Chapter 1: What triggered Senate Republicans' opposition to Trump?
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show veteran political strategist. His campaigns include McCain, Romney, Schwarzenegger, and Jeb. 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 Jon Favreau's, you're Jane Koston's, you're Van Lathan's, you're Brian Tyler Cohen's.
It's like a swarm here in LA. 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 had like deep cuts, questions about Mitt Romney, who did Dick Cheney shoot, you know, all that kind of material. And you would have dominated. It was an embarrassing performance by them last night.
We need to start up a school to properly educate the young'uns here.
We do. We do. All right. We've got much to get to. Part of the reason we wanted to have you here in California, there's a lot of California politics, so we'll get to that. Sure. But first, 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.
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Chapter 2: How are Democrats strategizing around the DHS shutdown?
You know, like you're a one-year-old means you're, 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, um, sort of swirling number of incentives that are starting to move away from him, in addition to his own behavior and the cafeteria vibes, and in addition to the filing deadlines passing, is the approval rating. 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%. 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 base is with him too much.
All of a sudden, you know, if you look at him at 34, you look at Massey only getting 55 against him. You start to think it goes from like, oh, I'm running against, you know, Bashar Assad to I can maybe get some distance from this and not worry 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 reelection here. And next week, Trump's going to be down at the Omnidone, you know, doing a cage fighting tractor pole thing dedicated to 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. Yeah. Maybe go hit a suburban PTA unannounced and show up and care.
Kind of like how Trump said about his own son's wedding yesterday at a press conference. He's asked if he's going to be attending Don Jr. 's second wedding. He's like, ooh, you know, we got this thing in Iran going on, and I don't know. I haven't pressed my suit.
The thought bubble was won't last, not worth it. Yeah, so 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, Whit Air is a great pollster. 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?
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Chapter 3: What implications does Trump's stock trading have on politics?
So I'd love to see the trades in terms of how they work out. My guess is 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 you've set a new low ethical standard, and we're going to have more people imitating him 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, some of them, it is kind of funny. One of the ones I laughed about 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 investing in Intel before announcing the Intel PL, et cetera, et cetera.
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 him and everything. I mean, it is Al Capone would say, oh, too gross. Come on, pull it back a little. This is embarrassing.
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Chapter 4: How are Senate races shaping up in the current political climate?
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 anybody has worked on a big project with multiple people, 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 writing comments. And they just kind of released the document like that. They hadn't even written a conclusion yet. But Ken Martin had been so bullied by...
people into like what really happened with this thing and he lied about what happened and then waffled and then tried to say well we shouldn't put 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 like either a seventh grader who had never worked on a campaign or an 86 year old whose last campaign was you know the 88 dukakis 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.
But, you know, 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 is 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, not an idiot. And that decent state chairman hope, you're lucky if a third of the time it comes true. Right. Often it's like the model railroad club. It just happens to be politics.
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Chapter 5: What are the key issues facing California politics today?
It's like, Mallory McMorrow is kind of the bench candidate. Abdul El-Sayed is a little bit more of the Platner-style candidate. And then Haley Stevens is the establishment candidate. And it's like the establishment candidates are the ones that are still kind of doing the identity politics stuff.
You're seeing a little bit of a change, I guess, from internally where it's like a group of lefties that want to win very badly. Yeah. And then there's kind of some fighting mods that 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? It wasn't happening at the Harris campaign.
Well, there'll be the last to know, particularly the DTRIP, because they reflect a Democratic caucus that 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 a...
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 there are great people there.
But I'd always want to find a sharp kid out of a state capitol 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 where see who actually wins.
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. We'll see what happens. And Duggan got out, which I'm sad about, too. I liked him.
Yeah, the dependent running for governor. 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 bilat with China, where there are like 24 white dudes around to say,
I guess unless you're counting Marco, you know, it's like, it's like, well, we got our gay here with Besson down at the end.
What I liked is none of the Americans were pros in Asia who could speak Chinese. You know, used to be had a plane load full of them. I think Trump had three guys locked in the basement. Nobody ever got to talk to him.
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Chapter 6: How is the Democratic National Committee responding to internal challenges?
They know the rabbit's going to come out of the bag of groceries.
Any stretches, Iowa or Florida? It's kind of a weird Florida poll.
I think Florida could come to life. I really do. I really do. So don't count that one out. Iowa's trickier, but in the hunt now, which is saying something. Of course, they got the superstar governor stuff going on.
Nebraska, too. The independent Nebraska Osborne.
That race looks 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. Iowa's an easier state, but the Kansas candidates are better. There's the young guy you're talking about, then there's the pastor.
who's like a religious... Yeah, the pastor's interesting, but he's a pro-life Republican in a Democratic primary.
But maybe that works in Kansas.
So, 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 guy's Navy, moderate Tory Dem, and he's got a poll showing it like a two-point race with Marshall, who kind of is like Sullivan, but kookier. But dumber, yeah. So if the Dems can, you know...
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Chapter 7: What are the prospects for EV manufacturing in America versus China?
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 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 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, uh, candidate, no, 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, you know, drive quarter mile, any direction is kind of the novelty candidate. Although, uh, Right now, he and Rahman are in a tight two-way race around 20 each to try to make the runoff against Bass, who's 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 Ranked Choice, get rid of the low turnout primary there. and widen the voter pool for all parties and let second and third choice mean something. So frankly, the more right of 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 Swalwell, because he lives on MSNBC, had some name ID. And this is a big state. TV will cost you $4 to $5 million a week. So getting famous is very expensive here if you're not already famous. Like Arnold, my old client.
We came in as somebody people would listen to because they knew who he was. And Swalwell imploded, which everybody knew was coming. And then Becerra was kind of the generic candidate. 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, pour money in. And then he had Steyer, who's going to spend 200 million bucks or probably more. It was like trying to put a cinder block into orbit. You know, 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.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be drawn from the political dynamics discussed in this episode?
Yeah. It's really something. I was talking 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 Canada, because they want to have a good trading relationship with us, was not importing Chinese EVs up until recently.
And Trump talks about making them the 51st state and invading them and punishing them and making their economy worse. And they're just like, well, screw it. Fine, we'll do a deal with China. Let the BYD cars come in. The people in Ottawa will like those better than the cars that they're getting anyway.
Right. 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 tariff story. 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 US to Canada.
If you buy a Subaru in Canada, most of them are 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 of Trump's 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 into U.S.
auto manufacturing, and it's 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 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 mandate. In with EVs and 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 towing a horse trailer. Then wait for an e-rev in a year or two.
All right. That's Mike Murphy, man. I always appreciate the time. Thanks so much for doing this.
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