Elon and Order (with Kaitlan Collins)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. I think Canadians are a little perplexed as to why our closest friends and neighbors are choosing to target us instead of so many other challenging parts of the world.

I don't think there's a lot of Americans who wake up in the morning saying, oh, damn Canada. Oh, we should really go after Canada. Damn it, Murphy. Finally, huh? Finally, somebody, somebody got tough with the Canadians. I'm telling you, the maple syrup, they're out of line. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it. You know, everybody knows the rudest people in the world, Canadians.

That's why one of my favorite jokes is how do you get 28 Canadians who were drunk out of a swimming pool? Hey guys, please get out of the pool. I mean, this is ridiculous and insulting and dumb. It's stupid. It's, you know, we're going to get to that. Put me down for a lot of outrage on Canadian outrage. All right, wait, I'm writing this down here. Okay. All right. Okay. There you go. You got it. But, but you know, uh,

This last two, I was going to open by saying welcome to 2027 because it feels like that's where we are. There's Caitlin Collins. She had jet black hair in 2025 and now she's got streaks of gray hair.

because she is the chief White House correspondent for CNN and host of The Source at night. So she works day and night. Caitlin, welcome. Good to see you. Can I tell you, I saw a meme yesterday that was like, how do you anger the Canadians who thank ATMs when they get money out of it? Yeah.

It takes a lot. We did it. We got a clip we can play later of a Raptors game in Toronto with the star-spangled banner being booed by Canadians. Thank you, Mr. President. And, Caitlin, good to see you. Thank you for being our hack today. Before we get into all of this, Caitlin, the one thing that's characterized the last few weeks is just this

flood of stuff that just one thing after another, like a it's like a Maga Palooza of activity. And I want to ask you as someone who covers this, is the media capable of adequately

covering and penetrating with coverage when so many fires are being lit at once.

I think it's tough, but I think it's doable. And one thing I think that helps is a lot of the people covering Trump in round two cover Trump in round one. And so you have an idea of what they're throwing at you. When it's really everything, you just have to be discerning. You have to kind of triage what's urgent, what's important. And

And what's neither of those two? And so I think that has been really the big challenge of the last two weeks is figuring out, you know, is Gulf of America really the storyline today or is it that Trump signed an executive order granting anyone who wants a security clearance that he deems necessary?

should have one can get one without an FBI background check. I think it's that kind of stuff. It's sorting through what's catchy and what's really impactful to people's lives. So yeah, I think it's possible, but I think you gotta be on it. And when Trudeau comes out yesterday and says, we're gonna pause the tariffs because we're doing this billion dollar plan. Yeah.

Well, you know, we were one of the first ones to point out, okay, but he announced that six weeks ago in December, long before this happened. And yes, it was after Trump won the election and he knew this fight was coming. But yeah, you know, you have to make sure that you were on top of kind of everything to be able to give the proper context to stuff and not spin things or declare things just because the White House is portraying it one way. But it is possible that things, that a lot of important things are going on and you can't emphasize that.

uh, all of them, you know, uh, so we've got, uh, you know, the, uh, the Musk troopers going in and shutting down USA ID and, you know, overnight as if people are, uh, brooding about that, the, uh, uh, you know, the department of education's on the,

I mean, these are sort of big, you know, things. We'll get to all of them. But I guess there was a Ezra Klein had a great column yesterday, I thought, about this and Steve Bannon basically saying this, that, you know, you just have to fire all the guns off so they can't, you know, you can't they can't stop all of the scuds from getting through. And it really feels like, I mean, that's

That's what's happening. Well, I think that's what they're attempting. Yes, that's what they're attempting. That's fair. You know, whether or not they're getting away with much, it is back to the story about how do you cover this if you're in the media? Because you got the pitchers throwing 100 balls a minute at you and it's hard to hit every one of them. On the other hand, a big narrative starts to build. It becomes a real story, which is the pitcher isn't wearing any clothes.

So as all this grinds on, there's going to be a big narrative. Either Trump radically reshapes government in MAGA victory or flurry of Trump action turns into Keystone cops as it gets gummed up in the courts the way they had to. They cut all the grants and whoops, nobody talked to anybody because it's disorganized. They put all the grants back.

We just declared war in Canada. Now, if the Canadians agree to make troops march up and down the border, we'll make it go away. You know, there's a larger picture over time that's going to emerge here. And I don't know if it'll be success. Right now, it's this machine gun of press releases slash real executive orders. But I think, you know, when we step back and see the big picture in six months, you know,

Then the big story will emerge. Yeah, no, listen, I agree with you, though. You know, it's there's a third possibility, which is that he radically reshapes government and and then bad things happen. Crises come again.

you've eliminated like thousands and thousands of years of institutional memory and expertise. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, and you're left to have to call some 19-year-old on Elon, you know, or text some 19-year-old on Elon Musk's staff

to try and, you know, put out a blazing fire. Well, especially when Elon and Trump get into a hissy fit and Elon's gone in six months. Well, let's ask about that. Caitlin, talk about Elon Musk, because we've never seen anything like this. You know, this is a guy who, you know, is famously a disruptor who has no regard for rules and laws and norms and

He's just coming in and running with a pass from the president. Seems like he's running sort of roughshod through the government. Talk about that and talk about their relationship. Well, and I think for Elon Musk, that has always been his M.O. That is how he has operated his entire life. And it's always worked for him. And he's always been able to essentially, you know, use that to his advantage of just kind of.

you know, running into something and not stopping until he's achieved what he was going for. It's just his personality. I've talked to people who know him really well and have worked for him previously about this dynamic with Trump. And, you know, what's interesting, though, is, is

Yes, everyone says, everyone seems to speculate that it seems to be on a collision course because it's two people who don't like to be told no, who are famously the disruptor in their own circles, and everyone kind of operates in their orbit around them. So what's it like to have two centers of gravity in that sense? And I think that's a great question, and it is, how do we see that? Trump seemed to be sounding a bit cautious on Elon Musk yesterday for the first time, really, when he was in the Oval, and he said...

you know, we'll let him do what we think is appropriate, but what we think is not appropriate, we won't. It's a real question of who's, you know, really paying that close attention to everything he's, Musk is doing. It doesn't seem that Trump is, obviously he has a lot going on. But then I've talked to other people who say, I don't think that a collision will happen here because it would be mutually assured destruction between the two of them because they have become so intertwined and because, you know,

One has so much power over the other in terms of Trump and Elon Musk, who has major government contracts, and vice versa. Elon Musk is the richest person in the world and played a huge role in helping Trump get elected, certainly in places like Pennsylvania. And so I think that's a real question of how that dynamic shapes out. But what is undoubtedly true is Elon Musk has a huge amount of influence. And now we're seeing just how broad his permute is turning out to be. And we're only two weeks in.

I mean, it's incredible, Murphy, that he can walk into, you know, federal agencies, the Treasury Department, you know, USAID, and just basically he and a band of twerks

20-year-olds and a 19-year-old, and they can just sort of turn the place over. Yeah, it's on the two of them, the two Tomcats and the Pilosak. I take the Trotsky view. It's going to be bad. But, Kayla, you may be right. They are interdependent. You know, I know some senior Tesla people.

Uh, and, uh, somebody from high up in his empire on the technical side told me an astute thing about him once, which is, you know, the great hilarity here is that he's a terrible engineer. He's really bad, but he's got one incredible monkey trick, which really works for him, which is he looks at something and he, whether it's an organization full of people or the way we put a Tesla together and he starts yanking parts out to save money.

And he keeps firing people. Like fire every third person or every left-handed person on every odd floor. And he keeps doing it until the thing breaks.

But he looks and there's half as many people now. Which is fine at Tesla. What he's doing now. Yeah, yeah. But then he has to repair the damage. And there's trouble. So in the government, though, the government is not... He's going to learn all this. And by the way, we have appropriators and stuff. They're having a huge disruptive effect. But over time, you know, we'll see how much grip they really have on this big self-propelled thing, the U.S. government. And let me just finish with the political mistake the Democrats are...

going to make is pearl clutching about, oh my God, they fired a bureaucrat at the Department of Funny Walks and Measures and Standards. Because most Americans think a third of what the government spends is waste. They're not right, but that's the perception, which is the reality in politics. So the Dems should be better at embracing the idea that we need a lot of changes in the way government is run because otherwise they're picking the sharp end of the knife to fight here. The overall idea of government can be shaken up.

There's a difference between radical reform and wanton destruction. Nobody agrees more than me. I think this is horrible. And I want to specifically talk about a trap that I think Dems are walking into. But, Caitlin, one of the things that I wonder about is they're doing everything as they did at Twitter to get people to quit.

And they are decapitating the upper echelons of government and replacing competence and loyalty to the Constitution to loyalty to Trump. Do you think how effective are they going to be at getting large numbers of civil servants to quit?

Because that seems to be Musk's objective. With a phony promise, though. They can't deliver that bonus. Right. Yeah, that's the question is, is the people who are agreeing to this buyout, you know, what happens to them? How many have? Do you have any idea?

I read this morning it was close to 2000. I don't think we know. Well, in the U.S. government, that's not very much. Yeah, and there's no verified source of that right now. You know, it's who's keeping count of that. So I don't know that that number is completely accurate. I think it's a question of what it looks like by the time it's done.

But I do think that they are being effective in this and in the sense that, you know, they're going to make it so miserable that people don't want to work there. We've seen that they're willing to fire people that they may not even legally be able to fire. And the question, you know, going into this and what this looks like is why this is happening. And I was talking to someone yesterday who's who's.

In Trump's world about this. And it's because there was such a serious mistrust of the deep state, as Trump called it his first term, that all these people who are in these positions are working against him and that they're all trying to stymie his agenda and knife his people who are the political appointees. That is their concern. And so instead of, you know, approaching it in kind of a more discerning or nuanced way, they just think all of these people should go.

And you saw Stephen Miller telling Jay Tapper in an interview recently that they looked into the political leanings of the people who were in the federal workforce and who they voted for. And, of course, people who live in D.C. obviously lean more liberal. That's just you can look at the numbers. That's obvious. But to say that that influences how someone at the State Department or the Pentagon or, you know,

the budget bureau, how they operate is obviously, you know, covering things with a broad, broad blanket. And it is a real question of what this looks like when there is a depleted federal workforce, because the one thing that I've picked up on in the last two weeks is there's not that many political appointees showing up at these agencies.

Yes, they're still trying to get everyone in place. Yes, there's still confirmation hearings going on in this moment. But a lot of the lower level political appointees who can start right away, they haven't showed up in force at a lot of these agencies. And it's left some of the career staffers, you know, saying it hasn't been, you know, what we thought it was going to be, which points to.

staffing issues and what that's going to look like if there's no one working at these agencies. Yeah. They did Murphy chase out the FAA director, which was a kind of a source of embarrassment when the plane went down in the Potomac. Well, then Trump went out and started doing his Queens 1960 routine. Oh, you know what they're doing over there? They're putting the blacks in charge of the air traffic. I mean, it was just a big racist smear. It was unbelievable. You know what, what, what they don't know, cause they don't have a lot of depth is,

is if you can't put competent political appointees in, 'cause you have a big bench of people who have some idea how to tie their shoes,

then the agencies don't work. And what the political appointees, I know a bunch of them from the old days will tell you is the truth is you get, they're all fired up that we're going to change to the department of printing and engraving. And then you find yourself relying on the institutional knowledge of the career people, where the only people know how to run the machine. And there are some ideologues buried in there and it's a problem for conservatives, but there are a lot of incredibly competent career people.

So what they're doing is shooting the talent and leaving, as Caitlin says, a vacuum of people to go in and fill the void, God forbid, even assuming they know how to. And that'll turn into political trouble because when agencies don't work, the trouble bubbles to the top. And that's the POTUS and that's politics. And they're on a shot clock anyway at the congressional elections. They could be. They could, in fact, be.

deal with this problem by buying all those people who don't know how to tie shoes loafers.

That would be one way around it. There's already enough loafers in Washington. I think we're set. I know. I left that out there for you, Caitlin. I was wondering who would be first to keep that up. The White House is going to put a terror upon your sense of humor. So listen, I think that there's so much that's going on that is going to be litigated and should be litigated. And there's a real question about the fundamental premise of the Constitution. You know, our founding fathers set it up because they had a deep,

concern about the imperfections of people and they just freed themselves from a mad king. So they set up this system of checks and balances, which Trump is trying to blow through here with all of these

executive orders presidents have done it before if our buddy caitlin scott jennings was here he would say what he always was his go-to line i was well what about biden and student loans this is different i mean this is something on a whole different level uh but um but so it's all going to be litigated but i mentioned before like i i this usaid thing

you know, funds, you know, programs all over the world to feed people, to, uh, to provide healthcare to people who need it. It's saved millions of lives. You know, the United States, since this was started by John F. Kennedy in 1961 has built goodwill around the world by, uh,

by feeding people, by treating people, by, you know, PEPFAR and programs that saved 25 million people who had HIV and largely in Africa. And, you know, there's just so much that this agency has done. Is it perfect? No. Are there, you know, can it be reformed? Absolutely. I feel strongly about that. But I saw all these Democrats out there rallying outside that

the USAID headquarters yesterday. They should be in court trying to stop this. But I'm thinking about the voter who voted for Trump, who wasn't necessarily that excited about Trump, who, according to polls, thinks that we spend 30% of our money on foreign aid and think we should cut it. And the first thing they see are leaders of Congress out there in front of USAID. And I couldn't help but think,

politically, I bet you Trump welcomes that fight. Oh, it's a great fight for him. Yeah, the easiest thing in the world is to build a mousetrap for Democrats because you don't even need good cheese. They always run at this kind of stuff and they overreact because every, look, I'm an old right winger and we've been in the domestic policy fights forever. To revoke your credentials, man. No, no, we have a secret underground redoubt. We're coming. But every time we ever tried to cut anything in government, the old

the song and dance was, hey, the Department of Democrat Liberal Spending wants their annual 5% increase. Let's cut it to 1%. That's a 4% cut on widows and orphans. You know, all spending is good. And so the Dems are falling right back into that trap with, you know, insert agency here.

And there's no doubt there's waste in the federal government. But I think the debate that Dems could have— But on foreign aid in particular— Oh, no, people hate foreign aid, and they're stupid about it because—though, that said, there is tremendous waste in foreign aid. But someone made the point yesterday, and I was talking to a former USAID top senior official, and in terms of, yes, it does build goodwill, yes, PEPFAR has saved 20 million lives in Afghanistan—

Talk about national security. But it's also China is out there doing this for other nations. It's all the soft power stuff. We're driving them right into China's hands. Yeah, this isn't just goodwill out of America's heart. Right. And it was never meant to be. Totally. No, it's a geopolitical weapon and it's important. Yes.

It's a savvy political weapon that other nations are using, certainly China, to help. So that's not something that you're hearing from Democrats. No, I don't hear a lot of Democrats making that argument. I don't hear any of the old school Republicans making that argument either. Bill Cassidy was the one making an argument for PEPFAR. I saw even though they got an exemption from this, he was saying that there's still clinics in Africa that are not able to get the medicine. But that's one tweet that we're seeing.

Listen, this is the problem on all the stuff he's doing. You know, you start brandishing tariffs like a cudgel. And what you do is your trading partners begin to say,

I've got to find other sources here. I've got to create different relationships. I've got to create a different supply chain because the Americans aren't reliable anymore. But I think the way the Dems ought to fight this is not to have

you know, wave dream catchers and have a cry-a-thon that the Department of American Poets Abroad is looking at a 6% budget cut. Oh my God, oh my God. It's, look, government's too big and inefficient, has the wrong priorities. The question is, do we have crazy, not smart,

hatchet or smart plan to reform it with smart people. Cause that's the fight with Trump. You win. Cause the Trump show is going to be more of this Keystone cop stuff going forward. No, I think, I think the Democrat, I mean, it's the biggest problem for Democrats is,

is that at a time when people are enraged, at a time that people are enraged about institutions and elites in the minds of a lot of voters, the party has become an institutional and elite party. Caitlin, on this trade thing, you know, we played Trudeau at the top.

What exactly is... I've got my own theory, but what is going on there? Because, you know, the stated purpose of the threat against Mexico and Canada was fentanyl and the flow of drugs. Canada, I think, is the source of... That border is the source of like two-tenths of one percent of the fentanyl that's coming into the U.S. So...

What is the thinking, or is it just, let me have a fight that I can quickly win and say that I'm looking strong?

Yeah. If you compare the fentanyl that comes across the Canadian border with the U.S. southern border, it comes across the southern border or, as we know, comes through legal ports of entry. It's obviously a huge problem. And no one is denying that because any family that has been touched by this crisis is, you know, they don't care about the numbers because it affected their their family. And so and I completely empathize and understand that.

And so when you look at that, though, that was that was what Trump's aides were arguing yesterday, that this was not a trade war. This was a drug war and that that was their primary concern. And when they were touting what the White House argued they'd got from Canada and Mexico, they pointed to 15000 National Guard Mexican troops going to the border. And then this plan by Trudeau that he was implementing in a fentanyl czar that.

that he said he would name. Obviously, we've seen 15,000 troops from Mexico be sent to the border before. It happened in 2019, actually. And 20, I think later, but go ahead. I mean, it's happened periodically. They say it's permanent now, so that's... Right. And then in Canada, you know, it's this plan that Trudeau announced before. But the other thing is,

That's what Trump's aides were saying. But if you listen to what he was saying, he was also complaining about the deficit that the U.S. runs with Canada. I was asking, why are we subsidizing Canada? And when you look at the agreement that he struck with Trudeau yesterday after those two phone calls, it did not it didn't do anything to address the deficit. And so that is still something that is looming because that is still something that he is bothered by and just views it so differently today.

But this is – I'll say two things. It's a huge fight inside the White House because his treasury secretary thought that the tariffs should be lower, that they were going to implement. So did Stephen Miller, who is now his Homeland Security advisor and top policy advisor.

And so they were arguing, go lower and then you can increase them. Trump preferred to have this huge number hanging out there with 25 percent. And then, of course, predictably, it came out yesterday. The stock market didn't like that at all. He had these phone calls. He was able to argue that he's got these concessions and then touted it as a win.

But what I was pressing Republicans on was what is tangibly different now in wake of this that warranted calling off these tariffs. And there was really nothing besides a fentanyl czar to point to there. Time to pay the meter, but we will be right back. Now, let's hear from our sponsor.

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Caitlin, you worked, I think you began at the Daily Caller or something. Yes. You understand how the media, modern media ecosystem works. You know, on those networks and on those channels, it's Trump back down the Mexicans and the Canadians. He was a winner. And like to him, this is all a big TV show.

Yeah, it is, but it's a bad episode. I'm telling you, this was not a win for him. You can take a survey of Trump voters and ask them, do you think troops on the Mexican border will stop fentanyl and drugs? They're going to say no. They're going to say the Mexican army is part of the problem. I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. You may be right. This thing is transparently silly. They overplayed their hand a bit.

Every story needs a good villain. The Canadians are not a good villain. The question isn't what you and I think. The question is how it played and how it played through the channels that those...

uh, that the, the, those voters get. Yeah. I think those channels are too narrow to hold his presidency in the midterms. That's my point. I, I, I don't think you've been predicting his doom for, yeah, since we started this podcast, we've both done a lot of campaigns and you, you, you know, a dud media line. This thing is too thin. I'm telling you, it was not a real win and they smelled a fake on them. I argued that I argued that last night. I believe it.

But, Caitlin, my sense is that so much of what he's doing right now is about it. He's still kind of carrying through on his primary message, which is I'm strong. I'm tough. I'm a man of action. I get stuff done. Unlike Biden, who is weak and feckless and the world didn't respect him and so on. I mean, isn't that the storyline that he's trying to create?

promote here that the details are almost less important than the appearance of action.

The storyline seems to work if you look at the election results, because that was what he argued on the campaign trail. And now, of course, you know, he came into office with a strong economy. He came into office with the border crossings at the lowest they had been since Trump left office. Now, that was because of the, you know, actions that Biden took when the election was heating up and the border was his number one problem, certainly. But he is coming into the office with that. And the question is, you know, what the details look like.

Because on immigration, this is one thing that we have been really focused on and will continue to focus on, which is...

Does he actually ultimately carry out mass deportations? Are the numbers that different than President Biden's? Because so far we've seen a little bit higher, but really relatively stable numbers. And also yesterday I saw they were, you know, Trump signed his executive order ending catch and release when he took office. But we read yesterday that they were releasing some of the migrants that they had detained because there's no bed space to put them in, which is what

Tom Holman, his borders are, he's been very upfront about. He has not tried to sugarcoat that.

but been very clear that they don't have the bed space for this. So does that promise actually look like what he said to voters repeatedly on the campaign trail? Obviously, only time will tell. But that is one of those instances where he says he's going to do this, and he says it so much that people think, oh, he's doing this. And, you know, they're posting pictures of the migrants getting on C-17 military planes to go to Guatemala. But do the numbers actually look that different? Is it something that you can see a difference in? That's the question.

I mean, the fact is that Obama deported more people in his first four years than Trump did and did it by actually focusing on criminals. But it was not done for ostentatious purposes. It wasn't done for display. But you said something interesting, and Murphy, you should—

You should jump in on this, which is what he says it over and over again. I mean, Trump has a—I remember Alyssa Farah Griffin, who's a colleague of ours at CNN, said she once went into Trump and he asked her to go out and say something. She said, well, that's not true. And he said, well, if you'd say it enough, people will believe it is. And I think that's his fundamental—that's the way he wrote it. No, I agree. That's his SOP. The question is, will it work for him as an incumbent? It works as a challenger.

That's the key. Add time to chaos. What does the narrative become? Right now, they're pushing action, man. But let's see what actually happens. I agree with you completely. I mean, there are consequences to these actions. And I don't know if they've thought down the line as to what the consequences are. And one of the big questions is, are Republicans who have to run for re-election in 2026 and swing districts and a few competitive states?

You know, are they willing to how how long are they willing to to go if if people start getting irritated that, you know, maybe the border stuff isn't. Now, the truth is, it's Biden sort of began to shut the border down, you know, three years late. But a year ago, we can't conflate border policy with border politics, right?

You know, border politics are always the same no matter what the policy failure is. Oh, they're coming in. We're weak. Trump will never change his tune on that. That'll be the hit record he keeps playing. The question is how much fatigue with Superman not being able to lift up a locomotive. To the Republicans, no, they're going to wimp out. The Republicans and Democrats have the same DNA. How many of them want to commit political suicide in the primary? Damn few, unfortunately. Yeah.

You know, in the swing districts, they have a problem, though, because the things that help them win a primary may help them lose a general. But, Caitlin, this is really how—this is Trump's superpower, is the audacious way in which he just insists on his own version of reality. So whatever happens with deportation, he's going to say it was the biggest ever, it was the most extensive ever.

ever. And the question is, does it stick over time? I think the thing you have to think about, though, is how Trump is coming into this.

He's not worried about being reelected. I mean, yes, he cares about his numbers and whatnot, but he is he's just in such a different headspace than he was eight years ago when he came into office in terms of doesn't face any concerns about reelection, doesn't face any concerns about political consequences on Capitol Hill, like impeachment or conviction, and doesn't face any concern from the courts. I mean, the way that they are viewing things.

Everything that they've been doing as far as the courts is also a really interesting storyline, which is that they're essentially just not worried about it, that they'll do things. And if a judge blocks it or freezes it, it doesn't have the same impact on them that it did before, because if it'll just delay it. I mean, it's similar to how his own court cases played out, where he was he was facing all of these indictments and all he asked his team was his legal team.

And I heard this from a source directly familiar with it. Just keep me out of jail until the election. Just that was his legal strategy. And with this, obviously, the strategy is in the terms of if it just gets delayed, that's fine. But but for this moment, we've won this political battle or whatnot. Those lawyers did such a good job. They're running the Justice Department now. So.

Well, and it's far from just the Justice Department. I mean, Trump's attorneys are really in every facet of the DOJ and the West Wing right now. And I think at one point we counted it was probably six people who had worked for him as an attorney in a personal capacity that are now in these roles. But the question is, as certified pundits here, what is the question we're trying to solve for?

Will Trump be a madman for the next year and do lots of crazy stuff and we're going to have trade wars on and off of everybody? And yes, I think. And there's not a lot that can be done about it. Right. The real question is, what happens to Trump in 20 months from the next election comes? Will he gain or lose political power? Will he be stronger or weaker? And I think he's on a path to be weaker. We will see.

But in the short term, yeah, you know, they elected him. And now we have a monkey with a hammer in the oval and he's finding lots of buttons to push and reversing himself and all that. So I just what I wonder is to what end other than the damage we know he could do to institutions, which is kind of a proven Trump thing. And I'm sad to say I'd bet on more.

Yeah, well, that's I mean, there are two different storylines. One is the politics, which I agree with you. I think, you know, he was if people's costs don't go down, if the things that they've been struggling with that have alienated them continue, ultimately, you know, the bread and circuses is not going to be enough for them.

for them. But the institutional damage could be pretty significant. And one of my concerns has been always that, you know, he doesn't believe in rules and laws and norms and institutions. I mean, Trump believes the world is the Hunger Games and the strong take what they want and the weak fall away. He believes and that is reflected in all of his politics and policy. But one thing we know is all the norms you destroy,

are very hard to reassemble. And I keep telling people when I go out and speak, I was in Texas last week, I spoke to a whole lot of people who voted for Trump.

And I said, the thing you got to think about is what happens when he's not president. And now you've destroyed all the guardrails and you've destroyed all of these checks and balances that the founding fathers inserted into our Constitution. And now you get a president you don't like. Yeah, Bernie Sanders run amok with no guardrails. Think about that, my conservative friends.

You know, Murphy, it feels like everything has gotten more expensive these days. We hear about that. We're just talking about that. But have you tried to get a hearing aid from a clinic? And I wish you would, because I don't think you listen to me very well. But the prices are crazy.

No, actually I did. So my wife who mumbles, by the way, uh, she thought I couldn't hear anything. Yeah. That's what everybody who needs a hearing aid says. So I went to the doc and he basically did the thing with the, you know, the earphones and the whiny noises and said, you're not there yet, but you're, you're on the doorstep. You ought to look into it. So I literally went to an audiologist and

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You get a pair of hearing aids for just $297. I think Trump is most dangerous to himself and others when he feels invulnerable. Remember, I think it was right at the day after the Mueller thing went down. He was when he made the call to Zelensky and asked him to dirty up Biden. You know, when he feels unaccountable.

and irrepressible, indomitable is when he makes mistakes. But

when you say he did, they don't mind about the court cases. Uh, you know, he, I also think, you know, when he did the 14th amendment stuff, the birthright, uh, you know, the birthright, uh, citizenship, I, to me, I think to him, the fight is more important than the outcome. Oh, I think always it gets back to, he wants the politics, not the policy. Well,

Well, also in the way that he's reshaped the Supreme Court and how the Supreme Court, we've seen them rule on certain things. With the birthright citizenship, the point was the court fight. They never thought that he could just overturn a part of the Constitution by signing an executive order. And

But what we knew is how they'd been planning for months, the executive orders, which we were still seeing by the day, such a high level of these executive orders. Are they all meaningful? No. Some of them yesterday were about certain people who were designated to represent the United States, the United Kingdom. Mark Burnett, by the way, if you are a fan of the Trump history. The executive producer, the apprentice. It's a remarkable moment to see who Trump is putting in key positions.

But in terms of the 14th Amendment, they want it to end up in front of the Supreme Court because they think that it could be beneficial to them and that it could actually potentially break in their favor. And that is really also the point with so much of this is that this is by design how they want it to end up in these legal battles and in this litigation. Yeah, I'll tell you, though, I mean, I totally agree with what you're announcing as a strategy, but they may make a mistake if they think this is a populist MAGA court, not a

a strict traditionally conservative court and how they look at the law. Cause you can't be a strict constitutionalist and go for big mag of rule bending like this. We're seeing it's going to that. You're right. That's where the rubber will meet the road. I think we should do cabinet scorecard pretty soon here on the nominees. What do you think, David? Yeah, well, absolutely. I just got, I just saw a thing that says Senator Todd Young of Indiana, uh,

uh, has, who's, you know, uh, has been Trump resistant, uh, said he's, but very, uh, big on national security said he'll vote for Tulsi Gabbard. So that, uh, along with Susan Collins, the great, the Gibraltar of Jell-O. Well, my question is about, I mean, I have an interest in this, uh, uh, deep interest in, uh, HHS and health policy because of my own family's experiences. Uh,

And I'm really, really interested. I think the most interesting story today, Caitlin, is Bill Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, and what he does about the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, given his 20-year campaign against vaccines and all of his...

conspiracy theory mongering about vaccine. Yeah, we should bio Cassidy a little. He's a doctor. He voted for impeachment on Trump. He's a conservative Republican. Good guy, friend of mine. But he's quite principled. He's also coming up for reelection. And, you know, in Louisiana, which is changing its election laws to punish him.

on the way they all used to be on one ballot with a runoff. Or to rein them in one way or the other. Yeah, exactly. Let's listen to Senator Cassidy at the hearings last week, Caitlin, and then you comment on the way out of it. He was very blunt with Kennedy on this vaccine issue. Were you reassured of others?

unequivocally and without qualification that the measles and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause autism. Senator, I am not going into the agency with any... That's kind of a yes or no question. Because the data is there. And that's kind of a yes or no. I don't mean to cut you off, but that really is a yes or no.

If the data is there, I will absolutely do that. Now, there is the data just because I used to do hepatitis B, as I said. I know the data is there. Well, then I will be the first person. If you show me data, I will be the first person.

to assure the American people that they need to take those vaccines. Do they believe that Cassidy will ultimately tip their way? He's very passionate on this, and he told the story about it.

how he treated a patient who had hepatitis B and how ghastly it was, and how he went on a campaign to make sure kids got vaccinated and vaccinated tens of thousands of them. But they're putting a lot of pressure on him. What is the betting over there? And his whole point was no mom should have to deal with the death of a child from a vaccine-preventable disease and pushing questions and

conspiracies as R.K. Jr. has done does that. It was very clear what Senator Cassidy's closing argument was. I will say they just had the committee vote and Senator Cassidy voted yes on R.K. Jr. and said that he had

what he described as intense conversations with the White House over the weekend and said that he got commitments from the administration. I think I will say one thing that we have seen from all of these votes who were very clearly on the fence over these nominees have described these conversations they've had behind the scenes and these interactions they've had behind the scenes with these people. Senator Tony Ernst was one of those with Pete Hegseth.

And we haven't always seen that play out in public, but we did see it with Senator Cassidy and RFK Jr. And it wasn't even just on the vaccines. He asked him about basic parts of Medicaid, and RFK Jr. was unable to articulate that and was talking about these high premiums that people on Medicaid have when famously people who are pretty much on Medicaid mostly do not pay premiums. That's the whole point of having Medicaid is because they don't make enough money to be able to afford it because of how expensive it is. But RFK Jr.

But I was talking to a Republican senator at the White House yesterday, and I asked him if he thought RFK Jr. eventually got across the line, and he said yes. And I said, but he was unable to articulate key parts of Medicaid, how Medicaid works or Medicare, and obviously in addition to conceding that he once speculated that Lyme disease was an engineered bioweapon.

And this Republican senator said, yeah, but he's not going to be actually in charge of that kind of stuff. And this is where I think the Republicans are wrong, because I've talked to the Trump people. I've talked to the RFK Jr., his allies and his people.

he is going to have an immense amount of power. And the idea that he's just not going to use it and he's going to delegate all of this authority after someone who has been in this space for decades, I think is a fundamental miscalculation on the Republican senator's part. And we will see how that manifests itself now that he does appear headed for confirmation. Well, it's a rationale that they can hang on to, Murphy, is what it is. It's like a fig leaf to the end that they get reelected, I guess. Cassidy,

went with the Munich strategy. What he needs to understand is he voted to impeach Donald Trump. Do you think Trump will ever forgive him? No. The Republican apparatus is going to torch the guy in the reelect.

Maybe he has a fighting chance because he's popular at home, but they've changed the rule to make it easier to beat him. And, you know, he's voting for self-preservation here. But I think he ought to step back and he'll have a legacy of this. And they're still going to try to clip him, and they very well may. I mean, the sad thing is that he knew when Kennedy said what Kennedy said that it's complete bullshit because Kennedy's been talking. He's written books about it.

this vaccine and autism issue. Yeah, no, no, no. It's like Trump and tariffs. He means it. You know, I know we're still doing kabuki stuff, but Trump thinks tariffs are good policy, which is why they're now in place for China. There's an argument for a geopolitical squeeze on China. But tariffs, you can argue. Vaccines?

There is no gray area. It is science. It is black and white. It's different than a political issue where you can say, you know, Trump has the power to impose these tariffs, and that is something that is certainly within his purview as president. Maybe people like it. Maybe they don't like it. Maybe it makes the cost of groceries go up. Those are all real, debatable arguments.

On the vaccine stuff, though, it's not an argument in terms of the polio vaccine and in terms of that and what that looks like. And so I do think that is going to be a huge space to watch because we saw – I mean, everyone understands the scope of HHS, especially after living through the COVID-19 pandemic. And I do think that's a real question of what that looks like. And I'll say –

From my reporting, Trump leans heavily on RFK Jr. and trusts him and does believe in what he's trying to do here. So he will be an empowered HHS secretary. I agree. It's nuts. By the way, the economic argument globally on tariffs is as strong as the vaccine argument. You only use them as a small weapon. But the point is, unqualified nut with a crank opinion being given a tremendous amount of power to do damage with.

That's what happened here. At a time when vaccine skepticism is growing and we see childhood diseases that we thought we had conquered coming back. So, no, this is a, you know, I have a hard time being too hard on Cassidy just because, you know,

He has shown some courage in the past, and he showed the courage to at least raise the issue. But yeah, this is really, it's disappointing. And you have to ask yourself, at what cost?

And do you at what cost do you hang on to your Senate seat if you think you're going to? Listen, I know Caitlin's going to have to run shortly. And I want to discuss Democrats a little further because. Let's talk DNC. They had a meeting and they elected a party chair last week and basically modeled all the behavior that.

that was so costly and should be a source of reflection. The only guy who actually resisted this sort of descent into extreme identity politics there was Bernie's guy, Fulmer.

Fais Shakir was a candidate for chairman, got two votes. I was going to say, yeah, courageously. Because he said, you know, maybe we shouldn't go down this. Maybe we should be focused on these economic issues. And that's the end of him. Goodbye.

Yeah. No, it's grim. It's grim. Well, it doesn't matter because the DNC is not going to set the message for the Democratic Party.

and a wartime leader, it could be a focal point for communication. Instead, they picked a nice guy from Minnesota who narrowly beat the nice guy from Wisconsin that Pelosi and Schumer were for. He wasn't even that narrow. He wiped them out. So it's the surrender caucus that the Democratic Party remains in complete power. Yeah, I think that, you know, the danger, Caitlin, is that Democrats...

That they adopt the Murphy theory that Trump will self-destruct and assume that that is enough. Now, wait a minute. I'm going to blow the... I'm throwing a flag on that. I have been arguing this podcast since back when you told me inflation wouldn't be an issue in the campaign. No, you got that right. That they need more offense. But I think Trump gives them an opportunity because he tends to implode as an incumbent, which is why he lost... Did you say more offense or more offense?

No, more offense. No more offense. Enough of the offense already. Even though I write a lot of them. My deadly pen.

No, I just think, you know, the Democratic Party has, and I've said a million times here, become a college-educated metropolitan party who still fashions itself as the party of working people, but approaches them like anthropologists and missionaries. And Democrats show up and say, we're here to help you become more like us.

And bring with it all, you know, these sort of moralizing about other issues that turn people away. And the lack of recognition of that, at least in that room, which is basically a room full of people who were appointed by Congress.

the Biden campaign. And yet again, the road leads back. By the way, check out firing line of Margaret Hoover, Carville. And I did it last week. And James did a great rant about all this stuff, which is highly entertaining on PBS. When, when I was saying the, making the point earlier that Trump doesn't have to fear reelection or impeachment or the courts, you know, Democrats, every Democrat we've had on since, since Trump took office was how,

how is your party going to handle this and how do they respond? And what we've seen over the last week is just a delayed response from them. I think it was

three days after the federal funding freeze was put in place that house democrats held an emergency meeting or you know the usaid stuff and elon musk and his allies getting access to a sensitive treasury payment system yeah we didn't even talk about that by the way yeah that typically only a few people have because it because of what it does it's the data of millions of americans but also it's dispersing the trillions of dollars of the federal government but but democrats it just seems it

I mean, Elon Musk made this tweet, this point to tweet, which is that he said the opposition basically takes the weekend off the two days off and it's just easy to get ahead. He's just saying it. But it is true that there was no response over the weekend. We should implement drug testing over there at Doge and see. Elon wouldn't pass.

Yeah. But, well, we'll see about that. I don't want to get sued, so I want to make clear that was Mike Murphy who said that. I was speculating about a public figure with no malicious intent. I was hinting. I was taking it right to the line, man. We've got to be a little subtle here in the new age. No, we don't. We need sledgehammers and sharp sticks. Enough of this Democrat stuff. Now let's hear from our sponsors. Listener Mail.

If you have a question, send it to us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com. You know the damn number. You can also do a voicemail. Just keep it short. We're the blowhards here. Give them the voicemail number. Voicemail number. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471.

And as always, we thank AI for providing that amazing bit of voice that sounded exactly like Mike Murphy. You need to spend the big money to get the real voice, but that's pretty close. Caitlin, a listener named Jesse recorded a message. It was almost as if he knew that we were going to be graced with your presence.

And so let's listen to his question and you answer. This is Jesse from Madison, Wisconsin. It looks like the House is gearing up for a big fight on the spending package, which may include cuts to Medicaid, which seem unpopular in a lot of swing districts.

Is this the first real fight that Trump may face, or will the GOP fall in line behind him? Thank you. One, Jesse, I love Camp Randall, and I went there for the first time a few months ago for the Bama game. We won, so if you're a Wisconsin fan, I'm sorry, but I loved it. Small consolation. And when they played jump around, it was awesome. So I had a great time, and thanks for hosting me. Secondly...

The spending fight is going to be remarkable to watch because what we have heard, I mean, the Republicans huddled down in Miami. There is no plan right now when it comes to the immigration tax energy spending plan that they've got to figure out in addition to the debt ceiling. Right now, there is no nothing that they've coalesced around. Maybe Mike Johnson and his team have an idea, but but nothing that the party has coalesced around. So it's very fascinating to watch.

I do think Trump has said, you know, no cuts to Medicare and Social Security. What does that look like for Medicaid? And what is the future of that?

And the Affordable Care Act. And the Affordable Care Act. And obviously that they have, you know, continued to try to push, but never ultimately come up with any kind of replacement. They could defund it. They can not extend the subsidies that Biden plussed up. Yeah, they can certainly affect it. Whether or not that's one of the first things they try to do. I mean, that was what they tried to do eight years ago. And it famously went down in flames and angered Trump. We'll see. But this will be a huge fight to watch.

And the question is how long it takes to even get to an agreement on that. We have no idea right now, but because we have no idea because Republicans don't have an idea on that. Yeah, there is no plan. This is why Foon wanted to do this in two stages, because he wanted to deal with immigration in one stage.

reconciliation bill and deal with the other letter because he foresaw. They have no plan because it's so hard to do. LBJ would have said no, too tricky to pull off in a tight house. So we will see. I think train wreck. I

I mean, the deal here in a nutshell is they want to pass massive tax cuts. There are spending zealots in the Freedom Caucus who won't accept unfunded tax cuts, and they want bigger cuts than they can find. And once you start getting into that size cuts, you're getting into cuts that Trump's not going to want because they're going to be politically unpopular. So it's a big old mess that they have to resolve, Jesse. And...

Just make sure that you keep your eye on the source on CNN because you'll find out every night as that fight goes on what's actually really happening. Shameless plug. Shameless. And Camp Randall did this amazing, I can't remember what it's called, but it's this basically you can go get a pitcher of beer and hang out on this patio right on the water.

And in September, it's amazing. And all the college kids are out there and everyone's in such a good mood. It's like sunny and warm in Wisconsin. It's amazing. So maybe just hang out there and wait for them to come up with a plan. You see, the North isn't that bad, Caitlin. It has its virtues. Plus, they lost for you. So that was good. You know, the tide rolled there. Yeah.

That made it even better. We were rolling at the beginning of the season. It didn't go so well for the end of it. But you know what? We're ranked number three in basketball right now, so we're taking our wounds where we can get them. There we go. Take what you can grab. All right. Kaylin, we'll let you get back to your demanding job covering the circus here. I think the elephant may try to play the piano today. I don't know what your agent is telling you, but if I were your agent, I'd be negotiating an hourly rate for you. Seriously, right? Yeah.

I'll put in a call. Yeah, thanks for coming by. Great to have you. Come back often. Love to see you. Y'all are awesome. I love this conversation. Thank you for having me. See you later. Take care. Okay, for David Axelrod, we have a question from Kathy. Kathy wants to know, why do Democratic senators keep electing Chuck Schumer as their leader? From the outside, he seems ineffectual.

Yeah, well, I'll tell you something. I mean, there's no doubt Chuck Schumer is not a guy who you want on television. He's not a guy who makes a great speech. He doesn't exactly ooze sincerity when he's out there. He looks but but when it comes to.

trying to protect his members, elect members, raise money, do all the things that senators look to for support. He is indefatigable.

And that's why he keeps getting reelected. At the end of the day, a big part of the role of the leader is to make his delegation as numerous as possible. And yes, they lost seats in this election. They also had a bad hand and managed to win some races that you

By tradition, you would have thought they would lost because Trump had won states where they reelected Democratic senators. I've never been like a huge booster of Schumer, but that is why people elect him. And as long as they feel like he can help them win, my guess is that he will say because he will outwork everybody. Yeah, you can't overestimate what an inside job this whole thing is. It's like being concierge of the Senate and that.

for a lot. And who else wants the damn job, you know, right now? Well, I think Hakeem Jeffries is much better, but it'd be great if the leaders were people you could present out front who really could move message. And that's not going to be Chuck Schumer. That was my hope for DNC. But, you know, whiff. I mean, the

I don't think that ever was going to be, and I'm not sure it will ever again be the place where message is generated. That's going to come from individual leaders and people who are emerging as potential candidates for 2028. Mike Murphy, Philip asks, why are the Democrats so bad at messaging on tariffs? His negotiating strategy, his being...

the president is basically do as I say, or the American consumers or the American consumer gets it. He's not a master negotiator. He's a bully. And like all bullies, he's going to get punched in the mouth by the smaller kids soon.

I bet you find much in that to agree with. Well, so here's the problem with tariffs. A lot of voters like the idea of tariffs because this is the argument. Well, you know, we got too much imported stuff coming in here. So we're going to put a 25% tax on that damn Canadian steel coming into Detroit to build cars. And then we'll buy more American steel. So, of course, what really happens is the Canadian steel goes up, screwing the Canadians.

And it comes into Detroit 25% higher. So General Motors said, well, we better buy more American steel. And the American mills raised their steel price 25% or more because there are shortages and you can't build a new steel factory in a week, a decade.

So meanwhile, the Canadians say, all right, no more American liquor on the, which they've said, if this trade war were to start, on the liquor stores in Canada, which sell a billion dollars a week in American booze. So economically, it's cancer.

Once in a while it makes sense because somebody else cheats at trade and you need a painful way to push back as a short-term way to negotiate your way out of it. So the reason that Democrats are so bad on tariffs is a lot of Democratic voters and more than a few particularly labor-connected Democratic politicians like tariffs. They think they will create more American jobs. They think protectionism works.

Though the history on this, which we have a lot of, and Google the Great Depression, Smoot-Hawley, is it is poison. And it is bad, and everybody gets screwed, particularly the consumer, because the prices get passed on to you. There were studies that if we had, and there were heart attacks going on in Detroit over this. If Trump had actually done this, and he still might, the average car would cost $3,000 to $10,000 more.

So it bought in America. So it's madness, but it has a political appeal, which is what the Donald, unfortunately, is betting on. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the message is pretty clear. What these tariffs do is raise costs for Americans and helps China. I mean, obviously, the China tariffs are not helpful to China, but the tariff threats against Canada, against Mexico, our two other largest trading partners, against the European Union,

because they're going to drive these countries to look for other markets and other supply chains. So it's a dumbass policy to lead with. I mean, there are places where tariffs are appropriate, but they are a surgical tool, not a bludgeon, and that the president doesn't understand.

Murphy, we're going to be busy, brother. And by the way, we should tell our listeners that we, you know, the White House has opened up a rotating seat at their

the press briefing of their press secretary to podcasters. And we have gotten our application in. Please send your letters of support to the press secretary at the White House. We are looking forward to being included in one of those sessions. And Murphy and I can get together and get the best and smartest question together. We're going to be ready for them. Yeah, looking forward to that too. Mr. President, do you use American-made hairspray?

A little question here. 80% of it comes from Thailand, sir. Yeah, we're working on a list. So, yeah, let's get us in the press room where we can help democracy work. All right, brother. Until next time. Good to see you, pal. It was fun. Until next time. Onward.