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Chaos and conventions: Navigating one of the wildest weeks in politics
Join hosts Bryan DeAngelis and Ylan Mui, along with Penta Senior Partner Kevin Madden, on this week's episode of What's at Stake as they discuss how corporate executives and political leaders are navigating the turbulent aftermath of the attack on former President Donald Trump. With the Republican National Convention underway, they explore the possibility of unity despite heightened political tension. The group then took a look at the future of Republican politics, the nomination of Sen. J.D. Vance as the party's vice presidential candidate, and the growing influence of economic populism – aka Trumponomics.
Tune in for a compelling discussion on the dynamics of American politics and how they're shaping business and the economy.
Welcome to this week's episode of what's at Stake. We're your hosts. Brian DeAngelis, a partner here at Penta.
Speaker 2:And I'm Ilan Moy, Managing Director at Penta in the DC office.
Speaker 1:And we're here today with our senior partner and frequent podcast guest, Kevin Madden, to talk about the tumultuous political landscape we all find ourselves in, particularly after last weekend's events and now this week's Republican National Conventioning, which is happening as we record this.
Speaker 1:Of course, this year's convention was already unlike anything we probably would have seen before, but it's unfolding now in the shadow of a assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, which is a stark reminder of the volatility and the high stakes of our current political environment. I think everyone, from businesses and CEOs to the political class that follows all of this stuff closely to everyday voters and Americans, are trying to wade through the tough questions of where do we go from here. So right now we're seeing a Republican Party rallying around the idea of unity much different than past years at this convention. There are reports that President Trump is reworking his speech in the wake of the shooting. Kevin, I want to start with you just coming out of Saturday, heading right into the RNC. How is all of this kind of playing out and what's going through your mind as someone who's been involved in a lot of presidential campaigns, a lot of conventions?
Speaker 3:Well, I think the first thing to remember is that we shouldn't lose sight of the tragic events of Saturday. You know, one of the things I've been talking to a lot of reporters about when they try to gauge the politics of this is that, just remember, there are families right now going through funeral arrangements and I think that probably weighs very heavily on a lot of folks. But also, I think there's just a palpable tension right now in American politics and the planning of the RNC and even how the Democrats try to counter it. Um, that's front and center, like, that's very again, that's very palpable as well. Uh, and so that's playing into a lot of the strategies, uh, so before we ever really get into a strategy discussion, we should just be, we should just remember that.
Speaker 3:Um, but you know, I think the thing that's taking place in in Milwaukee is, um, you know, I think the thing that's taking place in Milwaukee is you know, I feel like this is like a walk up to the, the real beginning of the, of the main part of this campaign, which is like the post Labor Day push all the way until, all the way until Election Day, and the party seems quite focused as a result of the last couple of weeks. I think you take the debate, which really crystallized the stakes of the race and also crystallized some of the strategies that are going to be deployed all the way until November, as well as the assassination attempt and what that means for the state of our politics and how to handle that all the way through. It seems very present in a lot of the strategies that you're seeing right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an excellent point. I mean we do traditionally think of Americans tuning in post-Labor Day, but as you and I talked about on a podcast just a couple of weeks ago, I think it was 50 million people that tuned into that debate. American politics have become sport and entertainment for a lot of Americans. They tune into this stuff and then certainly not comparing the two events but certainly anytime there's political violence and an assassination attempt on a candidate, that's on the minds of every American. So this campaign feels like it's starting now. It's starting under some dark clouds, but you are seeing a Republican party that's well unified and you're seeing a Democratic party that's both trying to figure out what they're doing with their own candidate and how to respond with the right tone and the right kind of political posture following these events.
Speaker 3:I was going to say yeah, I think right now the key word is modulation.
Speaker 3:I think both parties are trying to modulate how they talk about their politics and how they draw the very sharp contrast that they need to with the other side, and they're trying to be very careful about that.
Speaker 3:But our system is also built in that every campaign really needs two messages. You need to promote the vision that you have for the country going forward. What are the next four years going to look like? But the other part of the message is the contrast right, which is the real need to draw sharp lines of distinction between you. And the other part of the message is the contrast right, which is the real need to draw sharp lines of distinction between you and the other candidate, your party and the other party. And we're very, very quickly, I think, moving back to that space. I think after this convention is over and you even saw it with some of the, with some of President Biden's President Biden's language when he was at the NAACP event he is right back to sort of sharpening the distinctions between him and Trump and the two parties. It's going to take on again the contours of a normal, very partisan, very tough campaign with high stakes.
Speaker 2:I think that's interesting that you bring that up, kevin, because you know, one of the questions is how long is this sort of theme of unity, you know, how long is this dialing down on the rhetoric going to last, down on the rhetoric going to last? And one thing that struck me about the events over the weekend is that you know it was a it's a national, international moment that many people watched live and that we sort of all as a country experienced together at a time when, you know, our politics has become so increasingly tribal. This is something that everybody, you know tribal. This is something that everybody related to, experienced, saw, witnessed and was horrified by on a very visceral level. So that sort of national experience, I think is often missing from so many of our, from our public discourse and from our experience of politics these days. So I thought that was interesting, that that came out.
Speaker 2:I was also glad, kevin, that you started with remembering the victims and the people who were killed and the people who were suffering still, perhaps still critically injured, as a result of the weekend's event. When I was going through the statements of executives, companies, et cetera in the wake of the know, not everybody mentioned the other families, the everyday people, the ordinary people who were affected by this. Everyone gave condolences to President Trump, but I think it added a level of humanity to executives' response when they also remembered the lives that were lost, and I think that authenticity and that common humanity is going to be so important if we are going to have any hope of having a level of discourse in this country that does not end in violence.
Speaker 1:It's a great point and I think all three of us, and probably most of Penta, spent the last four or five days kind of helping clients think through this and how to respond and how to talk to their own employees, their own customers. We are looking for other major voices in society, like businesses and CEOs, to weigh in and to try to bring some whether it's unity or calming down of the discourse into this mix. But what are you two kind of seeing and how are you helping clients over the last few days?
Speaker 3:I think it's a great overall question that Yvonne brought up, and, brian, I think your point about corporate and business leaders and community leaders' voices is a really important one. First, I'd say one of the things that you have to remember, though, is that when this happened, everybody was sort of you know, kind of taken aback and shocked in the moment. But if you turn to social media and partisan media, the partisan undercurrents of the response from some of the most hyper-partisan voices in our political system today were very, very apparent From the get-go. There was already finger pointing, and that's just an important element to really understand as you think about how people respond to this and what's how it's going to drive and shape the politics of like, not only the next two weeks, but the next two months, the next two years.
Speaker 3:The shelf life of the unity message in this country seems to get shorter and shorter with every one of these big national events, and I agree it is an inflection point for the country. It is a big national event, but this is not Oklahoma City, this is not 9-11. If you remember, the afterglow of national unity in the wake of those events was much more unified much longer, much more durable. That was pre-social media and it was also before an information processing infrastructure that is instantaneous today and really platforms some of the most divisive voices in our society. That it really does fall then to the business leaders, the community leaders, faith leaders, political leaders who can see much further into the future about the importance and the value of bringing the country together and really trying to set an example. That is where their currency is the most valuable and it is where I think a lot.
Speaker 3:I was very pleased to see a lot of business leaders step up and take the initiative to put out statements, not try and calculate which way or the other it was going to go, but instead they said this is an indication and this is a case study of what's wrong with our politics and what's wrong with our national conversation. Let's lead the way and set an example by adding our voice to others, and I think that was the real key part of it, which is that we were here at Penta. We do a very exhaustive and extensive level of monitoring, and that was one of the things that was the takeaway, like the snapshot of the corporate and community leaders and faith leaders and world leaders stepping up and adding their voice to other voices in order to create that unified message. That was what was really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, recognizing that moment and recognizing the need for their voice. I mean, I'm sure, like both of you, I was glued to Twitter on Saturday evening and it was both, you know, a breaking news source, as it is and as a lot of us, you know, rely on it for with a lot of information coming out. But in the midst of all that in my timeline were some pretty extreme voices to your point, Kevin, on both sides, that were already making this highly political. Other actors, those community leaders, to your point, to enter into the mix and calm down some of the rhetoric and set a good example, I think was critical.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think business leaders too. They understand markets. This is a marketplace of information and when you leave the market to only bad actors, bad things happen to the market. So the fact that many of them acted quickly, they acted in unison, they acted with a high level of volume, that was really important.
Speaker 2:There was an interesting article, I think it was maybe in the National Review, but essentially the argument was you know, is the American public actually more unified than our political leaders, or is it the other way around? Is it that our leaders are the ones who need to show us the path to bridge the divides between our neighbors? To bridge the divides between our neighbors? It was an interesting thought argument because I had sort of assumed that this, that political discord at the top, was the result of political discord, the divisions that are even deeper at the bottom. But this article sort of argued the opposite, that actually the American public is looking for that, looking for that feeling, that sense of civil discourse, right, and that really we're in a place now where our leaders need to recognize that. And so I think there's a little bit of both. And here where corporate CEOs, community leaders, world leaders, et cetera, can maybe take some cues from where, where good neighbors are already residing.
Speaker 3:Ilan, I'm going to put you on the spot as a former broadcast journalist, but one of the other things that we have to look at too is the media and how the media responds to this. You know they should probably take a look at the tape over the last week, two weeks, how they've conducted themselves. One of the things that I was very disappointed in was this is a news story. People need information about what happened and why in order to really form the best, most comprehensive assessment of what happened, and I was disappointed to see one cable network in particular start to put on partisan political strategists within the first six hours. This is not a story that needs a partisan lens on it. This is not a story that needs people who have a vested interest in one campaign's outcome or the others.
Speaker 3:This is a new story. There should have been nobody on television except journalists reporting on the facts and offering information that is validated and, you know, scrubbed for accuracy to the public, and you know that's one of the things too, is that the media should do. I'm going to do my own self-reflection on this as a as somebody who's who's a political professional and works in the business, works in the business, works with the business community on these type of responses. But the media needs to do is a very steep self-reflection as well, because, to your point, sometimes they platform these extreme voices, sometimes they platform these conspiracy theories, sometimes they platform misinformation, inaccurate information, and that creates and incentivizes a lot of these bad actors.
Speaker 2:No, I'm with you, kevin, and, as some folks may have seen that, there's an ongoing debate right now at my old employer at NBC about who was on air when and sort of why. And with that exact framework and question in mind, what I will say on behalf of journalists, especially in TV media, is that it's incredibly hard, in a developing situation where the information is coming both fast and furious, but also sporadically, to fill that airtime, to keep the ball in the air and to maintain composure, to maintain a conveyance of the fact without sounding like you're repeating yourself even though there's nothing really new that you can share with the viewers at that time. That's a very difficult skill and it's very hard, and so I certainly give the folks who were on air during that period credit for that. However, to your point, this is a time for news right, and there was so much unknown in the moment still so much that we don't know now.
Speaker 2:I was in the grocery store when I saw the initial headlines. I'm searching for oatmeal in aisle seven and I see a headline, and the initial headline that I saw on my phone was just that two people had been shot, or there was a number there was a shooting at a Trump rally and I thought, okay, unfortunately, because I was a reporter for a long time, I was sort of, you know, immune to that headline.
Speaker 2:I thought, okay, there's a shooting. We've seen a lot of shootings, sounds horrible, but you know, it's not the. It didn't have the magnitude of importance that I would realize later, and it wasn't until I got home that I dug into the stories and I opened up my apps that I really understood what was happening. And so I think that there was, you know, there the audience, sort of the import of what the reporter on the ground is experiencing, and it's a tough balance.
Speaker 3:But you would agree with me. I think you both would agree that.
Speaker 3:I do agree that we do not need to hear Democrats. We do not need any anchor during a time like this. To turn to Well, now let's hear from Democratic strategist A and Republican strategist B, who are going to break down this for us and talk about the politics of it. There is zero, zero need for that as part of our national conversation, and I'm surprised any news director or any executive producer would make that decision and think, yes, this is a good idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I totally agree and I think to everyone's point. It's the unfortunate effect of the kind of political partisan influence that's just, you know, saturated the media over the last decade or so. But this was a moment for national security experts, secret service experts, expert, like true experts, that can explain to the american public what has happened, what it means when the information is going to come, etc. Um, with that, why don't, why don't, we take a a quick break? Um, I want to. I want to turn the conversation a little bit so we'll come back and talk a little bit more about what's happening the week after this attempt with the RNC. But you're listening to what's at Stake. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1:We're back on what's at Stake Ilan and I talking to Kevin Madden about the past week's events the attempted assassination attempt on former President Trump and this week's events, which is the Republican National Convention. Kevin, we're recording this before we see the president or the new vice president nominee speak, but let's just start with how the RNC is going, how it's being kind of portrayed and seen and prepared for kind of post the events of last weekend, but what their goal is with this, what they're getting right. You've been involved with a lot of conventions over the years.
Speaker 3:I have been involved in many conventions and I don't particularly like them. I'll say that first.
Speaker 1:I think mostly that's because can I tell you why?
Speaker 3:though I think mostly because there are a lot of work and there's a lot of tension and a lot of buildup, I think mostly, I think I've never really liked them because, like you know, the buildup to them and the work that went into it, you know, created a lot of agita and then, usually, when they went well or we finished one except for, I should say, the one that we had with Clint Eastwood's speech that will not remain a fond memory for me. But look, I think the Republicans and the Trump campaign had sort of three big goals that they were looking to hit upon and I think they're largely on track towards those goals. I think the first one was they really just wanted to showcase personal stories and they wanted to tell the story of support for Trump and support for Republicans and the Republican Party's alignment with voter concerns and voter aspirations through personal stories of many key figures inside the Republican movement. And I think they've largely done that. And I think you know what we are hearing about JD Vance is that he's going to use his speech to tell his personal story to really connect with the working class voters out there, blue collar voters that are now the backbone of a Republican party turnout operation. They're now the backbone of a Republican party turnout operation and so I think they've largely hit on that.
Speaker 3:I think, second, they wanted to unify the party. You know every reporter that I've talked to before this convention started and before the debate, their number one area that they thought was a concern for Republicans heading into November was there's still a lot of Nikki Haley voters showing up in primaries that are already where the outcome's already decided. But you know you have 10, 20, 30,000 voters showing up. She's getting 20, 25 percent of the vote in some of these primaries. What does that tell you about where the Republican Party is?
Speaker 3:On the question of unity and I think you look at last night and you look at Nikki Haley's speech and Ron DeSantis' speech so much of this is after the debate the Republican Party, conscientious objectors, people who are not happy about Trump leading the party and the Trump stamp on the party. They are returning home and they're returning home pretty steadily Now. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are not transformational figures inside the party where they move this big monolithic block of Haley voters and DeSantis voters. But I think the signal that you got last night was a permission structure, which is like I'm returning home, and I was one of his fiercest critics. You can too, and mean it's an overused term, but it's clear.
Speaker 1:This is, this is Trump's party. It's an evolving party and folks are returning home, falling in line or you know.
Speaker 3:And look, some of them are going to have their tail between their legs. Some of them are happy about it. This is why I've always used the term Republican nose holders. Like they are, they don't like Trump, but the thing that's become very apparent in the post-debate environment is, as much as I don't like them, I cannot and will not vote for Biden. And so inflation, immigration issues that are sort of driving the national debate I'm with my Republican brethren on that, my Republican counterparts, and so they're starting to return home.
Speaker 3:The last thing is this is just a coronation of Trump and it's like it's setting up for a party. That is, and a convention, quite frankly, that was built in his image, built around his message, a reflection of Trump the candidate and Trump the party leader, and I think with that comes the most important part of that, which is the hardest, most sharpest, most distinct contrast with Biden. Those are the three things that they've done during the first couple of nights of the convention and I expect we'll all come to a head with Trump's nomination speech, acceptance of the nomination this week.
Speaker 2:You could argue that JD Vance is actually the prime example of the prodigal son. You know what happens when you return home. He at one point was a big Trump critic. Obviously, that has reversed itself and he has fully embraced Trumpism and Trumponomics and that has resulted in his elevation within the party so that now he is Trump's VP pick. So I mean, he's the, he's the. He's the model I think that maybe others are looking at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean he provides a youthful sheen to Trumpism at a time where they they want to make the case that this is the way forward for the party and also draw a contrast with Biden. So, yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think that's really the. The big takeaway for me is it's, it's it's a contrast with Biden, but not just on policy. It's. It's also a contrast of what party actually represents what voting blocs. Right, and you're seeing, with Trumpism, with Vance, this, this more populist Republican Party that's going after what are traditional Democratic voting box, and we can do a whole other podcast episode on how Democrats lost them head speak at the convention. Seeing Vance talk about some of his policies on the working class and even the kind of anti-corporate populism that he brings to it like they're looking to expand the playing field as well when it comes to these voters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that Vance also brings you know that sort of intellectual underpinning that can help you know, guide the party and really define what the parameters of economic populism actually are. I think that in 2016, there were a lot of economists, a lot of political pundits, a lot of reporters who sort of dismissed a lot of Trump's ideas as almost whimsical right, we're going to put tariffs on everything that comes into the country. You know we're going to pull out of, you know, multinational trade agreements and you know that just felt so unorthodox. And I think that one thing, one way that JD Vance can help Trump, is in unifying all of those ideas into a more sort of robust philosophy that he can use to craft a new party platform, craft a new sort of party position and say, ok, well, this is what the new generation of Republicans really is all about. It's not a cult of personality, it is built on, you know, these central tenets of economic populism.
Speaker 3:I think, though, on that line, it's going to be very hard to break away from the cult of personality part of this, I mean, if you think back to the last iteration of this, which is Reaganomics and Reaganism, it very, very much was built even on national security culture.
Speaker 3:Some of the culture debates, as well as the the economic debates, the economic debates Reaganism was all tied to the person Reagan very directly, and that lasted 20 years past Reagan's death. I mean, I remember working on campaigns right in 2012. And the internal battle inside the primary was who can carry the mantle forward of Ronald Reagan? Now, I think it had to less effect, and we were probably had not even really yet understood that that was declining in influence, whereas some of the nationalist and some of the populist policies were gaining steam. But it's going to be really hard to break the Trump effect on the party. I think, 15 years from now, people are going to be defining their politics and defining their policy platforms through the lens of what Trump did and what Trump the stamp that Trump put on the party in this era right now. That's exactly my point, kevin is that you know.
Speaker 2:He's in this era right now. That's exactly my point, kevin, is that Reaganomics lasted for 20 years. It outlasted the administration of Ronald Reagan himself, right, because there was a unified theory of the case, and I think that is what JD Vance will help Trump do, so that it's not just one-offs during one administration, that those ideas will carry forward, just as you said, for another 15, 20 years. It's the next generation of Republican economics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do think Vance is bringing in is representative of a whole new generation, right? I was listening to Oren Kass, who you're probably familiar with, kevin, this morning on Ezra Klein's show and the work he's been doing. You know, kind of post Romney and it's, it's very, very post Romney, it's yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's not a reflection at all, no, but it's very much like Warren probably didn't have much stroke in many of those conversations in Romney world.
Speaker 1:Yes, but it's very much this development of another generation. That's that's Vance, this development of another generation. That's that's vance, holly rubio. Others take on trumpism. Yeah, in a way that reaganism was to define the next 10 years and I I think it's interesting that they went that way, the trump campaign even, you know, when they had other good vp candidates. That might have been more of the traditional answer, right, put another state in play or add another voting block or something. But they're looking at this. I think they're looking at this election as a chance to kind of cement this thinking and legacy.
Speaker 3:It's 100 percent a reinforcement of the Trump view of politics in the world. And, yeah, you're right, of the Trump view of politics in the world. And, yeah, you're right. Traditionally, when people consider, when campaigns consider, the VP picks it's you know there's a formulaic approach, which is where do we bring balance to the ticket? Either gender or region or race? How is it that we, you know, do we have somebody who can help us raise money? That's largely been answered by the principal and the presidential candidate themselves, and in this it was. I want somebody who's going to be an instinctual reflection of my message, who's going to be really, really polished at articulating that, and that is one thing that you can't take away from Vance just how good he is on camera and how good he is before audiences, pushing the Trump national, nationalist, populist message Right. And then the fact that his life story connects with so many of these middle class, working class voters that are again the backbone of the of the Republican turnout model for this election.
Speaker 1:I want to switch a little bit to policy and maybe end on this, because it's obviously a lot of what we do Thinking of Vance and maybe his if they are to win the election his influence as a vice president on Trump when it comes to some of the big things we'll be facing next year and a lot of our clients and the business community facing. Tax reform he's talked about, you know, raising corporate taxes, some of the other issues around you know, friendlier towards kind of unionization and workers, and how much sway is he going to have within a Trump White House that you know might impact how we were otherwise viewing some of the debates coming next year.
Speaker 3:We don't know yet. That's going to be something that is of great interest and there will be a lot of intelligence gathering done between now and the end of the year to try to figure, to try to answer that question more definitively. The one thing I'd say that's really important when, with assessing, when you assess that question, is no matter who wins this election, if we all agree that it's going to be still Trump versus Biden, you have a lame duck president and the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential sort of start that very night on election night, and that's depressing for a lot of people, but it is the reality. So the you know the how you craft an agenda through the lens of 2026 and 2028, make and making sure that it's enduring is going to fall to more than just the president Right, because it's going to have to have a lasting effect, not only through this administration but potentially, if it's going to be that those policies are going to be sustained, they're going to have to sort of endure through the next one. They're going to have to sort of endure through the next one.
Speaker 3:I think the thing that's interesting about JD Vance is if he has the role that we expect that he will have in that which isa prominent one, because he will essentially be the VP to a lame duck president.
Speaker 3:He doesn't have the longest, most extensive track record, so the indicators of what he does on tax and trade and regulatory policies is not very long and so there's not a lot of tea leaves.
Speaker 3:There are many tea leaves to read, but what we can tell you is what we do know, is what he's told us. And if you look at the Republican Party platform, which looks like it was typed by the candidate himself in block lettering, single spacing, and then handed over to the platform committee, the roadmap is there and it is somewhat free market skeptical, and there are challenges to the business industry approach, which is preferring a light touch and preferring much more of a focus on entrepreneurism and the power of the free market. So this is a I would say it's not a five alarm warning siren for industries, but it's a signal, and the work that you have to do starts now on that. This is not going to be one of these things where I think the people who will lose in this marketplace, in this competitive marketplace, will be the ones who say well, let's wait and see what they do, and you all know what's the one saying that I walk around the office every single day, repeating every single day loudly to every single, everybody, from associates to partners.
Speaker 1:Hope is not a strategy.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 2:We all know it so well, Kevin.
Speaker 3:T-shirts and mugs. You need to get more T-shirts and mugs around this office.
Speaker 1:I think we do. I think that's our next enterprise. You know, setup, kevin, unless Alon has anything else. One final question just. You know, not necessarily on the fun side, but you just made me think of something. You know, the election for 2026, 2028 does start day after the 2024 election. We've seen, on whatever my side of things in the Democratic Party that you know, our VP has not had the ability to necessarily clear the field. Do you see Vance in this image of continuing Trumpism? Is he sort of, if not the front runner? Does he actually clear kind of the field for 2028?
Speaker 3:Does he actually clear kind of the field for 2028? It's too early to tell. My instinct on that is no, but I will say he has very distinct advantages, like he is going to get in one night when he, when he accepts his vice presidential nomination, when he accepts the vice presidential nomination and the amount of attention that he's got, he's going to get the one thing that nobody else has. He's going to get have gifted to him 100% name identification and that really matters. It matters with how you raise money. It matters with how you develop your profile and really get you know and develop the platform which, which, which, to promote your political candidacy. So that and that, and the fact that you're going to have a plane that says United States of America and a seal that says Vice President of the United States on every speech and interview that you do, that's a huge, huge advantage. So he gets the running start, while everybody else has to start from standing in place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and certainly four years is a long time.
Speaker 3:Four years is a long time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, great, let's leave it there, kevin, thank you so much for joining Elan and myself on today's episodes, unpacking really a lot of news over the last few days, so we appreciate it. And, to our listeners, remember to like and subscribe. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, follow us on X at PentaGRP and on LinkedIn at PentaGroup. I'm your host, brian, with Elan, as always. Thanks for listening to what's at Stake.