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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Their valor gave us the freest, greatest, and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth. A republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years. That was a hard four years we went through. Who would let that happen? People pouring through our borders unchecked.

people doing things that are indescribable and not for today to discuss. But the republic that is now doing so very well, we're doing so very well right now.

Considering the circumstances and we'll do record setting better with time. We will do better than we've ever done as a nation, better than ever before. I promise you that. Feel better, guys? Yeah. That was, I want to point out, Murphy and Heilman, that was the President of the United States paying tribute to himself at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. He's not going to do what he is, David.

Yeah, the 38th Bone Spur Brigade. They were a terror on the battlefield. The only beach that guy ever hit was at Studio 54 on Miami night. But you know what I loved about that thing, other than the obvious madness and egomania, is you can tell where he goes off the prompter.

Because, you know, somebody wrote some line, their valor to save our republic. Yes, of course. You can see the thought bubble. Wait a minute. This isn't about me. So much for their value. I'm fixing it. And he goes off on the me, me, me. It was the same. It was at the same at West Point on Saturday when he gave his commencement speech and then took sort of side trips to, you know, crap all over.

Biden, the military leadership, and to give himself a pat on the back. Whoever was in crapping distance. I mean, I got to blow off some steam. I told you guys, I needed both of you because I need some therapy here as a podcaster and a citizen. And that is something really significant happened last week, which was the House passed this

Train wreck. Yeah, big beautiful bill, he calls it. Murphy would call it a big bloated budget buster. Yeah, the kind of thing that used to have Democrat written over it. Now we're the party of... Well, hardly, because I don't think Democrats would have been... I couldn't resist. Go ahead. Do your math. Trading tax cuts for the very wealthy for cuts in Medicaid and... How about just the big bullshit bill? How about that? All right, that's fine. But...

The point is, if anything like it were to pass, it would be a very significant thing in a lot of different ways. And a big political... I think it's a big political problem for him. But there's so much other stuff going on that every single day he's lighting another fire. So, you know, we had...

him trying to gut Harvard and send 7,000 international students away. We had his meme dinner. We'll talk about all of this stuff. But the point is, every week we come here and we talk about all this stuff.

And we need to back up and say, well, what does this all add up to? What does it all mean? Or we're just going to be chasing rabbits down the hole for the next four years. Which he would like. I mean, I'm with you on this because the play-by-play is exhausting with this guy. Hey, today he just set his hair on fire. But let's step back. Heilman, you first.

Well, no, I'm not going to go further. David's like, I got to blow off steam. So, David, what does it all mean? Well, I want to blow off steam and then I want your wisdom. But look, I mean, I think that because we are hacks on tap that I think that this bill that he passed that was, you know, sort of overwhelmed in coverage by all the other.

stuff that was going on is, you know, we'll see what ends up passing and it's going to be an excruciating process, but this would be a, the way it's written now, it would be a terrible thing for a lot of Americans, but it would be a big thing for Democrats trying to take back the house.

Because basically, as Ezra Klein wrote the other day, you're trading $1.1 billion in tax cuts for people who make over half a million dollars a year, and particularly those at the very top for cuts in health care and food support that a lot of other Americans need. And those kind of tradeoffs are not what Trump promised when he was running for president. And it's the thing that's central to the things folks care about most, which is

their own personal finances and their ability to get along in these times. So I think it's a big thing. It also, Murphy, because he's the, he's fallen away, but he still has those conservative synapses firing. I mean, at some point deficits really do matter. He's adding 4 trillion to it if he passes this bill. He did tell some aides apparently or reportedly when he was,

In the last term when they said, hey, this is going to add a lot of trillions of dollars to the deficit. Well, he said, that's not my problem. That'll be someone else's problem. But it's going to be everybody's problem if the whole goddamn thing collapses. Let me channel the...

dodo bird of American politics, which is the principled Burkean conservative. There are very few of us left. I wrote a sub stack this weekend, by the way, about how I was good. Oh, thank you. Changed my registration away from Republican. I've been anti-Trump since the year zero, but I'd stuck around.

I'm surprised that wasn't a news event. You know, I think it was a news event, David. It wasn't in this household. You clearly haven't seen the market this morning. There's a massive surge. He cut the Republican quotient in his neighborhood by half. Yeah, they're all rich liberals, some of whom are closet Trump voters. But anyway, on this fiscal stuff.

So I love tax cuts, but tax cuts are designed to stimulate the economy. The economy, A, doesn't need a lot of stimulating right now. And two, instead it's being strangled. So if we want to stimulate the economy, why don't we take the noose off its neck with these tariffs and other stupid policies? Second, you've got to have some fiscal authority.

responsibility. If you have tax cuts for an economy that doesn't need them and there are no offsets other than, and look, I'm all for trimming the entitlement state. I can go on and on about this, but this is now the greatest budget busting budget passing the Obama record by like a factor of 40%. It's unbelievable. And any Republican with a conscience has to say something about this. You can't,

You can't burn the candle with a blowtorch at both ends this way. It's massively irresponsible. It's already lowered our credit rating, which is the gold standard of the world. Let's just get away with a lot, by the way, that we are the reserve currency. And beyond that in the budget, I mean, you and I can fight about entitlement cuts and all that, but there's a lot of other stuff

that's fairly important to how we operate the government. And there are some subsidies in the short term, and I'll bring my EV bell to finish here, that are really important or the Chinese are going to wipe out the American auto industry. This has replaced multiple voting in Chicago as your

I'm working on a thing now that everybody who votes more than once in Chicago can still hang on to their EV tax credit because I think I brought both sides together. But anyway, there you go. It's bad. It's really bad. Now it's going to get pulled back a little in the Senate. I think it's going to be, as you said, very bumpy, but it is. He's a populist. He's Juan Peron. He's not a conservative. He's a popularist. He's not a populist. He does and says whatever he thinks he'll sell. Oh, don't defend populism. It's,

It's hopeless. You'll note that the genuine populist would have, as he came out before this bill started, as Pat has moved through the house, he came out and said he wanted to see, uh, uh, the upper rates pushed up and he wanted to see the, the closing of the carried interest loophole. He's been saying that since 2017, like a cheap suit. Yeah. None of those things got done. So populist my ass, but here's the thing, right? This, this bill, it gives just to the politics of it. And,

I told you guys are Mike was being a good macro economist here. We've heard for a long time that the deficit eventually would cause the, you know, the American economy collapse. It hasn't happened so far. It hasn't happened to Republicans have to happen to Democrats. Republicans have added more to it than Democrats have, but everybody's added to it. This might be the moment we look at what's seeing. We look at the bond market. You look at the market could, could happen. Set all that aside.

According to the polling on this bill, this Navigator Research poll, that's a pretty nice-sized sample, 35% of Americans support the bill as currently written. 36, that's not a good number. 75% of Americans, including 62% of Republicans, like Medicaid.

And Medicaid is, as Trump and the White House, Suzy Wiles said, hey, you know, they're not going to be Medicaid cuts. She told that to reporters. Trump said, I don't want to see big Medicaid cuts. Again, folded like a cheap suit of that because there's no way to make the math work. It's the only way to do the math. It's the only way to do it. So, you know, the other thing in that poll is that only a quarter of voters have heard about the Medicaid cuts.

So as we go towards this thing going through the Senate, we'll see how many changes get made. We can talk more about that. But David, to your point, I mean, I think when Hakeem Jeffries said after the bill got passed out of the House, when he said, you know, the Republicans have just handed the majority to Democrats, I think that is a pretty mainstream view. And I think a lot of Republicans are afraid of that. And if the bill doesn't get changed very much, and even if it does, it's going to get changed in a way that's going to be more Medicaid cuts than

The politics of this are terrible for Trump, and really the question, this is a wheat, not chaff thing, right? This is a big, important policy matter that has huge political implications for Trump, House Republicans, House Democrats. The only question in my mind, which I will punch back to you now, Axe, is, is this the biggest political vulnerability for Trump and Republicans, or is it exceeded by the related but different set of political vulnerabilities related to Trump?

The tariff situation, the trade war, the possibility of inflation, the possibility of stagflation. Those are connected, but they're not totally connected. And Trump is still playing with matches when it comes to the tariff stuff. The bottom line is the guy was elected because he has this aura of economic mastery that is an illusion. I mean, he's not a great businessman. He is a brilliant self-brander.

He is a brilliant self-brander, but he went bankrupt six times. He's not a great businessman. He bankrupted a casino. Well, I always like to remember, it's impossible to bankrupt a casino. If you'd bought his casino stock and paid 90 bucks for it, you'd get a nickel at the end. The one time he went public and wiped out his shareholders. But your point is right. His franchise is The Economy.

And the perception of the economy is going down, aided by stupid policies on the economy. So it's terrible for Trump. Just give it time to get worse. Yeah, I actually think I saw some polls this morning. I think it's sort of stabilized for now. I think he was headed right down the...

right down the chute when, uh, before he backed off on the tariffs, but then on Friday he kicked it up again, right? 50% tariffs on, uh, on Europe. And it's that instability is also, uh, creating, uh, economic problems, but John, uh, yeah. So I think it's, I do think it is related because people, you know, once you did the tariffs, you kind of own the whole deal.

And I think people expect that their situation is going to improve and they don't feel like their situation is improving right now. And so they, they still may be hanging on to hope that somehow this all works out, that their costs will go down, that there'll be more prosperous, but, uh,

That may be the triumph of hope over what is a realistic expectation. The great thing about being Jurassic, like we are, particularly Axe and I, is you've seen a lot in this here world. I remember... Not exactly a spring chicken, I agree. But anyway, once upon a time, I was working early in my career in the late 80s, a congressional primary in Florida, in a rock-ribbed Republican district. I

I had this guy was a county commissioner at 5%, Lee County Commissioner down around Fort Myers, Naples, that area. It was an open seat. So you win the Republican primary, you're in. And there were some better known candidates, and they were all doing the regular stuff. We ran on Social Security in a Republican primary, and we came from single digits to win.

It you know, the idea that Republicans are entitlement proof and they reward scary stuff on entitlements is crazy. So it's to John's point earlier, they they're setting fire to some of their own structures there. And that that's going to compound. I was at a lunch the other day with Jack Heiler was.

Was he a client of yours? Yeah, Indiana 3. They used to paint a T on the billboards to make it Hitler. Yeah, that was a great race. 88, there was a 47-vote recount.

And in 86, when we came back, same opponent, Tom Ward, and we killed him by 18,000 votes. But it was a total war. I mean, the negative ads went up in February in South Bend, Indiana. Yeah, good guy, Heiler, and his brothers. One of the things that's difficult for them is that because of the fact that they passed these massive tax cuts in the first Trump term and set them to it, didn't make them permanent, they now are going to expire. There is a, there is, if they don't pass a bill,

Those, all those, everybody's taxes go back, goes back up. And, and so the political vulnerability, actually, they put themselves in a really difficult bind here because, you know, in terms of people's cost of living and in terms of people, how they feel about the economy, that's the other, that would be the killer, right? Everybody's taxes in America go up because they can't figure a way to, way to extend. That's part of it. Yeah. The tax cut is a non-tax raise. Right. And so it's, so you figure out a way to extend the tax cuts. Now you're starting to have to cut. This is the, the, the bind, right? They have to cut taxes.

make big cuts, and a lot of them are unpopular cuts because all the money lives in the world of Medicaid. As I said before, Trump and his people are very aware of the fact that the Medicaid cuts are going to be devastating in MAGA districts because there's a ton of people in the Republican Party who are on Medicaid. It's not the program of people's fanciful notion that this is like some kind of a ghetto poor program in the inner cities. It's everywhere. So I think

I just don't see the weight, what the way out is here. I mean, it's like he built this mousetrap for himself in 2017. No, the way out is you lose the house. That's the, that's the way out. You know,

And the Senate may save them a little bit here. Bigger Medicaid cuts. But it's still it's just the math is the math and it's kind of inexorable. One thing I wonder about, you know, with Democrats is why they haven't drawn a clearer line. I mean, Rahm was on here a few weeks ago. He was right. They should just put in a bill saying, you know, an amendment to say we want to extend the tax cuts for everybody.

uh, under, you know, half a million or under four, you, whatever, whatever. A little higher, David, please. Come on. Trotsky. Let's meet, meet me halfway. Mike's Mike's like, uh, I, it needs to be everybody under $643,000 a year. That, that, that, that, that's a Murphy. You don't look like you've missed many meals. Let me just say, I think that fits two of us here. Uh,

No, but you know, they did the same time bomb thing because it's procedural with the tax on tips. Can you imagine? The Dems are now, I mean, the sheer evil of it is amusing. The Dems are going to have to raise taxes on tips down the road if they get this thing done because that's on a clock too. Sure. All this stuff's on a clock. It's a procedural thing they have to do. We need to take a quick break right now. We'll be right back with more of Hacks on Tap.

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That's tap to 64,000. And remember message and data rates may apply. Just getting back to the point at the beginning, these are big weighty issues that are going to touch on people's lives, but completely obscured at the end of the week by all the other stuff. One of those things, one of those things has been the most breathtaking kind of grift in the history of

of the American Republic. We have never, ever seen a president and his family. I mean, you could think back, I'm old enough to remember this Hunter Biden stuff, and I was never a defender of Hunter Biden at all. But let me say, he's a jaywalker compared to these guys. Warren Harding is Gandhi now. And Nixon, you know, we need to rename a monument. Yeah. Yes. Now we've got from T-Pod

T-Pot Dome Ref. Yeah, there you go. That's what you get here. We've got from T-Pot Dome to Orange Dome. Pun cops on line two. We're getting another fine. But listen, it is a totally real thing. So it's a real thing. It's a thing that's gotten a lot of attention.

the meme coin crypto grift, right? And the meeting and the plane and the, and the businesses. Yes, totally. So they've all gotten a lot of attention, David, I think, but they are also, uh,

They are both bright, shiny objects that are very easy for people to talk about the plane, the crypto dinner, all of that. But they are also not just chat. They are weed. Right. And I want to ask the two of you this because there's a line of argumentation among some faction of strategists in the Democratic Party who say, yeah, I know that the economy matters a lot. And clearly it does. I'm not saying that doesn't matter. But corruption matters.

is a really salient issue. The Democrats need to do more with it. I ask you guys, is that like, if you were running congressional races right now, would you be like, that's like the, where does that rank? Where does that rank? It's not now where it's going to be. It is a building issue. And, you know, I, I mean, I keep saying, and I think I've said it here that, uh, you know, he said he'd make American families more prosperous and he's just decided to start with his own.

So and I think people are going to put those two things together. I mean, honestly, it's offensive to me because not just because I had to sell my businesses when I went into the White House and willingly did it, but because it's obvious. I mean, here's a guy who four years ago was denouncing the Qataris for being a conduit

for terrorism and now accepts $400 million gifts from them. His sons are starting businesses there and all over the three countries that he visited first.

You know, this is a guy who, well, we'll get into other things that he's said in the past. Well, crypto, he had real doubts about crypto, thought it was illegitimate. And now he's made, what, 34 million, I read the other day, off of crypto already. Oh, I think more than that.

It's like double his worth. But let me be the contrarian here. Just in terms of cash in their pockets, just for the deals. Oh, no, no. Anyway, it's awful. But I'm not so sure if it were to your question, John, I would not put it at the top of my list. And this is the great thing.

tragedy of the Trump era. People are so cynical about politics starting, I think, all the way back with Clinton and Lewinsky that it just builds and builds. So now it's a game show. It's reality TV. They don't quite understand the stakes of it or they've given up hope. So when, you know, we get pearl clutchy about all Trump's crimes, which are epic, there's a tendency out there. Oh, that's just politics. He's doing deals. That's the way it is now. They're all taking money. They're all corrupt. They all do it.

It's corrosive cynicism, which numbs what ought to be massive outrage. So I do think this one is more obvious and bigger and has some potential to grow. I look at it more as the final crescendo after the economic pain starts really to turn people on Trump. Yeah, I agree. He's bribing himself. The one liner I like is he's had six bankruptcies. Now he's working on yours. Yeah.

But it's not yet. It's not there. If people come to believe that he is making decisions based on his own financial interest instead of their interest, that is when this thing is really going to bite. And I think that that is going to come. They think right now they totally believe he makes decisions in his own interest, but they think they're like pilot fish swimming around with him. And he's got all the right cultural enemies.

That's what's propping them up. There's not enough economic pain yet to break that equation. I think I said in the show possibly before that, that all the things I still remember from those first like week when Trump came into office, this time was that meeting when there was, he had a gaggle of the, in the oval office, I believe. And a reporter said, asked him about the meme coin and he Trump said, well, what's it worth today? And the person said, well, it's up to 6 billion today. Uh,

And Trump waved at his cabinet and said, well, that's chicken feed compared to what these guys are worth. And I thought, man, that's just so – it's so naked. And just to go, David, this is the real question between you and Mike, I think.

Back in the 2012 campaign, the number of ads that the Obama campaign put out that had pictures of Romney on his private plane and specifically had the one shot that existed of Romney's plane and Trump's plane both on the tarmac in Las Vegas. It was like hundreds of ads. It was like they tried to get that shot into every single ad because of the theme that you guys ran on for re-election in 2012. That was really effective. It made people think Romney was a rapacious capitalist, etc., etc.,

But the question is, have we moved on from that? I think Mike's thing is, are people to the point where they just go, yeah, corrupt, plutocrat, whatever. Everybody's doing it. I don't care. Let me get some of that action. Well, that's the thing. Let me get some of that action is the thing. And if they think that the action is all going to him and his family and the insiders, you know, then I think it becomes...

I agree with Mike. I think, A, it's a slow building thing. I think this will be a thing by the time he's done.

But I don't think it necessarily is going to be the thing that turns the election in 2026. It may define his presidency in the end. I mean, I agree with that. Historically, it's a massive thing. He better not try to run for a third term. That could be a real problem for him in 2028. Well, I think he's going to leave with a bundle and cash his chips in probably. But the...

But one of the stories that broke over the weekend was about the trade negotiations with Vietnam and that Vietnam is forcing down the throats of its citizens, a new Trump golf course and resort that has entered into the trade negotiations. So it is beginning to seep in. It is beginning to seep in and these stories will collect and

And I think they will become a problem for him. So here's the billion-dollar question. Geniuses here. We'll figure this one out. He's on a slope for the Republicans to lose the House. It's not certain, but it's highly likely. And I think the Senate, as good as it is on a map basis, there's going to be some scary polls. And I think he won. Sure. Some panicking senators. I agree with that. Right. And, you know, it's not – I was around – I'm so old.

I was a puppy in this business when, you know, the 86 wipeout where all these senators got clipped. So what is politics? Nineteen eighty six or. Yeah. OK. I believe I was still in elementary school then, but that's all right. Yeah, exactly. Seventeen years of that. So my point being, what kind of gravity are we going to have? Because it's still a Republican show next year.

will all these walls start to crush in a little bit. What does politics look like in 10 months, particularly for the Rs? Because Trump is going to sit in office and people are going to write scary things about he's planning a coup, which I think is all bullshit. He may be planning one. I'm not worried about one happening. But the Rs are the brake pads on this runaway car. He'd never attempt something like that. Oh, no, he would attempt it, but I don't think it'll work. If he does, he's going to wind up hog-tied in a Humvee being pulled out of the White House.

But to the ours who actually have the levers on power, they got to go through another budget. We got, you know, next year will not be dull. And it's an election year with awful stuff likely to be going on. What happens then? You know, this has always been about the fact that 80 percent of them don't have to worry about anything but a primary. And that's been a huge point of leverage for him. But they do want to hang on to these houses.

And so, you know, you've got this tension between those who are loyal to the end to Trump because that's all they need to do to continue in Congress. And those who are in swing districts and states who who have something, you know, who may think that the general election is a bigger worry than the than a primary. I just think it's interesting that.

This is very small scale, but whether it's Ron Johnson or Rand Paul or Tom Tillis suddenly turning on the interim president,

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, there are flickers of Republicans defying Trump now. I want to say flickers. There's not some giant movement. They're not all telling Trump to go fuck himself. On the tax thing, the House just basically laughed at him when he said he wanted to raise taxes on the rich and on the carried interest loophole.

There are Republicans now who are starting to be like, you know what? My politics actually are not Trump's politics. And we're going to have to focus on that. To your point, Mike, how much of that we see six months from now when the rear, when you get to 20, the actual year, 2026, and the bright light of the train bearing down on the tracks towards those people. I don't know the answer to this, but it's interesting that as soon as Trump moved out of executive action,

and towards the Hill, you started to see the first flickers of Republican resistance or pushing back against Trump. It's a circular thing, though, because they will move as quickly as people become disillusioned. And so, you know, as this thing unfolds, if people's discontent

becomes more obvious, you know, you're obviously, you're going to see more. Yeah, I totally agree. You are going to see more. You know, there's a number that's a good one to keep an eye on that Whit Ayers does, the Republican pollster, which is he asked the Arzon surveys, are you more Trump Republican or a party Republican?

And it moves with Trump's popularity. When Trump's doing well, it's 60, 65% Trump. When he's not doing well, it retreats back to about 40. So that gives you a meter of how much moving around room you have in not all, but a lot of Republican CDs where they're pretty safe.

but not in a horrible economic environment and a fire the Republicans environment, not completely safe. So I think this is like the old dam busters movie, you know, where they're in the German dam, the courageous bombing raid, and all of a sudden you see the glass of water start to vibrate on the guy's desk in the dam. So it won't be a total collapse, but it started because people,

Politics and political parties are about survival and reelection. And if you don't deliver that, even if you are Tony Soprano, they start having meetings about you and what should be done. So I think it's going to be a very bumpy Q1 and particularly Q2 for Trump next year in the GOP world.

By the way, I forgot to throw this in when we were talking about the crypto dinner attendees who bid to have dinner with the president and whose names were not released by the White House. Mike Johnson got asked about this, and it's just it's something everybody should hear how he acted.

Portrait of Courage? Profile of Courage?

over the line and so i'm not going to comment on something i haven't even heard about i'm not sure who was there what the purpose was but i'll say this president trump is very active he's very engaged he's the greatest deal maker uh one of the greatest deal makers of all time my head is exploding he's a terrible deal maker the brits just rolled us up in a carpet on automotive stuff forget about you're missing the main point which is of course he knew about the damn dinner it was bleeding news he's

I mean, and so he just went into sort of auto speak about Trump. Yeah, it's just a word salad. He's exactly the same as that dim bot they've got in the White House briefing room. You know, it's exactly the same word salad of generic Trump.

You know, they, it just does it for 40 seconds and declares that an answer. It's disgusting. So not a, so not a profile encourages what you guys are saying. No, we can slide under a closed door. I haven't seen that trick since Rubio, but he's same, same guy. Speaking of which, yes. Yeah. That was my transition guys. Keep up. Nice. Nice segue. We're following along. There you go. No, Ukraine, Ukraine, uh,

We all remember the president said he'd end that war in a day and he'd bring peace to Gaza. Both these wars are now raging out of control. He had a call last week with Putin. He said two hours went great. Negotiations are going to start up again. Putin then

unloads the greatest assaults on Ukraine, I think since the beginning of the war. And now Trump says this. Yeah, I'll give you an update. I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a lot of people and I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he's sending rockets into cities and killing people. And I don't like it at all. Okay.

We're in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets into Kiev and other cities. I don't like it at all.

Oh, you thought he was your friend, Trump. So so I wanted to play that. And then I want to play one other thing, which was his national security adviser, who also is his secretary of state. So if he had questions about Putin, he would have been a good guy to ask. In fact, Marco Rubio questioned then Secretary of State Tillerson in the first term about Putin. Let me ask you this question. Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal? No.

I would not use that term. Well, let me describe the situation in Aleppo and perhaps that will help you reach that conclusion. In Aleppo, Mr. Putin has directed his military to conduct a devastating campaign. He's targeted schools, markets, not just assisted the Syrians in doing it. His military has targeted schools and markets and other civilian infrastructure. It's resulted in the death of thousands of civilians. This is not the first time Mr. Putin is involved in campaigns of this kind.

Back when he was just appointed prime minister before he was elected, and I'm sure you're aware of that period of time, there was a series of bombings, and they blamed it on the Chechens. And Mr. Putin personally said that he would punish them, and so he ordered the Air Force to bomb the Chechen capital of Grozny.

They used scud missiles to hit hospitals, the city's main outdoor market, packed with shoppers. 137 people died instantly. They used thermobaric and fuel air explosive bombs. These are the bombs that ignite, and they burn the air breathed in by people who are hiding in basements. They used cluster munitions. He used battlefield weapons against civilians. And when it was all said and done, an estimated 300,000 civilians were killed. Where have you gone, little Marco?

Our nation turns as lonely as to you. I'm serious about this. So am I. How do you serve a Secretary of State and National Security? I mean, has he not told these things to Trump? No. Well, no, if you don't believe anything, words don't matter. Also, Trump doesn't. Trump's like asking little Marco for advice about what he should do about Putin. I don't think so.

Yeah. So, I mean, Marco Rubio has decided that he wants to be president one day and he thinks that the only way to do that is to suck up to the MAGA base. And so he's going to now, and he has no convictions whatsoever. This is like the simplest story. Anybody who's like, what happened to Marco Rubio? Yeah. Reed Faust.

He's always been grasping political driven by ambition primarily. And it's tragic because he has skills and that Marco in that tape is the Marco who knows. And I think every night looks in the mirror and has a little cry because he has sold his soul. Right. And Mike, you know, that's really reality is that skills without convictions married to no convictions is just like, who cares? I mean, yes. Is it, can he give a good speech? Can he, can he, can he,

Can he question someone in the Senate hearing with skillfully? Yes. But, you know, he's placed both. Trump has proved that you can ride convictions to the White House. So, you know, you never know. But there is a bill that 83 senators have co-sponsored to to take measures against Russia that's sitting in the Senate. Trump, you know, has a.

hissy fit in front of the cameras still has not lifted one finger, at least not as of this taping to do anything to hold Putin accountable. And is there any political price? Yes. This is the political question, right? The world is again on fire. Trump was like, I'm going to get, I'll end the war in Ukraine within a day on day one. Um,

You know, he's in a fight apparently with Bibi and Yahoo. Now the situation in Israel and Gaza is getting worse and worse and worse. He said he was going to fix that too. The political question for the hacks here is, you know, this is another thing. This is wheat, not chaff. This is America on the global stage. Is there a political –

What's the politics of this for Trump? And are Republicans, forget about some resolution they have 83 co-sponsors for, are Republicans going to finally start to really take Trump on, particularly on Putin, but in general on these global hotspots where he seems wholly... Newt Gingrich posted something saying that they had to take tough measures against... Yeah, this is a fissure. I think...

First of all, shocker, you know, Trump thought he could dictate to dictators. You know, he's playing in the pro leagues now. And it turns out they're just, you know, rolling their eyes at him and doing what they do every day. And he's finding out that he's impotent to do much about it. And it's going to look like a huge reversal now, though it is policy progress if he gets tougher on Putin and gets back in line on Ukraine. But to your politics thing, I think over time it undercuts him because he looks weak.

And that's kryptonite for the phony tough guy from reality TV. But it's not immediate. It's yet another rust at the foundation.

that that is going to be part of why next year I think it's going to be rough for him. So strategically, you know, I agree with you. And strategically, I think that, you know, the Democrats have to practice the art of turning these things back on him, you know, just as they need to turn the sort of he's out, you know, he's taking care of his family. What about yours? They have to they have to you know, this is weakness.

This is weakness and it ought to be called out as weakness. I mean, Vladimir Putin has used him as a sock puppet here. And, you know, we don't know why, but it could just be as much as as little as Trump just has a high regard for potentates. But whatever. And he hates Zelensky from the whole impeachment drama, right?

So whatever. But it was that was a pretty stark thing for Trump to say that and then do nothing.

So, you know, we'll see. We'll see about that. But in the meantime, there are a lot of people who are being killed and it's... I think it would be foolish to assume that that represents a genuine change of heart or new strategic direction. I agree. No, I agree. I mean, I just, I think like, you know, don't hold your breath. Don't hold your breath. You know, I think it was performative. He's said a few things about Putin before, but the one thing he will never do is do anything about it.

So I think that will well up. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors. You know, John, we try and sort out a few things here on this podcast about this great pageant of democracy that we're covering as hacks. But

There's so much going on right now, as we talked about in this podcast, that it's hard to keep track of everything. And you need good sources of information. And I know that you have one that you like. That's right. I mean, look, we've been doing this for a long time, David, and even we are baffled and befuddled often by what goes on in politics. And that's why... That's clear to everyone. Yeah, I was going to say 100% all too clear. But that's why the NPR Politics Podcast, which I listen to all the time, it's...

key to making decisions about what goes down in Washington and kind of figuring out what's happening and what every decision out there might mean for me and for you. Every day, the NPR Politics Podcast team focuses on one thing, boils it down to 15 minutes or less. Think of it as a political multivitamin. David, I know you're not a big

You don't even need a glass of water to take it. Whether you're a political junkie or just trying to stay informed, the show makes complex topics easy to digest without dumbing them down. You leave every episode with a clearer understanding of not just what happened, but why it matters. The NPR politics team consistently offers clear-eyed, fact-based reporting in a time when political news can often feel overwhelming.

So let's just be clear here. One thing that all the hacks on tap agree about is this. You should listen now to the NPR Politics Podcast only from NPR wherever you get your podcasts. Do you ever look at political headlines and go, huh?

Well, that's exactly why the NPR Politics Podcast exists. We're experts, not just on politics, but in making politics make sense. Every episode, we decode everything that happened in Washington and help you figure out what it all means. Give politics a chance with the NPR Politics Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. ♪

This Harvard thing. Oh, yeah. This Harvard thing. So he unleashes this nuclear weapon, I guess, on Friday when he was firing off a bunch of Roman candles as this bill went through Congress. So he is rescinding...

against Harvard's right to host international students. They've got 7,000 of them. Let's say he's declaring that he has the ability to rescind their right to host. Yes, yeah, the courts will have a say about that. Yes, the courts will have a say about that. There's a practical implication of it. You talk to college presidents across, university presidents across the country, international students are now reluctant to come. No surprise. This is...

This is one of the great strengths of our country is that brilliant people from around the world want to come and study. Some stay. Those who go back have a relationship with this country.

And I mean, if you ask anybody, what are the competitive advantages of the United States in addition to the aforementioned stability and the stability of our currency and the rule of law and all of that stuff, higher education. And I honestly, I've seen polls on this. It's not a voting issue for people, but they sure don't like it. I don't think they, you know, I think they think the Harvard fight is good for the base. Maybe it is. But

But, man, it's bad policy, and I'm not sure it's great politics. Yeah, in his base world, these cultural fights are good, but it's horrible policy, and all this stuff is costing.

you know, the U.S. I mean, it's the losses. The post-Trump era will be the rebuilding era. Yeah, the blast race is going to be huge. Yeah, we're marching backwards. If we lived in a rational universe, a discussion about how much federal largesse should go to a heavily endowed

private universities versus how much should go to, as Trump suggested, trade and vocational schools that would help people who are never going to get to go to Harvard or get to go to a four-year college or university would be a reasonable discussion to have. I don't think it's totally clear that a reordering of priorities in that respect would be not an illegitimate thing. The reality is it's all punitive and it's all political. And of course, it turns out if you tell people they're not welcome, you know what they do? They don't come.

And it's not just that we have great higher education. It's that we have great higher education which serves as a beacon to the smartest people in the world, often of whom, as you said, David, often stay here and help create incredible American companies. By the way, most of these international students also pay full freight, which is how these universities offset the cost.

tuition for American, uh, for Americans. Now he did do, he did do an interesting thing over the weekend. He suggested that he wants to take billions of dollars that go to Harvard and invest them in trade schools, which I think will resonate with, uh, it's a good idea. It should. Isn't a bad idea. It's not a bad idea. Uh, in another universe where you're having a rational policy discussion about this, you could have this debate and it'd be, you could have a good faith argument about it, but

As I said, it's all done through this prism of grievance. Right. It's all done through this prism of vindictiveness. And that's brutal. Well, and beyond that, you know, everything has to be looked at through the prism of zeroing out sources of accountability.

And, you know, Vance famously said, you know, we were the conservatives can't triumph until we until we, you know, do something about the universities. You know, I think there is that. Yeah. The problem for those of us on the right is there are issues with the academy.

But when we just do sledgehammer zombie stuff, we lose all our moral high ground to do anything reasonable. Instead, you've got to defend the status quo, which doesn't need change. So it's a double loss. The president of Harvard agrees with you, Mike, by the way. Yeah, no, he's a hero. I'm a fan. The president of Harvard was going to be making some of those changes. He's been trying to deal with some of those problems. Trump ought to get out of his way and leave.

He's also been trying to deal with anti-Semitism. And the thing that enrages me as the son of a Jewish refugee, I probably said this here before, is them using anti-Semitism as a fig leaf, a cudgel for a political party.

a political project that has nothing to do with it as witnessed by the fact that the letter that the secretary of education sent to Harvard went on for three pages and never mentioned antisemitism, but did mention that they hired Bill de Blasio as a fellow at the Institute of politics there. So we, you know,

It's just very, very clear. Reminds me of the letter the faculty at USC sent protesting my hiring as a known right-wing dangerous soldier of the patrimony. I think I helped them draft that, actually. Of course you did, comrade. I don't think this is going to turn elections, and I don't think—

I think a lot of Harvard's a ripe target for a lot of voters because it's a symbol of elitism. But, you know, I've seen polling on this. People don't want the government and they don't want the White House running universities around the country. They don't want to tell them who they can admit, what they can teach. And I do think that there's going to be some blowback if this is the road they go down. All right. Shall we go to the music? Yes, I think we should.

Okay, if you have a question for the Hacks, ask it. All you got to do is email us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com, or you can call our off-track betting line slash Chicago Voter Registration Center slash Rahm Emanuel for President Headquarters and leave a message on the voicemail. Keep it short and use your name. Here's that number, 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that?

773-389-4471. We're going to try and get a whole bunch of stuff here. We may combine a few questions because they were all so good and on point. But Mike Murphy, let's start with you. We can all opine. Here's what Kevin has a short, succinct, and very good voicemail question for you.

Hey, Hacks. It's Kevin from North Dakota. What safe state do you think will be a swing state in the next decade? Great question, Kevin. I'll stick with big states. It's been a democratic dream, but it is creeping forward Texas. I'll tell you, I'm sitting here in upstate New York, guys, and I'll tell you, New York's not yet a swing state. It's the opposite direction. New York is, of the big

blue states, this state could be a swing state before California or some of the other coastal states. New York's looking swingier every day. Yeah, the question is what happens in a state like Minnesota, which has been hanging there for a long time? Might it tip in that direction or not? We will

wait and see. Clearly, there's a lot of ferment in the environment. New York seems crazy to me, but... Yeah, I'd bet on Minnesota first of those two, but onward. Another voicemail from Renata for the one and only Dr. Heilman.

Hey, Hacks. This is Renauder from Maplewood, New Jersey. I was just listening to the last episode where you talked about Jake Tapper's book. And my question is about the book itself and Jake's promotion of it. He's a journalist. He's been on his show talking about the news. And it's very coincidental that the news that he talks about is his book. So my question for you is this. Isn't it a problem when journalists misspell?

make the news to suit their own personal interests? I know it's not a very hacky question, but it's just about the current political environment and the media is really a big factor on everything that's going on today. Thank you very much.

I think there are two different questions in this, in this question, actually. And one question is the question of, you know, is it a problem for journalists to make news to serve their own interests is different from the self-promotion kind of question. You know, the, the, the, I,

I think that Jake and Alex Thompson, who I interviewed on my podcast on Impolitic that's out right now, I think those guys legitimately went out, as journalists do when trying to get news, and I don't think they're trying to serve their interest, except in the sense that we in journalism are interested in breaking news, and that helps our careers, but it also helps the country. I think that the question of...

Uh, which is one of the things that Jon Stewart, you know, really eviscerated, uh, in particular Jake over when the book was about to come out, which is, is it unseemly for the host of a network of a show on cable to relentlessly promote his own book, uh,

That's a different thing than creating news to try to profit from. I don't think they did that. I think they're trying to do a good faith job on the news thing. But do I think doing a countdown on your own show for your own book over the course of 30 days is a little bit over the edge of what should be acceptable? It seemed a little unseemly to me. And I think if I were running CNN, which I'm clearly not and never will be, and David, I know this is a difficult topic for you, so maybe you don't want to weigh in, but if I were running CNN, I would have been like,

You know, I don't mind you mentioning your book a little bit on the air, Jake, but I'm not going to have you on every day for a month talking about pub day. And it's coming. It's 28 days now. It's 27 days. It's 26 days. That's just a little like, you know, that's using the network's air. I didn't see him do that. Oh, you should go look. There's a tamper book.

You should go look at the, uh, you should go look at the Jon Stewart super cut that he did of that, of Tapper doing that every single day for, for days after day after day. It was tough. It was tough. I think I did. That's, I'm not really trying to beat up Jake. I'm just saying, I think there was a little, maybe a little bit too much self-promotion on the show. All I'm going to say about it is that I read the book. I thought the book was a very, a very good narrative of a very true and, uh, worthy story. I think that most people are focused on what's happening now. Uh,

But there was a story to be told there, and I thought they told it. And I thought that they told it well. Okay, speaking of cognitive decline, David, you're our expert here, and Susan wants to know, do you think any Democrat who knew about President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and said did nothing,

has any chance in 2028 in the nomination fight. I live in northern Michigan, yay, and from the most liberal to the most conservative, one fact unites everyone, no trust in any, all caps, elected officials. Is there some chance that's Susan Axelrod right again? Could be. That would be western Michigan. She would be no trust in anyone who worked for elected officials, would be her question. Right, right.

So, Mike, can you repeat the question? No, I can't remember it. I've heard this talk that anyone who did not acknowledge, you know, what Biden's condition was and did not acknowledge what I thought was the obvious thing, which I start talking about in 2022, which is that.

no matter what your cognitive state is telling people that they should make you president of the United States and reach re return you to the toughest job in the planet. When you'd be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of it wasn't sensible. And a lot of people for a variety of reasons, a lot of it had to do with Biden was going to run. They didn't want to weaken him against Trump. A lot of people didn't speak out, but I'm telling you,

I don't think that's what 2028 is going to be about. I don't you know, I think to say now, well, that's the test that people have to pass. I don't think that's I don't think that's where we're going to be. There's an interesting little thing going on here in California in the primary for governor where there's talk that Kamala Harris may jump in. Antonio Villaraigosa, former mayor of L.A., who's running one of many candidates.

Democrat, has been making this argument publicly. Well, she wasn't honest about this. How can we trust her to be governor? And it'll be a little more relevant because she's in the race. And the answer for her is either I knew and I didn't tell you or I was so out of the loop I didn't know. So, again, I'm with that because I don't think it'll be the biggest thing ever. But there's a little it's going to be interesting to see if he can get that going here. But a California governor race involving the vice president in 2026 is different.

than the presidential race in 2028. She's also a unique case. I think it would be very hard as a practical matter to prove that anybody who's running for the White House in 2028, the Democratic Party, you're going to be able to pin the notion of like, what, Pete Buttigieg knew and didn't tell you or, or,

Gresham Whitmer knew and kept it from people. I think that's a very hard standard. I'll tell you, if Mike Donilon decides to run for president in 2028, he'll probably be disqualified or Steve Reschetti. But I don't think anybody who's going to be running, you're going to have... I had my Reschetti New Hampshire signs ready to go, but I agree. I think that's... And I will say, as much as I... To go just to button up the Tapper thing, to say...

The book is totally worthy. I don't think there's anything in the reporting that's self-serving. They were doing an honest, good faith job, but there's also nothing in that book that's going to, that you can hang around an elected officials neck in that way that will cause them to suddenly be like not taken credibly. All of them have plausible deniability. Anybody who's running for, except for maybe Kamala Harris, she's the only one who it could be used against, but I think the rest of them are different. Right, right. And this will be a good test case here. The truth of the matter is that Biden is,

basically cornered the Democratic Party. I mean, the party was sort of hostage because once he decided to run, people said, they were thinking about Ted Kennedy and Carter in 1980. We don't want to weaken them. We don't want Trump to win. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It became binary. Do we kill Biden and lose or do we keep Biden and hopefully win? So the book was called The Original Sin. The Original Sin still goes back to the man himself for deciding to run when he shouldn't. And the people around him, his immediate, you know, his family and his immediate aides who encouraged him to do so, despite the obvious, you know, questions as to whether he should.

We got two questions here from fans of the show. Someone named Jennifer and someone named Tyler. They wrote kind of related questions. So I'm going to throw these out to the two hacks here to David and to Mike. You guys can both weigh in. Here's what Jennifer asked. She wanted to know why aren't the first primaries presidential primaries in actual battleground states? If those are the states that pick the presidents, shouldn't they be the

ones to pick the candidates. I think a very good question. And then there's Tyler, who got a little more specific on this. He said, with your discussion in regard to the future 2028 Democratic primary, what do you think of the idea of North Carolina replacing South Carolina as an early primary state? I understand the party is looking for a diverse state, which both Carolinas are, but at the same time, Democrats have a shot at to win North Carolina in a general election. You'd think that having a

party presidential candidate out in force, having a bunch of them out in force for a longer time in a close state, a battleground state would be helpful for their image and for the prospect of winning that state, I would add. So gentlemen, talk to us about the wisdom of four states that Democrats either are definitely going to win or definitely not going to win being the key early states in a Democratic primary. They should, but they won't. That's my answer. How's that? Oh, wow.

Holy smokes. Because what they need in a general election and the internal politics of their party are not aligned. So besides bad counting, Iowa's gone because there was a feel it was too lily white. You know, a little bit of the Democratic coalition saying we want to be heard earlier. Yeah.

So but maybe a Georgia could move. Yeah. But, you know, you know, what was crazy about that is that the Iowa probably not probably Iowa had more to do with the first black president getting elected than any state in the country. I was also a swing state at that time, as was New Hampshire. Yes. I'll tell you what. I would look at North Carolina. Yeah, maybe.

Arizona. Michigan. Michigan makes sense. You can argue Georgia. Michigan would be a good state to start. So I would do that. One thing that we learned in 2008 is when we had 50 contests with Hillary Clinton and others at the beginning, we built organizations in 50 states. And that ended up helping us. I mean, it's one of the reasons we won the state of Indiana.

So, you know, it does help. I think I think that would be a very smart move and it'll be interesting to see what the DNC does. One thing for I think fairly sure is I don't think they're going to start in South Carolina again. That was a Biden firewall, you know, and it was and it was expressly done for one cycle only. So that'll be an interesting discussion.

I think maybe we need to cease our discussion. Yeah, no, no. It's time for a mercy killing here. Also, it's like, it's the seven hours before the Knicks Pacers game. So I got to start getting ready guys. I got to start drinking. I got to start drinking now. There we go. Yes. We in the middle of the country have a different route. Yeah. Would you, you're looking forward to a thunder Pacers, all red state final there, David, is that what you're saying? Well, I don't,

root by media market, John. I root by quality. You're a New Yorker. You're a New Yorker. You're a New Yorker. Get a room. I got to go. We got ads to do. See y'all later. See you next time. ...