transcript

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Speaker 2:
[01:00] Where do the negotiations with Iran stand?

Speaker 3:
[01:02] What can a deal actually look like?

Speaker 2:
[01:04] And does diplomacy still have a chance?

Speaker 6:
[01:07] I personally believe we will get an agreement.

Speaker 7:
[01:09] I think there's gonna be an agreement forthcoming of one kind or another. I think the world needs that.

Speaker 8:
[01:14] I think we desperately need to calm things down.

Speaker 9:
[01:18] I'm Jake Sullivan.

Speaker 6:
[01:19] And I'm John Finer.

Speaker 3:
[01:20] And we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, former Secretary of State John Kerry joins us on the pod.

Speaker 2:
[01:27] The episode's out now.

Speaker 3:
[01:29] Search for and follow The Long Game, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10:
[01:41] Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks On Tap with David Axelrod, John Heilemann and Mike Murphy from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Speaker 9:
[02:05] Step six, art of the deal. Don't tell anyone your plan. That would be the dumbest thing you could do, which brings us to step seven. Call up a newsperson and tell them your plan.

Speaker 4:
[02:15] I just spoke with the president this morning. The president said if they do not sign the deal, the US will blow up every power plant and more in Iran.

Speaker 9:
[02:27] But telling one person your plan, that's still just four D-Chests. Step eight is five D-Chests. Tell everyone your plan.

Speaker 11:
[02:35] I spoke to him on the phone this morning and told me several things.

Speaker 2:
[02:39] President Trump today told me if Iran does not sign this deal, the whole country is going to get blown up.

Speaker 12:
[02:45] In our short phone call, the president told me the strikes have caused very great losses on their leadership. He also told me he doesn't think boots on the ground will be necessary.

Speaker 13:
[02:54] He told me that they had agreed to talk.

Speaker 6:
[02:56] He just got off the phone with the president and he called.

Speaker 9:
[03:04] Did you see how bummed out Brett Baier was that he called him? Yeah, I talked to the president, he called me. I had the number blocked, but yeah, you got there.

Speaker 3:
[03:14] So Mike, that was John Stewart just last night mocking, pretty effectively, the president, the claims the president plays like four or five, six D chess that all of this has been a demonstration in Iran of his diplomatic mastery. He's just so far above the rest of us. And then of course he's just making basically calling reporters like on Speed Dial to tell them what his plans are. And they change basically every day.

Speaker 14:
[03:39] No, the meta-nick of Mar-a-Lago to me is like a chimp with a dartboard. But to decode all this stuff, because there's no plan, there's tactics, there's no strategy here. The Iranians are the ones with the strategy. Right.

Speaker 3:
[03:51] We've got a guy here with us who gets, who isn't just on Trump's speed dial, is at the top of the speed dial and gets a phone call from Donald Trump. I think actually he's taking a phone call from Trump right now. It's Jonathan Martin.

Speaker 14:
[04:01] The one and only.

Speaker 13:
[04:02] The one and only.

Speaker 3:
[04:03] J. Mart like you now. I'm sure Trump's been calling you a fair amount lately.

Speaker 13:
[04:05] Glad to be back on Hacks.

Speaker 14:
[04:07] Good to have you. So what's the president telling you? He told me he's going to really hit him with the old no more Mr. Nice Guy. That would break him. The Iranians would say, oh, we have no chance. We better surrender. I'm waiting for that.

Speaker 3:
[04:21] Mike, when was he ever Mr. Nice Guy?

Speaker 14:
[04:22] Well, that's a good point. No, it's not in his DNA. But I think the larger point, J. Mart, curious what you think about this. He built his reputation on being Mr. Tough Guy. So he'll always escalate the rhetoric. But the fact is, and I'm glad for this because I think it's better for the country, though not good for him, that he's in full retreat here. They're sending Vance to crawl over and try to get a deal. And what's his leverage? I mean, he can block the strait, that's bad for him. The Iranians can block the strait, also bad for them, but they've got more patience.

Speaker 13:
[04:58] And he's trying to do madman theory, Nixon. The problem with doing madman theory is that he then tells people he's doing madman theory.

Speaker 14:
[05:06] Right, right, exactly. I'm gonna try the old crazy Trump, that'll get him. It's all over Fox.

Speaker 13:
[05:11] Which now undermines the whole idea. When you say that you're playing, playing the fool, people actually don't believe it. You can't read the stage directions, it turns out, while you're on stage and keep the audience. Look, the Iranians have leverage here. Now, they're suffering some pain, too, because of our blockade. But they're a theocracy that's got a sort of like military arm that has enormous say over the direction of their country. We're a deeply divided democracy that's like lurching into a midterm election in which like the price at the pump is gonna have an enormous effect on the political fortunes of the incumbent president and his party. So it's not quite the same.

Speaker 14:
[05:55] Well, to see all this become a cliché, but for several Middle Eastern wars, we have clocks and they have the time.

Speaker 3:
[06:02] Just speaking of the time, let's just set the table in one way here. It's Tuesday morning. We had President Trump at the end of last week declared that everything that was over. The war was basically over. Iran had capitulated on every single point that mattered. They had reopened the Straits of Hormuz and they had given up their nuclear program and within about 48 hours Iran had said, no, we haven't given up our nuclear program and certainly, and we also have re-closed the Straits of Hormuz. So it's Tuesday morning and there are supposed to be peace talks in Pakistan, but the Iranians are saying that they will only send envoys if JD Vance is coming. We think JD Vance is going, but it's a little unclear. I mean, the status of even the peace talks is a little bit up in the air right now. And so Mike, I ask you, the ceasefire is coming to an end. And on the basis just of what we actually seen over the last 48 to 72 hours, it doesn't look super promising. We're not, it doesn't feel like, I mean, the Strait of Hormuz is closed again. It doesn't look super, it doesn't look like we're on the brink of a deal here, let alone a deal is basically all that's signed and all we need is the dot the T's or dot the I's across the T's.

Speaker 14:
[07:10] Yeah, for a ceasefire, there's sure a lot of firing. There are a couple of tanker captains ducking right now, bullets whizzing over their head, what ceasefire? It was funny because the original tractable problem looked like it would be the Israelis and Hezbollah and Lebanon, but they actually have kind of been fast-tracking that to the solution, and I think a lot of people thought, well, look, the three biggest players, the Iranians, the president and lurking in the background, the Chinese, all want that straight open. So maybe that influence will actually, and that's why the markets have gotten optimistic. The thing will work itself out, but it never really did. We had pauses, and so now, as you say, and it's a great point, there's a clock on this thing. So JB is on the way back, and I think New York Times, somebody had a good article today about kind of Iranian negotiation tactics back when they tried the nuclear deal, and the administration would have a huge group of experts because they're trying to figure out every comma would move, that would that allow them to have a loophole to get closer to developing a weapon. Trump just sends JD. Vance over there and a couple of yes men, and they're winging it all. Well, the Iranians are the master of the, well, first we have to decide what they have for lunch. Well, wait a minute, before we decide that, we have to decide who orders first, and then you're four days into the negotiation.

Speaker 3:
[08:32] They should send J.Mart to handle that because he's a master of ball cuisines.

Speaker 14:
[08:36] Yeah, no, they just say, J.Mart, whatever you wish to eat, we will just have another portion, maybe the pot pie from Hamilton Hotel.

Speaker 13:
[08:42] I was a double major in lunch actually.

Speaker 14:
[08:45] I'm a undergrad, so. But anyway, so, and the Trump guys are all performative and the Iranians love the slow walk because they can always shut down the street, even though it hurts them too. So yeah, I think it's gonna run out. We're gonna have a big opera of negotiation of little skirmishes because they know Trump wants to retreat now. He didn't get the nuclear material. He didn't get regime change and he's in worse trouble. And his allies in Asia, our allies, the countries, are getting a big oil squeeze now. So Trump is in a bigger vice than the Iranians.

Speaker 3:
[09:21] Right, so here's the, that's for sure true. And I think, you know, a couple of points worth making. One, and these will be familiar to Jonathan because he was on This Morning Joe with Richard Haas who pointed out that the saber rattling isn't working and it's not working in kind of a predictable way. It's like once you've threatened to annihilate an entire civilization and then, and then tacoed, you become a little bit of the Trump that cried global, a clear civilizational annihilation. It's like people are like, yeah, okay, you're gonna blow up all of our, of all of our civilian infrastructure. Yeah, he said that two weeks ago, whatever dude. And the Iranians like are a people who, again, according to people who know about this, not me, value being respected, you know, the respect being accorded, not threats do not work. Respect works better. And this brings us to the JD Vance angle, J-Mart, which is, you know, those guys have got to have been like, they're done with Kushner and Witkoff, who have come over there twice and negotiated with them as cover for an impending airstrike, it's a set of airstrikes. Now they've got, they're demanding that Vance be there. Is this like a plum assignment for JD Vance or is this a poison chalice?

Speaker 13:
[10:29] As Trump would say, see what happens.

Speaker 3:
[10:33] False bitery, couldn't be both.

Speaker 13:
[10:35] Yeah, with Trump, everything is contingent. So, if it goes well and Trump likes the coverage from the deal and the markets like it too, then it's a big winner. If it goes south and Trump is being portrayed in the press as he got played and the market still sagged, then it was a big loser. I mean, in Trump's eyes, it's just all about how it plays, right, because he's forever Donald Trump. I think in the eyes of the broader political world, certainly his own party, I think Vance needs a win. His numbers overall are not great. You know, the traditionalists in the party don't like him at all and are kind of wish casting that Rubio is gonna like teleport himself to the nomination in 28. So Vance needs some good news. Vance needs to get a real peace deal, lasting deal, but also get something out of the attack, i.e. a commitment on uranium and not developing said material. So, look, I think Vance needs a big W, you know?

Speaker 3:
[11:36] Right, he's been on an incredible losing streak, Mike, if you think about it. It's like first, an Easter ago, he killed the Pope, right? Then, you know, he went into show, Orban couldn't lose, he endorses Orban, Orban loses. Then he gets another fight with this Pope, in which he lectures this Pope on theology, having been himself a Catholic for like about eight minutes. He's just not been, he's not had a good news cycle in living memory.

Speaker 14:
[11:58] He is the only, the only politician I've seen be a political kiss of death in 10 time zones, all in the same, too. It's unbelievable. But I think he's really screwed on this Iranian thing, because if it works out, it's Trump's victory. If it doesn't, it's Vance's failure. And the problem every negotiator with the Iranians has.

Speaker 13:
[12:20] Mike, you would say that Donald Trump act like that. That's so unlike you.

Speaker 14:
[12:23] Yeah, yeah. No, it would be very, very different for the president to act like a crazy Neo-Stalin insecure psycho. But putting that aside, there's just no way Vance wins this thing, because again, Trump doesn't share. And the Iranians will do what they do, which is make a deal and then change their minds in six months. So in the primaries, Vance will be the knucklehead who trusted the Ayatollahs and got run. Who lost Iran? We'll have an echo of that. So Vance, I think, is just deeply screwed here. But you do a deal with the devil, you know, because the whole Vance story is foused. This is where you wind up.

Speaker 3:
[12:59] Well, it kind of it opens up a larger question, though, because I think about this just from Vance's point of view. As you said, J. Martin, he needs a win. But you look at, I mean, there was a time in our recent memory, I would say at the end of twenty twenty five, where if you ask the political cognoscenti, like what Vance's chances were of being the Republican nominee in twenty twenty eight, most of them would say he was the front runner. Some of them would say it's going to be a core nation. He's going to inherit all of Trump's strength from MAGA. That kind of conventional wisdom of Vance in an incredibly strong position. Now, that is 180 degrees different, right? No one thinks that JD Vance is the heir apparent. No one necessarily thinks Trump's giving a lay hands on him. I know we'll talk about your interview with Brian Kemp a little later in the show, but the notion that there's going to be a core nation and that it's going to be JD Vance. If you look at the polling, Donald Trump Jr. is a more likely Republican nominee in 2028 than JD Vance at the moment. Maybe that won't hold either, but it does seem like people made sure that everybody knew that he was against the war, and now he's trying to negotiate the peace in the war, and he's got all these various, it's just getting worse and worse for him.

Speaker 14:
[14:10] Again, he owns the Iranians now. Do you want to own the Ayatollah and be held responsible for their future behavior because you were the ace negotiator?

Speaker 3:
[14:18] How do you make his prospects at this point, J-Mart?

Speaker 13:
[14:20] Well, this is not a typical primary. Typical primaries involve the will of the voters. I don't think Donald Trump's terribly interested in getting buy-in from the electorate. He wants to decide who the nominees are going to be for president and VP. Don't take my word for it. Every time he's asked the question, he always invoked Rubio and Vance. I think he wants to set the ticket. Look, don't forget, in 2024, he told the then chairman of the RNC, don't have a primary, do not have debates. I don't even want to bother with that. He meant it. And look, it's not him this time, but I still think he wants to short-circuit the process. One half bachelor, one half the apprentice. Everybody brings a rose to the White House and they have to sit there and go on live TV and try to get his favor. Well, I think he's going to do this himself. And I think if Vance is still in good stead with him, I think he'll tap Vance. That's today. I don't know where it's going to be two years from now. I can tell you a lot of Republicans in the party are wish casting for Mark Rubio to be the nominee. I just think it takes an act of God or a feeling that Magagod Donald Trump to make that happen to somehow get Rubio as Secretary of State and the leapfrog, the sitting vice president. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's going to take a Trump in our state to happen.

Speaker 14:
[15:44] I think the big missing part of the equation and, you know, is it different with Trump or will it revert to normalcy, which is after the rubble of November and the Democrats own the House, a whole bunch of new state legislatures, maybe the Senate, maybe the Senate, the Senate maybe, but you know, even so the Senate closes, where now it's a one-vote margin, and it's much harder to run that thing. Will Trump have the same grip or will there be a lot of people smiling, clapping, handing him a gold watch and praying for their own survival that the wheel turns? That is the question. Will we have the same Trump relationship with a bulk of the primary voters in a year as now?

Speaker 13:
[16:25] I think so.

Speaker 14:
[16:25] I'm not sure. I don't know if it'll totally go. I don't think it'll be the same or stronger. The question is how much weaker, enough to be material.

Speaker 3:
[16:34] So we were talking about the clock earlier. We're talking about the clock ticking down, right? It's mid-April. You guys both know, you know, we're basically not that far from Memorial Day. And after Memorial Day, basically, you know, we're going to shift into full-time midterm mode and everything. You know, even the energy secretary is now like, we're not going to see gas prices no matter what happens. We're not going to see gas prices under $4 a gallon for the rest of the year. The economy, the numbers, Trump's numbers on inflation, on the economy, on everything are at low ebbs. And the chaos in the administration, just as a kind of running side story, continues, Mike was calling the Trump's cabinet the Liquor Cabinet at this point. And there are fewer bottles in the cabinet with each passing day. The labor secretary is now gone.

Speaker 14:
[17:18] They're all on the floor shattered and dry. And then Cash Patel's footprint's staggering out of the room.

Speaker 3:
[17:23] Right, so that's, I mean, so we've lost the labor secretary and there's a sense that there might be more to come. J-Mart, you're as plugged in on this as anybody I know. Who's next? Is it Cash Patel? Is it Howard Lutnick who you hear some ominous things about? He's, well, we get to Pete Hegson in a second, but it feels like we're not done yet with the cleaning up house.

Speaker 13:
[17:45] Let's take each of them. Look, Cash is over the barrel now because of the reporting about his drinking. He denies that he's actually suing the Atlantic over the story.

Speaker 3:
[17:55] I think it's in the barrel is the phrase you're looking for.

Speaker 14:
[17:58] There's also the whole lifestyles of the rich and famous thing flying around and all the stuff that bugged Trump about Kristi Noem and Leigh Dowsky. But yeah, apparently all these allegations are bad enough that the vibe is he's going to go. Do you think it'll happen, J. Mark?

Speaker 3:
[18:15] Just remember one of the key element here, Trump hates drunks. I mean, it's amazing that Hegson, he hates public drunkenness. He's got the histories of alcoholism in his family. He's like personally uncomfortable with the notion of public drunkenness.

Speaker 14:
[18:29] So it's the perfect formula for him to hit the rocks.

Speaker 13:
[18:32] Cash is neither in nor over the barrel. He is allegedly taking from the barrel, according to the Atlantic.

Speaker 14:
[18:40] By the barrel.

Speaker 3:
[18:41] He's got a spigot in the side of the barrel and it's just open and flowing all the time.

Speaker 14:
[18:45] More than one barrel.

Speaker 3:
[18:46] We are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Speaker 14:
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Speaker 13:
[24:14] Puff moment right now. Trump is always inclined to believe press coverage, even though he claims to hate the press, because that's how he measures everything in life. So it's not great moment for cash. You can see him being eased out. The other two names that you hear quite a bit.

Speaker 14:
[24:32] Can I just interrupt for one sec, J-Mart, on the cash thing? I hope he stays drunk, because if he's crawling for the light switch, he can do less damage at the FBI. Let me just make that contrary point, but go ahead.

Speaker 3:
[24:44] I will say one other thing also with cash. The combination of bad press and the fact that his status with the MAGA base has been damaged so significantly by the way of the handling of Epstein. It puts him in a very bad position. I will say, I have tied a few on, guys, but there's never been a situation where anybody's had to bring a SWAT team to my house to knock down the door to get me up for work in the morning.

Speaker 14:
[25:07] Well, it's early. We have a whole day in front of us, but yes.

Speaker 3:
[25:10] Fair enough.

Speaker 14:
[25:10] Go ahead, J-Mart, we interrupted.

Speaker 13:
[25:12] The other two names you hear a lot in DC, especially from people in the Republican Party who have had dealings with are Howard Lutnick and Pete Hegseth. Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, has really rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way. Of course, Hegseth obviously has well-documented issues. The challenge, guys, with both of them is, and until and unless Donald Trump gets tired of them and pulls the trigger, they've got a level of insulation. Don't forget, the people in the White House leaked from the heavens on Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski. It wasn't until her testimony on the Hill embarrassed Trump himself that he finally pulled the trigger. So, Lutnick can say the Canadians suck, he can piss off 17 different people in the West Wing and the Cabinet, but until Trump himself's annoyed, I think this guy sticks around.

Speaker 14:
[26:06] Well, how about this, though? First of all, let me just do a parenthetical. This labor thing is hilarious with Chavez, it's a hyphenated name, I'm blanking on her last name. There's pervy stuff with the husband, there's pervy stuff with their dad and interns, there's booze. I mean, most people don't pay a lot of attention because it's the labor department, most people don't even know what it does, but if you kind of step back, this thing is like bad, real housewives of trashy cabinet departments level ridiculousness. But how about the cerebral move, which is instead of Trump getting mad at the press conference and finally killing somebody like it happened with Gnome, somebody says, Mr. President, we got a couple of weak ponies here and you're in some political trouble, so why don't we gang them all together and do a big reset? Because if you lose a cabinet secretary every month, it becomes tale of administration woes and incompetence. But you do a big flush and you get head set post-war, cover mistakes were made that don't please Trump. You knock out cash, you get Whitnick, maybe the postmaster general gets the chop, but you do a big reset thing to try to package it.

Speaker 3:
[27:19] Sure, but Mike, are we not in the middle of that right now? I mean, we have lost the attorney general of the United States, we've lost the head of DHS and the head of the Labor Department now within the span of a couple weeks. I mean, it feels like we're in that, even though Trump hasn't packaged it that way.

Speaker 14:
[27:36] No, I agree we're in it.

Speaker 3:
[27:37] That is where we're in the middle of it. I mean, three cabinet secretaries in the space of like two weeks or three weeks, that is a flush, a de facto flush, if not a de jure flush, right?

Speaker 14:
[27:46] Yeah, heading toward four.

Speaker 13:
[27:48] Mike, I can't think of labor secretaries under Republican presidents without thinking of the Eisenhower cabinet, which was famously called eight millionaires and a plumber.

Speaker 14:
[27:57] And then Ray Donovan's still looking to get his reputation back. It's something about the Labor Department where people.

Speaker 13:
[28:03] Because he made that I think it was the plumber union guy, the data labor in any event. I mean, this scenario about doing a sort of like, you know, no confidence or like cabinet shuffle, a la the Brits would do in a parliamentary system. It probably gives these guys too much credit. It's like that would be too sensible of like, midterms are here, tough summer. We're changing our economic team. Out goes the labor and commerce.

Speaker 14:
[28:33] We heard you.

Speaker 13:
[28:33] Instead, they have Stephen Chung fire her on Twitter yesterday, who's the comms director in the White House.

Speaker 14:
[28:40] And he's kind of like a third rate insult comic, this guy. I mean, the clown factor there is high.

Speaker 13:
[28:45] Yeah, there's no larger messaging from the shakeup beyond, she had 17 bad stories, it hit critical mass, and Trump finally got tired of it. And here's the Bond villain hitting send on the tweet to get to give her the trap door. I think your point makes a lot more sense, Mike, of like, why not do an economic shuffle?

Speaker 14:
[29:05] Yeah, but you're right, it requires finesse and intelligence.

Speaker 3:
[29:09] It requires something else, it requires Trump to, tacitly at least, and really, if you're really going to make this work, explicitly, you'd have to stand up and say, we need you to reshuffle because the economy is not doing well. You have to acknowledge reality.

Speaker 13:
[29:21] I bet he has a problem. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:23] And Trump has not been great at doing that.

Speaker 14:
[29:24] And he's resisted that.

Speaker 3:
[29:26] He's resisted acknowledging reality in the economy as steadfastly as Joe Biden did, you know, in the same phase in his term.

Speaker 14:
[29:31] Yeah. That's the great irony in all this is he's using the Biden playbook to blow his fingers off.

Speaker 3:
[29:37] I want to just, I want to play one piece of sound only because I just find it so incredible and amusing, especially in the midst of this fight with the Pope, which we talked about Mike last week, I think. The Hegseth Pulp Fiction thing is so good that I just, I can't, I can't help, but I just want, I just want to listen to it because it made him a global laughing stock. And so let's play that so we could just all have a little laugh here before we go on.

Speaker 16:
[30:00] Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.

Speaker 17:
[30:10] Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.

Speaker 16:
[30:24] I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother.

Speaker 17:
[30:31] I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brother.

Speaker 16:
[30:42] And you will know my call sign is Sandy One when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

Speaker 15:
[30:48] And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

Speaker 3:
[30:56] Now, I'm not a particularly Biblical person, although I did go to Catholic school. But even I knew when I saw Pulp Fiction the very first time that the Bible passage that Quentin Tarantino wrote there was not actually taken from Ezekiel. And yet here's a man who has made himself into a self-styled holy warrior and has turned this Iran conflict into that explicitly, publicly talked about it all the time, talking about Jesus all over the place. How does that guy fuck this up? How does his staff let him fuck this up this badly, Jamar? I mean, I don't want to be, I just think if you have anybody who's marginally competent, they say, Mr. Secretary, that's not really from the Bible.

Speaker 14:
[31:39] Well, you say staff, it could be the famous speech writing team of gin and tonic, but anyway, go ahead, Jamar.

Speaker 13:
[31:45] I mean, James A. Baker III isn't on that staff there, so it's not. Yeah, yeah. You have to understand the culture of the operatives who are willing to work for these folks, and it just attracts people who are okay with Trump and Trumpism, and not just okay, but are willing to leave their careers and their other jobs and work for these folks. And that really means the pool, guys, is a lot smaller than is typical with most traditional administrations, right? No Democrats are going to do it, and half of the Republicans, maybe even more, are just not going to work for Pete Hegseth, right? It's just not an option. If you're in the private sector, you got to mortgage kids, private school tuitions, you're not going to give that up for a year and a half or two years of the Pete Hegseth push-up show at the Pentagon.

Speaker 14:
[32:41] Yeah, unless your motive is to go in there, be a yes man for a while, stamp your ticket and then knowing that it's an ethically blind administration, come outside and lobby for dregs.

Speaker 13:
[32:51] Then you got to pay for lawyers and if you're already on the fast track, you don't need this. I think it's an important point because every administration is staffed by veterans from the previous administrations of their party. So like the Carterites helped form the Clinton administration in 93, even though it was a while back. Obviously, the Reagan, Bush and Bush connective tissue was there. There's some of that with Trump, but boy, there's just a lot less of that. So because of that, you just don't have the institutional talent there. Now, you have some folks in the private sector, I think Feinberg's a pro over at DOD, but you just don't have a lot of the political talent from yesteryear because half of them are more and going to work for Donald Trump's crowd.

Speaker 14:
[33:35] Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, let me do a pivot here because we've been talking about kind of Republicans tripping over clown shoes and all the Trump world, you know, madness. But I think Governor Abigail Spamberger of Virginia, who was elected with a lot of excitement, center as Democrat, big signal of Democratic wave strength, I think she's had a pair of clown shoes on on this redistricting thing. You know, she lurched left and she's basically trying to wire the congressional redistricting on a partisan basis with a popular referendum. Now, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Texas yes men to Trump started it. And then Gavin made a good pre, pre, pre presidential play by rewriting the California map in a way that would make our friend Willie Brown blush was so partisan, but people voted for it. Anyway, so here we are in Virginia. And so she came in with this head of steam. She's bet all her chips on a referendum to basically make every congressional district in the swing state of Virginia minus one Democratic. I mean, it really is not a light touch kind of thing. Now I get the outcome, which is fight Republicans, but boy, oh boy, this horrible worst in mayor daily election rigging stuff in terms of, you know, putting a political spin on the maps to benefit one party. And frankly, undercut democracy. It bugs me and she might lose. Her numbers are down. This thing is a three point race. What do you think, J. Mart and Johnny?

Speaker 3:
[35:10] That's the question at first. Mart, are you in the district right now? You look like you, that doesn't look like New Orleans behind you.

Speaker 13:
[35:16] No, no, I'm in DC right now.

Speaker 3:
[35:17] Okay, so you guys, so Northern Virginia is the inhaling distance of where you are right now.

Speaker 13:
[35:22] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[35:23] And Mike's question is a good question. This Abigail Spanberger, centrist, moderate, pragmatic, practical, all those things that made her.

Speaker 14:
[35:29] Formally all those things we're seeing.

Speaker 3:
[35:31] That made her a juggernaut in the election. But you know, this is the of the moment thing. It's hard, you know, for it to resist. You know, when you see what's what's going on, getting the back, the background that Mike laid out, it's hard for a governor to, you know, to say to the party, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do this when Donald Trump is still trying to do it in various other states. But Mike's point is on point, not only is it, is it problematic for her, for her politics and her public image, but also she might now lose, or at least it seems like a lot of Democrats in Virginia seem worried about this. So again, what's your, what's your stake on the state of the play?

Speaker 13:
[36:03] Well, first of all, you can't mention Willie Brown without tempting me to plug my road show On the Road. We had a great Willie Brown walk on when I interviewed Gavin Newsome at Sam's Grill in San Francisco. It's still online, it came out on the road at Politico. You can also watch it on YouTube or wherever your podcast. So on Virginia, there's two challenges Bamberger has here. Number one is, it's confusing. This is a really, for the average voter, hard to figure out, because both sides are saying that they're fighting for democracy and fair maps. It's kind of hazy. Secondly, you've got people who do understand, who are sophisticated and there's a lot of those in Virginia. It's a high education, high information electorate across what's called the urban crescent, which is basically Northern Virginia to Richmond down to Tidewater. A ton of college-educated, advanced degree voters. And even those that are centrist, Mike, or center-left, they're a little squeamish about something this audacious. Because it does scream more Cook County than it does traditional Virginia values, right?

Speaker 3:
[37:12] Oh, and the good government ones have been against this now for different decades. They've been complaining about exactly this kind of thing.

Speaker 13:
[37:19] Here's the Trump card, Paul. The Trump card is Trump, right? Everything in modern American politics is a referendum on Trump. And so, wisely, the Democrats in Virginia have made this a referendum on Trump. Don't let Trump steal the election vote. Yes. So I think that messaging is enough to get them across the line. But they're encountering an electorate that doesn't like the fact that they're voting yes, which is why they also guys emphasize temporary. And this is where it gets fun. Part of the messaging from Democrats is temporary lines. This is a break last to stop Trump's steal in 2026. Let's come back. Save that tape on temporary. Let's see those House Democrats who want to make those lines harder.

Speaker 14:
[38:01] Exactly. It was the same in California. Oh, don't worry.

Speaker 3:
[38:05] Once they've won those seats, they're going to be like, hey, let's go back.

Speaker 14:
[38:08] It's like a temporary tax increase. We're going to repeal it.

Speaker 13:
[38:11] Give me a harder range, please, in 2030, 2032. I want a harder district. I'm still waiting to hear that. Right? Good luck.

Speaker 3:
[38:18] I will say to Jonathan's point about confusion, and Mike, I'd love to get your point of view about this. So in Virginia, as in California, those who wish to do this gerrymander have deployed President Obama, who had made arguments, was key to the advertising campaign that Gavin's force is using in California. They've rolled him out again in ads in Virginia. The anti-forces, the no-forces, have also rolled out President Obama and have run ads with President Obama from an earlier era, where he's saying, no, we should not have this kind of gerrymandering. And I think, first of all, that's clever on their part, and it's part of what's creating a more complicated atmosphere for those voters who are not super sophisticated. But Mike, doesn't it raise the question, let me tell you how stupid California Republicans are, because you didn't see that in California. No one in California seemed to be smart enough to think, hey, well, if they're going to roll out Obama, we can roll out an earlier Obama. California Republicans just seem totally wrong-footed by this.

Speaker 14:
[39:24] Yeah, no, no, no doubt. The No Campaign in Virginia is a clever one. The California one was kind of boilerplate. But California is a much more partisan, democratic state. It was an easier lift there. And Gavin did a good job of raising a ton of money.

Speaker 3:
[39:40] And a state with a lot more familiarity with single-issue initiatives, without initiatives. This is not a thing that Virginia does in the way that California does it with that degree of regularity.

Speaker 13:
[39:50] It's a really good point.

Speaker 14:
[39:51] Right, right. Though, I don't know. I think I'm kind of with J-Mart on Trump rage. This thing, which everybody knows is a terrible idea, might inch over. But I would not be surprised if, one, it's very close, and two, if there's an upset defeat on it. Because it is, it's so grossly, I mean, every seat. I mean, Putin wouldn't even go that far.

Speaker 13:
[40:11] Just 10 seconds as a native of Virginia, part of the cultural challenge here, and why this thing stinks to some voters who are otherwise centrist or even center left, is because it sort of merges these districts in Northern Virginia with the rest of Virginia. And for a lot of people, that screams gerrymandering excessive, it's too far because people know the cultural gap and just the sheer driving distances from say, you know, Arlington all the way down to like Cumberland County in South Side Virginia. Anyways, I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 3:
[40:43] Well, speaking of, that's a totally good point and we'll see what happens there. We were just talking about California kind of popped up because of this comparison with Virginia. And we got to go back and think about, you know, we're now in the second week of the post-Swellwell era in the California governor's race. And Mike, we finally have some polling, Jonathan, both of you guys. We finally have a decent amount of polling that's come out in that period. That's kind of taken a stock of the race post-Erik Swellwell, who was, I always thought, kind of a paper front runner to begin with. But the main thing that's changed, like no one's gotten like gotten a big boost out of this, except for Javier Becerra, who suddenly has jumped up from who's doubled. Now he's only doubled up to the low double digits, you know, from about 5% up to 10, 11, 12%. But he's the only one who seems to have any kind of momentum. We have a debate tomorrow in San Francisco. We have another debate next Tuesday in Claremont. And then there's another debate after that. So that race, as we head towards the June primary, is suddenly, you know, this is when people say there's a big giant undecided show.

Speaker 14:
[41:50] Oh, it's going to be a fun one, you know, no doubt at all.

Speaker 3:
[41:53] So Mike, you're sitting out there in California. I'm headed to California tomorrow. What do you see happening on the ground now that Swalwell is really out and everyone's trying to scrambling to take advantage and move into this debate period, which is going to be a pretty big deal?

Speaker 14:
[42:07] Crazy chaos. Let me put a disclaimer up. My great friend Larry Grisolano and I are both working for the pro Matt Mahan super PAC.

Speaker 3:
[42:15] Right, mayor of San Jose, for people who don't know.

Speaker 14:
[42:18] Mayor of San Jose, kind of a Buddha judge policy young smart guy type, but nobody's heard of him, which is his challenge.

Speaker 3:
[42:26] He's a moderate pro-business Democrat.

Speaker 14:
[42:28] Yeah, not the public employee union's favorite guy, but a good card carrying Democrat, pragmatist, get the job done. I'm a mayor, not a congressman or billionaire. But anyway, to back up, so this thing has been, normally California races are dominated on a statewide basis by somebody big and famous and incumbent. Somebody holds another statewide office, trying a different one. We don't have many of these open seats. Our Schwarzenegger, who I came out to California originally worked for, this time has been wide open. But the Democratic establishment and most of public employee labor, not the trades, got behind Swalwell, even though no voter knew much about anybody.

Speaker 3:
[43:08] Kind of reluctantly as if, you know, well, you know, least bad option.

Speaker 14:
[43:12] Yeah. Yeah. They're like, don't we have anybody else? But he's not Katie Porter. He's not Steyer. He's not Mahan. And Gavin has not endorsed. He said nice things about everybody, but behind the scenes his machine was definitely nudging Stalwell forward. So cut to what everybody was whispering about for a year. Hey, this guy's a perv. Isn't that going to catch up with them? Well, shazam. It did.

Speaker 3:
[43:34] A year. Jesus.

Speaker 14:
[43:36] Yeah. Oh, it's been out there forever. Ever. Ask any Hill staffer on the D side about Eric Swalwell. So, and now they're all playing like we had no idea. You know, it's ridiculous. So anyway, he blows up. There's a vacuum. Javier Becerra, former congressman, former HUD secretary.

Speaker 3:
[43:53] HHS, I think.

Speaker 14:
[43:54] HHS, excuse me. He was kind of nowhere. Couldn't raise any money. You know, had some name ID, but no ballot. Well, in the vacuum, he kind of had a little run. Now, David Binder, the great Democratic pollster's released some data for, I can't remember which super PAC.

Speaker 3:
[44:10] I think, I think Binder's working for Porter.

Speaker 14:
[44:12] No, I don't think, anyway. He has a good ballot question, which is, who are you going to vote for? Is Smedrick, 12%. Are you committed or could you see yourself changing your mind of voting for another candidate?

Speaker 3:
[44:24] Who's your second choice candidate?

Speaker 14:
[44:25] Well, not only second choice, but how committed are you to the one you just chose? And all these people, half or more of their support, except for Katie, who's got a little harder base, say, oh yeah, I could switch. So you got a whole bunch of people in the teens and now Becerra's the flavor of the moment. Now, meanwhile, the Sacramento Keep Things The Way They Are machine is totally controlled by the polling. So whatever poll they read that morning to make plans, well, we better shovel money to that person. I often joke that if I were head of the Chinese Communist Intelligence Service, I would just go bribe media posters because the lemming factor is incredible. Now, it's Becerraville, which means a couple of things will happen. Steyer, who now sees Becerra on his heels, though very soft, nobody's got firm support here. Right, right. Feathers in the wind. He's going to turn his money cannon, where he's already spent about $160 million, and I think he's going to start to bed like he was starting to hit Swalwell. Now, he's going to go after Becerra, who still has no money, but probably a super PAC will pop up now. And then you've got Katie, who has no money, but will be a force in the debates. You've got a million people have already voted for her two years ago against Schiff. So in that primary where she was third. And then the pitch for Mahan, who's down around, we have a public impact, Matt Hogan poll at seven or eight percent, the campaign release, which is a big move from three where he started. We're now spending Steyer level money. We're the only other big spender. We're spending about 20 million bucks between Super PAC and what the campaign is doing independently. And so the question is, can three weeks of that in a good debate performance, two of them, put Mayhand in the contention when things really count in May or will it not work? He's got a lane to himself as the more centerist, I'm an executive, but the public employee unions may pile on to Becerra. There's Steyer has some of that, CTA. So it is very loose and there's no anchor to this. Everybody has soft numbers, but it's definitely Becerra's week right now. I'm watching to see what Steyer does about him. And from the Mayhand point of view, we're trying to run to the middle and I never count Katie Porter out if she can get a spotlight to come from the left and is the only woman running because Betty Yee just suspended her campaign. So it's crazy and Gavin is not endorsing anybody, but behind the scenes, the tentacles are moving around.

Speaker 3:
[46:56] Here's the thing, J-Mart, that I want to ask you. Everything Mike just said is true and I'm, you know, it's very fluid. When I look at Becerra, I see two things that give him a potential for emerging here. One of them is none of these candidates have any history with or track, other than him, have any history or traction with the Hispanic community and it's a huge voting block in California. And he has that. And the second is among the Democrats that Mike just mentioned, all the remaining Democrats and the two Republicans for that matter, Hilden and the sheriff out there, none of them were once statewide before. And Becerra has. Becerra was Attorney General of California for four years before he went into the Biden administration. And again, that's that decisive no. But like all the rest of these people are Congress people. They have their bases or they've been mayors or they're Steve Hilton. No one's ever once statewide before. And I just have to think that that's a small and potentially meaningful advantage. Again, if he performs well in the debates, that with the demographics set Becerra up. I've been curious as to why he's been languishing so much through this race until now. But I wouldn't surprise me given those basic kind of those underlying factors that he could build on that and put himself into the get himself through the jungle primary and make him get himself into the general election. Then if he gets up, he can line up against Steve Hilton, he'll win the race easily because there's no way that California is going to vote for a Republican with Donald Trump endorsed Republican for governor.

Speaker 13:
[48:22] The old line, better to be lucky than good, guys comes to mind when I think of Javier Becerra. Boy, he's had some time. I mean, good for him. Here's somebody who was a former member of the House leadership, although fairly low ranking, tried to be, I think the rank around ways and means, that was not going to happen. But then guess what? He gets this gift, which is he gets to be named Health and Human Services Secretary. Then he gets to be appointed Attorney General. And once you're appointed a Democrat statewide in California, your re-election's a foregone conclusion, right? So he gets these two plum appointments, one of the federal government running the biggest domestic agency, Health and Human Services. Then he gets appointed to a plum gig in Sacramento, you know, state AG. And so he's had a hell of a run.

Speaker 3:
[49:15] It's the opposite way around, just in terms of the timing.

Speaker 13:
[49:17] He was AG for, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14:
[49:19] And this was kind of the story with Kamala, too. He's been a better inside politician and working his way in the cloakroom gang and the interest group gang on the Democratic Party and ridden the free escalator. Not a footprints in the snow kind of guy. Never really made identity work, but that might be enough, you know?

Speaker 3:
[49:38] Well, and just to expand on Jay Martin's point about lucky versus good, he's also lucky now. I mean, again, we'll see if he can capitalize on it, but this incredibly weak field. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a weaker field for California governor in my lifetime.

Speaker 14:
[49:53] The other thing, just to play Treskin for a minute and predict the future, and again, I am grinding a little bit of a mayhem ax now, but the California insider world is kind of a buzz about the Dana Williamson scandal, which Stafford to the governor got tangled up on something, and Becerra's connected to all that, and there's a trial date coming up. So does the media now think of Second Look and Becerra and pull them into that well-tread story that got a lot of attention a year ago? So this thing is just loose. You guys are right. It is nobody's got a lot of firm votes, and these debates are gonna be important. There haven't been any. In fact, Becerra sunk the first debate by claiming that it was rigged to exclude him and other candidates that had no money and no polling data. So now the debates are gonna start, and the money is gonna start, and can Steyer use his money that has elevated him high, but not high enough, to try to kill the competition? And what does labor do ultimately?

Speaker 3:
[50:52] Right, totally.

Speaker 14:
[50:53] Okay, gentlemen, we will be back in a minute, but we have to pay a few bills.

Speaker 9:
[51:01] Choice Hotels get you more of what you value.

Speaker 18:
[51:17] Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been talking about the war in Iran in distinctly biblical terms, citing Psalms, the resurrection of Jesus, and the Book of Quentin.

Speaker 16:
[51:27] And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger for those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother.

Speaker 18:
[51:34] President Trump is comparing himself to Christ. Vice President Vance is fighting with the Pope. Watching all of this is the increasingly influential pastor, Doug Wilson. He co-founded the church that Hegseth attends. Wilson's a Christian nationalist who would like the USA to be a theocracy. He'd also like to help us get there, though he doesn't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

Speaker 19:
[51:54] I believe that it is accelerating. I believe that we're making significant gains. I see us assembling resources and I'm encouraged in that labor, but I don't expect to see what we're praying for in my lifetime.

Speaker 18:
[52:08] Pastor Doug Wilson and how much you should worry about his plans on Today Explained from Vox. Weekdays, afternoons, wherever.

Speaker 3:
[52:17] Support for Hacks On Tap comes from Aura Frames. Mike, I don't know about you, but many of us out here in America land are falling out of love with social media. Hell yes. It's just a toxic sludge pool and cesspool and it's just the worst. I'm done with it. But we don't want to miss out on the life updates from our friends and family that we used to see on social media. If you want to pull the plug and stay in the loop at the same time, here is an idea, Aura Frames. An Aura Frame is the easiest way to display your photos in your home or with your loved ones. It's a digital picture frame that displays your photos at a super high resolution. When you connect with your loved ones on the Aura Frames app, you can easily share your photos with each other. You have complete control over who has access to your frame, and the Aura app lets you share photos more securely than with email, which many other digital frames require.

Speaker 14:
[53:04] No, it's fantastic, makes a great gift, and I even have an idea. I did this once before, it's my favorite practical joke, and we should do it to Axelrod, because he's not here today. You give him an Aura Frame, you load it with your phone, it's very easy to load these things. A whole bunch of photos and it strolls through them on the bookshelf or whatever. Well, we put a bunch of us with him goofing around the studio, all our hacks memories, and then about 30 photos in, you slip in a picture of Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, stuff like that, and it pops up in the middle of a cocktail party. Hijinks ensue, I guarantee it. So believe me, the possibilities, my friends, are endless. So I dig the Aura Frame, and you know what? It was named number one by Wirecutter, and they're a tough grader. So you can save on the gifts that moms and dads love by visiting auraframes.com, that's auraframes.com. And for a limited time, Johnny, listeners to us, because they're smart and good looking, can get $25 off their best selling Carver Mat Frame with the magic code HACKS.

Speaker 3:
[54:03] So that's auraframes.com, promo code, I'll say it again, HACKS. Support this show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions apply. Watching the clock here, I want to make sure that we get to...

Speaker 14:
[54:26] Yeah, we have theater, right? We can play some ads?

Speaker 3:
[54:29] First, I want to make sure that we get to the Kentucky primary, to the Thomas Massey primary, because we have a couple, there's an ad war going on there, we have some sound from that, and I do want to make sure that we get in J. Mart.

Speaker 14:
[54:40] Yeah, we gotta plug the governor, Brian Kemp.

Speaker 3:
[54:43] Brian Kemp, he's already plugged the show, we don't have to say what it is anymore, but we do want to get the Kemp interview in here.

Speaker 14:
[54:48] J. Mart, why don't you set the table on Massey, and then we have some ads? It's an important primary.

Speaker 3:
[54:53] The primary is coming up May 19th, we have less than a month before Thomas Massey primary.

Speaker 14:
[54:57] And this is a real Kentucky sling blade fight here.

Speaker 3:
[55:00] Yeah, from the sling blade.

Speaker 13:
[55:02] I think the most consequential primary of the year for Donald Trump, because he has the most skin in the game.

Speaker 3:
[55:08] And he's all in on it, right? He's all in on it.

Speaker 14:
[55:10] Yeah, he went there, rallies, ads, money.

Speaker 13:
[55:13] He recruited the candidate to run, he goes to the Kentucky campaign for the candidate, and his top advisors are running the campaign for his hand-picked candidate. Why is it so important? Because nobody in the Congress today in the GOP has picked a fight with Donald Trump like Thomas Massey. Other folks have come and gone, but Massey really stands out, especially on the Epstein files, which he's been the leader on. He's a quirky, libertarian-leaning Republican, has this Northern Kentucky district, that's sort of the Cincinnati suburbs and then South, and he's been a survivor. He's been at all primaries in the past. It's gonna be hard to win this one.

Speaker 3:
[55:54] Can you say a little about Ed Gellarion, just still about who Ed Gellarion is?

Speaker 13:
[55:58] Sure, yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 14:
[55:59] But also, let's tag on Massey is a full Freedom Caucus, hard right guy with a libertarian tilt in an 80% Trump district, but he's very popular there. So it's, and he's been very big on the Epstein files. That is the burr under Trump's sandal about Massey who said no foreign wars and no pervs.

Speaker 3:
[56:19] So Ed Gellarion.

Speaker 13:
[56:20] Trump recruited into the race, decorated military veteran, but not that deep of a political resume. And somebody who privately, even Trump allies, are a little bit nervous about the quality of his candidacy, but he's the one, I think the assumption is he can just be a Trump proxy in a time of war, that's enough for the MAGA base to rally to.

Speaker 3:
[56:43] Retired Navy SEAL and Army Ranger, fifth generation Shelby County farmer, in a nutshell.

Speaker 13:
[56:49] There you go.

Speaker 14:
[56:50] And he ran for state senate and lost, only in Kentucky, to another SEAL. Half the members of the legislature down there must be carrying silenced Arma lights, because now it's seal on seal primary violence. Anyway, here are some of the ads that are running, and you can see...

Speaker 3:
[57:05] We got a couple ads here, right?

Speaker 14:
[57:06] Yeah, we got two, one from the Galarine side, and one from Massey. Massey is trying to get to the right of Trump's guy, and Trump's guy is just playing the Trump card.

Speaker 8:
[57:18] This is a real hero, Ed Gowryne. He's a farmer, he's a tremendous war hero, and he's a great patriot. I can tell you, he's strong as hell. He shook my hand, my hand is still recovering. I'm telling you, that is the greatest candidate. This guy is unbelievable. He is central casting. Just elect him. Ed Gowryne has my complete and total endorsement.

Speaker 20:
[57:46] I'm Ed Gowryne.

Speaker 14:
[57:47] Now let me set up the other Ed quickly because we're the radio theater, the mind here. This is the Massey, I believe it's the Super Peck supporting him, not letting the Trump guys get away with making Gowryne the Trump. So what you see is an AI life realistic picture of Gowryne in his signature kind of campaign outfit, running away from a foxhole and all kinds of bad stuff.

Speaker 20:
[58:14] These Trump traitors, they can't stand our president and can't help but let it show. Like Woke Eddie Gowryne, Woke Eddie left the Republican Party after Trump won the GOP nomination in 2016. Take a look for yourself. When did Woke Eddie change his registration back to the GOP? After Joe Biden was sworn in, Trump was in the foxhole and Woke Eddie Gowryne touched his tail and ran. Kentucky Fourth Pack is responsible for the content of this.

Speaker 9:
[58:44] I like Woke Eddie.

Speaker 14:
[58:45] Woke Eddie Gowryne, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[58:47] Makes him like a car salesman. I like that, Woke Eddie.

Speaker 14:
[58:49] Yeah, it's like that old Southern governor in Big Jim McClure.

Speaker 13:
[58:52] It does show that even when you're poking your finger in Trump's eye, you still have to respect the primary electorate, which is overwhelmingly Trumpy.

Speaker 14:
[59:02] Yeah, and they're going to know who the Trump choice is.

Speaker 3:
[59:04] Sure, you got to figure out a way to basically take the guy on by basically saying he's a fake Trump fan. You know, that's like, which is the implicit, basically, yes, Trump is still the god of our religion.

Speaker 14:
[59:14] Yeah, they also refer to him as Lindsey Graham donor, Ed Gallagher, Woke Eddie Gallagher, which I love.

Speaker 3:
[59:21] So what's going to happen there, you guys?

Speaker 14:
[59:22] I'm not sure Massey loses. He should lose under the normal laws of gravity, but he's been a little ahead in a lot of the falling.

Speaker 3:
[59:30] Jay Martin, if that happens, if Massey holds the seat, and like you say, you made the point about the stakes, the entire edifice of Trump political power has been built on one functional thing. If Trump primaries you, you will lose. What happens to Donald Trump's political power in the party if, is Thomas Massey seen as a, if he holds the seat, if he wins the primary, is he seen as an outlier, the exception that proves the rule, or does that actually weaken Trump's degree of a vice-like grip over the party?

Speaker 13:
[60:00] I think it depends on what else happens in May, i.e. Bill Cassidy's Senate primary in Louisiana and the Indiana State Senate races as well, which are all happening in the same month, which are all really important tasks that I wrote about for Trump's clout inside the party in May. Look, don't forget the most analogous example, and I'm not just citing this because I want to plug my On the Road episode with Brian Kemp, which hopefully I can, but actually, Jonathan, we actually have that sound.

Speaker 3:
[60:26] So in order to do what you would like us to do, which is to promote your incredible new web series, let's actually play this clip of you talking to Brian Kemp on that very point.

Speaker 21:
[60:36] I think for Republicans, we cannot be a party of one or a party of one ideal. I mean, we have to be a big tent party. I think there's a lot of folks that get short-sighted and go, you know, you weren't with the president on this one issue or you weren't with whoever on this one issue. We got to give people a little grace. I mean, if the Democrats get back complete control, it's going to be a bad day for our country.

Speaker 14:
[61:02] And you know what I think the highlight of that interview was, but go ahead.

Speaker 13:
[61:06] 2022, Brian Kemp, incumbent governor of Georgia, fends off former Senator David Perdue, handpicked candidate by Donald Trump, and he routes him. Guys, that's the only example I could think of somebody who tangled with Trump in a primary and lived to tell about it. But important to note, Trump's out of office in 22. This is when Trump still has the power of the presidency, unlike 22. So I think it would be significant politically for Trump's internal juice, John, if he wins.

Speaker 3:
[61:37] I love this interview. It was great. The main thing I loved about it is, J-Mart, you're now learning a lesson that people who try to film scenes with politicians and food, I have some experience in this area, I learned where you brought him about 500 bags of barbecue and he refused to eat any of them. So you had to eat them.

Speaker 13:
[61:53] I finally give in. Oh, you finally did.

Speaker 3:
[61:56] You're like, I'm going to dig in. He's like, you go right ahead, son. Just go ahead. You pressed him on whether he was going to think about maybe running in 20, 28. He did the usual thing, but did not rule it out for sure. What for you was the highlight of that interview? Like in terms of the takeaway for you, like what did you learn that interview that you think is relevant going forward?

Speaker 13:
[62:15] Besides him finally giving in and having a couple of bites of the pimento cheese sandwich, besides that, it was a couple of things. Look, I think the biggest news was, we can't be a party of one person or one idea, which I think speaks to the hope that by 28 or certainly by 30, this is less of a personality cult. I think most people in the party, at least privately, would concede that it is today. The other interesting thing I thought, guys, was, and it's all about getting auto jobs to Georgia, which is pretty typical for Southern governors of either party, but he's passionate about Mike's favorite topic, which is EVs. He had a good pitch to me about why good old boys in Georgia should buy EVs, which is when you're shooting feral hogs at night, you want to creep up on them softly and you're going to scare the feral hogs if you have a gasoline powered engine with an EV. You can surprise the hogs at night.

Speaker 14:
[63:11] Yeah, note, look, Georgia has gotten more capital investment in new factories and new manufacturing jobs and EVs than any state. Number two is Michigan. And the big four that are the front lines against whether the Chinese wipe out American Auto, not only electric and gas, they make very good gas cars too, is Georgia, Michigan, what do they all have in common? South Carolina and California. Three of those could be early primary states. And Kemp is smart. He knows those are good jobs and they're vital for national security. It's a great interview. You should watch it.

Speaker 3:
[63:43] I just want to know, Jonathan, one last quick question. As you can imagine for me, Donald Trump's announcement last week that he was loosening restrictions on psychedelic research is the only good thing Donald Trump's done in his entire second term. I'm wondering, of the various psychedelics that he's now loosened restrictions on, which of them do you think he is most likely on and which are you most likely to sample?

Speaker 13:
[64:04] Well, to borrow from Bill Clinton, I want to retain my viability in the system. So I'm not going to comment on it.

Speaker 14:
[64:12] Yeah, you're psychedelic drug is Pappy's. And I will see you in Boston tomorrow, pal. We'll get you some. Yeah, thanks guys.

Speaker 13:
[64:18] Appreciate y'all.

Speaker 14:
[64:19] Let's play the music. Okay, real quick, you got a question from the Hacks. Record a voice memo. We prefer that. You can send us a written question, but better you record a short question for us on your voice memo with your name, email it to us at hacksontap.gmail.com. Or you can use the Axelrod Secret Midnight Place a Bat, register to vote for the third time, or leave a voice message for us with your question. That number is 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that. 773-389-4471. First question on voicemail for Johnny from Brett.

Speaker 7:
[65:05] Hi, Hacks. Brett from Missouri. Curious what you guys think of the possibility of John Ossoff, Senator Ossoff running for president in 2028. I know his colleague in the Senate, Senator Warnock has talked about as well. Curious what you think about Ossoff giving it a try. Thanks.

Speaker 3:
[65:23] Brett, I think it's a very good question. I think you're obviously keyed into the fact that there is a lot of buzz right now around John Ossoff, not so much as a presidential candidate, but as his oratorical skills as demonstrated in this campaign. I've been very high and this is not theater criticism. I'm saying in the attention economy, what goes viral is a demonstration of someone's rhetorical skills. What has happened with Ossoff is in the last few big speeches he's given, the clips from those things have whizzed around the democratic world and gotten a lot of attention for him. He was already considered a rising star on the party. Those clips and the way that he frames the argument about Trump, how he manages to pull together the economy, the corruption piece, the competence piece, and turn it into anchor that around voters' concerns, that he's for himself, he's not for you and me. It's been very, very skillful, it's been very effective and if he wins that race in Georgia, he's also a fundraising machine, a strong well-funded statewide, two-time statewide winner in Georgia who has his skills, that guy's going to, if he runs for president, everyone will talk about it the day after the midterms if he wins and also talk to him about talking about it and if he could put himself in, I think he would be a top tier candidate. Who knows what happens after that, but he's a guy who I think everybody has to take seriously, Mike.

Speaker 14:
[66:45] Yeah, he has potential. I'd put him on the medium list for the presidency and on the short list for VP.

Speaker 17:
[66:51] Right.

Speaker 3:
[66:51] Okay, I don't necessarily disagree with that, although I'd maybe rank him a little bit higher than that.

Speaker 14:
[66:56] It could happen, he's going places.

Speaker 3:
[66:58] We have a voicemail for you, Mike. It's from Hillary. I don't think it's Hillary Clinton, but we'll see. Let's play Hillary's voicemail.

Speaker 22:
[67:05] Hi, Hacks. This is Hillary from Southampton, Massachusetts. How much do you think calls for Trump's impeachment will galvanize Republicans to the polls for the midterms? Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[67:17] Okay, not Hillary Clinton unless she's moved to Southampton, Massachusetts from...

Speaker 14:
[67:22] Yeah, possible, possible. But assuming you're not the Hillary, that's a great question.

Speaker 3:
[67:29] Mike, let me just say one thing just to frame that question just a tiny bit, which is just to say, Democratic leadership in Congress spent the all of 2025 being basically the rule was we don't talk about impeachment. That is a bad memory. We tried to do it twice. We failed. We're not going to talk about that. And all of a sudden in the last couple months for various reasons, everybody is talking about it. Like that has made it some of those are substantive. Some of those are political. But this conversation, which Democrats tried to suppress for most of 2025, is now something that the party leadership and a lot of candidates are now talking about. So that's the kind of frame for Hillary's question. I'm curious, as curious as Hillary is, what you think about the impact on that in the race in November.

Speaker 14:
[68:11] Well, it's kind of a version of a thing in the Republican Party. I used to call the mathematicians versus the priests. The mathematicians were like, oh, we're going to lose Latinos, but we've got to widen our appeal, et cetera, and the priests were all like, have faith, Trump, passion. So the primary electorate would love to talk about impeaching Trump every day because they hate him and they think he deserves impeachment. I think he deserves impeachment. The problem is, those are the votes you get for free in a general election. You don't have to do a lot to earn them. One of the big problems in my view of politics in the modern era is we treat base voters like swing voters, which is a stupid appeasement. You actually want to kind of crush your base a little to be able to stretch your appeal to get more, less easy voters and win the damn election because it's still a 50 plus one world. I think in this case, it makes Trump a victim and it moves the focus into all the Democrats are on a get even mission, not Trump is screwing up the economy. It's a lot easier to have the permission structure for an independent voter who has voted or even a conservative Democrat has voted for Trump in the past thinking he could run the economy well to say, boy, he really can't run the economy. I don't have a reason to vote for him anymore. I'm going to try something new. Then, hey, join us in lynching Trump, will ya? And you're an idiot to vote for. So no, it's bad general election politics and it helps Trump by victimizing him. So your question Hillary though is, will that galvanize Republicans? It could some, so it is a bad political formula, but it is hard to get voters not to scream what they want to scream about in Democratic primary versus love impeachment.

Speaker 3:
[69:52] So hey Mike, we got to go, but I want to get this in real quick because we did get another mailbag question that was really good from David. This was not in voicemail, but I know this is right in your wheelhouse because it's a question about Florida. David refers to the fact that he recently saw a poll, and I'll tell you what poll it was, an MDW edge communications poll of 1,834 likely voters that came out just a few days ago, about a week ago, that showed in Florida, basically tie races for governor, senate, and attorney general. Byron Donalds and David Jolly at 41 to 40, Ashley Moody, the Republican incumbent at 43 percent, and Alex Miniman, the Democratic challenger at 42, and for attorney general Jose Javier Rodriguez, leading James Utmeyer by about four points in this poll. Again, all within the margin of error. But the question that is being raised by our loyal listener, David and not, I don't think David Axelrod, is what's going on in Florida? Is all of a sudden Florida turning back into a purple state?

Speaker 14:
[70:53] Well, what's happening is a wave election like this, should it continue, in my bet as it will, it can turn things more purple than they normally are. I mean, Florida was pure swing. Now it leans Republican pretty strongly in the last couple of cycles. But Donald Trump's in enough trouble on a variety of things, particularly his economic performance. And the Democrat candidates there are stronger than the Republican candidates. So you put all that together and it means, yeah, the Democrats have a real fighting chance this year in this situation in Florida. Both races could pop. Jolly is a particularly good candidate.

Speaker 3:
[71:29] Yes, very good candidate.

Speaker 14:
[71:31] Vindman has a great story, a former member of Congress, buddy of mine from way back, thanks to his hard work. And Jeb Bush, he won that special in the Congress and he's the real thing. So, yeah, it's in the hunt.

Speaker 3:
[71:46] And those are some weak Republicans too, I think, are not particularly strong. Byron Donalds, I think, stronger in the governor's race than the Senate, Republican Senate candidate, by Ashley Moody, the incumbent. Cause she's a weak candidate, she's gettable. And I gotta say, you know, the enduring question about Florida, when we get to 2028, is gonna be whether the state has really moved as far into the red as we think it has, if Donald Trump is not at the top of the ballot. Because if Democrats do well in this midterm election, it will suggest potentially that some of those, the way in which Florida sort of slipped out of the Democratic reach might be transient. It might be a thing that the Democrats can get back in the hunt there, not just in this midterm, but in the presidential.

Speaker 14:
[72:30] Two things to watch, and I think one of them is connected to what you said. First, there are a lot of prosperous middle class, formerly Midwestern and also New England, New York.

Speaker 3:
[72:41] Yeah, and Eastern, yeah.

Speaker 14:
[72:42] Retirees in Florida, who economically tend to vote right of center. Are they feeling fear, economic squeeze, and they vote against Trump? And second, will Trump's Latino bump, not just in Dade County and Broward, but also across the corridor in Orange County, Orlando? Will his overperformance there continue, or will some of those voters abandon him, both in turnout and in voter choice? And then the gender gap is the third thing that can really move in Florida. So yeah, stormy horizon there. I think the state is putting itself into play.

Speaker 3:
[73:17] And we know that Trump's support among Hispanics in general has collapsed across the country. Of course, Florida is a slightly different kind of-

Speaker 14:
[73:23] Well, it's a different flavor.

Speaker 3:
[73:24] It's a different flavor of Latino.

Speaker 14:
[73:25] You have many different, the Puerto Rican community in Orange County is very different than the, you know, Venezuelan, Cuban, El Salvador. Anyway, we can go on for hours about this.

Speaker 3:
[73:32] Yeah, whatever, we will save.

Speaker 14:
[73:35] Bottom line is, wave election, yeah, Florida's getting interesting.

Speaker 3:
[73:39] Mikey, I hope you're gonna have some fun out here in New York City. We basically are switching coast right now. You're in New York City, I'm on my way to LA.

Speaker 14:
[73:47] I know, can you believe it?

Speaker 3:
[73:48] I gotta tell you though, man, as we sign off here, between the new forthcoming Rivian R2 and the BMW Jesus car, the iX3, man, those are both some smoking hot looking EVs. I gotta tell you, the lease on my current Rivian is about to run out and I'm in the market. And I'm in the market and those kind of mid-sized, that BMW is winning every award in the world right now. It's just incredible, looks incredible.

Speaker 14:
[74:15] It is pound for pound. It could be the best. It's got 400 mile range, quick charging.

Speaker 3:
[74:20] Wild.

Speaker 14:
[74:20] Mercedes has an equivalent car coming out that's also very good, but I know you're too hip and edgy to go with a Mercedes.

Speaker 3:
[74:26] I used to have a Mercedes station wagon. Mike, what are you talking about? It's one of my favorite cars ever.

Speaker 14:
[74:29] Okay, I thought people might think you're a neurologist or something, but they're all great. And I'll tell you the one to really watch, Ford has bet the whole company on being able to build a profitable $30,000 mid-size EV pickup truck, a secret design lab out with some of the best people in the world. That thing's a year away. They're going to build it in Louisville, Kentucky. It's going to have half as many parts, so it's much more efficient to build, and a whole new production system. There's some amazing videos about this. You can learn about a lot of this at evsforallamerica.org. But yeah, the pipeline of new EVs is terrific. And if you want one tomorrow, the market for used EVs is flooded with low mileage, very affordable cars. So a lot of good stuff going on.

Speaker 3:
[75:15] If Ford can do a pickup truck that's in that price range, it will dominate the EV sector.

Speaker 14:
[75:19] And make money on it.

Speaker 3:
[75:20] Yeah, and make money on it. It will dominate the EV sector in trucks the way that the F-150.

Speaker 14:
[75:25] Well, it'll go worldwide, which is what we need to compete with the Chinese.

Speaker 3:
[75:28] Massive. All right, listen, dude.

Speaker 14:
[75:30] All right, thanks, pal.

Speaker 3:
[75:31] Have fun out here on the Eastern Seaboard. I will say hello to LA for you, and maybe break into your house and steal some liquor, because I know it's always unlocked over there. The Liquor Cabinet's always unlocked at Casa Murphy.

Speaker 14:
[75:42] You've got two days. I'm heading to Boston tomorrow to do a gig with J-Mart. We'll be crawling around at midnight if you see us in the gutter, and then back to LA.

Speaker 3:
[75:50] Well, if you're back to LA, I'm going to be there for a little while longer than that, so maybe we can get together and have a pop.

Speaker 14:
[75:56] Okay, thanks, everybody. We'll be back with more primaries.

Speaker 3:
[75:59] All right, we'll see you next week.

Speaker 10:
[76:01] Hacks On Tap is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer of Hacks On Tap is Hannah Grace McDonald. The assistant executive producer is Sara Lena Berry. The editor and audio engineer is Seven Morris. The show is also produced by Miriam Finder Annenberg and Madison Rotolo. For more award-winning shows, visit podcast.voxmedia.com.