Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. Hacks on Tap
I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now. Never been like that. They can say Donald Trump won. I give him that. But he, as a Republican incumbent, didn't get 40% of the vote of the primary. All right there, Robert Gibbs. We have two, it seems like somewhat conflicting views of what the meaning of the South Carolina primary was over.
over the weekend. And I think we ought to discuss the state of the Republican Party with a decidedly ununified guest. Our buddy Sarah Longwell is back.
from The Focus Group, one of the great podcasts of our time, publisher of The Bulwark. What's the name of your apostate Republican group? Defending Democracy Together, but we also run Republican Voters Against Trump.
Yeah. You got a lot of things going on, man. Well, there's a lot of disunity in the Republican Party. So you got a lot of ground to cover. To Nikki Haley's point. So says Nikki Haley, right. Yeah. So, Sarah, what does that 40 percent actually mean? And is Trump an incumbent? So should we think of it that way?
I think so. Look, I think there's two ways to read it. There's a glass half full case and there's a glass half empty case. Yeah, I like to take the glass half full case, which is Nikki's. I will say, though, just for accuracy's sake, just for thinking about how things might go. The fact is, it wasn't 40 percent of Republicans.
in this primary. It was 28% of self-identified Republicans that actually voted for Nikki Haley. And in South Carolina, 68% of the people who voted in the primary were Republicans. So she won 59% of independence. And I think because she spent at least $16 million in the state, because she had three weeks... Yeah, she did a lot of mobilization with independents. And I don't know how many of
It was her state, too, and I don't know how you include that. But she got, you know, this is on top of the 42 in New Hampshire, which was probably half independents and Democrats or more.
But what does it tell us moving forward? I think it says that he's a little weaker with the general election population than, you know, I think the polling right now has people really freaked out. Almost every poll that comes out in swing states has Trump up, you know, five ish points, somewhere between three to six points.
And I don't know what's going on with the polling right now, but I do think when I talk to... I do. It's just early. It's just early. I'm not just saying... People don't think the race is formed yet, right? They do not know if it's going to be Trump or Biden. I listen to these voters and focus groups all the time, and there is still the belief that something different is going to happen. Yeah. But when you mobilize, and I think this is what Nikki Haley's done, when you mobilize the anti-Trump coalition...
when they get a chance to go vote against Trump, you do see energy there. And I think that's what we saw in South Carolina. That's the part, that's the glass half full part that I'm excited about. David, I think to your point at the very beginning, I do think two things can be true. I think he won the state overwhelmingly, right? And if you look at what a nomination contest is, which is a fight for delegates, right?
You know, he overwhelmed her with delegates and he's going to overwhelm her with delegates in Michigan. He's going to overwhelm her with delegates in Idaho. He's going to overwhelm her with delegates on Super Tuesday. I do think there is a there's no doubt, though, there is an underlying problem, whether it's with independents, which we all well know can vote in a general election.
I do also think he's got a part Republican Party problem. And you see some of this in the exit polling that suggests, even at this point, whether or not he's an incumbent or not, he's been the faraway frontrunner for the nomination. And there's no doubt that there's some percentage of that that is having trouble swallowing the idea of Donald Trump being the nominee for the Republican Party again. You've said this before, Axe, and I give you great credit in saying that.
you know, if you're the Biden campaign, you'd be doing focus groups for these voters because some level of these voters are, some level of these voters are going to get right with who the Republican nominee is because it happens every time, right? You go through a contest, you pick your candidate. It takes a little time. You vote for the nominee. Some of them aren't going to vote. Some
Some of them could be peeled off. And in a race with six states deciding it and a few percentage points in each state, it might not take a lot of disaffected Haley voters to make things more interesting. There's no doubt. We have two nominees who have great vulnerabilities, and Trump
can bleed some, but it's really hard to judge this out of the context of the choice. And so, you know, as Sarah said, you know, what percentage of these people put on their red jersey come November versus Biden? What percentage don't vote?
what percentage vote for a third party candidate, which I think is going to be a significant factor here in a race that will be marginal in those battleground states that you guys mentioned. I don't know how to interpret this. I think, Sarah, you said glass half full, glass half empty. If Murphy was here, he'd be
uh, drinking, um, both glasses. No, he'd be drinking madly from, he's already given up on the glass half full. Trump's going to lose. Uh, we started, you know, you're a year ago with him saying, Trump is crumbling. You can see it. He's going to get crushed in Iowa. You guys going to have to eat 300 pounds of crow.
Didn't we bet him? When are we collecting on this bet? He lost that bet. We said he was going to have to eat the crow, but I can't find a 300-pound crow. And we're still looking. But I think his last half full interpretation would be Sarah's, which is this shows Trump's vulnerability. Let me ask you something, Sarah. I heard you delivering a powerful and heartfelt speech.
tribute to Nikki Haley this morning on CNN and encouraging her to stay in. And I talked to some another never Trump or Republican today who said, yes, she should stay in because she drives him nuts. And it's good for people to see him in his full craziness. But what is Haley doing? I mean, here's the thing about Nikki Haley. She is
She flip-flops back and forth. There's no, it's not clear who she is, right? But we know there's a version of her that is this version, right? The version that sees clearly who Donald Trump is and is going at him hard. I think what is happening is,
is that she realizes she wasn't getting anywhere appealing to Trump's base. And she was going into some of these open primary states. The only path was for her to kind of burn the boats and start going after him harder. And that has allowed her to overperform in the polls. I listen to Mike Murphy all the time on this show, and he does overshoot in his optimism about this party quite a bit. But I will say I've been under
she has exceeded my expectations in terms of how she's been doing. And so I think she's probably exceeding her own a little bit and she's doing it by animating the anti-Trump coalition. And so I think she's decided to lean into that. To what end, I guess is what I'm asking. I think she's learned from running this race. Here's the thing. I think a lot of Republican elites, Mike Pence, uh,
And just about everybody who ran. Right. They got into this race, but especially the pre-Trump politicians, the Tim Scots, the Mike Pence, the Nikki Haley. They realize now that the party's gone. I'm not sure they clearly saw it going into this race. Otherwise, they might not have run. But I do think as they have run this race, Nikki Haley has realized independents are now gone.
her constituency. She does not have a real foothold in this Republican Party. And once you realize how much the party's changed, it is possible that she sees that this is not her future. Every time I see someone predict that Nikki Haley is saying, oh, well, if I'm the last person standing, I'm the presumptive nominee in 2020. I just shake my head. I shake my head. No, she's not. The party is going in the opposite direction for Nikki Haley. So my hope is that what she's done is decide
This is too much and that she won't endorse Trump. I got to tell you, my biggest fear. Well, this is a question as well, because, you know, she's already pledged to even if he was convicted. I don't have a therapy session here, but I don't I don't think that for us or her. He's talking about me. Yeah, I was talking about Sarah. Yeah, he's calling me Lucy with the football right now. I think. Yeah, I think. Look, I think what she's probably doing as much as anything right now. And I said this a bit ago, which is.
She's accumulating some level of delegates, albeit extraordinarily small. We should, again, underscore. But we should, you know, she she's trying to be the person that if Trump's legal life gets even more complicated than owing half a billion dollars, meaning in a criminal sense that, you know, look, you see this on the left here, but it's like, shouldn't we replace the candidate? You know, they're going to be there's going to be Robert.
Well, let me find Ezra others. I think that I think she's trying to be the last person standing and a legitimate one that's getting 40 some percent of the vote. And and if something happens to Donald Trump as the nominee sees there, as you said, acts politically, it would make sense only for her to get out.
because she would remain in some ways in good stead with the Republican Party, even after what she's done. I think that she's I think she's staying in to try to make some larger points. But I also think she's trying to hold on to something if something happens. All right. So let's just just take a short break for a reality check. I agree with Sarah that she would be the last person that the Trump's Trumpies would turn to.
if Trump for some reason couldn't go forward. If Trump is convicted, that will affect his ability to be nominated, not one whit.
they will go ahead and nominate him convicted or not. And if he is convicted, he will be more determined than ever to be that nominee because he, he will be that much more desperate not to go to prison. Mine was predicated on him not being the nominee, not just convicted. But, but let me just, I mean, cause I hear this crap, just like I hear this crap on the democratic side that some, some delegation of elders is going to go down and persuade by
Biden not to be the nominee. First of all, how do you find people, elders who are more elderly than Biden? That's not going to happen. Secondly, that history is done. I mean, that's 1940s history. That's not the way politics works.
today these guys i'm not saying just to be clear no no no i no don't you don't have to defend yourself i'm i'm well i do sort of because you one i think you're taking a bit of license with what i was trying to make as a point but you go ahead you you you label it crap and no but i just hear it i do that all the time i know i know that's that's there in life's part of the challenge
My question really is if I'm trying to crawl into Nikki Haley's head and think about what she is at, because she's she's a very ambitious politician. And, you know, one of the things that sort of drives me a clue is she is hitting Trump for sure, as Sarah pointed out. But the thing she keeps saying is he can't win. So we shouldn't be for him. She never says he he shouldn't win.
And when she crosses that line, she'll have, you know, she'll have earned the Courage Award. But it seems to me what she's playing for is to have a big, I told you so, if he goes down in November and be the person who can lead the party back. But the question is, can you do that and not say, I'm going to vote for him at the end of it? No, which is why she's going to say she's going to vote for him. She's already said it. I know, but she's, you know, she has serendipity.
Sarah points out she she she never she never feels particularly burdened by what she said before. I understand. But I do think politicians are going to politician. Right. She she does want a future. She's 52. Right. She doesn't see herself as, you know, the last act of the Nikki Haley campaign. And so I think she she sees herself as the Renaissance candidate, I think.
But Sarah would know better. I don't think there's a world where she endorses Biden. I think there's a world in which she... Right? Okay, but I think there's a world in which she either withholds her endorsement or...
does something very tepid. Like there are ranges of what a candidate can do to support the nominee, right? And so she can telegraph a lot. Now, obviously, look, Nikki, nobody's, no politician's broken my heart more than Nikki Haley. Like a younger Sarah Longwell thought Nikki Haley was the future of the party. And I was excited about that. And having watched her, I mean,
It was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen when she stood there and said, when asked if she was going to run for president, that she had to check with Donald Trump first. And I have watched her reverse herself and walk back. There's a reason when you ask about Nikki Haley in the focus groups,
They all say, well, I don't trust her. And I think what they mean is they've seen her be on both sides of the Donald Trump question several times. And it's one of the same reasons I don't trust her. That being said, if she were to withhold, that would be incredible. And it would because right now,
She is either she could be doing an enormous amount of damage to Trump right now, or she could be doing an enormous amount of damage to Biden right now. We actually don't know which until she either endorses or doesn't endorse, because if she does endorse Trump after everything she said and gives, you seem to think that's a foregone conclusion. Um,
She builds a permission structure for those voters to say the worst thing, which is that as bad as Donald Trump is, he is still not worse than Biden. And I have a great I think there's a look. I think there's probably a 65 percent chance she does that. She's setting herself up. I heard her say it on NPR the other day that Biden is worse.
However, if she if she doesn't endorse, she has built an enormous permission structure for her types of voters to also withhold their vote from Donald Trump. And I think that we should not. I think we should demand that of her. We might. Well, we could very well lose that fight. But I oftentimes think we let politicians off the hook when we just say, well, it's all over. And we take the most cynical view of them every single time because then they have no incentive to do the right thing.
We take the most cynical view from them because they act like politicians. I understand. I understand. Well, I always say I've said it a million times. There's a reason profiles and courage is a slim volume. I mean, it's not. But it's not. I'm not denigrating her. I mean, this is what, you know, she you know, she's got to have some viability to become whatever she wants to be. You're raising the question. I guess my question is, I think if she does endorse him, what she's saying is, I'm I'm going to I'm not done and I'm coming back.
If she if she if she does endorse him, I should say, if she doesn't endorse him, I think it's harder for her perhaps to come back in four years and say, you know, but maybe not. Maybe she figures, listen, I will I'm keeping I will keep my Republican card intact.
I will grudgingly endorse him. When he fails, I will come back and say, I warned you about that. But it is really hard. It's unbelievable. Here's a guy who's single-handedly holding up aid to Ukraine, who...
hugs Putin. She is a hawk on these issues. She thinks they are central to who the country is and should be. It's a it's a real hard thing. I mean, Biden is much closer. Her views on these issues than than Trump on those issues. Yes, but he doesn't believe for one second that Joe Biden is worse than Donald Trump. She doesn't believe that inside. I am certain of it.
I think you guys are misunderstood. Well, I would say, I think, yes, on Ukraine and a few other things. But let's be honest, on about 80 other policy issues, she's aligned with the Republican Party. I think we're forgetting the way primaries normally end in these things, right? In fact, if you remember the end of 2008, if you listened to Hillary Clinton, you would have thought Barack Obama was so inexperienced that he would pose a danger to leading the country.
right? Because that's what you say at the end of these races when that's your message. And then you come back and you decide, you know, in the end, and we know this is the driving force in our politics today, is political party, right? To your point, David, they're all going to put on red jerseys. We're all going to put on blue jerseys. And I think the likelihood that she's
I think the likelihood that even now she thinks she agrees with Joe Biden more than Donald Trump is nothing but a fantasy. Or crap, I guess, in Axe's verbiage today. Yeah.
Donald Trump is like, oh, I'm sorry. She doesn't agree with him on his spending on the debt. She doesn't agree with him on Social Security and Medicare. She actually Donald Trump. He has changed. You know, I know you think she's bad, but she is much closer to a traditional Republican on those things than Donald Trump is. But the Republican Party is less close to the traditional Republican on those issues. Gibbs.
Here's the thing. I take your point, and I think it's real, this idea that we have a reason to be cynical, not just about politicians, but about Nikki Haley in particular. But hold on one second. There are politicians—
who have had their road to Damascus moment, right? Liz Cheney has, Adam Kinzinger has, Liz Cheney voted for Donald Trump in 2020, right? She voted for him knowing all those things, but she split for him after January 6th. I mean, Nikki Haley might, she disagrees with Donald Trump on his position that the constitution should be gotten rid of. Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's no way that she doesn't think Joe Biden is safer than Donald Trump, that Donald Trump's not more dangerous. But here's the thing about Nikki Haley.
She either knows that she has no future in the Republican Party or she's delusional.
And if she knows she has no future in the Republican Party, then she has a reason to stand up to Donald Trump now because it's the right thing to do. If she's delusional and thinks there's a world in which the Republican Party is coming back to somebody like her, then, yes, she endorses him and everything else. But the thing that Liz Cheney began to understand and the thing that many of these Republicans who have turned their back on Trump have understood is that this party is not the one they joined.
policy or otherwise? I think it's a long road back, but again, she's 52. I think, you know, you mentioned Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, but neither of them could get elected class president.
But neither could Nikki Haley. She couldn't get reelected governor in South Carolina right now. I don't know. I'd take her against Henry McMaster. But I do think that I do think she believes she has a political future. I do believe she thinks that the party isn't going to be the same party today, particularly if Donald Trump loses. I agree with acts that she'll put on her. I told you so sure. And and go off marching around the fact that that Republicans keep losing elections. They should be winning.
Okay, then let's take a break right here and we'll be right back. She has like eight fundraisers this week. And it makes me wonder whether she's putting chestnuts away for a long, hard winter here. The funny thing is, if she endorses Trump,
She will endorse Trump rooting for his failure because that's the only prescription for her theory that she can come back. But one last question on her. You know, the speech she made on Saturday was a classic kind of third way speed. And, you know, there's this discussion about would she go would she go independent?
And here's a clip of her talking about this, which you go to the no labels party.
Well, I'm sitting here focused on Super Tuesday States. That's what I'm going to do. I'm a Republican. I have not talked to any other organization. I have not put a second of thought into an independent run because I'm a Republican. That's what I've always been. I've been a conservative Republican my whole life. I'm not going to switch over and have a Democrat vice president. That's not something I would do. My heart has always been with the Republican Party and this country.
So it doesn't exactly rule out an independent run, but it does sort of rule out the no labels party because they have said avowedly that they would have a bipartisan ticket.
So I don't know. It doesn't seem to me like she's going down that road. She did certainly do well. If you look at where she did well in South Carolina, along the coast, particularly in the Charleston area, in Columbia, I mean, she did, to Sarah's point, around sort of taking the Republican and the independent number and sort of what her composition of vote is, a lot of those retirees that are moving from other
other places into the coast of South Carolina for the taxes and the weather. And our sort of traditional red state South Carolina voters came out in big numbers for her.
That's right. I don't see her doing the third party thing like no labels because the snow labels, they're so silly. It's the most ridiculous operation I've ever seen. But it it is because Larry Hogan is now running for Senate and Joe Manchin has said he's out there out there now being like, yes, of course, we'd love to talk to Nikki Haley like they're floating it. Nikki Haley's not going to them being like, boy, I sure think this is interesting. And sure.
Besides that, there's sore loser laws. Like, there's just all kinds of reasons why I don't see her going that way. And no label should pull the plug and pack it up. Yeah. Or change their name to the No Candidate Party. Yeah, that's right. That could be. I know Michigan has a sore loser rule where if you run in the Michigan primary, you can't run in the general election. Let's talk about Michigan, because even as we speak today, Michigan voters are...
are streaming to the polls to, uh, vote in two races that ultimately have no meaning, uh, for president. Um, but, uh, there, you know, people will look at Haley and see how she does there. And on the Democrat side, uh, there is this late breaking, uh, drama about, uh, whether, uh,
Democrats will vote uncommitted and listen to Rashida Tlaib, the congresswoman from Detroit and other leaders who are protesting Biden's Middle East policies, policy toward the war in Gaza. Gibbs, how successful do you think that is and how problematic is that for Biden looking to a general election in Michigan? You've done work in Michigan.
Yeah, I think to some degree it's deeply problematic. Look, I think we're going to have to look at tonight with a couple of different lenses because we should just sort of remind folks in 2012 and 2016 and 2020, about 20,000 people, 19 to 20,000 people voted uncommitted. So even when Barack Obama was winning elections,
uh, the renomination in 2012, they still had 20, you still had 20% of the people voting uncommitted, which is an interesting and kind of weird thing. Um,
The question is, and the party or not the party, the group has set a goal of basically matching 11000 people right into that uncommitted because they say that's the number of voters. Accurately, the Trump won the state by. I think they actually said I need 11000, 780. And I made it in a phone call. I think that but I think.
I think numbers aside, because, you know, there's 70 or so thousand Arab American voters heavily concentrated in Dearborn outside of Michigan. But I think there's enough rhetoric from the community there to believe that Joe Biden has a political problem. One that, you know, he sent his deputy national security advisor there to talk to groups and
they were so concerned about this after the campaign sent the campaign manager and groups refused to meet with her. So I don't think there's any doubt. And look, under this theory, if you're voting for anybody other than Joe Biden, you're voting for Donald Trump, which I think is the theory the Biden campaign has and probably should have, that any vote that isn't for Joe Biden is a bad thing for Joe Biden.
And, you know, these voters, again, a little bit like Nikki's voters, are they going to sit it out? I don't see them going to the Trump side of this or the Republican side of this, but they could easily sit this out and cause a big problem. That's the danger. You know, there are a couple of hundred thousand Arab American voters in Michigan, and they voted overwhelmingly for Biden in 2020. If they sit out, it's going to be a marginal race in Michigan. And, you know, that doesn't include
disaffection among young people over this war, disaffection among African-Americans over the war. So which may be, Sarah, why Biden wandered into an ice cream parlor in New York yesterday and said he thought that there was a ceasefire imminent on the end and he did it on the eve of the of the
primary. What tea leaves should we read from Michigan? Well, I want to talk about actually Michigan on the Republican side in just a second, so remind me of that. But on Biden, you know, I think there's people want to make themselves heard on a
the Gaza-Israel situation. And frankly, I'm glad they can make themselves heard in a primary where the stakes are nothing for Joe Biden other than a narrative, right? But if you give people the opportunity to kind of get this out of their system, it matters a lot more what the situation is eight months from now than it does where it is today from just a pure political standpoint for Biden. And so I think, yeah,
Hopefully they feel like they are heard from this and they come back. I do think, I mean, I've always thought Biden's theory of the case is
I don't think they should rest on it. I think it is. They have to they have to have a sense of urgency about how hard they're pushing. And yet I have always agreed just because I listen to these voters all the time who are down on Biden, even mad at Biden, blame him for the fact that their rents high or inflation. But you tell them Trump versus Biden and they say, oh, I'm going to come out and vote for Biden, you know, put a pin in that because.
This is exactly what Governor Whitmer's message was on Sunday. Let's listen to what she said. I just want to make the case, though, that it's important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that's not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term. A second Trump term would be devastating, not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim bunt.
ban. This is, I think, a very high stakes moment. I am encouraging people to cast an affirmative vote for President Biden. I understand the pain that people are feeling and I'll continue to work to build bridges with folks in all of these communities because they're all important to me. They're all important to Michigan. And I know they're all important to President Biden as well. She's all over your point.
which is the main event comes in November and it's Biden versus Trump. And there are stark differences. And certainly there should be stark differences for that community. By the way, she's good. You know, she's she was good in delivering that message. I'm not trying to
I'm not trying to dust up the, oh boy, we should have another candidate thing, but she's got good chops. That's not what comes to mind for me. What comes to mind for me is Joe Biden is in desperate need of a big, broad surrogate game. Oh, there's no doubt. When she comes out and does this and you think,
boy, Gretchen Whitmer's quite good at this. You're like, why don't we see Gretchen Whitmer all the time? Why don't we see Jared Polis all the time? Why don't we see Josh Shapiro all the time? I mean, they need the probably this is the most significant. I mean, there's never been a greater need for a superstar surrogate group and a superstar surrogate group that is strategically coordinated with a message that is consonant with the message that the campaign wants to send.
I don't know why they didn't flood the zone after Trump tanked the immigration bill. I don't know why they didn't flood the zone about, they haven't flooded the zone on this Ukraine issue with Trump. You know, Biden can't carry the message the way other presidential candidates have. Therefore, surrogates become so much more important. And the surrogate director, Gibbs, in that campaign is going to be a lot more important than
And the surrogate directors have been in the past. Yeah, no doubt. Look, Murphy said this too. I mean, he'd campaign with the surrogates, basically bring them along on all these trips. I think he just wants to get Tina Raimondo sprung from the Department of Commerce out on the campaign trail. But look, I think surrogates are going to be a big reason and a big challenge. I think...
I think that my guess, though, is the Biden campaign understands, you know, that, yes, this is an expression during a primary and they hope that time heals all wounds. I do think there is a political challenge that they have. I think it is going to require policy.
Biden to get involved in the political challenge that the policy challenge has created for him. Because these are voters, Sarah, not unlike you and others in the Republican side on democracy. This is life and death for them. And I don't think that this is just going to be one of those things where
People are not going to want to see a policy change, but they're just going to feel good like we registered our we registered our cause. We're now going to be back on Team Biden in November. I think I think Whitmer said what she needed to say and what she could say. I do not think that in and of itself is going to assuage a lot of those. But I think the larger point Sarah's making is he they need to flood the zone with these surrogates.
And it also conveys a sense when you do that, that it isn't just Biden, but it's a team that there are a lot, you know, that there's the democratic team out there. And that's what Murphy's point is about the cabinet. You know, the cabinet are eminently presentable, smart, capable people. And therefore it conveys a sense of a government that is capable and smart and normal and
So there are all kinds of benefits to that. One thing I would say to you, Gibbs, though, I don't know that the Biden folks are as much hopeful that time heals all wounds as much as time wounds all heals. I think that's what they're, as Dorothy Parker used to say, not that time heals.
Anyway, it's an old joke. Time wounds all heels. Anyway, back to... We didn't laugh. We heard it. We just didn't find it all as... Maybe we have to cut the damn joke. No, let the people hear your joke. It was... It was actually Dorothy Parker's joke, by the way. I stole that joke. But Sarah, you want to talk about the Republican side in... Yeah, I only wanted to make one point, which is, as we have been trying to sort of
pull out the different segments of the Haley voters in New Hampshire and in South Carolina, Michigan's going to give us a much clearer shot at this, because even though it is an open primary as well, she's only had a few days, right? Like she spent less than half a million dollars in the state. She's been in the state for like three days. So she hasn't had the time to sort of fire up the anti-Trump coalition like she has in the last two states. And so for me, I think it's going to be interesting to get a much
cleaner read on, like right now, Trump's up 70% over her. And so that, like, does she overperform in this state? That is going to be actually, I think, quite interesting. And tell us more than we've learned so far. Look, I think the next eight or nine days, she had 10 days from Saturday. So it's, we're now at eight to seven to eight days.
To your point, you come out of these first four states where you've spent an inordinate amount of time talking to voters in person, answering their questions, being on their TV sets to, you know, jumping into Super Tuesday or the lead up to and into Super Tuesday, which is 20 some states. I mean, more than a thousand delegates are going to be awarded there.
on Super Tuesday a week from today. And again, based on the rules and such, I'd have a hard time. And you could even hear Nikki Haley. She addressed this also on Saturday. She sounded like somebody willing to go through Super Tuesday, but not necessarily willing to go beyond them. Totally. She's going out after Super Tuesday. I don't think there's any question about it. Let's take a short break and hear from our sponsors. ♪
Since we're on the Republican side, let's do one quick thing. And then we've got to talk about the president who's, you know, obviously he was out on Seth Meyers last night. He's trying to take a more proactive stance here. But Trump, he everybody was outraged about a particular comment that he made over the weekend. I think it was over the weekend. I got indicted.
for nothing, for something that is nothing. They were doing it because it's election interference. And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time.
And a lot of people said that that's why the black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I'm being discriminated against. It's been pretty amazing. But it possibly, I don't know, maybe there's something there. So, Sarah, react to it, because, I mean, everybody's hair was on fire.
about it for obvious reasons it was uh it was demeaning uh in some ways but racist yes uh but yes but um i kind of feel like when trump speaks his people hear one thing and uh
Others, we hear something else. Same thing on NATO. You know, everybody was like inflamed about his comments on NATO, I think for good reason. But I wonder whether his supporters here, yeah, they ought to be paying their share of these. Why should they be freeloading off of us, these Europeans? It's actually been an issue that Democrats and Republicans have exploited. Talk to me about Trump and this repeated phenomenon where he says things that outrage Republicans.
probably everybody on this podcast and everybody who maybe most people listen to it, but don't doesn't end up hurting him. And then let's talk about him and black voters. Yeah. Well, so sometimes the focus group gods smile on me and it just so happens that yesterday I did a group of Clinton Biden voters, black voters who are leaning toward Trump.
Uh, so we were able to sort of test this proposition. So these are voters who've decided they're just out on Biden and they're, they're considering Trump.
And here's what several of them said. They said exactly what Trump said, which is, you know, I feel like Trump understands, you know, they get they're out to get him. They have all these trumped up charges going after him. And that makes me like him more. That makes me feel like he understands, you know, when that happens to people like me.
And so I think that it does hit differently. Now, I don't think this is by any means representative of all black voters. In fact, we know empirically it's not, but it was,
When Trump says things like that, Trump is saying that because he's heard people say it. And he's heard people say it because there is a strain of Black voters who I don't think, they don't say things like, boy, Trump, you know, when he's like, they love me because of my mugshot, you know, and it's like this idea of Black people go to jail and I go to jail and therefore, like, that's why we understand each other. Like, that is profoundly racist. But the idea of this guy being sort of
constantly put upon and feeling like he's the victim. That is the thing that resonates with a lot of people, not just, but one last thing I'll say about the, the black voters who were leading towards Trump is how much they sounded like, like kind of work, like a lot of the white voters that we talked to who like, there was a lot of people who were very skeptical of vaccines and who felt like that.
They felt like it was important that Trump was talking about the deep state. And so it didn't they didn't sound particularly different than a lot of the groups we listen to who are white, who are talking about why they like Trump. Was their main focus, though, on how they got to be lean Trump economics?
No. I mean, some of it was, but actually it was a lot of the, I feel like the Democratic Party takes us for granted. I feel like they just show up around election time. I feel like they don't talk to us. Some of it was value stuff around. There was a woman who talked a lot about the trans issues. And what was interesting was the moderator asked, you know, do you feel like the Republican Party is more racist about
uh, than the democratic party. And most of them said, yes, like most of them said that the Republican party broadly was more racist. Uh, but that didn't, Trump didn't get held to the, they liked Trump better than they liked the Republican party. Can I ask one question about this? How much is just the idea of strength at play here? Trump as a,
tough, strong, resilient character. One thing that strikes me is, you know, when he started getting indicted, everybody said, well, as people have said for eight years, that's the end of him. But his resilience through this, you know, gauntlet that he's running, it seems to me is one more proof point to the people who want to support him that it's a big, tough guy. And in the contrast with Biden, that
That plays for him. It does. I would say. So it's funny that the one of the biggest things that somebody said on this kind of strength point was we asked about RFK and the young men especially talked like this. But he said, I would never vote for RFK, even though I like his position on vaccines because of his voice.
And his point was that he thought RFK's voice was weird, because he's had some kind of accident that has impacted the way he talks. And the guy was like, you have to sound like a man. You have to sound like you're the leader of the world. I will tell you the other thing that was just replete in this group was a real frustration with Kamala Harris. And they were just... And they were angry. The women, these Black women were...
were like, she's invisible. She's embarrassing us. She's not out there showing how strong we are. She overemphasizes her Indian heritage versus her Black heritage. They had really...
Tough things to say. And again, I don't want to say that this is representative of black voters because I know from doing the groups, this is a very specific slice. But if you're asking the question, why is Trump doing slightly better with black voters? I felt like I got a lot of answers from this group. Yeah, I mean, it's important because he's pulling consistently 20 to 22 percent.
of uh of the black vote in polling if it were to stay that way robert that's big trouble uh in these swing states no it's huge and look look at a place like michigan right you've got a huge uh black voter population in important places like detroit and in flint uh and look it
You can boil this all down. Again, as we said, six states are going to decide this, a few thousand votes here and there. You know, any uptick in turnout that feels different than historical norms, and certainly 20 to 22 percent for a Republican with black voters would be way outside of the norm. You know, Arab Americans not voting the same. Any of these voters, Republicans for Trump, I think each of them, you know,
particular vulnerabilities just with a little, just tiny gradation of sort of what people think of as the norm. And it's got to keep them up at night. Biden was on Seth Meyers' show in New York last night. I discovered this when I was trying to walk through Midtown Manhattan and the whole damn thing was locked down because the president was in town. You just better be glad the Secret Service didn't realize you were walking on a sidewalk in Midtown, my friend. Here is the...
exchange that he had. Seth Meyers asked him directly about the age question. He was obviously prepared with an answer. How do you address that concern going forward as you come up to the 2024 election? Well, a couple of things. Number one, you got to take a look at the other guy. He's about as old as I am, but he can't remember his wife's name. Yeah. Number one. Number two.
It's about how old your ideas are. Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are 50, 60 years. They've been solid American positions. And I really mean this sincerely. I think it's about the future and everything, every single thing we've done. I think we've got some good things done.
Everything. And they told us we couldn't get them done because things were so divided. And but I think everything's everything we've gotten done. He's just friendly state. He wants to do away with you, gets elected. And I really think his views on where to take America are older than anyway. So what do you what do you what do you think of that? And this is I had them pull this clip because I wanted to get your thought on.
I don't know whether that's the answer, but that seems like a whole lot better answer than I've heard Biden and the Biden campaign give to age in a long time. Well, first of all, he did answer, which I think is a good thing, because, you know, the fact that he, you know, he snapped at the reporter when she said a lot of people worried about your age and he said, that's your opinion. Well, it's not their opinion. That's this is the single greatest barrier.
that he faces and he has to figure out a way to talk about it. And I think the core of what he said is where he should be, which is both these guys are old
to be blunt about it, you know, they have most of their lives behind them. This isn't about their future. It's about our future. And one guy is looking to the future and the other guy is consumed by his past. I think that is a fundamentally important argument. You know, execution needs some work here. But no, I think that, you know, this is,
We've I've talked about it here before. I think this is where he he needs to be. He needs to fill it out because people need to know what that means, like where where else would Trump take us back? And Sarah, one thing. Well, first of all, give your view of of that, of his answer. Does the execution overwhelm the the content? And
But do you think that the kind of future past formulation he had there worked? I mean, look, he can't pretend.
that he's not an old man. I just, I get, sometimes I get mail from the board, you know, board readers, whatever saying, well, if you, you and the media would stop talking about how old he is, you know, that's the real problem. And I'm telling you from listening to voters, Democratic voters, nobody's missing the fact that this guy's very old. And so you got to hang a lantern on it.
You got to say he's got to be able to lean into it and say, look, I'm an old man, but I'm like Yoda. You know, I'm like a wise protector. And Donald Trump is like, I'm not a big Star Wars person, but the Palpatine, the bad guy, you know, like Yoda does die in Empire Strikes Back. OK, is that is that why that's a bad thing?
understand. I'm just kidding. The Yoda good guy. They do. Wise protector, old Grandpa Joe, any of the things that feel kindly but like you're in safe hands is something he's got to figure out how to navigate. And I think he's still...
It sounded to me in his execution there that he's still a little reluctant to sort of talk about it this way. He's got a couple of good lines. There's a lot of other lines. I don't know. He could talk about how, you know, hey, let's talk about numbers like 91. You know, that's how many indictments Trump has. Like, I'm a lot younger than the number of Trump's indictments. I don't know. But there's a million ways for him to lean into it. And he does have to lean into it because it's no one's missing it. Well, I do think, you know, to your point, I mean,
And you've said this. This should be the basis of a speech that he gives, right? This should be the basis of and the basis of many speeches. To your point, let's outline why he has old ideas on choice, why he has old ideas on defending the country, why he has old ideas on X, Y and Z, on tax cuts for, you know, for working class people, all of those things that
I think, look, I thought it was a great answer only in the sense that, yes, execution is about a six. I'm just glad we're getting to making that turn. We're not making just a joke anymore that, oh, I remember, I'm good friends with James Madison. It is, to Sarah's point, it's addressing the issue that A, is out there. And I think, look, I think you've seen a stepped up Biden campaign before.
Yes, I think they should have done a Super Bowl interview. I'm glad they did Seth Meyers. They're going to the border on Thursday. I do think you've seen the beginnings of a cadence that acknowledges what Sarah said, which is they may not like to talk about age. Voters...
have made up their mind on it. You can't not join the issue. You have to tell people why it's worth it. I do think on the content, though, you know, Sarah, my view is that people, you have to be a little bit more specific about those things that, specific issues on which Trump is off base because I think people
The sort of Trump as maniac, Trump as or not as maniac, but Trump as a, you know, displeasing personality thing is sort of baked in the cake. And there's kind of like, yeah, he's kind of nuts, but he's strong. And, you know, you've got to defeat that. So you've got to really be on his ass all the time.
You know, and maybe Biden will be when they both are down at the border on Thursday because this border issue looms very large in this election. All right. Hold that thought. We're going to take a short break. And now a word from our sponsors. If you've got a question for David Axelrod, Mike Murphy, myself or guests, anybody, you can email us.
at hacksontap at gmail.com. That's hacksontap at gmail.com or call David Axelrod's backup home phone number 773-389-4471 and quickly record your question for the hack. Say your name, say your question, hang up. And if it isn't four and a half minutes long, we'll use it on the air. Sarah, Dietrich left a voicemail message and I think it was meant for
All of us, but why don't you take the first crack at this one?
Hey Hacks, this is Dietrich from Michigan. How politically exposed are Republicans to the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that grants legal personhood to frozen embryos? Will its impact be limited to the South or will it affect them nationwide? Thanks. Love the show. Thanks, Dietrich. Great question. So the IVF ruling is bad for Republicans. However, how bad it is for Republicans has a lot to do with whether or not Democrats can prosecute an offense case on this because Donald Trump
Is this is where he sort of shines in triangulating against rulings like these. And, you know, you saw he came out and condemned it very quickly. Right. And this is why Donald Trump gets read by Republican voters as a cultural moderate. And I am deeply worried about the way that.
That Trump is able to sort of avoid the fate of a lot of other Republicans on issues like abortion and IVF. And so I think that it is going to be incumbent on Democrats to really go prosecute this case, because right now Republicans are running really fast from this. They know it's bad politics for them, but.
There is a bill that many people have signed that essentially enshrines exactly this, that says, and a whole bunch of Republicans have co-sponsored it, and now they're trying to say, no, no, no, we're for IVF, we're for babies. I think Mike Johnson may have been a sponsor. Yes.
that's right. And so, um, you've got to go hard on things like this because IVF is a deeply personal, both of my, both of my boys, uh, we did via IVF. Lots of women are telling these stories right now. And I don't think anybody wants Tommy Tuberville involved in these decisions. Uh, and so, um, but you gotta go on offense. It's like this with everything, offense, offense.
Yeah. Yeah. This is an advantage of being having no fixed principles other than self-promotion. It can be a real advantage for Trump. And like he he he's been from the beginning, you know, he's lived in the Republican primaries off of his sponsorship of these Supreme Court justices who kill Roe versus Wade, even as he's sort of signaled that he's moderating, that he wants to moderate on these issues because he knows it's a loser.
And he's not bound by any particular principles on this. And so he's been light on his feet on this. But that videotape lives of him
bragging about being the guy who tore down Roe versus Wade. And so he's going to have to, you know, that videotape should be pretty prominent in Democratic advertising moving forward. Gibbs, were you going to say something? No, I was just going to say, all you need to know is that the people in the legislature and the governor of Alabama,
All ardent Republicans, with the help of some Democrats in the legislature, are moving quickly to overturn this. That's what you need to know about how bad a concept and an idea this is.
I don't think you have to worry too much about Tommy Tuberville, Sarah, because he was asked about this and didn't really know what they were talking about. This is not unprecedented. Nick wants to know, is there a minimum number of states that a third party can run in if a third party like no labels really wanted to keep Trump from winning? Couldn't they limit themselves to state ballots that Biden didn't win last time, but could win some right leaning independent states?
but could with some right-leaning independent defection like North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, and Florida, dark blue states where Biden didn't lose like New York and California, and dark red states where Biden would never win like Wyoming and Idaho. Man, Nick. Yeah, I think, Nick, first of all,
Have a seat. Get a good sip of water. You're thinking too much about how all this stuff works. First, No Labels has talked about the fact that they want to be on as many state ballots as they want. No Labels is not a campaign in order to not reelect Donald Trump. They've got some other weird experiment that they're trying to go through. I do think you touch on, and part of your question does touch on, though, the big impact on third parties is not just...
And you see this in some of the polling. You throw these names in there in a national poll and you figure out who they're going to vote for. What we don't know yet is what states a Robert Kennedy Jr., what states a no-labels candidate, were they able to find an actual candidate? No understanding of the Green Party or anything like that. Which of these states are they actually going to compete in? Their being on the ballot will matter in only six states.
It will just depend on whether or not they're focused on being on the ballot of those swing states and can it impact it. One of the things that we've talked about previously on this show is a concern that Robert Kennedy Jr. might get on the libertarian ballot.
He had a bad weekend at the California Libertarian Convention, and it looks pretty much like that avenue is closed off. And that's a good thing for people that are supporting Biden in this race, because it just means that that campaign and the other campaigns are going to have to go manually get themselves on the ballot. That's a huge, big watch out for what happens between now and November. Yeah, no labels. People say that they are.
are trying to provide an alternative if these are the two candidates in a country that isn't enthusiastic about those two candidates. But
I think you can go to the bank on the fact that the next president of the United States is not going to be a no-labels candidate. It's going to be the candidate who no-labels helps elect by being on that ballot. So folks ought to keep that in mind. And Gibbs, you got one for me? Yeah, Austin writes in, many pundits state that Trump's 2024 presidential campaign operation is stronger than his previous campaign operations.
campaigns despite his legal issues. What strategies have you noticed Trump's campaign has improved upon for this race versus the previous one? Yeah, there is a dichotomy this year that's really noticeable. You know, Trump is still Trump and he can be stone cold nuts out there.
but his campaign is very rational and very proficient. And, you know, their strategy, you know, starting with the strategy of not participating in the debates, but they're just blocking and tackling and understanding party rules and helping to write party rules and understanding how you deal with events like the Iowa caucuses and how you organize for them.
Chris Lasavita, Susie Wiles, the people who are running the campaign, are longtime warhorses, and they really get the internal mechanisms of running. The question is,
How much can they control? They they clearly didn't send Trump out there in New Hampshire to have like a breakdown in front of a national TV audience, you know, and go after Nikki Haley in very personal terms and actually give her oxygen the way he did. He behaved better after South Carolina. But, you know, I'm sure they wake up every day and look at their phone to see what he did.
post it overnight and try and figure out how they deal with it. But in terms of just basic blocking and tackling, this Trump campaign is better than the previous two. And that should be a concern and an alert to the Biden campaign, which was slow in organizing. It's taking up
getting a little more momentum now but still has a long way to go their next big test will be how much does he how much time does he spend talking about Nikki Haley between now and when Super Tuesday closes because if if they've won this wrestling match he doesn't mention her name for the next nine or eight or nine days yeah well we'll we'll see that's it's always uh
It's always an adventure with Donald Trump. So, Sarah, we didn't mention this, but we should. You wrote an excellent piece in The Atlantic that landed yesterday called How Donald Trump Became Unbeatable. You meant in the Republican primaries, you called out those Republican politicians who have been complicit in it. You called out the candidates who foolishly thought that they could influence
imitate him and beat him at his own game. And you, I think, appropriately lavished praise on those who went down valiantly trying to point out Trump's deficiencies. But it's really a it's really as
As always, it's really a thoughtful piece, so I recommend it to everybody. And thank you for taking time today. We're always happy to have you here. And thanks for being on the 250th episode of Hacks on Tap. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. No way. What a good one for me to be on. Right. Yes.
We'll see you at the after party. All right, guys. I'll see you next week. Sarah, we'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye.