Labor Day Special: Hacks On Tap

16:44Rahm Emanuel:L being our subway system.

16:45David Axelrod:There was a guy who got off the train on one of the stops before I got off, and he said something to the guy on the way out. And the guy flew out of his seat and dragged the guy back in the train, and it starts wailing on him, and the guy starts wailing back. Everybody on that train was discomforted by what they saw. And that kind of stuff is real. Is real. We should. But let's also be real about what it takes to to deal with it. And the fact that we haven't mentioned yet, like some of the worst cities in the country relative to crime are in red states. And no one is saying, let's send the National Guard there.

17:29Right. In fact, the opposite, David. In fact, what's happening in Washington is that those red states are sending their National Guard to the Capitol to be part of Trump's force. I just before we talk, I want to actually I want to ask you guys about the politics of this. relative to Newsom, Pritzker, and now Wes Moore, who's now kind of emerging on this front. But before we do that, just going back to the very first clip that we played, which is Trump saying some people might want a dictator. He goes on to say in that clip, well, I'm not a dictator. I don't think I'm a big dictator. I think I'm a guy with common sense.

18:02I think I would like to hear both of you answer the question of what you think this is all really about, because I think all these discussions about what crime policies would be best in these cities and states are totally beside the point of what they are you know you're right you're right so the question is it goes to to to dictator and again without being hyperbolic about it in the capital now has 2 000 armed federal agents on the street in the capital of washington dc carrying carrying rifles and other arms okay they're being brought in from state from red states around the country. I am, if you saw this in another country, you know exactly what you were, at the same time, he's firing a lot of people who lead federal law enforcement and deprofessionalizing federal law enforcement.

18:52So what is this really about?

18:54David Axelrod:He also signed a executive order yesterday, directing the secretary of defense to develop a standing sort of SWAT team of national guardsmen to deal with what he called civil disorder in the country. Look, you have to be sort of willfully ignorant to look at that and not say that these are elements of fascism. These are elements of autocracy. And, you know, you slide into these things. You don't just arrive there. And, Ram, we've gone. I've said this to you. We talk from time to time. I've said this. I said we have gone from zero to Hungary faster than I ever imagined. Faster than Hungary went to Hungary.

19:42David Axelrod:Yes, exactly. Can I make two points, though? One, we're talking about, obviously, the National Guard on the heels of what just happened in Texas and redistricting.

19:54Rahm Emanuel:The common theme between both of those events is division in America. Pitting one American against another. Rather than figure out how to solve our problems, we'll have a debate about them. You say that I actually think you're wrong on this, John, if I can. I actually think American people are hungry for a debate about how do you actually solve public safety. Put that aside. I don't disagree with you about that, Rob. I think they're hungry for that debate. Straw man, straw man alert. Okay, common theme is division and divisiveness, just like what he's doing on the Federal Reserve. Number two, I actually think there's a thread here.

20:32Rahm Emanuel:His big military parade for his birthday was a bust. And he wants, he's going back to that first term when he saw Bastille Day in France, etc. He loves kind of the imagery and the performative of the military. It is in service of what David said. And I think this National Guard, again, is not serving one thing. It's both the divisiveness of America keeps us distracted from dealing with real issues. And then second, it allows him to have the performative around kind of the military and him as the kind of the groom on the wedding cake of that military embellishment. Yeah, I think all of that is true.

21:17David Axelrod:But when you put it together with everything else, when you put it together with everything else, when you put it together with FBI agents showing up at John Bolton's house, when you put it together with him, you know, as you point out, sort of completely fire, you know, firing career military people, firing professional law enforcement people and substituting political hacks for them. When you see what happened at the Federal Reserve, where Trump had, you know, a hack who he appointed to a key position in the Federal Housing Administration, rifling through the files of his political enemies and making allegations that then get shipped to his Justice Department that is completely politicized now.

22:12David Axelrod:and at his, he said yesterday, I'm the chief law enforcement officer of the country. He's telling the Justice Department what to do. These are not benign ceremonial things. I agree. Right.

22:23Rahm Emanuel:I'm about to disagree. And just to go back, Rob, I'll say, David said strongman alert. I think the country is hungry for a debate on crime. I don't think that they're, that's what Trump is giving them. That's all I was saying. Okay.

22:37David Axelrod:No, what he's setting up is a faux debate on crime. I said, no, in fact, they do want a debate. They do want to debate. They do want to debate. A real debate.

22:44Rahm Emanuel:They know we're not focused on, we got real challenges, real problems, and we're doing everything but dealing with them.

22:52David Axelrod:Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back.

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27:13David, let me, let me come back to, let me add just three things to your list very quickly. redistricting um the the trump's drive to to to to to to get to get extra seats added on the basis of nothing other than his political desire to keep control of house representatives his now his his increasingly loud campaign against mail-in ballots and the other day him coming out and saying that 2020 census is invalid right those are also things that add up to stop the stop the steal stop the steal 2026 with all of this armed militarized stuff going on in the cities it's very

27:54David Axelrod:very dark we've said it a million times here he does not believe in rules and laws and norms and institutions he thinks there's for suckers the strong take what they want however they can get it and he will do anything that he can do to try and keep the house of representatives from becoming a Democratic House because then he'll have a source of accountability and a source of oversight. And he knows what happened the last time. And he's worried about all of that. But just the basic oversight and accountability that the Republican Congress has surrendered, he will do anything to stop that from happening.

28:34David Axelrod:But, you know, a lot of this you can't do. A lot of things he's talking john about doing by executive order but what he is doing is sending a signal uh to all of these republican governors about what he wants done i'll be interested to see ram how they handle you know mail-in voting how they handle uh how they handle voting machines

28:59Rahm Emanuel:i mean look i i said this is a prominent businessman i said i don't understand you guys I don't understand the Republicans in the House of Senate. I don't understand the Republican governors. Literally, we got screamed at and yelled at for them being called socialists to, God forbid, to give people health care security. And you have a guy dealing with the independents of the Federal Reserve, calling the National Guards into cities that you don't have the authority to, talking about whether it's the census or other type of areas in the mail-in voting. everything literally that direct and uh as you said kind of like a mosaic come together and he said it out loud i'm not a dictator which is what he wants you to think he is because but the fact is i i am shocked at the silence and complicitness of a bunch of uh voices in not only the business community the party who literally make the three monkeys look like an active group i mean they see no evil hear no evil speak you you left out what what what is a more

30:11David Axelrod:most recent and a a egregious thing that you would think would have them howling and that is the uh that that you know he basically coerced intel into giving the government 10 percent partial when we when we ram you remember when we stepped in when we were working for obama he stepped in And in order to save the American auto industry and to save Chrysler and GM, he took a temporary stake in those companies. And made money, made a profit. He's taking a, he's partially nationalizing the American microprocessor industry and telling Coca-Cola what kind of sugar to put in his formula.

30:53Rahm Emanuel:It's nuts. They had pictures of Obama with Hitler's mustache and being called also on the other side of the political side of socialists for health care for Americans. This guy's it's I've never seen anything. And they're all silent.

31:08David Axelrod:Here's what Mitch McConnell said. I don't have the I could find the audio, but this is what he said about the auto bailout. A government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take everything we have. And the Republicans were at one in branding it as socialism. They stopped branding it that way when those companies were saved and started flourishing and we got out of it. But but because it was a very successful intervention. But this now Trump's talking about taking over pieces of defense industry. Right. I mean, this is really profound. And you don't hear crickets.

31:46Rahm Emanuel:That's my point is like literally all these voices that whether it was also on the housing stuff we did or the stabilization or, as you said, the auto industry, people were screaming about socialism, etc. From Nippon Steel to taking a fee for NVIDIA to give China leverage over the United States to taking 10 % of Intel. These are this is mimicking Xi sitting there smiling, saying, I never knew I had a compatriot in this economic model that I built up here in China. And we've replaced at least I believe in Adam Smith's invisible hand. Who knew we were going to replace it with Donald Trump's judgment?

32:29it.

32:30David Axelrod:No, we're replacing it with we're replacing with Donald Trump's visible hand right in their pockets. His visible, very swollen, puffy hand. We'll get to that. We'll get to that later. Yes. Can we I want to come back to the politics here because we are one of let's be hackish here. OK, because we haven't done that yet. J.B. Pritzker yesterday said to the press, you guys don't cover this as a horse race thing. Don't talk about who's up, who's down. Don't talk about politics. Just focus on the substance of this. And I say thank you for your for your concerns, Governor Pritzker, but we're going to focus on the politics right now.

33:00Especially here.

33:01David Axelrod:Right. Exactly. So I mentioned Wes Moore before. Right. So, so far, we've seen Gavin Newsom move from the, hey, let's have Steve Bennett on my podcast mode to, you know, trolling Trump on Twitter, being full on in the fight, fight, fight, you know, fire with fire camp. J.B. has been in that camp all along when he was, I think, the earliest major player in the party to compare the Trump second term administration to the Nazis back in like February in New Hampshire. Now, as Trump considers going into Maryland, into Baltimore, we have another 2028 contender, Wes Moore, who's had a slightly different approach to this.

33:46We have a little sound. Let's play that. As someone who actually deployed overseas and served my country in combat, to ask these men and women to do a job that they're not trained for is just deeply disrespectful. So that was part of what he said. The other thing he did was he invited Trump to do a ride along with them to sort of say, hey, you think there's bad crime in Baltimore? Things are better here than you think that you are, President Trump. Why don't you go up here and take a safety tour with me? uh i wonder rom what you think about that as a tactic and what you think about how all of this the ways in which the governors in particular are being put in a position to respond to trump and how that plays newsom i said i said i said gavin at the very top i said he's you know after los angeles then he's now in the redistricting thing full full in there's a question about whether that thing fails that ballot initiative fails in november whether that capsizes them but What do you think about all that?

34:40Rahm Emanuel:I think for each of them, given as an observation and also discuss this, my my view is rather than say we don't have a crime problem. Say come and partner with us in building on the momentum we have and Baltimore. But that's the tactically, I think. Just put your hack hat on. I am. I think Governor Westmore went to his each of them are going to their strengths and what they think. And so my hack hat says that each of them are in their lane and where their comfort zone is. I happen to think Wes Moore operated where he has the strongest suit that nobody else would go. I think confronting, as Governor Newsom has done on the redistricting Texas, works to his kind of advantage.

35:25Rahm Emanuel:So I think each is playing to their A game and correctly playing to their A game, which builds their kind of profile.

35:32David Axelrod:So I have been critical of Pritzker. Not critical. I've suggested I thought it was a bad idea for him to run for a third term in 2026 because, you know, you have to deal with all the burdens of the governorship. He'd be free to travel the country. He has lots of money to do it. But this underscores something. The reason that this plays well with large segments of Democratic voters, I suspect, is because right now they feel helpless and they look at their leaders and they think they're feckless and unable to do anything. And these guys have each been handed an opportunity. I mean, Newsom is doing something.

36:16David Axelrod:You know, Pritzker is confronting him directly. And, you know, Westmore suggesting the same. And so it does give you a chance to play off Trump. And that in a way that the people in Congress can't because they have no control.

36:36Rahm Emanuel:As much as I think this is an attempt to, A, what's going on is an attempt to try to really get the good through custom on immigration. It allows Trump to avoid dealing with the inflation out of control, economic anxiety. All these governors also have bad choices in their own budget. And so fighting Trump also allows them to kind of push some of the other issues into the background for themselves. So it also, you know, here in Illinois, we have a big transportation budget shortfall. It allows that kind of recede as part of the news and this become more dominant. So there's also an added benefit for, you know, they have all three bad choices in their budgets and other things that they have to confront.

37:16Rahm Emanuel:Those go kind of and recede to the background. This becomes part of the foreground.

37:20David Axelrod:It raises the question about, you know, we we jumped ahead here, but why the business community is quiet, why the Republicans are quiet? And the answer is fear. The answer is fear. And that's where the Bolton raid. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen with John Bolton. This was looked at once. They stopped, you know, and but listen to what Trump said about the Bolton raid. Are more raids like the ones on John Bolton's house coming? More raids? I don't know. You have to ask the Department of Justice. They raided my house.

38:05Kara Swisher:I can tell you that they did a big raid on my house. They took away everything that wasn't pinned down and they took away some of that, too.

38:14David Axelrod:Now, they raided Mar-a-Lago. They started that. These were bad people that we had in our government. They raided Mar-a-Lago.

38:22Kara Swisher:They went into my wife's area. They went into my son's area, my young son. And what they did was a disgrace.

38:30David Axelrod:I love it when he says, well, that's up to the Department of Justice. And in like in the same period of time he's talking about, I'm the chief law enforcement officer. So he thinks the Department of Justice is running errands for him. You know, the other guy he targeted and just and then I'll turn it over to you guys. But it was Chris Christie, who you, Ram, are very friendly with. I'm friendly with him as well. You were on ABC with him for a period of time before you went off to serve in Japan. Or was it after? It was before. It was before. Now he's, now Trump, now they're, well, listen to what Trump has to say about Chris Christie and Bridgegate.

39:16David Axelrod:Remember Bridgegate.

39:17Kara Swisher:Do you plan to investigate Chris Christie?

39:20David Axelrod:Say what?

39:20Kara Swisher:Do you plan to investigate Chris Christie?

39:24David Axelrod:Look, Chris is a slob. Everybody knows it. I know Chris better than anybody in the room. I always felt he was guilty. But what he did is he took the George Washington Bridge, which is very serious. He closed down the George Washington Bridge. And you had medical people, you had ambulances caught up. This thing was closed down. And obviously he knew about it. But he blamed the young lady that worked for him and another person. And they got into a lot of trouble. She ultimately was, I don't know, exonerated, but she got out of it a little bit. But she went through hell. she was a young mother nice person i knew her a little bit and another man went to jail and chris

40:03Kara Swisher:got off and so when i listened to chris speak his hate i say oh what about the george washington bridge you know tell me about the george washington bridge basically uh there was an

40:16David Axelrod:intimation that he's going to reopen that case and the fundamental john bolton was with you a week ago criticizing him on the on the putin stuff the message is clear the message is clear we're going to use the justice department in any hand yeah all the tools yeah i do want to i don't know

40:38Rahm Emanuel:i'm about to say something i'm not sure about but you had john bolton write a book had to get through clarence there's a whole security apparatus etc that's years ago them going into his house and his office i not you know even paranoid people have enemies something tells me they've been tracking him in some way because this there's actually i mean not that the other stuff isn't nerve-wracking and nervous about the federal reserve person or you know the national guard in chicago but how they decide they went to a judge with information to get the capacity to do what they just did. It means that they were tracking something.

41:24Rahm Emanuel:And I say this because the ability to write a book that has national security implications has to go through a level. You're not just dealing with an editor. They are over that, all the supportive material, what did you have, et cetera. So that was cleared. So how they got to this, one day I want to find the answer. Rob, I believe John Ratcliffe has said that the I believe it's public that the that not in detail, but that the CIA provided some intelligence to the Justice Department. I know I'm I'm I'm reinforcing your point with a little with a little bit of detail, which is a very troubling, ominous, scary.

42:04Rahm Emanuel:This is it's not just what they say on CNN and being critical. It's the other app before they what they how they gather the material to go to the judge tells you that this gives Nixon's enemy list a kind of a vanilla or a whitewash painting. This is an incredible breach of not just norms, but American legal system. David, just given that that's the case, what Rahm said is correct, let me just again return to the hack point that we departed from for a second. Because, of course, these things all, again, fit into the mosaic. Both of your former colleague, Dan Pfeiffer, said to me the other day that he thinks that the key division or dividing line in the party heading into 2026 and 2028 is Democrats who understand the existential threat and are then willing to do things at scale to combating the existential threat that Trump and MAGA pose to American democracy.

43:03And those who are in denial about it, who are kind of basically, maybe they pay lip service to it, but essentially they are still operating as if we were in ordinary times. Under regular order, do you think that's true is my question to both of you.

43:17David Axelrod:I think that there has to be a real awareness of the stakes. But an awareness of the stakes means, yes, fighting off these incursions in the courts and wherever you can. But ultimately, it means winning elections. You can't ultimately stop this without winning. And to win, you still need to be able to focus on those things that are going to move the people you need to move to win. And so, you know, this is I don't I think that this is a deadly serious situation. I think Trump is is a runaway freight train. But no, I I think that it's still true that people are living their lives. Yes. And his failure on the fundamentals of their the things that they had hoped he would do, particularly as it relates to the economy.

44:18David Axelrod:is still probably more influential with people than some of this. I agree with David on this one point.

44:25Rahm Emanuel:I would say, and I think the point is, what is going to matter going forward is whether you think the cost of ground beef being the most expensive I've ever been or the state of democracy. And I happen to think if you want to win elections and you want to talk to where people live their lives, it's what's affecting their lives. I'm not saying that democracy is not important. I'm just saying you have to win elections and the cost of living and the cost of housing is a more salient issue. I want to be clear about what I don't think Dan was saying. These people are going to foreground the democracy argument.

45:00I'll give you a tangible example of this. Is Newsom, right, a mid-decade gerrymander that's going to be a ballot initiative, a single ballot initiative on the ballot in November when nothing else is on the ballot, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars are going to get spent on it, is an extraordinary measure. That's like something Democrats normally wouldn't do. They have, you know, they're the California. California has had has had two separate votes on nonpartisan redistricting commissions. My question is, that's that's a thing where it doesn't it's not democracy on the ballot. Of course.

45:30Well, I don't hear.

45:31David Axelrod:I mean, I think it's bullshit to say it's bullshit for anyone to say, well, you know, we really it's it's out of order and we shouldn't do that. I think what Newsom is doing is the right thing to do. Right. And so I don't think that should even be up for debate. You know, there are people who are living in a different decade in a different country. And, you know, obviously, if you play by one set of rules and Trump plays by another, that gives him an enormous advantage. Totally. So, I mean, I agree. If that's the point Dan was making, I totally agree with him. The point is that Newsom is willing to do something that is taking an extraordinary risk.

46:16And this is, again, part of my question to both of you is, do you think that that risk is basically whether he's a viable candidate in 2028 for president or not? Because a loss on this thing would be a pretty big deal. He's put a lot of chips on the table here pretty early, at least in my view. So do you guys think that if he loses in November, he's toast? No.

46:39Rahm Emanuel:For 28? No. Why not? I don't think people are going to vote in a primary based on whether he got redistricting done or not. We live in need and breathe this. That's not where the American people are.

46:49David Axelrod:And I think, Ram, I think that the effort, I mean, I think there's a price in failure. I think the effort is worth something for him in terms of the platform that he's got. Well, what do you think, John? You're an Angeleno. I think that the amount of focus on this in the fall is going to be huge. And he has he is not it's not like a redistricting effort. This is like he's made this into a national issue. And as I said, it's going to be it's going to be an incredibly hard fought, expensive race. I think it would be a big blow. I don't know if it would kill him, David. I don't know if it'll kill his 2828 prospects, but it will be a major hole in the hull of the ship of 2028.

47:36Rahm Emanuel:John. Yeah. Imagine if he didn't do it. That would be the blow. So to me, look, I think he's doing exactly the right thing. I think Democrats should deal stuff with rank voting because I think it's going to— redistricting is going to get us basically at best to a status quo. We've got to keep pushing this because they're going to do stuff in 2028. They're going to do stuff in 2030. We have to be ready. that said it's not whether this on its own is good or bad if it did nothing he'd get killed so these are the choices you have to make in politics

48:11David Axelrod:we still haven't heard from Indiana, from Missouri, from Florida

48:18Rahm Emanuel:the National Guard

48:19David Axelrod:we need to take a quick break right now but we'll be right back with more of Hacks on Tap

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50:55We have Florida. There's a bunch of states. Florida is definitely going to do redistricting. There's Indiana. There's some other Republican states. There's been discussion of Michigan, Maryland, Illinois, where it'd be hard to gerrymandering. Well, that's not going to happen. So what do you guys think? How do you think it nets out in the end when all the gerrymandering wars are done by the end of this year? Where do we net out? Do you ever have a sense of that, Rom, former DCCC major domo?

51:19Rahm Emanuel:i will i've talked to uh i've talked to a number of leaders in the house in the last 48 hours and i said the pro you got a short term and long term short term at best if we take the state so we could do redistricting there's something interesting in utah that just came from yeah

51:39David Axelrod:right okay but right that could be a seat pickup right but the fact is the supreme court is a

51:46Rahm Emanuel:horrible place on American politics. And John Roberts will go down infamy for what he's done to our political system. That said, you have to start preparing for 2026, 2028 and 2030 and et cetera, because they are going to keep doing stuff. And to me, at best on redistricting, we get to kind of even or minus three from a kind of, but I think this is going to be a big national election. that's going to be the verdict on Donald Trump and the Republicans. That said, the best way to deal with opening up more seats and making more competitive, get rid of primaries and go towards rank voting. That gives you a lot of other seats because when I was DCCC chair now a little over 20 years ago, around 20 years ago, we had like 40 plus seats.

52:34Rahm Emanuel:You're down to less than 20 from a competitive standpoint. We have to change this map and stop playing on their field and make them play on our field. that's what I would do.

52:44David Axelrod:Just here's a shorter answer. I think that if they do all those states that they probably have, they'll pick, they'll make gains and Democrats are going to have to win more seats than certainly the three that it looked like they'd have to win at the beginning of this process. And I'm not sure. The one thing I'm not sure about you guys is just how, whether the Republican gerrymanders will net all the seats that they think. And I think I talked about this last week when we had brownstein on like these hispanic voters in south texas yes are very sensitive to the economic issues that's a lot of what led them there were some cultural things but that and the border and so there but the border was the issue and now hispanics generally are being targeted by by you know so uh i i think that it's not going to be the slam dunk that they thought it was going to be.

53:40So for whatever it's worth, Dave Wasserman did a Q &A with Puck where he says he thinks that if California succeeds, and if Newsom succeeds, Republicans probably net five or six. And if California fails, Republicans net 10 or 12. And he still thinks that it's possible Democrats win the House because of the overall national trends. But that's the kind of range that Dave Wasserman's laying out. Yes, yeah.

54:02Rahm Emanuel:Well, I agree with him. If you look at midterms when one party controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. You have to have an energized opposition that is existing. We can see it in all the specials and in the primaries. You have to have independence break two to one for the opposition. You're seeing that happening in the specials and you have to have a depressed turnout among Republicans. And you can see in the polling, Republicans are not engaged like the level of Democrats. So this has the makings 18 months out of a wave election. And I believe in a wave election, even if they're trying to rig the jury, it will overwhelm the wall that they're building up.

54:38Rahm Emanuel:It will not handle the tsunami that's about to come. And it has the potential to be a tsunami.

54:44David Axelrod:Before we go to the mailbag, John, you had one thing you wanted to talk about with Rahm. I do. I don't want Rahm to leave without getting a chance to talk about Donald Trump's, well, the state of Donald Trump's apparent physical decline. And if you say that this is a partisan comment, I'm not being partisan at all. It's like we've noticed the hands, We've noticed the feet and so with Alex Jones. Alex Jones, not a liberal last time I checked. Here's Alex Jones had to say about Trump's impending health collapse. I've seen a lot of signs of Trump declining.

55:15Kara Swisher:The fear that he's getting sick, that who knows what's going on? His ankles are giant. That usually means serious heart decline. I mean,

55:25David Axelrod:liver failure too but his eyes aren't yellow so he's saying i don't know if i'm doing a good job i don't know if i'm gonna get into heaven i hear i'm not doing a good job this is the president of the united states calling into fox news in the morning saying this the inner monologue tells a

55:46Rahm Emanuel:lot dr jones weighs in i would not say that he's come that alex has he has the medical capacity be on the Obama exchange that said, or be my cardiologist. But the fact, the most revealing thing isn't the hands or the ankles and they can't tie the shoes. That comment about, I'm, I'm, you know, I want to go to heaven and I'm, I don't think I'm a good, I'm good standing to get there. If I were Donald Trump, not that he's going to listen to my political advice. I'd be worried about Dante's Inferno at this point. I think it's a very revealing point, um, kind of introspective, and he's not known for being introspective, where his mind is about his own mortality and his place.

56:26Rahm Emanuel:It's also part of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize, etc. But this thing that I want to go to heaven, I think really was the one time you've seen a mirror. I wouldn't say self-awareness, but a reflection into his psyche and his mindset. And it's not healthy, both physically and psychologically.

56:43David Axelrod:Alex Jones raised it. You raised it. and i don't want in any way for people to say oh this is what they're they're fomenting these but uh you look at the guy just doesn't look well and he's and he's you know people think he's somehow immune to the same laws of nature that govern joe biden uh he he's a he's an almost 80 year old guy and this is the hardest job on the planet and you know the at the the way he does it you know, work by day post on Truth Social all night. You can, the pressures of it are, and no one who has never worked there can't fully appreciate what it is. So, Ram, you know, yeah, I mean, I think it's a non-trivial question.

57:37Rahm Emanuel:I used to refer to, we all seen presidents from the first photo to the last photo in the walkout. It ages you. Every year in the White House is a dog year. It's like seven years. He's an old man to start with who doesn't take care of himself. And you're seeing the the physical manifestations of that age and wear and tear. I think we've now seen the psychological manifestation of that physical state of being. I genuinely hate it when we hear I know we all hear this occasionally over the last 10 years, you've heard liberals say, God, I hope Trump dies. And I hate it when I hear people say that. I hate it.

58:16I hate it. But it is the case that if you live a life where you don't exercise, you don't eat green vegetables, and you eat Burger King and Big Macs for 70 years, it's going to take a toll at some point. And I think that might be.

58:29Rahm Emanuel:I think he's passed the Mediterranean diet. Yes. And it's not going to get any impact. Okay.

58:33David Axelrod:I must say I do envy the ability to eat Big Macs every day. I gave them up decades ago. And you're a better man for it. Well, I'm a lesser man for it. Yes, I'm a lesser man for it. Before you go, Ram, we want to give you a question from the mailbag.

58:50Kara Swisher:It's Listener Mailbag.

58:55David Axelrod:So if you have questions for the hacks, you could send them to hacksontap at gmail.com, or you can, and we prefer this, call them in yourself so we can hear your voices at this number. 773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. Hey, David, I think it looks like Rom has to run, so he's going to have to skip the mailbag. You offended him. He's running. I can't believe it. What a mess. But see you, Rom. Okay, guys. See you. See you later, Rom. Bye-bye, man. So, David, we got two voicemails. You know, I like the voicemails. Yeah, man. We take the incoming however it comes, And if you don't want to call, that's fine.

59:39But you're going to have a better chance of getting into the show if you call so we can hear your voice. And we have perfectly, given that there's two of us, Rahm, having decamped, we have two voicemails this week. Let's play the first one for you from our friend Ryan.

59:52David Axelrod:Hi, guys. My name is Ryan from St. Louis. I've had a theory for a while that Democrats put too much thought into the electorate having common sense and not fighting back on the crazy stuff early enough. I was wondering about your thoughts on that. Thank you. Bye. Yeah, Ryan, this is akin to the discussion we were just having. First of all, thanks for calling in and thanks for listening. And hey to everybody in St. Louis. I think that what Democrats need to do is stay close to people. and um as ram was saying uh yes i think there's all kinds of what you call crazy i call dangerous stuff going on and you have to fight those fights but ultimately you know people also are living their lives and they're struggling with higher costs and they're struggling with a slowing economy and job situation and uh fundamentally uh they need to know someone's fighting on their side in the midst of all of this.

1:01:04David Axelrod:And so I would not, you know, I still think that needs to be a major focus of what Democrats are doing, even as they push back on these sort of autocratic incursions of Trump, because we've got to, we've got to, you know, you want to save American democracy, but you also want to save the American family that is suffering in this economy and give them a sense of confidence that you have a vision to make this country work better for them. So I think you have to do two things at once. I couldn't agree more, David. The only challenge is, you know, crazy, you know, Trump says that I think one of the things that that that our friend could be that Ryan could be thinking about here is, you know, things like Trump, you know, talking about the crazy stuff includes things like, you know, changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

1:02:00And, you know, Trump does throw a lot of chum in the water. I don't, I think, you know, you don't want to chase every bit of chum. The key element is Democrats having to make some better distinctions between what is crazy stuff that, that no one really cares about and stuff that's crazy that actually in a weird way, kind of somehow it gets in under the skin and it's a mattering more than you think.

1:02:18David Axelrod:I'll tell you the, uh, the stuff that, that should be chased is the stuff that actually raises people's costs right uh and makes it harder and not easier for people and creates more turmoil and more uh peril uh for people be it uh you know uh waging a war on vaccines that we know work uh to uh you know the tariffs and uh so uh you know I think you're right, John. You've got to center the stuff. Someone said the main thing should be the main thing. That's your friend Haley Barber. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Now, Aaron has a voicemail question. That's Aaron with an A, too, with a double A-R.

1:03:05David Axelrod:Aaron, A-double A-R. Hey, Hacks.

1:03:08Rahm Emanuel:This is Aaron from Bellingham, Washington. And my question today is if the Republicans could be overplaying their hand and with redistricting, cut their margins and in a way of election, couldn't they end up losing a lot of seats that they'd have otherwise kept safe? Aaron raises a good point. It's so good that we actually started to touch on it. David, you did earlier in the show today. And I think, you know, that it is, you know, if I go back to Dave Wasserman, who who says, you know, it's it's not that often. The wizard of the wizard, the guy whose Twitter handle is at redistrict. So he knows something about this.

1:03:45And he was he said, you know, it's not that often that these that parties get the maps wrong, you know, and that and that suddenly they miscalculate or whatever. But it is the case that they can misread some of the macro political trends. And one of the the key one that you just mentioned earlier in the show, I think, is super important. and there are Texas Republicans who are really worried about this, is that they've redrawn these maps in Texas very much in accord with Trump's performance in the 2024 election. And he overperformed so dramatically with Latinos in Texas that the combination of the fact that in midterms, the party tends to underperform their presidential candidate in the previous two years earlier, and the fact that the bottom is not quite cratering, but there is significant erosion happening in the Hispanic community with Trump because of the harshness and the capriciousness of the deportation agenda.

1:04:42Trump totally had their support on the border, doesn't so much have their support on the Home Depot issue, that you could see this thing coming back. And if not hurting Republicans in Texas on net, they don't get all five of the seats they think they're going to get. They may end up getting, you know, picking up those five seats, but then losing a couple, having turned a couple of other seats into competitive seats and end up only netting one or two. So it could, there could be some kind of backbite there.

1:05:08David Axelrod:Aaron's point, uh, that, that, that is what we were discussing. I believe that Aaron's point goes further, which is, um, when you redistrict, when you gerrymander, You're taking you're moving voters around. And in this case, you're taking Democratic voters out of Republican districts and putting them somewhere else. And so you're making some districts less Republican and other districts more Republican. And you hope that the margins all work out for you. But if it is a way of election, there are some of those districts where you're moving Democratic voters that could become more problematical for you.

1:05:48David Axelrod:So we shall see. I'm sure we're going to be talking a lot about this over the course of the next year. I got to say, man, of all the things, this is such a small thing. But, you know, the idea that this now this kind of of tactical nonsense is driven redistricting could become like a regular feature in our politics. I find it just I mean, it seems like it's such a dorky thing to talk about compared to some of the things we're facing, David. But I do find it really depressing. the idea that this is just going to be a partisan tool that both sides are going to use all the time you know here's what i believe i agree with you that it you know it it is um it seems small and in light of large things but this is really about uh accountability this is really about oversight this is really about whether or not there'll be guardrails you know i've been plenty critical of my own party.

1:06:41David Axelrod:And I'm not a particularly partisan figure, despite what anybody thinks. But anybody who's followed me knows that. And so, you know, I don't wake up every morning thinking, man, I would just, you know, God, I wish Democrats controlled everything. But I do know that if the Congress continues down this road, that Trump, after a midterm election, feeling uh uh you know fortified and uh i think that um what we're going to look back at these two years as the good old days when it comes to outreach by uh a president and we're going to be more down the road that we're on right now so to me it's more than a partisan issue it's really an issue about whether there'll be an accountable Congress, a Congress that will hold everyone accountable, including the president or not.

1:07:39We started out this podcast with you talking about some of my favorite things, you know, people in Chicago, the city of big shoulders and windy city and all that, drinking beer at nine o 'clock in the morning, as I remember them from my college days. That was such a cheerful image. And now you're like, we might look back on these two years is the good old days. I'm like, Jesus Christ. Bring me down, dude.

1:08:05David Axelrod:I know. Well, you're just so gleeful all the time. I just wanted to, I wanted to bounce you off there. A small dose of reality into the situation. Okay, fine. So there's one more question that we got. They're all really excellent. And maybe some of them can be salvaged for future shows. Jen, who said, what's the best piece of political advice you've ever gotten? I would say, you know, given that Rahm is not here. You know, what's the best piece of political advice you've ever given, David? Well, I'd like to talk about the best advice I've ever gotten. And there were two pieces of advice. One was from Gary Hart, Senator Gary Hart.

1:08:42David Axelrod:In 1987, we met in Chicago. He was planning to run for president. And we were talking about the American political landscape. And he paused at one point and he said, just remember one thing. Washington's always the last to get the news. And that is a piece of advice that has served me so well over the years. And it served me well when I worked in Washington, because I realized that I was looking at the country through a periscope, and that I was stuck in this echo chamber, and that often the conversation in Washington was not the conversation people were having around their kitchen tables. And oftentimes, when people make mistakes politically at the national level, It's because they're paying more attention to the echo chamber than they are to the voices of people.

1:09:32David Axelrod:And that is still true today. The other is a closer home piece of advice that I got from a Chicago alderman, an old Chicago alderman, Dick Mell, years ago. And he was talking to me about a colleague who was thinking of running in the city council who was thinking of running for higher office. Uh, and, uh, he said, and I said, well, what do you think? And he said, he'll never make it. And I said, why not? He says, because the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his ass meaning that, uh, the higher the office you seek, the more scrutiny you get. That is also true. You know, it turns out, it turns out if you look, if you get, if you see more of the monkey's ass, what becomes clear is that it's an MRI of the soul.

1:10:27That's the thing. The monkey's ass is kind of like the way that you see into the soul. Yes, it is. That is a piece of advice. It's a related piece. It is.

1:10:36David Axelrod:It helped inform my view that presidential races are MRIs for the soul and whoever you are, ultimately people get to know that, especially the better you do. So, best piece of advice i've ever gotten was an advice given to me by my late great mother uh who when i went off to college gave me a piece of advice that has served me well throughout afterwards which is she was like i really don't care what you do but don't get arrested and don't get dead that was like that's that's kept me afloat ever since that's a good advice for up canada too don't get arrested and don't get dead well this don't get arrested thing may cause you to want to revise some of your comments on this podcast before we send it out i don't know the way things are going.

1:11:17David Axelrod:You could end up in Bolton land. I said the advice was good. I didn't say I followed it. I got arrested three times in college alone. What are you talking about? I'm sure that that's in a file somewhere and we may learn about it someday. So I'm going to try to keep following that advice. We head to Labor Day weekend, David. I hope you're like in the year of Michigan, Chicago for Labor Day. Have fun. All right, brother, you too. And to everybody out there, and we'll see you on the other side. See ya. Thank you.

1:12:16Kara Swisher:growing travel and spend platform in the country built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10 % back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers save more than$300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS. More than a thousand businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get$500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com slash Vox. When it comes to AI, there is what we could do and what we should do. What will we decide? I'm Kimberly Nevela, host of the Pondering AI podcast from SAS.

1:12:57Kara Swisher:Every episode, I sit down with innovators, researchers, and technologists to consider the questions that come after the AI breakthroughs. Questions that don't have easy answers, but need to be asked. If you're curious or concerned about AI, join me as we challenge assumptions and ponder the issues together. Find Pondering AI wherever you get your podcasts.

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