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- [00:00]
Unknown Speaker
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Congratulations to our friends in Canada for their overtime hockey victory against the US in the four nations face off last night. And I'm pumped to be here today with a great American patriot, one of our faves, formerly a Republican congressman from Illinois, served in the Air Force. He's the founder of Country First. He writes a substack newsletter, and I guess he does substack videos now. Substack multiplatform content producer. It's Adam Kinzinger. How you doing, bro?
- [00:36]
Adam Kinzinger
Good, buddy. You know, and it's weird because I, I've never rooted against America, but last night, I mean, I'll be honest, there was part of me that's like, it'd be nice to see Trump have to eat his words a little bit.
- [00:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the guy in the MAGA hat right behind the bench, they kept showing was impacting my rooting interests. I'm not going to say who I was rooting for.
- [00:55]
Adam Kinzinger
Canada.
- [00:56]
Tim Miller
But, you know, it definitely was nice for the Canadians, the gal.
- [01:01]
Adam Kinzinger
And no offense to our friends up north, but I don't give a rat's backside about hockey. So it's not like if this was American football and we were against, but, you know.
- [01:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, me neither. They didn't change the Canadian national anthem to take a dig at Trump about how this is their country, which I liked. So, anyway, I like the digs. I like the digs. It's good. All right, we've got much, much to discuss. Too much, probably. But you did a substack yesterday, an emergency substack. I want to start there. The message of it was basically, let's get loud, let's start to do something. This is a moment for a democratic Tea Party of sorts. We can, we can quibble over the particulars, but as somebody who was in the Tea Party wave of congresspeople, what do you call it for.
- [01:44]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, look, I mean, and this is, I got to give you credit because you were talking about this yesterday and just like, you know, hey, we've got to do something. And then you were talking about how the, the Tea Party came about. And that got me thinking. And it's like, you know, it's, it's exactly what is happening now. And here's the key that I want to say on the outset, though, is I don't want this to be, hey, this is a left wing movement. You know, the Tea Party came in and they were trying to pull the country right. This is actually a pro democracy version of the Tea Party. So you're gonna have people from all over the political spectrum here. But basically what happened in the Tea Party, Republicans felt defeated. And I remember I went, you know, exploring running for Congress, talking to the Republican congressman, like in January, after Obama, they were just beat down. They were just sad, tired, like, yeah, I guess you can run. I don't know what it's going to look like. And it was this grassroots energy then that started showing up at town hall meetings and then they show. I think it started with Chuck Grassley and it had to do with the health care bill. They started basically, you know, yelling, protesting, whatever. Then members of Congress quit doing town halls. And that obviously looked like they were hiding, which they were. And you just had this gasoline on a fire that ended up really overtaking the House of Representatives in the Senate in 2010. I think that's what needs to happen now. Everybody is kind of waiting, including me. I mean, we're all in the same boat for like some action plan. Here's the 1, 2, 3 step that's going to guarantee that we can stop X, Y and Z. That's not going to happen. Like, that doesn't happen. What is going to happen is there's going to be grassroots energy that rises up, that begins to build whatever this movement is that it looks like. But that's how, when you have historical things that change a country, it never comes from one person giving somebody a blueprint. It always comes from like just this outrage or this anger and this demand for change. And I think we started to see that yesterday at this Georgia town hall. And I don't know, I just feel like we're at a moment where this is going to and can grow into something. And again, I do want to stress, don't make this a left wing thing because it'll flame out. Trust me. They always do make this about pro democracy and defending our government. We can always debate the particulars later when we have power.
- [03:57]
Tim Miller
Let's just talk about the Georgia thing for a second. This guy, Rich McCormick, and this is a quite a red district. You know, this is not particularly a swing district. It didn't seem like he, you know, knew what he was signing up for. He won 6435 in the last election. So again, not, not a close district and just a ton of energy, a ton of people speaking out, folks pouring out of, you know, the, the town hall. And I do wonder, as somebody who's been in this position, both as kind of the insurgent Tea Party candidate, but then As a congressman who's getting yelled at at town halls. Like this stuff does have an impact on these guys, right?
- [04:36]
Adam Kinzinger
Oh gosh, huge. Huge. Listen, I mean, you know, there's always this feeling. We talk about how, you know, the, the voices on the far right, like the anti Ukraine voices, they're out represented on Twitter, for instance, and it seems like they're everywhere. This is the same kind of dynamic where all of a sudden you're in a red district, 75% red district, you show up to do your town hall that you've done every couple, you know, months or whatever, and now all of a sudden outrage is showing up. That is intimidating. There is not a single person out there, unless you're a psychopath that just loves that. And there are a few people like that, but there's not a real person out there that's going to stand in front of that, get yelled at, get screamed at, make national news for not having an answer like Rich McCormick didn't and then say, you know what, we got to go do that again. Let's do that again next month, right? So what happens is you quit doing town halls now, people continue to be outraged more because you're hiding from them. And this is what builds over a one to two year period. And look, I've been protested at town halls. I'm gonna tell you, it sucks. I also know, and for me it was like, why are we doing these town halls then? And when I ran in 2010, you know, with respect to the, to the lady I beat in 2010, we had a lot of people showing up at her town halls and she quit doing them. And in fact at one town hall had her chief of staff answer questions and what happens is they end up going into defense mode, they end up reacting poorly and also they now may end up finding the courage to stand up to Donald Trump. Truly. Because now they're like, gosh, I may lose my election, maybe not in a 75% red district, but there are a lot of districts that Donald Trump over a 10 year period turned that are actually gettable here.
- [06:14]
Tim Miller
So here's my thing, anything. And we can just noodle over it here, live together. Because I do think there needs to be a rallying cry for the protests. Like I hear what you're saying. I agree that it shouldn't be ideological, it shouldn't be particularly lefty populist per se. Though if they're lefty populist candidates, I'm open to hearing from their arguments. But like the railing cover the protest in The Tea Party, originally, as I mentioned yesterday, was this CNBC rant by Rick Santelli. Right. About how people are getting screwed. Like, like, I'm paying my mortgage. Why are we bailing out my neighbor? And so I do think there needs to be something. Right? Like, something like people are getting screwed. It can't just be like democracy writ large. And I don't know, I think that maybe there's something with Elon, you know, I think that is like, grabbable, even unelected South African billionaire that's like randomly firing veterans. Like, maybe there's, there's something there. That is the part that I think there's going to need to be something tangible. And I do think the last night was a good start. But I was wondering if you have any, any thoughts on, like, what some of those topics could be.
- [07:11]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I fully, actually agree with you. So I think when, I guess maybe I misstated it when I said not ideological. I mean, don't turn this into a defund the police movement. Don't turn this into, you know, we need to triple the amount of genders we recogn is, you know, something like that. Right. Because the Tea Party movement started out with the Rick Santelli screed.
- [07:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [07:32]
Adam Kinzinger
And, you know, at one point, and this is maybe after the election, it ended up with, you promised me you'll never raise the debt limit. You promised me. Right. You'll always eternally vote to defund Obamacare. I do think you're right about. There's gotta be a rallying cry. And honestly, I agree with you. I actually think it's Elon Musk, and I think it's the billionaire oppression. The fact that I think you said this yesterday, the richest guy and the most powerful guy are best friends and now in control of government, and they're out there trying to determine what the government looks like that we live under, not Congress, not the people that we elect to go figure this out for us. I mean, look, if Congress wanted to, you know, shut down every agency, honestly, I'd oppose it. But fine, that's what Congress's job is. And so I think when you tell the American people, look, the founding fathers never intended for Elon Musk to have more power than you. Yes. They intended for Donald Trump to have more power than you. There's nothing we could do about that. But Elon Musk. No, Jeff Bezos. No, they never intended that. So what are we going to do? We're going to stop it. We're going to rise up and say we're not going to be controlled by billionaires. I do think that is a brilliant rallying cry. And it's, and it's frankly, it's not just the anti Trump stuff, right? Which kind of ran its course, still has some legs. But this is real. This is like Americans don't feel good.
- [08:46]
Tim Miller
About this one particular example. And I don't know that Scott Curtis himself is going to be the person people's picture they put on flags. I doubt that he wants it, but I appreciate that he was willing to talk to us yesterday. He did an interview with Sam Stein. A few people want to listen to that. That's in our takes podcast feed. But Scott was a retired Navy captain, 32 years in the Navy. He came back, went into FEMA. He is the Section 7, which is kind of the Midwest chief of staff, but 55 years old. Got that fork in the road email from Elon Musk. Figured, okay, this might be a good time to retire from public service, look for a job in the private sector. He didn't have a lead or whatever, but I'll take it. We've got eight months. I'll figure it out. Accepts the offer to resign. Thirteen days later, gets canned. Okay, because he's one of these probationary employees. And this is just one example, right? But it's like this guy served the country 32 years in the Navy, in war zones. Real, real service to this country. And he was made an offer, a good faith offer by the government and they just fucking pulled the plug on him. Like it's like some evil, you know, movie CEO. You know, I missed the. I mean the joke is like the George Jetson, like Mr. Spacely, you know, this is just like somebody that's just like a dick. It's like, I made you a deal. I have billions of dollars, billions and billions and billions of dollars. I'm a South African immigrant. You serve the country. I'm going to fuck you over. And I don't. I just think that like that is gonna like those kinds of stories I do think are gonna build up and resonate with people. And Elon is a very easy bad cop in a story like that.
- [10:21]
Adam Kinzinger
I agree. I agree. Look, I think, you know, when all this is said and done and Doge fake agency doge actually ends up saving, they're gonna say a gajillion dollars. Let's say it's 10 billion, 20 billion, even 30 billion. Which it's not going to be real money on that, but let's say it is. Elon Musk makes that in a day, by the way. So he takes what he makes in a day. Could have just written a check to the government, by the way, and been a hero. Won't do that. But instead he does. They get rid of these people. That. And it's not even just the veterans, Tim. It's the next generation of government employees, right? The gen zers or the millennials that we need in those positions that in 15 years, we need to be the experts in Social Security. We need them to be the experts in logistics and fema. We need them to be the experts in those things. That generation, because those are the probationary folks, are going to get wiped out. I have a former staffer that works at DOD doing very important stuff that thinks he's going to get canned actually this week because of he's a probationary person because he just started there a year ago, even though he has plenty of experience in other areas. So they're going to do that. The other thing about this, with the veterans thing I want to bring up is, look, they don't care about veterans. And I'm not saying that as a, as a cudgel. I'm not saying that as like, you know, you run a campaign every year and say your opponent doesn't care about veterans. Veterans. And they really do. Look, all you have to do is look at Twitter. Let's take that for a second. And anybody who served in the military, the number of kind of MAGA folks under there that degenerate their service, that call them, you know, not manly or whatever. No love for Dan Crenshaw here, but every time he posts something, there's all the people that call him eye patch McCain and make fun of his eye. Like that is what we're dealing with. And also, look, there was just a discussion a month ago that they need to start cutting, and I'm a recipient of this now, cutting VA disability from veterans because they're just, there's just too many veterans with VA disability, despite the fact that we passed the PACT act, which is the burn pit thing. And these veterans that are getting on disability, including myself, are recipients of the burn pits because they were exposed to terrible things that did bad things to them. And we decided as a country we need to take care of them, but they don't care. And that's a big concern.
- [12:27]
Tim Miller
And just one more thing on this front, again, this is just a fact. This is not like a political talking point. VA crisis line employees. I'm among those fired amid the federal workforce purge. This is from themilitary.com. i mean, some of these guys, some of these guys have talked about this, right? Like the mental health issues coming out of service in Iraq and Afghanistan and what we owe to these folks, is it really that critical for our 30 plus trillion dollar budget debt, which I know you and I both agree needs to be resolved in some way, Is the VA crisis hotline employees are like, are they the reasons that we are running a deficit? Like, I don't think so. I think that that's something we could prioritize.
- [13:11]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, of course not. And it's insane. And plus, as, as a guy that knows plenty of veterans that go through some mental health crises, look, what happens is you always hit a low moment. Maybe you're drinking, right? And you're sitting there and all of a sudden you're looking at your pistol or whatever it is, and then you need somebody to reach out to. Maybe you have friends left in the military you can reach out to. Hopefully. Maybe you don't. Maybe you're a Vietnam veteran, maybe you're an early Afghanistan veteran that's dealing with the fact that we left Afghanistan in shambles and you have that crisis at night just calling and talking to somebody, somebody that says, listen, I care. That is the difference between life and death for a lot of people. And it is cold, it is cynical, and it is disgusting that that be the thing you target simply because Elon wants to be able to tweet, you know. Lol. I cut X amount of money.
- [13:57]
Tim Miller
Elon is a veteran of the doge wars, of the online, of the meme wars. He's a veteran of the meme wars. You saw it with his big fat belly on stage at CPAC yesterday. Anyway, one other thing people can do before we start, I have more Elon rants coming and rants about several of the people we've mentioned already. But before we get into all these guys bad, one other thing I think people can do and I want to have sometime in the next couple of weeks, my friend Amanda Lippman on. She runs a group called Run for Something that like encourages people to run for office. And I know that this is something that you and I are aligned on, but I haven't actually explicitly said it on the podcast. I don't think we'll see how everything goes, but I think that 2026 will be the best time in the foreseeable future for somebody to run as a Democrat who maybe doesn't have full like all the traditional Democratic views. To your point, somebody who has some heterodox views Somebody who has an interesting background, somebody who's a little different. You saw this in, in 2010 with Republicans like you running. We saw this in. God, I got to go back to the year, what was it, the mark Foley Year 2 or a bunch of weird Democrats, like people that never would have won, like one. You get these wave years where people are pissed and there's a backlash. And I think this is going to be one of those years. And people always are asking me, what can you do? What can you do? And obviously not everybody's going to run for office, but I don't know, I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to encourage people who are thinking about it, because this guy Scott Curtis that I mentioned, this retired Navy captain who just got fired, he just kind of said that as an aside in his conversation with Sam on YouTube where he was like, I don't know, maybe I'll run. And I just want to encourage people that are out there that have kind of background like his that are thinking, maybe I'll run, that this is the time to do it. So you did it in 2010. I'm wondering what you think about that.
- [15:41]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, look, you're exactly right. And I just did the quick math. I'm like, every massive wave election is about 12 to 15 years apart. And if you think about the last one, 2010, I mean, we're there now. It's weird. So, yeah, I mean, it's 100% true. So I decided to run in 2010 against a Democratic incumbent that had won by 25%. And when I decided to run, people were like, hey, you know, we'll back you. And that goes to show how much times have changed. I was the establishment guy and I got 75% in a five way primary. You know, they're like, we'll back you, but man, this is tough, you know, Your opponent, her name's Debbie Halvorson, she's freshman, you know, younger lady. And I ended up beating her by. It was the largest swing, actually. Incumbent had won to what? They lost by the next election without a scandal, I think, in the country in like 50 years. So. But the point is, I knew I could win, but nobody else did. And, and there were people. Look, I had a friend in my class that was an airline pilot that just decided to run because he had a little extra time. Billy Long was an auctioneer. I mean, all these people came from all, you know, ends of life. Sean Duffy came in that class and basically said and ran against and beat the chairman of Transportation and Infrastructure by the way, you know, everybody decided to run because they were pissed off. And there were a lot of surprise victories. In fact, almost every race, if not every race that was on the radar, so to speak, where they're like, yeah, we're kind of watching it went Republican. This is that moment. Now, look, maybe it's not as big as 2010, but I would put probably all of my money on the fact that it is going to be a Democratic year. So if you have any interest in running, run. Look, make sure it's good with your family. I want to say this as a new dad and kind of a fairly newly married guy. Make sure you run it by your family. That's essential because this is a draining process. It's hard. Don't be afraid of losing. Now, it doesn't mean a suicide mission here, but don't be afraid of losing. If you ran and you lose, trust me, you're at least not going to have any regrets later on in life.
- [17:38]
Tim Miller
All right, well, I did you a solid, and I didn't start googling the Houston congressional districts or, you know, look at John Cornyn. But I am just saying, while we're talking about people running for something, there might be somebody who might want to think about it.
- [17:53]
Unknown Speaker
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- [19:06]
Tim Miller
Let's talk about the new director of the FBI, Cash Patel. Dude, listen, I don't even have a fucking question. What do you want to say?
- [19:18]
Adam Kinzinger
Listen, I watching people like Todd Young.
- [19:23]
Tim Miller
Like Bill Cassidy, Dave McCormick.
- [19:26]
Adam Kinzinger
McConnell. McCormick. Like, I look at this and I'm like, you know, I don't understand. If I would have said, of all the bad people, if I would have said, man, I can take one bad vote. Who's it going to? One tough vote, who's going to be. It would have been Cash Patel. Because that has ramifications beyond this, you know, this presidential election or this presidential cycle. All I can say is this is every one of those senators. And I have a special place for Bill Cassidy because he voted to remove Trump. And I thought that was courageous until I remembered, oh, yeah, that was a non election year. Now that he's in an election year, he's doing whatever he needs to do, which, by the way, has no courage, because every congressman that voted to impeach this last time, that was Republican. The 10 of us, we were always in an election year. Every House member is in an election year. So don't you dare look and say the Senate is braver than the House because every time they're in an election year, they're as bad as the House. And Cassidy gets a special place in my contempt because I trusted him.
- [20:24]
Tim Miller
Honestly, it's Dave McCormick for me. I ranted about this yesterday, but I'm still boiling. He's not up for six years.
- [20:32]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I mean, come on.
- [20:33]
Tim Miller
All these guys, like, Dave McCormick was like the safe example for all the people that we know. Everybody in the donor class, everybody. I mean, like I said this yesterday, even W himself, like, did an event for him, like, doesn't do politics like the big bank, like all of the, like moderate or traditional Republicans or kind of non political centrist type people. Like, Dave McCormick was like, oh, well, this guy ran a international hedge fund and you know, I mean, he's a veteran and like, you can trust him. He's not like, what is the fucking difference between Dave McCormick and the fucking porn pizza man from North Carolina? In the Senate, nothing. For governor's race, you can talk to me, but in the Senate, nothing. Like, you might as well have Mark Robinson, like, tweeting about how MLK is terrible while he looks at weird porn in the Senate. And because he's going to vote the same way as Dave McCormick, we got Chuck Grassley. Here's what he tweeted yesterday. Congrats, Cash Patel. And I have to just explain this. He spells his name K A money sign H. K A money sign H. Congrats, Cash Patel. On you are confirmation as FBI Director. It's a good thing change is coming. One thing that won't change is my oversight. I'll be keeping a close watch to ensure transparency.
- [21:55]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, the hell you will. Stop it. Oh, stop it, Chuck. Charles. Charles Grassley.
- [22:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah, listen, a 99 year old American is on the is like keeping a close eye on you. Cash like, oh yeah, hey K a.
- [22:11]
Adam Kinzinger
K a money sign. H. Be careful. Chuck's coming to the headquarters today. Like what do you do, just like throw a sandwich out there and he's a nap by 10 o'clock and you're good to go. Listen, and the funny thing about Chuck Grassley is when I talked about the tea party in 2010 and I mentioned him, he's the dude that what happened is he was going to vote for this Obamacare bill or he was negotiating it and the Tea Party protested his like town hall and he immediately after that said he's exiting negotiations and that's when what was going to be a bipartisan health care bill fell apart and Democrats made the decision. We're just going to run this through on partisan votes. But he's the one. So look, if there's anybody to exert pressure on him, he probably thinks he's going to be in the senate till he's 138. So maybe, maybe now.
- [22:54]
Tim Miller
I don't think. No, I don't think there's any pressure. Yeah, no, the cash thing is and I don't know how much more there is to say about it just because it's so disheartening, but it'll be interesting to see what the next shoe drop says. I've had a lot of outreach from former FBI people, even current and most of these agents are trumpy are maga. And the fact that they are planning now to shudder the domestic terrorism department. Right. Because you can't go after bad white people. I just think that the ramifications are going to be really, really serious and we don't exactly know what yet, but it is a category difference from some of this other stuff.
- [23:34]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. It feels like when you own a house and you just decide to delay maintenance on it.
- [23:38]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [23:38]
Adam Kinzinger
Like, you know, you don't need to paint the walls, you don't need to replace the roof and you know, for a couple years you don't. And then all of a sudden everything falls apart and it kind of feels like maybe that's going to be what happens. But it's, it's not good. And it's politicizing the FBI, really politicizing it. Not like fake politicizing it like Trump says.
- [23:55]
Tim Miller
All right, let's talk a little bit about Ukraine. Boy, that's kind of like my cash question. The President and the Vice president are basically. And the Secretary of State, I guess are all on the side of Russia. Now we're having a negotiation. It's unclear what we're getting out of the negotiation. It's unclear what Russia is being asked to give out of the negotiation. The current negotiation is that Russia will get everything. They'll get economic opportunity with us in Europe and they'll get the land that they have, and they'll get Ukraine not being in NATO and maybe Ukraine will get some security guarantees that nobody actually believes that the Trump Vance administration would follow through on. Is that a summary of the state of play here for you?
- [24:38]
Adam Kinzinger
It is. It is. It is. I think we're all in disbelief because I guess we're not surprised. We're not shocked by this, but it's the pace at which Trump pivoted is shocking. And the fact that, by the way, there are all of his advisors walking around saying, I mean, Walt said this. You got to quit being mean to him. Hey, Zelensky, you're being mean to him. What do you expect? What is this? This is a toddler. I mean, honest to God, I've got a three year old and I'm careful at what I say around him because I don't want him to go off, but I recognize that he's a not developed toddler, and that's exactly what they're saying. So. So this guy, President Trump, is so advanced in 5D chess and all that, that you have to be careful that you say some mean words to him. You had said this yesterday. It's like. And whoever came out and said, well, he likes Crenshaw. He likes people.
- [25:31]
Tim Miller
Oh, yeah, no, we got the audio. We got the audio. I said this yesterday and we had so many comments about it, people couldn't believe that that was actually true. So to be fair to Dan Crenshaw, let's listen to him explain Trump's behavior. Let's listen. Trump has responded by calling Zelenskyy a dictator without elections and says he better move fast or he's not gonna have a country left. Saying he's very unpopular, his country's in ruins, et cetera.
- [25:52]
Dan Crenshaw
Trump tends to talk that way to his friends. Yeah, he tends to talk nicer to his enemies. So if he's talking to you that way, it still means you're his friend. And I would always, of course, warn people like Zelensky, just don't get into it with Donald Trump. Don't get into it. What's the point? What's the point? We've been backing you this whole time. We will continue to back you, but there must be A paradigm shift. And that's what President Trump brings to the table here, is a paradigm shift. That's what they're attempting to do.
- [26:15]
Tim Miller
You expect us to believe that shit? I mean, like, what, Adam? I guess you, Adam and Trump must be best pals. Crying Adam Kinzinger, when are you gonna get your invite down to Mar a Lago? You guys are just buddies. Maybe you can go golfing together. Cause he's mean to his friends, so he must love you.
- [26:28]
Adam Kinzinger
Look, I've been trying to unfriend this guy for years and he just keeps. He keeps tweeting at me like I'm his buddy. I can't. I don't get it. I mean, look, this is. In a way, I feel sorry for Dan only because I know he knows better. And he's like sitting there going, gosh, how do I. But I don't feel bad because he could just say the truth. He's like Mike Waltz, right? They know better. Like, what is this job worth? I mean, I don't know if you saw the clip where Dan was DJing at the, @ like whatever the inauguration thing is and drinking a beer and being all cool. I guess that's it. You have screaming throngs of 19 year old frickin, you know, Charlie Kirk types, I guess, and maybe that's worth it.
- [27:04]
Tim Miller
He could be a dj, though. I think he was good. He could be a DJ without having to apologize for Donald Trump and be made into an ass clap multiple times on the Piers Morgan show. You could just dj.
- [27:14]
Adam Kinzinger
He could be like Tiesto, man. Just go do that. Go do those big events and the pretzels these folks twist themselves into. It's like we are doing everything we can to not admit that Trump just likes Russia and he doesn't like Ukraine. And why is that? I mean, there's any number of theories out there, but it's just a fact. We know this. And so you know Marco Rubio and Waltz and can say you need to quit being a meanie to him and all this stuff, but the reality is he just loves Russia. Now let me make one other quick point. The United States, the casualty numbers are around 400,000 people we lost or injured. I think during World War II. That number may be a little low, but. But Russia is approaching twice the number of casualties of the United States in World War II. And think about what we did in World War II. We island hopped all the way to Japan. We liberated Germany, we liberated an entire continent. You know, and Russia's lost twice as many as we have and gained a fraction of just the territory of Ukraine. I mean, if you extrapolate how much Russia has gained in the last two years to saying how long will it take them to take the rest of Ukraine? It's the cost of 10 million or 20 million men. And it is 100 years from now at that rate, that they will actually take Ukraine. Ukraine is winning. Like, look, for a defending country, all you have to do is keep defending yourself. That's it.
- [28:31]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry the Vice President put out yesterday as more effort for his tough negotiations that it's actually Russia that's crushing them on the battlefield.
- [28:38]
Adam Kinzinger
It's nonsensical. I mean, anybody that went to third grade history understands it's nonsensical. Look, if you're a country getting attacked, yeah, you have to defend yourself and you're probably going to lose some territory defending yourself. The hope is to create enough pressure and attrition on the attacking country that eventually they fall apart. That's exactly what's happening. That is Military History 101 that every freshman in ROTC learns. And these guys don't understand it, don't care to, and honestly, they believe this is not. I've started listening to 1984 again on Audible and you just sit here and you're like, this is exactly what this is. Don't believe your own eyes. Believe what I tell you.
- [29:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Ukraine did the invasion, right? It is just another big lie. I want to go back to the thing just about how Beta it is really quick. Just because I want to take it out of the context of Trump and the President and like, put it into a real life context. There's no way that Dan would act like this in any other situation. Like, if you go back to ROTC and like, there's a, there's some bully that is also, you know, serving with him and he's walking around and he's going crying. Dan Crenshaw just wears panties because he's a crybaby boy. And like starts like calling. I'd be like Ugly Face Joe over here and like Sleepy Todd, like calling everybody nicknames. In that moment, would Dan be like, you know, the right thing to do here, the grown up thing to do here is just to let him call you names, let him call you names. And then because he really likes you and you just take it. You just take it. You just let him call you Panty Dan. And like, you just say, okay, sir, yes, sir. Like, you would be the biggest Beta bitch in the world if you did this. In any other context, like, why is this. The tough guys say, like, only in the context of Trump must we just, like, bend over and let them call you names? Like, what? Zelensky is the. Is the person that is showing traditional alpha, masculine virtues. He's the one that didn't leave when his country was attacked, that stood up to the bully.
- [30:37]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. I think I put this on Twitter, on one of the tweets. I probably shouldn't have done, of course, but I just remember writing to somebody.
- [30:43]
Tim Miller
Like, you're hurting my effort to recruit you to run with all these tweets.
- [30:47]
Adam Kinzinger
I know. Well, look, evidently you have to have Twitter and speak real now.
- [30:50]
Tim Miller
Anyway. That's a good point. But, like, good point.
- [30:52]
Adam Kinzinger
I said something about, like, how. How frickin, you know, beta it is to follow a man and literally be sitting around going, everything Trump says is right. And this is a guy that is fat, that golfs all the time. That literally is the biggest whiner. He's never done manual labor in his life. This is the. This is exactly the kind of person that folks would be like that. He's the opposite of a man. The only thing he does is he yells, he's petulant, and he tweets in all caps. If that's manly, great, cool. But what this reminds me of is, like, those cartoons where it's the little mouse and he's got, like, a big elephant as a sidekick, and the little mouse is the bully and the big elephants, like, what do you want, sir? Right? That's the whole GOP male establishment that could be, like. They could swag, you know, Donald Trump down and be like, listen, man, you're nothing but a whiny little. But they don't. They sit there and they follow him because he's scary, because he can bring people to tweet against me. I might lose my.
- [31:47]
Tim Miller
Zelensky should just act like me. Zelensky should just lick Trump's balls like I do. That's how he'd be a real man.
- [31:54]
Adam Kinzinger
Could you imagine, like. And that's where I'm like, with Ukraine. And I hope Europe, by the way, Europe has got to step up in this moment. The only bad thing about that is, you know, the magas will say, this was Donald Trump's plan all along. He really wanted Ukraine to win. He just wanted Europe to step up. Don't fall for that. It's not true. He wants Ukraine to lose, by the way, but hopefully this is a moment where Europe can step up and be like, you know what? America we'd love to have you. You're very important. We don't need you. Rheinmetall Namo. All of our other, you know, European defense agencies, they're going to make enough stuff for Ukraine and, and we'll stop the Russians and you can basically take your tariffs and leave Europe.
- [32:32]
Tim Miller
Let's game this out for a second. That outcome, because that seems decently likely at this point, it puts us in a big bind. If Marco, if our possibly Cuban agent, I don't know, possibly communist Cuban agent, I'm just throwing it out there. Might be possible, but we don't know if he cuts a deal with his Russian counterparty and whatever the contours of that, something like what I laid out at the beginning, and Zelensky says, no, and there are enough European countries that say, no, we'll keep backing you. Where does that put us in that situation? What do you do? It's going to leave them in a very tough, you know, situation to game out. Like, are you then on. Actually on the side of Russia, we just, like, check out and say good luck, you know, impact on relationships with Europe. I mean, I don't know that that whole possibility has really been thought through. I think that there's this kind of, like, notion that whatever Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin want is going to happen.
- [33:26]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, there has been that notion. Honestly, that notion exists in Europe, too. I mean, Europe, they, they have been paralyzed for 80 years. And this has actually worked to our advantage. Right. Like, because we can write the rules of the road, we get to basically determine what's important for defense. But regardless, Europe has basically kind of gotten paralyzed and, and relied on the United States. And so what happens if they finally do kind of find their cojones and decide that we're going to support Ukraine? First off, it'd be great for the European defense establishment, because that's atrophied so much. Secondly, it will take a while for it to continue to, to spin up. But they're, they're leaning forward right now. And Denmark especially has made it very clear, like, we're going to buy the best weapons. If they're not available, we're buying the second best weapons. The key here is speed. That's what they've said. What does that mean for the United States? Look, there are rumors right now that are pretty strong, they're not just Internet rumors that Trump plans to announce a withdrawal of all American troops from Europe within the next month. Now, maybe it doesn't happen, but I honestly won't be surprised if it does. So if Europe steps up and says, fine, we'll do this with Ukraine, I could see Donald Trump pouting, taking his ball, going home and saying, good, obviously you've got Europe all yourself. The point is though, like, yes, he has the power to do it. Not much we can do to stop it. Except I think that is going to be seen as a bigger betrayal than Afghanistan and Joe Biden, which by the way, he was just executing, honestly, Donald Trump's brilliant negotiation in Afghanistan. Biden went underwater on his numbers after Afghanistan and never recovered. Donald Trump could do the same. But, you know, for those looking saying, well, what's the quick answer to that? I'm sorry, there just isn't. We have a system set up where you can really have a voice in two years, and we're just gonna have to wait that out.
- [35:08]
Tim Miller
On your 1984 thing, I do think we should mention the Free Speech party here. Our free Speech president and shadow president, that was their animating issue, was that everyone should have the right to make racist jokes if they want and not be shadow banned by the social media companies. A couple of interesting wrinkles though, about the free speech White House. The first was I interviewed Robert Garcia last night, Congressman from Long Beach. He was on cnn and he said basically, Elon is a dick and the Democrats need to bring weapons to the bar fight. Kind of just like, I think I kind of mangled the phrase of, you know, we shouldn't be bringing a knife to a gunfight, et cetera, like that. Very common figure of speech. He receives a letter from Eagle Ed Martin, the US Attorney, a letter of inquiry saying that he wants to look into whether this was an illegal physical threat on Elon Musk's life. Obviously it is ridiculous. Like Dan Goldman, other congressman, wrote, there's no such thing as a letter of inquiry. You're literally making things up to use your letterhead to chill free speech. Why don't you stop weaponizing the DOJ against Democrats while you still have your bar license? But like, this is. Robert Garcia is not being quiet, but this is. They are trying to intimidate people into stopping, criticizing Elon and Trump and Cash, like. But they want regular people to feel like they might have to get a lawyer if they do it. And it's scary.
- [36:34]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. And it's intimidating. I mean, it is, right? You get something from the U.S. attorney and you're like, gosh, I just. I went on cnn, they don't pay me. Or if they pay me, they don't pay me a ton. It's Just not worth it. That's exactly what they're doing. Here's what I, and I would suggest this to anybody that gets a letter like this, including if I get one, take a photocopy of your butt. Right. Sign it and send it back with that letter. Because honestly, there's nothing he can do. And what we have to do, and I mean this seriously, is make a mockery of the system they're making a mockery of. I've always said to call me back to the January 6th committee. Let's talk about that. And honestly, I hope you put my testimony on television because it's going to be, be good. It's going to be really good. Including, let's go through some of the tweets of some of the people on the committee and stuff like that. And you know, hey, let me go through this Bible verse there, Christian. How do you, how does this compose with what you're doing? So I think what's we have to do, like take, you know, legal stuff seriously, obviously. But when it comes to where they're making a mockery of it, if you can afford to, and by the way, you know, make a mockery back, that's, that's the way we're going to win this thing.
- [37:40]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I mean, and obviously it takes. And people have other considerations in their life, but I like your butt idea because I think the right answer here is don't behave. Don't behave. Say arrest me. Arrest us. Arrest me. Like, okay, so I used a figure of speech on cnn. Arrest me. Let's see it go to a grand jury. Cuz this is like where their whole strategy breaks down because they believe they convinced themselves of their own BS that Donald Trump was targeted by the deep state and that it was unfair. Like all of the indictments the US government got, evidence went to a grand jury. The grand jury had to approve the indictment. They had to move forward. It's like, go ahead, take this to a grand jury. Take my CNN clip to a grand jury. Good luck. Call me back when you have it. Yeah, arrest me. And I think that you'll find that a lot of this stuff will crumble. And I think there might still be some scary stuff coming behind it from Kash Patel, but this sort of stuff.
- [38:37]
Adam Kinzinger
And look, and by the way, if they arrest you on spurious charges like this, you'll be, you'll be famous in the country. Monetize that so you'll make money from it. Then you can run for whatever you want to run for. Because now you're the famous Resistor. So look at the bright side of things.
- [38:53]
Tim Miller
There you go. All right, Adam. Adam's ready to get arrested. I can tell. He's itching. The other free speech item I think I'd be remiss to not mention on the podcast. I'm sorry. I love Grimes music. It's not for everybody. She decided she wanted to kiss with Elon Musk. I think that was a very bad decision in her personal life, but I do think that she's a great artist. Love. I saw her Coachella a couple years ago. Her video about how she only eats spaghetti is one of the most inspired things on the entire Internet, if you're looking for a laugh this weekend. So, anyway, she has a child with Elon Musk. She was tweeting yesterday. Basically, elon, please return my calls. Our child is sick. She goes on, I'm not giving any details, but he won't respond to texts or calls or emails. He skipped every meeting. And our child will suffer lifelong impairment if he doesn't respond asap. So I need him to fucking respond. And if I have to apply public pressure, then I guess that's where we're at. She sent that on X. Then Elon shadow bans it. And usually I kind of like roll my eyes at this idea of shadow banning, but I went to see it, I went to look at the cause, I saw a screenshot of it. I went to find it. I couldn't find it.
- [40:03]
Adam Kinzinger
Same.
- [40:03]
Tim Miller
And then you had to go into the replies and you could find it. And then somebody tweeted at her with a screenshot of the shadow ban, saying, did you delete this? And she replied, lol. No. No. So Elon is, like, blocking his ex, his baby mama's tweet about how he is a deadbeat dad. That's where the Free Speech Party is right now.
- [40:22]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, look, we've got to get past this. When they talk about free speech, all they mean is oppression of speech. That's not theirs. That's literally all they mean. And remember when they wanted to repeal section. Is it 230 or whatever? Because, you know, and now all of a sudden, they're all for that because they own the. They own the platforms now. And look, this is. This is sad. And can we get past calling Elon just such good guy because he wants to repopulate the world and he's a failing man and he carries X on his shoulders. Who, by the way, tells the President of the United States that he's not the real President because he Definitely heard that from somebody in his life who's in his life that would like to tell him that he's the real president. I don't know Elon Musk. And so can we get past this idea that it's cute that he carries him on his shoulders? Look, I hope he's a great dad to X. I do. But he is, obviously, you know, through ivf, which is weird. You know, got another girl pregnant and then ignored her. And then now with Grimes, and the guy's got a gajillion and a half dollars. Like, you could write a billion dollar check to baby mama and. And probably never have to see them again, and it wouldn't even dent your. So there's something else going on, and it's just narcissistic. Psychoticy is what you have in Elon Musk. And for whatever reason, he just doesn't care about anybody but himself.
- [41:38]
Tim Miller
I understand people have issues and family problems and things. Sometimes they're complicated. But when you have two baby mamas. Hate tweeting you within a week and you're on stage in sunglasses, slurring with a chainsaw, I don't know. Seems like maybe your priorities are a little off.
- [41:56]
Adam Kinzinger
And one has health problems, whatever that means. It sounds like for Grimes to tweet that she's got to be really actually concerned for her child and not just like, I want to embarrass Elon because that's embarrassing to her, too.
- [42:08]
Tim Miller
Yep, you're right about that. These are sick people. Okay, it's Friday. Everybody take a deep breath. I've got two. A little lanyap, a couple. Two pieces of audio for everybody. One is substantive, the other one, we're gonna close with some fun. It's interesting. Trump had an event yesterday for Black History Month at the White House. I actually think that's illegal. And I don't know why Eagle Ed Martin didn't send the cops in to start arresting people because there was an executive order that bans DEI events. So I don't really understand how that's legal. But I guess we'll have to turn to Ben Wittes or Andrew Weissman on a future pod to have them clear that up for me. But he acknowledged the CEO of Pfizer while he was there. And I think this is interesting for a couple reasons. The crowd reaction, but also to what we were talking about at the top, about where some real, real anger might get and where Trump might be getting himself into trouble by being so easily flattered by these rich guys and having these rich Guys around him, he might start to find himself out of touch with the forgotten man. And here's some evidence of it. Let's hear, let's hear his acknowledgement of the Pfizer CEO yesterday.
- [43:13]
Adam Kinzinger
We also have the head of Pfizer here, so I want to thank him.
- [43:16]
Tim Miller
One of the great, great people, one of the great businessmen. Thank you, Albert. Thank you.
- [43:26]
Adam Kinzinger
Thank you very much.
- [43:30]
Tim Miller
Thank you very much. That's tough. Getting booed at the White House event by a crowd of maggots.
- [43:37]
Adam Kinzinger
Look, I think this, this may be the thing that kind of unites the everybody a little bit is this, this, it's not going to be Elon Musk because the right loves him. But like this kind of eat the rich sort of. And you know, we've got to walk the line on that. But let me just also say that doesn't mean kill these people. Folks like, you know, this Italian dude, you know, that's not Luigi. Yep, not Luigi. But you can boo them all you want. That's great.
- [44:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And I also think maybe it shows a little bit of a disconnect on the vaccine thing. And that's. There's gonna be some interesting, interesting choices ahead for us as we have a measles outbreak in this country. So let's just say we're monitoring it. When you're, when, when a CEO gets booed inside the White House by MAGA's, it's something that we're gonna be keeping an eye on. All right, here's what I wanna take everybody out with. I'm assuming you haven't seen this yet. Cause you don't, you don't suffer as much as I do on the MAGA Internet. But your friend and mine, new host of the weekend Fox show. Actually, before we get to that, I do notice everybody wants to be a podcaster. I appreciate that. You are also now in the substack space. I saw Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman have a podcast together. Matt Gaetz has a podcast. The Water is Warm, everybody. Welcome. It's a competitive marketplace. You're still losing to me in the ratings so far, but I'm going to keep an eye on how you're doing. Gates and Corey and Lara Lee Trump. She is also in the content business now and she's not happy. She's not satisfied. Rather just have a weekend Fox show. Okay. She wants to go into another industry and she has released a song this morning with French Montana. No. And I'd like to play it for us. Oh, yeah. You're so mysterious. How much more can you take, Adam?
- [45:51]
Adam Kinzinger
Let the music take control.
- [45:54]
Tim Miller
Okay. All right. No days off. No days off. That's enough. Jason, please, that's enough. I'm begging you. All right. 9:30 coming to you soon. Lara Lee Trump in French Montana. Any closing thoughts for us? Are you ready?
- [46:10]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. It just starts in. It starts in your toe. You start tapping. Next thing you know, it's overtaking the body and you're just like, you know, I've never done Molly, but that might be a good time. That might be a good time to join the Elon ranks and just let it flow through.
- [46:24]
Tim Miller
A little Molly, a little candy flipping for Sen. Lara Lee Trump. Well, that's a good one. I won't be putting the song in the show notes so people can Google it for themselves if they want to find it. Thank you, Adam Kinzinger, everybody. Go subscribe to his substack. He's doing great work over there. And it's starting to happen. You can start to feel it out in the streets, and I think that's good. So I appreciate you coming on the pod today.
- [46:45]
Adam Kinzinger
You bet, buddy.
- [46:46]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll talk to you soon. Everybody else, we'll be back Monday with Bill Crystal and over the weekend, actually, I'll be at Principals first in D.C. if you're around, I'm interviewing Jared Polis. A bunch of your other friends will be there. So we'll be checking you all out. Some of you in D.C. the rest of you on Monday's pot. Peace.
- [47:10]
Unknown Speaker
Big on land and I do what I can I got from high places I get up for free I got a 5 but stay down now hey cause I'm only a man I do what I can B E H A B E Monster B E J Baby you declare a fate of I done something bad maybe I was wrong Sometimes people say I'm a big time B E H a B E monster looking so pressure B E H A V e never more Gayla being giving you declare to say a party all of the ice all of the ice Follow the eight.
- [49:22]
Tim Miller
The Bullork podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.