The MAGA Hymn Book (with Scott Jennings)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. I am now going to book the Fulton County photographer for my Christmas card. Because, judge, and I say this with an unblemished record of heterosexuality, he looks good.

And he looks hard. All right. There you go, Mike Murphy. That's Jesse Waters, the new Tucker Carlson over there at

at Fox News, proving that he'll go to any lengths to defend Donald Trump. Yeah, he's going to get the cover of The Advocate, too. That was a little weird. It was a little weird. We'll have to get the Hacks on Tap team of psychiatrists on that. They will come back with an enlightening report. Yeah, we'll report back. But I got to tell you a story about our guest today. Yes. All right. The day after the debate...

Scott Jennings says to me, Axe, let's have dinner. I'm having dinner with a friend. Join me. Let's have dinner. We're going to go to Uncle Jack's Steakhouse in New York, which is excellent, by the way. It was a great choice. He says, and I'm buying. All right. And we get to Uncle Jack's and his friend picked up his tab and I pick up mine. So as punishment for the breach of contract,

I compelled Scott Jennings to join us today. And by the way, he could have paid because he's a very successful entrepreneur, one of the best PR and public relations and public affairs and political strategists in all of the state of Kentucky.

Oh, beyond that. Come on. This is the Scott Jennings we're dealing with here. And we also both know the old Jeb Bush secret handshake. Former political man in the White House for George W. Bush. In my defense, all I really meant was that I was going to show you how to fill out your CNN per diem expense report, which I'm happy to do. It's just a simple Excel spreadsheet. No, and being a good Democrat actually sends the invoice to the federal government.

Anyway, Jennings, it's good to have you. So now we not only have a mugshot, which Trump has predictably capitalized on. By the way, putting on those T-shirts, which you, Scott, pointed out, I think correctly, are a little hard to understand because it says never surrender, and it's a picture of his photo surrendering. Yeah, you know, in that photo, I'm telling you, when I first saw it,

I thought this is exactly the look you see on the face of an old mob boss in prison right before he gets shanked.

There's fear in those eyes. It's a put-on fake tough guy look, and I'm sure his crowd will eat it up. But boy, he ought to keep that expression handy. He may need it again. Remember that his presidential portrait had a bit of a scowl in it. Yeah. Well, you know, did you see what Maggie Haberman said? That he told people he didn't want to smile. He wanted to do it that way because he thought he looked like Churchill. Okay.

Oh, God. I mean, this was Churchill under arrest, I guess. But we have more than a mugshot. We have a trial date now. Yeah. March the 4th, the day before Super Tuesday. It's a date heavy with implications.

You guys, what are the implications in your view? And then I'll clean it up. Well, quickly, they're very good for court TV. I'm going to check my subscription. But I think it goes one of two ways. I'm curious what Scott thinks. The kind of conventional wisdom which may be right is, oh, the party will tribally rally around him at a great crescendo. The other theory is this, if he has had trouble in Iowa and New Hampshire, both of them, which I think is the whole ballgame,

This will make it worse. If he's won Iowa and New Hampshire, it's probably rally around the great leader as we all go off a cliff together. Yeah, I agree. I think it fully depends on whether he's essentially the de facto nominee at that point. I did read, I think the trial could take maybe eight weeks.

And so this could be going on over a period of a couple of months. But if he wins, I mean, I have assumed if he wins Iowa by, you know, some kind of a margin. Double digits. And then he wins New Hampshire, that it's going to be very difficult for people to stay in the race. However, however, knowing that he has a trial looming might keep somebody hanging around. But is that somebody?

that would hang around in those circumstances viable for the nomination, you know, I would think not. But it strikes me that the likelihood of us having Trump as the de facto nominee, then having a trial or two and having him convicted once or twice between that moment and the Republican National Convention is really high probability at this point.

If this thing goes eight weeks and he goes in with any sort of momentum into the Super Tuesday, I mean, two-thirds of the delegates will be chosen by the end of March. And he will, you know, eight weeks serves his purposes because what he can't take as a conviction while these primaries are going on.

Yeah. And it's so front loaded. There's no way you restart one of these things late. I mean, the graveyard is full of people. I'm going to wait till Florida and then I'm going to pounce. You know, you, you either he's Godzilla. Godzilla has got to be, you got to get them off his feet now in New Hampshire where he's most vulnerable and yeah.

You know, we differ on that. But if that doesn't happen, it'll be rally around the flag. Now he'll be dead in the general election. I mean, Biden is so weak that he may not be totally dead. But, you know, there's no reason. The only restart, in my view, if he's won Iowa and New Hampshire and he's the de facto nominee and there's a wasteland in front of him.

is some health thing or some plea deal that then create a total craziness in the Republican process to try to figure it out by the convention. But as far as at the primary ballot, man, if he's not tripped early and this comes,

it's more of a general election thing, I think, than a primary thing, because I don't think there'll be anybody around to stop them. And most of the primary voters will have settled on them. And I don't think they're going to move. His relative strength in Iowa is I think it's less than what you see in the national surveys. Yeah. But if you talk to the Trump people, and by the way, make no mistake, his campaign is being run by smart people. They know what they're doing. And, you know, they think it's going to take 60,000 votes in the Iowa caucus. And they think they've got

40,000 come hell or high water. And so they don't have that far to go in their mind to get the votes needed in a fragmented environment like this. So I think it's closer and I think DeSantis has some strength in Iowa that isn't

evident in the national surveys but is evident in the iowa polling and on the ground in iowa but the trump people feel very confident in that high floor which nobody else really has yeah i'm obsessed with well any of the 160 000 d's and i's cross over with nothing to do and like 20 or 30 000 to be material but anyway we actually have argued about this forever because i i think

he is more vulnerable there in New Hampshire. But somebody's got to take advantage of it and we'll get to that too, because I think the debate shuffled the deck. Listen, I don't doubt that he's more vulnerable. He lost Iowa the last time. I don't doubt that he's more vulnerable in those states than he is in the national polling. And people are running actual campaigns there. I just, you know, I think he has a very high floor.

Yeah, no, that's what they think. And the lecturer tomorrow, he would. But anyway, that's old territory. Our listeners are screaming right now because they've heard it all before. I think, should we talk general election on all this? Because, well, we should talk Georgia, I guess, because that's the other loose end on timing. Yeah, which actually would be on TV if it happened. Nobody actually thinks it's going to happen. Although, you know, now we may have part of the Georgia trial play out on TV before, even if it's not

Trump's part of it, but a lot of the

story will be told there. That's another element of this thing, you know. Would you rather watch, you know, Ramaswamy and DeSantis trudging around making campaign speeches, or would you rather watch the trial in Georgia? Oh, nationally, it's the trial. You know, it's the island of Iowa and New Hampshire primary voters. But she is trying in Georgia, she's trying to have this thing go fast.

And, you know, in order to try them all together, there are others who want to go. The Georgia thing is still a big loose end. That could be quicker. Just to be clear and answer your question, I would rather stab myself in the forehead with a grapefruit spoon than listen to Vivek Ramaswamy give campaign speeches. Yeah, I agree with you. But you know what? That little son of a gun.

is such a preening peacock. And he has taken a lesson from Trump, which is never back up, never recant anything. If things are inconvenient, deny having said them, even if there's tape of you saying it. And, you know, Scott, you, I think, said it last week when we were together at CNN.

I think people, you know, he is sort of singing from the MAGA hymn book. And he's, you know, he's a pretty good singer. There were people on our set who I think were saying, well, he's so obnoxious and so on, which he is. But that obnoxiousness, just as with Trump, is kind of an emblem to some of those voters. The question is just whether

whether they aren't already committed to the real thing. No, I agree with all this, but I keep going back to how many hours of, I won't call it valuable, but measurable pundit time was wasted on Herman Cain and Ben Carson. There's always a sideshow candidate. It just seems like I don't want to spend the minutes of my life too worried about him. I do think he could chip away at the Donald. I don't buy the theory he gets non-Trump voters. I think he's kind of the

the interesting, harder core version of some of that. But will he be material anywhere? Because I don't think he'll be nominated. I think that he could also chip away from DeSantis, maybe. Well, that's why he's in the race. I believe he thinks he is in the race to help propel Donald Trump. I don't know if Donald Trump asked him to get in the race, but he might as well have because everybody who likes him is already voting for Trump. But he is

a surrogate for Trump who doesn't want to show up at any of this stuff. If Ramaswamy is in a debate, Trump doesn't have to be there. And Trump praised him, by the way, after the debate. He went on the air and lavishly praised him for his performance in that debate. But, you know, he does do the sort of woke stuff more flamboyantly than DeSantis does.

And so I do think he can keep some votes away from DeSantis as well. He'll wind up unless we find some terrible scandal, which I'll pay four to one money on as people take a second and third look at him. He'll become a MAGA celebrity. You know, he'll be he's he's invented a franchise.

You know, good for him. I want to park for a second. The question of Scott's scenario is like, what happens if Trump is the nominee and a convicted felon? And what what, you know, what do they do in Milwaukee? Well, let's just deal with it now. What the hell? There is a I mean, I looked at sort of the number of delegates who are pledged on the first ballot, and it's really most of them. Right.

So if Trump is the nominee, is there going to be a full out rebellion where people legally test whether they're actually bound? Somebody might. But what I am not clear on is I guess the convention can suspend its own rules. But some of these people may be bound by their state rules. Exactly. Exactly. I remember the rules have been tweaked since then. But back in here's how old I am back in 19.

Back in 1988, Mark Hanna said, no crooks on the ticket. It doesn't play in Ohio. No, we were worried in the Dole campaign and the Bush people were worried back in 88 that if we ever had a multiple ballot convention, people start getting released.

And the actual delegate bodies are often chosen by a different process. So they are instructed to vote by the state results. So on ballot three, we find out that half our Dole or Bush delegates were Robert, Pat Robertson people. Right. And so, you know, you assume all the delegates are rah-rah for who? No, no. Many of them are instructed and eventually they get free.

And back then the movement Christians were very good at packing the delegate caucuses. So, you know, it was kind of the zombie movie scenario where all of a sudden on ballot three, they all get a signal and they, you know, they turn around and kill whoever they're supposed to be voting for. So the convention is not built.

for multiple ballots. No. And you would also have to assume that there were, there would be enough people on the floor who would be repelled by the idea of nominating a convicted felon. I mean, as dumb as it sounds. We talked about this. Okay. If the convictions come, the first one is likely to be that one,

Washington, D.C. jury. Now, people view these charges as the most serious, the ones that are being taken up in Georgia and in D.C., but you know what's going to happen. I mean, and he's already seeding the ground for it. It's going to be, and so are his supporters, the judge, the prosecutor, the jury in Washington, D.C.,

You know, I don't know. I mean, I know that there's polling that says a conviction would be fatal to him, but I don't know that it's fatal to him in the nominating process. Oh, I agree with you. I think it would be fatal to him in the general election among regular people. But on the floor, the idea of a revolt against a former president who.

commands massive loyalty in the party. I mean, do I think someone's going to raise the question? Yeah. Do I think they're going to be shouted out of the room? Oh, yes, probably. And I think the Trump people are ready for it. Or beaten to a pulp. I totally agree with Scott. It's going to be tribalized. It's like trumped up, phony Democrat. Look, if Joe Biden wants to make this thing cut in the Republican Party, he's got to throw Hunter in jail.

you know, because that's what they're all going to say on the floor. Oh, come on. Hunter Biden's out running around getting away. This is all politics. It's all bullshit. Trump's the only honest guy left. That's kind of where we become in our political culture. Tragic. All right. Let me go to where I was going to go before I took us somewhere else, which is Nikki Haley. She had a great night, I thought. We talked about it last week. And so did we talk about it, Scott. I don't know

Do you guys have a sense of how she has capitalized on it? Because, I mean, I have not seen sort of the evidence of that. I've read that she's getting bigger crowds, she's getting more donors and so on. But do you see her sort of exploiting it in a way that is obvious? I thought she had a good night. I still do not see her moving up in this field.

Because I have divided up this primary into two groups, people who came and formed their identities almost entirely before Trump and people who their identities were formed almost entirely after Trump. And I think if you came entirely before Trump, you're always going to have a real problem speaking the language authentically. And even though I loved watching her pummel Ramaswamy for his idiocy, I I.

I don't see it. I also think she leans in truthfully to the gender politics more than the average Republican would like. I praised her performance. And then the next day she's putting out videos to the song Maneater, you know, like I just think Republicans do not.

They don't like identity politics. And although she often says she's not running that way, she is running that way. And that's an example of a pre-Trump tactical view. It's funny that she used man-eater because she kind of treated Ramaswamy like a child. But here's the point I wanted to make. And Mike, you and I have talked about this. My question, and you raised it again last week, we talked about it, about Haley, is her propensity to kind of play it too slick.

to try and straddle and so on. So listen to this clip. This was her on Trump, I think maybe yesterday.

Donald Trump is a friend of mine. It was an honor to serve in the administration and work on foreign policy with him, and I agree with a lot of his policies. But the fact is, I don't know if it's four or five or six or how many indictments it is now, but he's going to spend a lot of time in a courtroom and not on a campaign trail. And my concern is we cannot have Kamala Harris as president.

Again, I'm not a big Haley fan. I see this race as Donald Trump, who's a vile psychopath, destroyed my party versus the most cynical politician I'm aware of in national Republican politics. She pirouettes more than anybody. And here she is doing three-dimensional Vulcan chess again. And it's a little too clever by half. My view of the debate to your first question is she had the best night and it got her into the race.

Now, is there Haley Manning in the country? No, but this is still an August debate before the early states. I mean, we keep expecting we're covering this thing like it's a general election presidential race. I do think what changed in her world is she now is likely because there's this mobile, movable feast of Republican donors who don't want Trump, mostly for pragmatic, some for ethical reasons.

And by the way, most of the elected, it's not all, but a big hunk of them are in this group though. Quietly started with the Santa's. Okay. We got a Trump killer, Mr. Florida and the mega crowd will like him. Cause he, you know, COVID he had his, his routine there. Then it's skittled over to Tim Scott, greatest bio ever. This guy's going to be fantastic. And Scott, I don't even know if he showed up at the debate. Very unfortunate for him. Huge missed opportunity. And we talked about that. Now they're scuttling over to Haley and

And I think they're going to make a material difference in her financial support so she can catch up and be on TV and make her case. So I think the debate and heed her in now, whether or not she is adroit enough to run with it, which is tricky because to use my favorite Russian proverb, you got to find a way to wash the bear without making its fur wet. She's already doing her spin around with this third dimensional. Well, you know, it's really about Kamala Harris. Y'all hate her, right? Right. You know, and she,

And when Trump hits her, I think she'll wilt. But we will find out. She is ante'd in now. That's a different situation than we were in a week ago. The reason that she was good on that stage, though, was that she looked like she had the gumption to take Trump on. Right.

The thing that she flayed, Scott, the thing that she flayed Ramaswamy about was his position on Ukraine, which is Trump's position. Yeah, well, you can't say, I love him so much, I want him dead, you know?

Because her actions are belaying because people know why you start by lying to me. She's the big anti-Putin person and she's wrapping her arms around Trump's foreign policy. Well, she has to because she held a foreign policy position. I think she'd be hard pressed to to, you know, denigrate her own service. I think she I'm talking about his position now. I know. But to run against that.

to openly say, you know, Donald Trump took us in the wrong direction would be to say, you know what? You got to be genuine in these. You should say he is wrong about that. But how do you say that? How do you say that if you were the implementer of it at the United Nations? Well, she wasn't implementing. When did Haley leave?

Early on, she didn't last that long. Yeah. So I think she could get away with it. Well, I think her positioning at the debate was sort of fascinating. She was the first candidate on the stage to actually attack Trump. I thought it would have I would have bet dollars to donuts. It would have been Chris Christie. And he got some early questions and totally. Yeah. Surprisingly, couldn't get the gun out of the holster. He just went right. He just ignored it. And then she turns and wheels on everybody up there, including Pence, and says Trump adds money.

trillions to the national debt. But then later she looked into that crowd's eyes and said, this is the most unpopular politician in America. And this was supposed to be Christie's moment to do those things. And he tried, but she wrestled that mantle from him and also had the most effective attacks on Ramaswamy, who was effectively a Trump surrogate. So I actually saw her coming out as kind of

jumping over Chris Christie for the, well, I guess I am the anti-Trump candidate now. The more acceptable one, though, the spending attack was good. I mean, Christie is just peak. But she's forgetting the first rule of the music business, play the hits. So she did the debate. She had a hit. So what do you do the next day? You do it instead of this wobbling back. Yeah, that's my point. Once you, you know, this, remember Kamala Harris attack

Biden in the debate back in 2020, I guess 2019. And she got a lot of attention for doing it, but then backed away from all of it the next day. If you're going to

really score, then the things that you say on the debate stage are a predicate for what you're going to say the next day and the next day, and you're going to build on that. And that is what I don't see her doing. I'm so surprised they didn't just, where I'd go if I were them, to try to do this hybrid thing, is, look, he started strong. I was proud to be in the administration during our early victories. Then he went off on the wrong course. He spent too much. He got too close to Putin. He

He started worrying about himself more than the, you know, bing, bing, bing. So she has a permission structure to not hate Trump, but be the future. And instead, it's all this, I love him, I hate him, Kamala Harris! You know, and it's just, it's too clever by half, which is always her problem. Okay, then let's take a break right here, and we'll be right back.

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nom.com slash hacks for 50% off. Try nom.com slash hacks. Speaking of Kamala Harris, that is a good segue to the other side.

of the discussion. I think we're going to hear Kamala Harris's name a lot more than you hear the normal. She's still killing Biden. First, it was the debate line. Now it was by being VP and a political train wreck. Well, but he selected her. No, I mean, I used to say like the first and most important in some ways, presidential appointment you make is when you choose your now you're, you're, you're running me. And they made a three month decision that they now have to,

that they're now going to have to live with. But there is a, but I don't think that's his biggest issue. And there was a new AP poll today with the,

the NORC at University of Chicago, it really focused on the issue of age. People volunteered, you know, in open-ended questions, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of bi? And then like 40% said age or sort of disability kinds of answers. Right.

I mean, I just think this thing continues to loom large and what you're setting up is like a choice of risks in people's minds. And let me just parenthetically say, which will separate me from you two guys, I can make a very strong case for Joe Biden based on the merits of what he's done. I feel very strongly about that. But this age piece looms large and it's going to be which guy is riskier, the crook who tried to tank democracy or

or the guy who's going to be 86 at the end of his term. And the country perceives cannot run the economy, which is the bread and butter of a presidential reelect. And if they don't fix those numbers, you put the two together, he's too old and he doesn't know what he's doing and it's hurting me economically. Even a box of hammers like Trump has a shot. I was on CNN Sunday morning right after Bernie Sanders, who I guess had come on the show to be a surrogate.

for Joe Biden. He was campaigning for him in New Hampshire and he spent 90 percent of his time telling us how much health care and the economy in the United States sucks. And he just couldn't stop talking about it. And I'm like, well, we're living under Joe Biden as vice president's health care, you know, triumph, Obamacare. We're living under what he calls Bidenomics. And Sanders is just going on and on and on about it. And then he pivoted and said, yeah, but we have to save democracy. But I think Mike is right. I think that

Uh, people are not happy. I, I've heard that, uh, the Biden surrogate say, well, he's just not being heard. And it's a, you know, we've got to communicate better about, you can't, you can't communicate people out of how they're feeling about their own personal anxiety and what they're experiencing in their own life. And I,

I think if they assume that's the problem, it's going to be a real issue for them. And it's obviously why they're begging for and need Trump in this race, because anybody south of 70 who isn't in jail is going to be able to make this case against him. I saw that interview with Sanders. I asked slightly different interpretation of it. Bernie was doing Bernie. I'm sure if he were here, he'd say we're better off than we were before Obamacare and before the things that Biden.

Biden has done. But the interesting part of that interview to me, Scott, was the question about the Green Party and about Cornel West. There was an Emerson poll this week, and they had Trump ahead by two in a head-to-head, by the way. But they had him up by four in a three-way with Cornel West. Oh, I think the number of people who don't want this rematch

How about this guy that sings the song, the rich man? I mean, everybody thinks he's a rebel. He's not a rebel. He hates them all. How many people out there feel that exact same way and wouldn't choose any third door?

Any third door just to not have to make this choice. It's probably more than we know. Yeah, I totally agree with that. There's been this strain, too, of younger voters feeling alienated from Biden. Now, they're behavioral Democrats in the end. You ought to be able to get them. But if there's a Cornel West or somebody where they can vote against the system. Yeah, that is an escrow camp. People have put votes in and the wine and cheese version of it is this third door.

I can't remember even the name of it. You know, we're going to- No labels. Yeah, no labels. And it's the same thing. Both are good for Trump or whoever the Republican nominee is. The thing about that interview that I thought was curious was Bernie sort of said, we progressives have to do anything to stop Trump. But he didn't do the last part that it seems to me he and others need to do if they're going to be helpful here, which is to say, and Cornel West should not be running.

on the Green Party line because all he is going to do is aid and abet Trump's reelection and we can't afford that. They really need to start saying that. He was very gentle. You know, this is my friend and I understand. And he made the case over democracy, but it was not a raw, hey, man, I love you, but don't tank the election. He did not get anywhere near that sort of direct line.

But there are other issues out there, obviously, that are animating the electorate. I mentioned last week that of the special elections that we've held this year, 38 of them, I think in 36, the average Democratic turnout was 10 points above normal Democratic participation. So there's energy among Democrats. It may not, you know, there may be questions about Biden's age, but there's energy around some issues that none more than abortion rights

Here's an ad that Biden just went up with.

If I were president of the United States...

I would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? Yes or no, as a principal? The answer is that...

There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah, there has to be some form. President Biden and Vice President Harris are determined to restore Roe v. Wade, and they will never allow a national abortion ban to become law. As long as they are in office, decisions about your body will be made by you, not by them.

You know, poor Tim Scott, he's trying to give the clever answer, which is that could get through Congress. You know, that's the trap door. In other words, nothing. But nobody in voter land knows. That's the answer a member of Congress gives. Yeah. So I don't know. It's a huge channel changer, which is exactly what the Biden guys are trying to do. Hey, let's have a big fight about crazy Republicans on abortion rather than you hate me on the economy. And as big as it is, you know, economy is still number one.

I thought it was noteworthy since we mentioned her. Haley tried to stake out different ground on this on the debate stage than some of the other people you heard in that ad probably sensing this attack coming. I mean, this is where the party not having a national position. You know, you've got politicians that have all kinds of different positions, governors that have signed all kinds of different.

And so the party's identity on it is not unified. And there's even a lot of fighting amongst Republicans about it. And so without a unified position to combat and have this debated, I can see why the Democrats would rather focus on this than the economy or anything else. It was jet fuel in the midterm elections.

I think it is jet fuel in these special elections. We saw it in Wisconsin in the Supreme Court race there. And it's going to be jet fuel, I think, again, especially in these suburban areas that are so pivotal in 2024. I think that's all true. But the one unique factor now is Biden on the ballot.

and high turnout presidential. You know, just to echo Scott, not only do they all different positions, a bunch of them are in an auction now in the Iowa caucus because they think if they can get the plurality from the social conservatives, that's how they beat Trump. The problem is that also blows New Hampshire. You then go lose in President Santorum. I'm sure Scott and the others would like to pay to have that ad up. Oh, run it in Iowa. But then I think Scott's wrong because

The best slogan in New Hampshire, and I've been there and done this, is screw Iowa. When President Robertson, President Cruz, President Huckabee, President Santorum comes roaring out, you got to figure out the double shot or Trump's the nominee. So it's a short-sighted, bad, it's tactics, not strategy. I don't see how these guys get to the right of Trump on abortion in Iowa. He literally created the Supreme Court that overturned the process. Well, that's all he has to say.

Yeah. So I don't know how you ever out pro-life him. I mean, despite what I think his personal proclivities probably are. Exactly. He's the secret pro-choice leader of the party. That's part of the great Kafkaesque irony of it. That actually will benefit him in a general. I mean, he's been pretty clever about this. Yeah, he'll pivot like crazy. Well, you know, actually. He's got the Dobbs card.

But, you know, I mean, they ran ads attacking or at least they ran a video attacking DeSantis for the six week ban in Florida. So certainly he commented on it and he got chastised by the Susan B. Anthony folks. But I think Trump has played that one smart. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors.

Hey, Scott, you're a consigliere to Mitch McConnell. We should have mentioned that. I got two questions about what's going on in Congress. One is, you saw on that stage the deep, deep divide about Ukraine. Yeah. Ramaswamy, I mean, Ramaswamy, DeSantis on one side, Pence, Haley, and Christie on the other. But it's noteworthy that the three leading candidates in the Republican primary right now

all are opposed to additional aid for Ukraine. Biden's asked for it. What's going to happen there? Because I know this is an issue of concern to McConnell. Yeah, I think there remains broad consensus in the Congress across both parties to continue to help the Ukrainians defeat the Russians. What that ultimately looks like in the final number, I don't know. But I think the people who want to cut it off are

in the vast minority, even though there is political energy for that as it relates to McConnell.

I think he sees this foreign policy direction of the Republican Party as his last big fight as it pertains to his own legacy. Are we going to be the party that helps uphold the post-World War II order? Or are we going to be the party that shrinks into isolationism and turns a blind eye towards dictators and the worst people in the world? And he takes this fight very seriously and is going to fight every day.

to make sure there are as many Republicans in Congress as possible that are educated about what bad things would happen if the United States turns its back on the world. There was a big article about him in Politico a couple of weeks ago, and it was noteworthy. He took some freshman senators on a trip to Europe. He usually takes them to the Middle East, but he took them to Europe to meet the European leadership because he wanted them to see firsthand how high the stakes are

and making sure we maintain American leadership in this post-World War II world. Maybe you better take Speaker McCarthy because he's been notably cooler to this because he's mortgaged to the group that... No, no, this is different though. And this is a long... Foreign policy is where the Poles take a walk from the passions of the primary voters a little bit. What was the pro-war Democrats in Vietnam or where we are right now in Ukraine? I mean, I agree. There's that long streak of isolationism in the party grassroots.

but it's frequently ignored. So while noisemakers running for president in the primaries are getting some applause on this stuff, I'll bet vote-wise, even in the House Republican conference, the votes are there to continue. It's not quite like pandering to them on health care or tax cuts or something. It's interesting. We'll see. I hope that, I mean, you know, look, I'm on that side of the argument, and I hope that that's true. But you look at polling and you look at the fact that the

Candidates who now hold 80% of the vote share in the Republican primary, or 70 certainly, all are on the other side of this argument. The bigger question I want to ask is about the government shutdown and the prospect of that. McCarthy did an interesting thing. He's arguing for continuing resolution to keep the government running.

And he made the argument that, well, if we shut the government down, then we can't have these investigations of Biden. It's like throwing cookies to the Freedom Caucus guys. The same Stafford came up with that that did the Kamala Harris triple shot on, I think. But I think McCarthy's is better, you know, because I think that will have a little grip in the wing of the House conference that would love to shut the government down every day. I mean, there are clear-headed people on the Republican side who recognize that

You know, Tom Cole, who's an old veteran on the House side, said this would be a political malpractice, you know, because they've lived through these things before. Jennings, you think what's going to happen here? I think they will ultimately not shut down, but I think we're going to the brink. I think McCarthy will find a way to pull the rabbit out of the hat again. He's done it a few times since he became speaker. I think he's been underestimated on a number of votes.

And he's always found a way. I think he will find a way here, although there is obvious energy among certain parts of his conference to drive it to the brink and get on TV and raise money and do all the stuff that they do. But McCarthy has, I think, overperformed or outindexed or whatever you want to call it, what people's expectations were of him as it relates to party unity.

I mean, I wouldn't underestimate this talking point about we can't keep doing the Biden investigations if we shut down because the energy for that is really high. And I think they're headed for an impeachment inquiry.

And so it may be that issue that helps bind it all together. But I've got some faith in the speaker. I think he'll find a way. Yeah, I agree. The reason this is all important is because I think there was a combination of things that drove the Republican outcome down from where it should have been historically last fall. And it wasn't just abortion.

It was a general sense of extremism. It was a sense that these guys are, they're a little bit nutty. You know, it was election denial. It was, it was, it was this, and it was a fear that,

they would be so obsessed with these sort of ideological kinds of orgies that the stuff that people cared about really wouldn't get addressed. I still think that's a danger for the Republican Party. And the Republican caucus could end up being in the House, a big liability for them in the general election. Yeah, it's all down to can you change the subject from the president? That's what's different about this election. But yeah, the Republican brand has terrible problems.

But the Biden brand has terrible problems, too. And that's now entering the fray in a way it didn't in the earlier elections. Makes it more competitive. Otherwise, Republicans would be wiped out. There's an interesting duality in some of the polling, though, where I agree with you that the independents fled some of these Republican candidates because they just

you know, despite their misgivings about Biden, couldn't couldn't stomach it. But on the other hand, you know, there was some survey data over the summer that indicated voters trusted the Republicans in Congress more than they trusted Biden to handle the nation's problems. To Mike's point, Biden's brand is that bad. And and so, you know,

I don't you know, some of this may be dictated by who the presidential nominee is. If it's somebody that's not Donald Trump and can present a rational sort of program for the country, some of that misgiving about down ticket may settle down if it is Trump.

It's not going to settle down. And my suspicion is the independent voters will do the same thing in 24 that they did in 22. And that's hold their nose and vote for a Democrat they don't think is all that up to it or doing all that great of a job. Particularly if they don't have a lot of escape valves. Right. You know, the third way thing and all that or Cornel West. This is like an hour therapy for Murphy, who's in the bay. He's in the bunker in Los Angeles waiting out the...

this sort of ongoing disaster and hoping that he can emerge into the bright light of day after 2024. No, I just want to save the country from socialism, but keep going. Well, what about fascism? Well, the problem is that's the bigger problem in the short term, but I hate the Republican Party giving up the conservative cause to the lefties on your side because we've got a neo-fascist clown with a grip on half the primary vote.

Yeah. This is a longer discussion. We don't have to drag Jennings into this about what you brand as socialism is actually pretty popular. People want health care. They want Social Security and Medicare. They want, you know, so. We're getting into the DNC hour here. No, no, no. I'm just telling you. But what I was winding up to is a question to Jennings.

What is your current thinking about who the Republican nominee is going to be? Well, I wrote for the L.A. Times after the debate. I didn't think it had changed much for me that Donald Trump was highly, highly likely to still be the nominee. I still think he's going to be extremely hard to dislodge. I do think DeSantis is in better shape in Iowa than people believe. I think the national narrative on him. I mean, he's an interesting guy. Trump, never Trump. Never Trump.

Democrats, media are all in a four-way handshake about destroying Ron DeSantis. There's a reason for that. And so everything you hear about him nationally, I think, is for a reason. But in Iowa, I think he's got something

I still think it's going to be extremely hard to dislodge this guy. There was a poll out of Georgia this morning. So following the Georgia indictment, Trump went up several points, even in Georgia, which has not been a great state for him. And the governor there obviously has been warning people about moving off of him. So I more than 40 points ahead there. So, you know, given what we know about Republican reactions to these.

indictment so far. And given that the fragmentation in the field is showing no signs of clearing up, I, you know, I'm forced to tell you there's a high likelihood it's going to be Trump again. No doubt he's a front runner. My thinking, and I've been here forever. And by the way, Rove was here. I haven't talked to Carl lately, but four months ago we were hanging out at something and we both said, no, Trump's not going to be the nominee. I say it publicly, Carl hasn't. And it has, the last four months have been a lost opportunity for the

None of them have run a message campaign worth a damn in my view. I think Trump is more likely not to lose the Iowa caucus. Very conservative. I mean, she's very contrarian view, but I'll keep banking on that. My worry is when that happens, none of these characters, including DeSantis,

are running the campaign they need to beat him twice in a row. So what will happen is they beat him in Iowa, then Trump has a comeback in New Hampshire. So all of a sudden, Mr. Loser is Mr. Winner, and he runs the damn table.

That's what I'm worried about, because winning beating them once is not enough. You got to do it twice and then it could cascade. And I'm not seeing a campaign right now, though. It's early. We're in the business of being ahead of the voters here, which is dangerous. But that's what's worrying me. I'm seeing people running one note, old school Iowa campaign.

President Santorum campaigns right now, which are not enough to beat Donald Trump. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back. ♪

I was with Rove, I don't know, 10 days ago, and he said what he's been saying, which is that he thinks that Trump remains the favorite, but he'd take the field against Trump. Yeah, no, that's fair. It was a version of that. And again, I think we both saw the opportunity six months ago whenever we talked, and nobody's taken advantage of it. The other campaigns have been disappointing that way. It's kind of fascinating to me that, you know,

You know, for people in politics, there's a lot of discussion about, well, is he the best candidate to beat Biden? Biden's so weak, you know, but if you the polling is so overwhelmingly clear, Republicans not only prefer Trump right now, they think he is by a massive factor, the most electable Republican in the field.

And they cannot fathom the idea that Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump next November, despite the fact that he beat him in 2020 and all the things that have happened since. It is an amazing amount of magical thinking with him because he beat Hillary and he got out of the impeachments. There's this magical thinking that goes along with him. And it is not baseless.

based in reality. Well, he promotes it as well. And Scott, we both had this life. How many times have you been at a campaign event, like in a statewide party convention or somewhere? And there's some guy in an aluminum foil suit with three friends who's for Smedrick, the crazy candidate. And you go up, you know, I think the Democrats really do it. No, no. When, if everybody could read our nine point manifesto and their eyes get wide and it's like, I can't tell you how many rich donors in the old days would come up to me. You know, I've got my maid.

listening to Rush Limbaugh and she's becoming a Republican. I think, no, your maid's threatening to kill you in your sleep and I don't blame her. So they just think that shouting the stuff they love louder wins the general election. There's no calculation in this. It's an emotional thing and Trump's got that going. They all think he'll be fine. In poll after poll, including in Iowa and New Hampshire,

People think that Trump is the most formidable candidate. And I, you know, I do think that's an important number and one to watch. But this is more, this is, you know, he's turned this into something other than a political campaign, right? He's turned this into sort of a... Yeah, no, show them.

And, you know, either you're in or you're out. Right. And he's he's done well with that. And I also think for a lot of people, and this speaks to the overall weakness in the parties and really even in the in the political institutions generally, I'm not even sure some of his people care whether they win the election or not. You've seen the polling, right? I mean, people are asked.

Is it more important to you to be with a candidate who you believe in or a candidate who can beat Biden? And the number is pretty dramatic. No, it's always the crusade. Believe it. Yeah. Though, let me just say the voters have one right to screw us, which is they get to change. That's the one flaw with polls. To them, it doesn't really matter who's in charge of government. They just view that they're going to get screwed no matter what. Ultimately, you know, regardless.

Rich people north of Richmond, whatever that guy said. I mean, that's I think they just have sort of view at all is it doesn't really matter who's in charge because regular people, it never comes out well for them. Therefore, why not? Let's just turn this and take a sledgehammer to it or be or be for the person I want to be for because he's the person who is most likely to be hated by those people. Right.

Be for the person the system hates. Yeah. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Yeah. I remember when I was doing Schwarzenegger in 2003, you know, we had him in a focus group at the beginning of the thing. People forgot he started behind and it was the middle of the recall campaign. And, and, you know, somebody in the focus group was sounding off about, he's a dumb actor. He doesn't know anything. And one guy spoke up and said, look,

I don't think he even knows where Sacramento is, but he's got a driver and that driver will drive the Hummer there because the driver knows where it is. And when he gets there, he'll open the trunk, take out a rocket gun and blow the place up. So he's got my vote and a bunch of other people just lit up, you know, it's punished the system. So whenever we have people attack, you know, all my Democrat friends are like, well, we're hitting with a good New York times editorial. That'll do it. You know, all that stuff is fire.

Fire. It's fuel for Trump. You know what else those people are crying out for? They're crying out for the mailbag. It's listener mail.

And we don't want to disappoint them. We don't. So if you have a question for the hacks, you can email it to us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com. We're thinking of doing the phone message thing, but we move slow. So stand by for that. But we'd love to hear your questions. And by the way, a plug for me, check me out on Substack. I'm going to publish a little thing on my driving across the country in an American-made non-Tesla electric car.

which has been both fun and a character building experience in many ways. I'm doing this from Utah and I get home later today. All right, let's get to the questions, David. Scott Patrick asks, regarding Vivek, what's his end game? Is it solely positioning for a cabinet spot or a VP selection? Or is he looking to get someone in particular elected given the complexity of the GOP electorate?

I think his endgame is 2028. I don't think he is doing anything other than positioning for the first post-Trump Republican primary. That's number one. Number two, I mean, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I think the idea of Trump picking a vice president, he'll never choose somebody who's independently wealthy or even wealthier than he is.

And I don't think he would choose someone with a last name that he'll have trouble pronouncing or will snicker when he does pronounce it. And so I think I think for Ramaswamy, he's a young guy. This is all about the future. I mean, to call Donald Trump the best president of the 21st century and to be running against him tells you he has no plan to win this particular election. So to me, endgame, 2028.

Future chairman of the Republican Party. God help us all. All right, Axe, here's a question for you from Cotter. Yeah, welcome back, Cotter. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, boy. Send your complaint letters to Axler, right? Now that Trump has skipped the first debate and is likely to skip the second, how seriously should the Biden campaign consider skipping the general presidential debates in the event that Trump does become the nominee? Well, my guess is they've been thinking about skipping the

the debate long before Trump decided to skip this debate. I'm not sure, you know, given, although I will say, I think that the dumpster fire that was the first debate last time really helped Biden and hurt Trump, but it's a risk. So if they want an out card, they've got one now. Trump can't moralize. Now, what he will say is, I was 50 points ahead. We're in a tie race.

You know, so, you know, it's not going to be as easy as it seems to get out of it. But they're going to have to make a judgment as to whether Biden is up to a 90 minute deadline.

debate on national TV with Trump. If he is, you know, he's certainly loaded with material. I mean, Trump may be the only presidential candidate in history who's debating with an ankle bracelet on from the penal authorities. So, you know, but my guess is they're going to look very hard at whether that's in their interest.

in the moment, and they may look for a way out of it. Whoever's losing will demand a debate. But it may be no one's losing. Yeah, well, then it's risky, and the Biden people have more to lose. But I think there will be debate because somebody's going to need it. The first debate you pointed out was so terrible for Trump, and it helped Biden. But remember, the third debate, I thought, you know, but at that point, the race was probably lost. But I actually thought Trump wore Biden out in that third one. So

Yeah. Trump did get it. He did infect a bunch of people with COVID around that first debate. So it's not like he didn't accomplish anything. Well, he was trying to beat the virus from the inside. Almost killed Chris Christie. He was inoculating people. He was giving them a natural cure.

So Paul Murphy wants to know, why is it that the only way you can watch the Republican debate is on paid cable or streaming platform? Is this a further sign of capitalization and exclusivity in American politics? Well, call me cynical, but I think the answer is money, money, money, money. We've turned these debates into a ridiculous thing.

uh, spectacle. I mean, I hate the jeering crowds, uh, the whole Roman circus thing. And it's for presidential debate. It's shameful. Debates are good when you put the candidates in a room with good, fair questioners and no audience, and you let them cook in the frying pan. You push the camera in close and you find out who they are. And instead, uh,

uh, we're, we're playing this brand game with the debates and shame on the cables for going around, going along and shame on the RNC, by the way, for a million things, including this. But yeah, this is, this is the new order of our democracy. Uh, and it's not a good thing. Janice, you think of the modern TV environment that, uh, putting two candidates in a room with a questioner would, you could get away with that and hold an audience. I don't know.

Well, I think if I were going to do it, I would gamify it. I would take all the candidates who want to participate, put them on a note card, drop them in a hat and have a spectacle of drawing two names out of the hat and say, tonight it's going to be.

These two and do it over a series of nights. And that way, no, I wouldn't let anything like donors or polling to try. I would just purely pull it out of a hat and say, if you want to debate, you got to be here and be ready to do it tonight. And we're going to pick a color and just do it over the course of a week. I think it'd be far more watchable and interesting because of the randomization of it. But who gets to choose the hat? Well, you get a monkey to pick it. Who wrote the names on the cards? Scott, we have a hacks on tap book club at hacks on tap.

And I understand you have a book to recommend to our readers. They can buy them at that website. I do. I love the Old West, and I just finished a book on Audible by an author who I adore named Tom Clavin called Wild Bill about Wild Bill Hickok, who had quite an amazing life. Clavin also wrote a book about Tombstone, which was the first place I found him. But if you like Old West and the figures of the Old West and these old gunfighters,

And the crazy lives they led. Clavin has it nailed. Wild Bill by Tom Clavin. Cool. I'm going to throw out an oldie while we're at this. The Last Campaign, it was a book by Thurston Clark. Not a long book because it wasn't a long campaign about the last campaign of Bobby Kennedy.

And it's really, really worth reading. Good book. Before we go, I just have to share, Murphy, one of the great lines about your guy, Doug Burgum, in the debate. My guy. Joel Heitkamp, who's Heidi Heitkamp's brother, who is a talk show host in North Dakota,

said that Burgum looked like a guy who was going to ask the others for their autographs, which I thought was a pretty good line. That is almost as cruel as some Guardian writer in the UK who referred to Ted Cruz as a sitcom vampire.

after one of the debates, which is always my favorite part. Poor Burgum. I'll just say in his defense from a terrible debate performance that if you look at life accomplishments, he's in many ways the most impressive guy on the stage. But America will never know it because he did look like a tourist.

Yeah. I mean, I actually didn't think he was as bad as others, but he was sort of a non-factor. There were flashes there. Now he's scrambling to get on the next debate stage. Yeah, if there was a time machine and five years ago he wanted to do this and he planned it right and got the skills, it could have been something. And I saw that opportunity in it when he announced. If there was a time machine, you'd take us all back to the 80s and everything would be... Great. Yes. It would be incredible. We'd have great sitcoms. Reagan would be president.

Anyway, president nominee would not be campaigning from Folsom. Yeah, that'd be pretty good. Jennings, you are off the hook. You no longer owe me a dinner for joining us here today. I feel like I should. The true truth of what happened is, you know, we were on the air and then we went to dinner and we had to go back. But I left all my stuff in the green room, including my wallet. That's why my friend bought my dinner.

And I couldn't get the waiter's attention to see if they would take apple pit. I would have bought you dinner, man. You should have said something. Anyway, I was embarrassed that a male went to a steak dinner and didn't take his wallet. I feel like an idiot. I know from personal experience, acts will get even. You're now voting five times in every election in Chicago for the rest of your life. No, no. But what it says to me is that you have some latent Trump-like tendencies. Yeah. Oh, jeez. I don't know. I forgot my wallet. Can you pick up that check? All right, guys.

It was fun. Thank you, Scott. Good to see you, Axe. We'll see you next week. Bye. Take care.