The Trumpire Strikes Back (with Kristen Soltis Anderson)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Mike Murphy. Hacks on Tap

Wake up, Murphy. It's election year. I know. It's morning. This is the second time you've gone to the no royalty sound library and tried to give me a migraine at that damn thing. Good morning and Happy New Year, everybody. Yeah, the race is really off. It's true. All the way to Richmond for the new Confederacy, but we're getting into that.

And now we need to figure out what it means. So we brought in a brilliant collaborator today, Kristen Soltis Anderson, one of the great Republican pollsters. Kristen, welcome. Thank you for having me. You're too kind. Well, let's see what you say at the end of the 40th. Yeah, believe me, I'd hold that for a while. But let's start with you. Give us your global view.

of where we are on January 2nd, 13 days before the Iowa caucuses. 13 days before the Iowa caucuses. I think we are overwhelmingly likely to see Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. I know that's a really scorching hot take. But there is very little sign that there's going to be anything shocking coming out of Iowa. And the fact that we're debating over who will get third and by how much

is a pretty bad sign for the rest of the field. New Hampshire is the only place that has the potential right now to be interesting.

in the next couple of weeks and that's more a question of is it possible for Nikki Haley to actually win which if Chris Christie stays in the race I don't think it is possible for her to win but we can dig into all of that in a little bit but then even if she wins New Hampshire the question is what happens next she has to go to South Carolina where it's yes it is her home state

But I have not seen a shred of polling that suggests that she is a strong, strong, strong contender there, except if for whatever reason this race seems really interesting and the electorate changes a lot, meaning you have a lot of people who are independents or begin to participate or people who are not normal Republican primary voters decide to get involved. But even then, I have described it as the trench run from...

Star Wars A New Hope, like when they're trying to blow up the Death Star. Like you have to get everything exactly right and get your little bomb to go right down the correct exhaust vent or else none of this works. And that's where Nikki Haley's at, right? Murphy, it seems a little bit like the bomb that she was setting off in the last couple of weeks exploded in her own spaceship.

Yeah, it was bad, bad, bad. And I wrote about it on Substack. I referred to her as the cuttlefish candidate. Every time she gets scared, she admits a dense black cloud of smoke and tries to escape. And this dense black cloud of smoke was a

this defense of Confederate need for freedom, big government trying to tell those poor states what to do. It was the most hackneyed, stupid thing I'd seen. And the comeback, one, they should have fixed it right afterward. If she'd had a lot of candor and been a little self-critical, then the narrative would have been unlike Trump, and it would have fueled success. Instead, she redefended this silly freedom thing. Hey, before you go further, why don't we just listen to it? Yeah, let's hear it. Just to set the thing up. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you. Please, what was the cause of the United States Civil War? Tick-tock. Well, don't come with an easy question or anything. I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn't do. Thank you. And in the year 2023, it's astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery. What do you want me to say about slavery? You made a good question.

Yeah, so, first of all— Democrat plant. It didn't strike me as that hard a question, actually. No. I mean, it was wrong on a lot of levels. So, you know, as I wrote my piece, I think what—she smelled Democratic operative on him and got cuttlefish instinct and black smoke and all the bad Haley stuff. But to the big macro question, I think Christian's right. It—

The only thing that can happen now is does Haley upset Trump in New Hampshire? And that will be an earthquake on the race. And the question is then would it change the dynamics of South Carolina? Because my view is she's got to beat him twice. And that would upend the primary totally. And it's a long shot, but it's not impossible. I mean, you know, we've been going back and forth about this for two years. I think there are not ready for Trump forces ready to make news in New Hampshire if they can find a vessel to fill Haley by being the best.

performer, albeit not that strategic in 2023 has become that person. And just in the moment when the motion was moving and I'd seen private polls at New Hampshire down to single digits, bingo, she makes about herself in a way. One thing I don't think, and then I'll wrap this up because I know I'm going on here.

But I've been around a lot of New Hampshire primaries. And the one thing you don't want to do is introduce the deadly twang. I remember Phil Graham flying into New Hampshire and that whole Southern thing. You couldn't implode fast enough. George W. Bush, when I was very involved in McCain in 2000, the twang does not work.

The Southern thing does not work. And she has gone from the suburban, civilized Trump conservative alternative to now we're in the Fort Sumter world. She might be able to undo it because the forces that want something to happen in New Hampshire that's not Trump are pretty big. And they might even be able to lift her up. But her own propulsion to be a big part of that best case, it cost her a week.

Worst case, it slowed her down. And Iowa, I think, is only interesting as will she beat DeSantis and get a little momentum there to help reset for maybe, maybe, maybe a New Hampshire outcome? That's the last question. I have a different view on this, on the Iowa thing and what she needs to do in Iowa. But, Kristen, it seems to me that the

The problem with what happened with Haley on the slavery question was, you know, gaffes are only damaging when they expose something larger. You know, when Romney did the 47% thing, when Hillary did the deplorables thing, it accentuated...

A trait that was concerning and the rap against Haley has always been and Mike's talked about it here. She is a shapeshifter. She does what she needs to do in the moment. She's a great politician. She's a political athlete, I think.

But there's always been this question about how she's firm in her conviction and fungible in her principles in order to suit whatever she sees in front of her. Seems to me this.

opened up a line of attack on her that could be damaging as people look more deeply. And as you know, the farther you go, the higher you go in these races, the more scrutiny you get. And she's beginning to get that scrutiny. And this, I think, was more than just a blip.

I think it was a blemish that could grow. Well, what frustrates me so much about this, in addition to the kind of slow-ish cleanup the next day, is the fact that this could have been a question where she took it and went totally on offense, where this question comes in. And in the same way that if I came on this podcast and the first thing you all ask me is, Kristen, what's 2 plus 2? That's not a trick question. That's an easy question to answer. But I might wonder where you're going with this, right?

So she, you know, she's allowed a little bit. I would still say four. Yes. So she's allowed a little bit of bafflement at the question, but then you answer it correctly and you say,

Look, in the last Republican debate, I named Lincoln as my favorite president. I believe very strongly that we as a country are still healing from the divisions that we have been experiencing for, you know, over 170 years since the Civil War. And as governor in South Carolina, I had to help with that healing when we had nine black lives taken at Mother Emanuel Church.

I had to help our state come together, address, you know, getting the Confederate flag out of our state capitol. She had an opportunity to instead of recoil to actually drive home what are the things that those Republicans who are not for Trump are looking for out of someone, someone who can have broader appeals, someone who can unify, someone who steps up in the moment.

And so I think that's, that to me is just what is extra frustrating about this is not only that it was an unforced error, but it could have been such a great, it is so easy for me to Monday morning quarterback this, but. Yeah. But you know, um, it's interesting, uh, because she did, and I think it was the right thing to do at the right moment in terms of, uh,

putting insisting on the taking of the flag down the Confederate flag from the Capitol there. She campaigned twice for governor against that. She campaigned twice for governor promising to uphold the Confederate flag on the. And that's, you know, I mean, this is the every every.

Every candidate has some Achilles heel. This, to me, it seems, is her. But on this question that Mike raised—

And here we are. Can I ask you a different question? You say she has to finish second in Iowa. I think it would help a lot. I don't know if she has to. If she finishes second in Iowa, there's a decent chance that DeSantis drops out of this race. And my question to both of you is, does that actually help Haley if DeSantis drops out of this race? Because I think it is...

At least an argument that more of his voters would go to, you know, he doesn't have that many left in New Hampshire. But my guess is that the ones that are left are more likely to go to Trump than they are to Haley. Christian, why don't you take that first and then I'll give you my crackpot theory of why that's complete bunk.

You don't have to say it's a crackpot theory. That's automatic. Do we offer that disclaimer at the top? Go ahead, Kristen. So I think if you just look purely at what people say when you ask them, OK, let's assume your first choice isn't available. Who's your second choice? If I look at the polls that I've seen on that, it is true that DeSantis folks, even in New Hampshire, tend to be a bit Trumpier than than Haley folks.

So I think there's a way in which the math does make sense for what you're saying. But I think that if she gets second in Iowa, it's also possible that the momentum she gets and the boost she gets from that overcomes any sort of, you know, is Trump getting 60 or 45 percent of the DeSantis vote? To me, the math is fuzzier around that where the momentum you get from second place is

It doesn't seem as fuzzy. Yeah, that's in my view exactly right, because you've got to figure out which formula do you follow here? They kind of put the green marbles in one box and the red marbles in another. You know, where does the boat break out? Right, the orange, the big, awful orange marbles. That's kind of the static theory. The other theory is the narrative theory. What communications wave does it tell in a big, powerful way that might change

Because never forget, primaries are herds. When they move, they can really move. It's not like a general election. I've seen, and you have too, and I'm sure, Christian, you know, the 15-point swing in a primary in a week is not at all an unheard of phenomena or more. So if the narrative out of the media has got to scream about something. So if the screaming in Iowa is, she's in second, she beat somebody, I think that helps her get a reset attitude.

and momentum. I think the bigger, and there's not enough to Santa's vote there. So in New Hampshire, I think to be that material, the only question is, can she beat Trump there in South Carolina? The dropout that counts, I think, for that outcome, which is the only thing that could change the race, is the huge ego planet known as Christie.

Will it drop out in New Hampshire? As Governor Sununu, by the way, called upon him to do today, the governor of New Hampshire, who's a Haley supporter, albeit probably a more nervous one now. That's the question. Of course, he's saying I'll never drop out. Not me. She's, you know, all wrong. But he can't say he'd drop out now. The question is, what are you saying in two weeks or two and a half weeks from now? And I think there's still a shot that he will. Well, cue up.

uh, Christie's new aunt. Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really? I'm the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar. He pits Americans against each other. His Christmas message to anyone who disagrees with him? Rot in hell. He caused a riot on Capitol Hill. He'll burn America to the ground to help himself.

Every Republican leader says that in private. I'm the only one saying it in public. What kind of president do we want? A liar or someone who's got the guts to tell the truth? New Hampshire, it's up to you. I'm Chris Christie, and you bet I approve this message. So, Kristen, what's your take on his message there?

Yeah, I get that he in principle probably, well, I actually don't know what he thinks in principle, but, you know, his message of, look, I'm the only one that's actually authentically going to be different than Trump. Everybody else is just kind of going to play footsie. I get it to the extent that that's a genuinely held view that he would stand up.

would say, oh, I don't think that Haley is acceptable. But if the goal is to make Donald Trump not the Republican nominee, then there is one thing that he can do to advance that goal, and it is not stay in the race. That's it. But, you know, I'm thinking about these independent voters in New Hampshire and the fact that, you know, Haley joined DeSantis last week and saying she would pardon Trump in New

the fact that she said that she would support Trump even if he were convicted. And I'm wondering if there is some element of that vote that they're competing for that's going to respond to that Christie message. It might. I mean, but but Chris is right about the real politics of it. You see, Christie's and look, I love all the anti stuff.

Trump stuff, Christie does. I thoroughly enjoy it. I think the paint is a little wet on his billboard for disliking Trump because I have a memory. But, you know, total credit to him. But in the practical politics of it, he's in the way for the realistic outcome now. The other thing people forget is he ran in 16. In 16, his focus was totally New Hampshire. He didn't go to Iowa. It was all about New Hampshire, around the clock. That's where all his spend went. And they hated him.

He finished sixth, I believe. He was below Kasich, below Cruz, below Bush, below Rubio. So the idea there's some magic Christie connection. But you're right. There is a luxury opinion slice of that independent vote, which is critical for Haley. I know it well from our McCain days. It's going to be over 40 percent of the primary, could even be more. And the Confederate stuff is.

plus Christie breaking through, you want to send a message, I'm the only one. I think there is some power in that message in New Hampshire, but it's the message Trump wants. It's a spoilers message, which is the fatal flaw to this whole Christie thing and the larger deal of take Mussolini, because the other outcome is worse. He doesn't sound like a guy who's going to drop out before the primary, but he can't. But he does speak to, but he...

Well, he could. No, no. But if he hinted at it, boom, Christie's out tomorrow. The reason he wouldn't is because he's also looking at the Iowa caucuses. And the argument that you guys are making are –

really make sense relative to this. If she comes out of Iowa with a lot of momentum, there'll be additional pressure on Christie. If it's a muddled outcome in Iowa and Trump

wins an overwhelming victory, and she and DeSantis are within a few points of each other. I don't know that the fact that she finishes, if she gets 23 and he gets 22, necessarily gets her to where she

she needs to go. And that's where I think the, the last couple of weeks have been, been damaging to her. But the other thing is, I know, look, we, we beat up on Trump a lot here. But, you know, the interesting piece in the times the other day, and it confirms what you hear from the ground there. You know, the Trump guys are just whatever Trump is doing at 2 a.m. on, on the, the,

social media platform formerly known as Twitter, his campaign is actually a normal campaign. No, it's very unlike, you're right about that, but on the other hand, I discount it, being a Trump hater, but I think this is true as well. His guys have the easiest job. You don't have to make that disclaimer either. Anyone who listens to this knows that. They've got the easiest job in politics. They're like Philip Morris. Hey, we've got a 54% market share. Let's hang on to it.

And nobody has done anything to really take it away from him in a shrewd way that works with Republican primary voters. So the question is, Trump has not felt really threatened for two years because he looks at these polls everybody's obsessed with. The minute there's a bad poll, if she's all of a sudden in a three-point Boston Globe poll in Iowa, Katie barred the door as far as those guys controlling Trump.

So, yes, it's been a good light jog. And it may never happen, by the way. They may never get a real challenge. I have to say, I love you, brother, and you're a brilliant guy. Don't wind up. Here we go. No, but I mean, I think, you know, I've said it before. I mean, I'm trying to separate my own feelings from the reality. And the reality is they're doing the sort of

You know, I know this very well and you do too, but I spent a year in Iowa on the ground during those caucuses and I know what it takes to win caucuses and they're doing the blocking and tackling. Oh, they are. I don't deny any of that. I just can't Trump not be Trump. So my other question, Kristen, is let's say there's always been this theory that if everybody got out of the way that somehow there'd be a consolidation around an opponent to Trump.

And that would take him down. Right now, he's got like a 50 point lead in national polling. I mean, if everybody who doesn't who isn't with Trump today went to someone else, he'd still be the nominee, wouldn't he? Yeah, this was I wrote a piece about this a couple of weeks ago where I said I kept getting this like I'm back in fall of 2015 deja vu where people kept saying, oh, it's just if the field would only consolidate.

Which the reality is actually back in fall of 2015, there was some truth to the idea of if the field consolidated and consolidated early, maybe Trump could have been taken out.

The problem this time around is Trump was not hanging out at 35 percent. He's hanging out at 50, 55 percent. In national polls, it's even bigger. So it is not enough just to consolidate everybody else. You have got to be able to take some of Trump's voters, which, to Mike's point, hasn't happened yet. Now, in South Carolina, I wonder, can Nikki Haley take some of Trump's voters?

And that's where, Mike, I'm wondering from your experience going from, hey, we shocked the world in New Hampshire to now the empire is going to strike back in South Carolina. What do you think Haley can do to avoid the empire striking back in full? I mean, is there anything she can do? Well,

Well, I think she has an advantage, theoretically, is that anybody who's done well out of nowhere – I don't care if it's Pat Buchanan when he did, even with Lamar when we came close to 95 on Dole, when McCain 2000, when we, you know, decisively beat the huge frontrunner George W.,

You got to be able to run the table in a few places. We were able to do it in Michigan, open primary. We were not able to do it in South Carolina. Haley, unique among people who are on deck for a surprise in New Hampshire, although, again, I think she squelched herself a little, unfortunately, has more going on. I mean, there are two ways to look at this. If you look at it like a national primary, it's over and Trump's the nominee.

And I think that is the most likely outcome. But if you don't look at it like a national primary, but you look at it as a collection of state contests, the question is, can Superman Trump, what happens if he loses twice in a row? Will that change the dominoes? I think it would. I'm not sure it would change it enough to lose him the nomination, by the way. He might be a Fritz Mondale type who can lose early and limp through on body weight. You know, how do you eat an elephant? It's hard.

But that's the only question. So the national stuff to me is irrelevant until after New Hampshire and South Carolina. And you're right. It is the South Carolina, though it is an open deal-ish too, it is not New Hampshire. But you win one. I mean, if the New Hampshire primary in 2000 and if our polling was right, was held four days after, seven days after New Hampshire, we would have beat Bush there in McCain. Right.

And so but then we got into the jungle war and we started declining in that world that was less McCain friendly than New Hampshire. And we made our own mistakes. I, I think Nikki would have more to work with there. I wonder what that month between New Hampshire and South Carolina will be like for her if the scenario unfolds, as you say.

Because Trump has basically only taken some glancing shots at her so far. I think that if she looks like a serious threat to him in South Carolina, he is going to take, you know, a much different approach to her. And, you know, like I said, these races, I said a long, long time ago that presidential races are MRIs for the soul.

And the better you do, the more intense the scan.

And he is going to really—it's not going to be a one-way kind of fight. Right, right. He won't curl up in a ball. On the other hand, we know from the Civil War question that, you know, how scan-ready is she? And, you know, are they going to be up to it? Because it was Keystone Cop City. Though I'd add one thing. I think the thing that I maybe overemphasize, but I think—

a lot of others, maybe you guys are not you guys, just David, because we've had this endless debate, maybe under emphasizing is what will happen to Trump, Trump's image. If he gets his ass kicked, Trump, the tough guy, Trump, the Superman. Now he's the two time loser. Biden beat him and he got beat by a Nikki Haley loser. Will that crumble him or not? If it doesn't, he's the nominee. Okay, then let's take a break right here and we'll be right back.

There's a bigger question, which is, well, maybe this is more of a general election question. But, you know, right now this trial is set for March 4th, the day before the January 6th trial, the day before the Super Tuesday. Kristen, what...

I'm beginning to think that the thing that may be the most significant event in the general election is whether that trial actually happens or not. Because if Trump can freeze this thing to the point where he's under indictment, but he's not been convicted of anything, it seems to me he has a much better chance, not just of being the nominee, he'll probably be the nominee by then, but of winning a general election. Well, the sort of original take is...

It's obviously bad to be indicted. It is obviously bad to be facing criminal charges. This will be bad for Trump. Then there's the revisionist take, which has played out at least in the Republican primary and to some extent in the general election polling, which is

No, he has created a no win scenario or a no lose scenario for himself where he says, look, this is just proof of everything I've been saying. They don't want me back in charge. They will do anything. They will do anything to stop me. And it winds up rallying the Republican base. That's a base strategy and it's worked for him. Yes. Is it a is it a general election strategy? I don't think it is a general election strategy, but will it work?

hurt him gravely in a general election. I'm still not completely convinced of that, if only because he's been facing all... Maybe it is just that people think he's facing a lot of charges and it's not crystal clear to them which charges he's most in jeopardy from or they have, you know... But to me, the idea that America has not seen...

evidence of things Donald Trump did very badly in the wake of the 2020 election. I feel like America has seen a lot of that evidence through January 6th committee, through these indictments. So

I almost feel like some of this is already priced in. Now, what I think makes this a potential risk for him, both in the primary and the general, is the extent to which it reinforces him as the chaos guy, the unpredictable guy, the guy who puts us in a situation where you don't really know what's coming next.

versus what I believe is at least his campaign team, if not him himself on social media, his attempt to portray him as, no, I'm the guy who's going to be more stability and order. You wrote a wonderful piece last week in the New York Times about this, and I want you to talk about it. I mean, I've said for a long time that the challenge for Biden is that

Fairly or unfairly, people feel that things are in chaos and they don't feel like he's in command.

I mean, in a nutshell, that's the Republican argument. And here comes Trump, the strong man and who is going to set things right. I mean, that's basically their strategy. And you describe this in your piece. In 2016, Hillary Clinton ran as order and Trump ran as chaos and voters said they wanted chaos or enough voters and enough key swing states.

Um, then you get to 2020 Biden's running as order. Trump is still kind of running as disruptor and voters say, no, no, we're done with that. Enough disruption, please, please, please give us peace order. Boring. I don't want to think about politics anymore.

And the problem is, I think for too many voters, they don't feel like Biden delivered on that. We can argue over whether that's Biden's fault or not, et cetera. But and the fact that he is now very advanced in age, I don't think is setting a lot of people's setting a lot of people at ease. And so as a result, it has allowed Donald Trump to have this window to where if people kind of forget the chaos under him and begin to look back on it with rose colored glasses or

Or look at Biden and say, you promised me order and you didn't deliver. Trump has, he never promised me order. He promised me chaos and he gave me chaos. But now he's promising me some kind of order, whether it's a reduction in crime, et cetera. The question is, his campaign, I think, will push that message. Will he be able to restrain himself from

tweeting insanity at 2 a.m. And I think we know the answer there. Good question. But I think I agree totally with that analysis. But underneath it is a concrete pillar that's very strong in presidential politics because they hate Trump and they want to fire Biden. But when you ask them, were you better off economically four years ago of Trump than you are now? Who can run the economy better? Biden gets his ass kicked by double digits. And that is poison.

And that is the thing that can prop up even the corpse of Trump that people dislike. That's the killer. That was the Romney theory in 2012. And, you know, one of the things that happened, two things happened. One is Obama ran the whole race about not about who could run the macro economy, but who will advocate for you in the economy. And on those measures, Biden actually does better in many ways than Trump. And the second thing is and.

You know, I want to ask both you guys about this. When you look at the economic statistics at the end of 2023, the stock market was up 24 percent. Real wages were up. Unemployment was stable despite all the predictions of a recession. Interest rates have now come down for nine quarters. And these things tend to walk. They tend to.

In the fullness of time, they do. That's the problem. Yes, but we're talking about 10 months from now. And the question is whether the mood changes. This is the old Democratic schoolmarm, eat your spinach argument of if Biden has been trying this for a year. Look at the statistics, stuff.

Fourth best Thanksgiving in American history. No, no, no, I'm not arguing for that. I think he's made a terrible mistake because you can't jawbone people into feeling what they want. I'm making a different argument, Murphy. I'm making a different argument, which is,

What will they be feeling like 10 months from now if the economy continues to move? No, if miracle economic joy breaks out, you're right. It saves Biden. I mean, that's what happened with us. I mean, unemployment dropped, you know, dramatically from the time that Romney announced when it was 10.2 to Election Day. True, true, true. But it was easier for you guys because your reelect campaign was essentially stop Romney because you didn't want to do an Obama reelect campaign because it was not fertile till the end when he had an economic argument.

I think Romney, who I love, a friend of mine who I've worked for and who ought to be president and who does have a core now eminently proven still was an easier target on economic stuff because his definition was rich Bain guy. And they did a bad job of dealing with that. Trump's definition is crazy, man. But at least he could run the economy because I lived through it when he was president, which is more indelible ink.

So I think it'll be harder. And Obama wasn't 170, and Obama could communicate, in my view, as a medium Obama critic. You know, he was better at that than he was at some of the other stuff. Biden doesn't have those Obama assets. So he's got a theoretically more vulnerable opponent.

But, God, does he have the tools? And maybe the economic tidal wave will lift his boat. The tools are a different question. But, Kristen, you know, we would have loved to have had these economic statistics going into 2012. And the question is—

we know the consumer confidence is gaining, that you're starting to see improvement in people's assessments and so on. Does Biden, is it possible that Biden just never, that people won't associate these improvements with him because of some overarching feeling about him? It's possible. And part of this comes from, there was one of the polls I cited in the Times piece,

They asked voters, you know, who do you think is better equipped to improve the tone of our politics? And that ought to be a question that Donald Trump is not competitive on. And yet it was like a six point margin. And so for me, even though, yes, you could say, well, 10 months from now, people could be feeling much better about the economy. And if they are, that would be great news for Biden and terrible news for Trump.

But I think this sense of insecurity and this clamoring for some sort of order and predictability is not just about the economy. I think it's also about crime, immigration, national security. I mean, this was a number that stuck out to me

that made my jaw drop was from a CBS News poll from early November. They asked people, which if Biden wins, will peace and stability in the world increase or decrease? And more people said decrease. And then when they said

If Trump wins, will it increase peace and stability in the world or decrease it? And by like an 11 point margin, more said increase than decrease. So this idea of Trump as Mr. Peace and stability, I know it sounds insane, but the voters are telling us in poll after poll that that's what they feel. That's the monkey wrench. Voters being idiots. You know, the Germans were marching into Paris and the voters in the New York Times polling were like, oh, no war. We can't. We don't have to do anything.

It's all fine. You know, that's the little ugly zipper here on the big costume. But I digress. One of the tensions of this campaign is...

When Trump is past this primary season and the hopes of all you well-intentioned non-Trump Republicans are dashed. Patriots, you can say it. You can say it. I will say it. I agree. There'll be this tension between those 2 a.m. tweets and the crazy shit he says on the trail and

And this desire for order that I agree is there. I mean, Trump is a chaos machine. I mean, this is a guy who most of the people who work for him are not for him now because of the experience. But in the public perception, he's the economic strength candidate and Biden is the weakness candidate.

On a really stupid level, but hey, people vote for what they want and sometimes they get it. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back. Music

We're following these wars in which Biden, you know, I think has provided strong leadership, particularly in Ukraine, but also, you know, in prodding Israel and supporting Israel at the same time. Very difficult situation creates a lot, a lot of problems for him within his own party. But.

But if Ukraine bogs down or if Ukraine should reverse and Ukraine has to make major concessions or, God forbid, is overrun because we didn't supply them what they needed and so on, if this Israeli incursion in Gaza continues for months, does that add to the perception of chaos that you speak of? I think so, if only because Trump will make the somewhat unfalsifiable argument, if I was president, none of this would be happening. And...

I am sure that that will set a lot of kind of foreign policy scholars like hair on fire, that they will say that this is ridiculous. If Trump was in power, X, Y, and Z would be going to work. He's called the invasion of Ukraine genius, but yeah. But, but he will say in the, in on earth too, where I am president, none of this happens. And I think there'll be a sizable number of voters that go, maybe he's right. And Murphy, what does Biden do to solve for the problem that Kristen has?

is talking about here what does he do to solve for the problem because this is i don't think it is a problem of a economic statistic or a group of economic statistics or any one thing i think there is a funk that is a post-pandemic funk that is deeper and and broader and there is this fear of him but just of not so much what he does but what they see

Yeah. See, this is the thing that I feel for Biden on this. It is a perception is reality deal. And, you know, these these foreign things, I think he's done pretty well, too. They are perceived as like it never turns into an action movie where, you know, Tom Cruise goes in in a tuxedo and something blows up and then problem solved.

They're long and they're sticky and they're difficult and they fill up cable news. And the longer they go, that combines with the idea of Biden as this very old guy that like, you know, he's not on top of this big, hard job. Now, you know, of course, in the real world, which I wish mattered a little more, Trump is old, too. And Trump is nuts. And I think Trump's mental competency is less than Biden's.

But perception is reality in the world of a televised presidency. And I don't know what Biden does to fix that. Now, if they were really, really good in the White House and in fairness to the staff and maybe unearned, maybe earned, I don't know if Biden would let them be better. They might be able to run the ball on this stuff a little bit. But right now it's Biden in front of a blue curtain having trouble.

You know, I'll tell you, I don't know if I mentioned this because we were away for the break, but Biden came out here to L.A. and did a big, very successful finance event. But the talk from the partisan Democrat donors, the thousands of them that were there, is terrifying.

terrified. He looked really old. He was wearing his sneakers, not regular shoes. He wasn't sharp in the meetings. I mean, in the speech. He was wearing those sneakers because he was going for a five-mile run. That's right. No, he had his taekwondo lesson right afterward. Right. But I'm just saying the talk was wide-eyed horror. Now, that's a bedwetting crowd.

I've said before that they need a narrative and they need that narrative to be repeated again and again. And the narrative has to be about...

the future that he is working toward building. And then you can put the accomplishments in not so much to look for credit, but to underscore the America that he sees.

And, you know, but it's a tough one. Kristen, we got to let you go because I know you got to run. But I just to underscore your point there, I'm looking at Twitter and I just open it up. And there are two tweets that appeared in my feed back to back. One is Steve Ratner saying real inflation at adjusted incomes are higher today than when Biden took office, especially for those at the bottom. And on the next tweet,

line is the GOP tweet of the day. Biden's presidency has been just one crisis after another. And so, you know, you sort of see the contours of the campaign right there. Yeah. Well, I think that for anyone who saw my Times piece the day after Christmas and said, how can you possibly argue that Donald Trump could be the candidate of order in the face of chaos? I mean, what you just described is

is exactly what you're going to see the Republican Party and the Trump campaign, again, separating that out from Trump, perhaps himself, they're going to try to drive that message because I think there is such a craving for normalcy, for calm, for order. People are mad. It's not that they love the status quo. It's not that they want things to just stay as they are. They want change. I think that's very clear.

But they want change back in a direction of, I don't want to have to think about politics all the time. I don't want to have to think about turning the news on all the time because something else is blowing up that's going to affect my life.

And that's why I think candidates who are quote-unquote moral, they thrived in 2022 versus candidates who were a little bit out of range. And I think you're going to see that craving continue through 2024. But don't assume that that means that voters will reject Trump by a 20-point mark. No, totally right. Authoritarianism sells order. That's the problem. And out of chaos...

comes people in uniform saying, you're scared, you won't be anymore because the boss will be in charge. And if anybody gets out of line, you know, it's going to happen. And that has an appeal. I think the competition is going to be between the real Trump and the image and, you know, his impulse, lack of impulse control versus this sense of order. But in order to keep order in Kristen's life, we have to let her go. Thank you all for having me. It has been such a pleasure.

Thank you. Come back often. Come back anytime. I'd love to. We don't even need Axelrod. Just you come back. Wait a second here. Hey, hey, hey. Great to see you. It's going to be the most interesting 30 days, and I think you've tagged the election well. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks, friends. Let's stop for a minute and listen to a word from one of our fine sponsors. It's Listener Mail.

All right, America, if you have a question for the hacks, all you have to do is email us at hacksontap at gmail.com, hacksontap at gmail.com, or because we've reluctantly entered the 20th century, the other thing you can do is call our...

one rotary dial telephone we keep in the back of one of Axelrod's off-track bedding parlors in Chicago, and you leave us a message there, just keep it to about 20, 23 seconds, okay? We do the bloviating around here. And make sure you give us your name on the message, and we will play an audio message on the phone. Now, the magic phone line is 773-389-4471. Catchy, huh?

You can't forget that number. We got to get a new number. I know. We should have 1-800, you know. 1-800-BLOVIATOR. Yeah, 1-800-TALK-TALK-TALK. 1-800-WON'T-SHUT-UP. 1-800-RUN-ON-SENTENCE. We might want to have a contest and figure out the best. So we'll get our crack staff working on that. Absolutely. We're going to go to our first recorded question. Paul from Canada, what do you got?

This is Paul from Toronto. Since I'm Canadian, I don't qualify as a Democratic bedwetter, but I do admit to more than a few sleepless nights worrying about Trump the sequel. What concerns do you think Canadians should have over a possible Trump win? Thanks. Love the show. Plenty, eh? What do you think, David? We both worked in Canada. He is authentically a Toronto guy.

I know, totally. A wonderful city, by the way. And a special shout out to the great premier, Mike Harris. We have a lot of Tories that listen, old friends of mine up there in Ontario. But go ahead, David. Tell him he doesn't have to wet the Canadian bed there. No, I'm not going to tell him that. You're an honest man. Look, despite what—I agree with Kristen's analysis, and I think people are—I think

you know, people are out of sync and they're out of sorts and they're looking for order. And Trump, as you say, Mike is offering himself as the authoritarian answer. Uh, but the reality is he is a chaos machine. Uh, he was terribly damaging to, uh, the ally American alliances and destabilizing when he was president, uh, before, uh, and, uh,

And I think he'll be more so now, and he won't have...

the team around him that he had before because he's going to prize loyalty. So he's not going to have General Mattis. He's going to have people like General Flynn around him. He's going to have people like Kash Patel making foreign policy. And I think that... Miller. Stephen Miller. I think it's going to be very, very tough. So you could move to the Yukon, put a little distance. Or get plastic sheets.

Yeah, exactly. I'd be a little worried, too, although if Trump's back, I may be joining you in Canada. Put it that way. We're set up the line of defense. That may be the scariest thing of all. You know, by the way, I will say there's a great old joke they tell in Canada. My friend Tom Long says,

told it to me, which is, don't worry, Canada, never forget, we settled the tough half of North America. So I think Canada will endure. They're highly rated for politeness and underrated for the toughness, as anybody who's seen the Canadian troops in World War II. So Murphy, Josh,

asks, since Biden has the Democratic nomination virtually locked in, he doesn't need my vote. Would it be better for worried Democrats to hold their nose and vote for Nikki Haley to prevent Trump from being the party nominee?

Oh, that is a good question. Well, I guess you could always be for Dean Phillips. But is he still running, by the way? Is he yet? He's running. He's back at Quiznos yet or that's still happening. I mean, the best thing for Haley is that he hasn't caught on because it's going to encourage more. We talked about this before, you know, in 2000, McCain's pull of independence killed Bill Bradley independently.

in that presidential primary against Al Gore. So, yeah, in those open states, including South Carolina, independents can show up in the Republican primary and they're a material thing. I think this technically the interesting one is Iowa because you had one hundred and seventy thousand Democrats in the caucus in 16. We have nothing to do now because it's been canceled. I think a bunch of them will pop over. Haley didn't do herself any any good in New Hampshire, but I still think they will break overwhelmingly to her.

And that could be a 15 or 20,000 vote factor in the caucus, which could put her in the second. So anyway, we don't know. In the past, there hasn't been that much. But we've never had a situation with no Democratic caucus. And a lot of people are used to voting in it with, again, nothing to do that.

cold night in Iowa. So yes, yes, if you're an independent and a patriot, go be a Republican for today. So it's a fair fight in the general election between a Democrat who's not crazy, the incumbent president, and a Republican you may disagree with who is not crazy, albeit cynical, Nikki Haley. Definitely do that.

You know, we back in 2008, we made an active effort to to get independents and Republicans to re-register, you know, on caucus day and participate in the Democrat caucus. And we had some success. You had some of it. I remember. But it was but it was very much an organized effort that, you know, Haley said.

Her organization has come to her late here, and it'll be interesting to—it takes a real effort to get people to do that. They don't just walk. Though, again, I'd say this time could be different in Iowa because you're not pulling teeth because you've got 171,000 with nothing to do. That's a new factor. I think people aren't—

I do hear you on that. You got another one for me? Yes, I do. We're going to give you the Mount Olympus question here, the thoughtful one. Wait a second. Let me get my beard and staff. Yeah, get your toga ready here. All right. Ready? This is from David. For David, I'm a little suspicious. I feel Chicago rules might be at work here. Why are you so good?

That's how it starts. And handsome, too. But I missed the mustache. All right, all right. This is from David for David.

David says, I'm tired of hearing about how afraid we should be if Donald Trump is reelected. Don't be, pal. As there seems to be a near 50% chance of this outcome, what are people doing now to bolster the infrastructure of democracy against the attacks Trump and his sheep, capital S, will attempt if they get the chance? Actually, a very good question. Somebody who thinks like a hedge manager. How do we bolster?

build the backup now that we know the barn may burn. David, look, the concerns are legitimate because all you have to do is listen to the folks around Trump talking about what he'll do if he gets elected and look at his own tweets about the way he plans to use the Justice Department, about their plans to decimate civil service so that government employees who now don't have to respond to the political whims of the president will then come under his control. These are legitimate

concerns. And he's surrounded by government crackpots. Forget the campaign people. If he's actually in office, it's Drake City. Yeah, yeah. No, he's not bringing the crowd that came with him last time where there were some sort of more established and experienced people. He's going to bring loyalty first is going to be the watchword. And he's going to bring the Bannons and the Kash Patels and the Stephen Millers. But

Having said all that, what we witnessed in 2020 and at the end of 2020, early 21, were good, honest people.

government officials at every level, state and local and national, standing up and doing their job and doing their duty. And I think that is the strength of our country. We are not, despite however powerful the president is, we're not a monarchy. And what we have to do is support those officeholders and those officials who

and encourage them to do their duty and reward those who do. I couldn't agree more. Hallelujah. It is a grim topic. I think there were a lot of Raffenspergers last time, but you hate to be in a situation where you're down to that.

Um, by the way, uh, Christian, before she had to split left a note on her recommended book, party of the people inside the multiracial populist coalition, remaking the GOP by Patrick Cuffini. And I'll throw one in, uh,

Voyaging Under Power by Captain Robert Beebe, a Navy officer who wrote the definitive book years ago on how to take a small craft with a slow rev diesel engine across the Pacific in case you have to escape to Australia. So there we go. I think that wraps us up. It was a good one. And on this subject, there's an interesting book that I read called Tyranny of the Minority. I just read it by Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, a couple of

Political scientists who got some note a few years ago with a very jarring book called How Democracies Die that was very predictive of some of the things that happened after it was published. And it goes through a history of...

how our institutions were formed under the Constitution, the concerns the Founding Fathers had, and it suggests a series of reforms that might help. None of them are going to be easy to accomplish, so I'm not offering it as a wish list of things to do right now, but it's certainly worth a read.

There's also a book that our pal Carville was hawking back when we had him on, which I read called Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan, which is a terrifying story of the political success of the Klan in the Midwest in the 20s. So if you want a little bit of terror porn, that's...

There it is. But this kind of stuff can happen. So you're absolutely right. We need to build the bulwarks of resistance. Okay. On that upbeat note, Happy New Year, everybody. We're going to have a lot to talk about this year. And Axe, I know Gibbs is too. I'm excited.

I'm excited to see how this crazy election unfolds. We played the bugle music at the beginning of the podcast. We're like a bunch of old warhorses, you know. I mean, we hear the bugle and we run to the post. More like a quick walk with us. But yeah, yeah. Quick stagger. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Exactly. But anyway, here we are, and we're going to have fun. I've got a new thing I'm kicking off I'm going to tell you about next time I'm on, which is a little craziness in the political space involving electric vehicles. But we'll hear more about that when we're launched. Well, you're a man with a lot of drive, so I'm not surprised. Okay, guys, we will see you next week. Thanks, pal. See you all later.