Hardball Heat: Trump’s Meltdown, Aftyn’s Momentum & Habba’s Humiliation

Being back on Hardball with old pal Chris Peleo-Lazar—who was filling in for his boss, Chris Matthews—felt exactly like that…joining an old pal to talk some politics. It was a damn good time, like watching a Bogart flick.

Or seeing Steve Bannon serve time (though his 4 months in the clink should’ve been multiplied out by his BMI).

We started with what I call my “Unified Theory of Trump,” which I laid out again for our viewers’ viewing pleasure (we hope), because it has proven itself true every day that lumbering lummox has been alive. Trump isn’t complicated. He’s not a five-dimensional chess grandmaster; he has a hard time keeping up in one dimension.

And what is the theory? Trump is a guy who responds almost exclusively to one emotional stimulus: “He said nice things about me.” (Or alternatively, he didn’t, and then the sociopath comes out).

That’s the Rosetta Stone to decoding everything from pardons to foreign policy to why he’ll publicly humiliate his own allies whenever they stop fluffing his ego. Bribes (allegedly, yawn), over-the-top-Baghdad-Bob compliments, breaking the law to keep him out of prison. They all count as “he was nice.”

Chris and I laughed — because the absurdity of this emotionally ill-equipped jabberwocky often makes it hard to keep a straight face — but we also dug into how dangerous that childish fragility becomes when it’s strapped to presidential power.

From there, it was easy to talk about the flip side of “nice,” too, i.e., Trump’s vengeance tour: the mass intimidation of civil servants, the obsession with punishing dissent, and the chilling message being sent to anyone in government who still believes in the rule of law.

When Chris brought up Trump’s dumpster-brained, bound-to-fail-per-usual push to court-martial Mark Kelly, I made the point as plainly as possible: this is not about policy disagreements. This is the President of the United States threatening military personnel for refusing illegal orders. That’s not strength. That’s not leadership. That’s a weak man trying to enforce loyalty through fear.

We also hit the political terrain — Ohio’s shifting winds, the disastrous economics of Trump’s general existence at 1600 PA Avenue…I mean tariffs, the growing appetite for leaders who speak to affordability and dignity.

I emphasized what I say often: Democrats win when they connect their values to lived experience. When they show up for working people, mock cruelty without mocking voters, and expose Trump’s incompetence as a clown act—but not “he’s stupid,” though it’s hard not to say that sometimes.

But as—and this is very important—a source of real economic and personal harm. As I said towards the end of my Hardball segment, Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot...all were considered childish, ridiculous buffoons. Buffoons have committed some of the worst acts of wanton cruelty in the history of the world.

On a MUCH lighter note, I got to talk about my love affair with stuffing. The true bipartisan uniter of Thanksgiving. Why do we only eat this on this one day, when I could literally live off it, the way Trump-supporting “celebrities” live off the 80s?

But as I sat with it for several days, there’s something else the conversation stirred in me, and it’s where I want to end.

When I look around the country right now, I see places where hope is real; you can feel it in the air. It’s not manufactured, not performed, not marketed.

Aftyn Behn in TN-7 is one of those places right now. You can feel the enthusiasm around her because it’s rooted in authenticity. People aren’t showing up because she flatters them.

They’re showing up because Behn represents them — their fears, their needs, their future. That’s the kind of energy that can’t be faked, or created by crushing a pile of Adderall on your desk the size of Seb Gorka’s head, and snorting like you’re Johnny Depp in “Blow.”

And then, with every ying, there is most certainly a yang, and here the opposite end of the spectrum delivers to us parking-lot-lawyer extraordinaire, Alina Habba. Poor thing, she was officially ruled not the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and is unlawfully serving in that position.

Maybe she can make up for it by going on like 20 podcasts once again to tell drooling right-wing incellulites how hot she is? (yes, this happened).

In any case, the court didn’t just pull back the curtain on Alina. It said out loud what was already obvious: this was theater, cosplay, a pretend job title handed out by a pretend emperor, like when you were a kid and exclaimed, “I’m Captain Kangaroo!”

Habba wasn’t real authority. She was a prop. And in this moment, America knows the difference.

Aftyn Behn is the real deal.
Alina Habba is a criminal heel.