Mike Murphy: The Sh*t Is Sticking to Trump

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. Veteran political strategist, his campaigns include McCain, Mitt Romney Schwarzenegger, and Job. He's the co-host of Hacks on Tap, co-director of the Center for the Political Future at USC. He also runs the American EV Jobs Alliance. We're in California, so I'm bringing in Mike Murphy. What's up, Murph?

Hey, good to be here, Tim. At last night's live show, we brought out a bunch of, you know, lib content creators and commentators, you're John Favros, your Jane Coastins, your Van Lathens, your Brian Tauer-Cohens. It's like a swarm here in L.A. You can't avoid them. They're everywhere. Honestly, you know, people need kind of like some raid to keep them away.

But I subjected them to a never-trumper trivia, which has. had like deep cuts, questions about Mitt Romney, who did Dick Cheney shoot, you know, all that kind of material. And you would have, you would have dominated. It was an embarrassing performance by them last night. So, we need to start up a school to properly educate the youngans here. We do. We do. All right. We've got much to get to. Part of the reason we wanted to have you were here in California. There's a lot of California politics. So we'll get to that. Sure. But first, I, we have some good news. So I'd like to start with some good news. Modest, good news, you know, but we take it where we can get it.

We're seeing some Republican Hill push back over the fund and over a couple of different things. And the reconciliation bill has been derailed. Everybody from, you know, the retiring Thom Tillis over to Tommy Tuberville, they aren't thrilled. Todd Blanche went over to the Senate to try to win people over to try to bribe them, saying, hey, even some of you senators might be able to get some money from this fund. And it doesn't seem like it's taking.

and that's meaningful, I think. What about you? No, I agree. I mean, it's kind of an interesting mixture. On one hand, this bill, hey, let's have a cop-assault paola fund is so odious and horrible that even the Gumby-like flexibility of the modern Republican elected federal official is like more bending than even they can do. But Trump's also got what I call the rotary revolt going on, is the Senate is a combination of rotary club and nursing home. And they're, you know, they're, they're their

own thing. And they like John Cornyn. And what they liked even more was having some hope they can hang on the majority, which by rights and by the nature of the states that are up this year, they should be able to. But this Democratic kill Trump wave, which is now a national Democrats and independence, and even some Republicans punish Trump wave is threatening the Senate. And so the one they felt pretty good about Texas, Trump pops up and endorses the biggest loser in the history of Republican Party, this corrupt Ken Paxton guy, killing their friend John Cornyn. So there's just good old institutional slash personal rage going on. And they're looking for ways to punish him in this odious paola thing and the blimp hanger, too.

That's wobbling. and then he's got the revenge caucus, which are people he screwed with who lost primaries or could have lost primaries. You know, obviously Bill Cassidy and Louisiana, he got Thom Tillis. And then you've got Susan Collins who's trying to figure out the tango to survive.

So all of a sudden, his grip in the Senate is a lot weaker and they're acting up. God bless them, a little late, but I'll take it. You know, it's like a nursing room cafeteria vibe. You know, I always say life is all high school cafeteria, and nursing room cafeteria is not that different from high school cafeteria so I understood from my Mimi and um that's what you got happening here like they're annoyed yep you know he shot blinky you know where this you can't sit with us yeah um there's a

little bit of that right now post corn and i do think it's funny like the retribution campaign is we don't want to overstate all this but like it is backfiring somewhat like they were all bragging, his staff talking about, don't mess with Trump. You know, he's the greatest political winner ever. And yeah, it's true. Bill Cassidy lost and they managed to sweep out a, you know, not overwhelming victory against Thomas Massie. You got 45% in Kentucky. And so it's, yeah, that was true. And John Cornyn, you know, they pulled the rug out from under him. But like, to what end? Well, yeah, there's also, you know, there's been kind of a courage Ray has hit him because filing deadlines are passing quickly. So like you take, and he's one of my favorites, and I'm a donor, Brian Fitzpatrick

in the Philly suburbs, who's a great member of Congress. I don't know about great, but okay, we can agree to disagree. We're going to grade that on a passable member of Congress due to the current realities. I hear you. But anyway, so Fitzpatrick, you know, Pennsylvania primary is over, so they have more maneuvering room to go screw with Trump. So the sands are shifting. And the other thing is On that one, if it's Patrick, worth noting, Trump went after his wife, who's a Fox News reporter the other day and was doing his sexists. You know, I'm just going to really shit talk the woman reporter and the gaggle thing. And so, again, to the nursing room cafeteria thing. I mean, he's younger.

But there is like a little bit of that. Like, he's mismanaging people that he needs with these narrow majorities. Right. And if you, in an election year, you ask the centers, what's the president's job? It's to help us get reelected and hold the majority. And Trump is doing the opposite. I mean, this John Cornyn thing really was. you know, nutty old man shoots and basically gives the Democrats a good shot at what could be the tipping point race for control of the Senate.

And they're just flabbergasted and infuriated by that. But, you know, you get into business with a crazy guy. The other thing about Trump, you know, I was reading today on the wire somewhere that this is how you can tell I'm a Jurassic consultant. Better check the wire. You know, but I was watching. Do you have a wire on your interweb? Do you got the wire there on the internet? the ticker here.

It's funny because I'm a nerd. I built my first computer with a sold iron with a kid Bill Gates sold me. But anyway, not to go with skew on that, there's all this talk about Trump's birthday. You know, he's going to turn 80. He's already 80. The birthday is the last day of that year. You know, like you're a one-year-old. It means you've been one for a year.

He's been 80 for a year. We're going into 81 now, the beginning of 81. And the crazy old man stuff is really out there and becoming a thing. Yeah. The last element to this, kind of this, you know, sort of swirling number of incentives that are starting to move away from him, you know, in addition to his own behavior and the cafeteria vibes. And in addition to the filing deadlines passing, is the approval rating. You know, Sarah has coined the Bush line.

I hate it because it's a little gross and it's mean to the bushes. but okay, whatever, it is what it is. Bush left at 32%. And it's one of those things. Like, eventually you hit a line where the number starts to get so low that the incentives for these Republicans start to change a little bit. Like, it's not going to happen overnight, but where they also have gone from this thing where it's like, I can't buck him, I can't buck him because it's too, you know,

the bases with him too much. All of a sudden, you know, if you look at him at 34, you look at Thomas Massie only getting 55 against him, You start to think it's up, it goes from like, oh, I'm running against, you know, Bosch or Bashar al-Assad to I can maybe get some distance from this and not worried that I'm going to get taken out back. Yeah, no, no, you start calculating. You know, the staff comes in, hey, boss, you know, we're, we're in re-election here. And next week, Trump's going to be down at the Omnidone, you know, doing a cage fighting tractor pole thing dedicated to, you know, him. You know, and the senators will go from, well, you got to get me there.

when he arrives, I want the picture. Now it's like, I think I'm going to have a dental emergency that night where maybe go hit a suburban PTA unannounced and show up in care. What kind of like how Trump said about his own son's wedding yesterday? Atresteo's he's asked if he's going to be attending Donald Trump Jr's second wedding. He's like, ooh, you know, we got this thing in Iran going on. And I don't know. I'm not impressed my suit.

The thought bubble was won't last, not worth it. But, yeah, so it, look, they, they smell the trouble coming. It's not hard. They've been looking at lousy polls, even people in safe seats for a year that have just gotten worse. And Trump's gotten more erratic.

So they're just kind of buckling down for heavy weather and trying to figure out how to survive. And hanging out with him is not as good of a survival strategy. You know, Wittair is a great poster. I think a lot of people ask it now. I believe he was the first.

Apologies, if I get this wrong. But would ask people on the ID question on a poll, you know, you're a Republican self-reported. And then he'd have a follow-up. Are you more of a Trump Republican or more of a party Republican? And that number moves. When Trump is screwing up, he goes under 50 on the number of Republicans and say they're Trump Republican. When he's doing well, it'll push up close to 70. And after he lost to Biden, it was down, I think, in the 40s. So, you know, the glue is stretchy there. And we're heading the other way on that scale. And I'm sure I haven't seen one lately in a key Senate state, but I'm sure it's declining. One last factor as part of all

this. I want to mention. There's going to be a good deal of talk about Democratic dysfunction at the end of this podcast. So no questions about that. There's certainly, let's say, some leadership issues on the Democratic side, which we'll get into. That said, you just have to say it. The DHS shutdown fight worked. Like the second shutdown fight that the Democrats spurred and the notion that we're going to separate out ICE and CBP from the rest of the funding bill. There was a lot of criticism about that. On the left, people criticized it. It wasn't aggressive enough or, you know, they folded too quickly. You know, there's all the, you know, flattering nabobbs on the left complaining about everything Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries do.

Okay. And guess what? It worked. The Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, plan, works. It was always going to work. Yeah, the only reason they have this leverage right now to block the funding for the ballroom and, you know, for this slush fund. The only reason they have leverage is because Trump needs something from them, which is funding for ICE and CBP. They finally found out that when there's a pain fest in Washington, ultimately it goes to the incumbent president.

party because they're perceived as being in charge. So the pain does, it takes a zigzaggy route, but it'll get there. They did, you know, the idea of federal employees missing a paycheck was so horrifying to them because the party is kind of a creature of public employee unions. They just couldn't get there. But they finally did. And you're totally right. It worked.

It's a very thing about when you said before about his numbers going down. There's kind of a Velcro effect. When you start getting down to the 40 percent, let's a little bit of. loan 30s in approval, then everything's your fault because, you know, people already sold that you're a screw up. Two-thirds of country thinks you're not good at your job. Then, hey, you know, we had five days of thunderstorms. That damn Trump. You know, it just becomes easier for all the bad shit to stick to you. And that's where he is now. So they can do stuff like that. And it is going to resonate as long as they keep some kind of offensive message. This is what they're not good at.

you know, you know this, you're a communicator, and you've had a career in the communication side of politics. They just, they overthink, they still are incredibly attuned the leadership of the party to their interest groups. You know, they just, they're not good at pounding the nail proverbially. Maybe they're learning. And they don't have to be good to win. You know, they can suck and still be Trump because the election is not a two-way election. It's a punish the guy who screwed up the economy election. Yeah.

And Trump continues to help them. So just two items on the weaponization fund. Here he is this morning. I gave up a lot of money in allowing the anti-weaponization fund to go forward. I could have settled my case, the illegal release of the tax returns, and the breaking of Marlago for an absolute fortune. Instead, I'm helping others who are badly abused by the Biden administration. So he's not backing out at all. And then there's the stock trade story which came out.

My colleague, Joe Pertico, and shout out to him for doing the math on this. The total value of Trump's transactions in the first three months of this, year, $750 million, is higher than the value of all trades by all 535 members of the House and Senate combined for the last few years. I'm like, that is the scale of this. And so, you know, I mean, on the one hand, there's just like the corruption outrage on the merits. On the other hand, he's handing these guys the bat to hit them with.

It's incredibly gross, the stock trading thing. It just shows that the one thing the founding fathers, you know, well, foreign invasion, kings, you know, we're getting in front of everything, we're designed a system. They presumed honor and shame. And now we have this circus freak with no honor and no shame running wild. You know, the funny thing about Trump and money is until he started using the presidency as a grifting and stealing tool for the family, which is, you know, unprecedented. I long for the days of Don Nixon and the Nixonberger being a scandal.

He would have been wealthier had he taken. taken the inheritance because he made his money the old-fashioned way. He inherited it from Fred, his dad. And if he put it into an index fund and had nothing to do with it, he would have been richer. You know, he bungled his casino companies. It's one business failure after another. Just some luck in real estate appreciation. But until he became a federal pirate, he would have done better with an index fund and him having nothing to do with it. So I'd love to see the trades in terms of how they work out. My guess is, you know, they are not a droid.

In fact, he seems like a serial trader, which is a good way to lose money in the market. But to your point, it's massively corrupt, unprecedented, though I'm hoping for the future, we have a reformation, not a repeat, in terms of he set a new, low, ethical standard, and we're going to have more people imitating them in politics. Man, we have a Nixon's younger brother

and Spiro Agnew reference already 15 minutes in. and we're really putting people in the grave. Yeah, and I do think in the specifics of the Trump trades, I mean, you know, some of them, it is kind of funny. One of the ones I laughed at is it seemed like he was trying to invest in some AI company that was from Japan, but he accidentally invested in a business that is one of those sushi restaurant chains where the sushi goes around on a boat. So that one made me laugh.

But also some of the ones are just blatantly corrupt, like, you know, investing in Intel before announcing the Intel D.L. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And he's trying to give himself in this tax deal all kinds of get out of jail free cards for past behavior, you know, making it impossible to audit them and everything. I mean, it is, Al Capone would say, oh, too gross. Come on, pull it back a little. This is embarrassing. We're going to go back a little further than the Nixon era for this next story. And I help you, you almost, it's one of those things where you never have to hand it to the Trump administration, but you almost have to hand it to them. And maybe this will inspire some creativity on the left in the future when you look at the ways in which they're doing some of this shit.

With the arch, you see the story? Administration officials cited a 1924 report by a federal commission charged with designing the Arlington Memorial Bridge. The report called for building a pair of 166-foot-tall column surrounded by statues. I don't know if this is AI or if they have like one autistic guy in the bowels of the White House or whatever that is doing this shit. But, you know, obviously, again, it's another one of those things that it's corrupt, but it's corrupt creativity. Amanda called yesterday authoritarian entrepreneurship. And there is a little bit of that happening. Yeah, I'm sure they brought in some, you know, awkward genius from the basement and said,

find me justifications. So somebody probably wondered why they busted their ass at, you know, Notre Dame law or whatever, spent a year looking because they know the boss wants to build crazy shit. So find the crazy shit justification. So, yeah, it's creative. I hope these people look in the mirror once in a while and say, wow, I'm using my legal elect in the service of a madman to put a scar and a blimp hanger on the White House grounds.

Where are you at on Democrat wins in 2029 and what to do with the ballroom and the arch if they get built by then? Or even if they're half built, you know, how do you think about that? Oh, I'm Mr. Bulldozer. If I were running a candidate in the Democratic primaries, part of my schick would be, you know, and donate to the campaign, 50 bucks, we're going to hold a drawing. I'm going to pick 100 people. Day after my inauguration, we're going to walk over there with golden sledgehammers and begin to take that blight of gross corruption off the sacred grounds of the White House, the people's house. That thing's got to go.

I don't, yeah, yeah. No, no, I'd be, I'd make it a thing. It was like, Pat Buchanan had a great old stump closer in the primaries, 92 and 95 in his speech. I was at Iowa event and this kind of big outdoor shed. And the thunder was so loud from the crowd. I started to worry that the roof was coming down, like a couple of bolts fell. And the big line was, first he went after the Chinese. I'll tell that Chinese president, Mr. Pao Shi Ping, that if he doesn't stop the forced abortion of a thousand babies a day in China,

He has sold his last pair of cheap chopsticks in the shopping malls of America. And then I will put my hand on the Bible of King James. Take the sacred oath of office on an inauguration day. If you honor me with this office. And at that point, as President of the United States, I will turn to William Jefferson Clinton and say, you, sir, are under arrest. You know, the place would explode.

That missed a great career in pro wrestling. He was ahead on the locker up. Oh, yeah. No, he was ahead and all that stuff. The other great line was, I saw him in New Hampshire. Gun control, Balderdash. I'm against controlling any gun. You do not need a trailer hitch to move.

So, but the point being, I would have a line like that on getting rid of this monstrosity. You don't get the- Well, why not just use the same exact line about arresting Trump? Yeah, that's not a bad one. Are you listening? Are you listening, Jon Ossoff, Wes Moore? There you go, John. Whoever?

Pete, Gavin. But no, that thing has got to go. go, I would sell sledgehammers on the campaign. Yeah. Make it a thing. That's interesting. I guess I should have predicted that you would go that route. But I don't know. Sometimes you can be a squish. You know, at heart, you're a little bit of a squish.

I am a right wing nut, my friend. You have no idea. So, yeah, no, I'd be hard. That thing is a symbol. And it's got, now, if they really have a half billion dollar underground bowling alley and tanning bed factory and wherever to hell else Trump, you know, padded the budget, you know, it with you. You can keep the basement, but the building's got to go. Yeah, okay, that's good. I don't know. And the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. School Center thing, too. You got to chip that off. Of course you

chip that off. Yeah, I don't know. Part of me on the ballroom, you just wonder if you had named it. Where are you on that? You just gave a really compelling pitch. And I'm kind of vacillating back and forth. Maybe I was projecting since I'm the inner squish. Part of me is just like, I think you just name it the Liz Cheney and George Floyd Memorial Ballroom and like, you know, put their faces on there. whoever's going to annoy it the most. I'm like Clemencell. Bury me standing up facing Germany. I have absolutely no flex on the boardroom.

I do think that, you know, going back and rewatching some Pat Buchanan speeches might do some of the Democrats some good going ahead to 2028. I mean, you know, in the Republican Party, we're brought up with one rule when it's a confusing situation, grab the sharpest object and attack. Yeah, right. They call the shrink, clutch the pearls, hold a focus group, bring in the interest groups, decide the staff isn't DEI enough and flip everybody around. I mean, that's why they're so easy to beat. Every time we get in the corner in the old days, we drag them into a culture war, and they just scamper right into the mousetrap.

Well, speaking of committees and waffling and being concerned, you've transitioned us nicely into the DNC autopsy, which was, I guess, released yesterday, kind of. It was essentially released as like, if, you know, if anybody who's worked on a big project with multiple people, you know, you have a Google Doc that you've started, and then maybe you have a couple of editors in there, or collaborators, and they're, like, writing comments. And they just kind of released the document like that.

Like, they hadn't even written a conclusion yet. But Ken Martin had been so bullied by people until, like, what really happened with this thing. He lied about what happened and then waffled and then tried to say, well, we shouldn't put it. We're not going to put it out because it's hurting us. And then, you know, the truth is that they put this thing out and it looked like it was put together by either a seventh grader who had never worked on a campaign or an 86 year old. His last campaign was, you know, the 88 du caucus race. Yeah, look, the Dems are so hapless.

The autopsy now needs an autopsy. I mean, it was such a perfect example. Now, how these things really work, and you remember the Republican one, is at the beginning. I was one of the authors that was making the comments in the notes. And I was at the case of the Canadian. The thing had two purposes. One, try to have a fact-based idea of the weaknesses for the political folks to chew over and spark a debate. And second, throw something out to the finance crowd that we're now a bunch of idiots here,

and we recognize our shortcomings keep giving us money. And, you know, these guys seem to be like, well, let's, just throw a lot of shit on the wall and maybe magic will appear. And I put a lot of it, not only on Martin, but the way the DNC election works, they had opportunities to go find somebody like I think Rahm Emanuel would have been a terrific DNC chair because they'd all be carrying sharp sticks and heading in one direction. Instead, it was a club of state party chairman. And when you're doing a big statewide campaign, you're hoping you have a decent state chairman, and not an idiot.

And that decent state chairman, hope, you're lucky if a third of the time it comes true. Often it's like the model railroad club. It just happens to be politics. And they're fighting over who got the head table and whether or not my friend's banquet got to hold the volunteer the year dinner. And all this horseshit that's actually a distraction.

So it's an illusion that they're all these cigar-chomping pros. And I've seen part, the Michigan State Party used to be Patton's Third Army. Now you put a tent over it and called it a circus. You can charge admission. You know, Florida is nothing like what it used to be. So the constituency on both sides, but with the White House, you can order them around. On the Democrat side in the wilderness, they elect one of their own chuckleheads who's best at giving out rhinestone donkeys to, you know, 80-year-old committee women.

And so they get somebody who has a political job, but limited political skills outside the micro politics of Democrat inside. We have to have a left-handed people caucus, at least 40%. You know, all the crazy shit they do. So it's no surprise that they've got this train wreck internally and there's no discipline to it. Obviously, it's one of those like not funny ha-ha, funny sad situations, but like the funny part about it is the discourse around the DNC, like he said, all the cigar chomping or, you know,

to update it, it's all, you know, these machinations happening behind the scenes. with the corporate elite that own the party, et cetera. And the theory of the case that you were seeing online or one of the things that was out there about why the autopsy didn't get released was that, you know, it revealed that Kamala Harris's position on Gaza really harmed her. And like this, and there was an Axis story about this

where people said that they, they blocked the release because, you know, the powers that be don't want you to know that it was her position on Gaza that cost her the campaign. Great way to have everybody know. It's secret. Band in Boston, don't read it. Yeah, and then it comes out, and it's like, Gaza hasn't even mentioned in the thing.

Biden's age isn't mentioned in it. All of the obvious things aren't mentioned. And so what is a better encapsulation of like all the discourse around the DNC is that everybody on the internet, you know, thinks that they're scheming to hurt their candidate of choice at like when the reality is that they're eating the crayons. And like that, this was true. This has been true for like 10 years now. It's one of my favorite rules of politics that. Every side has a conspiracy. You know, it's like when Trump sat down with Mitt Romney after the election,

and Mitt Romney is writing crazy in the gravy with the fork listening to go on about, you know how it works. They stole New Hampshire because they brought up the hordes from Massachusetts. You know, Labor has this big army of 7,000 guerrillas that can deploy anywhere. And, you know, the Republicans are all paranoid about that. And then over on the labor side, they're like, oh, the Coke brothers, you know, we got eight drunks here. We don't have anybody for door to door.

It's all a myth, but they've got the secret Republican art. Everybody thinks these places are massively competent with roofless armies, and most of the time, they're just stumbling along in the state party world. What do you think? I mean, the DNC doesn't really matter that much, and it matters somewhat on the fundraising side, and like that's where Ken Martin is really failing. And so, you know, those guys over there at the committee are circling the wagons today. and I feel kind of bad for the press flunkies

that are calling all my friends in the media and just trying to spin them nonsense. So it's kind of like how I got... Refrigerator magnets. We're going to... They're coming. Yeah, I just remember one of the Biden guys calling me. I remember distinctly being at the Atlanta airport

after that first debate and having one of the guys call me and being like, you're being a little harsh on Twitter. And I was like, you hang up the phone right now. I've been one of you. Okay. I know, I've spun diarrhea into a chocolate cake before. And it's not going to work with me. But they were all doing that yesterday at the DNC.

And part of me is like, they should just have a clean break, right? Like just move on. I just find some, bring somebody in that can raise money and can go on TV and talk about how Donald Trump is a thief and call it good. Yeah. No, they need some guerrillas. The problem is there aren't many left in that party because the internal incentives. You know, the other thing, and this is a delicate topic, but the DEI stuff is so strong

internally. I know really good Democratic consultants who've been out there. And most of them are telling me, hey, I'm 58 white male. I'm done. You know, they tell me to shut the fuck up in every meeting. So this is my last cycle because it's just, it's a different world now. I mean, the D-Trip chairman was bragging about they don't have enough firms where they pick them based on their gene code, not their win-loss record. And, you know, it's admirable to have aspirations like that.

I don't want to sound like Cotton Mather. but you know what? We're in the politics business about fucking winning. And that doesn't seem to be top of the list internally there. And frankly, over the Republican side, it's all corruption if you sucked up to Trump enough. So, you know, I'm not saying there's a great example there. I know more self-hating Republican consultants.

I'll bet you do too. They're like, I got a mortgage. So I'm going to be a fascist for 10 years. They don't call me anymore because I make them feel too bad. Actually, I had a lot of those for a while. But now I make them feel. dwindling, I'll tell you. Yeah, I make them feel too guilty about their summer vacation when they call me.

So I don't get, the phone isn't ringing as much anymore. But there's an interesting thing happening actually in the Democratic side now that you mentioned this. It's happening a little bit underneath the surface. It's strange. It's like the establishment, and I'm saying this like not really in an ideological sense, but just like the people that are that run the committees that are in Washington, kind of regular, you know, democratic functionaries are.

are really still kind of caught up in a lot of this, the woke stuff that you're talking about. And you're seeing these two factions on different sides. You have kind of the Graham Platner, populist crowd, and then you have this kind of, you know, they're calling themselves like majority dems or the bench. It's like the James Talarico campaign is on there. But they have a bunch of house candidates. You can search the bench for their candidates. And they're a little bit more ideologically diverse, but they tend to be more in the middle.

and they're both like running these primaries. Michigan is a good example of this, right? It's like Mallory McMorrow is kind of the bench candidate. Abdul El-Sayed is a little bit more of the Graham Platner style candidate. And then Haley Stevens is, you know, the establishment candidate. And it's like the establishment candidates are the ones that are still kind of doing the identity politics stuff. You know, it's, you're seeing a little bit of a change, I guess, from internally, where there's like a group of lefties that want to win very badly.

And then there's kind of some fighting mods that I want to win badly that are changing the culture a little bit. It's just happening. It's just not happening at the DNC. You know what I mean? And it wasn't happening at the Harris campaign. Well, there would be the last to know, particularly the D-Trip, because they reflect a Democratic caucus that, you know, goes back to the 70s. And because it's been reduced to some extent.

It's going to grow now. It's got a lot of people kind of frozen in time from very safe districts. But yeah, no, no. The splinters are starting. it's generational too. You know, when I was an active political consultant, because I really don't do races anymore, I dabble once in a while in the independent expenditure,

or, of course, referendum campaigns, all that. But I was very careful about hiring anybody out of D.C. Because you would just get NRCC conventional wisdom, and they're great people there. But I'd always want to find a sharp kid out of a state capital where there's a real fight, just because often they didn't have kind of the Beltway mentality, of which faction I belong to and which firm do I want to wind up at.

And I think both parties have plenty of that now. In fact, it's worse. The primaries do sort stuff out. Like Michigan will be a good example. We'll see who actually wins because he's, Abdul is, I know him, he's capable. And I think Mallory is capable. I think Haley is not that capable. And the dynamics of the race really want her out and let those two opposites decide the question

with the primary voters, where see what happens. And Mike Duggan got out, which I'm sad about, too. I like them. Yeah, it's a dependent for governor. Yeah. I do,

I do feel obligated to just do the, like there's good DEI and there's bad DEI and to give the tepid defense of good TVI right now, which is we just had the, you know, that picture of the Trump administration and the, in the bylaw with China, where they're like 24 white dudes around a table.

And Margaret, I guess unless you're counting Marco, you know, It's like, well, we got our gay here with Scott Bessent down at the end. But besides up, and it was, you know, it's like, wow. What I liked is none of the Americans were pros in Asia who could speak Chinese. You know, used to be had a trainload full of them. I think Trump had three guys locked in the basement.

Nobody ever got to talk to. You did have multiple reality TV stars and weekend talk show hosts, though. So that's good. Yeah, yeah. The Fox Green Room is where you really get the geopolitical geniuses of today. A new metternix are there putting on the makeup and the hair. That's definitely a merit-based system they're working on over there. Two other things in win terms.

I guess we just, because we're mentioned Michigan, what is, just give me your Murphy handicapping of the Senate right now. Like, what's your sense of the state of play? What states are you watching? Well, it is in play. And I think one thing people miss, and then I'll do a few races quickly, you know, the house is very binary. When you lose the house, you're screwed.

The minority has no power. You know, free haircuts. and hang around. I mean, you can make speeches, but you have no power. In the Senate, of course, minority has power. So people are kind of obsessed at making the Senate in the House look, good, could the Democrats win the Senate? The answer is maybe, because it's a huge wave election. But if the Senate goes from four to two Republican advantage, that is still a massive earthquake power-wise, because it'll be hard for the Republican leadership to control it anymore. You know, we'll see who loses and who doesn't. But you're still going to have Rand Paul, who goes to his own drummer and is

honest about that. You've got Lisa Murkowski, you know, you've got in Utah. Curtis. He's checking out. I think he wants to run for governor in two years. Right, right. And you're having the ashes of Trump with people thinking about, all right, that's the old song. I'm going to pick up some new, new riffs here. So they barely can control it. They've had votes they'd need advance to break the tie with four. So if it goes down to two or one, it is a whole new world. Now, they'll get judges through. I know it's still be meaningful, though, for them to be up one just for judges and for investigations. No, no, no doubt. But it's not like the house. You can be in the minority and be quite powerful. And they're on the cusp of doing that.

So to actually win the thing or get it tied, Alaska, Republican state, but Dan Sullivan, who knows better, is one of these in trouble. He's probably six or seven down. I saw a poll about a month ago. You forget he's in the Senate, kind of, until election. Yeah, and so has Alaska, because I don't think he's very visible when he's there, maybe partially out of shame because he's not an idiot. So that's a loose end.

Now, you can argue it's Alaska, and when it comes down to it, the party brand is powerful there, and they're going to spend a fortune. But that thing is definitely in play. I think Texas is now in play, which I don't think, would have been of John Cornyn, really in place. So that is a big earthquake to the map. And then you've got the somewhat, you know, easier ones like Ohio, where I think Brown will probably have his comeback.

He's an old kind of union manufacturing jobs kind of Democrat, which is perfect for this year. Michigan, I think, is going to tilt to the D's. Though if Abdul wins the nomination, it'll be more complicated. Though he's an underrated candidate. I know him. He's basically a high school quarterback from D's. Dearborn with a complicated ballot name and some pretty lefty positions.

But he's got some skills. Of course, Susan Collins, you know, the thing about Graham Platner is, how will the second look go? I mean, Mills getting out was not good for him. He needed to go beat somebody. Now it's all going to be, well, wait a minute, what about the Nazi tattoo? It's some I heart Auschwitz. What does it say? You know, I mean, it's not a subtle Nazi tattoo.

That kind of is. I kind of is. You knew it was a Nazi tattoo when you saw it, the Toten Cup? It's a skull. And it's not like it was a swastika. Well, the thing is, the skull department were the SS guys who thought the swastika

was a little too soft and squishy. So if you were at a concentration camp and you looked at the uniform, you didn't see the double lightning bolts. I hear you. Anyway, anyway, okay. Point, point, yeah, you're flacking. I'm not flacket.

I just, I just, I'm saying the reality, I did not, I would not have looked out of that. I would have thought I'm a badass drunk, you know, whatever, partying, Madrid guy. And I want to get the coolest looking skill, I think is a pretty reasonable answer. You know, that might be what happened. But it's a pretty, get David French going on this. He'll give you an hour and a half on it. Yeah. So the point is he's going to get more of a second look now.

But generically, I still think he's the favorite if he can withstand that. And Susan Collins is not the Susan Collins of Packers. by the way. I mean, she's also, you know, getting up there. And she's walking a delicate tightrope

and doesn't have the same ballerina skills that she did two cycles ago. I agree. And they've seen the magic act. They know the rabbit's going to come out of the bag of groceries. Any stretches? Iowa or Florida is,

there was kind of a weird Florida poll. I think Florida could come to life. I really do. I really do. So I don't count that one out. I was trickier, but in the hunt now,

which is saying something. they got the superstar governor of stuff going on. The independent Nebraska. I was born. That race is close. Look, even I'm going to plug, there's a young kid who is a state senator in Kansas. There are two good candidates in Kansas, actually. It's so funny.

They're better, just being blunt, sorry, you get my real opinions on the show. They're better than the Iowa candidates. I was an easier state, but the Kansas candidates are better. There's the young guy you're talking about. Then there's a pastor. There's like a religious. Yeah, the pastor is interesting, but he's a pro-like. Republican in a Democratic primary.

But maybe that works in Kansas. You know, at first look, it's kind of the old, you know, the miracle candidate, but the primary motives might go. Patrick Schmidt, the young guys, Navy, moderate Tory Dem. And he's got a poll showing at like a two-point race with Marshall, who kind of like is like Dan Sullivan, but kookier. But dumber, yeah. So if the Dems can, you know, raise the money,

which has been an underperforming category, and play wide in a wave election, lightning can strike in one of these seats. So, yeah, if I had a handicap, I say they don't get majority, but they close it to two or one or tied. And it's not impossible to get majority, which is really saying something with the portfolio seats that are up. I think tied is kind of the median. For me, it's so important for them to win for the investigations,

because there's so much shit to investigate. When we're talking about yesterday, audit the White House, you know, should be the motto for 2020. and, you know, the House can only do so much, right? There's just only so many hours of the day. There's only so many committees. And anyway, to me, the oversight and the appointments. And, you know, what if a Supreme Court justice goes away?

What if, what if Todd Blanche? They try to make Todd Blanche permanent. You know what I mean? Like, for all of those reasons, it's a big difference. I think the crime investigations are so much smarter to run on than impeachment. You know, just say the voters already impeached them. They wiped out his party. But let's look at all the corruption here.

The family is really. rated the Treasury. One more thing I just want to flag with the midterms, this scheme did not come to pass, but I think it's worth addressing the potential schemes. This was from Reuters, your friends at the wire. Trump's election securities are, Kurt Olson, sought to ban Dominion voting machines. They're still on this in more than half of the U.S. states by asking whether the Congress...

He was asking the Commerce Department to declare their components national security risks. The plan to exclude the machines got far enough that in September Commerce Department officials were exploring what grounds could be evoked to execute it. Three additional sources said it eventually collapsed, however, because there wasn't any evidence. So, you know, this is whatever, you know, the Watergate burglar style scheme here. But, you know, I don't know, maybe one of the times they figure something out. And I just what is your kind of alarm about monkey business in the midterms? You know, I think it's the thing. Axelrod and I argue about this on hacks on tap.

lot because he's very pearl clutchy about it. And then he accuses me of ignoring it. I'm like, no, it's out there, but it's like a three foot break wall against a 20 foot wall of water. There's just limits to how much they can get away with. Are they going to try to do? Yes. Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing, and he's on this, and this one I don't disagree, is they're doing a lot better at raising money. You know, now, of course, they use extortion. But the Dems need to get their finance thing in order. They don't have to mention the extortion. I don't think there's, interesting there's not more reporting on this like because and for me this is all smoke i'm not an investigative reporter but the number of anecdotes i hear about things like people calling up brian ballard's lobbying firm or one of these lobbying firms and saying

hey you know what could i'd like to hire you to help lobby the administration and in addition to the 50 grand a month or whatever it is for the firm it's like for me to take you on as a client you got to give maga pack over here a million bucks like that is happening right now no no i mean the thing is when you have a reputation for corruption and thuggery as the Trump administration does, it's pretty easy to go out raising money without any threatening because people just assume, you know, like, oh God, these guys are, I'm going to have a regulatory case. It's all political. And, you know, the administration has tried to purge all the old Mandarin kind of public service types out wherever they can. So they know they got some 30-year-old political appointee who was a deputy advance knucklehead on the Alabama

campaign is now deciding, you know, who they turn the unlimited legal resources of the federal government, Luson. So people are paying to play or paying to survive. So just the knowledge that their thugs raises money by itself. So yeah, yeah, I, but the Dems ought to on a grassroots basis because of the wave and low dollar, low cost of transaction, web-based fundraising, They ought to be able to do better. And they just need to like get on that. They don't have to match the Republican number. My old joke is what hurts more, dropping one piano on your head from 100 feet or two pianos.

But they got to get to one piano and they're not there yet. All right. Deep breath. We got to do California now. Yeah. I don't understand why my Democratic friends and listeners. So people get mad at me when I bring this up, like why they're not more apoplectic about what's happening. California is not going well.

I landed in San Diego for the live show. I walked out the door of the hotel. Across the street in downtown San Diego, there was a marquee. So it was like opening the doors again soon, socially distance, mask up, stay safe. I went to sit at a juice bar. They do still have good fruit and juice here in California. A nice woman walked up to me, recognized me, said, hey, introduced me to a New Orleans real estate agent. It's too expensive for me to live here now.

It's too expensive to live here. The state is stuff. They can't build the fucking train. Texas is building more green energy plants than California as Texas is. No, it takes three years to open an electric vehicle fast charging station here. It's crazy and it's not going well. And we're in an election year. And the establishment of the California Democrats are putting up the same mayor here in L.A.

That has done a disastrous job rebuilding from the fires. And the Yahoo's they have leading the governor's race. It's Biden's worst cabinet member. and, you know, the corniest guy on the 2020 debate stage, who nobody really is excited about. That is it. There's no reform. Yeah, you would think the biggest, most powerful economic engine of America could actually,

well, disclosure, I'm from Matt Mayhan, who, of course, is not doing particularly well. It's simply because common sense and Silicon Valley guys who promise money and never write the check is hard campaign formula to perseverely. Just before you give the pitch on this. can I just offer. I want to just at least do one other thing because I'm obviously, I'm for Mayhan too. But it's not just a couple former Republican guys. I was just reading this morning. I was going down Twitter. This is on the lefty side of the Democratic Party. Matt

Stoller wrote this about Xavier Becerra, who's the front writer. Xavier Becerra is likely to become the California governor. He's arrogant and competent and tolerates criminal behavior by staff. He'll likely be recalled fairly soon. I agree with that. Susan Rice, I've been on the show multiple times, who's in the main body of the Democratic Party, was retweeting, really, negative reviews about Xavier Becerra. So it's like across the era. And so why is everyone going along with this? Don't they have a department store mannequin they can run instead?

Because Xavier Becerra's, you know, nobody trembles at that name. So here's what happened. First of all, let me do Karen Bass, who's quite unpopular mayor. But like a lot of places that are very blue, the public employee unions do like to elect the people they negotiate their salary deals with. And that is a function here. So at the last minute, a young DSA super lefty Nithya Raman jumped in against her, a political ally 48 hours before.

And then Spencer Pratt, because everybody's on one ballot with no party label, who's kind of the rage against the situation candidate. No solutions, but he can explain how to get stabbed in the neck at an underpass, which is fairly easy to do here. if you drive a quarter mile in any direction, is kind of the novelty candidate, although right now he and Rahman are in a tight two-way race around 20 each to try to make the runoff against Bass

who stuck at like 39. So yeah, it's kind of uninspiring. My friend Rick Caruso came very close to running. A lot of people wish he had. My fix for it is to do what San Francisco did, which is go to rank choice, get rid of the low turnout primary and widen the voter pool for all parties

and let second and third choice mean something. So frankly, the more right-to-center people can have a candidate who can compete with the lefty public employee thing. In the governor's race, same thing. California is so hard to govern, and we got a lot of budget problems, some of which are driven by the Trump administration,

that there just wasn't a candidate. So Eric Swalwell, because he lives on MSNBC, had some name ID. And this is a big state. TV will cost you a 4 to 5 million. in a week. So getting famous is very expensive here if you're not already famous. Like Arnold, my old client, you know, we came in as somebody people would listen to because they knew who he was. And Eric Swalwell imploded, which everybody knew was coming. And then Xavier Becerra was kind of the generic,

acceptable Latino guy from the South. But nobody knew anything about him. But the public polls showed him in front. And then the Sacramento crowd said, well, he's not going to change anything. safe bet, poor money in. And then he had Tom Steyer who's going to spend $200 million or probably more. It was like trying to put a cinder block into orbit. He's just not the most compelling candidate. And then you had Katie trying to, Katie Porter, who would come in third for Senate, trying to She, by the way, I like better than the other two. And it's not exactly my favorite company. And Mayhan coming from the center. And neither of them could really get the money they needed to break through and get famous in California. So we kind of defaulted to the minimum sufficient. One thing that frustrates

me is a lot of Democrats I talk to here about this race, even especially sophisticated Democrats actually are like, well, what are you going to do? We don't want it to be a top two Republican situation, but that's not going to happen anymore. That was never going to happen. And that's part of what resulted in this. People are just like, oh, I can't throw away my vote for Katie. I had somebody tell me that in San Diego yesterday, a friend of mine. And then I'd somebody tell me that about Mayhem today or yesterday in L.A. And I'm like, it's not over. The race isn't over. No, this spectrum of two Republicans, Steve Hilton and Sheriff Chad Bianco, who's the handcuff candidate, breaking through, became a thing. And the psychology and the Democrat electorate

of the half that really pay attention at most was, oh, my God, oh my God, whoever's in front in the polls we have to vote for. So hapless Xavier Becerra kind of dumb-to-dum-to-dom, you know, stumbled in with no money, no message, weak resume. But, you know, he had been known. He'd been Attorney General and, you know, he had some name ID. And they said, we better vote for him to stop Republicans. It's stupid herd behavior, but it happened. All right. It's frustrating. Do better Democrats in California. Yeah. It's like, you know, be a model for the country. Yeah. Yeah. Last thing, you let you put on your kind of monorail, get your cane out, do the monorail thing about EVs, which I like to let you do on the show, particularly after the China Summit. And we talked about this a little bit, I don't know, one of the recent times you're on.

And this relates to the California incompetence, honestly. The degree to which we're getting our ass beat by China in this space is hard. Trump is the Henry Ford of the Chinese auto industry. They should build a monument to him over there. I mean, he's declared war on the American one with the stupid tariffs. Here's the bottom line on the V's. Don't think about environment or any of that. One is a better car.

Take one for a weekend from your dealer. Your thank me. And you're saved two, well, now probably $2,800 a year on gas. But the real deal is that Chinese have decided to eat the world car industry to deindustrialize the competition. They have the capacity to make 50 million cars a year. We would stretch to make 12. And so you say union in a Chinese auto plant, you're going to be making license plates, and you're making $10 an hour.

So they export cheap, good. We taught them how, and the Germans did, cars. And they go conquest foreign markets because they have more capacity than they can use. Nobody in the Chinese auto industry makes any money. The government just props everything up. And like a thing, they're invading everywhere. So if you're curious if a Chinese car is any good, go to your link. dealer and look at a nod list. That is made in China. They sold 75,000 of them the last two years.

And Ford would rather not do that, but tariffs and everything and having to have, you know, hedge the future is kind of forced them to. Most Buicks now are made in Korea. So the problem is EVs are the better product. They're going to win in the end. We are still competitive, as are the Europeans, but the Chinese of all their subsidies and their scale are eating the world. And the way to compete is to subsidize American manufacturing, not just Detroit guys, but also the Germans and the Koreans who make great EVVs in Georgia to let them export and let them compete. If the Chinese are going to try to buy the market, we got to defend our guys for a few

years of subsidies. And Trump has tried to kill every single thing to help American auto manufacturing compete. every one of them. He ought to have an eye heart, D-Y-D, and gilly tattoo on his forehead. And now we don't know what he agreed to. You know, there's rumors he gave Taiwan away for a soybean deal, which I think he's capable of, and talking about the Chinese, well, why don't you build one assembly plan here and I'll open the floodgates. And there are national security implications and everything. So go to eVs for All-America.org, learn all about it. It's so funny. It's like literally the cliche. Like he's selling us out for

a bunch of beans, like literally beans. Yeah, no, no, very cheap. Yeah, yeah, it's really something. I was not going to Frum about this. It is the tariffs. It is, you know, the China policy. But also the way in which he's turning off our allies is also helping China take the world.

And he was talking about just the Canada example. Canada, because, you know, they want to have a good trading relationship with us, was not importing Chinese EVs, like up until recently. And, you know, Trump talks and talks about making him the 50 first state. and invading them and punishing them and making their economy worse. And they're just like, well, screw it. Like, fine, we'll do a deal with China. Let that B-Y-D cars come in.

The people in Ottawa will like those better than the cars that they're getting anyway. And teach the Chinese how to sell in the North American market. Let's open a little university called Canada, 50,000 cars. I mean, here's my favorite terrorist toy. Subaru, one of the smaller manufacturers, but they make a good car, has a big plant in Lafayette, Indiana. and they were sending, I don't remember the number, maybe 25,000 cars a year from the U.S. to Canada.

If you buy a Subaru in Canada, most of them were made in Lafayette, Indiana. The tariffs came down, wham, that's gone. Now it's cheaper for Subaru to ship them from Japan to Canada because it trumps trade war with Canada. So if you're on the line in Lafayette, Indiana, why are we cutting shifts back? Well, the Orange Menace is trying to inject anthrax in the U.S. auto manufacturer,

Shan is working pretty well. So, yeah, this is a huge thing. I'm happy that the Democrats are going to move Michigan up, it looks like, into the big four presidential states, because that may put a little visibility on this, because the two biggest states for EV Camp X are Georgia, number one, Michigan, number two. And South Carolina is a big manufacturing state for automotive.

So we're going to have early states. So out with ethanol, in with EVs. Sorry, ethanol mandated. is an American auto manufacturing. It's been fun while it lasted, corn farmers. Don't test drive an EV. You will get hooked unless you're tolling a horse trailer, then wait for an e-revenue or two.

All right. That's Mike Murphy, man. I always appreciate the time. Thanks, pal. Good to see you every time. All right. Everybody else will be back here Monday with Bill Crystal. See you all then.

Here in my car, I go sing this of all. I can lock on my dogs. It's the only way to live in cars.

The Borgue, I can only receive, I can listen to you. He keeps me grateful for guys and cars. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzzie Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz.