,
you know, how do I make sure I get a taste of that, of that crowd, that kind of visceral excitement? Because it's hard to see how you compete with Trump's movement if you're not a movement yourself. You know, what's interesting, too, is the identity politics came out of the Democrat progressive left. Yeah, Bernie's kind of an anachronism. He's got the same base, but kind of a whole different formula. And you're right. Can anybody grab the torch and run with it? Because that
That message, particularly if the economy starts creating more pain for people, which I think is likely with this lunatic tariff war, that'll have power. There's rocket fuel there for somebody. And if he were younger, I agree it would be him. No question about it. Let's wrap up with this Bill Maher thing. So Kid Rock...
who always struck me as a clown, I will say, despite his Detroit roots, and not a particularly talented musician. There are others who are, in my view, superior. Bob, you're a world expert on that, but we won't get into music reviews now. Instead, we'll say Marr goes to the White House with Kid Rock.
And Trump, who can be a small room charger, a charmer, excuse me, doesn't throw an ashtray at him. And Maher comes back saying, you know, he's not a lunatic. And a lot of Maher's fan base is up in predictable arms. I mean, do we care? Does it say anything? Is it a little tell about Trump in a small room is a more effective strategy?
manipulate our humans and people think, you know, what is there anything to be learned? You put your finger on it. It's not that we all can't get along and, you know, the liberals should be going bananas that they had dinner together. To me, what was shocking is that Maher didn't know Trump 101. Anybody who's done the Trump reading at the introductory level and Bob knows, we've all spent time with them.
He wants people to like him. He's very charming in person. He's a gracious host. He wants to win over whoever the person in front of him is. And he knows how to engage people and charm them in person. Like I was surprised that Barr was surprised, right? Because if you know anything about Trump, that's always how he is. The challenge with Trump is that when he's not working somebody, they're not in front of him. It's how he conducts himself. But like it is, it is, it is Trump.
101 that the guy in person is a gracious host. He's a hotelier. Like, he wants to sell you hotels, man. Well, he's a salesman. You know, he knows how to win the... I remember one of Romney's fat cats, when Trump first ran, a very business guy, you guys know him, had a meeting with him. And Trump
And he says, what about some of this stuff? He goes, oh, that's just, you know, that's just me putting on a show for the rooms. You know, wink, wink. We're in on it together. We're smart guys.
Trump can be very, very good at that. You're right. Maher didn't. You'd think for a showbiz guy, he'd understand Trump's an agent. So it's like the great meeting and the fading talent walks out and then the agent picks up something from the agency. The guy will never have a career. So lesson for lesson for Bill. And he's going to take the heat from his folks. Now, let's hear from our sponsors.
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Okay, Packaroos, if you have a question for us, you can record a voice memo on your phone and you can stick it in an email to hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com, or you can just write it in an email, but we kind of like the audio ones. Just keep them short and use your name so we know who you are and we're the Bloviators. Or you can call our secret phone line slash Cook County voter registration line in Axelrod's garage. The
The number is 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. Okay, let's get to the questions.
Okay, our first question is for the great Robert Costa by voicemail. Well done from Sebastian. Hey, Hacks. This is Sebastian from Westchester. My question is about Tim Walz. He's touring the country, getting some decent crowd size at a town hall, which, you know, some people in this business say is pretty important. But in all seriousness, some people say he's got that populist energy, but he reads moderate. He's from rural America. He's from middle America.
So what do you guys think of him as a 2028 Dem nominee? Thanks for all you do and take care. Well, I think he'd like it. What do you think, Bob? I think, you know, that phrase reads moderate. I mean, I think that's where the Democrats are struggling right now. Everybody's a pundit. Everybody's trying to see who can read this or read that. What I'm watching as a reporter is.
is who has it? Who has the drive? Who is going to be Jimmy Carter in 1974, 1975, going everywhere, and no one knows who the heck they are, but saying, my name's Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for president. And just who wants it bad? Who's Bernie Sanders, you know, announcing to a small gaggle of reporters in 2015? I went with him to Iowa on his first trip to Iowa. No one seemed to know who the heck he was, but he had the drive. Didn't
Didn't win. Does Tim Walz have the drive or does he just want to go on MSNBC? Maybe he has it. I don't rule him out at all as a potential nominee, but the recriminations and reckoning of 2024 is one thing, but to the drive for 2028 is another. Jay Mart, you want to chime in on this? No, I think the 28 quest will be driven in large part by who can break through, who can master the attention economy, who can get seven second soundbites, who's someone that's got a compelling message.
that they can convey quickly, somebody that's got charisma, that can tell a fast story about this country. And I think it's less ideological than it is a matter of breaking through and a matter of having a story to tell. You know, Walt strikes me as a one-trick pony. He's got a good trick, but there's only one trick. The question is, can he evolve? And maybe he could pick up the Bernie class stuff because he's a little more liberal than his vibe.
That would be kind of an interesting fusion, but I think he needs more than he has now to make it to the A-list. Okay, for Jonathan Martin, we have a question here from Nolan. Nolan wants to know if the Democrats want to win back moderates to take control of Congress in 26th.
win the White House in 28 and set themselves up for success in the long term, shouldn't they be focusing less on activism, tearing things down, and more on architecture, building on what we have to make things better? What do you think?
And who's the architecture candidate, if that's true? Yeah, I mean, who can tell a story about the country today and how we got here, where we are, and where we should go? I think that person is going to be rewarded. Reaganism, Clintonism, even Obamaism, they have a theory of the case about the country and about their party. And I think that winning candidates, two-term presidents tend to
to have that. It's not clear who that is. One of the great subthreads, I think, also that this question also touches on, Mike, is what do the Democrats try to bring back and what do they quietly allow Trump and Elon to kill? This is going to be one of the great tests, I think, of the Democratic Party in 27 and 28 is who
Do the interest groups demand a full-throated revival of XYZ program? Who commits? Who doesn't commit? Watch that in 27 and 28. Who are the Democrats who promised to restore everything the way it was? Who wants to sort of keep some stuff that was...
left on the chopping block there. I think that's going to be a fascinating test going forward. Where do we think Rahm, if he runs, our frequent hack guest here, where does he fit in the architecture versus activism thing? He seems to me like he wants to run as the pragmatic leader
shake-things-up guy. I think he's runny. Yeah, and I think clearly he's somebody who is less going to be an activist candidate and more of a pragmatic get-shit-done let's-make-this-stuff-work candidate. I think his case against Trumpism is going to be against the chaos and incompetence more than it's going to be any kind of policy invite. Bob, what do you think? I think Rahm Emanuel is running essentially right now, obviously undeclared and not formal, but
He looks at this field and sure, maybe it's Bernie Sanders, maybe it's AOC, but there is going to be a lane for someone who's not, if not a movement politician, but what Jaymard said, which is who can really get the soundbite breakthrough. Rahm Emanuel, I mean, he's as tough as they come. Toughest person I covered in the House on the Democratic side. Toughest person in the Obama White House. Mayor of Chicago, controversial but tough.
And I think he sees an opening to be a killer. Yeah. I pitched him a campaign slogan, which is a manual for president charm is fucking overrated. So we're seeing, it doesn't quite fit on a bumper sticker, but, uh, it gets to it. Hey, Mike, speaking of speaking, you'll charm a fast plug for a book that's coming out next month. Speaking of our great charmers, uh, our friend, Ed loose, who is a fantastic journalist at the financial times, uh,
that great pop, those broadsheet, has written the definitive biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Oh, yeah, I've seen this thing. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Zbigniew. It's coming out now. The title is Zbigniew. And Luce had a piece in the FT last weekend about Zbigniew and about Henry Kissinger and about how they were similar, how they were different. Really fascinating stuff for folks who like politics and history.
That was back when Russians weren't welcome in the White House to run everything. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Good plug. Okay, I'm going to finish with a question that's also the final topic I want to talk about because of all the depressing things, including a new low in my view in the Oval. This is the one that just...
put me into a funk of rage and sadness. And that is, I'll let Hannah pose it in her question. What does it say about the current political climate that a sitting governor can be the target of a violent, premeditated attack and the national conversation barely flinches? And I think that's completely true. A nut on the Jewish holiday tried to burn down and had some success at it.
the governor, Josh Shapiro's house. Yeah, burned down about half of it while the family was there sleeping. It was a murder attempt. And, you know, it is, and I echo what the governor said, which is, I don't care what side or anything, but we, this is, it's becoming a rhetorical and now a violent civil war within politics. Lines are being crossed. And the anti-Semitism part of this is horrifying in a country famous for religious politics.
you know, pluralism. You know, this is just a call to all of us in politics to police the rhetoric and do everything we can. I know I sound like a do-gooder and I should be clutching pearls right now, but seriously.
It was horrific and so offensive. So I don't know what to say other than express shock and condolence for the governor and his family. Totally intolerable. And we just have so much violence. I mean, I've known Governor Shapiro and Governor Whitmer, and you just see violences everywhere now in American politics. It's actually, we can't be blind to it. I mean, it's just, it's so prevalent and so jarring. And, you know, it's...
In the 1970s, people forget about how many assassination attempts happened. Right. Ford. I mean, Trump was almost killed last year. You have governors' mansions being burned. Deeply troubling. Yeah, it's becoming part of the vernacular politics now, the language of politics, and that is so unacceptable. There should be just super intense national condemnation, and I wish more political people, many have, but more speak out with...
bridled outrage about it because we are not a goddamn banana republic and we're starting to slide in a very troubling way. All right, so let's work toward the better. As Lamar Alexander used to say, find the good and praise it.
And we will be back next week. Guys, why don't you both cough up your Twitter handle so people can keep up with you. Thanks for having me on, Mike. I'm at Jay Bart, and folks can find me there on Twitter and podcasts and television shows near you. Appreciate you, man. All right. Thanks, pal. How about you, Robert? Where do we find you on the Twitter machine that the kids like or on Blue Sky? Always great to talk with you and Jonathan on the Costa Report, CBS Sunday morning, every Sunday.
Excellent. I will tune in. Thank you, guys. Onward.