The Circus Show (with Mark McKinnon and John Heilemann)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. Why do you think it is that you're trailing Trump in all these swing state polls? Because you don't read the polls, I'll forgive you, they're tenfold.

Eight of them, I'm beating him in those states. Eight of them. You guys only do two. CNN and New York Times. Check it out. Check it out. We'll get you a copy of all those polls. Don't believe you're trailing in battleground states? No, I don't. They're out to get me. All of them. All of them are. Well, like a half an hour after he had that exchange on the lawn of the White House, Bloomberg came out with another series of battleground state polls that were almost precisely the same.

as the New York Times poll. But Mike Murphy, how many times have you told candidates, don't get out there talking about polls? Yeah, no, I tell them, yell at us. We're paid to listen to you and watch your eyes roll up in your head talking about polls. But, you know, not good.

Not good. That's what voters always want is a president who sounds like Nate Silver. That voice is familiar to anyone who cares about politics, as is his running mate who is with him here, Mark McKinnon, John Heilman, the creators of The Circus, which just left Showtime after eight incredible years there. Boys, glad to see you.

Well done, gentlemen. In three, two, one. Hello, gentlemen. And we...

We're going to talk a little bit more about what happens now with you. It's dangerous when you guys have all this free time. It can't last for long, I know. Well, I hate to spoiler alert, but Quiznos. Okay, we'll get into details a little later. But what an accomplishment, man. Eight years of a fantastic show. So we're here to celebrate the big finish on Hacks on Tap and get you guys to help unravel the unraveling.

of our politics here. We've had a particularly bumpy week. Private Hackeroo is reporting for duty, sir. So, guys... I've had a bumpy weekend. It's already totally Tuesday.

Yeah, I know. Let's see. We got the Third Reich on the march. The president has decided that the problem is the media conspiracy that's out to lie about his overwhelming belief. You know, grim, very grim. And of course, we lost the Tim Scott campaign, which was, you know, the atomic clock of progress in American politics. So crushing. Anyway, let me let me let Axe get back to the helm here. Let's deal with Biden first, and then we'll get on to the Republican circus.

We're going to try and use the word circus a lot during this podcast. But, you know, the president got pissed at me. You have a new nickname, I'm told. No, it's not new. It's what Trump has been calling me for six years. My old nickname from another president was that son of a bitch who cost me 10 million bucks in New Hampshire. So welcome to the hall of presidential hate. Whatever he says, whatever.

Relative to me is fine, but he should really be focused on these polls and not to deny them, but to acknowledge them and understand that they are they are trouble. Doesn't mean he can't win.

This is such a dynamic process, and he's up against, like, a crazy-ass 91-time indicted— Really, the best thing any candidate can do, guys, right, is just to recognize they're in trouble. Right, exactly. And that's not a reality. It's a gift. Yeah, to say, listen, we know we got work to do. You know, we're listening. We hear you. Well, the other thing is, if you're president of the United States, is to say—

you know what i got a couple of wars going i got some things on my plate and i'm gonna focus on those things you guys can chew over the polls there'll be plenty of time for that but right now you know i got work to do and i'm doing it i don't want to be the the turd in the punch bowl here why stop now why stop now of course you do maybe i misunderstood david maybe i misunderstood i thought what

what you were saying was Joe Biden maybe shouldn't run, should step, should, should, should abdicate. And I think you're not alone in that. You know, um, we did an interview with Carville. I did an interview with Carville for the last episode of the circus where James basically says, well, who cares what my opinion is? If you look at the polls, uh,

The polls are telling or speak Democratic voters are speaking to Joe Biden through the polls for two years. They have been telling him they don't want him. So it's not about me, my opinion, what I think. It's that if you just read all these polls for two years, the Democratic electorate is speaking to the president. He should listen. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I made my point. I said he had to make the decision. My view is that if he runs.

If he continues to run, and I think he is going to continue to run, he'll be the nominee of the Democratic Party. And so I didn't want to encourage people to challenge him, or I think that only exacerbates the problem. But you look at this, you know, I spent a lot of time because I was sitting on the set at CNN all Tuesday night, and they dropped this article.

poll on there. And, you know, a couple of things stood out to me that really were worrisome. One was that 70, I guess 74% said that he didn't have the, what did they say, the stamina or sharpness to be president. Trump

just 25 percent said he did trump 53 percent said trump did uh but among those 74 percent biden was losing 62 to 27 yeah yeah you don't have to be george gallup to figure that one out right carville had a really obvious observation and i don't think people acknowledge enough which is

This is about people's life experience. You know, they know people who are 80 years old. They have grandparents. I'm almost 70. You know, they don't let people be park rangers when they're 66. Yeah. You know, much less run the free world. And it's just it's not that Biden isn't a good guy. It's not that he hadn't done a good job. Right. Right. It's not his fault. It's just a fact. I mean, how many people call a hospital and say, give me an 80 year old heart surgeon? Good point. I listen, I.

can make a very strong case. And Murphy and I can we can argue about this. And but I think Biden has done some really, really extraordinary things that will have generational importance. And and I think he's been a I think he's been a good and in some ways great president. That's really not the issue. Yeah. And the problem is when you get into this with anybody, they think you're you're indicting him. Yeah.

And what he's done becomes a loyalty thing with the fetish where you traitor. But look, the problem is the stakes are so high. If this was a regular election, OK, given the indulgence of running again, he has accomplished from a Democratic point of view, a lot of good things. And even from my point of view, there are things I applaud that he's done.

But the stakes are too high to screw around. And that's the problem. Yeah. No, I agree. But so how I'm going to answer your question. Yes, I thought if I wish that he would have thought through these things that we were just talking about and.

And made what would have been the sensible decision to say, I've run my race, I've done my service to the country, and now it's time to hand the torch to the next generation of leadership, which is kind of what he said he was going to do when he ran. He's not doing that.

I mean, that's pretty clear, his reaction to what I said and the White House's reaction. The thing that drives me nuts is that their response is what you heard at the top, which is just dismiss all of it.

They put out a three and a half page strategic memo at that Obama reunion weekend. And the first line was the structure of the race is the same as it was in 2020. Well, that's not true. You look at this poll and all these other polls and young people are virtually tied.

He won them by 21 points last time. He has a big lead among African-Americans, but he won by 75 points last time. In the CNN poll, it was 50 points last

You know, I mean, Hispanic voters, he got 65 percent of the vote last time. He's he's ahead by four now. I mean, these are disquieting numbers. And even if they're off by a couple of points one way or the other, they they spell trouble. So don't deny what is absolutely clear. It doesn't inspire confidence in a campaign to send Jim Messina out there to

Oh, this is just like 2011 with Barack Obama. In the bag. It's in the bag. Yeah. No. I never noticed a point in the – I covered the 2012 race pretty closely. I never saw Barack Obama lose.

losing 22% of the African-American vote to Mitt Romney. I think, you know, I mean, there's a lot of differences in those cycles, as David, you know, well, I just, you know, I agree with you. It's not, not, not, not the least of which John has said Barack Obama was 30 years younger than

Yes. And Barack Obama's base, as you know, was steadfast with him. His base was with him even at the worst moments in his presidency. He still had off the charts numbers with African-Americans, off the charts numbers with young voters. And you look at the unraveling of right now.

of the Biden coalition. And you, you, if you're, if you're, if you're taking seriously the notion that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and existential threats to democracy, you, you can't just be in denial about those realities. They will say to you, Hey, a lot, once the race comes into focus, a lot of these democratic based constituencies don't really seriously think Trump will be the nominee because they're not paying attention to politics. But when we get to labor day next year,

They'll all focus and it will be 2020 all over again, to which I say, man, that is a big risk to take. You know, it's just I mean, I'm not saying I'm not actually advocating anything in this in here, but I agree with you. The notion that you close your eyes and sort of say it's just like 2020 all over again. A lot of those black voters in 2020 heard Joe Biden say they looked at him and said he's the only way to beat Trump and he's going to be transitional. I'm going to get one term of Joe Biden and then he's going to be handed off. And they are they are.

they look at him now and say, I didn't sign up for eight years of this. And they got to convince those people that they should stick with him for another four years. I'm a little split on this because I think a lot of the kind of loose vote in that data is a vote that a competent democratic campaign audit get back. But the larger point to me and what I really saw in that little Biden moment with, you know, you and your stinking polls is what the real problem might be in the campaign, which is Biden. You

You know, that's what staff like is like, you imagine, I mean, you got to, when, when they come in, Mr. President, we're going to have to change things up a little bit. You can't get arrested in a couple of key States against an orange lunatic. No, damn it. It's you guys. You're not getting the message out. The statistic here. Let me read you a few, make an ad with these smart guy. I can just hear it. And that is a problem. Cause if the boss wants to run a bet, yes. Well, I think we saw it actually, because they did several months of media touting Bidenomics and,

Yeah. Put your name on the failure. You know, it's that went very well. And so, yeah, I think that that that is part of it. But there's also, you know, I thought, you know, Jonathan Martin wrote a piece this week and he talked to a lot of people and aggregated some ideas about what should be done. And.

And and I think, you know, a bunch of those make sense whether they'll do them or not. I don't know. But the thing that's alarming to me is I don't see like a full, you know, Biden says I'm full out in, but I don't see a full out campaign campaign.

No, they're hiding him a bit because they're scared. You know, they haven't decided. I keep saying he ought to put his young, brilliant cabinet around. Where's Raimundo, the great one? Where's, you know, Mitch Landry? Where's Buttigieg? You know, surround the action team, and he's the senior. He can be processor Xavier. Shave his head and put him in a wheelchair. It's okay, but they're afraid that'll make him look old. They've lost the old thing.

you know counterattack the cabinet can be the cabinet can be useful to an extent but they're sort of bound in some ways except for gina raymondo who's the solution to all problems all problems through under consultant murphy's the only one with a gina raymondo bobblehead doll on his no i have one too i have a shrine actually

Those are collector's items, by the way. Hold on to those. Those are worth something. But here's the thing. And McKinnon, you've been involved in a bunch of presidential campaigns, and you were involved in 2004. When you're an embattled incumbent, rule number one is do not let this become a referendum. Do not let it become an up or down vote on you. Make sure the opponent is part of the equation. And you did some great

diabolically clever work to make sure that was true with John Kerry back in 2004. Well, we were blessed by our opposition, but so was Biden. Right. More blessed than anybody. I mean, and that's what I don't understand, guys. I don't understand why every single day there isn't someone out there

uh kind of pressing the the case making the comparative argument biden was the originator not the originator but he was an amplifier the old kevin white thing don't compare me to the almighty compare me to the alternative i don't see a whole lot of comparing going on out there i don't that's it's it seems more like he's uh he wants to be uh uh

He wants to be elevated and celebrated, and that's just not going to happen. I've heard it from every incumbent. Well, not everyone, but it's very frequent. I'm sure, Mark, you've been here too. And, John, you reported on it where the incumbent says, all right, I've written the first ad, and there's a crumpled piece of paper. Here are my 82 accomplishments. And I've got an opening line, which is, hey, idiots, you owe me your vote because look at what I did for you. You know how hard it is to get up every early and do all these legislative – and that is –

That's death. And I smell it now. And if you just had a clearer mind, voters, if you could just if you just weren't so deluded, if you just could see how great your lives are now and how great the economy is. And it's not as if they're not providing an opportunity for contrast. I mean, John did an interview with Steve Bannon that will peel your face off. No, no. Listen, in fact, since you brought it up, play a little bit of that Bannon interview. You have a MAGA lawyer. I just go on your podcast like this.

Here's what he suggested were the top priorities for Trump's attorney general. One, fire the deep state executive branch. Two, indict the whole Biden family. Three, deport 10 million people, kids in cages. It will be glorious. Four, detain people at Gitmo. Five, pardon every January 6th defendant. What do you think about that five-step plan? I think it's fantastic. All five? All five. We're going to start the largest deportation program in history. All 10 million must leave.

You're saying that it's about people's gut feelings, about people's lived experiences. You think somebody struggling, you think somebody that's struggling right now in the economy cares about firing random deep state people, indicting Joe Biden's brother, deporting people? Did I say that's all they're going to do? That's Mike Davis and probably the attorney general.

uh or white house or white house council he went on to to clarify that like that man that those positions will either be those the white house council no but that's the reality i know that's the reality but there's there's not there are also realities smaller reality i mean every day on on just basic kind of stuff trump says and does stuff that uh that uh

warrants comment and warrants contrast, not necessarily from the president, but there should be a campaign and there isn't. And that is kind of shocking, you know, when Trump goes out and talks about executing people or when Trump goes out as he did this week. That's really true. I mean, it feels like it's a rose garden strategy. It doesn't feel like there's a real campaign going on.

Yeah, they don't trust Biden as a candidate. So their response is to do nothing to lower the risk. Well, then get other people on the field. I know. Hey, hey, hey, I know. Come on, Murphy. Yeah, I'll straighten it out. I've been yelling at these guys for a year predicting he'd be in trouble. Think about how far we've come when Mark McKinnon's campaign destroyed a man's, Iran's reputation for saying I voted before it before I voted against it. And now you've got Donald Trump like echoing, taking a page literally out of Hitler's playbook.

And there seems to be nothing – they seem to have no ability to even make a dent against that. Almost every day Trump says something that's just on the face of it, a hundred times worse than anything any candidate, any of you have ever worked for.

And somehow it doesn't seem like the Biden campaign can lay a glove on him. I don't understand that. It makes no, I'm agreeing with you guys vociferously, but like, it's not like Trump's not giving people material to work with. It's like he's trying to help. Let's listen to the vermin clip here, because this is something else. I mean, this even by the Trump standard, to your point, it's third right time over at the Orange Empire.

Today, especially in honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible. They'll do anything possible.

whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. I mean, I'm struck because when I first heard, I've been hearing about all this in kind of the echo chamber, I didn't even realize that he was doing it on Veterans Day. Veterans Day! Veterans Day! How many veterans gave their lives to turn back Hitler and fascism, and he is honoring them by echoing the words of the Fuhrer.

Well, and then you get the coup de grace, which is when anybody points out that this is a direct lift from the Fuhrer. They then promise to destroy that person's life entirely. Anybody who points out, we're keeping a list. If you mention Trump being an autocrat, Hitler, Mussolini, anything next to Trump, when he becomes president, your life will be completely destroyed. And I think there's two things about the comment. One is...

I think there's a very good chance Trump doesn't even know what it means or the historical association

Or that he does, but in either case, they're both pretty bad. But who's the staffer with the dog-eared copy of Hitler's top ten speeches? Yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable. He has a German shepherd-eared copy of the... He prefers it in the original Deutsch, but he put it in English for Trump. So just getting back, we're going to get on to the Republicans in a second, but just getting back to the Biden campaign, you know, someone said...

Oh, John, you said they said, well, there are a lot of low information voters and when they tune in and so on. And that is true. But, you know, I don't know what their plan is to reach these low information voters. You know, AM radio. Yeah, they're going to Biden's already instruct call Mitch Miller.

One of the concerning things is the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign is very, very good at working social media, at finding those seams and exploiting them. And like, what is the comparable effect?

effort going on right now to counter that. I mean, it's particularly there are all kinds of opportunities, for example, to split young people away. This war has has led to it. They don't even have to mention Trump. You know, they just they're all they're trying to do is get people disaffected from Biden. And and

You guys know this, that, you know, this takes an operation. It takes a there's no evidence of any of this. So, yeah, I'm frustrated. I am frustrated. Well, there is there is a left wing social media campaign. It's R.K. Jr. That's the problem. It's the third party people who know how to exploit this. And they're all going to try to chisel votes off Biden. Another disaster.

vacuums get filled. This has been a very uplifting segment of the show. Thank you guys for having us on. McKinnon always says he's a prisoner of hope. You guys are like, you know, throwing away the key. The cell is getting very dark. I keep my hope in the Republican primaries, a narrow flickering candle where I get to. Don't you remember the audacity of hope? Hope is what you have to have when everything seems dark.

And there's no obvious way forward. What we're trying to do, though, is encourage the Biden campaign to activate. How are we doing? To activate. And because if all we have is hope...

It's not going to go well if we have... Well, they've definitely activated against Axelrod. There's no doubt about that. If they could just bring that kind of focus to others, to the Republicans... If they can move Trump up the enemies list on top of you, then we'd have some progress here. Get the message out. Okay, then let's take a break right here, and we'll be right back. ♪

You know, Jaymar talked about the organization of the campaign, and it's sort of balkanized and located in the White House. So you've got lots of different power centers there. And one thing he suggested was they ought to empower someone. He suggested General Malley Dillon, who's a deputy White House chief of staff, who is running the campaign, apparently, but doing that as she's doing her other job and just

put her in charge of the campaign. One I liked was bringing our old buddy Rahm Emanuel back to be chairman of the campaign. Can you imagine if he were there banging on Trump every single day and also banging on the campaign?

Uh, but that's not going to happen because they're not going to want that. Right. Exactly. He has access to, in Japan, I think he has access to a lot of really good, high quality dead fish that he could send. He could do it from there. Like just incredible. Yeah. They know how to use dead fish there. Absolutely. But, um, uh,

I just hope that what this is, is a wake up call. These polls are a wake up call that no, actually, we can't discount these. This is a freaking serious problem. And what do we need to do to to to to get this thing going? Because I don't think Biden's going to I mean, I think Biden is running. I don't think that Dean Phillips is.

Is going to upend him. No. He is going to make a few shekels for our buddy Steve Schmidt, though, who did you see moved over to the super PAC for Dean Phillips? Of course. There's more money and less governance there. That's like a Mike Murphy, Jeb Bush move there. He did the Steve Schmidt move.

Oh, wait, no, sorry. Did I say that out loud? I'm sorry about that. You guys can edit that out later. We actually had an audit committee controlled by the donors, and I'm the only SuperPAC guy in the history of the world, underreported, to refund $10 million-plus to the donors when things didn't work out. But no, Schmidt is on the usual drifting deal. Didn't anybody call Howard Schultz, by the way? How hard is he to find?

him. Yeah. I think, look, I think Dean Phillips is an, is a, is a decent naive guy, but he's being taken. He's like a lamb to slaughter here for, for venal political consultants. Yeah. Yeah. Not to dream, not to keep this conversation going longer than necessary, but I was fascinated when in this interview with James, because he made a point that I thought was that people don't focus on enough in general about

he's like, the democratic bench is really strong. It's not like there's not, it's not people say, well, there's no democratic bench. He's like, you can rattle off 10 names of people who are from, from Bashir to Gretchen Whitmer to just rattle them off. There's, it's not like there's a, there's a, we're like, oh, well, we got to do this because we got no other options here. Well, that, that,

part of, you know, the president ran out the string here. I mean, one of the things people say, well, who do we have? That's actually what campaigns are for. That's how you find out. That's how these candidates are pressure tested. And in a field of very good candidates, one of them would have

emerged, and some would have been proven wanting. Look at DeSantis, who was going to be—who was on his way to the White House a year ago and has got a one-way ticket to Palookaville now because he was pressure-tested in the campaign by

But there's no time for that now. And that's part of the problem. And the president knew when he announced in April that if he waited, then the answer would be what you hear now, which is, well, it's too late. You know, it's too late for anyone else. But again, it's down to him. That was the hubris. And presidents have a lot of hubris, comes with the process. But the stakes are so high and the talent bench on the Democratic side is so full that

It was a selfish act. And now if, if, if Trump wins it, Biden's legacy will be that. And that's tragic. I,

I think you're ignoring history. You think back to, you know, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama. No ego in any of those guys. They were like the egoless presidencies. None of them had any hubris. Yeah, humility was actually Barack's Secret Service codename. We had to do the Stuart Smalley thing with him every morning and pump him up back then.

and he would always open every meeting by, I don't know the answer. You guys tell me. You really are the chosen one. We'll say it again. Let's go into the Republicans here because we've played the third Reich stuff. And, uh, and you know, every day there's craziness every day, the legal picture darkens and, uh, Trump continues to roll on here, uh,

And is I mean, I mean, Murphy, what percentage chance are you giving now that he's not going to be the Republican nominee? I have said the same thing for over a year. That's not true. I have. All right. Go ahead. I have for more than a year. We've got we've we've got tape. Go ahead. No, no, no. Play it because I'll go through it again.

I don't buy the completely invincible Trump. I think the field will narrow and somebody has a shot to hurt him in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. And look, I know what all the polls say. They tell me exactly if the primary was held last week, what would be happening. You sound like Joe Biden. Yeah.

There is movement for Haley. The field is narrowing. We're seeing she's the only one. She's the one who won the preseason. It has a little bit of gas. She's got money now. You see that she poured 10 million into Iowa and the Tim Scott thing helps her a bunch. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, she's there is a shot. That's all I've said. It'll tighten and it's going to tighten. Does that mean Trump is not going to be the nominee? Oh, the odds on favor has always been Trump for the nominee. But I think he'll have a little trouble.

We will see. Given the way that the world works and I mean, the Trumpified world versus the old world, does somebody have to be, she's obviously the right person because she could actually take him on in South Carolina. To me, the question is like, can she get there? Right. So does, does she have to beat him in Iowa, New Hampshire? Does she, I don't think so. I think she has to beat him in New Hampshire. He's got to lose. I mean, the, the elegant way is he, when, I mean, he loses all three, one, two, three is dead.

But if she is the second place, if she can edge this, and a week ago she wasn't second. The question is, will Governor Kim Reynolds endorse? I think endorsements are overrated in presidential stuff. But if she can come out with that second place zoom out of Iowa and beat him in New Hampshire, a state that is short on Republican primary voters, we tend to forget.

She, unlike, say, example, McCain in 2000, she can bounce to South Carolina with something there. So there is just a scenario. Trump's getting crazier. People are dropping out. All I which is what I predicted. The hard prediction was, can Trump actually be beat? And we're going to have to wait and see. Axe thinks damn near impossible, I think would be fair. I think it's like a one in three shot.

What's the date of South Carolina? Does anybody know? It's a couple weeks because they've got this rigged Nevada thing, too, that Trump got its rigged. So there's no real voter contest there. Well, the reason I'm thinking about that is just, you know, to your point, Mike, just to echo it, it's, you know, I think, too, if I got for a long time, I've written that Haley's the last. Hannah, our trustee producer, says February 24th. So the point is that he'll be he'll be on trial tomorrow.

Like 10 days after that. So, yeah, let's just I mean, again, it's unlikely, but Haley strong second wins New Hampshire, wins South Carolina. Trump's going into trial on Super Tuesday. Right. Suddenly it's and then Mike, I guess, to the man who would be king. He bleeds mortal and suddenly people freak out.

And yet we don't know. OK, nobody knows. But all last year, people were saying when the indictments were coming, the thing we've been saying for eight years, well, he'll never get away with that. He'll never get away with that. And what we found was that the indictments actually strengthened him because he he with his feral genius positioned this as part of a deep state Biden inspired plot to stop him from running.

By the way, the reason he thinks that is because back in 2019 or whatever, he was trying to hook up Zelensky and a plot to tag Biden so that he couldn't run. And he thinks, well, that's what I would do. So that's what they're doing. He always projects. By the way, I wish there was more of a deep state plot to stop him, but that's another topic. Me too. Team Deep State over here. Yeah, me too. Sign me up. Team Deep State. Let's go. Hey, by the way, just one thing on the calendar.

Taking out Murphy's point, the Nevada caucuses are rigged. But the New Hampshire primary to the South Carolina primary is a month. January 23rd to February 24th. Man, if it were true, just to play out Mike's fantasy scenario, if it were true that Haley beat him in New Hampshire...

Imagine what that month's going to look like. That's going to be a wild month in Republican politics. The long run to a South Carolina where we have a month free for all. Two candidates. One thing we haven't seen, and I think Haley's been the standout candidate in that sort of B category, you know, junior varsity competition. She's been the standout, but...

No one's really—I mean, DeSantis has sort of taken her on the air in Iowa. But if Trump thinks she's a threat, she'll be tested in a way she hasn't been tested. And these positions of hers, some of which I agree with, you know, relative to Ukraine— Oh, you just killed her. And, you know, her position on entitlements—

All this stuff will get quite an airing and we'll see what happens. But before she ever gets there, I think if DeSantis finishes second in...

Huge problem for her. I agree. I think if, you know, Chris Christie has run a New Hampshire-focused campaign, but he is getting some votes there. And he is, in effect— He's going to get out. You think he'll get out? I do. Really? I can't get into my secret sources, but I believe after the next debate. And he'll be for Haley. That's what I'm predicting. Nobody in Haley world told me any of this. It's just—

That's just my Kreskin-like ability to look inside the fascinating world. Nobody told me that, but I have a really good source. No, nobody did. Look, I've been a Haley critic. I'm not her biggest fan, but to stop Trump, my God, I love her. Breaking news, Darren. Hacks on tap. No, no, no. Just crazy speculation from Mike Murphy. It's bullshit until it happens. Right. Murphy's gone rogue. I'll bet you five bucks, Axelrod, that he drops out before New Hampshire. Murphy, I know how well you're doing.

And the fact that you're willing to bet me five bucks. Sounds like he doesn't believe a word of what he's saying. I don't want to take five dollars away from Max, all right? That's all. Because I know that when President Biden is reelected, he's going to have to locate to the hills of Portugal.

So that's the other presidential retribution. So, no, I'll bet more. The rest of us are looking at Portugal in case Trump wins. David's looking at Portugal in case Biden wins. That's right. I'm going to get an RV and move around the country, and I'll out-quick him, and he'll never find me. Irish rage. Warm up the Maxwell. I'm going to go get him. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back. ♪

Let's take one minute here and give him his due and roll the Tim Scott tape. Yes. But when I go back to Iowa, it will not be as a presidential candidate. I am suspending my campaign. I think the voters who are the most remarkable people on the planet have been really clear that they're telling me not now, Tim. Hmm.

Fair statement. I think that that's true. Yeah. I don't think you need a million dollar computer to decipher the opinions there. But look, I like Scott and I was hopeful at the beginning that he would try the optimistic conservative thing. But instead it was all styrofoam mush and pandering to Trump and.

I think he could have been very interesting, but he just didn't have the edge. Listen, he was filled with optimism. You just don't have a very optimistic party right now. That's true. We're a very optimistic country. He was a sunny, optimistic guy in an American carnage party. But no, he was doing like...

the light piano version of Trump music though. You know, if you're going to be the sunny optimist, you got to have sunny optimistic policy. I hate to see when campaigns turn people into something they're not. And when he did his Biden has blood on his hands moment, I was like, geez. Yeah, that was really,

Yeah, he's gone now. Three person race. And we'll see what happens. But there was another announcement last week, another dropping out that sounded more like maybe a dropping in. And that came from the senator from West Virginia. I've made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for reelection to United States Senate.

But what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together. We have the chairman of the No Labels Party with us today, conveniently. The Hex on Tap hot seat. Here we are. So Mark McKinnon. The mega question. I know they have feverishly been recruiting Manchin for something.

How do you interpret Manchin's comments? And give us an update on your No Labels venture. Okay. I'll start off with my caveat. I've had nothing to do with this organization in more than a decade. But I do know the players pretty well, and I think I can give you at least some observations from somebody's perspective.

been around those folks. All right. Okay. Enough disclaimer. Well, let's get to the meat of it. See what I have to put up, Mark? It's unbelievable. There's no surprise to what Manchin's doing here. I mean, he is a consummate, he's a really good poker player, a really good political poker player.

There was no way he was going to win that race against Jim Justice. Impossible. People forget. Just let me interrupt you for one second. People forget. People forget that he only won by three points in 2018, which was a Democratic year. Donald Trump carried that state by almost 40 points. He was not going to win. Yeah. And let's remember that Joe Biden would not have his infrastructure package without Trump.

Joe Manchin. Without question. Or a bunch of other things, including judges. Yeah, as part of the legacy. I think it's fair to say any competent, non-indicted...

Republican candidate that was going to win this race. It's not even a shot at Joe Manchin. It's like, and justice is, you know, it was actually pretty, pretty good. And by the way, I'm not sure an indictment is that big a problem. It might not be a big problem. Right. I would say as long as he's not incarcerated and he's ambulatory, right. I'll cut to the chase and just say a couple of things about it. One, I think that Manchin will play this out for as long as he can. I think he'll dance around it.

And there is a long history with him and no labels. They're very familiar with each other. I think it's...

Quite likely that they'll look at him as some sort of ticket package there. They want a Republican on top of the ticket. They're talking about putting a Republican on top, right? They want to put a Republican on top. But at the end of the day, and this is kind of my insurance on this notion of anything they're doing, which is that Joe Lieberman, who I love, and he is a man of great faith, and I trust anything that he – I mean, I just –

All right. OK, what's the what's the point here? OK, the point is that Joe Lieberman says a couple of things. One, if they get down to the finish line in May or June and they have this unity ticket, whoever it is, Manchin or somebody else, and it does not clearly have a path to victory, they're going to pull it down. In other words, if Biden has 30, 35 percent, but Trump has 35 percent in this this dream ticket has 15 or 20 percent, they're done. Then they go home. I can save them time and just do it now. Yeah, I know. And a lot of the good people there. But it seems so unlikely. But

In this environment, who knows? I mean, as James says, it's not the air of strategic certainty. So, but this is now, this is McKinnon going rogue. I think there's a plan B here, which is the other thing that Joe Lieberman says is that the whole point of this exercise is to ensure, despite what Third Way and the Lincoln Project says, that this is not a secret operation to elect Trump. It's just the opposite. Lieberman says,

The whole point of this exercise is to ensure that Donald Trump is not reelected. If that's true, and I believe it is, I believe Lieberman, then after they pull it down, they could go to a plan B, which is that they run favorite son candidate Republican candidates in five or six or seven key swing states, run Pat McCrory in North Carolina, run Mitt Romney, not in Utah, but in Nevada, where he's very popular with Mormons. All you got to do is take a point or two off of Trump and then

And then they do what they said, which is to ensure that Trump is not reelected. It's a triple bank shot, I know. No, no, it's Vulcan three-dimensional chess. I'm just putting it all on the table, like you said. It's not the bank shot that worries me. And we've talked about this before. We kicked the shit out of you when you were on here last time, McKinnon, about this. But I just think the reality is, and some of these polls are reflecting this, that third-party candidates tend to help Trump.

I mean, Trump has a high floor and a low ceiling, and you add other players in here and default positions for people who don't want to vote for Biden, don't want to vote for Trump. Right. Biden makes a lot of voters holding their nose, trapped in the voting forum. And when you create a steam valve where they can escape, put on a halo and say, you know, I'm going to the PBS dinner, I'm going to stop along the way to save democracy, you

it's just bad for Biden. And, you know, I get, I get the reasoning, but the fundamental threshold choice in a presidential, as you know, is first, do I want the incumbent or not? Yeah. So I could save Joe and Fred and my friends over there some, some time, but,

I think that's likely where it ends up. Yeah, no, I think you're right. And by the way, if that mission drifts, I'll be the first one with a spear out there taking them. We'll all be in Portugal. Or in an RV. Steve Bannon's going to get me out of the gulag. Hey, one thing on this Manchin thing, and by the way, you're right, he will play it out. Dick Durbin had it right. I agree with you on Manchin, by the way. I don't think Democrats...

For all their frustrations with Manchin, appreciate the fact that he provided the sort of decisive votes on all the key legislation that Joe Biden passed on which he's going to run. They don't even get Biden credit for that. That's a problem. That's, you know, that's an unruly mob out there. By the way, at the end of the day, I don't think Manchin would want his legacy to be that he helped elect Trump either.

No, I think he hates Trump. Yeah, I think Manchin's got the grease paint problem, though. He's a guy who was the king of West Virginia for as long as humanly possible. Now he's getting the ejector chair. And he doesn't really like the idea of being the new head of the American License Plate and Window Frame Association. So he's going to go be Gypsy Rose Lee. He's going to strip his way across the country being begged to run for president. He'd be really good at that job, though, the one you just said. We need leadership in that. Murphy consults for them. He'll probably put the idea. Yeah, they've been on my client list for years.

We're trying to triple the number of required license plates for people. Make them easier to read, goddammit. License plates are jobs, my friends. You know, the interesting thing is he's talking about starting some other kind of like middle political organization. That's just what we need. Like the label with his daughter running it. Yeah, the dotted yellow line in the middle of the highway. Dick Durbin said of Manchin that he is the greatest tease in American politics ever.

And there is something to that. And I think he will be teasing for quite a while here until we know exactly what he's doing. One last thing on this footnote to it. Steve Daines, who's, you know, doing a damn good job for the Republicans in the Senate running their Senate committee.

worked really hard to get the governor, Jim Justice, to run. Alex Mooney, a right-wing congressman, sort of MAGA guy, is running. Daines was the intermediary to Trump to get him to endorse Justice and crush Mooney's hopes in that primary. And the way he sold it reportedly to Trump was...

That will free Manchin up to mess around in the presidential race, and this will be helpful to you. So pretty wily maneuvering by Danes, who's done a pretty good job of getting the people he wanted into these key races. And now...

A lot of attention is going to be focused on Montana, on Ohio, because this one's off the board. Though, as you guys point out, as I point out, it was probably off the board to start with. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our Bind sponsors. Listener Mail!

If you have a question for the hacks, all you have to do is email us at hacks on tap at gmail.com hacks on tap at gmail.com or because we've entered the 20th century reluctantly, you can leave a voicemail and you might hear your incredible melodious tones right here on the podcasting machine. Now,

We have an impossible-to-remember number. I work here, and I can't remember the damn thing. Hannah, what is our number? Please call us at 773-389-4471, and remember to leave your name and to hang up when you are done. And keep it under 20 seconds. Yeah, we do the bloviating around here. Good job, Hannah. Yeah, excellent, excellent. Murphy, there is a man named Brad here.

who called in and has a special question about you. So let's hear from Brad. This is Brad based in Nairobi. Question for Mike Murphy. If you were a younger Mike Murphy at the beginning of your hack career, can you honestly say you wouldn't on that Trump train if you had the chance, despite your many disagreements with the Orange Venice?

Well, hello, Brad. Thank you for that question. Nairobi, man. Nairobi, a part of our worldwide reach. You know, in a couple of countries, we're like the number one political podcast because the eight guys at the embassy listen, and that is enough. So thank you for flying the hacks. Brad from Nairobi. First time, long time. So the answer is I started doing this when I was still in college and badly. Yeah.

And I made a lot of stupid decisions along the way. You get older and wiser. But I've always hated Trump.

And I started really hating Trump in 1993, which was not the beginning of my career, but it was in the beginning half. And I was working for Christine Todd Whitman, who had become governor in New Jersey. That was a campaign I did. I did a reelect, too. And Trump was, you know, crapping his way around Atlantic City, ruining lives. So I learned to despise him.

So I don't think I ever would have fallen for the Trump train. But when you're young in political consulting, you're kind of like a young doctor. You want to cut. You want to operate. So young and irresponsible decisions, I do not think I'm immune to, but I would never have worked for Donald Trump. And, Mike, if you were young –

trying to get on a campaign in 2016, Trump would have been your 18th interview, right? You started with Jeb, you went to Marco. Trump, so you talk about broken toys. Drag land, yeah. I mean, I remember in 16, there were people on the Trump campaign that in, there was a couple of Iowa people who we wouldn't even let near the pencil sharpener on the governor races, you know, let alone...

So that was not my crowd. Different now, by the way. Different now. And by the way, we should have mentioned this earlier. We mentioned Haley pouring money into Iowa. So it's Trump.

Trump is paying a lot of attention to Iowa. Trump's got a much smarter campaign this time around. If you think about it, look at his travel schedule. He's been in Iowa way more than he's been anyplace else. I think that losing to Cruz there in 2016 still kind of haunts him. That's the place he doesn't feel confident. It's like the only place in the country he doesn't think he really is dominant. You can see just the way he acts.

how often he goes there, how he talks about it. It's like it's in his head. It's not a gold toilet seat kind of state. All right, we have a voicemail here. I think the guy was trying to place a bet, but after that he got to a pretty good question. This is from Ross. My question is for David. This is Ross in Woodridge, Illinois. Regarding some of your recent comments around Biden and where he's running, I guess I'm just wondering, we know that many of you think that Biden

is the guy and that's probably going to be it. But given what you've said about his age and your sentiments and your tweets, who would be the person that you'd want to run instead of Joe Biden for the Democrat nominee in 2024? Thanks, David. Thank you, Ross. And did he mention that he's from Djibouti?

I don't think he gave his location there. Now, actually, you're not allowed to just say about this. That's what campaigns are for. I'm not a can't-say-go-why before. That's what campaigns are for. They'd sort it out. Answer the man's question. He wants to know who you really think would be a... Yeah, name the candidate. Spoken like a smarty-pants who's never been in a campaign.

As was mentioned before, I think Carville's right. There's lots of talent in the Democratic Party. I've been very clear about, you know, I think Gretchen Whitmer is a top tier politician who would be a strong candidate because she's from the middle of the country. She

presents that way. And I think that would have broad appeal. Bashir, I think you'll see other governors, including my own governor, J.B. Pritzker, running. Gavin Newsom clearly would be running. And there may be a couple of other governors who would jump in. Senator Warnock would be an interesting candidate who might have the ability to navigate the Democratic primary and is a kind of center left

Democrat appealing guy. Senator Kelly is an interesting guy. We'll take a quick break here and be back in a minute when Axe has got 11 other candidates stuffed into the list. No, no, I don't want to do... I mean, it's a long roster of candidates.

Yeah, the point is there's lots of talent out there. No kidding. And we're going to hear every one of them. Every Democratic senator except Dick Durbin is what you're going to say. Not that. But then, you know, Pete Buttigieg would run again. I mean, there would be a strong field. One hopes that we have a functioning democracy in 2028 and we can find out. Do you guys not think it's true that if Whitmer had jumped in a week ago and ran the first 20 days right, she'd be significantly ahead of Biden in national Democratic polls?

Or am I crazy? I agree with that. Well, can I answer the second part first? Yeah, you're crazy. But maybe not about that. I've got court papers to prove it. The road to the Democratic nomination still goes through these southern states with large African-American populations. And, you know, I think Biden does have still, despite his...

erosion among younger black voters in a general election. It still has a foothold there. That's why he set up South Carolina as the first primary. So I think part of the question is who among these candidates, that's why I mentioned Warnock in the mix, who of these candidates can navigate that terrain? I will tell you, though, if you guys want to go dig around the

when you're not on the air here, I know you guys have a lot of other things to do besides focusing on politics, but if you do want to look around, ask some friends of yours in democratic circles, what black women think of Gretchen Whitmer. And you will find out that they love her. I mean, she has a giant constituency among black women all over the country who love that big Gretch and the toughness and the,

You know, they hear it in focus groups all over the country that in a lot of ways she's more popular with female black voters than even the vice president is. People are like, really? She's got big image and she's got a lot of strength in that community. So that's going to be important for her as she goes forward. I'm actually in Detroit right now doing that kind of shoe leather reporting that I'm known for. And somebody remarked to me about somebody of that demo about Gretchen just yesterday.

Mark McKinnon, a fellow named, or it could be a woman, I guess, named Dylan Rodin will not find out the gender identification of this person because this is not a recorded question. But Dylan says the recently released polls in Iowa show that if DeSantis dropped out, 41% of his voters would move to Trump and 27% to Haley. Based on those percentages, doesn't it improve her chances in Iowa if DeSantis drops out?

stays in probably probably uh this person says probably ramaswamy too this is a math question for mcat i've never seen mcat do you have your pocket calculator there mcat you figure yeah it's run out of batteries uh that's a great question from uh he she they

You know, that's that's what the data shows. And, you know, I think people like me make a lot of assumptions about if, you know, if not for Trump now, why would they be after somebody dropped out? I'm a little skeptical of it. And I think that I do think I listen, I'm I'm kind of with Mike on the Haley train. I just think that, you know, elections are also so much about momentum and people can smell it. And Iowa voters are very, you know, they really pay attention to this stuff. They wait and they vote late.

And I think if, you know, with the Scott thing, I think is helping her. She did great in the third debate. So I think if if DeSantis actually dropped out, I think people would quickly, you know, pick up the sense that that that this is a Haley momentum thing. And that's part of the reason he's dropping out is that she's doing so well. And I think that there'd be a big herd shift toward Haley. I agree.

I think that's like a Haley Mary. I'm not sure that that is true. The pun cops are online too. Listen, it does underscore one thing though. DeSantis had a theory, which is if he could be Trumpier than Trump, that was when Trump faded away, that he would inherit that. The result of it is that he is the second choice of a lot of Trump voters. Uh,

And so I think he would get that 41%. It also has made him a much weaker candidate outside of Iowa. He has run an Iowa-only campaign. So even if he finishes second in Iowa, I don't think his ability to move on is going to be particularly good. Yeah, he's not an automatic manager at all.

Hey, John, Patrick asked, do all think that it will be harder? Oh, do you all think it will be harder for Democrats to run on abortion in states like Ohio, who have now enshrined the right into their state constitution? In other words, do Democrats miss a chance to put that on the ballot? And let me amend the question to say,

Do you feel that if it gets on the ballot in Florida and a couple of other states, Nevada and so on, will that help improve Democratic chances in 2024? I'm going to use the Axelrod strategy here. Let me answer the second question first. Yes, for sure. Any state where you can get a ballot initiative on right now that's a battleground state is going to help Democrats on abortion. And then there's obviously a huge effort going on to get that done. But

But I think that the reality is, given Trump's record, and I mean his record on the Supreme Court, his open boasting, all the audio, all the video where he takes credit for repealing Roe versus Wade, in combination with the fact that the president...

the pro-choice groups and Democrats, they've gotten one thing they've done really well. They have convinced a lot of voters with, because there's a lot of evidence to suggest it's true that, that Republicans want to have a nationwide ban repealing abortion. And, and so, and so I think the, yes, does it complicate things a little bit when, you know, in an ideal world, would you maybe want to have all of the abortion statewide initiatives on every battleground state battle ballot? Yeah.

in 2024? Ideally, yes. But the reality is Democrats are going to message like crazy that Donald Trump wants to have, he was responsible for repealing Roe v. Wade via the Supreme Court, and that what Republicans ultimately want to do at a national level is try to ban abortion nationwide. And I think they will message the hell out of that and it will work for them. We've talked about this before. Trump

has been pretty savvy about this. And I think this also may be a reflection of his campaign. It could be him. But he's used the primary to sort of distance himself from the most draconian. I don't think it exempts him from this in the general election, but he went after DeSantis for the six-week ban, calling it cruel. And he has the ability to do it because he has the thing that works from the primary may hurt him in the general. Yes.

At the national level, I think both of you guys, all three of you guys who've made a lot of ads and directed a lot of ads in your time, when you look at all of that audio and video of Trump boasting about how he repealed Roe v. Wade, you guys would have a field day with that and $253 billion worth of television advertising just to drive that home. That's at the national election, a general election. That is the message that voters are going to hear. And the rest of these distinctions are not going to mean very much, I don't think, if the Biden campaign does this well.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. The other interesting part of it is we all know Trump is actually pro-choice. So he will react to this pressure and start like he already has to pivot away. Then he could have a little turnout problem among the Christian right have always been a little suspicious of the Trump deal. So it's kind of a bad fork for Trump either way. We'll see. He's always going to be the guy who put the cord on that. You know, I don't know that you can get

Get it on both ends here for Trump screws up. He can't because you see what his elephant skin is like to take the beating he's going to get on this.

I think you'd rather if you had it your way, David, you'd rather have if you I think you're probably right. You can't have it both ways. But the way you want the way you want it is you want it with with with those voters with swing voters. That's one of the ways in which I think the Biden campaign hopes to reenergize those younger voters to get back in the game and suburban women who clearly are responsive to that issue. All right, guys, how many episodes of this circus did you do over a year? One hundred and thirty.

130 essentially documentaries that you do in the time of a week that were high quality and really watchable works. Now we're headed into the most momentous and important campaign of our lifetime. And I know we use that hyperbole all the time, but Murphy, don't you agree? This is it.

Absolutely. It is. Stakes could not be higher. Depressingly high. You guys aren't going to go on your back porch and make lemonade and...

the world go by. What's going to happen? Is the circus going to come back in another form? What are you going to do? Oh, well, ice show. All of us were both, you know, were on one hand, extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity to make the show that we, that we made for so long. It's a hard show to make. It didn't, it was not cheap. We had a lot of support from show time to do it when a lot of the people wouldn't have done it.

you know, corporate politics in media or what they are. And, and I would say without taking a too much of a shot at, at Showtime's new owner in paramount that they didn't want to be in this game and they didn't want to be in the game. They, they've all of Showtime unscripted is basically no longer exists anymore. And they wanted to go in a different direction. Covering the most important campaign in history. Wasn't paramount to them. That, uh, uh, put alert again. So they went out, they, you know, you know, uh,

Again, really grateful they let us do it for that long, but they decided. I think it's been a little – people have come to us. I think McKinnon will say that the one thing we've heard from people over the course of the last week after this news came out was, what are they thinking? Like, how could you end it now? And I think that's sort of how we feel too, which is we all want to cover 2024.

And we're going to try to figure out a way to do it in various ways. We'll all be out there in our various platforms talking about the campaign. But we all think the circus has got one more in it. And if we can find someone who will partner up with us and do it, we're game for the fight. Breaking more news here, Murphy. Yeah, no, no. We're talking to our...

Our friends at Fubo and see what we can. No, look, it's a proven formula. It's a great show. It's well-made. It's cinematic, which is so hard to do with the time speed you guys operate at. I would not be surprised in our streaming multiverse here. If you're legally enfranchised representatives get a call and I'm sure hoping they do. Yeah. Ditto. Ditto. And we hope you guys come back. Awesome.

during this year, which will be a circus. No lack of material. No material. Yeah. Yeah. Well, go call Jason Blum. Pitch it as a horror sequel. Yeah.

You guys are, I can't believe you guys, how many episodes have we had of Hacks on Tap at this point? Are you guys keeping count? For those of us who have been listeners, faithful listeners from day one, it feels like there's been like 943 of them, you know, but maybe that's not quite true. 237, I think. Not that I'm counting.

Two thirty seven. Jesus, man, you guys are talking about the atomic clock of podcasting. Unless there's no syndication or we'd be on a boat. This is a footnote. Murphy knows this world so well. It took it took more than 10 years to pitch the show to get it on.

because people just said that, well, we liked it. I just don't think you can do it. And the reality is we needed technology to catch up anyway. And it was still, to your point, you know what it takes to make a documentary. I mean, and so I'm extraordinarily proud of what we got to do and extraordinarily lucky that we got to do it. I would think even if you recast it as like six episodes,

90 minute, you know, uh, you know, where it's took the pace down, but thickened out some streamers. Crazy not to pick this thing up. Yeah. All right, guys. Take it hard. They're on regardless. Thank you guys. Good to see you. All right. Thank you all.