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- [00:00]
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- [01:13]
Tim Miller
Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back a veteran political strategist of McCain, Schwarzenegger, Romney, Jebb, and many others. He's a co host of Hacks on Tap, co director of the center for Political Future at usc. He runs the American EV Jobs alliance, and he's coming at us, coming to us, rather. From Equality Inn in Fresno or Bakersfield, it's Mike Murphy.
- [01:35]
Mike Murphy
Well, don't tell him, Tim. I'm on the run from the Trump Peace Committee. It looked like a war crimes RICO case when I saw who he's lined up for that damn thing. But, yeah, I'm moving quick here. I got interviews.
- [01:46]
Tim Miller
Are the blinds drawn there in that motel?
- [01:48]
Mike Murphy
I am so far off the grid. There's no grid. But anyway, it's great to be on a fantastic podcast and good to see you, pal.
- [01:55]
Tim Miller
Man, good to have you back. I just noticed this is by accident. We do this every five months. I went to look at our old Murphy interviews, And it's like five months ago, 10 months ago. So we have a little. Every almost half year, we have a little date. I guess I just kind of want to hear you cook in general on Trump's Davos performance. The whole thing. I mean, we menaced Greenland and then back down and got nothing. He's, I think, creating an alternate UN of only countries that are in the Russian sphere of influence.
- [02:24]
Mike Murphy
It's unbelievable. It just.
- [02:27]
Tim Miller
It's.
- [02:28]
Mike Murphy
We're right in. It's strange loving, you know, no fighting in the war room. Now. The Board of Peace. All right, you guys, wash the blood off your hands and report to the photo op.
- [02:36]
Tim Miller
I was doing some research on some of the countries. I didn't know a whole lot. I was like, what's happening in Uzbeki Becky. Becky, Stan lately? And it seems. Seems like human rights violations is what's happening there and in most of the countries that are on the Board of Peace.
- [02:48]
Mike Murphy
But this is a very old poll for your senior citizen tuners. But there used to be a fantastic political cartoonist named Jeff McNelly for the Chicago trip. And in the Carter era, he did all these great UN cartoons. And he was kind of a conservative, and he'd draw the UN as this rogues gallery of guys with a frying pan on their head. And, you know, I mean, it was. And that's what came to mind when I saw these jokers, you know, the whole thing.
- [03:15]
Tim Miller
Did you see the Turkish minister that kind of looked like Hitler that was behind him?
- [03:20]
Mike Murphy
I think he shops at Bogino Menswear, which is a hot new Trumpian outlet for that kind of Hugo Boss take over the Polish ghetto outfit. So the old record for astonished, cynical foreign leader watching a semi idiot American president at international gathering was George Clemenceau, the tiger of France, who said he wanted to be buried standing up, facing Germany. Anyway, he sat there with a million casualties after World War I, listening to Woodrow Wilson 14 points of, you know, blah, blah. And he turned over to Lloyd George from Britain and said, you know, Jesus Christ only had 10. Well, that has now been surpassed by what I think all the foreign leaders were saying in a wonderful orchestra of different language, which is, what the fuck? Because we now have the superpower that they rely on the metronome beat of Western democracy run by a crackpot egomaniac child. I'm sure the. They all had to go, like, take a double whiskey and get a dentist or a parent bit lip when they're just listening to this lunatic. But it's dangerous. I was over there right after Trump first got elected in Europe and a couple of, you know, big rich guys had hired Erskine Bowles and I to do a little presentation on what's what. And they say, don't you guys understand? You're the orchestra conductor. And when you, like, take the baton and, like, you know, stick it in your head, screws up the whole damn thing for all of us. And the bad guys win. So, yeah, we're living a nightmare right now. It's got a shot clock on it, but it's a nightmare.
- [04:54]
Tim Miller
It's the tiniest silver lining of the Board of Peace for me is that shot clock. It does seem like he is positioning himself to be kind of head of the New World Order after he leaves, which is nice. I want him to have an exit plan. I don't think this is great for the world because the charter of this thing has him having veto power over everything. But the fact that he seems to be eyeing, you know, some kind of position for himself in the. In his 80s, you know, kind of an honorarium. That's nice.
- [05:28]
Mike Murphy
It'll be a Bond movie. They have an island with guys with burp guns and orange jumpsuits driving around on golf carts underground. And he'll have a master plan. You know, the other thing is staying, I guess, better than anything. I said let's stealing the old Al Franken seniors in space bit. Let's tell them we build a Death Star for him and just put them into space one way and figure it out later. The whole thing is just so sick. I do think if you look beyond the cartoon optics of the border peace, I mean, the big idea, other than flatter Trump's ego and he can wear medals, is now they own Gaza. Who wants to own Gaza? What are we going to do? Put American boots on the ground in Gaza? We'll make Vietnam look like a Sunday school picnic. So on every level, it's not only this evil and egotistical and corrupt, it's relentlessly stupid. And that often is kind of the real logline on this Trump stuff. It's either greed or stupid greed.
- [06:29]
Tim Miller
What do you make of the Carney kind of speech about the rupture? And I think that's related to this kind of. That there's a shot clock on it, but by the time the shot clock expires, I guess, are things going to be too far gone? Do you think that there's a permanent reorientation or you think that's a little bit of bluster? We muddle through and see what happens?
- [06:49]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, it's a great question. I think there's going to be permanent damage, and the next president who might have read a book is going to have a lot to dig out of. But the Europeans are going to want them to dig out of it. We're key to their jam, so to speak. The problem is in the short term, if you're the Germans, you got two choices. Get close to the Chinese or the Russians, which is even worse. And meanwhile quietly develop the capacity to have an atomic bomb because that's the insurance policy. And the world goes crazy. And, and that's true of about 20 countries now. So there's going to be a lot of damage. But ultimately the Atlantic alliance is such a naturally beautiful and smart thing. I think it'll come back together, but it's going to have dents and dings. It's going to cost us. I mean, we'll be cleaning up Trump horseshit all over geopolitics, the economy, everywhere else that, you know, some of the appointees works for a while that was an avoidable tragedy. But here we are. And of course we have a gutless parliament of my beloved former party, the Republicans. You know, we don't ask these guys to land on Anacio beach, just defend the Constitution. That appears to be way too much for them.
- [07:57]
Tim Miller
I hate this question to ask you because I get it every time I go anywhere and it's like, you know, what more is there to say about these guys? But it is pretty striking that even, you know, the Dan Crenshaws, the Marco Rubio's, the people that seem to have a genuine view about the value of American strength and the world and the value of, you know, democracy promotion and all that, everybody is fully on board with this program and like, it's hard to like understand why. I, maybe they just kind of, they deluded themselves into thinking that like there aren't any real consequences of Trump's words. And I don't know, how do you explain it?
- [08:34]
Mike Murphy
You know, I call it the Know Better Caucus. And they, they deserve a special hot seat when we have the Home Improvement Commission hearings afterward. I mean, it is unbelievable. I mean, take Marco Rubio. I've known Marco a long time. I was one of his first donors when he ran in the primary for U.S. senate. And can Marco watch this ICE stuff and not remember that his dad ran away from thugs like that with nothing to America to be free and broke his back as a bartender his whole life. Marco used to tell that story when he needed your vote. I wonder about the quiet moments of Marco even has any anymore when he remembers some of that. He used to be on the right side of it. So yeah, a huge puzzle to me too. I guess those cheap haircuts in the House barber shop are really excellent. I think there is going to be a little forward bump and I will say my expectations now creep along the floor. But as we pass filing deadlines, I think there's going to be a little, little, I won't call it bravery potion, but you're going to see some of them, when they're outside of a primary threat, kind of scuttle off to the high grass a little and try to get a little distance from Trump, particularly in the House where they're looking at a massacre. But that's self preservation, just of another flavor. Just like they're sucking up to Trump, most of them. Now privately, they're all, you know, everybody is a patriot, but we're going to wait till the Americans come, then we're going to hit the streets and get those Germans out of Paris. The Vichy Republican Party, unfortunately.
- [10:01]
Tim Miller
One more just thing on the, on his performance over there. And some of this right, is speculative. Right. It's like, feels like there's going to be some damage when it comes to us alienating our allies. But there is also substantive things happening in which he has deviated from more traditional orthodoxy. Ukraine, for starters, where they're now going through this freezing winter. It's seeing real damage. Trump's back blaming Zelensky. And then in Iran, for a minute he was getting Lindsey Graham pilled a little bit and he was saber rattling on Iran and saying he was gonna go help the protesters. But then basically, it seems to me like the, the regime ended up telling Trump that they weren't going to execute anybody, executed people anyway. And Trump moved on to, you know, green lunch, some remodeling.
- [10:48]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, Trump chases headlines, you know, he thinks like whoever writes the wood for the New York Post. So, oh, the, the Iran thing is hot. I'll get into that story. And then somebody sends him a cable saying, you know, we're going to need some casinos and hotels. And he says, okay, just don't kill anybody on the news and we have a deal, my friend. There's never any real lasting strategy other than tariffs. The one thing he believes in, which of course is stupid and crazy, everything is transactional with him and it's all based on either ego or gain, you know, financial gain. So it's a constantly moving deal. It seems like the only big theme in foreign policy, and you did see some of this in Davos, is take cheap shots that are allies in Europe and suck up to our enemies in Russia. That seems to be the operating sense of gravity here, which really makes you.
- [11:37]
Tim Miller
Wonder, do you notice his hand? No, it's not healthy.
- [11:42]
Mike Murphy
He is not a healthy guy. I mean, that job ages.
- [11:44]
Tim Miller
It was the left hand this time that was very bruised. You don't shake with your left hand. He's never a big hand shaker anyway, so that story didn't really mesh with me. But every once in a while having a mysterious bruise. This happens as you get older, but that's a pretty big one on the hand. I don't know.
- [11:59]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, there's stuff going on, going on in all these medical reports that some hacker wants to be a congressman. Oh, God, he's Superman. He ought to be in the Olympics, you know, on every level. It's so juvenile and transparent, yet somehow this wonderful country at least temporarily bought into it. Or at least enough hated Biden and Harris to decide, well, he's a clown and a bozo and fright rig orangutan, but he can run the economy. And of course, the big thing is, you know, is a political hack is he's lost that franchise now the thing that was propping him up. So that's why I think he's. He's going to try more foreign policy stuff to wag the dog, though, because otherwise we're talking about what the grocery bill looks like every week.
- [12:42]
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- [13:43]
Tim Miller
That takes us to the New York Times CNN poll, I think was pretty telling on that from earlier this week. And basically the short of it is he snapped back to his original coalition. Right like that. His numbers now, according to this poll, in every demographic group are basically indistinguishable from where they were right before he lost to Biden by 4 points. All these new folks that came on board, young voters who are unhappy about Their economic prospects, Black and Hispanic men, for the most part, they have now snapped back. And to me, I look at that and think, well, for one, this is largely economy, maybe a little bit of the immigration stuff. But for two, we spend a lot of time analyzing what happened in the 2024 election when it's like, basically what happened is that there was a group of people that thought Biden was a mummy and that they didn't like their grocery store bill, and that was basically it. All of the other stuff is just kind of window dressing. And now that's Biden's out of the picture. And now that the economy isn't getting any better, those new people who came to Trump have basically snapped back.
- [14:47]
Mike Murphy
I totally agree. You know, the media tends to. Whoever wins, wins the presidency. It's like, oh, an affirmation. No, no. They just wanted to fire Kamala because they're trying to get at Biden. So it's not like it was a big loving for Donald Trump. And now the other problem I think Trump has is if you look at Trump as a totally performance reality show president, which, you know, I always get in trouble with my wife Tiffany, but I'm like, you know, Andy Cohen has some explaining to do because he invented this category. We wound up with a crackpot president, you know, cheap.
- [15:18]
Tim Miller
Wow. And Cohen catching some strays now.
- [15:21]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, I'm going to get you some email. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But no, the whole cheap conflict world of reality tv, that's what he came from. But now it's old. We're doing Hangover 4 now. We have seen the movie and we're seeing the second Trump economic failure, like when we fired him last time for Joe Biden. And of course, Trump is, like, haunted by the ghost of Biden. This is the funny thing. Biden really got in trouble by telling everybody, you're wrong. The economy's great. Turkeys are at the 28th lowest price since the Civil War, you know, and people said, you're out of your mind. I was at Walmart yesterday. I tried to get a new truck. They want $890 a month. I'm paying 399 now. What the hell? So Trump's doing the same thing. He's jawboning that. You're all idiots. The economy's great and I just invaded Venezuela to grab some oil. And, you know, we've never made more money with tariffs. How are those layoffs in Ohio going to gm? He's telling them what they know is wrong. And in politics, that is the grease pig way. To go over the cliff. Exactly what Biden did in the same iceberg, I think is going to really hurt him.
- [16:29]
Tim Miller
There's a different point of view coming from the vice president. He gave a speech in Toledo yesterday talking about how things are going on in the economy. Let's to listen.
- [16:37]
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- [16:39]
Mike Murphy
The Democrats talk a lot about the affordability crisis in the United States of America. And yes, there is an affordability crisis, one created by Joe Biden's policies. You don't turn the Titanic around overnight.
- [16:52]
Rocket Money Advertiser
It takes time to fix what was broken.
- [16:55]
Tim Miller
Used to be a speech.
- [16:56]
Mike Murphy
What was that metaphor? You don't turn it around or you don't raise it from the bottom of the.
- [17:03]
Tim Miller
You don't turn the Titanic around overnight. That's a brain teaser that think his speechwriters hate him or he's maybe not hiring from the cream of the crop in that department.
- [17:13]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, I have a feeling he's going with a volunteer team, which is trouble. You ought to hire some pros. You know, I can't hear him and not have my head explode because the first time I heard that voice was when our pal Crystal gave him my cell phone number. And he called me in 2016 about running for Senate in Ohio as an anti Trump Republican. And then I told him it would be tough, but he ought to try. You know, it's a primary, be uphill, but it's a worthy ca. And I think after that conversation, he took a right turn at Fouseville and made his deal. And here he is. And you know how I think it'll end? I think Trump's going to screw him because they're going to have rough midterms. They're going to lose the House, Senate's going to get closer in a bad way for the Trump guys. And then the great punditry machine, which we know well, will start to say even the maga world, the Joe Rogan, which is now a little restraint. Another problem for Trump will be like, well, we got Vance. He's the next guy. Trump screwed it up. What about this Vance? Well, he could be the real future. It's going to drive him nuts. It's like the old Russian army joke that During World War II, two Russian generals are walking down the hall and Igor says to Dimitri, Dimitri, you look terrified. What's wrong? Well, Igor, I got a big battle tomorrow, and if I lose, Stalin's going to shoot me. And Dimitri says, well, look at it this way. If you win the battle, he'll shoot your family and you no other heroes in the Soviet Union. So good luck, Vance. I predict he will not be the Republican nominee.
- [18:39]
Tim Miller
So it's Bill Kristol and Andy Cohen's fault where we're at. I'm open to all theories.
- [18:43]
Mike Murphy
Well, I don't blame Crystal on that. I blame him for many other things.
- [18:48]
Tim Miller
Gaby, JD's never. I suffered through. People can listen to this at Bulwark takes if they want a deeper dive. He went to Minnesota after that Toledo speech with the nonsensical Titanic metaphors. He went to Minnesota and had a press conference where he played the role of a Stern school vice principal or vice dean. Right. And there's like a student group that is trying to kind of organize, you know, something nice on campus. And he's lecturing them about how they.
- [19:17]
Mike Murphy
This is going to go on your permanent record.
- [19:19]
Tim Miller
They've got to follow. You've got to follow the rules, young lady. And she's just like I just wanted to do a, you know, have a gardening class here at school.
- [19:27]
Mike Murphy
Well, it's Footloose and he's the town elder.
- [19:29]
Tim Miller
You don't know how much that's going to cost. Okay. Anyway, he was lecturing the people of Minnesota with a series of lies. He talked about how racial profiling isn't happening. They are getting warrants to go in people's houses. Renee Goode did ram the officer with her car and they had no choice but to seize the five year old child and send her to San Antonio because their other option was to leave him out in the cold. And that was JD's pitch.
- [19:54]
Mike Murphy
Right. So they sent him to the detention paradise there.
- [19:57]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that was his pitch in Minnesota and I just, just. It's just so unappealing. I do think probably some MAGA folks like the fact that he's so unappealing to us. Right. Like that's maybe the appeal. Like they don't actually like him but it's like he's really pissing off Murphy.
- [20:12]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, right.
- [20:12]
Tim Miller
You know, he really grinds their gears and so he must be one of us. I just do think that only gets you so far.
- [20:18]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, he's got that angry shoe salesman thing. You know, I've been screwed my whole life and now, now that we, we have a Reich, I'm going to get him. You know, you know who they are right now. If there were a primary he'd be the Republican nominee and then there's going to be a big driving the party for something new and fresh and I'm not sure he'll Be that by then now it won't be a rejection of Trumpism. There'll be flavors of what's next that all have some populist stink to it. Most people say, you're nuts. Murphy. If the election held. Demarro. I go, yeah, it's not El Dimral, but. And I think the midterms are going to be a huge, shaky event for the party. And then you wonder about 27. How will Donald Trump, aging, bruised up, you know, take failure. Superman can't fly anymore. He just got his ass kicked by the country. Now what in 27, he can't dictate the budget. He's got 40 investigations. The key is the Democrats not get stupid and keep trying to impeach him. And, you know, they. They've got to be clever with their new power. But 27 is going to be a long year for the Donald and how he behaves, which is also a little scary. You know, next thing you know, we got to seize Manitoba. It's gonna be part of the equation that drives the discussion for who the Republican nominee is in the first quarter of 2028.
- [21:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you can't tell me he likes listening to J.D.
- [21:33]
Mike Murphy
Oh, God, he's gotta hate him.
- [21:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah, he hates a scold, you know, And I guess in this case, JD is scolding other people and sucking up to him, and that's kind of his survival mechanism. But there's no room for any departure, Right? Like, JD has no choice but to go on board with everything because as soon as he uses his tone to be like, well, well, Donald was think.
- [21:55]
Mike Murphy
And Trump has to lay off the failure on somebody. It can't be him in the midterm. So, yeah, JT really screwed things up. I may forgive him.
- [22:04]
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- [23:04]
Tim Miller
There was another contrary review on the economy from one other guy at Davos that got my blood boiling. So we'll get you going here. Hopefully this doesn't cost you any clients, Mike. But Ken Griffin of Citadel, this is important because he's a big Nikki Haley supporter. He's a conservative guy, huge donor, but not really a Trump guy. Kind of an in and out of of Trump. Right.
- [23:23]
Mike Murphy
He was a regular, but willing to have a reasonable discussion with the bad guys.
- [23:28]
Tim Miller
Yeah, sure. And he was at this kind of panel at the World Economic Forum and he gave his rationale for why he thinks Trump is good, actually. So let's listen.
- [23:39]
Mike Murphy
You cannot imagine how painful it was each and every day under the Biden administration to look at what new crazy proposal was being put into place to solve a problem that didn't even exist. I mean, our, our constant friction at Citadel with the government across umpteen different aspects of our business was exhausting. And to have that literally end on one day, election day, just gives you so much energy as an option to go back and build your damn business. So the biggest sea change I've seen across American executives has been just like the giant sigh of relief. I can now go and focus on building my business.
- [24:33]
Tim Miller
You talk to more rich guys than I do. Is that real? I heard that and I was like, I have to play this because it's like I would think the opposite. But maybe I'm wrong because I don't know, I'm open to getting government off the tobacco industry, you know?
- [24:47]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, you're a cat.
- [24:48]
Tim Miller
Okay, but Trump is doing that. What about what? The new crazy policy. Every day it sounds like he's describing Trump.
- [24:54]
Mike Murphy
Well, you know, I do hear that. Not from everybody, but I do hear it. And what it comes from is the Biden administration did overregulate. There are a lot of problems. You hear it from our, you know, Repub friends. They start there. Well, here's how bad it was over Biden, so that makes it okay. And then they take the huge leap and it's all short termism. Well, the regulations are pulled. We're minting money. Yeah, but we don't have NATO anymore. Putin and the Chinese are running the table. And all this long term stuff, that's going to be really bad and really Expensive. They're like, yeah, but this quarter I'm mint in money. You know, it's a very short termism thing. Trump has snapped the leash off and let the dogs run. And we like running. But the categorical cost of Trump, you know, little stuff like, like democracy is like, well, that's, you know, that's not my quarterly earnings. I'll get to that later. Look at the stock market. Yeah. Look at the national debt, you know, look at this AI bubble. We're seeing how that turns out for people who want to pay 200 times earnings for a stock.
- [25:55]
Tim Miller
Look at the price of gold. Yeah, yeah, gold's doing better than the market actually over the past year.
- [26:01]
Mike Murphy
I'm for the dogs running on a long leash. Not no leash at all, but the dogs like no leash at all. And you know, in the short term, yeah, they're going to make a lot more money, which is good for the country. I believe in growth, growth. But they don't understand that a lot of this stuff can have a catastrophic cost. And they're doing short term steroid accounting here.
- [26:24]
Tim Miller
I just think that there is such an imbalance and a double standard on some of this stuff too. And I don't really understand how to get out of it. But Trump has taken a stake in 11 businesses. I think the government now is taking a stake in 11 businesses.
- [26:39]
Mike Murphy
All the terrorists the government didn't pick ditch that. Nobody has. You know, this guy is Juan Peron. He's got fascist tendencies, but he's kind of a socialist at heart economically. He can't deficit spend enough, you know, if it buys in popularity. And he likes grabbing assets, you know, he's shaking down companies and he likes.
- [26:57]
Tim Miller
Bullying people with the tariffs. And I always use the example of like the Tim Cook, like this idea that, oh, you know, business owners, entrepreneurs now didn't have to worry about the government. And they can, they're unleashed and they can just run. It's like, well, maybe in some industries, but like in others, you know, imagine if President Harris had forced Tim Cook to come to the Oval Office and say, unbelievable explosion. I'm gonna give. Yeah, I'm gonna squeeze you. You're gonna get a bonus tax on you from the government unless you give me a trophy that was made by an indigenous supporter of mine who thinks that I'm the greatest person ever. And then you tell me how great I am and then I might give you a reprieve from this extra. The Ken Griffins of the world would be moving to Uruguay. Yeah, they would be like this is.
- [27:44]
Mike Murphy
Communism in his heart. Trump is a lefty UK Labour Party guy in the 70s. I'm going to nationalize it, I'm going to tariff it and I'm going to control everything. He is a government control guy. I remember when I was at the Georgetown College Republicans during the Hoover administration, during the 1980s, early 80s, we would go get arrested in front of the Soviet embassy, you know, because of Afghanistan and what they were doing. We were against huge government control. So that's why the corruption of the party just stuns me. But yeah, he's not a conservative, he's a populist yo, yo. And a thug and a power nut and a crazy person. So other than that, we're doing great.
- [28:23]
Tim Miller
The psychology of Trump I got. It's the psychology of the business, guys that is harder to get, you know, because I'm like, okay. It's one thing to say, okay, you know, look, Biden did some bad stuff. You know, we're not doing the antitrust on Spirit Airlines or whatever. I get it, like Biden did some stupid stuff stuff. But that, but the jump to we have to talk about how great things are now and ignoring all of the business risks, I don't know, just to me it feels so short sighted.
- [28:48]
Mike Murphy
Yeah. You know, I hear it in the auto industry because I'm from Detroit and I care a lot about whether or not we still have an auto industry because Chinese are coming fast and you know, they say, well, in 10 years the Chinese are going to wipe us out, but in the next three years, and then I'm going to retire. Trump took away the CARB standards. He's killing us on EVs. He's handing the world market to China. That's bad. But you know, in the short term I'm going to hit my bonus because, you know, without the CARB standards, we can sell more profitable trucks. So it's this short term, sugar calorie, you know, mentality. Because a lot of the American business incentives are very short term and okay. But long term, I think it would be nice to have an auto industry in 15 to 20 years.
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- [30:35]
Tim Miller
Trump was at the auto show.
- [30:36]
Mike Murphy
Bad reviews. He went to the Detroit Economic Club and then he said, you know, I'm going to let the Chinese come here and build some plants. And about 17 auto vice presidents immediately had heart attacks and strokes. And of course the Canadians have responded to his bullying by letting Chinese made EVs into Canada. So yeah, yeah, he's no friend of American manufacturing and the tariffs are not that good. The most beautiful thing in production is the North American integrated auto chain, Canada, US, Mexico, and he's done everything he can to screw that up.
- [31:10]
Tim Miller
So what is even the case for him in the auto place? Like, I guess that they he's taken away some of the mandates on, you know, electric.
- [31:17]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, it's the carb stuff. The government now can't tell you what your average miles have to be, which forces you to make smaller, lighter vehicles. Of course, Americans don't want to buy because everybody wants their fantastic large pickup truck. But you know, if you have any kind of mileage standard, the idea was one, air pollution, two, dependence on oil less of a problem. Now we're fracking, we got a lot more oil. And three, it'll move people to electric vehicles, which is where the world is going. And our companies need scale. The US is only 10% of the world auto market. So it was the stick and the incentives were the carrots. But Trump's ripped all that away. So short term, it's a bit of a boost. Well, the tariffs have cost billions. So on one hand he's giving them steroids, on the other hand he's sawing their arm off. You know, again, this is toddler with the chainsaw economics. But if we don't compete in EVs, which were 25% of World Auto sales last year, we're British, Leyland, and it.
- [32:14]
Tim Miller
Might be too late already. And the Chinese EVs are just way better.
- [32:17]
Mike Murphy
I don't know about way Better, but they're very good. The Germans got destroyed in the Chinese market so some of their new stuff coming out next year is really good. And this new Ford $30,000 small SUV and pickup truck is going to be tremendous. That we're catching up pretty quick. But we need our home market to support us. Well, the Chinese don't care about making any money. They've got a hundred brands of car. They make gas cars too. As many as they do EVs, more actually none of them make money. So the Chinese thing is political. By exporting a lot of cheap cars, we take over foreign markets and we de industrialize our competitors. Right before World War II started, the Brits made 500,000 light vehicles. The French made about 360,000, the Germans about 420,000. The year before Pearl harbor we made 4.7 million vehicles. Which is why every locomotive, most trucks, tanks, aircraft, aircraft engines in World War II from the Russians for British Empire had Made in USA on them. Today the Chinese would. If we have a drone manufacturing contest, we're not going to win. So industrial power is important politically and the Chinese know that. So if you're, you're an auto exec, you got to go compete in the Mexican market where in five years the Chinese have gone from importing 500 cars to 400,000 and you got to lose 10 grand a car competing with the Chinese government subsidizing their guys to wipe you out. We need a little government help in the short term. I hate subsidies, I don't like any of protectionism, any of this. But short term, it's a political fight.
- [33:52]
Tim Miller
You can imagine a good Trump doing this. You can imagine a good right wing nationalist do this. This is the other thing. It's like he is offering us the stupidest imaginal version of right wing nationalism. Right. Like a smart person with kind of a Trumpian worldview, maybe a Boris Johnson type in America, right, Like would go to Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia and be like let's team up here, let's keep the Chinese vehicles out of the market, let's industrialize ourselves, we'll subsidize that, we'll trade with each other, we'll do some of the production in Mexico where it's cheaper, whatever, in order to compete against China on this. And we're doing the opposite.
- [34:35]
Mike Murphy
Yeah. And we did some incentives to move people in our lucrative home market to EVs. Until a couple of years ago, GM sold more cars outside of America than the US and Ford sells a big hunk outside. And so you gotta be a world competitor to have the scale which is the key to the auto business. So anyway, Trump is no friend of many of the people he says he's friends of like the average auto worker, union or non union.
- [34:59]
Tim Miller
Before we move on, I just wanted to circle back on the equity stakes just to make sure I had this right. Yeah, US government does have equity stake in now 11 companies since mid-2025. Prior to Trump, the US hadn't taken a stake non crisis investment in a private company since the 1950s. Now we have 11 US steel, semiconductors, minerals and I think one of those companies, Trump's blog as a share of now, it's kind of like a blog cryptocurrency nuclear fusion company. It's interesting.
- [35:35]
Mike Murphy
Trump went public once in his casino empire and pumped the stock to the 90s and then it crashed. I think a dollar or maybe 75 cents wiped his investors totally out. So you know, he's not, not the wizard I'd want in charge of this. And of course the principal is horrible. So other than that, I want to.
- [35:55]
Tim Miller
Go back to the Minnesota stuff really quick. The House passed through the DHS budget. Looks like we're not going to have a spending fight over this because there were seven Democrats that voted on this. I've been at Marie Glus and Camp Perez fan girls on this pod.
- [36:11]
Mike Murphy
She's great.
- [36:11]
Tim Miller
So I do love her. Bad vote. She was one of the seven that went with dhs. My opinion, bad vote. I'm curious what you think they decided to not bad vote.
- [36:18]
Mike Murphy
I agree.
- [36:18]
Tim Miller
It goes to the Senate. Who knows what kind of wrangling they could do. Maybe you could have individual senators try to gum up the works. What do you think the Democratic angle should be on dealing with ice broadly and what we're seeing in Minneapolis, they.
- [36:32]
Mike Murphy
Ought to keep shouting. It's interesting. There's a guy running for governor. New Mexico, I think it's Bergland in the Democratic primary. And I did a CNN hit with my pal Alex Michelson the other night and he was on too. And he's kind of a meat and potatoes prosecutor, kind of regular Democrat type. And he announced on the air, he said, look, they scoop up any American citizens in my jurisdiction, I'm gonna have local cops put handcuffs on them. You know, we're gonna lock em up. It's illegal. So come on down, try it in New Mexico.
- [37:02]
Tim Miller
I asked Mayor Fry about this on the podcast two weeks ago. A week ago, he basically said, I kind of went, I'm leaving the door open to that. We want to do it, but it's such a crisis situation there that there's so many guys with guns. It's like, I don't know if we want to escalate in this moment.
- [37:16]
Mike Murphy
I'm for pulling guns, I'm for settling this really. I mean, you know, that's a pretty extreme. But they're scooping up American citizens like the Gestapo. So yeah, we have a Minnesota state.
- [37:26]
Tim Miller
You're from Wild West New Mexico would be a good place for that.
- [37:28]
Mike Murphy
I'm not for a gunfight, but I'm for maxing out municipal and state of Minnesota power to stop this. Yeah, you know, I'm just not shy about American Gestapo is out of control.
- [37:39]
Tim Miller
The degree to which they all lie about it. I mean, look, politicians always lie and there's, you know, various ways that you dissemble or you kind of paint a picture a little bit better than it actually is. But you know, my colleague Andrew Egger wrote about this story this morning. I don't know if you saw that. The kind of elderly Hmong man, they stormed his house.
- [37:59]
Mike Murphy
They pull him out in his underwear.
- [38:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah, they frog march him out in his underwear, guns drawn. He has his five year old grandson is like got woken up from the nap by, you know, guys in masks with guns. He's a citizen, he's a naturalized citizen. They take him out in the cold, his underwear, you know, rough him up and then send him back to the house. A couple hours later, government comes out and says, well, there were two other criminals like sex pedos in the house, you know, and so. And we got the wrong guy. Like these two criminals are still at large. They publish their picture. Okay, well my colleague Andrew Egger looked into this. One of those guys has been in jail since 2024. And so we asked DHS about this and DHS is like, well, if the Minnesota local officials would have worked with us, we would have known that. And it's like we called the corrections department in Minnesota. They're like, no, we working with them all the time. You know, all those guys that they're saying they're getting the worst of the worst. It's mostly people we transferred to them from prisons. It's not the random people that are, they're harassing on the streets. And so it's just like lie after lie after lie after they menace citizens.
- [39:04]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, because when it's lie with the badges and the seal, people want to believe it. So in the future they won't undercuts law enforcement. You know, it's Funny, just one ice thing here in Los Angeles. My wife's car got boosted last weekend, and we went through all the drama Saturday morning, and anyway, it was dumped, stripped, and chopped in South Central. So we get a call from the cops who finally, you got to come down here and see if you can and get it to move. So we go down there, and she's chatting up with two, you know, LAPD kind of grizzled veteran cops in a panda car. Just says, you guys worry about ice. And one of them said, oh, they don't have the guts to come down here. It was great.
- [39:43]
Tim Miller
Kind of defiant.
- [39:44]
Mike Murphy
And these were kind of authentic South LA guys who were cops, and they.
- [39:47]
Tim Miller
Just, like, let them try.
- [39:49]
Mike Murphy
So, yeah, I've become pretty militant about this. We got a crackpot president. He's trying to build a Praetorian Guard, federal thugs, and it's time for states to step up and local authorities. Let's have a couple of state police bearcats.
- [40:03]
Tim Miller
It's in line with, I think, our past. Murphy. I always was in the spirit of the Gadson flag resonated with me. I was a Don't Tread on me person. I wasn't like a flag waiver, but, you know, I sort of found myself as a, you know, kind of aligned with the spirit of the cause. And it's like. It's amazing how many of the Don't Tread On Me flag waivers have, like, you know, kind of crossed out the don't and replaced it with, like, tread on me, comma, daddy in this situation. And I don't really. I don't get it. I get it. It is against the spirit.
- [40:34]
Mike Murphy
Remember what we used to call the cause we didn't like? Big government? National ID card? Hell, no. You know, the government was the problem. You know, the Leviathan, the road to serfdom. We had ideas. It was a reason I spent 30 years of my life in shitty hotels like this one in the middle of nowhere to elect some meat puppet to the Congress, the U.S. senate, to stand up for those principles. So, yeah, yeah, it's incredibly frustrating. I thought we actually believed in something.
- [41:04]
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- [42:05]
Tim Miller
Speaking of meat puppets. No, he's better than that. Your governor Gavin. Last time you were on you talked about how you had a meeting with me.
- [42:11]
Mike Murphy
Yeah.
- [42:12]
Tim Miller
Last time he was first kind of road testing. The dark woke Gavin strategy of trolling Trump. That has continued. When it started I was going is this going to be a week long thing? A little thing. But he's kept the pedal to the metal on this obviously huge success in the redistricting effort. He's in Davos this week. I played it for Plough earlier in the week how he's talking about how these world leaders need to get some knee pads out for the way that they're treating Trump. So he's, he's continuing the strategy. I'm wondering what you make of it.
- [42:41]
Mike Murphy
Well, I, I believe that strategy in the short term, the pre, pre season has helped him win the pre pre season. But there's no award for that. It just puts you on deck for the real show.
- [42:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [42:54]
Mike Murphy
So you know my opinion, I've said this a lot with the Axel Rod on Axon Tap, the governor I met about electric vehicles, he's his forum because he understands that half the labs that are going to slow China down are in California. You but on this performative stuff he's doing, that's going to work great for him as the number one Trump slapper among base Democrat voters through the midterms. And then it'll get very old very fast when everybody will do it. J.D. pritzler will be doing pro wrestling interviews. I want to get Trump in the steel cage right here in Chicago, you know, and it'll be very generic and it'll be very tired.
- [43:30]
Tim Miller
See, I'm not tired of it yet. That sounds good right now. In the pre preseason he should have, he should invite him to the.
- [43:35]
Mike Murphy
No, no. In the pre, pre season he should showing that Donald Trump, you know, and they got a Twitter.
- [43:39]
Tim Miller
I want like a Pritzker Trump, like Musk, Marilyn Musk and Zuckerberg were talking about doing an MMA fight together.
- [43:45]
Mike Murphy
I kind of know it's all, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, Pritzker ultimately will be the best at, you know, an air conditioned cobo hall. I'm going to get that Bowman here, he's no good for, you know, the old Dick the Bruiser routine from Detroit. But the problem is that makes you interesting for now. Good. But leverage that into the future, which is what 27 will really be about. Which in 27 drives the early primaries, people think it's 28, it's really 27. So you got to be the forward ideas guy. You got to have a vision for the middle class in America that Trump is going to wither a lot. So it's not a bad opening act for Gavin. My advice to him would be a little of that goes a long way. Having a 24 hour, you know, snappy arch Twitter feed is fun for a while, but again, it's kind of like, you know, being a fire baton juggler. Yeah, you can be an opening act, but it's not going to go farther. You need the real thing and he's got to do that. And he doesn't want a referendum in California.
- [44:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the fire baton juggler doesn't become Harry Styles, you know, you don't become the front man.
- [44:48]
Mike Murphy
Right, right. It just gets you into the variety show, but then you got to take it from there.
- [44:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah. On the California record, let's just. Because there was an Atlantic piece about this this week. Jonathan Chait was on it and he talked about how his record is a problem. Part of me is like, does that even matter now? You know, did Trump's record matter? Not really. We're in a different world. On the other hand, I was reading some of the things that he listed and I just wanna share a couple of them with you. California spent billions offering Medicaid to undocumented immigrants. Millions more on providing transgender surgeries for prisoners, some of them on death row. Death row. Transgender surgeries is an interesting one.
- [45:22]
Mike Murphy
The state got a very cut rate deal on bad doctors for that, though. It's like the old Dennis Miller joke, be a pathologist surgery on dead people. What can go wrong?
- [45:30]
Tim Miller
Also the highest excise tax in the country on gas. And then there's this one. In 2021, he signed a bill mandating an ethnic studies course about power, identity and social justice for all high school students. The Model curriculum in its first draft taught CIS heteropatriarchy and hercstory hxrstory and likened capitalism to white supremacy. Newsom quietly defunded that program last year. Does that stuff matter?
- [45:58]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, California is a little different. It's a brand. People outside California, they either say, oh, it's left wing crazy Governor Moonbeam, and this has been around forever. And all that stuff feeds that narrative. On the other hand, people think California is often the future, where the future is invented. It used to be the Golden State people wanted to go to. So the trick for Gavin will be, can he make the debate about some of the great stuff that happens in California? It's the biggest wealth creating machine as a state than anything in America. I mean, it's a lot of what happens first that's good happens there too. Can he make it? He's the future guy with the vision, or is he going to be in a batting cage defending all this crazy left wing stuff? If he's that guy, he loses. So, you know, that's why he's eventually got a pivot from Nana Nana at Trump into, you know, I've said publicly his line ought to be everything happens first in California for good or bad. And we make all the big mistakes there first, but we learn from them, so we don't repeat them and try to turn it into a lesson learned experience. Now everything's great. I dare you to deny that. And then we're going to be talking about some of this stuff and that'll be bad for him.
- [47:08]
Tim Miller
I just think as a general thing, anytime you're kind of writing down a new word and creating a new word, if it begins with five consonants, it better be Polish. Yeah, you're gonna be Polish, because otherwise, if you can't say it, I don't think it's gonna say it.
- [47:23]
Mike Murphy
Arthur Finkelstein, the late great pollster, had a wonderful joke. Most people think in a Afghan is a cat. If they went to college, they'll say it's a blanket. So, yeah, you don't really need 28 consonants. Not the language of the election.
- [47:36]
Tim Miller
Give us your type 5 on the wealth tax debate.
- [47:39]
Mike Murphy
There's a breakaway SEIU union of healthcare workers in San Francisco. So this is not the whole SEIU talking run by kind of a charismatic rogue guy who's like, damn it, I'm putting this on the ballot. Every billionaire has to give 5% one time of all their assets. So let's say you own the New York Yankees. So on paper, you're now worth 14 billion, but it's not liquid. But here's the good news. You owe us 70 billion cash next Thursday. So we just did a poll on 70 million. A couple of. I'm not a math major, whatever it was. Yeah, it's early here. We just did a poll and we were the first poll to test the actual ballot language, which came out the day after Christmas. They're getting signatures. It may not be on the ballot. Newsom opposes it. A lot of the Paul's oppose it. The teachers union opposes it. But. But this guy is like double the budget for, wait for it. Healthcare workers. My union or I'm going to put this on. So a couple of billionaires called up and said, you know, what do you think? I said, let me pull the title and summary. And then they said, well, that's a lot of money for a poll. And I said, you can afford it. So we did and we released the data and you can find it. Just Google a bunch of stories. It showed that yes vote at 48. And we ask people, do you like billionaires? Not really. Should billionaires pay more taxes? Absolutely. Well, what do you think about this tax? I hate it because we're never collect a dime. They're going to move and we ask people, if you had a billion dollars, would you stay and pay 50 million or would you leave?
- [49:08]
Tim Miller
I'd leave.
- [49:10]
Mike Murphy
So they think they're going to leave. They think they're going to tie it up in court forever, maybe going to the Trump Supreme Court and the state will never see a dime. But when they leave, it'll cost jobs and it'll screw up the income taxes where the 1% pays half of all state income taxes. In California, we have a high state income tax rate at the top 10% plus. So that will be big budget cuts. So this thing is badly written. And I think if it makes it to the ballot, which is an if, I think it's eminently beatable and I hope to be part of beating it, frankly, I think it's horrible policy.
- [49:42]
Tim Miller
One of the things that during my immigration away from the Republican Party, one of the things that I've changed my views on is taxation of the top 1%. And it's not anything to do with Trump. It's because, because I spent an inordinate amount of time in 2016 meeting rich people, asking them for money for the anti Trump effort. And I was like, wait a minute, not all of you are upset by your bootstraps after all. And so my populist California proposal is I want to come after the RSUs. I want the guy that was the fourth employee at the AI company who did a nice job. Fine. Is doing quite well. But then he gets to sell his RSUs and make makes 80 million off of it. I don't know if we need the capital gains rate on that. I think that we could take a little bit more from those folks. So, you know, I think that there's ways to do Populous stuff. This just feels like kind of a dumb way to do it.
- [50:31]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, no, no. And there is way to get more revenue. And you know what's amazing is a couple of billionaires have said to me, you know, I'll pay more. I wish I had a government where I'd get more for it in the state. But yeah, you know, but if you assets, you're going to force me out of the state and I'm going to close my thing, et cetera, et cetera. Now, as far as you and this left wing communism you're preaching here on high taxes, see, I'm still Republican in me. We're going to hook you up with a Joe Rogan's agent. We're going to soak crystal to give you a bigger piece of this huge podcast home run you've hit. And I'll see you at the Bentley dealership next year.
- [51:02]
Tim Miller
I'm happy to pay income on if we get the Barry Weiss deal on the Bulwark. I'm happy to pay taxes at ordinary income. I don't need the capital gains rates for the sales. Fair enough. But I hear you though, you know, my life's good. All right? It's why I'm never going to be a billionaire. You know, somebody that has my point of view is never going to be a billionaire. Well, let me tell you about crypto, all right? I've got a great life. I don't. I don't. I don't need a plane.
- [51:28]
Mike Murphy
We have the new Trump Liberty coins here on Crypto. So we're talk, Tim. Can't lose money, spend it all. Hey, you've earned your success, pal. I've known you a long time and I'm proud of you.
- [51:38]
Tim Miller
Thank you, man. I really appreciate that. Final topic, somebody who hasn't earned their success. I just had to read this one to you because it's too funny to not get the Murphy take on it, right? Very serious story in the New York Times for a bunch of people who got kicked out of cash. Patel, FBI talking about the ways that our country is less safe and the silliness of it and how he's pushing out experts in favor of hacks, et cetera. There's one anecdote that really caught my eye, and this is from a top official, the FBI, that has since been pushed out. Every May, there's a five eyes conference with the head of every intelligence agency. This year it was going to be in the uk. Cash Patel is going to go in the lead up to that. His detail starts making requests. He's got special requirements for everything, and the Brits are getting pissed. Before the conference, his staff says he's unhappy because he doesn't like meetings in office settings. He wants social events. He wants to do it at the premier soccer games, he wants to go jet skiing. He'd like a helicopter tour. Everyone who heard about this was like, hold on. He wants the MI5 director to meet on a jet ski? The schedule is set. He can come or not. His staff only cared about three things. What his meals were, his workouts would be, and what his entertainment would be. That's the head of the FBI.
- [52:47]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, yeah, no, the Beverly Hillbillies. I'm in the UK next week and I'll see a Tory or two. And they're all just stunned. Like, you know, who are these cretins? And what they scream at you is, don't you understand? You cannot have bloody idiots running the usa. You know, you're the metronome beat. And right now you got a chimpanzee banging it against the head. It screws up the world. So. So, yeah, the legacy of the Trump thing will be the worst staff people in the history of the American government. I mean, it is just incredible. And that's all this guy. I mean, there have been other stories about it. He hid in his plane for an hour because he couldn't find the right tough guy jacket to wear to some photo op. And he's got agents who ought to be like, gang busting, chasing around to make sure his girlfriend gets a good seat at the, you know, the.
- [53:35]
Tim Miller
In this case, Windsor Castle. Yeah, that was the other sentence, that, the biggest plan. He wanted to make sure his girlfriend got a chance to go to the Windsor Castle while they were visiting.
- [53:42]
Mike Murphy
Yeah, she'd really like to hang out with the queen. She wants to sing. She's going to be a pop. She's like some bad country star, right? So she'd really like to make the queen sit through five bad renditions of Jolene or say, yeah, you know, it is a. It is a nightmare, but it will end.
- [53:59]
Tim Miller
The queen is dead. So it'd be The.
- [54:01]
Mike Murphy
I know what killed her.
- [54:03]
Tim Miller
Kate Middleton, or I keep saying her hands did look a lot like Donald Trump's hands at Davos.
- [54:12]
Mike Murphy
That's all you're saying?
- [54:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm saying I just. I just let the dark web take it from here.
- [54:16]
Mike Murphy
You're just asking questions. You should do the Trump thing. You know, people are saying. I mean, I hear it all the time. They think it's blood cancer, brainworms. That's what they're saying. That's what people are talking about. The hands. The hands are a thing. I don't know. They're pretty bad. Serious hands.
- [54:32]
Tim Miller
That's Mike Murphy. Every time we get him, it's just kind of like we're at the Kingpin, he's at the corner. He's had two pops. You know, we're at the corner part of the bar, and he's just drunk on this, giving us the material. So we. We appreciate it. He's our resident Norm. That's Mike Murphy. Check him out on Hacks on tab and we'll see you guys soon. All right?
- [54:51]
Mike Murphy
All right, take care, Tim.
- [54:52]
Tim Miller
Thanks so much to Murph. Always appreciate him coming on. Hopefully he gave you a little bit of a laugh. We'll be back Monday. We do have some serious material to discuss next week, so we'll see y' all then. Bill Kristol on Monday. Have a wonderful weekend.
- [55:05]
Mike Murphy
Peace.
- [55:24]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.