Mike Murphy: The Psychopath vs The Cynic

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is August thirtieth two thousand twenty three. And we are joined by Mike Murphy, an apostate GOP strategist consultant Campaigns advise include John McCain, Arnold Schwartzneggers, and Mitt Romney, all really Republicans in good standing these days. So you’ve been running the table there, Mike.

Yeah. I’m so old. How old are you? I I am so old. I remember the Berkey and Republican Party.

I started in the early eighties, and, so I’ve seen the the transformation from the best parts of the constitution to the war parts of the Walmart parking lot.

Yeah. I mean, we’re we’re already at the stage now where we’re sitting around the fire, saying to young people. Let me tell you what it used to be like. You know,

we would we refer the balanced budget.

Yeah. Four people were completely crazy. Of course, you all have your own podcast, hacks on Tap, Jonathan Last for NBC News. Okay. I wanna start off with I suppose this is a palate cleanser because I know that everybody listens to this podcast just, you know, can’t get themselves enough.

Donald Trump, you know, trump is now saying that he’s going to be recording these videos on truth social on a regular basis, which, I mean, really what could go wrong?

Yeah. It’s perfect.

Yeah. This lawyers are going, oh, nope. Yeah. Exactly. With your trump lawyer, this way you signed up for, you have the client from hell.

Not a surprise.

Yeah. That’s the book I’m waiting for. One of the Trump lawyers doesn’t tell all at the end because the worst job in America

It is the worst job in a well, I’m I have to think about that. I think there probably some worse jobs in America. I think the guy that’s Trump’s body man, that might be the job in America.

Take that back to the side.

Yeah. If you’re going to prison for it. So here is the former president of the United States. Commenting on the mental acuity of the current president of the United States, and I wanna get your thoughts on the other side.

Crooked Joe Biden is not only dumb and incompetent. I believe that he has gone mad. A stark raving lunatic with his horrible and country threatening environmental open borders and DOJ FBI weaponization policies. He is a mental catastrophe that is leading our country to hell.

Oh, jeez. Yeah. Okay. Leading aside the eloquence of this famous wordsmith. I mean, projection much.

Oh, I know. You look at it and he’s like struggling through the prop So I wanna meet the punch up guy who wrote it after a frothing rant, but all I could think was mirror mirror on the wall because he’s clearly talking to himself. I mean, it it’s incredibly revealing not that we didn’t know. And, We’re on this Kafka esque nightmare fever dream about all this. And I mean, twenty years ago, you couldn’t have written this.

It’s just so so obvious yet so for some reason, resilient and threatening.

You know, I don’t think you have to go back twenty years to couldn’t have written this. I’m not even sure you could have written this a couple of years ago. I mean, there were, you know, people in the DeSantis brain trust were sitting around just a few months ago saying, you know, just wait until that Georgia indictment comes down. That’s when that’s when the fever will break. There’s no way that Donald Trump is still going to be leading in poles after after he’s indicted down in Georgia.

Well, you know, so much for that magical thinking.

Yeah. I’m still out there in contrarian. Bill. And we fight over this on hacks on tap with my radio, DNC pals, Xor riding Gibbs, but I still think there’s this session with national polling, which is, you know, right now president Hillary Clinton would have been ahead in the primary against Barack Obama on and on it goes. Because national polling is a noise meter for what’s in the media.

What I’m watching like a hawk is Iowa, New Hampshire, which are much more mature markets because the dogs there have other dog food they’re learning about. Now they still like trump chow, but they like it at a, you know, bit more than a third. It it’s not the fifty five percent market leader that dogs have tasted it curious about something else. So if one person can beat them in Iowa and New Hampshire, which is incredibly hard to do, so don’t go bet your house. But I think he would crumble then, and I do think the load on him is increasing.

That said, Maga Madness has a strong plurality grip on the primary voters right now. And this legal stuff is the ultimate test of is that tribalism over everything else or are there quiet doubts? Because they’re not loud. You you know, you have to get an electron microscope to find them, but you do see them in the polling. And, of course, the leadership class from a Republican party you know, all Vishi Republicans, you know, have a secret room ready for the liberation showing.

I was against him from the beginning, but Very few, very few are out in front.

Okay. So I I have a mixed reaction to that. You know, the first thing is I really wanna smoke what you are smoking.

Well, I’ll send you some. A crate.

But I also wanna hear more about this. You’re arguing that Trump fatigue is growing. Okay. I’m I’m just not seeing that. I mean, you would think in a rational universe, the universe we don’t live in, that people would be sick and tired of this.

But, I mean, you know, we’ve seen this. So k. Why do you think that Trump could lose Iowa?

Well, I I’ve done a lot of campaigns there, and I keep in touch with the hacks on the ground. And memory lost last time.

Yeah. The president Ted Cruz.

Right. Right. Exactly. In the great tradition of president Rick Santorm, president Mike Hockaby, and potentially president Tim Scott. What I would say is there’s the Trump question and the who’s gonna vote question.

What the hacks there say is and this is true of tribal psychology. It’s like Red Sox versus Yankee’s. If you’re a red sox fan and your pitcher goes on a killing spree and starts losing games, even though he got you the world series a few years ago. You don’t publicly go out and say that, you know, boy, I’m gonna wear a Yankee’s hat. They’re right.

No. No. But you quietly say, what the hell are we gonna do about a picture? And that’s some of the talk there. He’s pulling a reliable thirty five to forty percent.

In fact, Fabrizio just put out a great, hilarious expectations monitor. Oh, Nikki Haley is surging. We, you know but I think if they can find a way to trade trump in and give him a gold watch, but not heard him because nobody wants to admit they’re wrong to the outside of the tribe. I think it’s very possible. The other big question, which I think a lot of the analysis is missing because it’s done from armchairs in in Washington, DC is the Iowa caucus could be very different this year.

It’s a huge cultural thing in Iowa. I’ve worked a bunch of them. And what’s different this time is there a hundred and sixty thousand Democrats and Democratic leading independents who voted in the caucus last time and have to sit at home now. They don’t get to go tell the country what to do, which is something I would take this thing seriously. I had two regular people stopped me on the street when I was walking around Des Moines a few months ago, saying, you know, I’m a Democrat, and I’m voting in the cock I think it’s important that something be done about Trump.

I don’t really like these, but at least they’re not trump. So there will be some giggling college Democrats who go in there to vote for trump. The, you know, help Joe Biden in three-dimensional Vulcan chess.

Right. Be careful what you wish for. You would think the Democrats would have figured this out by now.

I think twenty or thirty thousand of them could vote. It’s easy. You show up. You say, yeah, I’m gonna probably get in your vote, and you sign a registration card at the door that you can undo online a week later. So I don’t know.

I I think The caucus could be a little different electorate by twenty, twenty five percent. And I don’t know. I think the trump thing could hit a crescendo, but The problem is you went Iowa, your president, Santorm. You you gotta go win New Hampshire, and the best slogan in New Hampshire screw Iowa. See, you can’t run the totally Christian social conservative Pat Robertson campaign there and not get killed the next week.

And nobody right now is threading the needle for that hat trick. Although, I think Haley did get a debate bounce, and we’ll see if she can put her cynicism aside, which will be difficult for her. And not be wishy washy and run the table a little. She’s in the race now. What she does with you is the open question.

Well, I’m gonna come back to her in a moment and And, you know, the this is what I was waiting for is for Republicans to say, hey, let’s give Donald Trump the gold watch and have him go away. But, of course, you know, the the flaw with that is that Donald Trump’s not gonna accept the gold watch and go away. I mean, this is the problem. He loses in Iowa. He will claim that it was rigged.

It was fake, he will move on. He will never concede. He will never drop out. And right now, he’s faced with with a binary choice. Winning the presidency or going to jail.

So there’s no exit strategy for the Republican party from Donald Trump that is not incredibly messed

You know, I agree with a lot of that. I think there is a third strategy which is the Nixon strategy which is make an invisible plea deal. But he’s too crazy for that. And I don’t think you can make a handshake deal with Trump because he’s trump. My biggest worry is if he loses the Iowa caucus.

And wins New Hampshire. He then has a comeback. Yeah. Mister loser becomes mister winner, and then he does run the table. I don’t believe any of this stuff.

Well, you know, the court thing will be in March. No. You never have comebacks in the primary. It’s a bunch of dominoes. You either timber somebody earlier.

It’s over. And the gold watch question, I think the catalyst is, and you’re seeing some of that. The audio track of that video you just played The problem is we’re at the family dinner. First of all, you have Uncle Christie, the loudmouth. He’s like, you know, he’s he’s crapping his pants now.

He’s crazy. Gotta put him in the home. And all the daughters, and it kinda looked like all the jerk Uncle, but then quietly, the Henry Fonda Uncle says, you know, yesterday, he bit the mailman. And there’s a long silent heat. And then all of a sudden, they’re creeping in the other direction.

So he’s biting the mailman right now. The biggest problem the republicans have is Joe Biden, because of the economy, because of age, because of all this stuff, is perceived as being so easy to beat, they’re relaxing about Trump. If Biden was a superstar or Biden had said, you know, I’ve I’ve had one great term. It’s time for the young blood, and there was Gary rising democrat. That would help uncog those wheels, but instead Biden is, plowing ahead.

Now if Biden really wants screw trump. All he’s gotta do is throw a hunter in jail. Because then the president is set. But right now due to the moral equivalence law that rules a Republican party, I think most of this legal stuff is not having that big of an effect on most voters. The question is will Trump’s craziness bubble over?

Will he start to look like a loser and will one of these candidates learn how to take advantage of the opportunity they have because they’ve been just horrible so far.

I don’t think it would be enough for Joe Biden to throw a hundred in jail. I think that immediately they would move the goal post and say that, you know, unless he’s willing to execute him, it doesn’t count.

I mean,

they would just move So I just before we we started this podcast, I finished taping the Guardian’s weekly political Secret Podcast. And and the question that they wanted to know is Is Vivak Ramaswamy for real? Only your take before I tell you what my take was.

Yeah. Sure. And and just a parenthetical, the Guardian has won my award for the nastiest thing written about a Republican presidential contender back when crews ran. Some guardian writer, I can’t recall the name. Referred to him as a sitcom vampire, which I thought was particularly brilliant brilliant insult to old Ted You know, he’s in the oddity lane.

I’m not from politics, and you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna require every mailman to jump up near three times, move the planet. And I’ve saw global warming, then I’m gonna fire them all. He reminds me of Mori Taylor, the Griz going way back. And on a little more serious note, the Herman Caines, and the Ben Carson’s, and there’s room.

They get a little run. So he’s doing mega unfiltered. Ultimately, you know, he’ll wind up as a mega profiteer somewhere down the line, but but I, you know, is real as as a curiosity. And my view is he peaked at the debate and will start to slow decline because he’s an irritating Pipsqueak.

Yeah. That’s my I mean, I do think we need to take him seriously in the respect that he’s an indication of what’s happened to the Trumpian Republican Party, how in fact it is, you know, been completely soon by the entertainment Wing. I think it was David French on the podcast yesterday who said the insight that he has is realizing that these days if you wanna emulate Trump, you need to bring the show. It’s not about the policy. It’s not about the ID.

It’s not about looking like you’re serious or have gravitas. Bring the show. And he’s very good at that. The problem is that, he’s so shallow and so shameless and so transparently pandering He’s gonna burn bright and hot like these other guys, and then he’s gonna burn out because he has no long base of support. And Nikki Haley showed what a lightweight he is.

But on the other hand, the contrast between him and DeSantis is interesting. DeSantis law, I’m going to be the new Trump by being really earnest angry and punching lip brushing in the face, which sounded plausible. And Vivint says, ah, forget any of that. I’m just gonna rap. I’m gonna say shit.

I’m gonna go down each of the hot button issues, my ten principles, and I’m just gonna punch every one of those.

Just Yeah. No. That’s totally right. This Anna’s another cynic. Just give me the trump script.

That’s what they’re buying this year. Okay. Step one. You know, well, this guy just said, hey, I’m I’m an authentic lunatic. Let me just say it.

So he feels very authentic. And that has a resonance, and I think there’s also some crazy town boat that’s falling off Trump because Vivic is a little more fun. He’s younger. Remember in high school and we’d smuggle beer in from Canada because Michigan had a nineteen year old drinking age of the we’re all sixteen. You know, you’re from Wisconsin.

It would be like, hey, look at this. There’s more alcohol in the Molson. Woo hoo, you know, and I there’s a little of that to Vivak. He’ll give you the crazy unfiltered and, you can smell the calculation Ron DeSantis.

To a certain extent, though, Vivec’s strategy Bulwark. Right? I mean, you know, he the fact that we’re still talking about him a week after, is an indication that it succeeds. And it’s also interesting that we’re still talking about him even though You know, all the knives are out for him. And Nikki Haley, I think demolished him.

And you said, you know, the debate anti Nikki Haley. And so let’s let’s talk about that. Because —

Mhmm.

— the day after, I thought this was the Vivec and Nikki show that, you know, he clearly showed He was talented, but he was dangerous as a demagogue. Nikki stepped up and it was not the unbearable likeness of Nikki that I’ve been writing about for two years. She actually came to run for president. Didn’t she? So talk to me about where Nikki Haley is right now.

Well, you know, she was in a situation where she was heading for Scott Walkerville. Because she didn’t have the finance committee to sustain failure. So I always keep an eye on cash on hand and all the reports. Who’s gonna be able to afford a real campaign in the fourth quarter when it starts to count in the early states. This progress is very logarithmatic.

It surges at the end. So she got what she needed there because there’s this movable feast of terrified regular donors who can produce significant money who started with this branch. It’s not all we gotta Then they went to Tim Scott. Somebody I was hoping would would do a lot at the debate because I see an opportunity for him, but instead he barely showed up. It was horrible.

It not prepared ready. No message other than god’s green earth. And so now that it’s gonna land on Haley, which is gonna supercharger. So on the resource battle, which is very important right now, in kind of the middle of the pre campaign. She had a good night.

She also showed she was interesting, unique, and tough, and Vivek was a great foil for her. And what we can’t forget that there is still a big chunk of regular primary vote out there. The problem is that Trump folks have plurality, but the conservative not hardcore Magavote is still well over a third, even in the Iowa caucus. So she kinda lit up the store window for them. Now the question is she’s gonna get in the car business.

She’s gonna get floor traffic. People are gonna go check out the new Haley Mobile. And she’s gotta run with it. And I thought they made a mistake because right after world, we had the tape on, hacks. She was there in and around.

Well, I love Trump so much that I have it a habit of kinda, you know, running instead of having a habit of Kamala Harris. And it was back to old weathervane Nikki. So Does she have the guts to commit to an edgier campaign? I thought her attack on Trump on spending was smart, and it has to be sustained. But I have a feeling she’ll wilt because You know, I’m not a big Nikki fan.

I’ve been public about that because I know her to be the most cynical person. One of them that I’ve ever encountered in Republic in politics, but I prefer to Trump. I’ll take Senate over Madban if I’m forced to meet a Stalin grad of our party. But can she take advantage of this window and run with it? And that’s an open question.

But she she’s got a shot. And she is she willing to take a little pounding to get that independent identity. It’s one thing to beat up Vivic. It’s another to stand down Trump.

No. You described it as now it’s the sort of the psychopath versus the most cynical politician in Republican politics. And, you know, I’ve been critical of her as well. But I did sit up during the debate when her first answer, which was kind of this softball generic question about spending in fiscal conservatism. Yeah.

She went after other went after Donald Trump, and I thought, oh my goodness. Okay? I had been assuming that she had been running to get higher speaking fees or something And clearly, she showed up at that debate here in Milwaukee running for president. She took some strong shots at him, but she is deeply cynical.

Oh, it’s incredible. Even Stalin would say, wow. You know, she’s she’s not into killing fifty million people. Let me be clear. I’m exaggerating for comedic effect.

But, yeah, she is something else. And, you know, one day I’ll write my book, but what I’m curious about, did she understand why she had a great night why she got the boost, why her finance people are now returning your calls. And does she have the discipline to focus and run with it, or is she gonna try to be all things to all people? And that Fox interview or CNN interview, I can’t remember the network after the bait was a bad sign that maybe she didn’t learn the lesson success, in which case she will wind up in Scott Walkerville out of money, out of campaign, and gone, you know, by January.

I think Scott Walkerville’s gonna be kind of crowded. In fact, Scott Walker actually looks kind of better in in retrospect because he he he he recognized it and burns through a lot of money and everything. So speaking of, you know, the the new mayor of, Scott Walkerville, Rhonda Sanders. I mean, debate that Ron DeSantis wanted or that he needed to talk to me about Ron DeSantis. I mean, this is just an extraordinary story of the year.

On paper, you kinda get it. But I I know a strong political peer of DeSantis, who who knew him for a while and went to see him when he was governor early. And this person’s a good conservative and called me and said, hey, I spent some time with the new governor of Florida around to say, oh, what was it like? And this person said, well, very smart. Really smart, really focused, and I don’t think he believes in anything.

Yeah. So so I think he’s doing a little better. On the ground in the caucuses, then the Pontocracy gives them credit for. But there’s a thing in the consultant world where you’re at the consultant bar what the different candidates in a big, you know, primary. And the kind of the whispered thing is, you know, boy, what a dog candidate?

You know, some people have it and can learn to be great at it. Others just don’t, and he is just not a great candidate. His spouse is a lot better. Casey, they’ll let him run the campaign and let her go out because she has it. He doesn’t, but it’s the opposite.

She is the controlling a campaign wizard there, to the extent they have a a wizardly campaign, which I can argue they don’t. And he’s the guy who’s supposed to have the magic spark. Some of those sledgehammer issues, he talks about do have power, but his lack of Christmas, everything is in the way. So You know, again, is Nikki’s moment to run the table in the preseason a little and surge into Iowa? There’s some polling evidence she’s starting to get more grip.

But even the state polls, you’re not really gonna know what’s going on in Iowa till December. It is a late surge thing. And Ron DeSantis can’t show something there, it’s the end. He’s also got this crazy deal where they went the Super PAC route, which is Yeah.

This is what I was gonna ask you about. How long can he he hang in there? And he does have the Super PAC that has a ton of money. Right?

Yeah. And they’re trying to do everything with the Super PAC, and the Super PAC is like feuding with the campaign, which is crazy. A super pack is limited in what it can do. Yeah. First of all, can’t coordinate with you.

So there’s this whole kabuki theater of tweets and you know, you saw the the four hundred ninety eight page debate memo. Always stand on your left foot. That helps. You know? Yeah.

That just was so clumsy because they’re trying back channel communicate. And so the super pack often has a lot of muscle, but very little brain because it can’t really coordinate. It can’t debate prep. It can’t tell what to do. Instead, the theory is you watch the campaign and you try to amplify what they’re doing.

You also pay a lot more. So Nikki Haley for president, the hard money campaign buys a an add on wheel of fortune in Des Moines and pays eight hundred dollars for it. The Super PAC will pay three thousand bucks or more for the same add. So even though you have more money, it burns faster and they’re limits to what you can do. What they’re trying to do, which is a new thing.

I mean, some people tried it in two thousand sixteen. Is they’re trying to run the whole field overhead through the super pack. So after Ron DeSantis rally in a hall, they paid for it. DeSantis walks out and then they sign everybody up. It’s cumbersome though.

I think they’re gonna find the limits of that model. And if they get too cute and coordinate too much, the law on that coordination is murky. It hasn’t really been truly tested legally, and the danger is incredible. I used to joke in the Jed Days, and I’m too good looking to go to jail. So, no, we’re not gonna do that.

I have pretty conservative lawyers. But you can find lawyers to say, yeah. Why not try it? We’ll go to court. Well, it’s it’s risky.

So I think that’ll end a little badly. And I don’t think it solves Ron DeSantis problem, which could be all mechanics and no campaign and no authenticity, no candidate charm, And Haley has some of those candidate charm skills. So she can lap them if she gets her move beyond Trump who was great the first year, but then I was there. I saw it go bad. Bad on the Ukraine.

Bad on spending. Mhmm. You know, it became the tragedy of our party. A great man. After losing the election forgot who he was.

So now we should thank him and move forward. She needs to find that path and hammer it. And then I think she could lap him. And I think she could play Better, New Hampshire, Ron DeSantis Everwood.

So do Republican primary voters care about these issues? Do they care about spending? Do they care about debts and deficit? Do they care about health care? Do they care about policy on Ukraine?

I mean, does any of that actually move

Yeah. Some of that still has traction, particularly the spending stuff. Which is, you know, it’s it’s like cover band. We’re losing the crowd. Play a Beatles song, you know, give them to their feet.

So, yes. I think it does. The problem right now is it can’t just be the love trump or hate trump. It can be we love trump enough to know it’s time to move on. And that’s the needle they got a thread.

And Nikki started that at the debate, but, you know, can she sustain it? That’s the billion dollar question. Because if she beats him twice, if she beats him in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Right.

Even if she’s second and he’s third in Iowa, If you kill him twice, he crumpled.

Well, then it’s totally different game.

And she’s the best position to do it now. I thought Scott had a chance if he would run.

Tim Scott.

Not the one no Christian campaign in Iowa, the wider opportunity guy campaign, which is his magic power that he’s not using enough. But they’re going the president of Santorm, president Huckabee Rapp, which you know, ends in one good night.

What about all of the, wishcasting unicorn thinking that maybe we could talk Glenn Youngen into coming in to be the the alternative There was a lot of buzz before the debate. Does Haley’s good performance kinda slow the role on that?

Yeah. I think so. We’ve got this new phenomenon now. In the old days, big donors would bundle a lot of hard money. Then we had Super PAC.

So the donor who has a thousand or five hundred friends, they know they can build a little pyramid and get a thousand bucks out of has been devalued to the donor who can write you three million. And most of them are great and work hard and are part of the team. But we have a new class of donor that hires press secretaries and loves to chat endlessly of Maggie or somebody on the phone. You know, well, as I look at the vast canvas as a real power player, the name is spelled, you know, three of these guys. Can call up and say, well, I’m gonna go to a secret meeting with somebody who knows Glen Youngin, and we’re gonna urge him into the race.

I’m a real player. But the, you know, third trophy wife listening in, that can start one of these boomers. Two of those guys can. And that’s kinda what’s happened with the young kid. I have learned the candidates are like serial killers.

If you have to talk him into killing, then nope. Nope. They’re not real serial killers. You know, can we get Nancy to do something terrible? I don’t know.

He’s thinking about it. No. There’s like Colin Powell. Oh, he’s gonna run. He’s gonna know the ones who run wanna run.

The work is keeping him from starting too early. So if Young can wanna be in this, he’d be in this, and the big window is closing. And I think Haley is now the flavor of the moment. Now if she bungles it, which she seems to be very capable of doing in the last few days, we’re c, then that vacuum will open up again and you read more because three mildly voters talked to some reporters on background. There’s this boom lit for Youngin.

But if Youngin wanted to be running for president, in my view, he’d be running for president.

So as plausible as the as the case is that, okay. You know, Donald Trump had a good run. We need to move on from Donald Trump. I mean, he’s he’s too old and we did we we need to have somebody who’s not gonna be a lame duck president, a one term president. The problem seems to be that Republican voters right now are stuck, on we can’t move on from him.

We have to defend him because he’s under attack from the deep state. So the each indictment seems to lock in stronger support. So give me your sense of how this plays out. We have a court date, at least a tentative court date of March fourth, which is the day before Super Tuesday. The convention here in Milwaukee is not until July.

The election, of course, is in November. Which of these trials will change the course of this election, if any.

You know, I I don’t see the magic lightning bolt.

By the way, I said election not just primary.

Yeah. Well, that that question. Much more about the general election. I mean, this is terrible for the whole Republican brand in the general election. It’s the one life preserver that might save Joe Biden who in my view is in terrible political trouble.

When you’re the president of the United States and they think a crazy guy like Trump would be better to run the economy. I mean, that is that’s not noise. That’s a signal. So, in the primary note, if if he can get to Iowa, New Hampshire, I think he’s gonna run the table. I think you’re gonna see our candidates in tough seats in the general election start to try to figure out how to distance from him.

I think the conventional wisdom Will Saletan Republican as nominate corps. The conventional will be a spectacle of craziness, like we’ve never seen before Kino Carey Lake. I mean, it’s gonna be the most depressing thing in the world. The people selling the third party with on my view very good intentions, but very dangerous impact. Cause all that is is an escrow account for people who know trump’s crazy and know he can never step into the oval.

But also can’t abide Biden. It gives them a place to kinda buy a halo and and waste their boat. Vote Biden needs. Biden needs a lot of people who have to hold their a vote for him to stop Trump. And if you give him a third option, they can take it, which is bad.

And then if the Biden guys haven’t changed the perception of the economy and after a few bad grandpa go moments, there’ll be a little trump surge in the national polls, which again totally run the psychology of our politics now. And there’d be this huge, huge panic about god. Trump could actually win. Mhmm. And then in the end, I think Biden will narrowly prevail, but there’s so much risk there.

I wrote a thing on Substack about why he has to have some friend who can come to him and say, no, don’t do it because this is not just losing election. This is losing the country if it’s against Trump, and you manage to lose to him. If it goes this way, we’ll be caught in this housecape of every day being the yo yo on the Trump Madness string, which is weakening our country and just exhausting anybody who can read above the eighth grade level. It’s just

so random.

But it could happen. Could happen. I think we need a national conversation, not just about, hey, trump sucks, but to step back, what has happened in twenty years to our popular culture? That has allowed our politics to become the worst version of the professional wrestling business.

And you’re right. I mean, this is the popular culture. I mean, you know, Trump could drop dead tomorrow. And, you know, we’re not healed. Right.

This doesn’t go away. This environment doesn’t just snap back to what we used to think of as normal. That’s just not gonna happen.

No. I I agree and I think we’d have to look at pop culture. I always irritate friends by saying, you know, I wanna bring Andy Cohen up on Charlie Sykes because, you know, adults throwing wine glasses at each other. Really? You know, and there are a million versions of it.

The economists will come in and talk about real wages and how if you’re on the borderline between being poor and working poor. It’s a devastating life. He’ll build the algae stuff despite the the proprietor of that going quickly to the dark side. There’s so much truth in that. So we we have to have that larger conversation because the culture is outputting these politics and I don’t know about you.

I don’t really wanna have to learn Chinese Bulwark in an American restaurant in in new Beijing, formerly known as Chicago. We got a real problem here beyond just one bad actor.

Okay. So let’s take a deep breath and dive into this, the Joe Biden problem because I I do sense there’s a there’s a certain amount of denialism or a certain amount of fatalism about all of this. We get a lot of pushback saying stop talking about Joe Biden. It’s a mission

to go away.

Which my response is is not going to go away. Denile is really not a not a sound strategy. And the reality is that if you talk to any voters in the real world, I mean, any voter every conversation. And I mean every every conversation will eventually get to the question of Joe Biden’s age. Now you went out there And you said that Joe Biden should step aside not one.

That’s obviously not gonna happen right now. So let’s just talk about this. I mean, My real fear here is that everything’s hanging by a thread, and you only need a couple of grandpa Joe moments. If something happens to Joe Biden next September or October, like what happened to Mitch McConnell. I mean, all bets are off.

I mean, it is a terrifying thing. I guess my question is Do the Democrats have a plan b and are you sure that that would actually be a better idea for them? So make your case.

Yeah. Those are the questions. Joe Biden has what I call a two plus two is five problem. When you’re in incumbent running for reelection, historically, the election is friend of mine, you, keep them or fire them. Right.

Now Joe Biden is right now perceptions reality. The perception he’s doing a lousy job in the economy, and that is death for president running for reelection politically. Now they have time to change that perception, but it’s hard to do. People believe what they believe.

Why do they believe that? Because the numbers are the Democrats will say, well, look, the unemployment rate, is it historic lows? Yeah. That’s true. Inflation is coming down.

You know, what is with these people?

The numbers are good, but that’s not the prism. People look at real wages. What can I buy for what I earn? And they’re only starting to up now. They’ve been stagnant.

They feel inflation. They feel it in the car payment, the mortgage, the grandkids can’t afford a house because the mortgages in the last two years have gone way up for the same house. It’s the everyday cash flow of life stuff where remember a huge number of Americans have essentially no savings. Five thousand dollar crisis, and they’re really in trouble. So that’s what they feel.

Not some guy of a bow tie saying that, you know, a seasonally adjusted unemployment has dropped So he’s got the perception problem there. Then one thing Trump beat someone in surveys is running the economy, which is a very scary number. The other thing is the age deal. You know, the age problem, if you’re present, it’s like having all of a sudden you wake up one day, you’ve got antlers. And you go down to announce the great news that we found a cure for cancer, and all anybody wanna say about what are those it won’t go away.

So when they say, hey, old grandpa is not the guy to fix the economy, which is screwing me, that’s two plus two is five. That is to lock their in. Now what the Democrats are all doing is finding a confirmation bubble. Yeah. I know, but we can make the election about Trump and abortion.

Right.

They’re right. The abortion thing is a huge club for them. Well well done g o p, but they’re forgetting the fundamentals. You know, you look at the quotes and they remind me if you go back being Jurassic. I do stuff like this.

And you look at what Democrats used to say in the process press about Jimmy Carter nineteen eighty. Well, everybody hates him, but, they’ve nominated a crack pot old actor used to be in movies with monkeys. No way that nut’ll win. They forget it’s fundamentally a referendum on the guy in the chair. So they got a fixed Biden’s perception on the economy.

Now they’re trying to. They opened the campaign for big sixty second television ad, which was what incumbents and trouble always tell the consultants to run. Well, why are we doing that about all my great accomplishments? I wrote script. It’s, you know, forty minutes long.

And the ad is basically, hey, idiot. Don’t you know while you’re screwing around. I’ve been getting up early, and I passed the equity and manufacturing bill and blah blah blah. Listen up. And, you know, voters don’t work that way.

They’re like, what are you doing for me right now that I can feel and where are we going? So the Biden spot, which is everything’s going great, is the wrong spot. It should be. We’ve done the hard work. We took the punches.

We had a plan, and now it’s starting to turn around. So the question is as we come back, who’s gonna win? And then you do your Republican litany of class hatred warfare and all that, or working folks like you need cheaper prescription drugs. You need to be able to spend more times with your family by getting a better wage for your late blah blah blah. So they’re trying to force feed the good news, which People tend to like all force feedings gag upon.

So anyway, they don’t fix that because they can’t fix age. I dredge the day it’s so bad. They put out the press release with Biden taking a karate lesson or something. You know, I can see how bad that could go. All the Biden’s fine.

No. People don’t think he’s fine. Results can turn age vulnerability into age wisdom. But, you know, you gotta convince him you’re on a path that Biden great captain of age and experience has stirred us where we’re starting to see, reaction. They think we’re just beat the hell out of Trump.

Yeah. And trump is so bad campaigning from the yankton minimum of security federal prison or wherever. That would help. It can work, but it’s risk

It is very risky. And I’m concerned that because they have created this confirmation bubble, they’re telling themselves it’s just a messaging problem. There’s nothing wrong with the economy. We don’t even have to consider the age issue. And voters who do not understand all of these accomplishments, they’re just stupid.

If this becomes the culture, you know, why are people so stupid that they still are complaining about inflation why are voters so stupid that they’re complaining about high interest rate. Wait. That is not going to be the environment in which you create the message. Right. That you think that you need to create about all of this.

And I, you know, the Joe Biden problem, I think cognitively, he can still do the job. There’s no indication he can’t. Yep. However, every time he talks and walks the way he moves around, it is sometimes as you point out the antler problem, you know, he’ll walk in and he’ll, you know, have this litany of great accomplishments, and I’m thinking, oh my god. The guy looks like he’s a hundred and fifty years old right now.

And we can pretend that’s not a problem, but it is a problem.

Yeah. So, you know, you revamp your comms. He’s now the chairman of the board of the turnaround. So you surround him with smart guys. He doesn’t walk in and talk alone.

You recast the movie in how you visually communicate things from scratch. Their thing he put a blue curtain behind him. He’s presidential, trump’s a frothing idiot. That’s enough. No.

No. There there are ways to do this. I mean, back in the good old pre internet days, the old Helms machine in North Carolina elected senator, nobody knew he was in a wheelchair for six years. There still are those kind of tricks that can be done or controls on presentation rather than throw him out there and see. That wasn’t so bad because then he’s the great where Linda.

The whole thing is, well, can Biden get across the rope without falling fifty stories? And that adds attention to it that that amplifies every hiccup and everything else. I mean, god forbid the poor guy has to go to Walter Reed for a weekend because he’s had a TMI or something. A minor bubble, the news media is gonna treat it like the Hindenburg explosion because all those expectations are set. Will Biden make it till tomorrow, our panel of doctors.

And then you have TV doctors who wanna be a little outrageous because they wanna be back on TV and meet girls. You know, the whole thing is set up to go bad for them. And they really need to have the meeting. I if I were running that thing, I’d say, alright. We’re not gonna have the easy meeting, which is, boy, what did Trump do today?

How are we gonna hammer him? We’re gonna do the meeting that Tamara Trump dies. And and all of a sudden, Nikki Haley is the nominee. How do we fix Biden and beat her? I want seven smart ideas by the end of the day or I’m gonna have new people around here.

I mean, they gotta really understand the peril of their situation and rethink it instead call up people and yell at him for being critical to Joe Biden. Like, nobody talks about it. He doesn’t appear to be a hundred and eighteen. The stakes are too high to screw around.

I agree. Okay. Will there be a Trump Biden debate?

You know, I we were talking about this on hacks this week and, you know, there’s one argument that Trump refusing debates gives Biden a predicate to say, well, you know, the madman won’t debate. So I don’t have to. He’s crazy.

Right.

My view is one if December and Iowa New Hampshire is looking a lot grimmer than it is now, which again, I’m the lonely fool on the island that thinks that could happen, then Trump will debate. The guy wants to debate or the woman who wants to debate is whoever’s losing. One of them will be losing in October, and we’ll want a debate. The biden argument will be, well, Trump’s still crazier than Joe, and we can get him through three paragraphs, and he can do it. And Biden will want a debate at that point.

He’s not gonna lose the election by not taking a final swipe at Trump. On the other side of Trump is losing, It’s in his interested debate and hope Biden starts talking about talkies and Bulwark and white TV. Though, Trump is crazy enough that it’ll be harder for the his managers to convince him it’s in his interest. So my guess is there will be a debate.

Can you do Zoom from the federal pen?

It’s interesting because you know somewhere in the federal prison service. There’s a secret room with an old secret service veteran and and a trusted bureaucrat who knows that will say one. Where the hell do we put them? So option one is house arrest at Marlago, but I think the political kickback to that will tremendous. Look, if he did it, he’s gotta do time for real, not in a mansion.

Number two is alright. In North Dakota, there’s a sack base with the colonels two room bungalow, and it’s secure, put them there. Or three, I I, filmed the spot once at the nice prison in America, which used to be a college. It has no fence. It’s an honor system federal prison in Yankton, South Dakota, which is quite nice.

Every time I’m

That seems like a contradiction in terms, by the way, honor system federal prison. Right?

So, you know, you’re you’re supposed to stay there, but hit on the banks of rivers of beautiful old college. I I don’t know if it’s still open, but I made a note twenty years ago filming there because the the center I was working for had saved it or whatever the story was. The boy, if I ever get jammed up, I gotta make a deal for yank.

Definitely. But

anyway, they’re working on it. You know, I’d love to be a fly in that room.

Mike Murphy. Thank you so much for joining me. Mike Murphy is co director of the USC Center for the political future, co host of podcast hacks on tap and an analyst for NBC News, Mike, it is always great to have you on the podcast.

Charlie, you do good work here. I’m a listener. I’m gonna leave of one last shameless plug. I like the great bulwark. I’m also now fooling around on sub stack with crazy rants and raves.

So thank you for having me on. I look forward to talking to you again.

Outstanding. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow. We will do this all over again.

Bover podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.