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The Find Out Podcast
Inside Trump’s Mind: What Democrats Must Learn for 2026 and 2028
00:49:47
What drives Donald Trump’s most reckless moves—and why do they work? Veteran political journalist John Harwood joins us to unpack the psychology behind Trump’s political playbook, the leadership voids he exploits, and the dangerous appeal of his chaos-first strategy. We also get the insider perspective on what can be learned from Biden’s presidency, and what Democrats must understand if they want to win in 2026 and 2028. No fluff—just raw insight from one of America’s most trusted political reporters.
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- [00:01]
Tim Fullerton
Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Find out podcast. This is Tim Fullerton and I believe we are on episode 14 or 15. I'm losing track now. We're back to our regular format after two episodes where we actually were in person. So I hope you enjoyed that. But I also hope you like our regular format because we have a great guest today, one of the people who probably knows more about US Politics than pretty much anyone else. He has been a reporter for a long time, worked at cnn, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and now is at Zateo and also has his own podcast called Bedeviled. It is John Harwood. John, thanks for joining us today.
- [00:40]
John Harwood
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [00:42]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah. So as somebody who knows a lot about D.C. you've written a couple of articles recently that I want to talk about which are on Zateo, and you guys should go check it out. Really about one, what MAGA really means about America, and then another one where it was talking about how Trump is actually leaving these folks behind. So how do we sort of, how do we sort of jive the two of those pieces together where they're not really getting what they think they're getting? But this is also endemic of a problem in the, in the United States. So I'd love for you to sort of walk us through a little bit of that.
- [01:18]
John Harwood
Well, it's sort of a two step that Trump is doing, which is that he has attained control of the Republican Party. The Republican Party over the last 60 or 70 years has been amassing support among blue collar whites, conservative whites, particularly in the south, but not only in the South. After the civil rights movement came along and Lyndon Johnson put the Democratic Party nationally definitively on the side of civil rights, that created a realignment. And as part of that realignment, Republicans became the majority party. That sort of changed. Bill Clinton sort of pushed back against that, redefined the Democratic Party in ways that allowed him to deconstruct that natural Republican majority. And then all of a sudden, as the country was changing demographically, Democrats had the natural, the presumed majority in a popular vote sense in elections beginning in 1992, Trump came along at a time when the Republican Party was trying to figure out, do we stick with the old formula or Mitt Romney having just been defeated by Barack Obama in an election we thought we were going to win, do we need to modernize party, change the party so that we had more appeal to young people, to gays, to non whites, to women? And that was in the view of the party leadership in that moment. The key to making the party viable. Donald Trump came along and smashed that idea to bits because he, with a sort of supercharged appeal to those blue collar whites, was able to get more of them out to vote and narrowly won not the popular vote, but an electoral majority against Hillary Clinton. His conduct in office caused him to be defeated by Joe Biden, but Biden was that with some political problems, some personal, some circumstantial, some economic, that powered Trump's victory. And so now we have a MAGA movement which is driven, fueled by those blue collar whites. But they're not the people who pay the freight for the party. The donors for the party continue to want what they have wanted throughout my lifetime, which is lower taxes. And so what you have is a Republican Party that without fail, when it gets into office, say in the last 45 or 50 years, cutting taxes is its number one priority. And that puts money in the pocket of people near the top of the income scale. What the MAGA ground troops of the party get are the culture war that Donald Trump prosecutes very effectively. There's a huge racial overlay to this racist still, really always has been, but, and still is the most important fault line in our politics. And so Donald Trump wages war against immigrants, wages war against dei, which is code for black people getting things that they don't deserve, and that white people are now the locus of discrimination. You have a Republican Party that in huge numbers now thinks that the victims of racial diversity, discrimination in white people. Trump plays to that and that's what he, what he offers those voters, which is the emotional satisfaction of somebody standing up for them, hurting the people they think have been taking things from them. Meantime, Trump's taking money out of their pocket.
- [05:17]
Rich
I was just going to say that we got into this in a recent discussion of, you know, to what degree is the, the cruelty the point? And I think, you know, with 50%, maybe 30%, 70% of, of MAGA supporters, I think the cruelty is the point. And they really, they are personally angry, you know, racist, homophobic, and they personally want that other person to suffer for being weird or gross or wrong or whatever, whatever dumb reason that they have in their mind. However, I think for, you know, I think the people that we can at least try to influence or win back, Dare I say, it's just, it's just a conversation of scapegoating. And, and Trump has so successfully manipulated them into believing that the only reason they are personally suffering is because of WOKE or DEI or feminists or gay marriage. Like it's it's just pick your poison. Over the last 30 years, how do we more successfully have that conversation around who is actually to blame? Because we all know who is to blame for high school educated, white blue collar voters, whatever you want to call them, we all know that the reason why they're suffering economically is because of Republican policies. And yet we have been terrible at actually communicating that argument as a party. And instead we're saying like, oh, we hear everybody's hurting and we feel you, and we want everyone to be equal. And we play right into the talking points of the Republican Party all the way to where Gavin Newsom is now siding with all of the Republican voices against trans people, even though that's just a abusive distraction.
- [07:11]
John Harwood
Well, let me just disagree with you slightly in that Republican parties in some respects have not helped, but I don't think they're the fundamental reason why blue collar whites in the United States feel aggrieved and going backwards economically. They're not actually going backwards, but they feel that in a relative sense, changes in the nature of the economy technologically have reduced the return to physical strength and repetitive, repetitive tasks that, like assembly lines that require sort of physical manipulation of objects. We're in a knowledge economy now, and people who are less educated are going to fall behind in a knowledge economy. That, and we see that happening not just in the United States, but around the world, no matter who is in charge. And so you get this, a common populist reaction in many parts of the world that resembles what's going on in the United States. I think the question is for Democrats is to figure out how to make the case that they are the ones attempting to assist those voters and not hurt them. And what Trump has done is convince people that they're hurting you because they're elevating other people. And what Democrats have tried to do is say, well, we are going to put factories in rural areas and in red states and we're going to provide higher tax credits and expand rural broadband and all those sort of material things. But they haven't been voting on those material things. Joe Biden had a live experiment for the first couple years of his presidency of to what extent would putting money in the pocket of those voters change their attitude toward, toward the two parties? And it just didn't change it at all.
- [09:17]
Tim Fullerton
So what I, you're 100% right. And it's, you know, as a, as somebody that's worked in the, on a few, in the, I was in the Obama administration and then, you know, doing the white dude stuff last fall. I struggle with what the right answer is here, because you're right. Like the. I think the ira, the. What was the other bill? Predominantly those funds went into red areas and infrastructure. Infrastructure. All this stuff, the money in people's pocket, you know, all of those things cut child poverty in half. And it didn't move the needle. Like we went backwards. In fact, why. Why do you think we have gone backwards? It's not even just flat, but, like, what are Democrats missing here? Or what are Republicans doing? I mean, we know what Republicans are doing so well, but, like, what are Democrats missing here?
- [10:04]
John Harwood
Well, I think, putting it in perspective, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were exceptionally gifted people, talented politicians, very smart, very articulate, very much able to. To make the case and communicate the case. They won. They both won national elections twice. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were not on their. Not in their league as candidates. You know, Joe Biden, I covered his first campaign in 1987, and I covered his before you guys were born and covered his campaign in 2007, 2008. They didn't go very well. I thought it was a mistake for him to run in 2020 because I thought he was going to be humiliated in the race. And I was very. I sat down with him in November, September 2023, and said, I have to acknowledge how wrong I was. Because as it happened in that moment, given who Trump was and what he had done, given the pandemic, given the nature of the two parties, a older, moderate figure like Biden was able to win the nomination and win the general election. But that didn't make him a great candidate or a great politician. He performed effectively as president. He got a lot of things done. But when you got to 2024, you had a couple of things in particular going on. One was there was inflation in the United States, which felt shocking to people who for 30 years had been used to not having inflation. So that was a new economic phenomenon that tended to overpower low unemployment and rising wages, especially at the bottom of the income scale. And so that was a negative. Hanging over there was, I think there's a lot of disquiet in the country that is a hangover from the pandemic itself. It disrupted life. It took kids out of school. It upset people in pretty fundamental ways. So that in the fall of 2023, the Economist was looking at how well our economy was doing at that point. Inflation was coming down. The economy is growing. It was in stronger shape than any other of our industrialized peers. And they said the Pandemic had broken conventional measures of consumer sentiment because the negative feelings coming out of the pandemic overpowered the things that had caused people. If you asked them in a poll, are you confident in the future? Are you optimistic? Do you think the economy is good? Those in the past produced a certain level of satisfaction and confidence, and they didn't after the pandemic. So that was one thing. Second thing was that Republicans had taken over the House. Joe Biden didn't have a legislative agenda to speak of anymore, and he was 81 years old and showing it. He was not senile. He. He was in command of his faculties. He was able to do the job and make judgments, but he was not an effective campaigner or an effective communicator on most occasions. And so that, you know, created a problem and a barrier that allowed Trump to come back from stuff that I sure as hell thought he couldn't possibly come back from after he lost and the insurrection, et cetera.
- [13:40]
Rich
I think it's really interesting to look at the environment. I mean, 2020 was terrifying. That was the scariest year of my life by a thousand times. Every day was like waking up to a new level of fear. And as a result, we elected a safe policy wonk senator with a billion years of experience who was kind of like our grandpa. And he made us feel very, very safe. I mean, I was elated when we woke up and it turned out that Joe Biden won. And I had never felt this. I mean, it was absolutely cathartic after, what was it, about seven, eight months of just sheer terror. I had young children at the time, and even younger than they are now, and 2020 was terrifying. And so I think Joe Biden was a logical, healthy, emotional response to that level of fear. Whereas you Fast forward to 2024, and it's anger. People are just angry. And so they're looking for malice. You know, they're looking for a vendetta and revenge. If you're telling me that we're better off, and I. We were, and I agree. But if the world is telling these people we are better off than everyone else, and they're looking at their checking account, or they're looking at their. The interest rate on their car or the interest rate on their home, or the fact they can't even buy a bigger home for their kids because rates are at 6 or 7% or whatever, you know, they got to. People are angry, and they just want. They just want anger and rage. And so, you know, I. It happened to us. I think we could have done a lot better job. But I also wildly agree that Joe Biden was a great candidate for a very, very unique time in American history. But there's a reason why that was, what, his sixth, seventh time, you know, coming around to a White House run. And it was only because of the pandemic and really probably to some degree because of the nostalgia of the Barack Obama presidency that people felt so comfortable in voting for him. So, you know, I mean, we can learn a lot from that. Instead of, you know, the Jake Tapper think pieces and, and all of the hand wr, you know, if you just look at like, what is 2028 going to look like and who are we going to need as a society at that point?
- [16:00]
Luke
It's vibes. It's vibes.
- [16:01]
John Harwood
That's what it is.
- [16:02]
Rich
The vibe is going to shift big time.
- [16:04]
Luke
And no, no, it's, it's, they're voting on vibes. That's what it is. I mean, people elected Biden because he was like your grandpa, he was going to make you feel safe. And I'm showing my age here. But during COVID no one my age was afraid, not anybody. Unless you had some kind of pre existing condition, 16 to 20 year olds did not give a. There was no reason for them to be afraid. They're told repeatedly, especially by the right, yeah, you guys don't have anything to worry about. This thing doesn't really get you. And so then they went through four years with Biden where the, everybody's like, oh, the vibe's gonna get so much better. And they got shafted. Nothing about that felt better for them. And then they're going, oh well, I want to buy a new car. And it's like, oh well, the rate's gonna absolutely you and everything else about their life, they're like, oh, well, everybody else seems like they're doing better under Biden, but I'm not. And that's why my, my generation shifted so far. Right? I mean it is, it's entirely vibes. At least they thought, okay, well maybe Trump will shake shit up. And so when you're looking at 2028, you got to find somebody whose vibe matches both. They're going to help people your age and people my age.
- [17:10]
John Harwood
I have to make one generational point. When you talk about the high interest rates at 6 and 7%. When I bought my first house in 1983, the interest rate was 13%. So that doesn't, that doesn't sound, that sounds awful. That was the beginning of the Reagan administration when the Fed was beginning to try to bring down inflation. My daughter and her husband have a house with a mortgage rate, I think of three and a half or four. So I get the contrast and what they're not used to. But it always hits me a little funny when I hear people talking about how they're getting screwed by 6% interest rate.
- [17:53]
Tim Fullerton
Well, and that was the last time that inflation was a massive issue in the United States. Right. Was like the late 70s, early, early 80s. So you've sort of now seen both, both periods of that and unfortunately I bought a place last year and so I'm dealing with that now. So. But John, I want to ask you like the, this is the thing that everyone keeps talking about and I'm kind of tired of it. But I want to get your take. What are your thoughts on this relitigating like the last years of the Biden administration? We also saw his press secretary, Karine St. Pierre, I believe, leave the party independent now. Right. And now is an independent. I, you know, it's a really interesting for somebody that was literally the spokesperson for the President of the United States to then four months later, all of a sudden a book appears and they're an independent now. I'd just love to hear your thoughts on this whole re litigating and that piece as well.
- [18:47]
John Harwood
Well, I haven't seen much about the content of Karine's book, so I don't really know how to evaluate it. Some people are saying she's criticizing the party as opposed to Biden. Set that aside. I think this whole discussion about a quote, cover up of Biden's cognitive decline is, is ridiculous and way overhyped. Okay. I mean, I, there are a couple perspectives I bring to that. One is I interviewed the guy in September of 2023 and look, he, he doesn't communicate as well as he did when I talked to him in 1987 or in 2016. The last time I sat with, no, actually I sat down with him in 2019. He was as good even as he was in 2019. You get older, the presidency ages you. He walks slower. He was physically diminished and his communication was diminished. And I'm perfectly willing to believe that somebody like him has good days and bad days. On the other hand, I believe that he was in possession of his faculties. I think he was able to process information and make decisions. And I think the, the relevant parts of Joe Biden's aging were evident in public. I mean, even if you don't do a ton of interviews, you do some and people See, you, you, you meet with world leaders or you meet with legislative leaders, and some of that interaction occurs in public. And I don't think there was a whole lot that was hidden. It was how people interpreted what they were seeing. And there was also the force of inertia here in the following sentence, for the reasons that you guys talked about and I talked about, he got himself elected president. He liked the job. He was performing effectively in the job he wanted to keep the job. That wasn't about the. The head of the Democratic National Committee saying, oh, we're going to keep stuff quiet and keep him or Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi or anybody else. That's a decision singularly, that is possessed by the president. And if he does, if he wants to run, nobody can stop him from running. And so that was the situation. He had a surprisingly good midterm in 2022, and he made the decision to run over time. He did not perform as well as he had hoped to as a candidate. And then we all saw what happened in the debate. Now, I will say, though I did talk to him a year earlier, I was shocked by what I saw in the debate. I had zero expectation of that. So is it possible that he eroded at an accelerated rate in that year? Yes, sure, that's possible. Can we say now, as we look back, that he shouldn't have run? I think people can agree on that, but I think the reasons for why he ran and why he was the nominee have much, much less to do with conspiracy or hiding the ball than the fact that he'd gotten himself to the White House and he wanted to stay there. And so if that's the case, and you work for a president, you try to do what you can to help him and make him look good. Some people might have expected that Mike Donilon and Steve Ruschetti and Ron Klain would go out and quit and have a press conference and say, want everybody to know this guy shouldn't run for a second term. I think that's an unrealistic expectation for people to have. For those who work in the White House.
- [22:42]
Chris
I think what, what is upsetting to me about Joe Biden running a second time is that when he ran in 2020, he proposed himself as a transitional candidate.
- [22:54]
Luke
He would be a transfer.
- [22:56]
Chris
Yeah, he would be a transitional president. He chose a vice president who was. Who was younger and different from him in many, many ways. And he was not that. He. He was. And I agree with you, John, he was an effective president. His infrastructure bill, you Know, accomplished everything that Donald Trump ever promised and couldn't deliver for his four years in the presidency and, and more. And it was important stuff, too. Things like the CHIPS act that is not just about technology. It's. It's about national security. Joe Biden made the United States a more safe place. He was an effective president. I am upset as someone who voted for him twice, including, you know, plus in the primaries. I am upset that he ended up running a second time, because I didn't think he was all there. I met him only once, very briefly, in, I think, 2021. It was like the first White House event where they actually invited people. I shook his hand, and my 30 second interaction with him told me he's not the man that he used to be. I had seen him, you know, live and in person several times.
- [24:15]
John Harwood
You're talking about.
- [24:16]
Chris
Yes. Yeah, is either 21 or 22 is. Whatever was the first, the first time that the White House grounds was really open to a lot of people. I could tell in that moment. And again, it was a very quick impression, but I was like, this guy is. Is not what he used to be. Now, I was still happy to have voted for him. I still thought he was doing a great job, but I wanted to see someone else. I really did believe him when he. He presented himself as a transitional figure who would hand it off to a younger generation.
- [24:52]
John Harwood
Well, what I would just add to that is, I think that's an illustration of the art of ambiguity that politicians use. He said he was going to be a transitional figure because people were concerned about his age. He did not say that I'm only going to serve for the term. And so by saying it that way, he's. He is trying to sort of get past a problem without making a promise. And that's what politicians do. And I understand why some people interpreted it as a promise. And if you asked him about it, he would say, well, I never said that. And his age will say he never said that. That's a legitimate thing to be disappointed politically because he allowed some people to believe something that was not completely borne.
- [25:44]
Luke
Out real, real quick. Rich, are you and I the only one in this call who have not shook the hand of a sitting president?
- [25:51]
Tim Fullerton
Actually, I haven't.
- [25:52]
Rich
That's a cruel question.
- [25:53]
Luke
And I, I was feeling attacked.
- [25:56]
Tim Fullerton
No, no, I, No, I, I think Tim has it.
- [26:00]
Luke
That surprises me.
- [26:01]
Tim Fullerton
I mean, I stood next to him a bunch, but, like, I've. No, you know, usually when you're staff, you don't go up, and you never shook Obama's hand.
- [26:08]
Luke
What, Rub elbows or what?
- [26:09]
Tim Fullerton
I, I was, I was elbow to elbow with it once. I watched him.
- [26:12]
Luke
That's cool.
- [26:13]
Tim Fullerton
Do some karate moves as he was preparing to go out on stage.
- [26:16]
Luke
Surreal, I think, I think Kim is number one in this.
- [26:19]
Rich
I would have reached over and just like scratched his back gently like, you'll be great, buddy.
- [26:24]
Chris
You know, I, I was invited to more Trump White House events than either president on either side of him and I never shook his hand. I probably looked very upset every time he walked into the room. But yeah, I was, I was in the Trump White House more often than anybody else.
- [26:40]
John Harwood
To the core point that Chris made though, about that interaction, 2021 and 2022, he said he wasn't the man that he was 100%. There's no disputing that. I mean we, but to me that's something that was visible. We could see it when I, I interviewed him in 2016 after he decided not to run and Hillary was running against Bernie Sanders and we did the interview on an Amtrak train. He looks way, way different than he does now. That's aging. And you, you saw how he walked. He was very ginger in his walking. I mean, I still think that you have to consider somebody who can fly around the world, deal with world leaders, deal with Congress at age 81, is a pretty high functioning 81 year old person. Nevertheless, time takes its toll. If he were, had been elected to a second term, I think his ability to serve very much in doubt to, to the, to the end of his term, like I do, I think he would have been an effective president at age 86. No, I don't. And so that's a, that's an argument for him not running. But that's different from whether he was capable of doing the job while he.
- [27:54]
Chris
Had on the other end of that, you know, people are saying like, oh well, it was undemocratic that, that Kamala Harris came in like I, she was on the primary ballot in New York and I voted for her in the primary in 2024. So, you know, I, again, I believe that, that Joe Biden was an effective president and he was a good man. And I don't, I respect Jake Tapper, I've been on his show. But the idea that he's promoting that there was some cover up. I agree with you, John, is, is a stretch because I think about snl. SNL is like the Simpsons. It's a true record of, of our cultural moment. And SNL had Joe Biden as a shuffling old man for years prior to his reelection, like, we all knew that he was a shuffling old man.
- [28:48]
John Harwood
That's right.
- [28:49]
Chris
Yeah.
- [28:50]
Tim Fullerton
But I want to, I want to turn to the, of the, the president that we have currently, the other shuffling old man is actually the one who's.
- [28:57]
John Harwood
Actually destroying all the things that made America great.
- [29:01]
Tim Fullerton
Yes, yes. So I think you, maybe you didn't interview him one on one, but I think you did a debate with Trump in 2015.
- [29:11]
John Harwood
I did interview him.
- [29:12]
Tim Fullerton
Have you, like, let's, let's talk about the current president.
- [29:16]
Rich
I have a foundational question because this, it's mind blowing to look back at 2015 and think what the hell was happening back then and how the hell did we get to where we're at for so many reasons. John, what was your state of mind with Donald Trump taking the, I think, third ever presidential debate stage as a candidate back when he was universally considered to be a joke clown, sidecar performance? What were you thinking in that moment and in looking back on that debate, which I think was a lot of things. How do you look back on, you know, almost 10, 10 years ago, 10 years ago this October? How do you, how do you, how do you process all of that?
- [30:03]
John Harwood
Well, I, I am among many people who was guilty of underestimating the potential of Donald Trump's candidacy. I thought he was a clown. I thought that once we got from the summer to the fall and things got serious, he was going to go the way of Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain and people who had, who had been, you know, brief wonders within the party before. And as I watched him being interviewed during the summer, I thought that some of the people who were talking to him were giving excessive respect and credence to the ridiculous things that he was saying. So he would say, for example, I'm going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. And people would say, classic. And people would say, well, how are you going to, how are you going to do that? And he would say something, and they would say, well, isn't that going to be really hard? Or whatever. And to me, that on its face, was a preposterous idea. And so I sat down with him in September, and again, I'm thinking that he's going to disappear. But I'd interviewed all the major Republican candidates, actually all the Republican candidates. He was the next to last. Rand Paul was the last one. And, and I said, in kind of a gentle way, you're saying all these things that are ridiculous. What, what are you going to do when you become president? And Everybody sees that you were like wizard of Oz behind the curtain. They pull back the curtain. It's just a guy saying stuff, right? And he, and he said, you watch.
- [31:48]
Tim Fullerton
Me.
- [31:50]
John Harwood
And I can get all this stuff done. And I'm like rolling my eyes and thinking, okay. And it didn't register on him strongly enough. So when we got to the debate, I thought that I decided to take a sharper tone with him, but in the same vein, to say that you're saying stuff that is ridiculous. And I kind of thought that there was going to be a point, not necessarily because of me, but because of things that everybody in the press and political system would, how they would treat him, that it would be like you prick a balloon and, you know, go down. And so the first question I asked him was, I, I recited some of the ridiculous things that he was saying and said, don't. Isn't this a comic book version of a presidential campaign? And he got all mad. And all the Republicans on stage, including ones who called me before the debate and said, how can you live with yourself with the press when you're letting Donald Trump get away with everything? It's a joke, and you better, as the moderator, go hard at it. Well, I was going to do that anyway, but all those people were so intimidated by what was happening in the audience and what they were seeing on the trail that once I did it, they all went crazy, as if this was a bias and a violation of decorum and all this shit. And I am not the slightest bit embarrassed by what I did. The debate became a shit show, but it was a shit show because a Republican Party that had sequestered itself from reality decided to make it a shit show and made an NBC related outlet the Target. And so they all went crazy. They canceled a debate that Chuck Todd was going to moderate in a month or two, and it was nuts. But that was my thing thought. And I was completely surprised that whatever I did, whatever other journalists did, whatever other Republican candidates did, this guy was a battle tank that was rolling on. And that's how it went.
- [34:10]
Tim Fullerton
So do you. So From in the 10 years since you had that interview and you see him now, does he seem the same? Does he seem different? You know, we talk a lot about President Biden's decline, and we have seen more unhinged and more deranged and I think, most importantly, dangerous things coming out of Donald Trump's mouth. But you've actually met him and talked to him. So what are your, what are your thoughts on that?
- [34:36]
John Harwood
You know, I don't I don't think of it on a continuum of he was here and now he's here. He was always full of shit.
- [34:47]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah.
- [34:47]
John Harwood
And prone to, from the beginning of his presidency and during his campaign, saying crazy things. But you had a progression. He was saying crazy things in the campaign. He's a candidate. So what? Then he gets elected and he's still saying crazy things, but he's got some mature people around him who can stop him from doing the craziest things. And then he has this period between his presidencies when his legal troubles accelerate and he fights back and decides he needs to be president again to stay out of jail and all that, and he fashioned an administration where nobody's going to restrain him. So is it possible that Donald Trump is declining in his cognitive ability? I guess, but to me, that's not the, the, the relevant thing to talk about. The relevant thing to talk about is the, the what motivates him. The, the revenge, the retribution, the racism, and the fact that he's got a whole party now that will not stand up and talk to him. And a lot of them, not, not, not all of them, but a huge percentage of the party that likes the terrible qualities that Donald Trump has brought to the presidency. Democrats are not going to, to come back and win by getting those people. But, you know, if you assume the MAGA basis, 35, 38% of the, of the electorate, you know, there's another 10, 11% who are not on board with all this stuff. And that's where Democrats are going to have to make their way back to the presidency.
- [36:34]
Chris
John, I've got a question for you. So I think that every accusation that Donald Trump makes is a confession. And we just saw, as we're recording this, I think this happened last night where Trump is ordering an investigation into Joe Biden and the administration.
- [36:53]
Luke
Well, he's a robot. He's a clone robot. That's what he's.
- [36:56]
Chris
He's been obsessed with this idea of the auto pen, which he apparently, after four years of being an office job, just discovered the auto pen. I don't think that's true, but I, I get the sense that Donald Trump isn't like, he's driving the vibe, but I don't think he cares or knows about policy whatsoever. Am I right in thinking that it is really Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, and those around them who are, who are more like, well, yeah, okay, Elon's out and they're having a tiff.
- [37:32]
Luke
Like I just saw while we were doing that, he he tweeted that the reason that the Epstein files aren't coming out is because Donald Trump is in them for later.
- [37:43]
Chris
That's an acceleration.
- [37:44]
Tim Fullerton
Okay, so. Well, that's different from yesterday.
- [37:47]
Chris
Yesterday, yes, maybe Elon is not still in, but that goes to the base of the question. Is it, is it really the staff around him, there used to be the so called adults in the room who barely restrained him. Is it now the Stephen Millers of the world who, who are committed white nationalists, racists, pro. You know, I would say as someone who knows fascism and neo Nazism and studies it quite closely, I would say that Stephen Miller is like pro genocide. That's how, that's what a white nationalist is. It's the only way you get a white country is if you are pro genocide. So is it Stephen Miller driving the bus and Donald Trump just tweeting like, is that what's going on right now?
- [38:31]
John Harwood
Well, I think a couple of things. Donald Trump has impulses and instincts that he acts on. He believes whites are superior to blacks. He believes, certain, he talks about anti Semitism, but he shows that he shares every stereotype everybody's ever thrown at the Jewish population. And so that motivates him. He's got this weird thing about tariffs. He is a, I think his, his principal skill is in ripping other people off. And he's done that throughout his business career. Not paying his bills, scam, university, you know, all these sort of products. And so he thinks of, he gets off on making what he calls deals, which is, are really things that he can try to extort from other people. Now as it happens, most leaders of other countries are fairly strong people themselves and they're not giving him all that much. And except for some of these Gulf states. And he's just claiming that he is making deals or making victories and it's just. Yes, but, but setting that aside, you do have committed ideologues, committed white Christian nationalists, Ross Vaughan, Stephen Miller and, and these people are using Trump for their own purposes. And so I think that's what it is. I don't think as a substantive matter, I mean, Donald Trump has, My belief is that Donald Trump has used illegal immigrant labor throughout his career, right?
- [40:18]
Tim Fullerton
Oh yeah, for sure.
- [40:20]
John Harwood
Builder in his, in his properties and all that. He, he doesn't have a principled objection to those people being here, but he is kind of a racist. And, and he sort of goes along with, with the idea that we need fewer, you know, black and brown people in the country. And so he, he, it doesn't offend him to tell ridiculous lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio or, you know, crazy stuff, alleging people are terrorists when they're not, or gang members when they're not. That's, that's, you know, he's, he's playing a game. He's, he's, he's exerting dominance. He likes to try to dominate other people. And, yeah, I think that's what it is. Other people are more serious about their objectives than him. He's, he's impulse driven in the moment.
- [41:09]
Rich
So when we look at how that policy comes to life, you know, looking forward, I mean, we're laughing as a group because it's sort of a cynical, sad laugh, but laughing nonetheless, that they control the House, they control the Senate, they have a highly favorable Supreme Court, and he has his pick of any person he wants to surround himself with, and they just rubber stamp everything. And yet he is, to my knowledge, yet to sign a single bill that is a real thing, and including extending his own tax cuts, which if they just did it free and clear, they could probably get away with it. But instead they're trying to do all sorts of other stuff, including like protecting themselves from contempt charges and all that. Things that won't even pass the birdbath, as they call it. How effective do you think. All right, let me rephrase that. Do you have any guidance or parting advice for people who are looking at this, looking at this catastrophe of policyless leadership hit reality? How do you think this is going to go into the midterms and into 2028? And do you think this is going to set a favorable environment for Democrats to sweep in big, or do you think that MAGA is more durable than.
- [42:30]
John Harwood
Well, I think it will be, believe it will certainly be a favorable environment for Democrats in 2026. Very consistent historical pattern, consistent during Trump's first term. And certainly we've seen his numbers go down not as much as many people thought they would, and they rebounded a little bit after he backed off the tariffs and stopped the tremendous gyrations in the stock market. But. So I think it's quite likely the Democrats will win the house in 2026. It's a very, very difficult road for them to win the Senate because the nature of statewide elections and, and how many states Republicans have a functional majority in. I think 2028 is also likely to be a good year for Democrats. It's hard to look that far ahead. But I think, you know, it's not irrelevant that when he got himself into the White House in 2017, he lost altitude every year since then. Right. He lost in the House in 2018, lost the Senate and his job in 2020. And I think the backlash which naturally happens to the party in power is going to be exaggerated because of how atrocious his behavior has been and how offensive it is to large numbers of people. And then I think once you get a Democratic and Republican nominee in 2028, they will define their parties in new ways. I mean, if it's J.D. vance, I, I presume he will run on a continuation of maga and it, you know, it will be up to Democrats to have a candidate capable of competing with him. And I suspect they will.
- [44:24]
Tim Fullerton
Well, I'm going to, we're going to give you one final question here, John. Put you on spot a little bit. So what do Democrats need to do to make sure that they, the, the terrain is as favorable as possible in 2028? And I would love some early guesses on who some of the candidates might be that would be successful in 2028 for Democrats.
- [44:46]
John Harwood
There's a reason why I'm not a political strategist. I don't claim to have great insight onto what will work politically for Democrats, but I would say that for Democrats to Prosper heading into 2028, that they probably need to, in simple language, make clear what is objectionable that Trump is doing, how the, the rule of law is essential to the function in the United States and its prosperity, how American alliances are, are fundamental to our safety and have been for a long time, and how cruelty in public policy is unattractive. So if they can make that case in a plain spoken way that doesn't look like it's too out there and, you know, presenting a face to the country that, that 51% of the country cannot identify with, I think that's important. In terms of the candidates. I think I look at people like Mitch Landrieu.
- [46:08]
Luke
Interesting.
- [46:09]
John Harwood
Andy Beshear. I think Gina Raimondo is a very talented person who has a lot of potential. There are a lot of people who think that Gretchen Whitmer would be a good national candidate. I'm less certain of that. I think Josh Shapiro would be a potent candidate. I've heard the argument made that Democrats need to nominate another white dude to avoid some of the problems that they ran into in the last couple of elections. I don't know if that's the case or not. Pete Buttigieg is exceptionally gifted and I think if you look substantively communication wise, brain's ability to synthesize public policy, I Don't see anybody better than Pete Buttigieg. Can a gay man in 2028 win a national election? I don't know the answer to that.
- [47:08]
Rich
I'm determined to make sure the answer is, yes, I am Rich.
- [47:12]
Tim Fullerton
Rich and Luke are on the train. I am undecided for now, and I think Chris is undecided as well, because we have three years to go with this, but. Well, all right. Well, John, we kept you a little longer than we said we would. Thank you very much for this, folks. Go listen to the Bedeviled podcast and John's content on Zateo. And I also want to mention one thing that, John, you probably don't even remember, and I just want people to know this because it meant a lot to me. So my father passed away about two and a half years ago, rather unexpected. We had about five days notice, and John DM'd me a very, very lovely note that I actually read to my dad, literally, probably in the last day, that he had consciousness, and it really. And he knew who you were, and he was. He was really happy to have that. And it just. It meant the world to me that you would take, you know, a couple minutes to write something, and I just wanted people to know what a good guy you were. So thank you for that, Tim.
- [48:07]
John Harwood
I appreciate that. Can I add one thing?
- [48:09]
Tim Fullerton
Sure.
- [48:10]
John Harwood
That is sort of related to what you said.
- [48:14]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah.
- [48:15]
John Harwood
A few weeks after the interview that I had with Biden in September 2023, completely out of the blue, feeling great, no symptoms whatsoever. I had a routine annual physical, and they found I had acute myeloid leukemia. Oh. I immediately went into Johns Hopkins for chemo and radiation. Stayed there for a month, and then in February of 2024, got a bone marrow transplant from my daughter, who was 30 years old that was a complete success. The doctors think they have cured me. Bone marrow transplants are curative for most AML patients who get them. And so I'm happy just to be here, but it. But grabbed me. It gave me a greater identification than I had before with staring mortality in the face and. And the experience that you had with your dad is part of that. I had the same thing with my own dad, so just wanted to make that point.
- [49:21]
Tim Fullerton
Well, and one of the things we talk about here is like, you know, wanting to. To model positive masculinity. And you certainly have done that through your career and also with that moment with me. So thank you very much, John. We'll have to have you back on again at some point, maybe in a couple well, we'll do it for a couple of years, but we're going to see if you're prognosticating about some of those candidates. This far out was was correct, and I think you're probably right. But anyways, thank you very much and thank you all for listening, and we will talk to you next time.