Republican strategist Mike Murphy is the kind of guy who might have been calling the shots if anyone other than Donald Trump had won in 2016.

Murphy's roster of former clients includes John McCain, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Lamar Alexander, which is to say a lot of the guys who got pushed aside when Trump took over the Republican Party.

For a while now, Murphy has been a Trump skeptical to put it mildly

wise guy working private sector gigs in deep blue Los Angeles but fortunately for us

he's also giving some of the sharpest political commentary out there you may recognize Murphy as David Axelrod's partner on the

podcast Hacks on Tap. One of my favorites. If you've heard him there, then you know his skill in

blending his personal feelings about Trump's politics,

with incisive criticisms about Kamla Harris's campaign.

But I use the analogy of Twister, which is she was kind of the broken 3,000 or 10 ton school bus in the field and the Biden not running

joy tornado came down and picked her up and threw her into the air at 400 miles an hour.

She didn't really get there on her own it happened to her

I caught up with Murphy on Thursday to talk about what's coming next in an election that has been in a word

surprising the turbulence can be good that's how stars are made.

We talked about Tuesday's debate and why some very strong wins are still at Trump's

back, how Murphy would tweak Kamla Harris's message, what might become of the Republican Party after Trump,

and how he, Mike Murphy, almost killed J.D. Vance's dream of becoming a senator back in 2017.

Look at work for him.

If Trump wins he's one double meatloaf away from the presidency.

I'm Ryan Liza, and this is Playbook Deep Dive. dive. Let's start with your post-debate analysis and sort of level set where you think

this race is right now. Well I think she obviously had a very good night. A lot of thanks to

Donald Trump who basically imploded. He had his own version of the Biden

debate. He was revealed to be... You think they might replace him? You know, if we had a

...