Speaker 1: Hi, Brian Goldsmith. Hi Katie Kuric. So happy to be
Speaker 1: with you and so happy to talk about politics. You know,
Speaker 1: it's been a little over three weeks since election day
Speaker 1: and people, I think Brian, are still trying to process it.
Speaker 1: It's almost if they're going through those stages of Greek
Speaker 1: that Elizabeth Coopler Ross talked to us about. At least
Speaker 1: if you're on the losing side, and many of those
Speaker 1: folks are still at the denial stage, don't you think, Well,
Speaker 1: that's clearly true because a lot of them are sending
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to Green Party Canada Jill Stein Online
Speaker 1: to pursue recounts in three places where the famous blue
Speaker 1: Wall broke for Hillary Clinton, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. And
Speaker 1: I am probably more likely to grow wings and start
Speaker 1: to fly than for those recounts to overturn the results
Speaker 1: of the election. It's just not going to happen. The
Speaker 1: margins are too big. Meanwhile, Trump Tower has been the
Speaker 1: site of very interesting comings and goings with a lot
Speaker 1: of different candidates and almost feels like the dating game
Speaker 1: where people are coming and they're courting Donald Trump, They're
Speaker 1: having conversations with him most recently for Secretary of State.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's been a fascinating thing to watch because
Speaker 1: it's been so public, hasn't it. Brian, Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: almost like a reality show, you could say. I mean,
Speaker 1: normally this process is very hush hush. Certainly the president
Speaker 1: elect doesn't communicate publicly about who the candidates are and
Speaker 1: how excited he is to meet them or to interview them.
Speaker 1: I know, it's like it's like he's sixty four. He
Speaker 1: was a general, he was behind the Iraq Sir. He
Speaker 1: had a bear with his biographer. Ladies and gentlemen, please
Speaker 1: welcome dun dunt dun du. General David Buttres Now is
Speaker 1: Chuck Woolery, the host of the Dating Go Oh No,
Speaker 1: that was Jim Lange, Baby Jim Lang. Anyway, let's move
Speaker 1: on to our guest. Brian tell us about him. Brian, Well,
Speaker 1: I think he's a little bit better at breaking down
Speaker 1: politics than seventies game shows. But we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: sort of bear with him. Uh. He's really a central
Speaker 1: figure in Republican politics. He's advised almost every big name
Speaker 1: GOP candidate, from John McCain to Mitt Romney. He had
Speaker 1: his own podcast earlier this year, and he offered a
Speaker 1: very fascinating look into what Trump selection means, how it happened,
Speaker 1: and the path forward for the country. Mike Murphy, Welcome
Speaker 1: to our little podcast. We're so excited you're here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. I have a lot of time
Speaker 1: on my hands now I have to ask you, Mike,
Speaker 1: how's it. What's a nice kid like you doing in
Speaker 1: a profession like this? How did you get into political consulting?
Speaker 1: For crying out loud? Well, I may be out of
Speaker 1: it now because I was ethically wrong this year. I
Speaker 1: was like the automic that's true, it's a big room.
Speaker 1: But I was saying all year mathematically, I did not
Speaker 1: think Trump could get enough votes to win. It turns
Speaker 1: out that you can lose by doing half million and
Speaker 1: still win. So it's been a character building experience. But
Speaker 1: I got into this. I'm from Detroit. I'm from a
Speaker 1: political family of Democrats, so I kind of grew up
Speaker 1: around it, and I kind of got the bug for
Speaker 1: domestic politics. So I was still a college student. I
Speaker 1: worked for this congressman nobody thought could win out of
Speaker 1: my dorm room making radio commercials. And he won, and
Speaker 1: so one thing led to another, and now I'm a
Speaker 1: political consultant. So I called back to Democrat headquarters at
Speaker 1: our house in Detroit and told my parents I'm gonna
Speaker 1: drop out of Georgetown and go run off and join
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. And yeah, only converting to an Episcopalian
Speaker 1: might have been worse. It was. It was a bumpy conversation.
Speaker 1: So I took a leave of absence from Georgetown. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I've never gone back. I do really more corporate
Speaker 1: and kind of grown up stuff now. I pretty much
Speaker 1: retired from doing campaigns, though Jeb did drag me back
Speaker 1: for one more great effort because I believed in him.
Speaker 1: I thought he'd be the best president. So I ran
Speaker 1: the Jeb Bush Superpack, which gives me the unique credential
Speaker 1: of having blown over nine million dollars and not. And
Speaker 1: we should we should let people know that Murphy's kind
Speaker 1: of the Zelig of American politics. His clients have included
Speaker 1: Jeff Bush, as he mentioned, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 1: Tommy Thompson, Christie Whitman, so many others. Um I'm always
Speaker 1: very amused on Twitter when people give him suggestions about
Speaker 1: how political strategy, strategy should be done, and his response
Speaker 1: as always, well, how many senators and governors have you elected?
Speaker 1: Which that I'm My specialty is winning governor races, which
Speaker 1: I did, you know, worked hard to help Jeff Bush
Speaker 1: win in Florida or Mitt Romney and Massachusetts. Then later
Speaker 1: on when they lose the presidential stuff, I always take
Speaker 1: my share of the blame, but I'm very proud of
Speaker 1: the governor's I worked for in the senators. Well, and
Speaker 1: you're more of a hopeless romantic, as you've described yourself
Speaker 1: in presidential politics. What does what does that mean? Well? No,
Speaker 1: and I have a rule that in the presidential field
Speaker 1: you should not be mercenaries. So I always pick the
Speaker 1: person I think should be president, regardless of where they
Speaker 1: are in the pulse, which is not a great career decision,
Speaker 1: but if you look at my record, I've done very
Speaker 1: wealth senators and governors have about the best record in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. But at the presidential level, I worked
Speaker 1: for Lamar Alexander. I thought he'd be the best guy.
Speaker 1: We started one percent and got to nine. You know,
Speaker 1: we never quite made it. I worked for John McCain
Speaker 1: in two thousand because I thought he'd be the best.
Speaker 1: I took two thousand and eight off because I was
Speaker 1: close to McCain and Romney, and I thought it was
Speaker 1: an ethical conflict to work for either one of them.
Speaker 1: I did work for George H. W. Bush and eighty eight.
Speaker 1: I also worked earlier in that primary for Bob Dole.
Speaker 1: So I always think the presidential thing is a higher
Speaker 1: level deal and you should really pick the best person,
Speaker 1: regardless of Poleon, and you know, have the argument within
Speaker 1: the party and see which faction wins. And I've been
Speaker 1: less lucky at that, but I'm I don't regret working
Speaker 1: for any of those guys. I think they all would
Speaker 1: have been excellent presidents. So to take us forward to
Speaker 1: this year, you you know the criticism, you know, raised
Speaker 1: this historic amount of money, and Jeb Bush had the
Speaker 1: name and the connections and the endorsements, and it was
Speaker 1: a big flop and therefore all your fault. Um, what's
Speaker 1: your what's your response to people who sort of questioned
Speaker 1: your acumen coming out of the Bush Superpack experience, Well,
Speaker 1: this job being a political consultant or running a big
Speaker 1: play co operations, like being a Big ten football coach.
Speaker 1: Everybody with a bar stool in fifty states thinks they
Speaker 1: can do your job. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: thinking about things we could have done differently, and I
Speaker 1: imagine as there's other senior people at right to rise
Speaker 1: have We had some of the best consultants in the
Speaker 1: party with Larry McCarthy, Eliza Hickey had had a great
Speaker 1: run at the NFCC, and we all think about things
Speaker 1: we could have done differently, but none of us come
Speaker 1: up with the outcome of we win the primary. We
Speaker 1: just weren't what they were looking for. And I would say,
Speaker 1: in some ways, though, you know, you never want to
Speaker 1: justify a loss his businesses about winning. Jeb stuck to
Speaker 1: his principles and never had to apologize for anything you
Speaker 1: did in that campaign. And I think if he was
Speaker 1: a nominee, we would have won the general election and
Speaker 1: the country would be united behind him. Today people didn't
Speaker 1: take Donald Trump seriously, including you. How were you so wrong?
Speaker 1: How were so many people so wrong? Might well, we
Speaker 1: took him seriously, but not. I mean, here's our view
Speaker 1: because we you know, we talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: Republican primary voters, so we had a pretty good landscape
Speaker 1: of what was going on and we saw there was
Speaker 1: about a third of the vote that was interested in Trump,
Speaker 1: and none of those people were interested in Jeff Bush.
Speaker 1: We were never going to get Trump and Cruise voters
Speaker 1: to vote for a guy like Jeff Bush. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so there might have been things we could have done
Speaker 1: better on Rubio, better on k Sake. Uh, we might
Speaker 1: have sold Jeb in better ways, But Jeff was never
Speaker 1: going to go to the border and start rounding people up.
Speaker 1: He was never going to take that grievance message. To
Speaker 1: his credit, I joked that we were we were selling
Speaker 1: classical music records at the Tractor Poll, and sixty of
Speaker 1: the primary was wasn't interested in what we were selling.
Speaker 1: And so there it is. You know, I'm struck by
Speaker 1: something you said a little bit earlier that you had
Speaker 1: the best professionals and the party, these highly regarded consultants.
Speaker 1: And Hillary Clinton also had the most highly regarded, highly
Speaker 1: paid Democratic consultants working for her, and she Yeah, she
Speaker 1: won the popular vote, but she's not gonna be the
Speaker 1: next president. Do you think that the era of the
Speaker 1: professional political tactician is coming to a close and being
Speaker 1: replaced by something new and different. No, I think that's
Speaker 1: a conventional. It's a very fashionable opinion. So I know
Speaker 1: for pretty much a fact that the single most surprised
Speaker 1: person on election night was Donald Trump when he won
Speaker 1: and his staff, some of whom were embedding pools, taking
Speaker 1: him as a loss among political consultants. So now we're
Speaker 1: going to have kind of the classic process story of
Speaker 1: let's throw out everything we know about politics because we
Speaker 1: had this flukish kind of win and the things that
Speaker 1: have been true and predicted for forty years no longer count.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I don't believe that
Speaker 1: we were involved in some senate races helping hold the Senate,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the same political consultants are the
Speaker 1: idiots who worked for losing presidential campaigns were running winning
Speaker 1: senate campaigns. So I I've been around too long and
Speaker 1: seen too many fads come and go, particularly in the
Speaker 1: Easy magazine writing to believe a big indictment like that
Speaker 1: that said we can learn things from the Trump victory
Speaker 1: and get better at what we do. Didn't Donald Trump
Speaker 1: only w the eligible vote. So when you think about
Speaker 1: like a mandate or an overwhelming victory, isn't that a
Speaker 1: bit of a misnomer? Well, He won about forty six
Speaker 1: and a half percent of the people who did vote,
Speaker 1: which is a lower percentage than Mitt Romney got four
Speaker 1: years ago. It's a lower percentage than you know, many
Speaker 1: losing candidates over the years, like Hubert Humphrey and Gerald Ford.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you're right that the mandate question
Speaker 1: is is a real one. What do you think, Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's true. In percentages and raw vote he
Speaker 1: did pretty well. I mean, this was not a freakishly
Speaker 1: low turnout election. I think the real story of election
Speaker 1: Day was the composition of the Republican vote that elected
Speaker 1: Trump to the Electoral College was different than we've ever
Speaker 1: seen before, and that's one reason a lot of us
Speaker 1: missed it. So for people who are just trying to
Speaker 1: kind of wrap their brains around what happened, Trump lost
Speaker 1: a lot of the swing counties, He didn't perform as
Speaker 1: well as winners normally need to perform, and Hillary hit
Speaker 1: her marks and a lot of the Democratic counties. But
Speaker 1: what happened was in Florida and in other places, Trump
Speaker 1: got big turnout and big margins out of counties where
Speaker 1: the Republican normally wins by fifteen or twenty. He would
Speaker 1: win by thirty or more. He had huge spikes in
Speaker 1: a relatively small number of places, though he got a
Speaker 1: closer and many people thought to begin with. So you
Speaker 1: had two things going on. Lack of enthusiasm for Hillary,
Speaker 1: who was a pretty bad candidate. I don't know what
Speaker 1: her messages to this day. Stronger Together sounds like a
Speaker 1: glue slugan to me, um. But the point is, if
Speaker 1: you were swinging a hammer bendon metal in Macomb County,
Speaker 1: another county in north of Detroit, industrial county where Obama
Speaker 1: won last time, and he won big this time, you
Speaker 1: weren't that interested in the gender rules about bathrooms for LGBT.
Speaker 1: You were wondering what people are gonna do about jobs
Speaker 1: for blue collar people like you. Trump spoke to those people,
Speaker 1: many of whom historically have been Democrats, many whom are
Speaker 1: industrial union members. She did not, And I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty big malepractice on the Democratic side, and you know
Speaker 1: there will be some repercussions in their party. But she
Speaker 1: rolled over when it came to blue blue collar workers.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems she just abdicated that whole voting
Speaker 1: block to Donald Trump. If I was reading a piece
Speaker 1: in the New York Times that Bo Copley, who we
Speaker 1: had on Yahoo News the night of the election, a
Speaker 1: coal miner. You know, people were saying in West Virginia
Speaker 1: that all Donald Trump had to do was mentioned coal miners,
Speaker 1: and they basically, you know, they flocked to him because
Speaker 1: they have felt so marginalized and so out of the
Speaker 1: mainstream for so long. Just a mere acknowledgement of their
Speaker 1: existence was enough to win their vote. Well, there's no
Speaker 1: doubt that the modern Democratic Party, and they've had some
Speaker 1: success with this. But if you look at kind of
Speaker 1: the intellectual elites that drive them, their thinkers, and you
Speaker 1: look at the donor class that has huge influence, it's
Speaker 1: heavily dominated by people kind of from the social issues
Speaker 1: on the more libertarian i'll call it side uh more
Speaker 1: equal rights for people regardless of sexual preference, things like that,
Speaker 1: and the strong environmental groups. So if you're you know,
Speaker 1: if you're working in a plant with a smokestack uh
Speaker 1: running on coal powered electric city, it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: your party anymore. And I think they paid a political
Speaker 1: price for that. But I have no doubt this was
Speaker 1: a real lockpicking of the electoral college. That's why the
Speaker 1: Trump guys were surprised as the rest of us because
Speaker 1: it was a very weird coalition he got and normally,
Speaker 1: if you lose by two and a half million votes,
Speaker 1: you lose. Um, So this thing, you know, the media
Speaker 1: has to be careful about calling it a big mandate.
Speaker 1: It's really still a divided country. But we saw a
Speaker 1: pain scream, kind of a political riot of sorts from
Speaker 1: about fifty counties where people have not had a raise
Speaker 1: in real wages for a long time. They work in
Speaker 1: the old economy, which doesn't seem hip and doesn't seem cool.
Speaker 1: She didn't talk to them, and Trump did. Trump talked
Speaker 1: to him pretty base language. I think there's some stains
Speaker 1: on his campaign from the way he conducted himself, but
Speaker 1: it worked. It was enough to get him close overall
Speaker 1: and to trip those counties. Uh. And now he's the
Speaker 1: president elect. Well, when we come back, let's talk about
Speaker 1: how he's doing as president elect and about some of
Speaker 1: the moves he's made us are both in terms of
Speaker 1: personnel and on Twitter. But first we're going to take
Speaker 1: a break to hear from our sponsors and from you.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with Mike Murphy right after this. During
Speaker 1: our last episode, we asked to hear from some of
Speaker 1: our conservative listeners and here's what you all had to say. Hi,
Speaker 1: Bryan and Katie, this is Margie from Mississippi. I am
Speaker 1: a conservative voter, and in regard to the future of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, a couple of things. First comment is
Speaker 1: that you're correcting your last podcast in saying that callen
Speaker 1: uneducated white voters. Feels like it is an inferior vote
Speaker 1: compared to others, and that characterization is seen negatively. The
Speaker 1: second thing is in regard to the Republican Party, that
Speaker 1: that continue to be based on economic progress. I have
Speaker 1: post for a Donald Trump administration in those respects and
Speaker 1: further the Republican Party on those bases. You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: She says that she was offended by some pundon's talking
Speaker 1: about uneducated voters or non college voters. Donald Trump himself
Speaker 1: said I love the poorly educated, and nobody in that
Speaker 1: camp seemed to take much offense. So I guess it
Speaker 1: depends on the messenger as well as the message. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we talked about it, and it does seem
Speaker 1: sort of smug and patronizing, So I appreciate that Margie
Speaker 1: feels that way too, because I've always felt slightly uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with the overuse of that characterization personally. Hey, Brian and
Speaker 1: Katie is Greg Gordon in Texas and I normally vote
Speaker 1: for the Republicans for president. This time I couldn't do it. Um.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump scares me. He scares me because he's not presidential.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I mean even now as an adult,
Speaker 1: I look up to the president not so much that
Speaker 1: they're smarter than me or better than things, but they
Speaker 1: just need to be presidential. George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt like,
Speaker 1: and even Teddy Roosevelt, all those folks, Lendon Johnson, They're
Speaker 1: just this big, humanous figure and I just don't see
Speaker 1: it with him in his Twitter account. So anyway, thanks,
Speaker 1: and I love y'all's podcast. Well, thank you Greg Gordon
Speaker 1: in Texas for liking our podcast. You know, I wonder
Speaker 1: if anybody can be larger than life and completely presidential
Speaker 1: given the ubiquity of social media and how much access
Speaker 1: the public has to these individuals. It's so accessible. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that, Brian, I think there's something
Speaker 1: to that. I think a lot of our greatest presidents
Speaker 1: wouldn't pass through the filter of modern media. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: get away with not being able to walk. Hiding their
Speaker 1: physical infirmity is like Franklin Roosevelt did, or being as
Speaker 1: as unfaithful to their spouse as John Kennedy was. But um,
Speaker 1: there's something else there too, which is that if you
Speaker 1: didn't like Donald Trump as a candidate, I don't think
Speaker 1: you're liking Donald Trump as president elect. Right now He's
Speaker 1: not operating in a dramatically different way than he did
Speaker 1: before November eight. Meanwhile, for our next episode, we'll be
Speaker 1: speaking with Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's longtime senior advisor and
Speaker 1: very close and longtime friend. What questions do you have
Speaker 1: for her about her eight years working closely with President
Speaker 1: Obama in the White House. Please call us and leave
Speaker 1: us a message at nine to nine, two to four, four, six,
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Speaker 1: Cook out at Katie's. So we're back with the GOP Svengali,
Speaker 1: Mike Murphy and you go back a long way with
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney. You actually were the consultant for the only
Speaker 1: political race he's ever won for governor of Massachusetts in
Speaker 1: two thousand two. When we first met, you were plotting
Speaker 1: the early moves of that campaign. And you know one
Speaker 1: I like to tease Mitt that I'm the only political
Speaker 1: consultant has handed him a victory speech. Um, he reminds
Speaker 1: me there were some primaries that he won in a
Speaker 1: nomination that I did not help him with. So he's
Speaker 1: a good guy, he's a patriot, and I think, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Elect Trump would be well advised to bring
Speaker 1: some people into actually know the world. Well, President elect
Speaker 1: Trump is putting met Romney through the ringer right now
Speaker 1: by encouraging or at least allowing some of his top
Speaker 1: aids to throw mud on Mitt Romney. To mix my metaphor,
Speaker 1: And do you think Romney, if he's offered the job
Speaker 1: of Secretary of State, should take it. Do you think
Speaker 1: he'd be positioned to succeed in that job or what's
Speaker 1: going on? Well, if you watch the Trump campaign, there's
Speaker 1: a juvenile culture of silly in funding among his staff.
Speaker 1: You know that we had about five purges. It was
Speaker 1: a banana Republic of a campaign. So now we have
Speaker 1: somebody Kelly and Conway who comes from the bottom tier
Speaker 1: Republican posters. So I think kind of one a lucky
Speaker 1: lottery here, Uh is out trashing Governor Romney in the press. Well,
Speaker 1: the President elect is trying to put his cabinet together
Speaker 1: having a fairly thoughtful process. I think of meeting with
Speaker 1: people and sounding them out. So I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to set an example for Kelly and of how staff operate.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to comment or speculate at all
Speaker 1: on what Governor Romney may or may not do. Uh,
Speaker 1: just to say that, um, he's eminently qualified, and I
Speaker 1: respect the president elexibility to make this decision not be
Speaker 1: buffaloed by the public antics of staffers. But do you
Speaker 1: think he's walking into a situation in which he's going
Speaker 1: to be second guest and criticized and anytime he makes
Speaker 1: a move as Secretary of State, Well, we know what
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign culture was, we don't know what the
Speaker 1: Trump white House culture is. It's either evolving toward a
Speaker 1: better thing or it will be the same. So I
Speaker 1: think it's an open question, and there's one person on
Speaker 1: the planet who can drive that, which is the president elect.
Speaker 1: He's got to choose and uh, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are surprised that it's not been kind of
Speaker 1: tightened up, but that it's his operation, his culture. He's
Speaker 1: the one. So we're waiting to see. Well, reading the
Speaker 1: Tea leaves. What do you what do you anticipating? Mike, Well,
Speaker 1: I you know, I've learned not to handicap the and
Speaker 1: predict the activity of Donald Trump. I thought he was
Speaker 1: very gracious on election night, and I think he's had
Speaker 1: days where he's succeeding. He's had days where he's been
Speaker 1: tweeting silly things and shaking the confidence and some of
Speaker 1: us who know what the job is. Uh So, I
Speaker 1: think it's still an open question and these this silly
Speaker 1: staff trashing nominees that the president elect is interested in.
Speaker 1: I mean I saw even Axel Rod tweeted something about this.
Speaker 1: None of us who have worked in serious presidential level
Speaker 1: staff work have ever seen anything like it. So I, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to fuel that fire by
Speaker 1: speculating about what Mitt might or might not do. I'll
Speaker 1: just say he's a grown up who knows the world. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was proven, right. I think some of his criticism
Speaker 1: President Obama on foreign policy, so his wisdom is proven.
Speaker 1: I'm a real fan of Mitt Romney's I mean, I
Speaker 1: like him very much, but when I think of foreign policy,
Speaker 1: the name that Romney does not come to mind immediately.
Speaker 1: What really does qualify him to be Secretary of State. Mike, Well,
Speaker 1: the job as Secretary of State is to both represent
Speaker 1: the US abroad as the president's top surrogate in international relations,
Speaker 1: and definitely looks the part. Yeah, that's the sexist remark.
Speaker 1: I think that he is a good negotiator and he
Speaker 1: has relationships around the world. He is diplomatic and temperate.
Speaker 1: He also made a principal criticism of some of the
Speaker 1: weaknesses of the Obama foreign policy, uh, both about Russia
Speaker 1: and about the Middle East, that I think have born
Speaker 1: more true than not. So he is uh. I think
Speaker 1: he's as well briefed and by temperament as well equipped
Speaker 1: to be Secretary of State as anybody. But again what
Speaker 1: I think doesn't matter. It's down to the decision of
Speaker 1: the president elect. And I would encourage people to not
Speaker 1: watch the juvenile antics of of figurehead campaign managers on
Speaker 1: Sunday shows and wait to hear from the president elect.
Speaker 1: Conway online too, for you, Mike, she was a figurehead.
Speaker 1: We all know Bannon ran the thing along with Trump,
Speaker 1: but really ran and he's a one man show. So
Speaker 1: I'm just not going to join the media heard of canonizing,
Speaker 1: particularly this kind of behavior, which I think undermines our
Speaker 1: own candidate. But from the Romney perspective, this is especially
Speaker 1: striking because he gave a devastating speech in March attacking Trump. Um, so,
Speaker 1: how can you turn around and work for someone you've
Speaker 1: called a fraud and a phony, someone who would make
Speaker 1: the world more dangerous and whose trademark is dishonesty? How
Speaker 1: can you represent that person as you know, the chief
Speaker 1: implement er of their foreign policy. Well, my guests, and
Speaker 1: I'm speculating here is the argument that people who would
Speaker 1: urge mint Ronny you have offered to take such a
Speaker 1: job as that the national interest is the highest thing,
Speaker 1: and the more competent people who join a campaign team
Speaker 1: that may be a team of rivals, to use a
Speaker 1: familiar phrase, would be serving the country wealth. The president
Speaker 1: asks you, it's hard to say no. Now, it's up
Speaker 1: to the President elect to do the asking, and he
Speaker 1: may never do that. But if you're asked and the
Speaker 1: president elect things that the campaign is over and it's
Speaker 1: time to unite and he could use your skills to
Speaker 1: further national interests, it's a hard thing to say no to.
Speaker 1: You know. There's been controversy around another Trump appointment Jeff
Speaker 1: Sessions for attorney general. I think this is correct, right.
Speaker 1: You worked for Sessions when he ran for the Senate. Ironically,
Speaker 1: in Jeff's first campaign, his consultants from myself and John Weaver,
Speaker 1: who worked for Ca Sick. Yeah, exactly, both Trump critics.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who was denied, as you know,
Speaker 1: a federal judge ship about thirty years ago because of
Speaker 1: allegedly racist comments he made. Do you think he'd be
Speaker 1: a good attorney general? Do you think his credentials on
Speaker 1: race or are strong enough to unite the country? Brian,
Speaker 1: how did I become a surrogate for the Trump transition
Speaker 1: team here? I'm asking your opinion as a political expert
Speaker 1: and as somebody who worked for the attorney general designate.
Speaker 1: I do not believe he has a racist bone in
Speaker 1: his body. I worked for him in one campaign. I
Speaker 1: did not do the reelection. Um. I think it will
Speaker 1: be up to his Senate colleagues to look at his
Speaker 1: full record, and my guess is he will be confirmed. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I have my own views about who ought
Speaker 1: to be attorney general. I have my own views about
Speaker 1: who ought to be in the Trump White House. I
Speaker 1: have my own views about Trump's hairstyle a lot of
Speaker 1: be but you know, I have no standing here, so um,
Speaker 1: but they ever reach out to you, Mike, and I
Speaker 1: think you'd be doing a podcast with noted meteorologist on
Speaker 1: the phenomenon of hell freezing over before I think they'd
Speaker 1: ever reach out to me. And I think, well, you
Speaker 1: know who, who who would have thought that they'd reach
Speaker 1: out to Mitt Romney after he gave that, as Brian said,
Speaker 1: devastating speech during the campaign. I mean, stranger things have happened. Well,
Speaker 1: I think if the idea of Mitt Romney is Secretary
Speaker 1: of State, a widely respected guys enough to drive Poort,
Speaker 1: Kelly and Conway to distraction, that my name would probably
Speaker 1: put her into intensive care. So in the interest of
Speaker 1: her health, let's hope there's none of that speculation. But no,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I have. You know, I'm friendly
Speaker 1: with I care a lot about the domestic agenda we're
Speaker 1: going to have, which I think could be really good
Speaker 1: for America with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, both people
Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for So I'm I'm pretty
Speaker 1: focused on whatever I can do to help the Republican team,
Speaker 1: you know, create economic growth, lift up wages for everybody,
Speaker 1: and not have a trade war, which is the scariest
Speaker 1: part of Trump's campaign promises. Though I've learned that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is flexible and I'm not sure people should take
Speaker 1: his campaign rhetoric at face value, which I think would
Speaker 1: be a good thing. Well, speaking of that, I have
Speaker 1: to ask you about about some of these blue collar
Speaker 1: folks who supported him. There have been a number of
Speaker 1: articles since the election saying basically, he's not going to
Speaker 1: be able to deliver on these campaign promises. He is
Speaker 1: not going to be the messiah that many of these
Speaker 1: folks hoped he would be. Um, what's going to happen
Speaker 1: when he's not going to be able to deliver? Well,
Speaker 1: that's a big question. I think if we get enough
Speaker 1: economic growth and wages lift up, he'll get a lot
Speaker 1: of credit for that. But you have to be careful. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like steroids. Uh yeah, you
Speaker 1: made grown muscles quickly, but all of a sudden you've
Speaker 1: got hard problems. So you've got to be careful with
Speaker 1: some of that rhetoric. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that Trump administration is going to have to do
Speaker 1: is manage expectations that he's clearly raised in these places
Speaker 1: that he can wave a wand and make makes some
Speaker 1: of the problems of manufacturing jobs go away. Vanish that said,
Speaker 1: a growth agenda um with cheap energy, cheap electric power
Speaker 1: which we haven't grasped in America now because of our
Speaker 1: abundant energy resources, and things the government can do can
Speaker 1: make manufacturing more competitive in the US, and I think
Speaker 1: we can stem that tide. So there could be some
Speaker 1: good news with the right policy, but those expectations are
Speaker 1: now pretty high in those places. I saw a chart
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post Mike that said manufacturing output is
Speaker 1: actually up, its employment at those manufacturing establishments that is down.
Speaker 1: In other words, automation is really responsible for these jobs
Speaker 1: being reduced. So you know what's he going to do
Speaker 1: about that. Well, that's a challenge across the economy because
Speaker 1: we have increasing productivity, which means fewer people are producing more,
Speaker 1: which is good for the economy, creates more wealth, lifts
Speaker 1: up the country. But take self driving cars. If they
Speaker 1: do become a huge thing in ten or fifteen years,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put a lot of truck drivers out of work.
Speaker 1: So we're going to have to get a lot better
Speaker 1: than the government has been traditionally at retraining people for
Speaker 1: better skills, and I think we have to take a
Speaker 1: new look at our our educational system. The German model
Speaker 1: is pretty good about training people and kind of vocational
Speaker 1: skills are the jobs of the future, because the hardest
Speaker 1: thing to do is get any kind of toothpaste back
Speaker 1: in the tube. And having the old approach, which is, hey,
Speaker 1: you were a master machinist, you're fifty four. Uh, now
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn how to uh teach children's theater because
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a ridiculous night course here. Um that
Speaker 1: we know that doesn't work, so doing more of the
Speaker 1: same doesn't do it. But you said you're optimistic that
Speaker 1: Trump's agenda could spark economic growth and be good for
Speaker 1: the country. The core of his agenda seems to be
Speaker 1: a big regressive tax cut. I mean, there's no evidence
Speaker 1: that the that the George W. Bush tax cut, or
Speaker 1: even the Reagan tax cut was responsible for big economic growth.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that eliminating the estate tax and the
Speaker 1: gift tax would be good for economic growth. So you're
Speaker 1: smiling because you think I'm giving you democratic talking points
Speaker 1: where you are but keep going well. And the other
Speaker 1: big part of his agenda is attacks credit to support
Speaker 1: for profit infrastructure developers, which is also deeply problematic because
Speaker 1: most of our most highly needed sort of infrastructure projects
Speaker 1: are not the kinds of things that would be attractive
Speaker 1: to these for profit developers. So what what gives you
Speaker 1: hope in his agenda? The fact is that the best
Speaker 1: thing for wages is economic growth because it creates more
Speaker 1: demand in the labor market and raises wages. That's our
Speaker 1: big problem. Um, if you're in the working poor, we
Speaker 1: have a great social welfare system. If you fall a
Speaker 1: little bit into poverty, we're not so great at the
Speaker 1: institutions of upwards social mobility for people in the working
Speaker 1: poor or in the middle class. So we need more
Speaker 1: labor demand and we need to be better at retraining.
Speaker 1: The bigger question for me an economic policy is not
Speaker 1: our text cuts good. It's Will Trump, who's a populist.
Speaker 1: And when I think about the stick policy, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to McConnell and Ryan a little more than
Speaker 1: i'm listening to prisioner like Trump right now, because I
Speaker 1: my guess is they're going to be leading on it
Speaker 1: and he'll be okay with that. But Will Trump is
Speaker 1: a populacet to have the guts to take on the
Speaker 1: entitlement problem, which is a huge suck on the candidate.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't do right well, there's appetite to take some
Speaker 1: political pain in the House and the Senate on the
Speaker 1: Republican side to do it. And I think that in
Speaker 1: trade could be the too big domestic fracture points. I
Speaker 1: think people should also never forget that despite all the
Speaker 1: focus on personalities, the Congress really has the power in
Speaker 1: domestic policy. The presidents no push over. He has ability
Speaker 1: for executive orders and to appoint people, but the budget,
Speaker 1: the big things come out of the Congress. Institutionally, there's
Speaker 1: always pressure. So will Trump fight that or he kind
Speaker 1: of outsourced domestic policy to the Republicans there and focus
Speaker 1: on foreign policy. That to me is one of the
Speaker 1: big decisions you'll have to make, because if he starts
Speaker 1: fighting with the congressional guys and nothing will happen, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, something we proved for a decade now, it
Speaker 1: seems unlikely that his base is going to be content
Speaker 1: with the kind of Marco Rubio style domestic policy agenda
Speaker 1: of free trade, and big tax. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of an open question. I mean, I agree he's
Speaker 1: made some promises on trade, where see if he believes him.
Speaker 1: I hope he doesn't because the trade war would be
Speaker 1: devastating for the economy and it would really hurt the
Speaker 1: people that he ran to help. But you know, his
Speaker 1: face is built more. His appeal on the party is
Speaker 1: base more in personality that he's a can do guy
Speaker 1: who's going to come to Washington shake things up. He
Speaker 1: was a way to punish a political system that Americans
Speaker 1: have lost faith in. So ideologically, one lesson we learned
Speaker 1: in the primaries that all the campaigns assumed early that
Speaker 1: yet Trump's gonna He's famous from television, he's interesting. The
Speaker 1: media is in business with him, you know, because he's rating.
Speaker 1: So he'll have a spike. But then the ideological stuff
Speaker 1: will catch him. Because in the last thousand Republican primaries,
Speaker 1: ideology was a huge deal. This year it took a break.
Speaker 1: People gave Trump a huge ass on ideology. We've never
Speaker 1: seen that before. That's one reason we were all wrong.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if the ideological schism will work
Speaker 1: in the future. It didn't work in the primary now
Speaker 1: normally over the fullness of time, it does work, and
Speaker 1: I would agree with you, But then again, that's why
Speaker 1: I thought Trump would probably not be nominated, and I
Speaker 1: was You're wrong. One story that I wanted to get
Speaker 1: your view on, UM that's gotten a lot of attention
Speaker 1: the last few days is this recount effort in the
Speaker 1: three states you mentioned Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania being helmed
Speaker 1: by the Green Party Candida jill Stein for what she's
Speaker 1: been able to raise millions of dollars online. Some people
Speaker 1: are saying that that might be a scam, but I'm
Speaker 1: curious whether you think there's any chance that could that
Speaker 1: could make a difference in one state, let alone three,
Speaker 1: and kind of what the purpose of all of this is.
Speaker 1: You know, I think she's already done enough to help
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. UM, if you're looking at some of the
Speaker 1: votes and places where she had little spikes, uh and
Speaker 1: heard Hillary Clinton. Look, I don't get it. It is
Speaker 1: a very close result in Michigan, it is a very
Speaker 1: close result in Wisconsin. But even if those were more
Speaker 1: actiously overturned by recount, which none of the kind of
Speaker 1: political grown ups in those states that I know think
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania is still there. In Pennsylvania, sixty thousand votes
Speaker 1: is a good number. It's close, But the Pennsylvania recount
Speaker 1: system is very cumbersome too, and I doubt that Jill
Speaker 1: Stein people have the organizational acumen to even be able
Speaker 1: to prosecute that. So I think it is not a
Speaker 1: good thing for the country to argue over the legitimacy
Speaker 1: of an election. If you don't like this, then argue
Speaker 1: for a new electoral college system, the Compact, which is saying,
Speaker 1: you know, which would allocate electors by popular vote and ratio,
Speaker 1: not winner take all in each state that doesn't need
Speaker 1: the constitutional change. What do you think that should happen?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm torn about it. I'm a Republican, so
Speaker 1: I like the fact we have a little English on
Speaker 1: the ball in electoral college. Um, but I think it
Speaker 1: is let's put this way, We've had enough of these outcomes.
Speaker 1: We've had two in sixteen years where the electoral college
Speaker 1: decided and the the other domular vote that I think
Speaker 1: we're roting confidence in the popular vote. We're roting confidence
Speaker 1: in the system. So the Compact is more attractive to
Speaker 1: me now that used to be. I'm a market guy.
Speaker 1: That's what I like about the Republican Party, and in
Speaker 1: the markets of votes. You know, we've created a party
Speaker 1: where we've lost six of the last seven contests, so
Speaker 1: we've we've succeeded under the rules because of the electoral college.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure building a system where you're not
Speaker 1: trying to get the most votes is a good thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of warming to the What do you
Speaker 1: think of this tweet by Donald Trump, uh this week
Speaker 1: where he said I won the popular vote if you
Speaker 1: deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. Where I mean,
Speaker 1: don't we always heard that from Republicans and there's no
Speaker 1: basis for that assertion. Well, you had me to you
Speaker 1: went into the Republican thing at the end, and I
Speaker 1: like the quack noise. I haven't heard that from Trump. Look,
Speaker 1: I thought it was beneath the office of president. I
Speaker 1: was deeply disappointed with it, and it was absolutely factually wrong,
Speaker 1: and reacquainting the president elect with the truth will be
Speaker 1: a big part of hopefully what a competent staff I
Speaker 1: will be able to do. I mean, both parties have
Speaker 1: played the legitimacy game against each other, but look, it
Speaker 1: was wrong and he should be called out for Well,
Speaker 1: I think you just did that. I have to ask
Speaker 1: you before you go, because I know you have to
Speaker 1: scoot about the role of the press. What did the
Speaker 1: press do wrong? And how does the press make it right? Um?
Speaker 1: And and under the circumstances, given that Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: proving to be as unconventional president elect as he was
Speaker 1: a candidate, how can these two entities get along or
Speaker 1: should they not be getting along at all? It feels
Speaker 1: like a big mess to me, Mike, and I don't
Speaker 1: know what to make of it. Yeah, it is a mess.
Speaker 1: I mean, I worked there, and so I see a
Speaker 1: lot of journalists work really hard to try to get
Speaker 1: the story right. The problem is, we've had this crossover
Speaker 1: of pop culture. And I've seen it before. I work
Speaker 1: for Arnold Schwarzenegger when you ran for governor of California here,
Speaker 1: so it's not new to have kind of famous people
Speaker 1: from the world of entertainment move into politics. But this
Speaker 1: was at a whole new level. And I think on
Speaker 1: one hand, you have the economics of news where the
Speaker 1: more seasoned, older experience reporters have been pushed out and young, hardworking,
Speaker 1: ambitious reporters who tend to though traveling a herd linked
Speaker 1: by their Twitter accounts um have have emerged, and so
Speaker 1: the coverage is fast, but not necessarily smart and ring wise.
Speaker 1: The other weakness I think the media has is to
Speaker 1: cover politics like sports, and it's all scorekeeping, it's all coaches,
Speaker 1: poll um, it's all these damn poles. You know. The
Speaker 1: polls are a weird thing where the media creates the
Speaker 1: story and then covers it. And now we find out
Speaker 1: a lot of the state polls were wrong. So I
Speaker 1: think the media is obsession with process and the celebritization
Speaker 1: of consultants, all that stuff they could step back from.
Speaker 1: I mean, the last thing I'd say, and I've I've
Speaker 1: said this publicly and again. I you know, I worked there,
Speaker 1: so maybe I'm part of it. But whenever I was
Speaker 1: on television at NBC, I tried to tamp down this
Speaker 1: instinct that every day is the Hindenburg explosion. Everything that
Speaker 1: happens is a most important thing in the campaign, because
Speaker 1: you know, the more heat, the more eyeballs, the commerce
Speaker 1: of it. I get it, we get paid. They have
Speaker 1: to sell you know, cable rights and ads to do it.
Speaker 1: But every day is not the most important day in
Speaker 1: the campaign, and so that that velocity craze, that that
Speaker 1: flashing lights and exclamation points. Um, it makes the really
Speaker 1: important stuff get lost. Because if everything is important, then nothing.
Speaker 1: So it's hard to search for truth, isn't it when
Speaker 1: everybody has their own version of it? No? Absolutely well,
Speaker 1: And even if the mainstream media gets better at bringing
Speaker 1: real reporting and perspective to these stories, the voters that
Speaker 1: matter in a lot of these elections aren't. Aren't watching
Speaker 1: that right? And the interesting fact we had this year,
Speaker 1: that power of digital media to be ubiquitous has been
Speaker 1: around for a while, but now we had organized efforts
Speaker 1: to put fake, lying news through the unfiltered world of
Speaker 1: social media, some of it a lot of it coming
Speaker 1: from our good friends over in Russia. I mean I
Speaker 1: read half of these emails in the original Russian and uh,
Speaker 1: it is troubling because it was we now know from
Speaker 1: our own intelligence services there was a real effort to
Speaker 1: screw with the dialogue of our election, particularly through social media,
Speaker 1: by countries that are geopolitical rivals. And uh, that's the
Speaker 1: problem with the Internet. Everything can go everywhere for free,
Speaker 1: and you can get all kinds of information, but there's
Speaker 1: no filter, there're no editor Why don't people find this
Speaker 1: more upsetting? You know, the role that Russia might have
Speaker 1: played in in the election process. It's doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: people are taking it that seriously. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It troubles me a lot. The only thing I can
Speaker 1: say is, when we make our politics a reality show
Speaker 1: with reality show candidates, trivia being screamed seven um, instant
Speaker 1: snappoles and kind of a postmodern eye roll to the
Speaker 1: whole thing, we take the stakes down. And when the
Speaker 1: stakes are down, why do you care? And that is
Speaker 1: the real danger. I think of this new style of
Speaker 1: kind of politics light and uh, it could we could
Speaker 1: pay a price, or it could be a phase and
Speaker 1: there'll be a reaction against it, and the next campaign
Speaker 1: will be the opposite of this one because people will
Speaker 1: decide they didn't like what they got that that's the
Speaker 1: open question to me. Or it could just be that
Speaker 1: the Clinton supporters were very troubled by the Putin bromance,
Speaker 1: the Trump supporters either didn't believe it or bought Trump's
Speaker 1: excuses for it, and and we all kind of move
Speaker 1: forward from there. It's it's, you know, one side believes
Speaker 1: x the other side believes negative X. Yeah, it could be,
Speaker 1: but I just think when you when you add clowns
Speaker 1: shoes to a campaign, you take the reason to take
Speaker 1: things seriously away. What do you predict for the mid terms? Micers,
Speaker 1: It just too early to tell. Well, you know, in
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen there are a lot of Republican state
Speaker 1: selecting senators. So the traditional analysis would be Republicans should
Speaker 1: have a really great two thousand eighteen and building on
Speaker 1: their center majority. I would say one, in the modern era,
Speaker 1: beware traditional analysis. Although the bography, oh it does favor
Speaker 1: the Republicans. And two, there's no doubt that in the
Speaker 1: Blue States the sleeping giant has been awoken of angry Democrats.
Speaker 1: Uh So I have a feeling two thousand eighteen to
Speaker 1: be a real epic battle. And why I would handicap
Speaker 1: the Republicans is having the advantage. We got to see
Speaker 1: what President elect Trump does for two years and how
Speaker 1: he manages his new stewardship of the Republican brand. And
Speaker 1: that's a big question. Mike Murphy, We've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to this for many many weeks. Were so thrilled to
Speaker 1: have you on our podcast and so excited that you
Speaker 1: have your own, cleverly called radio Free gop um. Are
Speaker 1: you enjoying doing a podcast, Mike, You know, I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with it. I put it on
Speaker 1: a hiatus for a while because I didn't think it
Speaker 1: was right to be complaining about the president elector we
Speaker 1: give him a chance to succeed. But as I tell people,
Speaker 1: I have buried the resistance transmitter in the secret location,
Speaker 1: and it can always be dug up and reignited, so
Speaker 1: maybe it'll come back. But yeah, I enjoyed a lot,
Speaker 1: and I enjoy listening to this podcast. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me, Thanks Mike, Thanks as always to Gianna Palmer
Speaker 1: for producing the show and Jared O'Connell for engineering and
Speaker 1: mixing it. Thanks to Mark Phillips for our theme music.
Speaker 1: Remember you can also email us at comments at Currik
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. You can find me on social media
Speaker 1: at goldsmith Be on Twitter. You can follow Katie at
Speaker 1: at Katie Currik on Twitter and Instagram, and Katie dot
Speaker 1: Kurk on Snapchat. She's ubiquitous. Best of all, you can
Speaker 1: rate and review us on iTunes. Don't forget to subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show as well. It really helps other listeners
Speaker 1: to find it, so we'll talk to you next time,
Speaker 1: and please let us know your questions for Valerie. Jared,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, Thanks for listening everyone. I always wanted
Speaker 1: to be a contestant on the dating game well, helping
Speaker 1: us to make sense of politics instead of while helming.
Speaker 1: That was such a fake laugh