Pony Faced Cowboys (with Bill Kristol)
01:04:01 Share

Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. My brother loves having famous lines from movies that he always quotes. One of them is there's a movie about John Wayne, he's an Indian scout.

And they're trying to get the, I think it was the Patsy, one of the great tribes of America back on the reservation. And he's standing with the unions. So they're all on their horses and their saddles. And there's three or four Indians in headdresses and the union soldiers.

Union soldier is basically saying, "Come with me, we'll take care of you, everything will be good." And the Indian scout, the Indian looks at John Wayne and points to the Union soldier and says, "He's a lion dog-faced pony soldier."

Well, there's a lot of lion-dog-faced pony sports out there about global warming, but not anymore. Okay. That was the President of the United States with a little salute to John Wayne. We'll get back to him in an hour or two when he wraps up that sentence. So, fellas...

Mr. Gibbs, and of course the great Bill Kristol joining us, a longtime friend, longtime troublemaker, the spark plug, the eminence grease of the weekly standard. And now what's your latest caper called, Bill?

The bulwark? I should have. Let me pick up. When you're at Mike's level, you're dealing with Netflix. Can I just say we're about to have a conversation about whether the president has the mental acuity. Well, I don't, clearly. Something that Murphy has written for. He's unclear who the editor-in-chief is. I just...

Just to lay it all out there. I'm announcing my resignation as president of the United States for the good of the party. No, no. So the bulwark, of course, which I've written for and love and subscribe to, which you should too. Anyway, so, you know, the wingnut media is making a lot out of this. It was another rambling Biden moment.

And I'm not the greatest Biden super fan, but I got to say the trip to Vietnam was really smart vis-a-vis China geopolitically, yet he gets no credit for it. Instead, the obsession is this, and it strikes me and correct me if I'm wrong, guys.

The White House response strategy is to yell at the reporters who bring it up. Now this thing is splashed all over front pages. It's real that people have doubts. Do they have the right strategy, this denial strategy of handling it? Is it a big thing or is it just partisan media chewing on the poor guy?

Well, let me say as somebody who traveled frequently overseas with the president and yelled at reporters for covering things that were at best ancillary to foreign trips, this is not the first time that an administration, either a Democratic or a Republican administration has run into this, right? It is extraordinarily hard to get a lot of folks focused on this as an important story, one.

I think what precipitated some of what the White House press office did was some of these stories were written in Washington about what happened.

half a world away, which I don't blame them for getting pretty pissed off at something like that. So look, I think this is, if the moral of the story is Joe Biden's 80 and he's going to tell long stories and some of them are going to be from movies a long time ago, I don't know that that's, I don't know how newsworthy or big that is. I don't know that that's all surprising. I think what they're trying to push back against is this idea that anything that happens is

is a result of age. Well, at least he didn't refer to the film as a talkie bill. Uh, so it could have been worse. What, uh, what are you, what's your take on this kerfuffle?

as someone who traveled with Dan Quayle on foreign trips and utterly failed to ever successfully push back on unfair, let me just emphasize, unfair media inheritance. I'm not sure I'm the best person to criticize the White House. I mean, I guess it is the paradox. Well, start by spelling criticize. That's how you dig out of the hole. Thank you, Mike. You can go in offense. Let's go out on that for a while. This is the paradox of where we are with Joe Biden, which is he had a successful trip

with actual pretty important foreign policy accomplishments and also things worth debating. Maybe some of them aren't accomplishments, but it was a substantive trip, very substantive for three, four days actually. And in a way, he skipped the ceremonial stuff, the big ASEAN meeting before and got down to business in India and Vietnam. So again, to his credit.

So on the one hand, he's substantively impressive. On the other hand, he sounds old, looks old. It is a pretty rambling account there, which if you're trying to highlight your own substantive achievements, you probably shouldn't do that. You know, you should have the discipline not to step on your – not to make it easier to step on your own story.

And, you know, the question is, should one be frustrated that the substance doesn't get covered, the age and associated things associated with age does get covered? Yes, one should be frustrated by that. Is it a reality, on the other hand, that people are worried about age? Yes. So you can't really begrudge people writing about that. And for me, and this is very true of Dan Quayle at some point,

People's views are people's views. They settle in. And one reason I've been worried, alarmed even about the Biden-Trump matchup and very open to the notion that he should step aside and get a younger generation Democrat and all that, whatever the realistic chances of that, which I think are less impossible than other people think, but whatever. All I'm saying is at some point you can't fight

perceptions, right? And so it's perfectly fair for the White House to complain that this narrative is out there, but it's also important for grown-up Democratic political strategists and all political strategists to realize that that narrative really is out there. I'm going to take up the side of the White House press office on this, not surprisingly. No, wait a minute. Not surprisingly. I'm shocked. Yes, I know. Fire away. But-

Look, I guess the question I would have if I'm one of the things I would say if I was the White House was you just paid tens of thousands of dollars to fly halfway around the world and missed what Murphy just talked about, which was the substance of the story. Right. You don't you don't need to send somebody, you know, 8000 miles around the globe to report a story that Joe Biden's 80 years old. Right. You know, that's sitting in Washington. I'm sitting in California today. I know that.

I didn't ask anybody to pay for a long trip to do that. I think at some point the news media has got to understand, what do you want to cover in this race? What do you want to cover about the president? And this is Democrat or Republican, right? We've got the whole shooting match right now is U.S. and China, right? Explaining some of this in their newspapers, explaining this on their airwaves isn't just important for this Democratic president or

some future president. It's important for how the news media covers elected officials and covers, quite frankly, presidents in White Houses. And I think we wonder why fewer and fewer people trust the media as the gatekeeper here. It may be that you get into shenanigans like this more often than you get into a substantive story about

about what Joe Biden's doing in Vietnam to do checkmate against Beijing. Yeah, look, I totally agree. They missed the big story, which is Vietnam. Why did he go? What do you want? And did he get it? And why did he want it? But

Let's get down to the murky hacky level here, the staff level. You know you got Biden. You know he's 80. You know it's all over the polling data, and you know your political numbers are crap. Do you really say, okay, we've had a great trip. Let's send him out there, and maybe he'll talk about his favorite Oompa Loompa. You know, they know what they got. So less, less, less, less. Let the trip, let the accomplishments, send out good surrogates.

You know, don't put Biden on open mic night where you know he's going to create another story based on age. But Murphy, do you legitimately think if they had decided after what they pitched as a successful trip, successful trip even in the minds of one of the great Republican operatives of all time, Mike Murphy, and decided not to send him out for the press conference, they wouldn't have written the story that after a successful trip, Biden was unable to go out and be his own effective messenger?

What I'm suggesting is, is that a lot of these stories get pre-written. I hear you, but they, they got to work around it. They send them down the aisle on the plane for a little off the record thing to give texture to it. I, you, Biden cannot do successfully what the normal Paul can do, which is go do 30 minutes. And I just hit a home run in Vietnam. Instead, we get this. That's just a reality. They got to figure a workaround too.

I worked for one of the most eloquent presidents in recent times. And let me tell you, merchandising foreign trips was extraordinarily hard. If you didn't sell 75 Boeing planes in your first stop, it was really, really hard. This back and forth is perfectly illustrating my current view of things, which is Joe Biden has been and can continue to be a very successful president.

Quite a successful one-term president, and he should take credit for that success. And one way to get credit for that success is to separate the question of is he running for re-election, and he's not for reasons Mike just said, and Robert didn't really contest. The greatest candidate for re-election in the polls are the polls. And so we can have the best of both worlds, successful Biden presidency and a Gretchen Whitmer, Raphael Warnock ticket in 2024.

Thank you. You can close the show. I mean, we've just solved everything, so we can make it a short Hacks on Tap here today. Right, right. We solved the problem. I mean, I've written about that. You've written about it. A.B. Stoddard has a great piece in The Bulwark, which I've not forgotten. Andrew Sullivan. But we're a mighty team of four, I think, and the window's closing technically. It's clear Biden's dug in, and he's going to

you know, what was it? Pony faced cowboy or whatever the line was his way, way through the race. And it's a problem. I think Biden's in real political trouble. I'm not sure he has the toolbox to get out of it. And normally I'd say, let them run, let them lose.

hopefully against Trump, let him win. But the stakes are so high if Trump is the nominee. So anyway, I don't know if we're going to agree on this, but I'll bet we can agree that the Republicans have taken shocker, a big swig of crazy juice and decided we need an impeachment investigation in the House. That's the next big move. Today, I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public. Kevin McCarthy, basically in kind of the equivalent of a shotgun marriage here with the Freedom Caucus, is now walking the plank that we don't have to worry about the pending government shutdown, potential political disaster, and a million other problems. It's time to

start an impeachment proceeding against Joe Biden for get this corruption. What do we think politically? We're hacks here. We leave the grand legal strategy to others. Politically, this might be the best thing that's happened to Joe Biden in a year and a half. And the reason I say that is, and I just tweeted this out, NBC News went back and looked at Donald Trump's highest approval rating was the week before the impeachment in his first impeachment.

And Bill Clinton's highest approval rating was when he was impeached. And because what happens is, particularly around, and I got to imagine it happens even more so now because we're A, super polarized, and B, and this should be really the first one, is there's no evidence. They've been investigating for nine months and there's no charging evidence that would precipitate such an inquiry. And what it tends to do is rally the base. And I think that's

almost certainly what you're going to see. So every one of these polls where we get wee-wee'd up around 74% of Democrats and some percentage of this and some percentage of that is likely to be strengthened as a result of the fact that Kevin McCarthy can't actually govern

half of the legislative branch without throwing out these little treats for the crazies. And this is a big treat for the crazies. Yeah, I will defend McCarthy in that he has been able to pull a little governing. Of course you will. No, no, I've been a critic of Kevin's, but the last couple of kerfuffles, he kind of did the right thing. He got the budget deal. I mean, it's all perils of Pauline last minute, but in the clutch, he has done some governing, which exceeded my expectations. Yeah.

But just to be clear, what you lauded him for in the budget deal, he immediately went back on in the appropriations process. The appropriations process that is almost unanimous in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, in pushing back on. Right. No, no, no. They're not funding Ukraine. I get all this, Robert. And what's going to happen in 20 days is the government's going to shut down because these guys don't know how to govern. Well, no, it's not that they don't know how to govern. It's that he doesn't have the power to govern because he's captive to the Freedom Caucus that do want to blow everything up.

He doesn't have the votes. Feels like a distinction without a difference to me. Oh, no, it is. If Nancy Pelosi had his caucus, she'd be exactly in the same nightmare he's stuck in. Do me a favor on this podcast. Let's not compare the ability to govern the caucus between Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy because that isn't even- Your sainted hero, Nancy Pelosi. They're not even on the same page.

planet in terms of this. Do yourself a favor, Mark. Mike, I'm telling you, this is not going to end well for you. No. My point is, Pelosi has never had to deal with anything like the Republican conference. That's all.

And I think that's unimpeachably true. No, she had a very close majority. She's had very close majorities. No, no, but in her caucus. That's the point I'm making. See, we have this thing called the Freedom Caucus. You see, they don't play ball. We talked for a year about AOC. We talked for a year about those guys. AOC has a gang of three members. Freedom Caucus, much bigger, much more powerful. The Freedom Caucus is far bigger. You're taking this as some insult on the Saint-Adnancy Pelosi's political skills. No, no, no. I'm trying to save you from making a painful comparison. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Okay. There was a period at the end of that. I'm going to hold you to it. I'm just saying that Kevin has a really, really tough, rebellious caucus that wants him dead 24-7. She never had that. That's all. That's all I'm saying. Makes it harder. Bill, settle the argument here. Do you guys think he's going to go ahead with impeachment? I think that makes all the difference. So I just skimmed the headlines. It looked like he's authorizing. I don't even know if the speaker can do this personally. What it means to say he's okay.

He's okaying the impeachment process to go forward. I mean, committees can have hearings without his okay, but whatever. He's somehow going to tell the committee chairs or suggest to them that they do A, B, or C. If they're a bunch of committee meetings, I don't know, does it matter? Or are we really going to go to the floor with an impeachment, with a bill of impeachment? I mean, I guess that- That's the test. I think that affects Robert's political point. I mean, if they really try to impeach Biden with no-

real evidence or serious evidence, I agree it probably helps Biden. If it's just, if he's successfully, this would be Mike's side of it, I think maybe, if he's successfully buying off parts of the conference without really ending up doing much, maybe it doesn't end up mattering much. I don't know. I think that's what he's trying to do. But again, I don't know if he'll be able to do it because they're hell bent on it. Can he feed them some optics and, you know, buy time?

Can you get a majority of the House to vote? That's a good question.

to do that. I don't think he can get all that. He cannot get 220 18 Republicans, I don't think. So for now, maybe he's just sort of telling Jim Jordan, go ahead and do some hearings on Hunter Biden, which he's doing anyway. So maybe it isn't really much. But having said all that. See, I think that is the strategy. It's do what you're doing, make a lot of noise, and if you can show me you've got enough of a vote to move forward, it's on you. Thinking he'll fail and it'll fizzle out because Republican regulars won't go there either.

But it's still the optics of it are a disaster politically, you know, the wind up to the pitch, even if the pitch never happens. Yeah, I'm not sure Democrats are going to. I agree with you, Bill, that I think what this is as an interim step, it does require a House vote. It would require 218 votes. We know there are Republicans. Ken Buck.

who, by the way, not exactly a raging moderate. Stories today that people are looking because he went on TV and said he wasn't supportive of this, that they're now looking for a primary opponent for Ken Buck in Colorado. So this is definitely an interim step. I just don't know whether or not there is a giant flood coming, and I think

continuing to back up where you're going to build the dam to stop that flood isn't going to stop that flood. I think what you're going to have is, I find it very hard to believe that he's going to keep this thing going and somehow be able to stop it at the last minute because what this likely, it's going to build momentum.

And to your point, Mike, if the crazies really want this, they're not going to say, well, geez, in the end, they're not going to hold Kevin or Ken Buck responsible. They're going to hold Kevin McCarthy responsible for not being able to get Ken Buck. And so maybe they...

Maybe his theory is to live to fight for another day. I don't know that that's ultimately going to be a successful strategy. But he's easily as adroit as Nancy Pelosi, so I'm sure he'll figure it out. To make the policy point here, but I think the price, just since I said he might be being slightly clever, the price for that cleverness is real. As you said, he's now going back on the appropriations deal he made to take care of the debt ceiling. He may feel he's got to cater to the Freedom Caucus types, the

inappropriately named, if I could say, Freedom Caucus types, the authoritarian caucus types on Ukraine, which would genuinely, if he could succeed in stopping the next aid package, do damage to a very important and good cause and to the U.S. national interest. So it's not like there's no price to be paid, even if he sort of ends up in a slightly clever place. And the optics of it are disaster across the board. I mean, we can debate the niceties of will he get to a majority vote and everything, but

The headlines are going to be crazy Republicans try to impeach Biden. And the one thing I agree with Robert on, other than the canonization of Nancy Pelosi, the Saint of Baltimore, is that the political debate being given up for an impeachment thing, as opposed to all the stuff voters actually care about, is a massive opportunity mistake by the Republicans and a wonderful lifesaver to Biden. Yeah.

Yeah, no doubt. And I think to your point, Bill, this is just one of the... Kevin McCarthy got a letter with those cutout letters from the paper, so they won't identify the handwriting of what's the hostage negotiation required to get through a spending bill so the government doesn't shut down. This is just one of those, right? There's lots of border security stuff.

There's holding the line on no more money for Ukraine. I think 70 House Republicans voted, even though they've ultimately voted for the spending, they voted against the Ukraine part of that spending. And I think all of this is going to come to a head. Again, the government has to be funded in some manner.

by midnight on, uh, or 1159 on September 30th. So this, this is all going to come quickly to a head as to whether this, uh, whether we're going to have a government shutdown. And again, to your point, Mike, that politically we kind of know where that's going to land. Yeah, no, I agree. The Republican, they've got to change the, uh,

party symbol from the elephant to the lost opportunity and the crazy pander because it's just so dumb politically. But, you know, as Bill well knows, the center of gravity in the party is no longer winning general elections. It's all internal tribal fratricide and loyalty testing. So, you know, we're eating ourselves, but hey. And you guys would know this better than me. I mean, obviously this isn't just inside of Capitol Hill. This is

This has to be deep inside the grassroots and, to your point, Mike, the base of the party. I mean, it's interesting. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I think largely has thrown her lot in with Kevin McCarthy in sort of the first eight and a half months of his tenure as Speaker...

you know, went down to Georgia, did a town hall meeting, outlined all the things that had to happen before she would vote for temporary, for basically a temporary spending bill. And so, you know, this is, I got to assume represents an extremely conservative district in Northern Georgia. You know, this is her hearing from constituents as well. And it gives you a sense to your point, just how far

how much farther to the right the heat of the Republican Party has moved.

I mean, as my colleague, Jonathan Velas, the excellent editor of The Bulwark, likes to say, the voters are the problem. I mean, ultimately, in a sense. And look, I mean, that's absolutely right. 75% right now of the Republican electorate says they prefer Trump to Santas or Ramaswamy. So that's basically, let's call it the anti-Ukraine, pro-shutdown, pro-culture war side of the party. And then there's 20-25% who refer Haley, Scott, Christie,

and other random candidates. Pence, yeah. Pence, Pence, I'm sorry. It's funny that I forgot him. I mean, in a rational world, if you liked what they all say, I like what Trump achieved. I just don't like his manner and also January 6th was too much.

Why aren't you for Pence? He literally was the vice president. He was part of the, quote, achievements. Let's leave that aside. And then he drew the line on January 6th, and he doesn't have Trump's personal matters. So the fact that Pence is so weak is so revealing because it proves that they really do like

Trump and Trumpism and they really like DeSantisism and they like Ramaswamyism and they don't want any version of they now have what four versions of a different kind of Republican not different four versions of a other kind of Republican to be for Pence Christie Haley and Scott who are not unrepresentative or without any accomplishments you know and the fact that

what 20% of the party wants them is very, I mean, that is the core fact of American, of least of Republican politics today. And maybe of American politics today, really cheerful news. Well, that was depressing. Okay. Now we can say, thanks. It's been great being on the show. One thing I'd say is I don't think the cake is totally cooked and there's a little evidence on this. I don't, I don't put a lot of faith in it cause I don't put a lot of faith in polls until December in Iowa. Um,

But there's some new data ricocheting around NBC that shows Trump dropping from 62, the kind of number I'd hear about a lot on this podcast now, down to 40, with others creeping up. But it's still, your point is right. You put the regulars together and it's hard to break 30% right now.

So even if Trump isn't the vessel, the primal stream is finding other places to go. And even that'll be an interesting demolition derby if one of them can break through and there'd be kind of a Trump versus a shadow of Trumpism without some of the baggage that is the breakthrough candidate there. All right, hold that thought. We're going to take a short break. And now a word from our sponsors. ♪

We're going to have another debate soon. We should probably talk about that because that'll be the next shuffle of the deck. I was going to say, what better place to pick up the mantle of old conservatism than, say, the Ronald Reagan Library?

I know he must be spinning in the grave getting ready for this. Undoubtedly. Mike, do you still think that Iowa – I mean your position has been and it's one I've had in the past. I don't know if I have it now. That the national polls don't really matter. Iowa and New Hampshire can change everything. The real votes matters. And Iowa itself moves late and underdogs do rise and as we know that somewhat. Yeah.

in the past again, at least. So you're still on the side of it's a little less baked than people think on the Republican side. Yes, I have always believed that. I believe it now. I've seen it too many times. That said...

The one thing that is surprising me and disappointing me is I've yet to see a non-Trump Republican candidate really take advantage of the opportunity in front of him. Scott has imploded, I think. He's still got high favorables. He's the most popular guy in either state in the field, but he's popular in an Ed McMahon, second banana, beta kind of way. He's no alpha president, and unless he has a terrific comeback at this debate, he's

I think a lot of his...

His promise has been squandered. Pence is doing a lot of the right stuff, but he's Pence. There's too much tribal baggage there, I think, for him to get the second look. DeSantis is imploding just like kind of predictably he might. And the kind of crazy, the Herman Cain, Ben Carson-y, I'm going to blow it all up candidate is a more crazy charismatic version with Ramaswamy.

And I love that phrase earlier, Ramashwami-ism, say it three times. That's a pretty good one.

And so that's kind of jamming everything up. So I'm not a fan of hers, but Haley seems to be the hope right now because she is the most coherent communicator of the non-Trumps. And she had a good debate, which restarted her finance. So she'll hopefully, and I think most likely, have the money to compete in Q4 in Iowa, which is about to kick off after this month. And we'll see. On the other hand, I thought she did a horrible job.

Okay, I'll be fair. Semi-horrible job of trying to roll out of the momentum she had in the debate.

They have a momentum spot up in Iowa, which is not a bad spot. But I would have blown some of the money knowing I've got more coming now. I would have gone on National Fox with her talking to the camera for provocative spot. I would have started something after that. And instead, she was on cable news and we talked about it here a few weeks ago. Kind of like, well, I like Trump. I don't. Yeah. Kamala Harris.

And it just, they had no plan to run with the ball when they actually intercepted it at the debate. So maybe she'll have another great performance. She will have expectations here coming up at the Reagan Library. So I think there's an opportunity, but boy, they've sure done a ham-handed job of exploiting it. Well, she'll have a bigger target, right? That's true. And look, Mike is right about Iowa-New Hampshire competition.

They're going to have a far greater impact that certainly the results of that an enormously greater impact than any national poll is going to have. And, you know, the national polling will change, as Mike has said, the minute Iowa finishes, the minute New Hampshire finishes. I just haven't seen we've we've heard little chirps of anecdotes around Iowa.

so-and-so building this in Iowa and so-and-so building that in New Hampshire. I think I continue to believe if they don't knock Trump off in Iowa,

I don't think it happens. And New Hampshire. I mean, you give them a comeback in New Hampshire, Iowa won't matter. You need the same person to beat them twice, which is really hard. And right now, none of them can tie their shoes other than Haley to some extent. And what Mike points out, I think, is the biggest driving force in the Republican primary. And you talked about it, Bill. If 75% of voters are in one grouping...

And the 25 percent have to make the case to break out and beat Trump. They've got to figure out how to talk to those 75 percent of the voters without turning them off. And therein lies, I think, the central crux in this. There's nobody who can win.

Yeah.

I think that's totally right. We actually agree on this, which is rare. This is getting good. I feel like she or but there's one other factor to 18 months now if Trump is president again, we're all be sitting drunk at the bar sobbing. And yet again, Joe Biden is going to be in for a beating rhetorically because he's

If Biden were firing on all cylinders now or there was an exciting new Democratic ticket on fire out there surging and winning, Republicans would be more scared and that would hurt Trump. Instead, Biden's there speaking to the horn and he looks so beatable.

That gives Trump an advantage because Trump starts looking like he can beat Biden. And that's all the troops need to rally back on the heroin there. So, you know, on every level, nothing is happening to take advantage of the Trump opportunity. And I hate to keep beating up on Biden, but he ain't helping either.

I mean, if three, four months ago, and DeSantis did have some momentum, and Trump looked a little shaky in March, I'd say maybe, if there were polls showing, you know, Trump losing to Biden by eight points and other Republicans even, I think that really, it's one of the rare cases where, you know, actual just polls kind of could have affected the dynamics of a primary race. But that didn't happen. Trump has now been even with Biden in like four straight national polls.

And not much difference between Trump and the other Republicans. A little edge for Haley in one of the polls. So I think that's been important. The other thing about Trump that I underestimated, but I was always skeptical anyone could beat Trump, but he's pulled off a pretty bizarre...

bizarre interesting combination he's both the he's the de facto incumbent I mean he was the president recently most recent Republican president and he's the outsider running against the establishment which is not a bad thing and so Sarah Longwell finds this in her focus groups one minute it's I'm for Trump he's the only one who'll take them on the others are all too you know even DeSantis he gets along with Jeb Bush God forbid and you know they're all these creature of the big money guys and Trump's really the guy who fights for Australia in the swamp blah blah blah it's

And 20 seconds later, Sarah says, yeah, but what about it? I mean, do you think you have confidence he'll know what he's doing in the White House? Yeah, sure. He's been president. I mean, he knows how to run the place. In fact, he could probably do it better this time. So like he's both the ex-president and the outsider, which is a good combo to pull off if you can. The degree to which this is another Jonathan West point, we have two incumbents. I mean –

literally in a sense, this is the first, this will be the first race since 18, I don't know, 92 maybe or something like that, where you've had the former president will be running against if they both do maintain their leads and become the nominees.

The most recent former president will be running against the current president. So it's a very – it makes some of the rules – that's why I'm a little skeptical of the Iowa thing. It makes some of the normal rules of, okay, it's the out party and who's going to emerge? Is it going to be Santorum or Gingrich or Romney? Is it going to be Obama or Clinton? Trump is in a different place from a normal –

from the normal leading candidate, even a Jeb Bush-like or George W. Bush. We'd be lucky to have Jeb Bush. No, but I mean, he's in a different place as a candidate from the normal leading candidate in the non-incumbent party. So it is what it is, but it's... No, no, I agree. Look, it's reality show politics now.

People are throwing wine glasses at each other. I mean, it's gone crazy. And now what is the center of gravity? It's the rematch. Biden, now old and crazy, versus Trump, running for his life from the justice system. It's the great, you know, we're literally pimping out fixed pro wrestling matches in a steel cage, you know, trying to sell tickets. I mean, it's gotten down to that. And the rematch is so interesting. And the press is such a sucker for that narrative.

That's what's blocking out the sun here. It's making, among other things, hard for the challengers. But I don't know. My Iowa on the ground people tell me Haley's now got something going. DeSantis, who had something going, is starting to weaken. And the Trump fatigue is still totally there. Trump is doing, for the first time in Trump's history, a less is more campaign. Very hard for them. But it's kind of working. Because every day where nothing happens is a good day for Trump.

What's going to happen? And precisely for that, yes, he can fade down a little bit from 54 to 52 to 49. To 35, he'll win the Iowa caucus, or 38. But what's going to happen in the next few months to change it?

I was thinking, I mean, maybe he's not in the debates. So you'll get some relative movement. You'll get relative movement between Haley and Scott or whatever in the debates, but you're not going to really dent Trump, especially since most of them won't attack him. Nothing, he'll sort of vaguely support the House Republicans in whatever they're doing and probably try if he's,

being a little more careful. The legal cases aren't coming to trial in calendar year 2023, so it's a lot of maneuvering, which no one can really follow. So Trump's in a very unusually good spot for a front runner and that he can probably sit on that lead fairly safely. I mean, maybe not because it's such an unpredictable time. But question for Robert, can he keep getting away of not showing up at debates?

I'm not sure he can. I don't think in the end he can either. I think at some point he's going to have to come back into this. Now, I don't disagree with him strategically saying,

basically waiting for the semifinal bracket to play itself out before he comes into the finals. I don't think that's a bad move. We talked about that in the first debate. He's had his arguments with the Reagan Library, so I doubt he's coming back into this one. Plus, this one's still on Fox. They may all be on Fox for all I know. So I do think at some point he's going to have to. I think at some point

To your point, Murphy, the less is more strategy is it works for him in the sense, as you said, that if nobody is winning the day against him and doing something to take it away from him, that is a day he's closer to being the nominee. Or just a day where nothing happens. Exactly. Exactly. Because the most likely thing, if nothing happens, is somebody on cable or somebody in the news.

and probably a bunch of friends in Iowa are talking about indictments, right? And that's done nothing but strengthen him. So I think, but I do think at some point he's going to have to play campaign at a level and a pace that is more commensurate with being a candidate. But I also think you could make the case as it gets closer and closer to December and January, more and more people in Iowa will be paying attention and that's the time to do it. Let me address, because I do think

You know, Murphy's point on national polling in the Republican primary is right. I also would just stipulate that the election is still 14 months away and.

numbers inside of national general election polling aren't, I don't think, aren't quite as indicative of what the race is going to look like in 14 months, and particularly a race in which, Bill points out, is going to be a rematch and former president versus current president in a way that we haven't seen. I think the economy and the perception of the economy is going to get better as inflation goes down. I think

in 2021 and in 2022, even though the numbers were going down late last year, I think people still felt it in a visceral way. And so I think there's still a lot. I was going to pull some old numbers. I'll do it for one of these podcasts. I think I still have most of the polling on this computer from the 2012 reelect. And if you looked at the national polling

national general election polling for Obama this time in 2011 for the 2012 cycle, you wouldn't have looked at that polling and thought Barack Obama was going to be reelected president. Yeah, it was terrible. Yeah, no, I agree with that. Obama had tools to climb. No doubt. I worry about Biden's tools. The other thing is the scariest number out there

And again, a lot of campaign has yet to happen if Trump is the nominee. But don't underestimate, if Trump is re-nominated, it looks like a win. It'll strengthen him. It won't weaken him. He'll get something. You always get, by being nominated, the confetti drops you're somebody. When you compare Trump, who the country hates, with Biden, who the country is really mad at, and ask who's better to run the economy, the bread and butter key issue to a presidency in domestic politics,

you know, Trump kills them by double digit numbers. That, that, that is now. Yeah. Agreed that, but that is a big lift to change. I mean, you got to convince people that the restaurant that made them sick has a new chef and it's going to be better. And then you've got the age thing in the way, which is part of the tools problem. So, so I don't know. I, I, I think Joe Biden is a Patriot. I think he's had a remarkably good first term, but he ought to step back and he's

He's got about two weeks left to decide what's good for the country here. And I don't think he has clear thinking on that topic. It would require tremendous self-sacrifice. But, hell, we're talking about president here, not chief of the local road. And now a word from our sponsors. ♪

Enough of our preachifying. I have some odds and ends stuff. This is a quick one. I'll let Crystal. I don't want to bring up another contentious topic here. But Nancy Pelosi announced she's reigning for re-election to her seat, but not in the leadership. Do we care? Is that good? Is she blocking out the up-and-comers or she can be a wise advisor? There's a little bit of turbulence about this. I'm curious what you two guys think.

I mean, I defer to Robert. It all matters, Pelosi. I respect the former speaker, and I don't think it matters much. I was a little surprised, I guess, that she wants to be a backbencher for a second term. That was my question. I think they're doing fine with Jeffries, it looks to me like, honestly. It's an example of a successful turnover, which perhaps, per Mike's last point, President Biden could look at and see that you can turn things over to the next generation and it works out okay. In reading, Jonathan Martin had a great piece on this.

i i do think and you've you've seen this in pelosi's own words i do think she is worried about the seniority that's likely that has dissipated among the california delegation uh and what that means for the needs of the state from the federal government uh i also think too i mean i think you know you could if you thought through conventional wisdom you could easily see

that we have split government, leaving who wins the White House out for a second, you could easily envision split government. And that split government might be reversed from what it is today, where the House is controlled by Democrats and the Senate is controlled by Republicans. And if that's the case, I think having her voice as Speaker Emeritus helping Democrats

craft, how they're going to go forward in the House is enormously valuable. And I think I'm like you, I'm a little surprised that you would want to go back and continue to be a normal congressman or congresswoman after having been the speaker for so long. But I think I think it could be an enormous help to Democrats.

Yeah, I'm sure she's looking forward to burying herself in casework as a backbench member of the minority party. I don't really care. Struck me as odd. But I take the old politician's view. Well, maybe, you know, if nobody can beat her, she's coming back. Who's going to primary her and win? You know, she gets to decide. And that seems to be.

pretty much what has happened. All right, one last indulgence here. This one made me laugh. You guys have all worked in former lives with advanced people as have I, and I'm very fond of them as a breed, but this is a funny one. So the administration announces they're going to pour zillions of dollars of subsidies into electric vehicles, which, of course, being an electric vehicle, now that I'm four, more about that in a minute,

So, Jennifer Granholm, our hardworking Secretary of Energy, former governor of Michigan, goes off on a caravan and three electric vehicles to highlight the thing. Well, meanwhile, somebody in advance is like, all right, we can't have one of these disasters where she has to be like a regular person and wait in line to charge because we don't have enough energy.

non-Tesla charging stations. So they sent an advance kit ahead to park the gasoline-powered Ford LTD or Suburban in a charger spot, which in the EV world, and Gibbs, you're an EV driver, you're a Tesla guy, is a big no-no. And so they come roaring in because the staffer, the advance person, was holding it for her because, God forbid, the Secretary of Transportation have to wait.

And some poor people desperate to charge their car, waiting in line, got blocked out with their infant kids. So they called the cops because there's always a big sign, $100 fine, you know, if you block it on the event. And it's a complete disaster. Now they're getting all the wrong kinds of press. One, hearty har har.

Two, hey, Granholm advance staff, think about it the other way. Go there, wait in line like everybody else, and then say, thank God we're spending, thanks to Uncle Joe Biden, $2 billion to put up 1,000 more stations in the next 18 months to solve this problem.

Instead, so this wins the, it's not quite as big because the stakes aren't as high as the DeSantis debate plan league. But this does win the Butterfingers Award, I think, from Hacks on Tap on this week. Am I wrong? It seems like it was an opportunity turned into a ridiculous imperial disaster.

This is going to mess me up from the part of the podcast that we recorded previously, but I feel like I have to vehemently agree with Mike Murphy. I know it's ruining my rap from the earlier thing. No, I mean, you're exactly right. I mean, look, this is why you not only have to have good advanced staff, but you have to have good staff on the road that can make decisions because I don't blame the advanced staff for what they did, right? Your job is a picture, right?

Right. And if you if you roll up and the picture is not there, you're going to get yelled at, even though you might not have done anything in this case really wrong. Parking. Right. Parking the gas car there is extraordinary. No, no. And as you said, what better to drive the message than to say these things are so popular.

Uh, they're becoming, uh, so much more ubiquitous on our roads that we need to build this. And here's a good example because I can't even charge mine. Right. And she could, she's a charming Paul. She could wait in line with the others, be Jennifer. I mean, they got to have somebody in road who can call the audible, which is, this is better. No, she's going to wait.

And clearly they didn't. You got to have somebody smart on the road making these decisions. You could chat up the people are charging you. They're great examples. They're going to be better than than even her vouching for this. Murphy, like you, I'm I'm not new to this. In 2011, I bought a Chevy Volt.

which I think gave me like 40 miles of charge on it before it clicked over to gas in 2015. And it could double as a clown car when you were working nights at Ringling Brothers. No, this was the Volt, a little bit bigger, not the Bolt, which was smaller. Look, they're all great. I finally surrendered to the elegant engineering and went electric, and I have a plug in a minute, but go ahead. Kudos for that to you. The challenge is charging, right? The challenge is charging. Now, Tesla has a remarkably good network. I think

I think, smartly from a business perspective with Tesla. And for a take-up for chargers, Tesla's going to open its networks next year to lots of different EVs to charge, which is really, really good. Smart. Yeah, they're going to monetize their charging network like Amazon does AWS, and there's all kinds of good stuff coming. Elon, of course, had to give up some of his patents because nobody, including Mike Murphy, trusts Elon Musk to do the right thing. But the Tesla network is superior.

Bill, you drive an old Studebaker with a special navigation system because where you enter, it comes out and invades Syria. They've invented a way of changing gears without actually depressing the clutch and moving the thing around. It's amazing what they're doing these days, Michael.

My stick shift is really excellent. I mean, my one very brief point before Mike goes into his 20 minute rap about his EV trip across America and all this, but he needs to spend a lot of time on it. The grand thing, I came into the, I'm here at the Defending Democracy Together headquarters, the mothership of Republican voters against Trump and the Republican Accountability Project and

Republicans for Ukraine or whatever. And one of the young guys who worked there says to me, you know, I think one thing we should do is we should do some ads highlighting what Biden's done on infrastructure because no one knows about it. We could actually go to these localities and get people who are benefiting. It's ordinary people. They could be Republicans consistent with that theme, Republicans, you know, for the infrastructure bill.

And I laughed because I thought, I mean, it's not a bad idea, but, you know, shouldn't the Biden administration be doing a better job of this? Mitchell Andrew, who is a very able politician, was brought into the White House a year ago to coordinate basically the messaging, I think, on the whole infrastructure for different versions of the infrastructure efforts, which include infrastructure.

electric vehicle stuff, but include a million other things. I've got to say, he's getting no credit. Whatever you think about as a matter of economic policy, should it be more free market? Is it too much government? He's getting no... Once you're in it, once you're doing it, you might as well get credit for doing it, right? And there are a lot of things being built and being assembled. And I feel like no one...

I'm sort of amazed. Massive plants are being put together for microchips in, I don't know, Ohio. I know one of them is. And I feel like, I don't know, maybe it's the media. They're trying, I guess. But I got to say, it's one of the bigger failures, I think, of PR.

by any administration. It really is the centerpiece of a lot of the domestic policy, and I feel like they're getting no credit for it. I feel like we've come full circle because I'm going to somewhat blame the media on this here. I think the number of times, I mean, it's a good example, right? Granholm goes down to do the electric chargers bit, and my guess is the number of people that wrote straight electric charger stories

we could probably fit in the office that Mike's taping this podcast in. So, you know, I will say this. The best way to merchandise it, Bill, is going to be

through a billion and a half dollars of ad spending. They've already started it. They started last week during the NFL. I think you'll see a lot of it during the fall. I think you'll see a lot of it during the spring. It's the time and the place to kind of bake this in before they get into the significant back and forth, which that'll start late spring with whoever their opponent is. So I think you're going to see a ton of this coming forward. Yeah, they just need to find a hook. You know, it's 5,000 jobs a week.

you know, something hooky that they can repeat and try to break through. Let's take a short break and hear from our sponsors.

Really short plug. I've been rambling on Substack. Many of you on Taffers have listened. Thank you for that or listened. You've subscribed. So I jumped in a non-Tesla read trickier to charge EV and drove it diagonally through this great country from northern New Hampshire all the way to Los Angeles. I wrote a trip diary, which is fun. Just go to Substack. I think I'm Mike Murphy one.

You can read about everything you always wanted to know about EVs and a few political plugs, including the best documentary ever made, complete with trailer and link, about the Iowa caucus on the Republican side. So check it out. I'm going to plug it as well because I read your sub stack and I even learned a trick having driven

pretty long distances in a tesla which as you said are much easier in terms of both navigation and charging but even i learned a little trick of just going from say 15 on the battery to 55 and getting it back out on the road rather than charging it to 85 or 90 percent i'll let you read it it might goes into the fact that it's not as easy to put

Charge into the battery once you get to 55 or 60. Much easier to juice the battery on the front end. Get out of the charging. Go to the next one. There's a great network. There's a greater network that's coming, and a lot of people enjoy it. Yeah, you get there a lot faster, and you avoid the so-so faux pas of people staring at you in a long line where you're the idiot who's there for an hour and 20 when you get there faster if you do the 18-minute charge. Anyway, it's all there. A lot of laughs, a lot of jokes.

Check it out on Substack. Okay, cue the orchestra. All right, we are cutting edge here at Hacks on Tap. If you have a question for us, you now, get this, have two ways. Big news. Yeah, we're moving into the 20th century here, reluctantly and under protest. But Hannah, our producer, doesn't ask a lot of permission. We have laid down a copper phone line, ladies and gentlemen. Exactly. You can now telex us here at Hacks on Tap.

USA1. No. All right. So here's how it works. First of all, you can still email the questions. You just send it to our email address. How's that? Hacksontap at gmail.com. Hacksontap at gmail.com. But you can now, we're going to try this. May fail. This is huge. It's big.

We're going to try voicemail questions. So you have two ways to do it. You can get out your phone. You can record on Memo or one of the apps that will do that and send us that little file. Just send it to the same email address, hacksontap at gmail.com. Or you can call our impossible to remember because we're too cheap to pay the $10 for the better number, our special question line, 773-389-7000.

Again, 773-389-4471. We tried really hard to get an impossible to remember phone number like that, but you can leave us a voicemail and then we'll pick a couple to read. Now, there's a rule. I pity the person who has like the next number, you know, like 4470 or whatever. Yeah.

It was like some person's desperately trying to write this down as you say it. Because God forbid you had gotten a number with a lot of like zeros and ones or twos or something. It's going to ring off the hook. You tell that windbag to lay off Nancy Pelosi. She's the greatest person in the world and she can do anything. Blah, blah, blah. Kevin McCarthy, Satan. Okay. Here's the trick, though. We do have a rule.

We are the bloviators here. If you don't know that already, then we need to get professional. Listen to the first part of the podcast. Yeah, yeah. Just listen to the first part. We do the endless talking, the run-on sentences, the lectures. That's all us. Us, us, us. So you have to keep your windy questions short. We don't like competition. No speeches.

Keep it to 22 seconds or less, or Hannah the Axe will cut you and we won't even hear it. It won't even get on deck, let alone on the air here. So short and punchy, you can always try again, and we'd love to hear from you. And then we get to play your weird voices. We understand the pay phones in the federal prison system have been upgraded.

So we think we're getting good, clear audio from many of our listeners, and we're going to try it. So call us one last time. Have you ever even heard of a 773 number? I haven't. It must be like North Korea gave us a good rate. 773-389-4471. Or again, record it on your phone under 22 seconds and email it to us, and we will try this scary high-tech experiment beginning next week.

Isn't 773 the area code you put on all those Chicago voter registration forms? Yeah, no, I always put 773 Daily Avenue as my address when I export one of my 72 votes I cast every year in Cook County. All right.

Let's answer a few questions. First one for Admiral Robert T. Gibbs here of the Pelosi Navy. This is from Matt. How concerned should Joe Biden be about the potential United Auto Workers strike, which could start Friday, I hear, and the fact that they haven't endorsed him? It seems like the UAW's focus on EV-related manufacturing is at odds with a key component of Biden's domestic policy plan.

It's a great question, and I think everybody is right to be somewhat concerned about this. Biden was asked a week or so ago about this and said he didn't think it was going to happen, so that's why he wasn't altogether worried about it. Obviously, Murphy, you're a Michigander. There's big economic stakes here for what a strike could mean for the national economy, certainly depending on how long it lasts. I think there's also some political choppy waters

not just the endorsement of the UAW, but you mentioned the sort of back and forth on EVs and what that means. We just talked a bit about it and what it means in terms of

hiring less auto workers to put together electric vehicles, which, you know, Murphy doesn't need to change the oil in his car to give you a sense of the mechanics are a lot different in these things. So, look, I think it is worrisome to the larger political point that we just talked about on the economy.

You're not likely to turn on the news and find an enormous strike of workers that put together cars in this country and think good things about the economy. So I think there's the potential is not great. Do I think the long term is...

is going to be huge. No, but I do. I definitely think the short term. And again, I remember in back in the White House, whenever things looked a little out of control in the news, that's when your approval rating doesn't move much, but you get that static. And I think to the point we made on Trump, any day that that the news isn't filled with good economic news is not a good day. I

uh for the sitting president yeah i totally agree on this it's a weird one because for the first time in recent history uaw rank and file elected their leader so a guy won with seven percent and he's kind of yosemite sam he wants to strike and he's threatening to strike all three at once which is a very new tactic yeah the last thing poor biden needs is bad economic

news. So keep an eye on this weekend. Bill Kristol, Gail wants to know, amongst the current crop of Republican presidential contenders, which ones do you think would accept an offer from Trump to be his VP? Bonus question, which ones should Trump ask?

I don't know which one. Wow. I guess Christy wouldn't. Who do you hate enough to recommend they take that job? Yeah, exactly. Christy's not going to get an offer. I've joked around about, you know, Ramaswamy getting an offer, Robert Kennedy Jr., who undoubtedly will end up, in my opinion, supporting Trump, probably speaking at the convention and claiming to be a Democrat for Trump at all. He's going to be running the CDC. Don't fret at all, Bill. They've already...

They've already pegged RFK Jr. as a brilliant medical mind. But, you know, this is where I am worried for many reasons about Biden. But another thing that people are, you know, Cornel West is kind of ridiculous to RFK Jr. because the Trump people are going to put as many people as they can on the ballot who will take away little slivers of Democratic vote, you know. And I am. That's another reason why I just getting an even result in some of these polls is

alarms me. They're incompetent in many ways, the Trump people. It's a clown show and all, but they're fairly ruthless and can be pretty focused when they have to be. And I think Trump will be on his VP pick. He'll take someone who will do no harm. That's sort of been his practice in that respect. It might

some part of the party base will like. So Kristi Noem, I do think from South Dakota, the governor is the kind of type. I don't think he'll take someone who ran for president against him. He'll think about who he wants on stage against Kamala Harris if it is the Biden-Harris ticket. And what he wants on stage is probably, I mean, I think,

I mean, to be totally blunt, he's going to want a white person on stage, I believe. And they're going to say so much of their campaign is going to be, you think you're voting for Biden. He's OK. Nice guy, baby. You know what I mean? He's not going to be president. Kamala Harris could be president. Right.

And so they're going to want to think about who they can get in the VP thing who could sort of make that point even more effectively if there are even debates. Anyway, I don't think it matters much, but I don't think one can count on him being foolish and taking a March retail agreed or someone who's going to turn off more voters. Yeah, he's probably very bummed that Cotton Mather isn't around. He'll pick a supplicant.

You know, and I, Christy Noem from South Dakota is making a real run at it. She's kind of a Sarah Pellan light, if such a thing could even exist. So I don't know, but he'll, he'll do an ego driven pick not to block out the sun. And I agree, a conflict with Kamala. But just to be clear, anybody on that stage would almost assuredly take it. That's a good question. Scott's sure acting like he would.

Haley would, Brahminswami would. Yeah, I think you're pretty much right. He'll never pick DeSantis, but DeSantis would. The minors, the Wilhers and the Azers wouldn't, but nobody cares like Forrest Christie. Yeah. All right, Murphy, this is a question from John. You alluded to this. What would you say is the drop dead date on which President Biden could declare he was not going to run again and the Democrats could select a viable candidate to

to defeat Trump? Well, there's a lot of hogwash about, oh, if you can't organize, you need a year. I don't believe any of that in the modern era. The question is really filing deadlines to get on primary ballots. And I'm sure we have, I mean, I could do the work, but, you know, I don't get paid. So maybe one of our smart listeners can, but the filing deadline situation, we're still at the end of the third quarter of the year before. There is a little room here, but not a lot.

So I think we're in a matter of weeks, not months, where you could stand up a committee. Well, I think about two. I looked at this a little as a proponent of a younger Democrat running, and I think we're a couple of months away, but not more than that. I agree. Late November, I think, is New Hampshire. Iowa and New Hampshire are early. So the bottom line is, let's put it this way, definitely by Thanksgiving, in my view.

And even that is a stretch. And there's just the mechanics of it. And if one gets in, a bunch will because there's no towering figure, which is kind of good for the Democrats because in this scenario, you want a competitive primary to get somebody battle-hardened and show they can win elections and momentum to put it together. So you also have a new Democratic primary schedule in which Kamala could be a contender.

I don't think she'd be nominated, but with South Carolina up first and African-American voters having a loud early voice because the Democrats shuffled their calendar, it would be a hell of a primary. Okay. Well, I think that's it. And I want to thank- Yeah, I would just add, I think in many ways, just given how many people would jump into this, that date is almost certainly largely passed. Yes. Could you mechanically get into this? You could. You could still qualify for the ballot, but-

Just to be clear, you would have 15 to 20 people running for this nomination. Yay. Let the free market work. But you're right. Nobody has decided to do it, even though it could be done. And in the Republican fantasy, of course, Glenn Youngkin, same story, but

I don't see the entrance strategy for him. And like serial killers, candidates are hard to stop from running. Like serial killers are hard to stop from killing. They don't have to be talked into it. So I've never believed the Yunkin thing, but the technical window is still open.

Come here for the serial murder analogies and stay for the new 773 number to send us your questions. I have literally never heard of a 773. It's the suburban Chicago. This is Axelrod. No wonder. Richard Daly, slightly suspicious, if I could just say, in Axe's absence here. Axe is getting dusted off yet again. We're going to have to look into this. Who exactly is a range? Who's the middleman on this, right? Let's look closely at this. Yeah, no, no. I smell Cook County phone co.,

We just have to see what our dear friend – he's overseas right now. This is no doubt David's next great scheme to make –

trillions of dollars by setting up a voicemail for hacks on tap. Boy, I could just, if you listen closely, people, you can hear the money just rolling in. It's also a long-distance call, right? Not that that costs anything anymore, but I thought we'd at least get a 1-800 number. We got to make them all call Cook County. A long-distance call. Murphy, are you? Yeah, that's right. A toll call. I've got it like Joe Biden. Operator, put me through. I love now that we've ended on the whole Joe Biden's too old and you just said a long-distance call, I guess.

- Murphy, just make sure you take a lot of quarters to the payphone. - I'm trying to communicate my advice in a way the president understands. - And call collect, Mike. If you call collect, I think after 11:00 PM, what was it when we were in college? If you called on Sunday, it was cheaper or something like that? - Right, right, right, right, right.

Right now, I can hear the White House staff meeting tomorrow. I've been listening to that Murphy guy and his loudmouth friends on Hacks on Tap. Put me on Dumont. I got to talk to the country about infrastructure. All right. I think that's it. We don't have a book club plug this week because Crystal can't read. But right now, Bill, if you got anything, any book you like. I'll give you one. I'll give you one quick book. One quick book. It doesn't have to be a new book, right? No, no. Pericles. Anything you want.

Putin is terrible and dangerous and needs to be defeated. Garry Kasparov, who's the great, maybe the greatest chess champion. I once made the mistake of saying when I was with him, really one of the greatest chess champions, and that was, Garry corrected that quite politely. Garry Kasparov is the greatest chess champion and a great Russian dissident, and he was a very smart analyst of foreign policy and of other, of politics in general. Wrote a book in 2015, which was called The Winter Is Coming, which

stands up unbelievably well about the price we would pay for having accommodated Putin in 2014 when he went in and took Crimea and what Putin would be doing now. And so you still can learn a lot. He has a very good analysis of the mafia. Russia is a mafia state and Putin is a mafia boss, but a very dangerous one, obviously.

I love it. You just go to hacksontap.com and you can get it. All right, we're going to wrap up here. Thank you, guys. Bill Crystal, great friend of the podcast, great friend of America, dear old friend of mine. Thank you for being here. And Gibbs, I'm going to get you to Pelosi Rehab Camp, but it's always a great pleasure to argue with you and talk about this. Kevin McCarthy appreciates your legislative endorsement, Murphy. Oh, now he's doomed. All right, thank you, everybody. We'll be back next week. Talk soon. ♪

I'm