Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. Well, first of all, bless his heart, DeSantisLies.com. We have never raised a tax. You tried to. I've never raised a tax at all. You tried. Your response, Governor Haley?
Go to DeSantisLies.com and you can find out for yourself. DeSantisLies.com. It's a shame that we had to put up DeSantisLies.com, honestly. Hey, David, I think there's a website you're supposed to go to. Yeah, Overdone.com, I think is the name of the website. That was Nikki Haley last night in what may be the final debate of the campaign. We'll see what happens in New Hampshire. CNN, I think, has one scheduled, but we don't know yet.
Exactly what's going, whether it'll go forward, I'm eager to see. But quite a night there. That was a full-out brawl last night, you guys. I want to go to Gibbs.com to get his hot take first here.
Well, one, I'm disappointed that blesshisheart.com must have been taken because I think that would have worked really well. It would be the Alabama guy to bring that up. See? I mean, you know, people in the South know what she meant by that. Yeah, it was a full-on brawl, but I can't help but thinking it's the full-on brawl of the undercard. You know? And, you know, you watch these two...
just take big chunks out of each other, then the guy in first is probably just watching. He had his own town hall, but he's, you know, again, I just can't help but think this is, they're just beating, they're beating the hell out of each other. And the guy they need to be gaining on is not being gained on.
I think that's true, but, well, first of all, I thought her opening with the DeSantisLies.com thing, it's an old trick. You know, we've all done something like that. It was pretty good, but a hundred times it was just,
I mean, the move would have been do it once to the beginning and halfway through said, okay, we've had to change the website to runyourshittingme.com, which of course you wouldn't really do, but have a topper joke after and then declare victory, which she didn't do. That's the problem here between their personalities. She's like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a deck chair. So back to the lines, back to the lines. I'll say it another time. That's my approved line. I've got four of them.
Uh, well, he is just gleefully enjoys this kind of stuff. I mean, if you sat Nikki down and said, all right, governor, tomorrow, we're going to do pure aisle. Fifth grade insults at each other for an hour here. The four repeat them a hundred times. She'd kind of look at her feet and say, you were in her debate prep, weren't you? You know, this is what I got to go through the present, but then she'd say yes.
He would be like, great. Can it be a three hour debate? You know, you know, we ought to hit her for that metric system, too, which means she's more liberal than. But I mean, he likes this crap, which is a depressing thing. But but but very quickly.
I'm not on the bandwagon. I mean, I agree that, yeah, Trump wasn't there a good day for Trump. But as far as who won or lost last night, they both were trying different things. DeSantis is trying to delay his concession speech by two weeks by getting into second in Iowa. That's the big win for him. So he's going right for the evangelical, hardcore pro-life.
She is trying to put the crusty old Yankee Don Boldak conservatives and the suburban moderates together in New Hampshire. So she's talking to different people. The difference is her strategy is,
could very well beat Trump in New Hampshire and maybe light the big fuse to change everything we're seeing. His strategy, there's no win at the end of the tunnel. So they were kind of going past each other. So net-net, I thought she did more to help her stronger strategy than he did to help his, hey, I didn't have to drop out to the day after New Hampshire, not the day after Iowa strategy, but
More campaign to come. Listen, I hear what you're saying. I mean, she was speaking to her audience in New Hampshire as much as any audience in Iowa. And there is no place for DeSantis to go after Iowa. That said, I was sort of stunned by the degree to which he drove her to cling to
uh the raft uh i thought that he he uh you know he was on the attack the whole night and she seemed uncomfortable with it and i what i was thinking about murphy was uh boy if this guy staggers you how are you gonna how are you gonna fare when the trump the full trump treatment
happens if it ever does well i think well it will on tv but i mean you may you yeah you meant on tv not in the debate i was struck to your point david when desantis would go on the attack i mean it wasn't that he just had one line it was and she did this and this and she did this and this i mean there were seven and eight point attacks uh that i mean she just the whole kitchen sink i thought that
let me just play uh one that i thought particularly probably landed well with certainly the republican base and we can get back to murphy's point she doesn't articulate how this comes to an end except she was asked after the last debate by i believe megan kelly and she said you bring it to an end by bringing ukraine into nato but of course we're a nato country so if you bring ukraine into nato that
puts the United States at war. Meghan said that to her, and then she basically gave a word salad as to how you go from there. So they have sent cash. She supports this $106 billion that they're trying to get through Congress. Where's some of that money going? They've done tens of billions of dollars to pay salaries for Ukrainian government bureaucrats. They've paid pensions for Ukrainian retirees with your tax dollars.
We've got homeless veterans. We have all these problems. This is the UN way of thinking, that we're somehow globalist and we have unlimited resources to do. You know, I think here's the problem. You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can't take the United Nations out of the ambassador.
That was his best line, and it locked the Putin endorsement he's set up nicely. He's clearly on Team Red Squad there. Talk about liberals. But yeah, it was best line of the night, and the UN is a thing. It's an old school thing, but a perennial in the Republican world for some good reason. So yeah, there was Ron swinging the axe. Yeah, and the other thing that he did was he augmented the
the two principal attacks that Trump is working in New Hampshire. One is on immigration. Do not trust Nikki Haley with illegal immigration. That's like having the fox guard the hen house. She's on tape at the Aspen Institute. She'll say she didn't say it. She was chastising conservatives saying it's disrespectful to illegal aliens to say that they're criminals. They're violating the
law. It's disrespectful when people come to this country illegally and impose burdens on our communities and run drugs into this country. That's what's disrespectful. That is the substance of the spot that Trump has been running.
in New Hampshire since the week between Christmas and New Year's. And it's a big, you know, this is a hot button issue, Murphy. You know, it's your tribe, but this stuff plays over there. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the fundamental point I was trying to make before.
Nikki would really rather eat with a knife and fork. DeSantis has no interest in that. He just wants to go face down into the chow. And in an Iowa caucus, that might help him. I don't think anything happened last night that'll slow her down in New Hampshire. And I can argue from tone and stuff, maybe it sped her up a little. Keep in mind, there's kind of a caricature about her New Hampshire campaign out there that she's just got the squishy Volvo independence. There's no doubt she's doing well there. And those are the votes that may push her into a victory, like what happened with us and McCain in 2000.
But she's got a lot of the traditional Don Bolduc, who ran as a pretty hard right guy and won the Republican primary against a moderate candidate. Next time is out loud for Haley. So she's kind of pieced together a weary of Trump, a moderate thing, a traditional conservatives who know Trump is a charlatan deal.
So the question is, will any of this stuff get any grip there to slow her momentum? That's the fundamental question of the race. DeSantis could fall into the pit of hell tomorrow or, you know, go back and announce he's taken over Florida with martial law. Wouldn't really make much outcome in the presidential race. So the fundamental formula is, can Haley make it? And I'm not sure anything happened last night that really helped her with that, but I didn't see anything that really hurt her. The question, I guess, the sub-question is Iowa.
will this help get them into second? And I called a good Iowa hack who's been around and it was out there. And I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of them because I'm going to try to pop up there for the weekend. What it meant and the reaction I got was, you know, the smell of death on DeSantis is so big. It's not like the old days when you had a compartmentalized state campaign.
But now everything's nationalized. So, and Trump has rebounded enough that, you know, you go for the real thing. That's always been DeSantis' problem. And, you know, I think he's in a cul-de-sac, but we'll see.
Those attacks might knock her into the third in Iowa, which would be bad for her. But play that out a little bit. If she finishes third in Iowa, do you think that just blunts any of the momentum that she has in New Hampshire? Or do you think then she becomes the comeback kid a little bit going from third to... I think the national thing that moves so quick to, you're up, you're down, will be like, she was up, now she's down. That's...
That'll be a dampener. On the other hand, and she made one of her many gaffes lately the other day where she kind of hinted on this, and children, cover your ears, but the old New Hampshire politics joke is the best slogan in New Hampshire is screw Iowa. I'll do the family friend version. And there's a little of that. Which he needled her about last time. And you guys got a taste of that with Obama, you know, rolled in there, and they're like, no, we make the news around here. Somebody wake up Hillary.
Yeah. I don't know. We'll get to what's I'm sitting. I'm sitting. We don't have video. We should go to YouTube because you're both starting to shake. Give says a little airline vodka bottle. Now we're having a flashback. The difference is we already had a win in our pocket and she's not going to leave Iowa with a win in her pocket. Well, you had two wins. You had Iowa and you had the, the African-American face of the party waiting for you in the South for
or round two that was always your ace in the hole exactly you know she has i mean sitting here in where i am right now snowy iowa um you know you you can't turn on tv without being hit by a hayley commercial she's got money she she's got momentum well i think last night probably didn't add to it but
I don't know if it detracted from it. The third piece of the three Ms that you need in the Iowa caucuses is mobilization. That's a big question with her here. It's supposed to be three below zero on Monday night. Yeah, but for Iowa, it's in January. That's like, I can wear the windbreakers.
But I take your point. Remember, though, the Republican caucus is easier than the Democrat one. You don't have to stand in corners and offend anybody. God, Murphy, you want this so bad. You just want this so bad. Well, first of all, you should all go to my website. I predicted this a year ago, dot com, much to the scorn and laughter of my broadcast colleagues, dot com. And it may not happen. What did you predict? Yeah, look at now they're...
This is even better than the Obama thing. All right, go ahead. Go ahead. What you predicted a year ago is that Trump would lose in Iowa. He's not losing, Murphy. No, no, could lose in Iowa, and we'd break him in New Hampshire. What I've changed to is now you break, does he lose in New Hampshire, can you break him in South Carolina? Because that's the other narrative we don't talk about.
Haley does it in South Carolina, but Trump beats her in her own state. And then he's back in business and that could happen. Axelrod, to be fair, Murphy predicted a year ago that in January it'd be cold in Iowa. And we are on that. You guys, spinning your way out of a pit.
But we don't have anything to spare. I don't want to play it again because I think it's a raw nerve. No, no, save it for the day after New Hampshire. That's where we, yeah. I've been working on a tape, too. We're going to have a great show after the New Hampshire premiere. Here's my question for you, Murphy, on the great Hayley fever dream. Look, I do think she's got the potential to rewrite some of the script in New Hampshire.
You were with McCain in 2000. I think the biggest challenge that she's going to have coming out of New Hampshire is Nevada and South Carolina and all the states that come after look a whole lot more like Iowa does in terms of electorate than New Hampshire does. So at some point, she's going to have to
At some point, she's going to have to, even if she says, whether she was joking or not, that New Hampshire corrects Iowa, she's going to have to figure out how to put together votes in a state like Alabama or Georgia and South Carolina first and somehow beat Trump. And that's the part that I don't see. Yeah, and if the election were held tomorrow, Trump would be the nominee and she'd lose all those. There are two fundamental questions. One, can she beat Trump twice in a row? Can she do the two-final?
South Carolina after New Hampshire. Now, in our McCain, we had very little going in South Carolina, but if the election had been a week after New Hampshire, we would have been the nominee. We would have rolled over Bush, but it was not, and there was time to turn around. What Trump's got going for him. He's got a month. Exactly. And on one hand, you can argue a month for her to take the momentum. You can also argue a month for him to have a comeback, and he's got Nevada, which is raked.
you know, the fix is in. I mean, Putin's going to get, lose an election at KGB headquarters before that thing is out the window. Will that give him a comeback? Because we all know the media loves a comeback story. As far as your question, Gibbs, about all the states down the road that look a lot Trumpier than New Hampshire right now, it's all down to one question. Will Superman Trump just ask him about it if he becomes a two-time loser? Loses to Biden or
has lost to Biden, loses to Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, and loses again. Will that start a herd movement in the party?
We need something else. That's a theoretical question that it'll be interesting if we ever have a chance to explore. But she has to beat him in New Hampshire, right? Yeah, she has to beat him in South Carolina, too. I think it's two or not. Wait, come back to Iowa, you guys, for a second, which happens Monday. You know, one of the things that Trump has going for himself is that DeSantis and Haley have...
been relatively close and we're going to know more on this weekend i mean i think polling is always a little dicey here in iowa but the register poll is the sort of gold standard that comes out saturday night all the polling has basically showed them very very close if they you know if those guys split 50 points between them and trump is up around 50 he's got himself a big win here
huge in in iowa and that's the most likely scenario yeah though i think the media spin will be you know they expected trump to win trump win real race to be the alternative uh and what if trump's under 45 what i've really said for a year is this thing is not going to be the cakewalking of trump losing i am sure i'll be right if not i'm wrong and i think haley is going to narrowly get second in the iowa caucus i don't believe the big uh
the Sanderson invincible Iowa caucus thing, but I may be wrong. I'm guessing. I mean, it's just a question, but he's dead for him to come in second with no heartbeat. He is, uh, he is. Yes, he is. He's dead man walking. The question is whether he walks to New Hampshire or not, or whether he heads back to Tallahassee. Listen back to the debate. Uh, one moment that was interesting was, uh, Haley, you know, both of them have danced around Trump, uh,
But she did get asked the question about January 6th and she got pressed on it and she did go beyond where she's been before.
That election, Trump lost it. Biden won that election. And the idea that he's gone and carried this out forever to the point that he's going to continue to say these things to scare the American people are wrong. We've seen a lot of states come together and do more election integrity bills. We need to do more than that. We still have three or four states that I'm worried about that don't have that. But at the end of the day, I will always defend and fight for the Constitution. That's what we should do as Americans.
I think what happened on January 6th was a terrible day and I think President Trump will have to answer for it.
I mean, that was well beyond what she said before. That was Churchillian by Haley standards, and kudos to her. We've got to give her a little award for that because that's a big move for her. You know, they both finally figured out who their opponent is at the very end because DeSantis ramped it up too. Three years later, admitting that January 6th was bad and the election was lost is remarkable. Well, as we say in the Republican underdog,
underground resistance. Take the win, because we don't get many of them. The one thing that she won't say is, she says he has to answer for it,
But she said she'll still be for him if he's convicted for doing for, you know, when the answer comes and he's convicted, if he's convicted, she said she'll still be for him in November, which I guess you have to say if you're running in a in a Republican primary. Everything is dog whistles in that world, because if you're a tribal traitor.
then the topic of election is, you know, is it a hanging or a beheading for you? David, you mentioned just the notion of mobilization, and we talked about sort of the smell of death on DeSantis, but do you have a sense, and Murphy, do you, as to whether...
the operation that probably didn't really get any money until a month or so ago. And some foot soldiers in with, yeah, with Haley is, is that, does it exist? Is it real enough to try to help her? I think that is the big question. I mean, Murphy poo-poos the weather. Oh, it's used to that there. But the, the truth is that, uh,
it's hard to drag people out in a sub-zero night to stand in a, in a, at a public meeting and listen to speeches and then vote. And it is kind of a vote. It's not, it's not like the Democratic caucuses used to be where you prep, you know, where you, it's a firehouse primary now. It's a secret ballot, but it's a, but it's an hour. It's a couple of hours investment of the time. Listen, here's what I think. Let me just interject for a minute. The real thing, the, the Repubs worry about now is,
The campaigns, I know it's the media saw, oh, it's turnout, turnout, turnout. They're not worried about that as much as they're worried about. You can come in, you listen to a rah-rah Republican speech, vote your secret ballot, but they want you to stay for all the other stupid speeches in case there's a procedural fight and a floor vote later over, we're going to disqualify these 82 ballots from the people with the nice shoes, hint, hint.
And so that'll be hard is holding people there. You also, and I've said this a thousand times, so you can mock me afterward or remember. No, we'll do it right here. Yeah, well, that's true. I get it in real time.
But how many people voted? You guys ought to know this in the last Democratic caucus, which had good turnout because you had a lot of candidates. About one hundred and one hundred eighty, one hundred eighty, one hundred eighty. That was it was less. It was one seventy one six hundred, I think. Last time I checked. But we're in that we're all in the same ballpark. It's not a.
not a quiz show. Bottom line is they got nothing to do this time and they're watching this and they're used to getting out in the weather. And it's easy to be a Republican for a day. If you're an independent little trickier, but not that tricky. If you're a Democrat, do I think they're all going to show up? No. Do I think 25,000 of them are since two of them walked up to me on the street in Des Moines and told me they were because they're watching all this stuff like everybody else. It's an uncounted vote. Uh, last time I was in Iowa, when was that?
months ago, which let me down a slippery slope with you conventional wisdom panderers. Proceed. Go ahead. So my, my, my point is, and I don't know why anybody hasn't pulled that caucus. I know there are democratic operatives who share this theory based on their own organizational life in Iowa. The question is, is it 3000 people or 30? Yeah, I don't. Well, you say Haley, obviously. No, no, they're not for Trump. Maybe, maybe some love to Santa's, you know, I,
I, I don't know, but net net Haley is going to get more votes out of that group significantly than anybody else in a plurality or better thing. We'll see in that poll on this weekend is how many first, you know, what, how many people are first time caucus, Republican caucus attendees and what percentage each is getting. Because, uh, I think this is the key to why Trump's going to do pretty well on Monday, more than pretty well on Monday. Uh,
He was getting 63% of the first-time caucus attenders in the last poll. And they basically, their operation, and he does have an operation here, Chris LaCivita and that group, they know how to do organizing. And they've been targeting a universe of Trump supporters who have not attended the caucuses before. Right. Well, they're fishing in the biggest pool, but yeah.
And they have the organization to pull them out. The DeSantis thing, I think, there are two questions here. Haley, she didn't have any organization until a few weeks ago. There is this myth of the Americans for Prosperity people coming in. And what I hear, and I have talked to Republican leaders
operatives here since I've gotten here. They're not sure, you know, they don't see that much evidence of that and they don't see much evidence of a high level of organization here. No, no, that's just like the DeSantis Super PAC organization too. They apply money outside the campaign to hire flushers and canvassers. They do a lot of mail and digital and they burn up a bonfire money and maybe it helps a little. But they've done that for a longer time and a higher volume. So she's trying to build a plane in midair here.
and we'll see what happens. I mean, I'm just telling you, you're thinking about this like a primary, Murphy, and I think it's going to work like a caucus. No, you may be right. I think you're overrating it. We will see. This is an electorate that is culturally there to be part of the caucus. It's not enough. Here's what DeSantis has. He has the old Bob Vander Plaats Christian machine there, which is formidable,
On the other hand, I remember, and you remember Doug Gross, we kicked his ass as a candidate and his machine with a regular Republican in the primary. It was years ago, but that's still the caucus Pat Robertson won, that Rick Santorum won. So they're a big factor in it. But organization without any enthusiasm for the candidate, a last stand for the pro-life movement.
Not so good. And by the way, I want the over-under on Trump and Iowa from you two. I'm going to say under 45. Are you guys over 45? I heard 50 before. All right. I'll take the over. Okay. Okay, then let's take a break right here, and we'll be right back. We'll be right back.
Let me tell you what takes balls. If you're the Des Moines Register, this is how good their poll is. They're happy to put it out on Saturday night and have you look on Monday and see how close they were to it. That's...
I was actually surprised. I thought it would come last weekend. I wonder how much NBC, which has partnered up with them, wanted them to hold it until the final weekend, too. So, Axe, you mentioned the—there's two things I want to talk about. You mentioned this idea of maybe CNN doing a debate in New Hampshire, right? And here's my question. If they did, would it matter if Trump isn't there? Is there any—
If you're Trump and you counter program right now and we there are two things we need to talk about that one of them relates to this. Chris Christie dropped out yesterday. He would have qualified for that debate. It's not clear to me. I think I think if DeSantis finished third in Iowa based on the rules, they said that he would.
qualify for that debate. The question is, if you're Nikki Haley, are you signing up for another debate with Rhonda Santos? Yeah, you don't need to. There's very little percentage in her unless she gets Trump there. And you can argue that Trump will only show up for the debate if he's really losing.
But we ought to listen to the Christie swan dive and talk about him a little because he's going to create a little noise and drama here in the last few weeks. All right. Well, there are two bits of tape we need to listen to. So, Christie, we need to listen to what Christie had to say in front of the public. And we need to listen to what Christie had to say backstage before he suspended his race. But let's start with the public speech because I thought this actually was the best speech of the campaign by anyone.
Campaigns are run to win. That's why we do them. I see the chairman here in New Hampshire, he knows we run campaigns to win. My goal has never been to be just a voice against the hate and the division and the selfishness of what our party has become under Donald Trump. It's also been to win the nomination and defeat Joe Biden
and restore our party in our country to a new place of hope and optimism in this country. I've always said that there came a point in time in this race where I couldn't see a path to accomplishing that goal that I would get out. And it's clear to me tonight that there isn't a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I'm suspending my campaign tonight for President of the United States. I know
and I can see it from some of the faces here that I'm disappointing some people by doing this. People who believe in our message and believe in what we've been doing. I also know though, it's the right thing for me to do because I want to promise you this.
I'm going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again. And that's more important than my own personal ambition. Well done, Chris Christie. When the history of this thing is written, he did the right thing twice. He ran unabashedly attacking the charlatan.
seditionist Donald Trump. And as I've argued publicly a lot and others have, he got out when he became a negative factor for the greater cause of holding our nose and beating Trump with Haley. As long a shot as that is, it's the only move and he's fallen in line. But I know I'm setting you guys up timing. Now, what happened next?
No, but let's say best go two out of three, because I loved all that. I loved his speech. But boy, I would love to listen. I would love to play that speech for him about five minutes before he endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 and enabled exactly what it is he ran to disable.
That's all. Yeah. But but give him give him a little credit for evolution. I've been there to Gibbs, but I do give him credit. He was the bravest Republican in the country. He's a patriot. Gibbs, you know what? In that speech, I think he addressed that. And he said, you know, he talked about where ambition leads you.
So, I mean, he acknowledges that that was a mistake and that he made a decision out of... Before Murphy puts a statue in every park, Chris Christie, I just wanted to get that in. Hey, I was out early and loud at a bulwark piece. I think on my sub stack, Mike Murphy won.
Christy, you're only helping Trump get the hell out. I'll only say it once. We don't want you to go all Nikki Haley on us with your website. MikeMurphyLies.com. Yeah, no, no. That's my new one. Yeah. Enough with these chuckleheads.com. I'm working on that one. I got a lot of these coming. VoteInChicago.com. I do whether I want to or not.
Well, look, the last New Hampshire poll, I think, from CNN showed that Nikki Haley was the second choice of about two-thirds of the Christie voters. You know, so there's, you know, I mean, I think everybody has mathematically moved all of that vote. I think she's certainly going to absorb a lot of it. The question is, is there enough of it? One thing we should point out is that Christie hardly endorsed
Haley or anybody. And he really, and it may be that what she said last night will bring him closer to that ability to do that. But he was scorching on his opponents and he was even more so in the hot mic moment before. So let's listen to that. This was backstage as he was getting ready to come out. You and I both know when she's up to this.
He's still going to carry on, right? Yes. I talked to him. DeSantis called me. Petrified. He's probably getting out of that. Yeah, so DeSantis petrified. He'll endorse her and she'll become the night. You know, you guys have been around, it is rumored, a few concession speeches, you know, two, three hundred of them.
Uh, you ever seen the candidate after concession speech who basically doesn't say, you know what else drew that mother Teresa. And of course he's pissed at everybody. He got squeezed out of the race. This was different. And it was very, I thought he went on at length, uh, to rebuke.
the other candidates and Republicans who were willing to look the other way at Trump. And I think it was very, very pointed. I also think, by the way, he was pissed because Sununu went out and endorsed her. Apparently didn't call him first. I mean, that's what has been reported. As a Jersey Paul, all that, I called you, you called me, you called me on my mother-in-law's birthday. It's all that personal crap. Here's my prediction. I said this on Twitter.
Forget all the over analysis you're going to hear everywhere. But of course, hacks on tap about will Chris say, wait a minute. All the, yeah, I know I'm pulling the thread on our big sweater here. The racket. Will Christie endorse Haley in New Hampshire? He will four days before the primary if he thinks she's going to win and he can claim credit for pushing her over the top because it's good for Chris Christie. That's Jersey real politic. That's what he'll do. If Trump's winning, he won't hate her or not. That doesn't matter.
I don't like her and I'm for his speech. And in admonishing the other candidates has been rooted in this idea. Exactly what you said earlier, raising her hand to say, sure, if he's indicted and convicted, I'll still vote for him. You know that he believes that they've all missed a big opportunity in not making Trump and his problems much more front and center rather than just taking swings at each other. And I don't think he's wrong in that.
And I think at some point they're going to have to make that turn and get there, particularly if this becomes a one-on-one between Trump and whoever. I think it was also Chris Christie trying to remove himself as being that barrier. It's Trump and Haley. There's no whoever.
But my only suggestion is I'm not entirely sure we're going to get to whoever. I don't know that Trump's ever going to show up on a debate stage. I don't know that Nikki Haley's ever going to get him in a room. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it'll be two people fighting the campaign on TV, but not on the same stage. He'll be for her if it's good for him, which means she's two points away in his mind from winning New Hampshire, and then he'll pop for her the Thursday before the Tuesday.
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Christie's still on the ballot there and he can't get off. So those two thirds of people who, for whom she was a second, I'm sorry, the third for whom she wasn't a second choice still have a default if they want to register some sort of protest or make some sort of statement. I bet you Christie gets a few points in New Hampshire. I think he gets a couple hundred, maybe a thousand votes, but
You know, she's people don't like to tear up their vote. They'd rather the big issue is Trump or not. And those voters are not Trump. And she's the only game in town. But but if she screws it up the last week and I'm putting down because you're going to have to eat a big pile. You know what? Yeah. On Tuesday, I'm putting your predictions down here. So I eat a small piece.
portion myself in case i'm betting they get big game you're you're doing the side with the jockey wear white socks stuff no we bet the big game the big game settled the big game was trump was going to win iowa but we're moving on no the big game is new hampshire can upset trump and change that is the big game now that wasn't a big game or last year when you were saying david axelrod lies.com with this all right i
I have the tape. We have the tape. Right. The big game is the nomination, and you've got a long way to go before. We're going to make a few stops at the quote. Well, yeah, and that's why I got the 700 to 1 odds from Vegas a year ago. I'm a millionaire on predicted.com now. Just to be clear, you didn't ask for odds when you were making your predictions a year ago. Right, right. My brave and lonely prediction of
opposed to the herd of conventional wisdom trotting along. When you said that I was going to have to eat a big 300-pound crow sandwich when Trump won Iowa, it was 300 pounds. I thought it was the nominee. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was the Iowa caucus's Murphy. It doesn't matter. Iowa's a step. If Haley comes in second, I'll take the win because you were predicting DeSantis.
And we got the 45 over none. We're beginning to sound like DeSantis. We need to wait for the horses to run and then we can do it. We want to talk about Trump, though, because he had a sideshow last night, you know, a home game over there on Fox News across town from the debate where he played, you know, Fungo with the Fox News team.
hosts. But one interesting thing was, you know, he can how he continues to frame the abortion issue. You wouldn't be asking that question, even talking about the issue, because for 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it. And I'm proud to have done it. Now, I happen to be, for the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan with the life of the mother issue.
rape, incest. If you talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don't know if they're pregnant in five or six weeks. But I will say this. You have to win elections. Otherwise, you're going to be back
where you were, and you can't let that ever happen again. You've got to win elections. Well, I think the piece you're going to see about $750 million behind from Democrats is the part bragging that the Supreme Court was that he was the one who did this. He's the root of this. I did this. I appointed these guys as Supreme Court. He can play all that exception mumbo jumbo that he wants to. Democrats are going to make sure everybody hears and sees that. I'll tell you what my view on this is, that that
that the fact that he appointed that court, yes, it's a vulnerability in general, which it will be anyway. They don't need to play tape. Everybody knows that. But that is his get out of, well, I shouldn't say get out of jail free card in this case because it cuts too close to home with Trump. But that's his pass out of the Republican primaries. I mean, you can't really win with Trump on the abortion issue in Republican primaries because he's the guy who appointed the court that took down
Yeah, no, he's the most successful pro-life, pro-choicer in the history of America. And by the way, the New Hampshire primary also.
is one of the not base pro-life primaries. Right, but his positioning is good, which is... No, no, no, I get it. I think this is a shrewd thing. If he can pull this off, which I'm not sure he can. I'm not sure you can brag about ending it all. Well, that's why I'm taking the 45 or under in Iowa, because I think that's where he'll bleed a little, and it won't be like the DeSantis thing, that big a deal in the end. Here's a question for you communists, all right? I think
At the Biden meeting this morning, all right, Democratic, Socialist, whatever the hell you guys are. Here's how I think today's meeting the morning after at Biden headquarters is going. For once, it's not that glum because they can say, well, first, somebody get the president more applesauce. He's tapping the spoon again. And then they will give it to him. Let's get past the gratuitous shit. Yeah, I couldn't resist it. Republican blood boiling. But they're going to say, we had a great night last night because we've got abortion and Trump just gave us more.
And Haley is out there talking about the retirement age, which of course is statistically the right thing in the world, but it lets us go run our demagogic fear campaign on Social Security, which we love so much. So the one candidate, if she does win New Hampshire, who will beat us like a slow mule, we've got a huge sledgehammer against now.
So we wake up with some green sprouts here. Not so bad. Yeah. Throw in Ron DeSantis's flat tax and you've got a trifecta of good series of Republican things to run against. I think you'll hear the president talk about this repeatedly.
You know, the Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania had him slightly ahead. I know that's made Democrats breathe easier. My guess is you'll see him out there more often. I think the White House and the campaign realize this thing's going to be, Murphy notwithstanding, over quite quickly. The general election is going to be on us and it's going to be full-throated for as long as we could possibly remember in any sort of recent political history.
All right. We're going to leave for a minute to pay the power bill and then we'll be right back. Let me destroy the narrative arc and go back for a second, because this is the new Trump ad that debuted today in New Hampshire. Americans were promised to secure retirement.
Nikki Haley's plan ends that. Social Security, Medicare, how would you manage the entitlements? We say the rules have changed. We changed retirement age to reflect life expectancy. What we do know is 65 is way too low and we need to increase that. Haley's plan cuts Social Security benefits for 82% of Americans. Trump will never let that happen. I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message.
yeah, it might take a dent. You know, they believe in nothing. That's the amazing thing about the Trump guys. But in voter world, unfortunately, there's a knee-jerk reaction to any of this stuff. Life expectancy is going to 100, and there's no reason why we can't start getting the government check at 62. Although DeSantis' argument last night was that life expectancy has gone down. A lot of that has to do with COVID, but
Yeah, so I'll rather you smooth out the figures or you do the three-year bump, but...
Anyway, the long-term tread is undeniable. The old political adage, when you're explaining, you're losing. You're losing. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, as you smooth out the bumps on raising the retirement age, good luck with that one. The communists will... Yeah, but it's, you know, it's just... Anyway, this is the big republic Democrat thing. The Democrats will never touch an entitlement, and the politics generally support that, unfortunately. So, you know, start learning Chinese.
Wow. That's my advice. Man, mood change, mood shift. Mood shift, yep. Downshifting here. I want to, before we do anything else, there was some weird thing happened in the last week, and I wanted to ask you guys about that. The Secretary of Defense went missing.
Uh, and, uh, apparent, and we now know what was in the hospital in intensive care for three days. Apparently no one knew, uh, or at least, well, or no one told. Yes. No one told. The national command authority was kept unaware. The national security advisor didn't know. And the president, uh, didn't know. Um, how big a deal? I mean, not, I'm not asking you substantively. I have my feelings about this, which is, uh,
Kind of like if you, you know, if a general, he was a four-star general when AWOL, um, that would be a problem for that general. But, um, but as a matter of politics, uh,
Biden embraced him and said he wouldn't accept a resignation if it was offered. Gibbs, you were the one who used to have to stand up and explain this. I'm not going to stand up and explain this one. I think this one is almost completely unexplainable. The notion that
I mean, I rarely read a story five days in a row that changes and becomes more salacious with every single day. And inexplicably, the Pentagon seemed to figure out how to do that. You know, that nobody had been told and nobody knew this stuff. I think politically, look, I think the...
The challenge you have if you're Biden is this is at the very least is a distraction, right? You're out there trying to do your Valley Ford speech. You're out there trying to do your Charleston speech. And quite frankly, this is just a big unforced error that comes from the Pentagon. And it's it's.
They got to run that kind of error-free. You know, you'll remember this from 2012. We just didn't want, you know, you just don't want a lot of static energy or static electricity bouncing around the political environment of unforced errors. And this is a pretty big one. And, you know, I think it's a terribly stupid unforced error and
and some real potential dangerous implications that somebody's having surgery under general anesthetic. Something is rotten in the E-ring here. I don't think out in voter world it's a big deal. Austin was picked because Biden wanted a loyal, no-drama defense secretary, and he didn't want a big imperium like with Gates or Rumsfeld. But I would think the White House chief of staff or somebody—
who's going to take this apart quietly, because I think Biden is sticking with the guy, to figure out what the hell happened. Who made the decision as they threw him into intensive care that nobody calls the White House? Because they've got something to fix there. First of all, Gibbs, you said something went wrong. I mean, it's very clear the responsibility, and he said so, rests with Austin. And by the way, he finally...
This is a fundamental principle of crisis communications. Figure out where you need to go and get there quickly. He didn't. When he finally got there, it turned out he has prostate cancer and the surgery went...
uh, awry and he, he got an infection and it was quite serious and he's, he's better now. And we, we all wish him well, but, uh, the issue isn't, I guess my question to you guys is not how he handled it, which was lousy. The question is, what would you do if you were the white house, uh, in response to it? Oh, I'd fire him, but I'm a,
I'm a Republican. You know, look, the Democratic Party, God bless them, great patriots, is a bunch of nervous white guys worrying about black votes.
And so I think they think... The Secretary's black, is what you're saying. Yeah. No, no. I'm saying that they, for personal loyalty reasons, for who the hell do we pick, for instability, and for the fact we might, and this, by the way, would be the greatest thing to happen for stop Trump, Biden may have it with the Iranian-backed Houthi militia that keeps firing missiles at Israel and our ships and let the Navy...
clean up the drain there, and he can be a tough guy. He can send a great message to Iran, and he can remind Republicans, wow, Biden might be having a comeback. One of the things that helped Trump the most is the perception of Biden's weakness. So the Pentagon could be in the center of a lot of important things in the next 30 days. They were during the period when he was in the hospital. Right, right. And that might have been somebody's hackneyed argument, stability, we got Operation Smash going on tomorrow at 0800. You know, that's what they're going to find out. So
The right thing is he has to retire or go politically. I don't think Biden wants to rock the boat against a loyalist. I don't know if they have number two lined up, but in 90 days, I think he will be announcing his retirement. But Gibbs, but my question is, wasn't there a middle ground, which is to neither ask, neither fire him, nor fully embrace him? In other words, to say to rebuke him because he deserved to be rebuked.
My guess is that that did happen over the phone with somebody, maybe with the president, maybe with the chief of staff.
But I agree with Murphy in the sense, not that I think they were thinking through black vote. I think they were thinking through just the sheer notion of the chaos of in the middle of what's going on in the Middle East, in the middle of what's going on in Ukraine, switching defense secretaries. You know this, Biden is a very, very loyal person. They pride themselves on having instability inside of the cabinet.
Getting a new defense secretary through the Senate in an election year would be a total mess. And so I think, look, I have no doubt that at a different time period, this might have been handled differently.
And I think they're somewhat lucky that this didn't become an even bigger story than it maybe could or even should have. I mean, the fact pattern is startling. The defense secretary doesn't go to Whole Foods without a full complement of staff and security. The notion, this wasn't just one person checking themselves. I know those military guys shop at Whole Foods, but...
Maybe not. But you know this, too. There was much more than one person that knew they'd check themselves into Walter Reed. There's an entire apparatus that goes wherever that defense secretary goes. A lot of people knew and didn't tell anybody at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Because I think he told them not to. All I'm saying is, you know, for Biden, for whom strength and command is an important quality to show,
I think there was a third way, which is to say, uh, I respect and admire and appreciate, uh, the secretary, uh, but, uh,
this was out of order and i've told him so in other words you know at least you know don't don't just sort of look like you're just you know waving the thing away business as usual well he had an operation it's nap time yeah no i think again my guess is your point is that that should happen publicly not just privately because clearly you know and i think the the the memo that came
From the White House to the cabinet secretaries basically outlining, look, there's your continuity plans. If you step away from not being able to perform your duties, somebody has to know, I think. Yes. And defense secretary, as you guys have made the point, but it's really important. You know, everybody talks about the nuclear football.
That is a secure conference call device. And who's the president talking to? The Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs. That's the red button. There's no launch. There's a talk and plans and an approval or not. So the SecDef is not the Secretary of Interior. You can go into a coma for two weeks and the country's going to be fine. God forbid. We never want that. This is a special job. And therefore, the system failed, maybe by a bad decision. So again, I'd fire him.
But I think they have political sensitivities and a loyalty culture in the Biden White House. So what do you do? You do what Axe is suggesting, which is at least let Biden be the big gorilla and admonish him directly, which they haven't done. So listen, as we wrap up here, and we're not going to do the mailbag today. This is a post-debate spectacular. Exactly. And making no promises about next week either, because it'll be the post-caucus show on Tuesday. But.
But that's is already getting excited. Trump won Iowa. Listen, brother, I'm just watching the great pageant of democracy here. I'm just reporting what I see. I'm reporting what I see. I, you know, but in balance, I'm for I'm I'm I'm for democracy.
excitement. I'm, you know, I'm not, what are you guys going to be looking for on Monday? Because I'll tell you what I am. I'm going to be looking for how the initial numbers on attendance are at the caucuses in the suburban areas around Des Moines, in some of the rural areas, you know, in the, in the, in the state to see. I'm going to watch West Iowa.
turnout there yeah ratio to suburbs particularly uh polk county but also to some extent over on the east side uh uh going up into blackhawk and lynn county and all that down there too
the ratio. Is it historical norm or suburban surge? And are Trump's rules there? Yes. All right, good. Then we're all in agreement. And then the 45 under, does Trump get a chest bumping thing? Well, that's after the fact. That's after the fact. Well, now we have skin in the game. Are you going to be there? Are you there? I'm trying to get out for Sunday and Monday because that's the kind of on the ground reporting that we do here. I show up for the day of and start
Remember the night before to see buddies. I'm thrilled that we'll get an informed point of view from you. That'll be good. Instead of this airy-fairy, I'm looking at my crystal ball from Hollywood thing that we normally get. Or from the sharp prism of the Beltway. That's not me, brother. That's not me. If there isn't a New Hampshire debate between...
you know, DeSantis and Nikki Haley or presumably Trump. I'm all for, I'm happy to moderate the, I think I probably am doing that now, the Axe-Murphy debate on this, this sort of seems to be. Oh, I smell rating. My whole interest is in letting him down easy because Mike is so emotionally invested in this that if it, if, if it doesn't turn out
the way he hopes and the way he dreams. I just don't want him to crash here. I can't handle the emotional. Let me be clear. The odds are high Trump's the nominee, but I've always said it wouldn't be a complete cakewalk and there'd be a speed bump in the early primaries. And guess what? I think I'm right about that. Will the speed bump knock him down? The hundred to one shot? Don't know. Now, let me also say, I think the emotional thing is symmetrical.
You're right. I love America. I would like to see a non-fascist, crazy Republican right now. I'm with you.
You know that. It's a long shot. Yeah, I know that. I know that. I believe that. On the other hand, like a lot of Dems, you guys look at the Republican Party because of Trump, and there's an argument for this, as a raving kook fest, so it's hard to think that maybe 45% of them want something else. And it's hard to find evidence of that, but that's what the New Hampshire primary will start the great test. And so I'm open-minded on the test. I think you guys have given up hope on the GOP. I cling to some. I used to think of the Republican Party...
decades ago as a raving kook fast because of you well that's true i did my part that's how far i think that's how far we've come here i did my part he's over there he's over there in the he's over there in the hotel smoothing out the retirement age increase uh well i can do math that's one of the other big differences between the old republican party and the people's uh spending orgy over here you
You know, national debt. You can look at the clock and you can see we're out of time here. Gibbs, you got to do math too. It's like we're out of debt capacity. Just one thing to put a pin in, Murphy. You did not predict at the beginning of this whole thing there would be a speed bump to the Trump nomination. Just FYI. No, no, no. Here's what I said. I remember you guys, when we debated this a hundred ways, it's evolved. I fundamentally said, I don't know if Trump is a lock for the nomination. I think somebody may upset him in New Hampshire and it could lead to a bonfire.
And I said there's a good chance he could lose Iowa. I'm wrong about him losing Iowa. But I think the story out of Iowa and we'll see is going to be Trump underperforms expectations a little. That's the 45th. That's Tuesday's discussion. And Haley beats DeSantis. Hey, love you guys. I'll see you. That's the prediction. All right. Right at time. See you on Tuesday. We will see you next week with more to talk about. Okay. In the meantime, go to hacksontap.com. See? We have a website. All right. See you later. Bye. Bye.