Russian Roulette (with Sarah Longwell & Patrick Gaspard)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy.

Just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back. No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total default. And it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantee, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear. We have 230 billion frozen assets in Europe, Russian assets, but this is not as a collateral of a loan because this is not our belonging.

So they are frozen. If at the end of the day, in the negotiation we will have with Russia, they're ready to give, to give it to us. Super. It would be long at the end of the day. And Russia would have paid for that. If you believe that it's okay with me. Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, uh, uh, yesterday, uh, at the white house. And we're here, uh, on hacks on tap. We are missing, uh, actually, I should say we were free from the, uh, the, the, the, the often, um,

uh, the always enlightening, uh, but sometimes mildly, uh, uh, uh, consternation causing presence of Mike Murphy and David Axelrod both off. And so, uh, I've called in two people of, of greater, uh, uh, precision, uh, intellect, uh, uh, professionalism, uh, and, and more composure. Thank God we got Patrick, the one and only Patrick Gaspard, former, uh,

Well, so many former things, including U.S. ambassador to South Africa, now a big foot at CAP. Patrick, how are you doing? Good, brother. How are you?

as well as can be expected under the circumstances. And Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and Longwell Partners focus group, Maestro, and someone who I imagine is going to be maybe her version of as well as can be expected might be a little even darker than mine, which is saying something. How's it going, Longwell? Hey, it's good. I hope Mike Murphy heard that intro. Yeah.

You know, Patrick, I was thinking about you when I watched that. Usually the meetings of heads of state are so carefully choreographed when, you know, when when when when when presidents get together. And yet here you have well beyond all the weird handshake stuff, which everyone has pointed to here, you have, you know, where Trump and Macron are just so weird with their hands.

But that like a real time fact checking the president, you know, McCrory's like, I'm sorry, the president is wrong about this. And Trump throughout is like making faces, you know, doing the thing with his hands and then basically says, this guy right here is totally full of shit. It just doesn't. Well, tell me what you think when you saw that whole thing play out yesterday at the White House. Tell me what you think about about how that is that good look for America on the world stage.

Of course it's not, John. You know it's not. You have that meeting with Macron, fact-checking him in real time, and that follows right on the heels upon the third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. Trump and Rubio and all of them are putting out statements blaming Ukraine, passing bizarre resolutions at the United Nations Security Council, again, blaming Ukraine and the President of the United States.

attempting to extract a higher percentage of Ukraine's GDP for peace than the allies extracted from Germany after World War I. It is a bizarre look for the U.S. We have Keir Stormer, the prime minister of the U.K., coming in later this week. We have a new chancellor who was just elected in Germany.

And I never thought that I would live to see the day where a chancellor of Germany is saying that the United States has to now be viewed as an adversary on the global stage. So none of this is good as a good look for the U.S. and practically none of it will accrue to the benefit of average Americans when it comes to the economy and their security over time. It's bizarre.

What I like about Patrick is he's both a, he's both a statesman, uh, but also in the end, a hack, you know, because he brings it back, brings it back to politics. Proudly a hack, man. Yes. No, I'm the, yes, we only like proud hacks on this show. Um, and, and Sarah, I, you know, I, I, you know, when you bring it back to politics, I read stuff on the bulwark all the time. I thought that I saw, you know, one of the piece the other day that talked about, you know, maybe it may have been Mona, Mona Charan who wrote this piece about how, you know, the, a lot of things that are going on right now, uh,

in this first chaotic five weeks of Trump 2.0 are terrible, but in theory can be reversed. The loss of American leadership on the globe is a thing that's a lot harder to claw back. Talk to me about what you think

The American people think when they see, do they think anything, you know, you spend more time talking to real voters than Patrick and I combined times 10 right now. And, and I would say, you know, these are big things. We see what the polling says. You know, the country knows that, uh, that, that Zelensky is not a dictator. The country knows that Vladimir Putin started the war. So what does the country think when it sees the U S voting with Russia and North Korea, uh,

On questions of the anniversary of the Ukraine invasion and saying, you know, we don't want to acknowledge that Russia did it. What do they think when they hear Trump saying the absurd stuff that he says about – the absurd and counterfactual stuff and deleterious stuff that he says about Zelensky and the cozying up to Putin? What's the view out there? What's the political –

the political impact of that in the American electorate. Yeah. So here's one of the things that's gotten the toughest around foreign policy over maybe the last decade, which is that obviously with the fractured media infrastructure voters, like, what do they think? Did they know, do they know that yesterday at the UN the United States voted with a

Russia and North Korea and didn't acknowledge that Russia was the one invading Ukraine. Like without telling people that story, foreign policy has been one sort of one of the first things to go in terms of the American consciousness. And one of the things that is so like you need the American people to underwrite our foreign policy, like the way that people trust the American government is because they believe

that at its core, the spirit of the American people would be on the side of a Ukraine and would always stand against Russia. And I think what the world is grappling with is that appears that our elected leaders have been able to mobilize

a group of hardcore sort of activists who say, I don't want us spending money abroad. I don't want us doing anything abroad. I want that money spent here at home, which is a thing that has really translated to sort of normie voters. This idea of why are we spending money over there when it should be over here? But then

That is buttress, that really scary part, the part that Donald Trump speaks to, the part that's terminally online, the part that's siding actively with Russia, that listens to Tucker Carlson, is then buttressed.

by a wide swath of apathy and apathy and sort of not sure what's true because it used to be just you could take for granted that the American people would be against Putin. And frankly, if you just ask them, if you just say, are you against Putin? Americans would be like, yeah. But if you say, are you with Zelensky, right?

They'll kind of be like, well, I don't know, because I've heard some really bad things about the guy. And they wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say he's a dictator, but they've lost the clear sense of we know who the bad guys are in the world and we know who the good guys are in the world. And America stands with the good guys. And instead, there's sort of a big muddling of a lot of that.

While then there's a fervent support for sort of siding with the bad guys from another section, really the Trump lovers and the Musk lovers out there.

Yeah, and I totally get that. And it's, you know, Zelensky, who I think is rightly regarded as a hero. If you – history will judge Zelensky to have been nothing but heroic and have done an extraordinary and unlikely thing in being able to ward off this Russian invasion for three years and still be standing tall, even if bloodied, unbowed.

Patrick, but he didn't do himself any favors when there's translations. He does an interview where he talks about, it's semi-sarcastically seeming to kind of talk about the $200 billion missing dollars, and all of a sudden that becomes a talking point for the right, which is like, well, there's $200 billion missing dollars. That's not really what he was saying, but it's the combination of him being a little bit flip and the translation not being very good. But I don't think that matters, John. Actually, I don't think that matters at all.

I think that Zelensky could be glib about just about anything under the sun. If you have an American president, if you have leaders in the U.S. who are saying, this is a good guy, this is an important cause, it matters for us, and we're going all in, it really wouldn't matter all that much if he was glib on one thing or another.

Sarah not only speaks to more voters than we do, she's a lot sportier than us. It's important, as you listen to her, to understand that despite the fractured media ecosystem that we're in, presidents still have a tremendous amount of influence and can sway public opinion one way or another. The confusion that exists around Zelensky and the Ukraine right now is a function of the doubt that Donald Trump has cast. I remember, John, when I was working for President Obama

And, you know, there were all these polls around gay marriage in America, who supported, who didn't support it. I remember seeing the night and day transformation of where African-American support stood for gay marriage from one moment to the next when they weren't sure where Barack Obama was until they were absolutely 100% clear where Barack Obama was. And you saw the needle move, not just a little bit, but dramatically. So every president with their core constituency has the ability to

exercise this influence despite the fact that our attention is being pulled 10,000 ways right now. Trump's

Where Trump has landed on this with his thumb on the scale for Russia really kind of subverts our history and our natural instincts and tendencies and shifts a core part of the population here into first a space of ambiguity and then leaves them open to be hostile to Ukraine and Zelensky. Really important to understand that.

So I don't know if it's just me, but I listened to Trump do this interview with Kilmeade with Brian Kilmeade on his podcast the other day where he talked about why he's approaching this the way he's approaching it. And

I never take Trump at his word wholly because there's clearly this Putin fetishism that he engages in, has engaged in throughout his time in public life. But he also is just talking about his core level frustration with Zelensky and with the fact that the war has gone on so long. I want to play that. Just listen to this. And the reason I play it is because

I do think Sarah, a point you were making is to kind of capture something that is in fact resonant for, uh,

some important number of voters and that feeds into the way that Trump thinks about the politics of foreign policy. I've been watching this for years and it's a war that shouldn't have started. I know because I was there and I had it. It didn't start. It would have never started. If I won the election, which I did, it's a war that never, ever would have started. So I've been watching for years.

And I've been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards. And you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I've had it. There's some part of that that I actually think is true. I mean, Trump has this whole other agenda with Putin. But there's some part of it where Trump's just like, I'm sick of this guy. Let's just, you know, this guy doesn't know how to make a deal. He should read the art of the deal. He would know he doesn't have any cards. If he knew that, he would just do this my way.

Sarah, I mean, I think there is the, to your point, there is like some chunk of that, of that MAGA base. And even beyond that, that is sort of like has that attitude towards almost everything in the, in, in the world that drags on for any period of time and costs America any amount of money. Their attitude is just like, I'm sick of it. I don't want to hear about it anymore. I don't really give a shit if Trump decides to, has to get to get to bed with Putin or rape the Ukrainian, uh, uh, uh,

mineral deposits in order to do it. Just make this story go away, please. And I feel like Trump has a feel for that, that factors into his calculus about what political cost, if any, he'll pay for pursuing this really obviously un-American and, as I said before, deleterious agenda on the world stage. Yeah, without going too deep into the broad psychology I see out of the American people, I'll just say one of the things that Donald Trump has really cultivated

is this idea of scarcity. It's the idea that there's not enough to go around, right? And so this bleeds into immigration, bleeds into our foreign policy. And it is this idea of like, well, the pie is really finite. And so we've got it. We can't send money over there. We've got too many problems over here. And Trump taps into, and this is at the sort of heart of the psychology of America first. It's this notion that, see, it used to be that the way that people felt about America was we are a big country.

rich country. And what Donald Trump would do in a situation like between Ukraine is they would be like, hey guys, you know what Zelensky has? You know what Cardi has? He's the American people and the democracy loving free world behind him. So go away. That is an American. That sounds like an American, but Donald Trump has changed.

the broader character of certainly his fervent followers, which is then met by sort of a, just a less fervency and more apathy on the other side and created the sense of like, well, look, if the pie is only so big, we can't give it to immigrants and we can't, we can't, we don't have room for that. And we don't have room to send it abroad. And that is really, that's,

That has that has that has landed. And at a time, I think, where covid on top of like a tough economy with inflation, that's just been able to find an even deeper purchase in the American public than it ever has before.

You know, we always assume that Americans don't pay attention to foreign policy and don't vote on foreign policy until all of a sudden they do. We all know that Joe Biden's poll numbers never recovered after the awful pullout in Afghanistan that, you know, was just so graphic, cost lives, etc.,

But we also, those of us who pay attention to the entire story, we know that we were in that position in Afghanistan precisely because Donald Trump is not a good negotiator. And he gave up the whole store to the Taliban in February of 2020. And then Joe Biden had to pay the cost. Right now, Donald Trump is in the middle of an existential negotiation around not just the fate of Ukraine, but the fate of the world.

of NATO, and he's doing it in his first year in office. So he doesn't have that way of getting out of this from paying the cost if things go south in the Ukraine and in Europe, the way he got out of it last year in the presidency.

I really do believe that folks don't pay attention to this stuff until they pay attention to this stuff. When and if and I think when things go poorly in the in the outcomes and we're seen to be weak and appeasing Putin and really weakening NATO and our alliances, I think that begins to sting people.

Trump in some meaningful ways before 2026. Well, and I just interjected on that point, Patrick, and to Sarah. You've got the new incoming chancellor of Germany basically saying extraordinary things that he even says are extraordinary. Europe has to be independent from America. I'm the biggest country, biggest, most important

economic engine and military force in Europe. The Germans basically are now saying, we got to go, we got to figure out how to proceed now without American partnership. They're not, they can't be trusted. We can't work with them. The economic impacts of that are potentially huge. And Sarah, to your point, coupled with

you know, the, the scarcity argument is part of what fuels you heard Trump, you know, as he often does say, you know, in his speech at CPAC over the weekend and elsewhere, you know, we got to go back to, to the period of smooth Holly, because, you know, we, we can be, we can be liquid and rich again, which is premised on this notion of scarcity. America is a poor country in Trump's view. So, you know, I'm going to adopt tariffs, which are going to be bad for our relationship with our European trading partners and not to mention our Asian trading partners, but, but,

You know, if the European Economic and Strategic Security Alliance is fractured, that is something that's not just going to be a theoretical thing. That's something that's going to hit Americans in a very direct way in terms of their pocketbooks between now and, if not the midterms, certainly between now and 2028 when Donald Trump is probably going to be trying to get reelected for his third term. Yeah, I just, I want to throw something out there, which is, you know,

A lot of times people, people who don't want to do anything will hide behind America's apathy. Like, so the Americans are sort of, they're either, they find foreign policy confusing or they're apathetic towards it or whatever. And so you'll hear leaders be like, well, Americans don't want to do this. And there's some truth to that. But also, and this goes back to the original point Patrick made, and I think it's a deeply important one.

Leadership matters a great deal on foreign policy. The stories we tell about ourselves can be extremely potent. And if there was a leader in the Democratic Party in this moment who could find it in themselves to stand up and, I don't know, call cameras around or do something like where are all the Democrats saying this isn't what America does? America doesn't side with

Russia in the UN. We should be screaming and yelling about this. What is happening right now? And so it's funny for me as a former Republican to watch the Don Bacons of the world or watch these other Republicans who know how horrible it is condemn it without mentioning Trump because it's their

They're pathetic and they're spineless. And so Democrats, though, they have of there's real Republican support that still comes from the well of of these Republicans knowing how wrong this is to side with Putin. And Democrats should leverage that and go on offense against them and make those more apathetic. You can turn apathy into a much clearer vision if you tell them the right if you tell them the true story, but you just don't see the

You see like sort of some general screaming, yelling, but no concerted effort to say, guys, this is insane. We would never side with Russia on these things and against, you know, Europe and the Western alliance and the Pax Americana and the World War II order. We should be talking about that because you can make Americans care about it. I think we need to sneak in a little break right now. So let's do that and we'll see on the other side.

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I want to come back to Democrats and that question. I want to backload that to the end of the podcast and kind of put that all in one bucket. Sarah raises, obviously, a great point. And the question of why there hasn't been so far and whether there really is an opportunity at this place in the calendar for the political calendar for Democratic voices to emerge. We'll get to that question. I want to bring the conversation back closer to home here because, again, in the Macron era,

briefing yesterday, the gaggle yesterday, a different issue was raised that got an answer from Trump that's worth hearing. That issue was now the slew of emails and postings on X by our co-president, Elon Musk, related to an email that was sent over the weekend, basically telling all federal workers to justify their existence or what they've done in the last week.

or, uh, or answer that and tell us, or, uh, we'll consider that effectively, uh, uh, a resignation. And there's been back and forth over this, over the, over the subsequent days, you had, uh, leaders of various Trump agencies who pushed back against that to their own workers and said, don't answer this email. Uh,

Uh, Musk has now said, you know, the given people a second chance that as of today said, you know, you now have another week to answer this email, but if you don't do, then you're definitely going to be, you're definitely going to be fired. Um, there's a raises a whole bunch of questions about, about not just about civil service protections, but about like, who's really in charge.

And, you know, it's just such an incredibly degrading and demeaning thing that these emails represent on the kind of human scale. And it's just massively disruptive. Trump yesterday with Macron was asked about it. And this is how he answered. Elon Musk tweeted this out and said, great president, when Trump answered. You're talking about the last email that was sent?

where he wanted to know what you did this week. You know why he wanted that, by the way? I thought it was great, because we have people that don't show up to work, and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, "Tell us what you did this week," what he's doing is saying, "Are you actually working?" And then if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist.

Patrick, I can't tell you the number of times I've been fired or semi-fired. Semi-fired is a big thing in my history. I've been semi-fired many times from many jobs. I've been semi-fired more of the times that I've been semi-hired. But we've got to talk about the Elon Musk of it all. But start with this. From the moment that the election happened and Elon Musk turned up,

At Mar-a-Lago, sitting next to Donald Trump in the middle of all the phone calls he was making to world leaders the day after the election. Trump, Musk has been at his side constantly, has had a bigger role than anybody. I defy anybody to say that they predicted before the election that Elon Musk would have the role that he's had in this presidency so far.

And everyone has predicted on sometimes reasonable, sometimes slightly implausible reasons, but mostly reasonable. You know, he's going to get too big for his britches. People don't. He's disruptive. People don't like it. He's going to be bigger than Trump. Trump will think he's profiting off him. They'll break up because that's what happens with Donald Trump and anybody who is on Donald Trump's side. They always break up.

As far as I can see, Donald Trump has never said anything in this period of time other than to endorse and affirm and praise what Elon Musk has done. In some ways, this honeymoon has lasted longer than anyone expected. And I ask you whether you think...

inevitably that the honeymoon will fall apart. But almost more importantly, why it hasn't, there's been no sign of strain or fracture between these two guys. You would have thought the Oval Office wasn't big enough for the two of them, but so far Trump seems very happy with Elon Musk. That's a great question, John, but I think that we're in no position to actually answer that question. We don't know why it hasn't fractured thus far in the same way that we don't know why Donald Trump is so damn cozy to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

We just don't know. It does feel as if there is a thing that Elon Musk is leveraging with Trump over Trump, either in partnership with Trump or in contestation with Trump. It's not clear to us. That's a little hazy. I think it won't be clear for a while. But I don't think that's the important question, right? I think that the more important question, the more salient political question for hacks like us is when Republicans in the House and Senate will tire of

of Elon Musk because he's going to be a real drag on their numbers and their performance. That's when you'll see a pushback against Trump that invariably leads to some kind of a split and a devolution of the power of Elon Musk. We're already starting to see some signs of it. But here's a thing to watch, an interesting thing to watch. I'll keep answering the question by first going back to Europe and then to the U.S. Watch these numbers, John. The sales of Tesla

year in, year out in Germany plummeted by 60% last month after Musk went all in for the extreme right-wing AFP party.

in Germany, that's a huge deal, a 60% plummet in a month. So all the American CEOs who are in U.S. chambers of commerce in Europe and around the world are watching that data point. And in the political side, the data point that Republicans in the House and Senate are watching are the fact that last month, Elon Musk was five points underwater with voters.

Now he's 12 points underwater with voters, and they're starting to see some of that drag on Trump himself. And if you're Rick McCormick in Georgia, if you're Mark Alford in Kansas City, and you're showing up to your town halls, town halls, you know, Rick, I think McCormick's seat, he won by like, Trump won by like 30 points, right? So this is a safe Republican seat. And people are coming up and shouting at you about the performance of Elon Musk. Same with Alford.

in Kansas City. And right now, these Republicans have been kind of on the bat for, they can only say things like, well, God has a plan for you if you're a fired worker, or your job is duplicative of AI, which is what Rich McCormick said out loud in Georgia.

That dog can't hunt, and this is eventually going to bite them, and eventually Trump is going to be forced to respond to that because he needs those votes for his tax plan or all the other stuff that he's trying to get done. So, Sarah, Patrick just opened up a can of worms and a can of whoop-ass, and I'm just going to throw that open to you because there is this—I will stipulate that my view is that

Elon is different, and he's different from anybody else. He's different from Bannon or anybody else who's ever been around Trump because he has all that money, which allows him to – gives Trump further –

cudgel against anybody who shows disloyalty in terms of being able to fund primary challenges. And also he has the platform. He has X, which is really important to Donald Trump. Those are two assets that Elon Musk brings to the table that no one else has ever been at Trump's side momentarily has brought. So I predict that marriage lasts longer than a lot of other marriages because Trump sees what he gets out of Elon Musk. And he's, again, always really transactional. But there's this larger question Patrick's raising, which is,

The Doge backlash, we're seeing it in Republican town halls. We're seeing it around the country. There is, you know, if you took all of Elon's stuff,

uh, that he's done, uh, so far that he, that's directly kind of like on his shoulders. Uh, how big is that backlash? How real is that backlash? Is it starting to bite right now? Is it starting to cut? I know we've got some, some focus groups sound from you that we'll play in a minute, but I just want to get your overview on, there's a kind of meme out there right now, which is, Hey, this is starting to go South for Trump. Um, because of, because of Doge and because of Elon Musk, are you buying that to what extent is it true?

Uh, so I had care. It sounds like you've got the, the focus group pod that I did with Kara Swisher, where we asked a lot of people about Elon. It was enormously instructive. Um, but the extent to which Elon Musk is a heat shield for Trump right now, where like he can absorb a lot of the blows and sort of doesn't care, right. He doesn't have a political project at all. And so to the extent that

he would have to drag Donald Trump down pretty far. And also Donald Trump only kind of has a political project at the moment too, which is just like him maintaining power and maybe running again in 2028 and continuing to run roughshod and have fully captured the Republican Party. And what I'm seeing from voters, like what voters think about Elon is interesting. Specifically, these are people who voted for Biden and then voted for Trump.

They split into kind of two camps. There's the camp that feels like, hey, AI is coming. You know, the world is changing and Trump has people around him who understand this future world. And so I like that. Then there's this other camp of voters, again, also Trump voters who think,

why is this cartoon villain billionaire in all our stuff? I don't understand, right? And it's not, you don't have to persuade them on that. They already have in their bodies a sense of super rich weirdo guy now all in has his fingers in all of our information. And Kara said something that to me, I had not thought about and knocked me off my feet when she said it, which is the thing that's in it for Elon. So Donald Trump and Elon both have things that they're

that are in it for them and they're complimentary, which is why I think this hasn't blown up. And I agree with you, actually. I think this is going to last a lot longer. I mean, we have to fundamentally change our framework about the idea that, well, like Trump eventually just gets mad and casts everybody aside who present any challenge to his supremacy. No, he gets a lot out of Elon. But what Elon gets out of it

is that if his main focus, now he doesn't, I'm not sure he cares about Tesla and any of that as much as he cares about two things, going to Mars and colonizing it, maybe becoming the first trillionaire, but the biggest thing he wants, the way he gets those things

is by getting all of the government information. This is the point that Kara made that I had not really thought about, which is the AI language learning models are running out of one thing, which is info. And the biggest data set of info, all the info, it's there in the federal government. And if Elon can have that info, he's got real incentives to stay there and get that information and build his AI so it competes and beats out the other, the Sam Altmans, you know, who he's fighting with.

And to understand politics today, the extent to which you have to have such a deep sense of both popular culture and then these other sort of information spaces like tech to know what's going on, it's just not just politics anymore. Totally. And I'll say, you know, the thing that supports that buttress of that argument is...

You know, we these these answers that employees, government employees are being forced to send back are being asked or told to send back that we've now been reported this morning that what the plan is, is to take all of those responses and feed them into AI and let AI make a determination. And that becomes like a that becomes like a glib joke on cable news. Oh, AI is going to figure out who gets fired, who gets semi fired. But in fact, it's really part of a much more pernicious conversation.

But this is obvious. But this has been clear for some time. It's also clear to our competitors overseas. We also know that the 23-year-olds that Elon Musk has running around government have not created hack-proof systems. So all the data that goes into this input at HR is accessible to the Chinese as well. And they can do the same conglomeration of the information and learn things about Department of Homeland Security, about the Pentagon, about our ag budgets, etc.,

that was not altogether clear to them in the past. So this is an incredibly dangerous thing. But Sarah, I'm struck when you say that Elon Musk doesn't have a political project. I think all of this is a political project. It's about the accumulation of a particular kind of power. Of course, for him, it accrues to his economic benefit, but it begins with political consolidation, which is a political project inherently. And

And I think it's clear. And the only path to success in that political project is by a kind of squeezing out of Democratic accountability in our system. I think it's clearly, aggressively a political project. And I think that at the end of the day, not the end of the day, but I think we're already starting to see some signs of strain that Republican officeholders are bearing as a consequence of that political project. When you have

One hundred folks in Kansas, in this show up at a town hall who've recently been laid off from Department of Veterans Affairs. And they're saying to Congressman Mark Alford, we need an explanation for this. This is just willy nilly. It's causing real harm to middle class communities. Many of whom voted for Donald Trump. You can't just tell us that God has a plan for us. It just doesn't that doesn't work.

So I agree with everything that you say, except for this notion of a political project. You raise a great point, but I think I'm talking about a political project in the way that Steve Bannon has a political project, right? Like he has a way that he thinks the world should be oriented politically.

I think that must does as well. You're right that Elon Musk has a political project, but it's oriented toward how do I enhance Elon Musk? Right. Which is sort of what Trump's is, too. And they're both finding. I actually don't think it is. I think that there is an existent. I think there's a there's a demographic existentialism that runs through Elon Musk's political project that runs through Donald Trump's political project. It is it is echoed by some of the things you hear them saying about places like South Africa.

For instance, there are all kinds of weird, bizarre population control philosophies that are suffused throughout everything that Elon Musk is doing and saying every single day. It is private sector business, but also how he approaches government aid, like USAID resources for contraception, for instance. There is a philosophy there. It's very different than Steve Bannon's.

but it's dystopian. It's kind of demographic existentialism. And it's not simply about the body. When you say demographic existentialism, do you mean like white supremacy? Birth rates, white birth rates. They articulate it. They put it right out there in some really powerful ways. That is suffused throughout everything that these people do and everything that they say. It's just a fact. We need to take a quick break right now, but we'll be right back with more of Hacks on Tap.

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The one thing I want to come back to is Sarah, your point. I talked to Swisher about this too, back in December. And she kept talking about Elon's obsession with going to Mars. I've never been a big fan of direct democracy, you know, like of, of, of doing, you know, initiatives like a national initiative. But if we could have an up or down vote on sending Elon Musk to Mars, I'm pretty sure with the help of Patrick Gaspar and Sarah Longwell and other smart people in our business, we could win that battle. We could get to 50. We get to 50.1 on send the guy to Mars now, right?

This was exactly what I said to Kara. My response was like, how fast can I get this guy to Mars? Because, you know, I don't think you come back from Mars. So let him colonize Mars, please. It'd be a one-way. We'd pay for a one-way ticket. I'd happily bankroll that. It's been interesting hearing these folks and then having their friends online that could describe federal workforce as a broad welfare program.

And then folks are now waking up to the fact that 30% of the federal workforce are veterans, right? Interesting points of tension there that I think is going to be difficult for these folks to reconcile and to hit the goals that they are projecting. So as we speak, as we sit here taping this Tuesday, this battle is brewing. What is a key moment in the early phase of Trump 2.0, which is the

the beginning of a vote, the first procedural vote on the House budget reconciliation bill. We've got a debt limit vote that's going to be coming soon. And when I say it's a key moment, it's a key moment because up until now,

The legislative branch has been essentially absent in any meaningful way from much of what Trump has been doing. He has been the flurry of executive orders, incredibly aggressive, incredibly active, has provoked a bunch of court challenges. The courts are really busy. The executive branch is really busy. The Congress has been busy.

because it's controlled by Republicans. It's been almost entirely supine. It's basically said, subjugate us, do what you need to do. But eventually we would come to the point as we all knew we would, where legislative action was necessary in order to do certain things, including pass a budget, do big tax cuts, raise the debt ceiling. Those are now coming or the day is the first day of the next phase of this period. And as that approaches, uh,

We have a view among some members of the democratic consultant class and that this is with the early sense of some backlash happening to Doge. We now have a much more inhospitable political terrain ahead for Donald Trump and the Republican party. And that, you know, this is going to be when the, when political physics kicks in the most extreme possible,

A proponent of this view is our friend James Carville, who over the weekend made a bold and typically Carvillian prediction about what is about to unfold over the next not three months, not three years, but over the next 30 days. Let's listen to that. What I've said very publicly, Democrats need to play possum. This whole thing is collapsing.

It doesn't need Elizabeth Warren and somebody screaming to pacify some progressive advocacy groups in Washington, which, by the way, I wish these people were just useless. They're actually worse than useless, that they're detrimental. And they never, ever learn to shut up. And so, Dan, this is what I believe. I believe that this administration in less than 30 days in the midst of a massive collapse.

And particularly a collapse in public opinion. It's going to be easy pickings here in six weeks. Sarah, easy pickings in six weeks? I mean, I'm not sure about that. And look, I agree with him. The Democrats should should.

What is it? Don't interrupt your enemy when they're busy self-destructing or, you know, that's there's real truth to that right now. And I think that it depends on what he means by play. Awesome. Exactly. Because what I think Democrats should do is make sure they do not deliver Republicans any votes on this. Like, let like you do have to. Democrats have it.

some agency here and they should act like an oppositional, like that they are opposed to the things they're opposed to and not give the Republicans, make them debate this with themselves. I mean, let them, because Elon Musk is already out there tweeting, being like, I don't know, sounds bad if they're going to add this much debt. If they, you know, because Thomas Massey is talking about how this budget's bad. You have these really hard line right wingers. They're going to make trouble for Mike Johnson. Elon's going to help them. You should let

them eat themselves. But I also don't think that Democrats should just not say anything. I don't know if anybody's noticed, but Democrats not having much of a communication strategy has been working to their detriment now for about four years. And so like really catastrophically working to their detriment. And so I would urge them, yes, to have a positive, decent message. I don't know that I would let Elizabeth Warren carry it, but

Please, God, you should say some things. Patrick, you're Patrick. Patrick had like almost like a reflex. The head was like nodding with great vigor. Patrick, you've been nodding a lot of things Sarah has said, but nothing more vigorously than that. And with a big, bright smile. You agree about this. So whenever I hear Sarah, whatever I read, Sarah is nodding vigorously. Sarah is just righteous.

But look, what I wasn't nodding in the affirmative to was anything that James Garneau just had to say.

You know, James Carville can always be counted out and say something really entertaining. He can always be counted out to take some unnecessary, egregious slap of the left base of the party that we still need, by the way. And the third thing is Democrats have been playing possum for many years. That's why we just lost the freaking election. Like playing possum is not a good strategy. The biggest problem that Donald Trump has right now is that the majority of voters are unhappy with

with the economy and they're dissatisfied with Donald Trump's response on the economy. If you look at all the polls that came out recently, whether it was Reuters, a CNN poll, the Quinnipiac poll, the CBS poll, all of them say that the vast majority of Americans think that their economy is still on the wrong track and a whopping percentage of them will say that Donald Trump is insufficiently paying attention to the economy and trying to deal with cost of living. You gotta push into that. And the fact that the kind of the

The rent check is coming due right now in the regular sequencing of bills in Washington, D.C. gives Democrats a chance to say that loud and clear and to not play possum, but to do so in a way that starts to build broad consensus across the party. You know, coming after the elections, John and Sarah, it's been kind of, you know, in vogue for Democrats to kind of get into their circular firing squad mode.

We're only going to be successful in 2026 and 2028 if we figure out how to hold the damn tent together while being really clear about what our story is, what our values are, and who the villains are and who we're chanting. So, Patrick, would you think when you say those things, all of which I think in the abstract, I think...

make a lot of sense. And I think many people would say, yeah, that makes sense. What Patrick just said, what does it actually sound like? I mean, I know you're not, you're not primarily a message guy. That's not been your, your, you're not a, some people would say I suck at a job. Well, I wouldn't say that, but I would say, but I wouldn't say you're not like an ad maker, you know, you're no David Axelrod, God knows, uh, or, or phrase maker. Uh, but like, what do you think it sounds like? What does it look like in a concise way?

Democrats should do what right now as they start to, you know, last night on Rachel Maddow, you had Hakeem Jeffries, who who I like a lot, but who was basically saying we're going to gather on the steps of the Capitol and we have to. And he said this thing about he he put front and center the Medicaid cuts that are coming, which obviously is a thing that has great political salience in the country with a lot of voters who matter to to to stopping what's happening in the Trump campaign.

on the Trump agenda. That's going to be a thing that bites with a lot of Republican

Congressman, he put that front and center. But when it came to the kind of like, well, we have to tell the human stories and we have to be, we have to be, we have to speak out clearly. We have to make sure we have how it affects, make sure everybody understands how it affects the real lives of real people. And I just haven't heard any Democrat doing that in a very effective way. So what does it sound like to fight this battle in the way you just described kind of in the abstract? You know, there are many Democrats that are, that are, I think, doing it well. I'd talk you to the

the speech that, uh, J.D. Pritzker gave, uh, some, some days ago where he like straight up called these, these folks on the other side, idiots who are trying, who are treating the American people like idiots. He's just kind of grounding his language. And then he spoke very, very, very clearly about the adverse impacts of, of what they want to do. And he said a couple of North stars and what we've got to do for workers, what we've got to do at housing, uh, healthcare in very plain terms. And he was not having the conversation in the freaking well of Congress, right? Members, uh,

in Washington, D.C., need to get their butts up out of Washington, D.C., and be on the ground, not just in their safe districts, but, you know, in places of contestation. And they need to be able to speak up in a way that lifts up durable, majoritarian values and that lifts a set of policies that are universal in their aspect. And

When we do that, we kind of fucking win. When you talk about fairness and outcomes for everybody, dignity at the end, a sense of protecting our shared freedoms, fairness, dignity, shared freedoms, and then you go into tax policy. Then you talk about what the outcomes need to look like on immigration. Then you lift up Medicaid and Social Security. We kind of, you know, I think the constituent elements of the program

are all genuinely popular, but you got to show up in contested spaces. You got to sound like a regular person and you got to be caught listening to the things that are of core concern to folk. We need to sneak in one more quick break right now, but we'll be back with more of Hacks on Tap after these words. ♪

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That's AuraFrames, A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code HACKS. Support this show by mentioning us at checkout and get your special discount. Terms and conditions apply. So, Sarah, this brings us back to a point you made at the very top, and I said we'd get back to it. So,

Patrick just mentioned J.B. Pritzker. That speech got some attention. Less for, I would say, some of the things that Patrick just said than for J.B. Pritzker kind of directly analogizing what's happening in Washington to the rise of the Nazis in Germany prior to World War II. That's not where I was going. No, I know it's not. I said for different reasons than what you focused on, but I think for a lot of people that's what they focused on. But J.B. Pritzker is definitely in the...

put up your Dukes camp. Gavin Newsom's been in that camp. Chris Murphy's been in that camp. Very direct, kind of like, well, I'm going to go out there and fight this, but I'm going to get in the face of the Trump administration. I know they're not the same. They have different messages, but

aggressive, right? There are other Democrats who have, who've adopted a more conciliatory. Maybe we can work with the Trump administration. Jared Paul says one of those people, Gretchen Whitmer is kind of one of those people kind of, maybe there's some ways we can work with the Trump administration on immigration, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's a bunch of missing persons, you know, the, among the 2028 or potential 2028 candidates, you know, I haven't heard a word from Josh Shapiro. Maybe someone can alert me to where Josh Shapiro is.

is Andy Beshear mostly silent, Wes Moore mostly silent. A lot of people who I haven't heard much from, maybe I just missed it, but certainly those things haven't generated a lot of coverage. Is there anybody, Sarah, that you're hearing on the Democratic side who you're like, that person not has the fully formed magic bullet solution here, but is advancing a message that you think does start to point the way to how Democrats should confront the Trump agenda?

Not great. Mark Cuban's the one that I would throw out that, you know, obviously lots of people are talking about Cuban. He was at the principal's first conference this weekend. And I actually, you know, his, he tends to be a healthcare guy. Like he has actually gone through the process of trying to become, have real expertise on healthcare, which I think is important. But look, since we started this with James Carville, I want to go back to something that James Carville has said in a previous lifetime, because there's two, two aspects.

axioms like that. The two things I live by when it comes to communications. One is the KISS principle, which is keep it simple, stupid. And then the second one is the James Carville. It's the economy, stupid. I don't know why they both I think they're stupid at the end is supposed to signify their self evidentiary properties, right? These are just self-evident things. Why is Trump? Why is Trump? Why are Trump's poll numbers following falling for one simple reason?

There is in our world, the macroeconomic world, the world of Wall Street Journal editorial page, a sense that like, look, that Joe Biden's economy was strong. We are the envy of the world that we are recovering better than any other country post-COVID. And yet I know because I listen to voters all the time that the amount of economic pain out there is very real. And then inflation basically ate Joe Biden's presidency alive.

And it is coming for Trump's. And so like, it's the economy, stupid. And so like, if you want Democrats, what did Trump do? How did they jam through all their unpopular stuff? It was all layered on top of

The economy sucks. Joe Biden has ruined it. He's ruined the economy and I'm going to make it better. And people remembered. And by remembered, I mean, they had weird amnesia about the Trump years, but they had this like the economy was better then. And right now, the people who voted for Donald Trump, not because they care about MAGA or America first or they're just like rent is too high, but stuff's too expensive at the grocery store. When is somebody going to do something about this? And Trump's inability to focus on the economy and to instead focus on Doge. And this is where just Democrats have

the opening of the century. Go tell people their economic pain is Trump's fault because he's focused on dismantling the government. He's focused on siding with Russia. He's doing all this stuff, none of which helps your economic position. And like, that's a message. It's simple. It's a simple message and it will work for people. And then everybody just needs to go out there and say, I honestly don't care that much who

who the people are. You know when Democrats had their best moment? The best moment for Democrats is when they started auditioning for the vice presidency after Kamala, after the switch happened. Right? Because everyone was like, ooh, my ambition is kicking in. And so I'm, and people are looking at me. They don't need to find that. Just find that, that horrible who's running in 2028 energy and go out there and start making a case for why you are the best communicator in the Democratic Party because it is a wide open space right now. Sarah's argument is a powerful one, John. I would just like

just add an addendum to all of it. I love that she raised Mark Cuban when you did not, because we have to appreciate that the future of politics in America now and social media in the world is entertainment adjacent. So we have to like look past the traditional voices that we've had speaking out on this stuff and look for new voices that are going to slowly but surely crowd in in powerful ways. Yeah, I take that point completely. And I didn't mean to, I think of Mark as someone who I don't really think of

I finally don't really think of Mark as a Democrat. I think of Mark as being kind of beyond party. And that kind of is the point you're making, Patrick, which is the same way that Trump was, in fact, beyond party Democrat. Totally. He's a short-term guy. That's all I need to know about him. He's so much successful. He's a boss. He's kind of alpha. Cool. He's a boss.

He's a billionaire. He's the former guy, the Mavs, and he's the Shark Tank guy. Those are the things. And he ends up lining up with Democrats more than with Republicans, but he also has business bona fides, and that's really helpful in our world. The last thing I – I just want to play this one last clip, and then we'll let you guys get out of here, just because I thought – it's the first thing that was both – I found so bracing and so – not electrifying, but kind of like – first thing to maybe kind of go –

which was this moment in the, uh, uh, in the white house the other day when Trump had a bunch of, um, had a bunch of governors in the room and was talking about, uh,

transgender edicts and that the NCAA had complied, but some of these states have not complied and he calls out the state of Maine. And Governor Mills, who's out there in the audience, is in the building. And Trump does everything here to Governor Mills that he tries to do. He tries to publicly shame her. He tries to threaten her. He tries to demean her. He tries to do all the stuff Trump does and she is just not having it. And I think it points towards something important. Let's play that. Is the Maine here, the governor of Maine?

Are you not going to comply with it? Well, we are the federal law.

Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding. I'll see you in court. Every state. Good, I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. Thank you, committee.

And enjoy your life after governor. Cause I don't think you'll be in elected politics. He doesn't obviously, because Trump knows nothing about politics, doesn't know that she's term limited and she'll be done at the end of her second term. Also, I will say, you know,

if you're looking for discussions of like things to freak you out and like, what are the things to really worry about with Trump 2.0, that moment where he says, I'll, I am. And then he says, we are, but they're both just as bad. I am. We are. The federal law is a, is a real tell to how he thinks about things and what the real dangers of Trump's expanding executive authority and trying to be centralized and, and head towards a more authoritarian autocratic regime is. But Sarah, I ask you, this is a final question.

There's an opportunism there. She sees this as an opportunity. And part of the problem Democrats have is that they don't find themselves... It's hard when you're not in charge of anything. You're not like Lance Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House. When you're not running something that has actual power, it's hard to find a platform

platform in some ways. It's not immediately obvious how you find a platform to cut through. She found herself handed a platform and sort of cut through and found Democrats, I think, around the country cheering her on, wondering, who is the governor of Maine? How do we get her to run for president? I

So talk about that and how there's a way in which both attitudinally and her opportunistic in the best sense seizing of that moment is are things that Democrats don't do well enough and that they need to get better at. You know, one of the things that is psychologically dominating the moment is the fear and menace that Donald Trump has object as injected into Democrats.

but our elected officials, business leaders, by saying that he's going to be retributive, right? He's going to seek retribution against his enemies. And so nobody wants to be his enemy. And because he's nice to his friends and gives what his friends, what they want, people want to be his friends. And so we're in that very transactional space. And that's been, that's dominated since, since Trump won. But what people are desperate for on the other side is to see people stand up to Donald Trump, because the thing that is true, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, these are the most,

thin-skinned, weak people out there. And to break the spell that they've cast is for people to stand up and say something to their faces. You know, this weekend, I was at this principal's first conference here, and the Proud Boys showed up to, like, try to get in the faces of Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone and these other January 6 cops. Enrique Tarrio, the recently...

pardoned leader of the Proud Boys was there. They were such babies. And then the next day, there was a bomb threat called in. And let me tell you what, I'm in this room of 1,000 people. The bomb threat gets called in, so they got to evacuate the room.

And everybody just came back. Like when they like cleared the building, everybody just came back. All you have to do to this is like stand up to them. And so that's why she got the reaction. It's not because people probably even agree with the point she's making. Like Donald Trump, the public opinion is more on Donald Trump's side than it is on hers. But the desperation for people to just stand up to him and be like, you can't dictate that. That's where all the powers right now. And let me tell you something else. Sorry, just to quibble with your first part.

That you can't when you don't have power, you can't have you can't sort of like win the argument. Yes, you can. This is all Republicans do. They live in the opposition and love being in the opposition. Democrats just need to find their oppositional like footing because they could do a lot of damage with that. Let me just quibble with Sarah for one second. I didn't say can't.

I didn't say can't. I just said it's more difficult. You have to be more creative about finding the platforms to make that argument. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you got to be a little more creative because you don't have the natural platform that the media gives you if you're the leader of a House majority. John, I'm going to say quickly in closing, Republicans understand minoritarian power and they understand that even when they're in the majority that they have to behave as insurgents.

That thing between Mills and Trump was illustrative of the old locker room rules. You remember being like a freshman in high school and there was that big guy who pushed everyone around and finally somebody took a swing at him. Didn't matter if he stomped out the guy after that. Everybody remembers he took a swing and then it kind of liberates everybody else to have the same permission structure to take a swing.

The law of the jungle, the law of the locker room, that applies with Trump, that applies with Musk. And it was exciting to see Governor Mills not pick every fight, but pick that specific fight and go after him. That kind of rallies everybody. Let's go. There's a person I would not want to run into in the locker room, and that's Patrick Gaspard. And there's a person I would definitely not want to run into in the jungle, and that's Sarah Longwell. Two jungle locker room street fighters who epitomize what...

what the Democratic Party needs more of. And I would say not the Democratic Party, but Team Democracy needs more of as it tries to take on what's going on with Donald Trump in the White House. Sarah, Patrick, thank you for joining us here today on Hacks on Tap. It's been a delight as always. Thanks, John. Thank you.