Mike Murphy

- A major reshaping of the presidential race, this week on "Firing Line."

After surviving an assassination attempt, Donald Trump was greeted as a hero in Milwaukee this week, where he announced 39-year-old Ohio Senator J.D.

Vance as his vice presidential nominee.

- I officially accept your nomination to be vice president of the United States of America.

- [Margaret] Meanwhile, high-profile Democrats are increasingly calling on Biden to step aside.

- With the candidate they have, the Democrats are gonna hand the Oval, the Senate, and quite possibly, probably likely, the House to the Republicans.

- [Margaret] Mike Murphy is a veteran of dozens of Republican campaigns, including working to elect John McCain, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jeb Bush.

- I'm an old school Reagan conservative, so I don't like this populist stuff.

I'm one of these old Republican elitists.

I like smart people.

- [Margaret] He has been one of Donald Trump's harshest GOP critics, and supported Joe Biden in 2020.

- Trump is kind of a one-trick pony.

He's an angry populist grievance candidate.

If somebody new and exciting came along, everything would get reshuffled, and the Trump campaign would have to do what they're not good at, which is reformulate.

- [Margaret] What does Mike Murphy say now?

- [Announcer] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. - Mike Murphy.

- Hello.

- Welcome to "Firing Line."

- It is good to be here.

This is exciting.

- As Republicans wrap up their convention in Milwaukee- - Mm-hmm.

- There is a feel of inevitability amongst them- - Yes.

- That Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States.

- Yes.

- Is the race over?

- No, I don't believe it is, as long as we get a different Democratic candidate, which, you know, is an (mumbles), the conventional wisdom is, "Oh, nothing can ever change," until it does.

- Uh-huh.

- And this race would totally turn inside out if the Democrats were to change up candidates.

Now, they may not.

There's a guy with all the delegates who would have to be persuaded.

But, you know, we will see.

The Republicans are correct.

If it was held tomorrow, which it isn't, it would be a crushing Republican win across the board.

- You just said if we get another Democratic candidate.

- Yes, ooh.

- You are a longtime Republican strategist, campaign manager, savant, political savant.

(Mike laughing) Are you still a Republican?

- I still, as the kids would say, identify Republican, but I'm an anti-Trumper.

I ran into him in 1993, I've been at this so long.

I've been at it as long as Biden it feels like.

I was working for Christine Todd Whitman, the governor of New Jersey.

I was her consultant, and he was up to all kinds of no good there.

So I'm an old guard anti-Trumper.

- Are you conservative?

- Oh, yeah.

I'm a right wing nut- - Like a Reagan conservative.

You're a right wing nut?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm an old school Reagan conservative, so I don't like this populist stuff.

I don't wanna go find the 10 most irritating idiots on the street, and put 'em in charge.

I like people who can do math, read books.

You know, I'm one of these old Republican elitists.

I like smart people.

- Okay, so- - And I don't like this Trumpian stuff at all.

So still Republican, still a conservative, but I do not wanna see Donald Trump in the Oval Office, so I'm doing character-building things, like voting for Joe Biden.

- Okay, so this week, you editorialized in "The New York Times"- - Yes.

- That, quote, "America needs a fresh path forward.

"Joe Biden cannot offer that.

"A new candidate, a centrist Democrat, could."

- [Mike] Yes.

- Why are you convinced Biden can't win?

- Well, the election is about Joe Biden right now.

No incumbent really wants to be a referendum on them, and it is about Joe Biden, 'cause Joe Biden, a guy I have some respect for, made it about himself by running at the age of 81.

So instead of a debate on Donald Trump, Biden has kind of made it all about him, and that's a losing bet.

Presidential campaigns are always about the future.

Joe Biden doesn't have a future pitch.

His pitch is, "Look at my great record."

Nobody cares about that.

They wanna know what the future will be, and he's just not equipped by personality, frankly- - Yeah.

- And by his age to shake that.

And so, with the candidate they have, the Democrats are gonna hand the Oval, the Senate, and quite possibly, probably likely, the House to the Republicans.

- After an assassination attempt on former President Trump, the momentum to remove Biden from the ticket briefly quieted.

- Yes.

- Those calls have turned up again.

- Right.

- [Margaret] Adam Schiff, the Senate candidate, Democratic Senate candidate- - Right.

- In California, Chuck Schumer, the Senate- - Right.

- Majority leader.

There is a growing chorus- - Yes.

- Of prominent Democrats who are saying he absolutely must step down, and Biden seemed to open the door this week in a BET interview, where he said that he would consider dropping out if some kind of medical condition emerged, or if, quote, "Doctors came to me, and said, "'You've got this problem and that problem,'" indicating that there were maybe some circumstances under which he might step aside.

- Yeah.

- [Margaret] What do you make of that?

- I think Biden's a patriot, and he's also an old, stubborn guy.

But it'll get to a point where I think Biden will put the country first.

So I can't guarantee it'll happen, but I predict it will.

As party leaders, I mean, it's interesting.

Adam Schiff, who's a big deal on the Democratic Party, most likely to be the next senator from California, also very, very, very close ally of Nancy Pelosi, who has not been as public, but behind the scenes, has forcefully, I think, communicated to her friend, who she admires, Joe Biden, that it's time for the greater good to move.

So I think those wheels are turning, and I think the momentum the Republicans will have off their convention is gonna be a crushing pressure on Joe Biden.

Finally, the fundraising is falling apart.

- Totally.

- And people are not in the politics business to lose, and a campaign out of money with a noncompetitive candidate that could take down the whole Democratic ticket, I don't think that's a sustainable situation through the next 10 days.

- I have been told by other senior Democrats that if it is not Biden- - Right.

- It is going to be Kamala Harris.

- Yeah.

- Do you subscribe to that?

- You hear that a lot, and they, I talked to one of the president's campaign leaders.

I said, "I keep hearing that "you're acting like it's a rule."

No, it's an assumption.

If we deconstruct it, what is a Democratic, or Republican nominating convention supposed to do?

Pick a candidate.

That's why they exist.

We treat 'em like car shows.

You know, it's a big ad.

The media barely covers them anymore.

So the structure is totally there.

The delegates become unbound if President Biden refuses the nomination.

So the current conventional wisdom is, "Well, it has to be Kamala, 'cause she's on the ticket, "and it has to be Kamala "because it's kind of an unspoken contract "with the African American voters, "who are so important in the coalition "that elects Democrats."

Maybe, but it's not written in stone.

- If it's Kamala- - It was unthinkable two weeks ago that President Biden would consider stepping aside, and Chuck Schumer, and Adam Schiff, and probably, soon, Nancy Pelosi, would be calling for it.

So the future is yet to be made on this, and I think a lot of these rules are rear-view mirror stuff that are not necessarily written in stone at all.

- If it's Kamala, how does Kamala match up, especially when you consider the down ballot races?

- Yeah, well, Kamala has pluses and minuses.

She would be generational.

She would put the Dobbs decision in the center of the presidential campaign, which in, not all states, but in most has a lot of power.

She would make the age issue now about Trump, 78-year-old Donald Trump.

So a lot of things flip.

On the other hand, history of being a bad candidate.

- Hmm.

- Couldn't get arrested when she ran for president in the primaries.

- Right.

- Got out essentially before voters- - Almost before the primaries started.

- Yeah.

And, you know, didn't do so well in the African American community, either.

People are assuming she's magic there.

Untested argument.

- Okay.

As a decades-long campaign manager, how difficult is it for a presidential campaign like Trump's to pivot to run against a new candidate- - Tough.

- Late in the game?

- Tough, because Trump is kind of a one-trick pony.

It's a great trick for him- - Yes.

- But he's an angry populist grievance candidate.

He's been doing well, because people wanna fire Joe Biden.

The race hasn't been about him.

If somebody new and exciting came along, everything would get reshuffled, and the Trump campaign would have to do what they're not good at, which is reformulate.

I think the Trump managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, are doing a good job, but here's the problem with Donald Trump.

It's easy to manage Donald Trump when he's winning, but if there's a big change, and they need a new strategy, and people have to tell Donald Trump what to do, rather than say, "Everything's going great, sir," then you have to deal with Trump, and next thing you know, staff heads are gonna be rolling everywhere- - Undisciplined Trump.

- Totally.

And so, I'm not at all sure these folks can manage Trump.

What they're doing right now is just keeping a railroad moving forward with no competition.

So it'll be a huge test of both them and the president's own sense of discipline if there's a big change up.

Now, they, it is, every journalist who talks to the Trump campaign knows they don't want the change up.

They think the race is won.

They just have to kill the calendar.

A change up scares the hell out of 'em, particularly to somebody who doesn't have last four years' baggage, which would be Kamala Harris.

If they had one of these star Democratic governors from a swing state, like a Shapiro in Pennsylvania- - [Margaret] First Jewish president.

- [Mike] Yeah, yeah, that's all right.

- Okay.

- Yeah, we're ready.

- Okay.

You're gonna say Whitmer, first female- - I am, from my home state of Michigan.

She's, politically, she is highly, highly accomplished.

Some people would say Gavin Newsom.

I think he's a little weaker than those two, but, and then you go to the cabinet, you got stars, too.

Gina Raimondo, my favorite cabinet member, my favorite Democratic governor back in the day.

So they have a lot of young talent, and if the convention can land on one of those superstars, it's a whole new race.

- Trump selected- - Mm-hmm.

- Senator J.D.

Vance to be his running mate.

- Yes.

- [Margaret] "National Review" has referred to him and his selection as a, quote, "Another nail in the coffin of Reagan Republicanism."

- Right.

- Vance is a leading opponent of supporting the war in Ukraine.

He is an outspoken- - Right.

- [Margaret] Neo-isolationist.

He is a populist.

- Right.

- What does Vance's ascension tell us about the future of the Republican Party?

- Well, I'm not sure it's predictive yet, but it does show that, you know, former President Trump decided to pick himself, essentially, go with a MAGA hammer, not a Marco Rubio, or somebody you can make an argument would've enhanced his appeal.

I think he picked the son he wished he had, and- - Does it help him politically?

- Well, it's a mixed bag.

One, vice presidents are massively overrated, so I don't think any of 'em help a lot.

But culturally, he is a good Great Lakes candidate, where a lot of the swing states are- - Yeah.

- And culturally, I think J.D.

Vance can play there.

He's an Ohio guy, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, I'm conflicted, 'cause I know and like J.D., 'cause seven years ago, he called me up and asked me about running for Senate as an anti-Trump Republican, and I liked him.

- So what's the, why are you conflicted?

- Well, I used to like him, 'cause I believe, I think he's smart.

I don't think he believes- - I used to like him, too.

Yeah.

- Yeah, well, no.

So now, of course, that's why I'm here putting the wood on him, 'cause I'm very disappointed in what he's turned into- - Do you think he's actually changed?

- No, I don't think he believes in anything.

I think that's what the evidence is showing me.

He can dress up in the MAGA suit, and it's pure expediency, and maybe that's his point of connection with Trump.

One cynic finds another, you know, the son he never had.

Here's the problem, though, and this is what I think everybody's missing.

Trump is not a double act.

There's one Trump, one star.

So now, we have two scorpions in a bottle, big scorpion, little scorpion, and the minute the little scorpion starts hitting home runs and doing well, if the ticket wins, Trump's gonna turn on him in a New York minute.

- You just referenced the power of the vice presidential selectee- - Right.

- Weeks before the Republican National Convention in 1976, Ronald Reagan's campaign manager, John Sears- - Right.

- Appeared on the original "Firing Line."

Sears had this to say about the role of the vice presidential selection.

- Now, your choice as vice president is viewed as the first important presidential choice that you make, what kind of a man you pick, whether there's a flaw in him, or not.

But thereby, the choice itself has received more attention, but the real political power of the second spot is not really that it can add real votes.

It may add substance to the image of the ticket in some fashion, but not real votes.

The votes are on the top of the ticket.

- So does Vance add any substance to the ticket?

- No, actually, he adds kind of a problem with the Republican senators, 'cause he and Rand Paul are off in their own cul-de-sac of isolation- - And Josh Hawley- - Yeah, Hawley to some extent, so, and they're scaring the hell out of the foreign policy establishment, 'cause, you know, Vance is way out there, particularly on Ukraine and some of these security issues.

But from what I know about Vance, (laughs) he can evolve.

- You think he can change his mind again?

- Oh, I think his mind is spinning on ball bearings.

It can go any way that's good for him.

- Let me ask you about this week in Milwaukee we saw the Teamsters President Sean O'Brien.

- Yeah.

- He spoke the first night of the convention, and he railed against the, quote, "Economic terrorism that private companies inflict "on working people."

- You know what I see?

An American worker being taken for granted.

(audience cheering) Workers being sold out to big banks, big tech, corporates, and the elite.

- [Margaret] This is not a typical speech at a GOP convention.

- Yeah.

- Is this another illustration of the realignment, or is this a cheap play for votes?

- I think it's a cynical play for votes with a little bit of realignment sauce on top of it.

I mean, we've had this two-lane demographic highway in the Trump era.

On one hand, college-educated white voters, who used to vote very Republican, are all rushing over to the Democrats, 'cause they're horrified by Trump on various issues.

On the other hand, people who make a living with their hands, blue collar, often high school-educated people who used to be more connected to the Democratic Party, are racing over to embrace Trump populism.

So I can see them in the Trump command, "This will be great.

"We'll get a building trades union guy to get up there, "bang on Biden on the economy, "which is our great issue," which is true.

People think by 10 to 15 points Donald Trump would do better at running the economy than Joe Biden.

- Yeah.

- It's the real problem Biden has, in addition to age.

So they're kind of pawning that.

On the other hand, it was a little too clever by half.

You know, I watched it, and I, you know, like you, I've been to a lot of these conventions.

- The people in the hall didn't know what to do.

- Yeah, and I saw some old Republican regulars who I know who are like, "Well, I gotta be for this Trump thing, "I guess."

You know, kind of looking around like, "What the hell?

"We got Eugene Debs now working the Republican," (mumbles), you know?

But anyway, it was a little discordant, but from the Trump convention manager's point of view, I mean, it was demagogue night on Monday.

We got Marjorie Taylor Greene, and then we're bringing the union guy to push the blue collar button, which is politically smart, and the fact that he is a bit of a demagogue and is gonna run off into the excess, we'll take it, because cynicism, the temple of the Trump party is built on cynicism.

So they don't believe in any of this stuff.

They would've burned Ronald Reagan's foreign policy in effigy if they thought they could get away with it.

- So why have Democrats been so bad at making a strong argument about the economy?

- Well, I'll blame the president for this.

What the president like, and this is not uncommon.

In my long career, I've done a lot of senators and governor campaigns, and I'm the media guy, make all the commercials, and do the messaging.

I can't tell you how many times a client, God bless him, comes in, "I don't know why we're paying you all this money.

"I just wrote my first ad," you know, and the senator hands me a scrap of paper, and it's a four-minute ad, basically, on and on, "Here's what I did for you knuckleheads.

"You owe me your vote," you know, "I'm working hard."

- Yeah.

- That's what Biden's doing- - Biden likes to do that- - That's what Biden's doing- - It's like, "It's better than you think, Jack," you know?

Grab 'em by the lapels and tell 'em they're wrong- - Yeah.

- I can tell you- - Never works.

- Never works.

- Yeah.

- The pitch should be, "We've made progress, but not enough, "and we've all suffered, and I feel it, I hear it, "and you have to decide who lands the plane, "me, 'cause I care about how you can't afford "your diabetes medicine, "and I care about millionaires getting tax cuts "when you're working three jobs, or the other guy, "who's not on your side, he's on his side," and make it a forward choice.

But President Biden is just not a performer in that way.

He wants to keep pounding them on his great record, which they don't believe.

- If it's Kamala, will she be able to litigate that point?

- Open question, but almost anything is better than Joe Biden right now, I'm sad to say.

- Well- - But turn a Gretchen Whitmer, or a Shapiro loose, it'll be a whole new race.

- Following the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, there is a conversation in the country, and on the Republican side, about rhetoric, and what kind of rhetoric is appropriate- - Yeah.

- To leverage against your political opponents.

- Right.

- Republicans from Speaker Johnson to Representative Steve Scalise, himself a former victim of- - Right.

- Political violence- - Horrible violence.

- Have called on all people in politics to change their rhetoric and lower the temperature.

- Right.

- It's been reported that many of these speeches this week were actually rewritten in order to- - Right.

- Tone down the rhetoric- - Right.

- And to align with this guidance.

And yet, hours after the assassination attempt against President Trump, his VP pick J.D.

Vance tweeted, "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that "Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist "who must be stopped at all costs.

"The rhetoric led directly "to President Trump's attempted assassination."

I mean, we don't know the shooter's motives, so we don't actually know if the shooter was motivated by political rhetoric, or not.

But- - Yeah.

- What message does it send by selecting his running mate that his initial reaction to the shooting is to blame Biden for it?

- Well, no, it shows a bad compass.

I mean, Vance has MAGA-itis, 'cause he's decided from being anti-Trump, never Trump, to, "Nobody's gonna out-MAGA me."

The problem we have in American politics, I'm gonna steal a line from Bill Gray, who was a Democratic member from Philadelphia, minister, years ago.

He said, "It's become a contest of, "'I'm right, you're evil.'"

- Yeah.

- And if it's, "I'm right, "you're evil," anything I do to you is good.

I'm fighting evil.

And so, when we spin into that, the rhetoric does get out of control.

And who knows how it, I mean, our rhetoric is so coarse now, it's (mumbles).

But putting that toothpaste back in the tube when both tribes are in the psychology of, "They're not our opponents, they're our enemies," is very, very hard to do.

So I applaud all these things I'm hearing.

Here's what I'm watching for.

Will Donald Trump change his rhetoric in his acceptance speech?

Is he capable of putting the grievance stuff away, and, "They're out to get me," and the personal attacks, and reach toward a higher cause, and sustain it?

- Well, we're taping this before his speech, and it may be the case that his speech actually does water down that- - Right.

- That rhetoric.

The question in Donald Trump's case is always a question of whether there's staying power to a behavioral change- - Right.

- In the short term.

- When he hits a bump, does he go into the- - Does he default- - You know, monster- - Back to- - Right.

- The things he has routinely called his opponents, vermin, scum, enemies of the state, enemies of the people?

- Yeah.

- [Margaret] He mocked Paul Pelosi when he was- - Right.

- Attacked in his home.

Remember, he said to his supporters to fight like hell on January 6th.

He told, you know- - Right.

- He tweeted negatively about- - No, he lionizes January 6th people- - And he also suggested that General Mark Milley should be executed.

- Yes, yeah, no, no, that's why I'm an anti-Trumper.

I don't believe him for a minute.

I think they might be able to get him through a prompter speech that's a little more elegant.

But let's see him unplugged for a week, and let's see how it goes.

Let's see what happens if the Democrats do switch up to a more competitive candidate, how he handles that.

- So- - Grace under pressure.

That is not Donald Trump.

- This question, though, about rhetoric, the central argument that Democrats make is that a second Trump term could undermine the institutions of our democracy- - Right.

- In a way that possibly could become irreparable.

- Yeah.

- [Margaret] This now has been essentially characterized as violent rhetoric- - Right.

- By the right.

So how do we engage on the real, the important contest before us and the policy consequences and the stakes of the election- - [Mike] Right.

- [Margaret] If any attempt to describe it is going to be called violent rhetoric?

- Right, and we have to be careful how precious we are about that.

There is a civil way to say Donald Trump doesn't respect the rule of law.

I don't wanna live in this woke kindergarten where we can't criticize anything.

It just means we don't have to call people traitors.

And on the lefty side, this apocalyptic, you know, jackbooted Trump, you know, everything argued to the extreme.

We can say Donald Trump lacks character.

I think you can prove that.

You can say Donald Trump has designs for the Justice Department that are different than any president ever, and would be a threat to civil liberties.

You can argue that calmly and factually.

It's the screaming end-of-the-world stuff, and the name-calling.

It doesn't work politically.

It's tiresome.

The problem is our politics are so tribally narcissistic now, inside each tribe they have a contest to see who can out-scream the worst end-of-the-world insult about the other side.

It makes them feel good.

You've gotta get to the fundamental things about what are we as citizens, and what is citizenship, and, you know, why the Constitution counts, not, "They're evil, destroy them," 'cause that cancels each other out.

It doesn't move the needle, doesn't win the election.

It just coarsens everything even more.

- How do you think about the stakes of the election when it comes to foreign policy?

- The foreign policy stakes are high, and that's the problem with Ukraine, and Vance, and all that.

He makes it about Ukrainian corruption and stuff, and there are problems in the Ukraine.

But Ukraine is merely a symbol for larger Russian expansion.

So Ukraine is important geo-strategically, not just Ukraine for itself, although I believe they should be free.

- Right.

- I'm a supporter.

It's a just war.

But when all that stuff starts falling apart, 'cause, I mean, we have clowns in the White House who don't, I know somebody who worked in the first Trump administration that said it was always amusing to watch the president try to find countries on a map.

You know, we had to bring in a fifth grader to show him where India was.

So it's very troubling.

It's very troubling, 'cause in foreign policy, as you well know, when you trip over your shoelaces and get into a problem, it's a lot harder to get out, 'cause things can cave in and compound, and the next thing you know, you're in armed conflict.

- You have been at this work for decades.

- Yes.

- You just cited a sense that in this country we are at a fever pitch, 50-50- - Mm-hmm.

- "I'm right, you're evil"- - Right.

- Is the paradigm.

Do you think about the pathway out?

- The short term is hard, because it's hard to argue for, "Hey, can't we all agree we're Americans," in the middle of a chainsaw fight at two feet, which is what our politics has become.

All the incentives are terrible, including media incentives.

Donald Trump got seven times the cable coverage of anybody else in '16 in the primary, 'cause he would go out, and call names, and give 'em conflict.

You know, it is the news business.

- Right.

- They count the clicks.

- Right.

- So the two things that I think are bad accelerants for it are social media, which is a free microphone for bad speech- - Right.

- And that amplifies things, and all the algos, and everything, the way it works is they tend to isolate people into tribes.

- The algorithms, right- - Yeah, exactly.

So that is a problem.

So if we can let human anthropology and psychology get back in the game here- - [Margaret] Yeah.

- We do tend to make good tribes.

When we hide behind social media, and instead of having a precinct where you have some idea of the problems of the person across the street, instead, we talk to our nutty uncle 1,000 miles away, and get all our political information for free electronically, it's bad.

It's not the original formula of how humans have survived.

So I think a little retreat to neighborhoods, and people, and a little tolerance, that it's okay to disagree, a little more kindness would help.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And now, that, it is teachable.

Humans wanna do that.

People tend, Congress.

They're out on the stump calling each other terrible names.

I mean, I wrote a TV show about Congress for CBS.

We made a big pilot, and I took some of the Hollywood people, took 'em to Congress, and they're all Hollywood liberals.

We put 'em in an elevator, and in the elevator were Jim Jordan and James Clyburn, and the Hollywood people all froze like, "Oh my God, how did they ever get in the same elevator?"

I mean, this is a town where people are afraid to go to a restaurant where the person who fired 'em off his show was seen three years ago, you know?

- Yeah, yeah.

- So they get in, and Clyburn and Jordan are talking about, "Hey, you going to the prayer breakfast Thursday?"

"Yeah, what about the golf thing?"

They tend to get along in Congress.

In the old days, that was, but now they kind of have to hide it.

They all go to the House gym, where no press is allowed, where they can just be friends.

- Yeah.

- Humans like to be friends.

- Mm-hmm.

- But we've trapped them in a world of no swing districts, all primary voters, professional arsonists in the cable news and internet business, where they're forced to this abnormal behavior.

So if we can let people get back to being humans again, without, hopefully, a draft and a world war to remind them of purpose, 'cause, you know, one of the problems we have now is the stakes of our elections- - Yup, yeah.

- Are considered another reality show.

Yeah, they are until there's a shooting war in the Pacific.

- Yeah.

- Then all of a sudden, it's not so funny, and it's not "The Apprentice" all of a sudden.

Then your kid's getting drafted.

- Yeah.

- And may not come back.

So I am hopeful that without catastrophe we can find a correction, 'cause I think humans want to.

But it's not gonna be easy, and we're not gonna have it happen during the campaign.

- Mike Murphy, thank you for joining me.

- Thank you.

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