What Democrats got wrong, what Republicans got right, and what comes next, this week on Firing Line.

- I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear.

- Donald Trump is just the second American president to return to office after losing an election.

- He promised payback.

- I am your retribution, I am your retribution.

- And he's moving aggressively to enact his agenda.

- Federal agents have been conducting raids in sanctuary cities across the US.

- The new Trump administration has fired federal prosecutors who were involved in the criminal cases.

- It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.

- Mike Murphy is a legendary Republican campaign consultant.

James Carville, equally legendary, advises Democrats.

Both supported Kamala Harris in 2024, and both called it wrong.

- I think she's gonna win.

I will predict it with low to medium confidence.

- 'Cause we're gonna win, baby, we're just gonna win this thing.

- We brought them together on stage at the University of Southern California to look back at the last election and ahead to the next one.

- MAGA-ism is not going to die with Trump.

You got one hope, the Democratic Party.

- We're gonna disagree on this.

I think MAGA's gonna mutate.

- As the two parties adjust to a new political reality, what did James Carville and Mike Murphy say now?

- "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens, Inc. - James Carville and Mike Murphy, welcome back to "Firing Line."

- Good to be here.

- We are less than two weeks into Trump's second non-consecutive term as president.

He has, so far, pardoned rioters who assaulted police officers at the Capitol.

He has tried to redefine birthright citizenship.

He has fired Department of Justice prosecutors, inspectors general, has threatened American allies and adversaries, and has tried to freeze spending that has already been appropriated by Congress.

James, is this what you expected?

- Well, first of all, thank you.

Of course it's what I expected.

And understand, this billionaire running the government where you have, you know, the top 1,000, the top 1% that are coming in and running the government.

And I think these people are deadly serious about ruining the government.

Because if you ruin the federal government, there's nobody that can regulate you.

No one is gonna control these people.

- Mike, we spoke last summer.

And at that time, you cautioned Democrats to refrain from resorting to apocalyptic rhetoric in response to Trump.

The policy moves so far in the first two weeks of the Trump administration, this Trump administration, are arguably vastly more consequential than the moves he made in the first two weeks of his last presidential administration.

And yet the tenor and the tone of the outrage has been dramatically muted this time around.

No women's march, no pink hats, no protests.

Not like in 2017.

Did they take your advice?

- Well, I don't think they did during the campaign.

My argument then was whining about stuff from the Democrat or Washington establishment is rocket fuel for Trump.

Now that Trump's in power, though, look at Trump's record.

He's a very good challenger.

Oh, everything's screwed.

You're an angry shoe salesman.

I'll go get all your enemies.

He's very bad at getting reelected 'cause once he gets in the government, it's, I create change, it's a disaster.

And it looks like this time he doesn't have some of the old semi-grownups around him.

So he's just having his fantasy football.

It's like a kid you give a laser sword to.

And so I think it is time for democratic outrage.

But it's not something, keep in mind, people-- - So the apocalypse starts now?

- Well, no, but this stuff has to have a price.

I mean, they've got a blitz strategy.

Hit 'em with everything.

Half of these things are just press releases.

The other half are real bad and real terrible.

A lot of 'em won't, over time, get legal support.

But their strategy is just to keep throwing punches and say, I'm the action man, I'm fighting all your enemies.

Now he was elected to fix the economy, so let's see how a trade war gets down to that.

So I think he's on kind of a shot clock, and I think he's gonna hit the rocks over time.

The question is how much damage can he do.

- What do you make of the muted response, though?

The muted opposition, both of you.

- They're on therapy, but I think it'll come.

I wish it would start tomorrow.

They should have grabbed around-- - James, are you in therapy?

- Emmanuel for DNC, they need a warrior.

- Are they all in therapy?

Where's the opposition?

- Well, I mean, sometimes, you know, some of you old people remember Muhammad Ali in Rope-A-Dope?

He'd go like six, seven rounds, and he'd knock you out.

And sometimes you have to do what's called strategic patience.

Trump floods it with 20 different things.

You can't swing at every, and I think it's like, well, you're right, we don't have the Million Women Watch.

We ran a presidential election.

If we were playing the Super Bowl, we started our seventh string quarterback.

That's what happened.

Okay, you can't address a problem unless you're honest about a problem.

And none of this was inevitable.

Never should have happened.

It was not inevitable.

Joe Biden stands over this disaster like a colossus.

And he just does.

You can't, he's a great guy.

James, you shouldn't say that.

He's a wonderful man.

Who cares?

If you don't win a damn election, you've done nothing.

Zip, de nada You don't count.

I don't care how good a man you are.

And till Democrats learn that and quit keeping their head in the cloud and talking goofy language that no one else talks, or we gotta be nice to people, screw that, run over 'em.

- You know, in the Republican Party, in our consulting world, we used to joke a lot because the Democratic nomination process is mostly proportional delegates.

Our process is winner take all.

So if you lose, you're dead fast.

And why do they do it that way?

Well, they love losers.

Fifth place, oh, get a delegate.

You know, so this is, I totally agree with James on this.

They made a dumb bet for internal incentive reasons and they blew the election when the stakes couldn't be higher.

- Last summer, when I spoke to both of you, you were both optimistic that Democrats would turn the presidential race around with Biden off the ticket.

- Right.

- Okay?

- They could have, yeah.

- Okay, so let's take this in two parts.

First, you just said this is this sort of intimated, this all lays at the feet of Joe Biden.

If Biden had battled gracefully with enough time, if there had been some kind of a primary, which you argued in the New York Times after the disaster, but what if he had done it in 2023?

- We'd have won the presidency by, we would have gotten 53 and a half.

Understand, we were running in a 70% wrong track country that doesn't like Trump.

And we resolutely refuse to give them change.

They actually asked Harris, what would you do different?

And she said, I can't think of anything.

Now, if you would have put the staggering talent that exists in today's Democratic Party, let me, you heard what I said, the staggering talent that exists in today's Democratic Party, if people would have seen that, they'd have gone, I didn't know they had people like that, can actually complete a sentence.

Okay, that actually can know how to frame a message, that actually have a sense of accomplishment of doing something.

If we would have excited people and we would have had people from the middle of the country, we would have had people from the coast, we'd have been diverse, we'd have been, and then when you do that, that's how people get involved in politics.

We have not had an inspirational presidential candidate since 2012.

- And when you-- - That's a problem.

- When you have a primary and a contest like the playoff, you get a big winner and that credentials the nominee, they earn it.

James suggested earlier, and I was 1000% for this, we can have a short primary here instead of anointing somebody.

And I got called to like a secret meeting with a bunch of senior White House people after the terrible Biden debate with some other non-Trump, Trump opposing Republicans.

And I said, this Carville thing is right, go to a minute, let Whitmer go beat somebody or if Kamala is that good, let her beat somebody to make her somebody, not just an appointment.

She was nominated on a telephone conference call.

- That said, you were both optimistic.

So tell me, is there one thing in hindsight that Kamala Harris's campaign could have done differently that might have changed the outcome in your view, both of you?

- I'll give you a small one.

I think they totally blew Michigan.

Now their national problems that hurt them everywhere hurt them there too.

Trump spent $30 million to, and I've stayed, I've done a lot of work in saying, screw these electric cars, she's gonna ruin the auto industry.

Truth is there are 50,000 new jobs.

Nobody told him that.

I took a poll 10 days out in Michigan, two to one people thought electric cars are bad for the auto industry.

What's bad is China wiping out the whole auto industry in 10 years.

So they gave Michigan away.

And I know the on the ground people in the campaign all think, I don't know who these clowns were.

A lot of their messaging still didn't do meat and potatoes economics.

You don't do outrage against Trump because half the country thinks the problem with democracy is Trump.

The other half thinks the problem with democracy is woke Democrat, blah, blah, blah.

Instead you say, he's gonna screw you.

He's gonna make stuff cost more.

You get at the meat and potato stuff.

And I thought they were bad at that.

- Is there anything, one thing Kamala could have done differently, James, that might have changed the outcome?

- Yes.

First of all, she got Joe Biden's campaign.

That's it, they just gave, they got the keys.

They have the same managers, same strategist, same headquarters, same artwork, same computer system, same bathroom.

Okay, that is not good.

You don't even have your own people.

Then you can't have lobbyists running presidential campaigns.

So they said, we can't run on a minimum wage.

Minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009.

It's $7.25.

We couldn't say, we're gonna do away with tax breaks so people make over $400,000 and take that money and help young people buy a house or get an education or rent a house because we were all conflicted.

And people say, you think you should move to the left?

You think you should move to the right?

Move to, like, giving people a raise, what is that?

That's where people want.

Give 'em something.

We refuse to do that.

- Okay, you're getting at, what we know happened in the election is that Republicans held the House, Republicans flipped the Senate, county by county across the country, the country shifted rightward.

Conventional wisdom is that Democrats have a deeper problem here.

And you wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, James, said actually what has to happen is, it's the economy, stupid, go big, go populist.

What populism should the Democrats pursue?

- Raise the minimum wage.

Raise taxes of people that make, that earn over $400,000 a year.

Reinvest in small town in rural America.

Anything, but more vocational education.

Healthcare is an issue.

People are getting destroyed by healthcare costs, okay?

What about mass transit?

People working, people have to take the bus, the subway to work, okay?

What about that?

There's a million things right in front of you that you can do to show people that you're in their lives.

So we sit there and we tell people how good the economy is.

Meanwhile, you got these kids here paying, you know, $300,000 for an education.

They go out to try to buy a damn house, they're looking seven and a half percent interest.

And I got these in Washington telling me how good I have it?

- I think the key way to look at it is Trump's not a conservative, he's a populist.

He's an applause line guy.

And you can't fight populism without other populism.

'Cause the applause lines will win in the end.

You know, oh, I'll put a tariff on 'em, now all the problems are solved.

I'll make the problem go away.

It's not you, it's them.

And there is a friendly, middle class populism that Democrats, minimum wage is a great example.

And instead, there was a little bit of sophistication to the Democratic campaign.

And when you're running against Donald Trump in a 70% wrong track, where everybody wants to fire the president 'cause they think he's senile and screwed up the economy, which hurts what stuff costs, which is the cash register every voter has to deal with every week, you don't get sophisticated.

You know, it's your populism versus theirs and she didn't have any.

- Okay, so then if both parties are increasingly focused on populist messaging moving forward, you have President Trump and Vice President Vance with a group of Republicans that have centered their pitch, their populist pitch around culture war issues, highlighting wokeness, immigration, border security, crime.

Can an economically focused center left populism like Mike compete with the culture war driven right wing populism?

- Yeah, I mean, rule one for the Democrats is the culture war stuff is bait.

The Trump guys love a DEI fight.

Are you kidding?

It's what?

We don't have enough transsexuals in the Marine Corps?

By the way, I'm fine with all the DEI stuff.

But in politics, when you pick the right fight, you're winning and the Dems always go for the bait.

So yeah, economic, democratic, 'cause keep in mind what's gonna happen.

Trump is a salesman, all right?

He sold them a condo.

The condo was the economy was better.

When I was president, the senile old guy can't do anything about it.

The woke San Francisco liberal can't, she's gonna be paying for sex changes in prison.

So I'm gonna go beat up on these foreigners who are cheating the trade, blah, blah, blah, and save your life.

It's a pretty good pitch.

It worked, it's worked for him twice.

But now he's gotta run the store.

They've already turned off a lot of popular programs 'cause they put out an executive order without legal review 'cause they got some dummies there, by the way.

They aren't all masterminds.

And then they had to do a 180 on that.

They beat up Columbia, wow, great victory.

Now we're gonna put tariffs on Denmark, arguably our best small NATO ally, to steal Greenland, which by the way, we don't want.

Trump just saw a map, it's as big as Texas, I can get it for free.

So the point is, and the Democrats, even as terrible as they are, 'cause I don't think they've learned the populist lesson.

Right now they're all building dream catchers and sobbing.

Eventually they will get a general patent and they will fight back.

And Trump's under a clock 'cause the midterm elections, even if the Democrats screw up, they're likely to win.

And so Trump's on a long leash now, do a lot of damage, but they will, I hope, figure this out and start fighting.

- On the cultural issues, James, more than half of men under 30 supported Trump in this election.

And you raised concerns about preachy women in the Democratic Party.

- Yeah.

- Who are the preachy women?

- You would have to have your head in the clouds to not know that democratic messaging comes across to ordinary people is hardy, coded and superior sounding, period.

End of argument.

I call it identitarianism.

And identitarianism tells me that I should look at you more for your identity than your humanity, and I can't do that.

I cannot look at you first as anything other than a human being.

- I have to say identity has taken over the Democratic Party, internal politics, and it doesn't help them win elections.

I'd fire everybody at the DNC who can tell me what intersectionalism is.

And I'd move it to Kansas City.

- A Bloomberg analysis of the nine most popular YouTube programs that interviewed Donald Trump before the election found his appearances received more than 100 million views, nearly all of the top political guests on these programs were Republicans and Trump supporters.

This is the Joe Rogan experience, the Sean Ryan show, the Full Send podcast, 80% male audiences that regularly echo Trump's talking points on the economy, immigration, on gender.

A large segment of the electorate is marinating in a media ecosystem where the audience is mostly male.

The discussion often celebrates masculinity.

Is this your father's GOP?

- No, no, that's why I'm here screaming about the President of the United States who's a Republican.

I'm a conservative, I'm a right-wing nut, but I'm a conservative.

I'm not whatever Trump is.

You're right about, you know, when you asked what the biggest tactical mistakes were.

Not doing the Rogan interview, and by the way, the idea that Rogan is the new Tim Russert with the trick questions and the tough journalism, it's not true, he's a nice guy, this does kind of a conversation.

He has a few opinions that you can push back on.

You know, so we are in a new world where some of the old elite gatekeepers are gone, for good and bad.

But if people doing campaigns don't represent their other channels now, we can get a lot of message out for free, the people who trust those channels, even if you can argue with credible fact that there's misstatements of truth, blah, blah, blah.

They trust 'em 'cause they're not part of the big establishment that everybody hates.

Populism, again.

So they made an idiotic mistake not doing it, it was moronic.

- You have been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump for more than a decade.

You led a super PAC supporting Jeb Bush in 2016, you endorsed Biden in 2020.

Trump has led Republicans back to control of the White House for a second time.

Congress also entirely really in his grip, one might say.

He's expanded the share of the black vote, Hispanic vote, young voters.

Your personal feelings aside, can Republicans win without Trump on the top of the ticket?

- Oh, hell yes.

- Well-- - But let me say-- - What is your evidence?

- Trump has led us, 'cause we used to do it all the time.

- Yeah, but we're in a new era.

- Well, yeah, everything's a new era 'til the new new era comes.

Trump has led us to victory in presidentials and he's wiped our party out in off years.

So he's got a mixed record on that.

And we're seeing how we do in 18 months, the great referendum on Trump too, where Seeholdt holds the house.

Yes, I think a modernized conservatism can win, but both parties are captured by their primary vote.

So in our world, in the primary, are a whole bunch of people who know what it would be like to be in Vichy Paris, 'cause they're all telling me in their basement, oh, we're gonna take it back.

But they're all terrified, 'cause Trump can wipe them out in the primary.

- Let's talk about where we are now.

- So we're stuck, but give it time.

- Well, where we are now is, some folks on the right and the Republican Party view that there's really two factions, dominant factions within the Republican Party.

There's this pro-business wing that wants deregulation.

They want tax cuts.

They frankly rely on immigration.

And then there is the more sort of radical populist MAGA adjacent crew, the Steve Bannon adjacent crew that is both anti-immigration and also anti-abortion.

- And not so big on the constitution either.

- Not, yeah, you know, debatable.

So we've already seen these two factions class over H-1B visas.

How do you predict this dynamic will play out as the Trump administration unfolds?

- Well, if you, H-1B visas is a great example.

You've got kind of the Trump old guard versus Elon Musk and some of the techno types.

I think Trump and Elon are two Tomcats in one pillow sack and it's gonna end very badly, is my prediction.

Who knows, been wrong before.

But right now the populists are in the center.

So the question, are we gonna have a reformation or not?

And the key to that is will Trump have long-term political success over the next three years or failure?

- James, how do-- - 'Cause parties go do what they think works.

- Right.

- Do Democrats capitalize on a clash like this?

I mean, is there an inevitable clash that then Democrats can capitalize on?

- Okay, let's back up.

First of all, this mythology that y'all have that there's a split in the Republican Party.

There is no split in the Republican Party.

It's all Trump, okay, get over it.

Mitt Romney is not walking through that door.

MAGA-ism is not going to die with Trump.

It's just going to breed more and more and Mitt Romney is gone.

- We're gonna disagree on this.

I think MAGA's gonna mutate and I don't know what the mutations will be going forward.

- In every program, I select a clip of William F. Buckley Jr., but in a particular episode, Richard Nixon appears with Buckley.

And Nixon argues that, at least in 1967, voters have lost confidence with the Democratic Party and their ability to govern.

- I would say, too, that last year, in terms of the way the two parties presented their cases across the country to the people, the Democratic Party seemed to be the party of the past.

They were applying the various programs of the '30s to the problems of the '60s, whereas the Republican Party seemed to be more in tune with what people believed in now.

- Is that at play today, James, on some level?

At the state level, at the local level, Democrats seem to be faced with a similar skepticism about their ability to address people's concerns.

I say that in Los Angeles, where one of the largest natural disasters has occurred in the state in recent times, and there is a massive feeling that the Democratic establishment has not been able to be prepared to address basic people's concerns.

Is that at play?

- First of all, there are highly competent Democratic governors all over the country.

Democratic mayors control cities that probably account for 70% of the total GDP in the United States.

If you look at the first two years of the Biden administration, would anybody say that Nancy Pelosi is ineffective?

I don't think so.

Look at the stuff they did.

Look at what Obama did.

What do you think 23 million people got their healthcare from?

Not from a talking point, from actually winning election and executing a policy.

That happened.

- I gotta say, here in Los Angeles, where I live, and in California politics, where I work, there is a competence crisis.

We were in a situation here where we had 90 fire trucks and ambulances and a bone yard 'cause they laid off the mechanics.

Voters here of every party are hopping mad.

I think that is gonna shape California politics now for a few years.

Less ideological dogma and more, the folks running things here can't run things.

- You can't run a railroad, you gotta get out.

- Yep.

But a lot of Democrats out there run in a pretty tight railroad.

- All right.

Mike Murphy, James Carville, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line."

- Thank you.

(audience applauding) - "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (upbeat music) (gentle music) - You're watching PBS.

- Welcome to the "NewsHour."

- Good evening, I'm John Yang.

- Welcome to the program, everyone.

I'm Christiane Amanpour.

- Good evening, and welcome to "Washington Week."

(upbeat music) - As you look ahead to the 2024 elections.

- You've gotta be well-informed if you want any substantial impact on anything.

- There's no going back to what we've had before.

- This country is as divided now as it has been at any time.

- It's not that we don't have a choice, we have a stark choice.

- This was a moment for us to use our voice as a movement of power.

- We sent a signal to the world.

- Do you want to be in conversations that are happening right now?

- I thought that was the point.

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