← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Alicia
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- [00:18]
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- [00:21]
Tim Miller
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- [00:30]
Adam Kinzinger
Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?
- [00:33]
Tim Miller
Really? I can get super specific with dealer
- [00:35]
Sponsor Voice
listings and see cars based on my budget.
- [00:38]
Adam Kinzinger
You can really have it delivered or pick it up. I think kid is walking up the slide.
- [00:42]
Tim Miller
Really?
- [00:43]
Adam Kinzinger
Auto trader.
- [00:44]
Tim Miller
Buy your car online. Really? Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted. Welcome back to the show. One of our faves, former member of Congress from Illinois, served in the Air Force and International Guard. He's on Substack and he's the author of a new children's book out next week. That's what Heroes Do. It's Adam Kinzinger.
- [01:14]
Adam Kinzinger
Hey.
- [01:14]
Tim Miller
Just kind of the male fatherly urge to propagandize children consumed you.
- [01:21]
Adam Kinzinger
That's right. About you can help people. Like, that's my propaganda. My propaganda is not Thomas the Turtle right on the back of Trump to victory. It's just like, hey, you kids can be. You can be a hero. Just live for something bigger than yourself.
- [01:36]
Tim Miller
Okay, I've paged through it, so I'm going to have some notes for you at the end of the show, but we've got some news to talk about first.
- [01:42]
Adam Kinzinger
Sounds good.
- [01:42]
Tim Miller
I want to start with Iran, and I think it's important to frame a couple of the topics around Iran around something. And I don't want to. I don't want to slur you. So I think this is true about you. I kind of joke about how I'm a former neocon or recovering neocon. You kind of still are a neocon, right? I mean, basically. Basically kind of, you know, kind of. At least you're in the milieu. At least, you know? Yeah. And so wearing that hat, how would you assess the state of play in the Iran war? Putting on your neocon Kinziger hat?
- [02:17]
Adam Kinzinger
First off, I want to make neocon great again.
- [02:19]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [02:20]
Adam Kinzinger
I want to go back to the original neo Khanism. But like Irving Christopher, we're in a terrible place. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We're in a terrible place because here's the deal. Donald Trump did not prepare people for this. It's like two days prior to the beginning of this war, we had a State of the Union address, which you would think he would talk about a little more than just maybe in bypass mentioning Iran. He didn't prepare the people. He certainly made it clear from day one in his posts, in his tweets and his discussions, he made it very clear that, like, he wanted this to be over quickly, and Iran saw that. Now, if you're going to actually use military force, one thing you don't want to do is give the enemy any reason to outlast you. You know, you don't want to say, hey, I've got only this much patience, guys. So, you know, capitulate. You know, they have a high threshold of pain. They knew they could just wait this through, and then now we end up in a place where, you know, they claim, and I mean, all the defenders of this are saying, well, we've denuclearized Iran. Okay, I could argue maybe we denuclearized a little bit in June. The stuff is still there. Nothing has changed from June, though. All of this nuclear material still exists. There's no agreement. And now we're in this standoff where during the actual kinetic part of the war, we were releasing all this Iranian oil to the world market. Now we're trying to make up for it by having a blockade in the, in the straight of Hormuz. And all we're doing is basically destroying the world economy and hoping that Iran is fighting with itself. But we don't see any indication of that besides Trump's post. So I think the bottom line, I would say on this is if you're going to go to war, and this is the neocon side of me, if you're going to go to war, you prepare the American people for it. And you also understand that your first plans may not actually work. What is it? Plans never survive first contact with the enemy. And. And you have to be willing to actually do what you need to do to achieve your goals. And we're in the worst of all cases right now.
- [04:26]
Tim Miller
Were you there on day one or did you have some hope for this?
- [04:29]
Adam Kinzinger
I was kind of here on day one. There was part of me that's like hoping that, you know, this works out. The Iranian regime collapses.
- [04:37]
Tim Miller
It'd be great for the Iranian people to be free. Right. Like there's this little Jiminy Cricket inside of you or Jiminy McCain. It's like, it would be great if they were free. Yeah, you know, so there's that feeling, but, like, hope is not a strategy.
- [04:49]
Adam Kinzinger
No. And it's also what I understood about Donald Trump, too, is that he is. He wants out as quickly as he wants out.
- [04:55]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [04:55]
Adam Kinzinger
He wanted this to be a quick strike, and I knew this was going to end up making things worse. And. And here's the other thing. I want to make an important point, because you'll see all the defenders out there saying, well, we have reduced their ballistic missile capacity. We've reduced their drone capacity. Sure. But listen, why does the United States buy weapons? We buy weapons so that we can defend ourselves, defend our allies, and project power. Why does Iran buy weapons? Iran buys weapons so that it can keep the regime in power. So where are we at today? Yes, Iran has less weapons. You know who else has less weapons? The United States of America. Because we depleted a lot of our weapons. So if we're just going by which side has less weapons than they started with, then we both lost secondarily. The regime is still in place. So the weapons that they bought have achieved their goal of keeping them in place. So there is no way you can look at this, at least where we sit today, and say, this is a victory.
- [05:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah, they have fewer ships and we have fewer patriots. No, I'm with you on that, and I want to get over to Ukraine in a second. But just staying with Iran, at least the lesson of Ukraine is they innovated.
- [06:02]
Adam Kinzinger
They did.
- [06:02]
Tim Miller
Right. And I think that there's some limitations to the Iranian regime that's going to make it harder for them to innovate than Ukraine. But you're already kind of seeing it from Iran. Right. Like, they might have fewer traditional ships now, but you can see the way that. That. Okay, well, once you get punched in the face, you have to adapt. And, you know, they might end up becoming more adept at drone technology. And they certainly now seem more adept at keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed than they thought that they were beforehand. So.
- [06:31]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, and this is the whole point, Tim, is like, yeah, okay, we sunk their navy. What was their navy for? To close the Strait of Hormuz. What their navy did.
- [06:43]
Tim Miller
The ships going to ride across the Atlantic and attack us, attack us at Savannah. Who cares?
- [06:49]
Adam Kinzinger
Okay. We blew up all their cavalry horses. Awesome. Okay. Right. They were never going to use them. And so it's that the other thing is coming off of Venezuela, there was this. I mean, you remember the story about the guy that's like, you know, all the troops came out with magic lasers and helicopters and all this Stuff that there was this, like, impression of the United States that we had a lot of technology, we were holding back, we were this amazing power that was blown in Iran. Right. I mean, the military executed their job fantastically. The problem is it's dime, diplomatic information, military and economic. Right. You have to do all four of those things. We did the military part well.
- [07:25]
Tim Miller
Diplomatic information, military, economic, those are the
- [07:28]
Adam Kinzinger
four tools you have to use.
- [07:30]
Tim Miller
Square. Yeah.
- [07:30]
Adam Kinzinger
To control an enemy. But the information side, this is what drives me nuts. So they will attack, you know, Democrats for opposing this war and say they are the reason this is what Hexa said. They are the reason they're the chief enemy, they're the reason we're losing. Listen, Iran put out these Lego memes, right, that were hilarious, but this was information warfare. That's how you do information warfare now. So what did the White House do? Instead of the White House countering with their own version of a Lego meme, making the regime look stupid, they were putting out memes against Democrats. So Iran was attacking the United States, the United States was attacking itself. And then we wonder why this is unpopular and why Trump is losing the information war.
- [08:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I've got a couple other reasons why it's unpopular. So, first, this is today, May 1st. We've run out of the 60 days under the War Powers Resolution. The administration says that the war in Iran is over, so they don't need to seek congressional approval. According to the ap, Pete Hegseth offered kind of a different view, which is that the days don't count during a ceasefire. That isn't actually in the, in the legislation. But, you know, they're iterating. It's a little confusing. If the war is over, then, well, then why is the Strait of Hormuz closed? What's happening with that? It's hard to understand.
- [08:50]
Adam Kinzinger
And why do they still have nuclear, you know, material? Because I thought that was the aim of the war. And by the way, a blockade is an act of war. Let's just be clear, that's internationally recognized, recognized as an. As an act of war. The War Powers Resolution, which, you know, you coming from your former neocon past, like the War Powers Resolution, isn't necessarily the best written thing that there is out there, but one of the things that very clearly says is at the point you notify Congress of an action, you have 60 calendar days by which to then get approval or pull the troops out. It doesn't say 60 business days, it doesn't say 60 war days. It says from that moment, there are 60 calendar days by which you have to take this action. And so I think what they're trying to do, I mean, clearly is to reset the clock. They should just say they're going to ignore it. I mean, because that's what they're going to do. That's what every president does, honestly, instead of pretending, you know, that the, you know. Too cute by half. But yeah, if the war is over, then we achieved absolutely none of our aims. And you know, you can tell by
- [09:56]
Tim Miller
Trump's panics, actually, yeah, things are worse if the war's over. So this is just today on the gas prices jump over the last week, just as one data point for how, how bad the economic situation is. Indiana is up a buck, oh, nine in the last week. Ohio, you know what else is up a buck?
- [10:15]
Adam Kinzinger
O9. Freedom costs a buck. Oh, nine. That was from Team America, World Police, anyway.
- [10:21]
Tim Miller
Is that right?
- [10:21]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. Freedom costs a buck, oh, nine.
- [10:25]
Tim Miller
All right, well, let's play a little clip from Team America. I liked that. I just, I haven't heard it in a while. We'll put that in Freedom calls a buckle America. Yeah. Okay. Ohio up 94 cents a gallon. Michigan 88. Colorado 47. Keep going. Use the inflection point of this week. I mean this comparison to Covid where it's like we knew that there's this bad thing that was coming. This was global health, but also the global economy. But it was like, eh, you know, we're going to do two weeks to stop the spread, you know, and then things will get better. And then about the time that Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert got Covid, everybody was like, wait a minute, this is going to be worse. And I kind of feel like that is happening this week at the gas prices where people are like regular people are waking up to the fact that like, wait a minute, this thing is not snapping back this summer. Like we have created an economic calamity that is going to reverberate at least through the year, maybe longer. And like, we don't exactly know how bad it's going to get, but there's going to be unpredictable bad things that happen because supply chains are complicated and you don't know where short, how shortages here are going to affect consumers there. I mean, I've been on the top edge of catastrophizing on this, but I'm wondering where you're at on it.
- [11:47]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, I think you're right. And you know, look, I saw this amazing graphic that I kind of wish was out there more. It basically showed the Tankers that leave the straight of Hormuz and where they go. And it made the point that a tanker travels at the speed of a bicycle. So you have to imagine if you leave the.
- [12:05]
Tim Miller
The port, like bicycle or like me riding around.
- [12:08]
Adam Kinzinger
No, like a U on a bicycle. Y Y. So pretty slow. Pretty slow and pretty breathy. But the. When you're leaving the port, when you're
- [12:20]
Tim Miller
leaving Sigs at Jazz Fest yesterday, get off my back.
- [12:24]
Adam Kinzinger
It happens. It happens. So when you're leaving the. The port, imagine literally riding a bicycle around, right, and then going to the port that you're going into. And this is why for two or three months we haven't had massive fuel disruption, because basically the bicycles that had left before the war started were completing their journey. Now, if the straight opens today, like, if today it's like, boom, oil flows. It takes that first bicycle leaving the strait to the ports. They're going to. To begin to see an influx of oil again. On top of that, Tim, every country, now China's doing this. We have to refill our strategic petroleum reserve. And every country that has the financial resources to do it is going to make a decision to now have a petroleum reserve. So you imagine that kind of accordion effect now of not just filling the current needs or the deficit of needs on oil, but on top of that, now everybody's going to be building these massive tanks to store oil in. And so you can see this supply shock lasting for a very long time. And I think you're right. I don't think we understand, you know, the helium shortage. What does that actually mean? What does it mean on the plastic side of things? Honestly, we're lucky to be Americans because we're not going to run out of oil. But the problem is, is we're also the ones that in essence created this problem. And so we're like, hey, screw you guys. This is, you know, we're fine.
- [13:49]
Tim Miller
And that's just the oil part of it, right? I mean, there's, you know, we've been talking about this when I've had econ experts on the fertilizer, the urea, the helium. Like, there's a lot of shit that also infects various supply chains, various products that people use. So anyway, Tom Hanks has Covid. Bad things are coming. To sum up that section.
- [14:08]
Adam Kinzinger
It's funny that you say that though, because I remember the day Tom Hanks got Covid is like, oh, my gosh, a famous person got it. This is real. We're all going to die.
- [14:19]
Tim Miller
Y' all know My schedule is pretty nuts. Yapping with you guys all day, just yap, yap, yapping. Got dad stuff. Coaching season is over, but you know, we're still parenting and I live in New Orleans. I had visitors from out of town I think the last three weekends and like two of the next three. So I got stuff happening all the time. So when you got that plus middle age, you know, can have me feeling a little rough some morning. Some of you guys notice that from time to time and point it out, which I really do appreciate. And so even when I get a good night's sleep sometimes I won't feel 100% if you feel this way too, our friends at Juvenon can help. Juvenon was founded alongside Nobel Prize winning scientists who spent decades studying cellular energy and how biological systems age. Their flagship product, Blood Flow 7, boosts blood flow to support healthy blood pressure, energy and circulation. That means steady energy throughout the day, sharper mental clarity, warmer hands and feet. My extremities get chilly. I don't know about you guys. And even bedroom performance benefits, not as much of an issue for me. Look, when it comes to Blood Flow seven, I've seen it. That mid afternoon slump starts to go away a little bit and I don't have to worry so much about my little piggies getting chilly. And honestly, it's a journey, but I need it and I'm happy with our friends at Juvenon. Remember, Juvedon's promise to you is a simple one, uncomplicated longevity. So head to bloodflow7.com thebullwork and use code the bulwark for 30% off your order. Once again, that's bloodflow7.com the bulwark for 30% off. And make sure you use my promo code, the Bulwark so they know I sent you. Speaking of the breathy bicyclist going across the seas, you've been on this story that I've been wanting to get to all week, which is Israel, our partner in this war, purchasing stolen grain that came from Ukraine and there's a specific ship that had taken port at Haifa that had stolen Russian grain on it and the media was alerted to this and Israel backed off of taking it. But then we have come to learn that this wasn't the first one. And like they've that Israel has been accepting, you know, Russian grain that was stolen from Ukraine in addition. And this is kind of a separate thing, but this has been happening for a while. Like Israel has been buying Russian oil this whole time too. And has like some waivers from the sanctions in order to do so. So like across a couple of vectors here, our ally in this war in Iran is. Well, maybe they are on the same side as us in the Russia, Ukraine war. I guess maybe that's the question. Maybe we're all on Russia's side. What do you make of the.
- [16:58]
Adam Kinzinger
This is a really weird thing. And this started. My interest in. This started actually back at the launch of the full scale war in Ukraine because Israel was not giving Ukraine anything. This is, remember at the beginning, this was the time when all countries were coming together basically and giving Ukraine something and Israel wasn't. I was still in Congress. I put out a statement like Israel needs to pick what side it's on. And you can imagine the blowback I got right from the American kind of Israeli interested crowd, you know, and, and that actually opened my eyes to like, look, I'm simply calling out an ally for, you know, that's supposed to love freedom for not helping another freedom loving country. And so that actually made me quite honestly double down on it and keep watching. And then this story broke about the stolen grain.
- [17:43]
Tim Miller
You see a lot of that from the APAC world. I just like putting aside all of the other discourse around it, like just judging them as like, have they been an effective advocate for their cause? Boy, like the exact opposite. Like, it's hard to think of a, it's hard to think of an advocacy organization that has done more harm to the interests that they claim to be pursuing, frankly. And like your, your example is just one. That's just one example. We've seen so many that are similar
- [18:08]
Adam Kinzinger
to this and spending money against Tom Malinowski in New Jersey simply because he said like, hey, we should condition some aid when his opponent is like, you know, hates Israel supposedly or whatever. I don't pay attention to the race, but certainly not as pro Israel as him. Crazy. But so the stolen grain issue, I mean, it took finally Zelinsky calling them out, you know, a lot of public pressure. Israel's response was we don't do Twitter diplomacy, which they really do Twitter diplomacy. And it's crazy. Egypt, by the way, when confronted with this, canceled their grain orders. So Egypt did the right thing and, and it was amazing seeing the right come out and try to defend Israel in this. And I don't know the full details of why this last shipment was rejected. I had actually heard that at some point the buyer is the one that said no to it. So it wasn't necessarily that Israel had interdicted the grain but listen, the easiest thing Israel can do if they want to maintain the friends they have in the United States is to support Ukraine. Listen, you don't have to send them all your patriots, although I would say send them some patriots. You don't have to send them all your weapons. I get it. You know, you're threatened at this moment, but at least doing little things like not buying grain from Russia. But there is a weird affection between Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu, like there is between Putin and Donald Trump. There's something in that kind of right wing alliance thing that's going on and, and it's been there for a while between Netanyahu and Putin.
- [19:37]
Tim Miller
The strangest thing about those relationships that make you. I've been an adamant anti conspiracist this week, so I don't want to get into dabbling into conspiracy theories, but it does make you just, you understand how conspiracy theories start to pervade because it makes you wonder why exactly do Bibi and Trump have this affinity for Putin, just in the context of the Iran war, that we are jointly fighting together? The stupid Iran war. Putin is actively helping the other side, and not even in the Iran war, just in the region. Putin's supporting Hezbollah and reportedly, I assume that we have this intelligence since it's broken down to the public. Russia was giving Iran coordinates for how to attack our bases in the region. And yet Trump has a Putin call this week and Bibi's taking his stolen grain. How do you make sense of that?
- [20:28]
Adam Kinzinger
You know, the best thing I can make sense of is like if you put yourself in the mind of kind of, I'll just say, I guess the right, generally the conspiracy, right? But like for 30 years, you've been programmed to believe, through Fox News and some other news, you've been programmed to believe that the real enemy is the left, right, the liberals, you know, the wokes. That's the real enemy. And all of a sudden you look in Russia. Russia, you know, oppressed the Chechn. Russia, you know, fights the Muslims, obviously, Israel does anti gay, right. Gay marriage is illegal there. And I think there is something among the right that unites them on that front. Culture war now, I think just supersedes any war. So culture war supersedes any difference. It's why they had such affection for Orban. And I really think that there is a kind of a brotherhood, if you will, that exists because, you know, therefore traditional values, and I didn't know traditional values meant blowing up Ukrainian churches and murdering Ukrainian children and sexually assaulting Ukrainian Kids. But I guess it does. It's just the left is seen as the chief overarching enemy. And Tim, after 35 years of people being steeped in nightly news that says the enemy is the left, I guess in a way you can't blame them. I mean, you can because everybody has agency, but you can see where it came from.
- [21:55]
Tim Miller
I think that's definitely part of it. You have to assume there's money involved at some level. I don't know what, but we're going to talk about the Trump family corruption a little bit. But Israel has also been extremely myopic in like thinking about their near term interests. And that's near term. It's in their near term interest to get cheap Russian oil and stuff. But still, just looking at you at Adam Kinzinger, like, if Adam Kinzinger is pissed at Israel and getting off the ship, that is a different fucking sign. Like you have really made some decisions and made some choices that are alienating you from allies that are going to have ramifications down the line. Right. And are you changing your mindset on what kind of relationship we should be having in the future with Israel at all? Yeah.
- [22:38]
Adam Kinzinger
You always used to look at this as, or I used to always look at this as like, you know, Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle east, blah, blah, blah. And I do think it is important that we make sure they're safe and healthy and protected. But at the same time, sure, this
- [22:51]
Tim Miller
idea level of true democracy is getting a little questionable both here and there. I guess I would say more there, but I'll but both places. But anyway, sorry I had to point that out.
- [23:01]
Adam Kinzinger
Like I said, my eye opening thing was in 2022 when I said Israel needs to pick a side and I get attacked. It's like, wait, my job as a legislator on the Middle East Foreign Affairs Committee is to advocate for the best interest of the United States. And I think the best interest is calling out our ally Israel, who has the capacity to help Ukraine. And if you're telling me that I can't even make that question when, by the way, I'm German and I can rip on the Germans for anything. We can rip on the French and the UK and everything else. But all this, but Israel's off limits, like bs. That's like, that's when I started to kind of open my eyes to it. Now I still, you know, October 7th, terrible day. But I also think Israel fought that war wrong. They should have fought a counter insurgency instead of counter terrorism. They should have invaded Gaza and rooted out the bad people instead of just leveling it to the ground. But if I say that, then somehow I'm anti Israel, like, and that's, I think, where you're seeing the massive blowback is this idea that we're not allowed to question it, we're not allowed to criticize, and Trump is not going to be president in two and a half years. What are you guys thinking? Like, you don't want to piss off who's going to be in charge.
- [24:12]
Tim Miller
And in this case, I think Bibi thought he could really topple the regime. I do think that that was what was in the briefing. And maybe it was wish casting. Maybe, you know, maybe he thought it was a 50, 50 chance, but it was worth it or whatever. I can't get inside his brain. But I think he thought there was a chance that the regime could be toppled, that they were that weak, and that Trump was his opportunity and he took it and Trump went along with it. I just think that that's like, what happened. Obviously, there are other factors at play and all this. It's not like a puppet master thing, but that's what happened. And it seems like it was a bad bet.
- [24:44]
Adam Kinzinger
And Israel had been on a hot streak too. Basically everything they had done had succeeded to that point. Yeah.
- [24:49]
Tim Miller
So you get that. Yeah. The other thing just makes me think about with the grain. It's like, here's. Now my old neocon is coming back. Part of me is like, we should bomb the stolen grain, actually.
- [24:58]
Adam Kinzinger
Agreed.
- [24:59]
Tim Miller
Here's what we're doing. We're like bombing random fishermen in the Caribbean who are taking maybe, maybe even if it's probably cocaine from. From Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago or whatever. Like, it's not even coming to us. And we're bombing these ships. That's our enemy. Like, in what way is that our enemy? And. And these, the Russians with the stolen Ukrainian grain who are selling, you know, those supplies to Israel, like, we're on the same side as them. Everything is just really turned around.
- [25:30]
Adam Kinzinger
It is. And this is the threat of notification. This is the thing, like, even the bombing of the boats, the thing that bothers me so much about that, particularly the old double tap, right, the one where the two guys were hanging off trying to survive and we dropped more missiles, is like, this darkens our soul. And I don't want to sound just too, like, esoteric, but, like, I want my son. So I served in the military, obviously, if my son decides to join the military, I want him to be proud of it. I want him to know that the military is moral in an immoral thing. You know, war by definition is immoral, but you can be as moral as you can. The things that we're doing by, you know, hexa standing up during Bill, we're not going to be woke sissies anymore and we're going to blow up these boats and yeah, screw these guys. They were trying to flip the boat over, for God's sakes. Like you can't flip a boat over if you're in the water. But the damage that does to our own soul is what bothers me. It darkens who America is. It darkens our moral authority. And it's tough to come back from that. And, you know, unfortunately, too many people cheer it on.
- [26:32]
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- [28:04]
Tim Miller
I'm not sure this is kind of a dog bites man, but there was another Trump Putin call this week. I guess 45 minutes and again, it's like they're fighting us. Yeah, Zelensky, I thought, handled it very well. It was a period of time where Zelensky was trying to bully Trump over this. Pressure may be a better word. And now he's Just like whatever they talk all the time, nothing changes. I don't know. It's pretty wild. It is.
- [28:28]
Adam Kinzinger
And the good news is Ukraine has basically, I won't get too deep, but basically Ukraine is now commanding the, at least the mid range and even the long range drone attacks into Russia. So Ukraine's in a good spot, although they do have real manpower issues. They don't need the United States as much as they did. And so I think this is good. I mean, because the crawling around on their knees that like Europe has done for Donald Trump just empowers him. And Europe is a, you know, they're a continent that if they got their act together, could actually compete with us militarily.
- [29:01]
Tim Miller
They gotten out of that. What have they gotten? Nothing. He almost invaded Greenland and now they're going to have like a major energy crisis.
- [29:08]
Adam Kinzinger
And they weren't even two and a half years of him left. Yeah, it's incredible. It's not like they bought time. Like we're only a year and a half through this guy.
- [29:15]
Tim Miller
It's like they sucked up to him. I guess maybe I'm trying to think about, like what the European, like what Mark Rudol would say and he'd be like, well, he hasn't. Yeah, he hasn't attacked Greenland. They dialed back the tariffs. It's like all of that was because of political pressure. Like he dialed back the tariffs because the economy was tanking. That's why not. You know, maybe there were some specific ones you got out of them, but at a macro scale, they've got nothing.
- [29:40]
Adam Kinzinger
They don't understand. Look, it's what we learned in the political side here with Trump is like, you can never get in close with him. You can never impress him. He has no respect for people that grovel to him and he'll eventually throw them out. It's the people that stand up against him that he has respect for. And I think, you know, the generous Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump thing would be like, well, Trump has respect for him because he doesn't push him around. But, you know, I think it's actually more sinister than that.
- [30:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah, probably. Hooker P. I want to talk about the Voting Rights act and what's happening here in Louisiana. So we had the ruling earlier this week that weakens the protections in the Voting Rights Act Section 2. The district that was particularly, that was challenged in particular was here as the second majority minority district in Louisiana. In a weird way, it was just on the merits of the case. It was kind of one of the weakest arguments for that this district was needed because of the Voting Rights Act. Part of the reason it even exists is because Louisiana decided not to fight it when the last time the ruling came down, because everybody hated Garrett Graves so much that they were just like, fuck it, we'll just draw Garrett Graves out of his seat and then we'll deal with it in 2030. It was like, basically what the thing thinking was, you know, there are other seats where the case is much more strong for a needed majority minority district. That said, the ruling comes down this week. We are already in the primary season. The ballots are out, like their absentee ballots out. I can go early vote tomorrow. Jeff Landry yesterday, by executive order, says that he's postponing the House primary elections. I can't think of a more direct assault on democracy than that. And I guess besides just actually cheating and counting the ballots. I mean, do one thing. If they said, okay, well, in 2028, we're going to redraw this, and it'd be hard to fight that. Supreme Court ruled, but the legislature, he didn't bring the legislature back together. It was just one man, by executive order, nullifying at least some votes. Mark Elias at Democracy Docket has said that at least some absentee ballots have been returned already. So he's nullifying the votes of those people in order to try to squeeze out a new congressional seat before November. And it's really bad.
- [32:06]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, this isn't a four or five seat swing. It's one. Right. Like, one is probably not going to make the difference. This is Jeff Landry trying to impress Donald Trump. I think, you know, everybody is always trying to impress Donald Trump. You know, the problem is like, Illinois could have probably squeezed out one more seat. I wish they would do that now, but it's too late. Yeah, I mean, look, I, I don't know what the Louisiana Supreme Court, what the Louisiana Constitution is on it, but on the face of this, this seems just ludicrous and insane. Right. And I think this is the other thing is I don't know if Democrats fully embrace or understand how bad this is going to be in 2028. I, I think the, the impact in 2026 will be fairly limited. Louisiana may redraw, and I think that's about it.
- [32:55]
Tim Miller
Tennessee, I think, is trying to jam through a redraw in the Memphis seat. That's even tougher though, because they only have one, whereas we have two. So there's like fewer ways to mess with that. But Tennessee metro.
- [33:06]
Adam Kinzinger
But that's what you're going to see is like all these states now will in 28 redraw to either no minority districts or one if they have two. Because I remember during all the redistricting, in fact, it took a lot of effort to actually draw the majority minority districts because, you know, all the minorities don't always live in the same place. Right. And so they're going to have an easy, easy way of drawing it out. And I think it's terrible, honestly. And I think what you're going to end up seeing is disenfranchisement of minorities. I think there was an argument to be made that the Civil Rights act probably should have been updated recently because it is a, what, 60 some year old law that kind of was a different era. But we may see a bit of a return to that era now where, you know, black voters are disenfranchised. And the question is, what are black voters going to do in 26 and 28 because they can have control over this.
- [33:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah, look, we need federal gerrymandering laws, obviously. It's so obvious at this point now. And so like any other type of gerrymandering, like there has been some gerrymandering that takes into account, you know, the Civil Rights act and Voting Rights act rather. And that is not going to hold up in court. But the way to fix that is to make a better law. Right. And instead, you know, gutting the entire thing and maybe ending up in a situation where there is outside of Atlanta, like no black representation in the south. That's possible in 2028.
- [34:30]
Adam Kinzinger
It is. And I, I take this two or three steps more into the future and I'm like, I'm starting to see where democracy, our democracy simply can ceases to be able to function at some point. Right, right. You now have states that will be all red or all blue. So you're kind a soft divorce lane when the Democrats take the House and hopefully the Senate. I don't know how a single budget gets done, by the way. I've, I, I don't know how we get through government shutdowns because there's going to be a lot of things that Trump is going to take a stand on that Democrats rightly say no to. And I think this is where we're kind of getting into this thing of mutual assured destruction. Right. Why did we never fight the Soviet Union? Because we both could destroy each other until both sides understand they can destroy each other. You know, then we can maybe get nationwide redistricting reform. But that's why the democr. I think we're absolutely doing the right thing in Virginia is if you fight with your hand tied behind your back, you'll never get reforms because the Republicans are always at advantage, and in 2028, they're going to draw more seats because of this stupid law change.
- [35:34]
Tim Miller
Again, when you're talking about things like, well, we have autocratic creep and we're losing grip on democracy, people are a lot of times thinking about, like, obviously January 6th and Trump trying to steal the election. But, like, we have all of these smaller issues, like, this is already happening, things are cracking. And you just, you can't tell me that it's a real democracy. If by executive order, the governor can nullify your vote, you know, or in the case of Tennessee, if they do redraw Tennessee. Like, the idea that Nashville and Memphis would not have representation. Like, how is that democracy? That's preposterous. Nashville already doesn't have representation. They've pizza Nashville. So, like, if you live in Nashville, you could be in one of four districts that go out to bumfuck Egypt, you know, Tennessee. And it's like, this is crazy. You know, this is crazy. Like, people need to be able to have representatives.
- [36:27]
Adam Kinzinger
When did Landry become batshit crazy? Because I, when I served with him in the House, he was, he seemed normal, but so did everybody else. It's crazy now.
- [36:35]
Tim Miller
So adaptable. Landry is, Landry is a total phony.
- [36:40]
Adam Kinzinger
Total phony. He's got his little.
- [36:45]
Tim Miller
The accent is, is exaggerated and fake. It's not as fake as John Kennedy's accent, who, who sounded 10 years ago and now he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. He doesn't even really have a Louisiana accent. He's making it sound like it's like a South Carolina train. Yeah, this whole thing is crazy. But no, Landry is, is just, you know, he's power hungry and he's a chameleon and, you know, he just went full bore on the MAGA stuff when he saw where the winds are blowing.
- [37:09]
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- [37:40]
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- [38:41]
Tim Miller
You mentioned the budget. Should we talk about the debt for a second? Yeah, let's talk about this for one second. Then we'll go through. I want to go through Trump family corruption and the killer seashells and a couple other things before I lose you. But I just saw the story yesterday about how debt is topping 100% of GDP now. This is from Richard Rubin over at the Wall Street Journal. And I just, I kind of feel like it's you and my obligation, since we have Democratic listeners, to just raise the, raise this even if you're not like, you know, somebody that is a fiscal hawk. From a practical standpoint, the amount of money that we are paying to service our debt is going to make it impossible for the Democrats to get any of their priorities done. And like, the only hope that they have is that we have some huge amount of AI driven economic growth that changes, you know, the scale as far as the coffers are concerned. But even that, I mean, that's particularly the amount of debt that Trump has piled on the last four years or the last two. Feels like four years last year and a half in addition to the Biden term and then his first term. We're in a situation where, you know, like, even if you don't want to get to like the rhetoric of we're going to be Greece or any of that, you know, any of the catastrophizing. Just like as a practical matter, if you look at the pie chart of what we're spending, like how the amount that we're spending to just service the debt is like, makes it, it's going to make it so hard to do stuff that help people Right. Like the Democrats are like we're going to run on economic populism now. And I'm for, that's fine. Like I don't, you know, I'm okay with the Democrats not pushing my ideal economic policy on everything then. And I think that there's good reason why economic populism is resonating right now because of the scale of, you know, the gap between, you know, trillionaire Elon Musk and like regular people not being able to fill up their gas tank. Like I get it but like you're not going to be able to do a lot of that stuff and then people are even get more pissed and then we're going to get in this like populism cycle where everybody tries to out populism each other because we don't have the fucking money. And it's a real problem.
- [40:45]
Adam Kinzinger
It's a huge problem. And just to put it in scale, if you zero eyes the US military, you just got rid of the military, all the obligations and all U.S. foreign aid, we would still have about $100 billion a year deficit if we got rid of the U.S. military. Right. All that means is that even continues to grow.
- [41:05]
Tim Miller
Right. By the way, they're asking for another one and a half trillion. Is that the plan?
- [41:09]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah.
- [41:09]
Tim Miller
So we're not zeroing it actually we're taking what we've got. We're at or throwing a trillion and a half on top of that bad boy.
- [41:14]
Adam Kinzinger
Ten years ago that would have been my dream budget by the way. But we also didn't have 40 trillion in debt then. I'm like, dude, so we all got get space lasers. That's awesome. But listen, like this is extremely dangerous. And I mean right now again, interest on the debt is exceeding, is exceeding what we're spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. That's going to grow. So we will never balance the budget again. And I can say this pretty confidently, it will never be balanced. Here's what we need to aim for, is that the increase in the deficit is less than the growth of the U.S. economy. When we get to that where the deficit is going to increase, but it's going to increase at a rate slower than the US economy grows.
- [41:56]
Tim Miller
Faster than the US economy grows.
- [41:58]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, the deficit grows slower than the US economy grows. So the economy has to grow faster than the deficit growth. Yeah. Once you get there, then you can have a stable money supply because the whole thing, the only reason we can maintain our debt is people still believe in the value of the dollar. So we have to show a trajectory to correct this debt. But if we keep going unhinged and off the rails on this, yeah, you're going to start to see out of control inflation because we're gonna have to start printing money to pay the interest on the debt, which puts too much money in the economy. We can go on and on. This is going to take, I mean, honestly, it's going to take everybody jumping off a proverbial political bridge and swallowing things they don't want. But I don't think that we're in a position right now where either side is willing to give anything, particularly the Republicans who've made the decision that, you know, Christ is king and so is Trump and. But I think this is going to come back to bite us. And the thing that angers me, Tim, is nothing against the baby boomer generation. We all love baby boomers, but they basically have drip. They've had five presidents. If you actually include Biden, us Xers, you're a millennial. I'm an edge of ex millennial. Have had none. No presidents. And we have 40 trillion in debt now. And you know, that's good.
- [43:10]
Tim Miller
Thing is we're doing the no tax on Social Security now. So that's the boom. We just want to make sure we have a nice wealth transfer to upper middle class boomers.
- [43:18]
Adam Kinzinger
Why don't we just do no tax for anybody and then we'll be popular.
- [43:22]
Tim Miller
I want a no tax on super chats. Give us your super chat on YouTube right now and I'll take no tax on super Chats. It's a free speech. It's kind of an assault on free speech actually for people to pay me to read their comments and then I have to pay taxes on that. That's insane.
- [43:36]
Adam Kinzinger
Violates the First Amendment.
- [43:38]
Tim Miller
It really does.
- [43:39]
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- [44:11]
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- [45:11]
Tim Miller
You know who is getting rich while the country goes bankrupt is the Trump family. I'm gonna read two stories to you, okay? The first story is from the ft and the second story is from the Wall Street Journal. This is not Trump derangement syndrome. This is not a fantasy. This is not fake news. These are serious economic outlets reporting on two moves that the Trump family's made in the last couple weeks. The FT, a shell company backed by Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, has agreed to merge with a critical minerals group that last year secured up to 1.6 billion in US government support to mine tungsten and Kazakhstan because they got a lot of expertise there on tungsten mining in Kazakhstan. 1.6 billion for Trump's kids now. Wall Street Journal, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. The president's sons, are backing a new drone company that is vying to meet fresh demand from the Pentagon. Powerus, a drone roll up company based in West Palm Beach, Florida, is merging with a publicly traded golf course holding company backed by the Trumps. That's a real fucking sentence in the Wall Street Journal that the Trump's golf course holding company is merging with the drone company to get government contracts for drones. And they also, in a separate deal are getting money from the government to mine tungsten in Kazakhstan.
- [46:36]
Adam Kinzinger
Listen, man, whoever is president next needs to put a big team at the DOJ together to unravel this stuff, honestly. And I gotta tell you, I know somebody who got involved in a company in the private equity phase, right, like raising capital, and they're getting ready to go public. And this company invites, I think Donald Jr. Onto their board who by the way, as compensation gets these private shares in the company which then goes public. So the shares multiply by five or 10 or whatever the number is. Now they have no regulatory block. This is the play. The play is bring the Trumps in, you will have no regulatory issues when trying to go public. And that's the pattern you keep seeing. And yet we sat around and obsessed about Hunter Biden's $50,000 a month from Burisma, as if that was going to unravel Western civilization. And in front of our eyes, this corruption is mind blowing, mind numbing and open. And I think the thing about this is it's so brazen that it feels surreal. My wife, who's Salvadorian, she said, you know, like, when presidents in El Salvador leave, you all of a sudden find out they're worth $400 million because they stole the money, right? And she's like, this guy's just doing it out in public. Like he's not even leaving and being worth billions. He's just becoming worth billions. This is egregious. And I think the next president has got to put people in jail. And we have to also make sure we put guardrails around this kind of crap in the future, because if somebody figured it out and figured out that they could get away with it, you can guarantee it's going to happen again someday on Burisma.
- [48:18]
Tim Miller
I don't know how the supposedly straight news or more reasonable members of the Fox and Wall Street Journal and Murdoch family can possibly look themselves in the mirror. How does Bret Baer look himself in the mirror? The amount of coverage that was given to Burisma. The US Government did not give anything to Burisma. It's not like we had a contract with them for natural gas. Like Hunter was on the board. He shouldn't have been. But there's nothing that we can do to prevent a Ukrainian company from hiring the vice president's crackhead son. Putting it on the board.
- [48:56]
Adam Kinzinger
We can't do it.
- [48:57]
Tim Miller
Nothing legal. Did Hunter put these guys on the phone with Joe once or twice? It seems like it. But also, who cares? Unless there was some actionable fallout from that, There was no tangible corruption happening. There was the corruption of Nepo babies getting free money. But more at 11, that's happening all over the place.
- [49:22]
Adam Kinzinger
He sold his paintings.
- [49:24]
Tim Miller
These guys are getting money from the government to mine tungsten in Kazakhstan. It is at a scale so far beyond what Hunter was doing that you can't even measure it using, you know, using the Arabic numeral system that we're using. And it is in a totally different stratosphere. And like Fox News had daily coverage of the supposed Hunter Biden scandals. And it's like this doesn't even get attention. I think it was Dana. Maybe it. Maybe it was Bill hemmer. Or Martha MacCallum. I don't know. It's one of the supposedly credible ones. Had Eric on. Eric Trump was on bragging about this. You know, forget oversight. He was on Fox talking about how great it was, this new deal that the Trump family business has gotten that we're fucking paying for. And it is a total outrage, and it is just absolute shame on everyone in the conservative media that there is not even a single peep about this.
- [50:20]
Adam Kinzinger
They're going to write books someday about how rich people were able to get people that were struggling to pay their bills to giggle and willingly give them money and be proud of their wealth despite them struggling. And by the way, I also believe Tim even stronger now. In 10 years, it's not going to be a single American that ever admits they supported these people. Because when the scale of this corruption is exposed, and it will be, you know, I'd love it to be now, but it will be definitely when they're out, there won't be a single person to ever admit that they. They bought into this.
- [50:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I said that to Rich Lanry this week because he wrote a column about how Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker are going full bulwark. And, like, everybody's going full bulwark eventually, baby. It just is. The only question is how long the time horizon is if you want to be last.
- [51:06]
Adam Kinzinger
Rich Lowry and Mark Thiessen are the two that. I just. I don't even want to start on them. They are. Oh, gosh, yeah. Anyway, I'd love to get loose. Yeah. Mark Thiessen, right?
- [51:20]
Tim Miller
This,
- [51:23]
Adam Kinzinger
like, this dude, the stuff that he puts in Ari Fleischer and these people, the stuff they're posting on Twitter, just dropping to their knees in front of Donald Trump, begging for his attention, is just incredible. And same with Rich Lowry. Like, Rich doesn't bother me as much as Mark Thiessen. But, like, guys, you know the truth. Just take a deep breath. Just say the truth. Maybe you agree with Trump.
- [51:50]
Tim Miller
Richard bothers me more than Mark Thiessen because it's just such a feat. Little soy boy that pretends like we need big, tough Trump. It's like, oh, Trump is so tough. Rich. Trump is so tough. Like, really? He said this week that he felt like his life was in danger because Jim Comey posted a seashell meme on Instagram. Trump was worried that his life was in danger. Our alpha male president.
- [52:15]
Adam Kinzinger
They're so weak, man. So weak. Such victims. And you and I came from the culture of, like, oh, we're independent and tough, and we're they're victim culture. They are full victim, and they sue everybody all the time. Now let's just. I'm gonna sue.
- [52:31]
Tim Miller
I'm gonna sue you.
- [52:32]
Adam Kinzinger
I'm gonna use a lawsuit. It's just like, dude, oh, my God. That's what we used to claim the other side did. And now we're like, full bore. Oh, yeah. Sue you.
- [52:42]
Tim Miller
I'm gonna sue you. Okay, great. The. I want to correct myself. It wasn't one of the credible Fox credible, quote, unquote, credible Fox anchors. It was interviewing Eric Trump. It was Maria Barotromo who was supporting the Donald Trump coup in 2020 that said Brett Baier and Martha McCallum and Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino all work with her. I'll work with Maria. And they had on their network Eric Trump getting a softball interview about how he's taking our taxpayer money for his corrupt means. And so they're welcome to do another story on it. They could talk about how they're concerned about the influence of the Trump family and how if they're gonna be fair and balanced and go after Hunter Biden, maybe they should do some scrutiny of this. That might be something for Brett Baer to consider. I don't know. Are you. So you take it, I tell you, just to get you on the record here. You don't think that Jim Comey was menacing Trump with the seashell meme?
- [53:38]
Adam Kinzinger
He took a picture and put it on Instagram. I mean, my God, what has he
- [53:43]
Tim Miller
been doing in the media in the. The rest since? I'm wondering. He posted the Seashell picture. He's like, this is an interesting picture. He's been reading Reinhold Niebuhr, you know, hanging out with his grandkids. Like, have there been other threats happening, do you think, other plots?
- [53:57]
Adam Kinzinger
I haven't seen any. Oh, and then Trump makes a decision to threaten everybody, and then, you know, Robert Mueller's dead. Good. If you put 8647 picture, that is a threat. I just.
- [54:10]
Tim Miller
Dude, it's 8647. 8647. Come in. Come and get me, bro. Do you get more on the side of this is humiliating for them. We should mock and laugh at them or. This is extremely dangerous and we need to be visual.
- [54:24]
Adam Kinzinger
No, I'm at mock and laugh.
- [54:26]
Tim Miller
Me too.
- [54:26]
Adam Kinzinger
Look, I do think it's dangerous, but, like, the thing that we've seen this year is that the, the court system holds pretty strong. Right? So it's dangerous. But that, that, that kind of. The jury system is holding. But I also. The thing that really drives them nuts is when you mock them. And like, I noticed and I. I just need to quit doing this on Twitter. But it's too fun where I'm like, you know, doing the snowflake stuff. Like, you guys are a bunch of victim snowflakes. That triggers them.
- [54:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [54:53]
Adam Kinzinger
And I think that's the best way to get to them. It's. It's through mocking. It's through humiliation. How really you feel threatened? You're that weak?
- [55:01]
Tim Miller
Because in their heart, behind bars was what's going to happen. Yeah.
- [55:05]
Adam Kinzinger
And I honestly, I think the mocking is the best way to get at him. I mean, that's what Trump does so. Well, to be honest with you. Look, that's what. That's. That's how he came to power. Like, use his weakness against him.
- [55:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Mocking and then taking back power. And as you mentioned, having a very large section of the DOJ focused on public corruption as I think the path forward. All right. I did want to give you a chance to make fun of Phil Mickelson. Do you want to do that? Should we make fun of Phil Mickelson? We talked about old Phil many podcasts ago when he decided to get evil and go in with the Saudis, whatever bizarro world malevolent golf tour that was going to take on the pga. And Phil was wearing black everywhere, and he has very crepey skin now. And he was talking about how they were, you know, he doesn't care about Bonesaw, man. And they were going to get theirs. The golfers deserve theirs. Turns out MBS isn't a reliable partner. Saudis are pulling the plug. LIV Tour is about to go under as another Jeff Landry fuck up. By the way, we gave the LIV Tour a tax incentive to do an event here. So thanks for spending my tax money on that, Jeff Landry, you fucking loser. And now the PGA is saying, no, I don't know if we're gonna invite everybody back. This was a source that Trey Wingo had for Phil. The bridge has been burned, detonated, destroyed, nuked, and lasered to death. There's no building that bridge back. Phil's not going to be back in the PGA Tour. That's. That's too bad for Phil.
- [56:31]
Adam Kinzinger
Good job, pga. And, you know, look, I. I got into it. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about, but Phil and I had a back and forth on X about this. And because he was getting all whiny and he's rich, so he'll be fine. Like we don't have to worry about his family not having food. But this is the thing, man. It's like, I, I, I don't begrudge people necessarily that had no other option going to the LIVE tour, but, like, the people that, you know, crapped on the PGA and it became all about, like, maga. And this became live became a MAGA thing too, weirdly. And the PGA was the woke libs. Yeah. I mean, couldn't happen to nicer people.
- [57:09]
Tim Miller
It's just nice to see the bad guys lose for once. You know, we just, we gotta keep getting W's on the board for the good guys because that builds momentum. So it's a small thing that the bad guys lost in golf. And that's nice.
- [57:19]
Adam Kinzinger
Or Bonds out.
- [57:20]
Tim Miller
Or Bonds out. Yeah, that's great. The last thing I just want to ask you before the book, I had Ossoff on yesterday. I'm just wondering if there are any national Dems that are impressing you right now. Is there anybody as you're monitoring that you're out there saying, I'm not being like, who do you want for 2028? That's not that question. I just mean on the face. Is there anybody that they're doing things very well?
- [57:43]
Adam Kinzinger
That's tough, man. I think, in a way, I think I, I do like the trolling that Newsome is doing. So I guess if we're just going to say who's doing a good job versus, like, who do I think has a chance in 28, like, I think that's tough in 28. I do like the trolling he's doing because I think that gets under Trump's skin. Ossoff is a good speaker. You know, he's very articulate. The thing I worry about with some of that is, like, I think America wants extreme authenticity. And so does that come across as programmed or authentic? I don't know. But he is saying some very impressive stuff. I mean, you've brought up a couple of times his, I can't think of now, but his lines that, that have
- [58:23]
Tim Miller
been Epstein class he was doing. He's been just good on this. What he's been good on, what I'm impressed with is, like, there has to be no. What's, what was Commonwealth line? We're not going back. We can't go back. Like, the messaging cannot be the messaging from the Clinton Biden Harris era. And it can't be Obama hope and change stuff. It's just we're in a different time. You can always only go forward right and the left flank of the party, to their credit, like, have a coherent worldview and a message. Like, it's pretty similar. They have their own styles. But the way that Zoran and Platner and AOC talk is like kind of the same. You know, you can tell there of a piece and no one is really offering like another new type of frame for things. And I think that Ossav is doing a nice job of like pairing kind of populist, economic and anti corruption messaging with, you know, some more, you know, kind of mainstream appeal to the middle of the country on other stuff. And. And Tal Rico is kind of doing that too, in a way, I guess I should say. And, And. And that's just worth monitoring is all.
- [59:30]
Adam Kinzinger
I agree with you. And actually, because I heard your interview with Ossoff yesterday and there. I don't remember what it was, but there was something where I'm like, he's not taking the kind of. Of far left bait. He's kind of got a kind of a mainstream left, but he's passionate about it. I thought he did a good job. Yeah. Talarico's. It's just hard for me lately to get impressed by politicians because I'm kind of, you know, that's unfortunately where I'm at.
- [59:53]
Tim Miller
That's actually a healthy place to be, you know, I think so. You don't want to join a cult. So anyway, the onoff thing, because I asked about this, like, I don't think anybody left that interview thinking, I really know a lot about Jon Ossoff. The human. That's just not him. He plays his cards pretty close to his vest. The messaging, I think, is really good. Is that gonna work in this day and age? There's a good argument that kind of like, not if you're thinking about it from a presidential standpoint. There's a good argument that's kind of like, not really. Everything has changed so much that people want to know more. It's not George W. Bush, 1988, again, where you can kind of, you know, do set piece speeches. On the other hand, I don't know, sometimes. Sometimes the pendulum swings wildly back.
- [60:37]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah.
- [60:38]
Tim Miller
You know what I mean? And maybe people are kind of like, I actually don't want these fucking politicians in my life anymore. I agree. I think there are a couple ways to look at it. All right, let's talk about the kids book. It was that's what Heroes Do. I do have to tease you about one thing. Well, there's one thing I really like about it, and there's one thing I want to tease you about. Which one do you want first?
- [60:57]
Adam Kinzinger
Which one do you just get to teasing out?
- [60:58]
Tim Miller
Let's do the teasing first, because then
- [60:59]
Adam Kinzinger
I have more time to fight.
- [61:00]
Tim Miller
That's what Heroes do is the name of the book. And I open it and on page one is a picture of a person that looks a lot like you. And I'm like, hmm, this is a little bit on the nose. You know, it is me, but it's
- [61:15]
Adam Kinzinger
not me like being the hero. I take somebody on a journey of heroes.
- [61:21]
Tim Miller
Okay? That's true.
- [61:22]
Adam Kinzinger
My son. I take my son.
- [61:23]
Tim Miller
Like you were kind of saying that you were a hero. It felt a little bit like it. And you are a hero to me. It's just better for me to say it than you. Yeah.
- [61:31]
Adam Kinzinger
And at the end of the book, my own son doesn't choose me as his hero for school. He chooses somebody else.
- [61:37]
Tim Miller
That's true.
- [61:37]
Adam Kinzinger
I should have had him choose me.
- [61:39]
Tim Miller
You should have.
- [61:39]
Adam Kinzinger
That's a true dad.
- [61:40]
Tim Miller
You are the hero. What I like about it is just going back to when I had the Snapchat show when I was doing fyp, the Gen Z. If you are coming of age during Trump, the climate crisis and the mass shootings and all this, there isn't a lot of heroes out there, Right. And there's like a lot of negativity. And I think that if you ask like a 22 year old, if you ask anybody really who's somebody that's been a hero lately in public life, the answers are kind of slim. Like, it's hard to come up with good examples. I mean, it's in everything we just were talking about with the Gulf, right? It's like we have like, anti. Heroes are everywhere, Heroes are not. And so I like the idea of trying to reframe it and giving people some positive things to aspire to. And that's what I like about it.
- [62:33]
Adam Kinzinger
I was careful. I wanted not be like that. Everything positive is heroic, right? Because that's stupid. But there are people that do heroic things every day and they don't get credit for it. One of the things that is in this story is a guy I know actually, who is a black businessman in Chicago that that basically created an organization called Tuskegee Next. And he goes into the, you know, the tough parts of Chicago and takes young black kids and teaches them to fly airplanes. And 60 of them have gone on to fly for the airlines now. And this is one of those programs, by the way, that the right called DEI and WOKE and what it really did was take, you know, young kids that never thought they could fly an airplane. I mean, you think about it like, who thinks they can fly one? It was like, actually, it's pretty easy once you learn. And now they're flying for United Airlines. And that to me is a heroic thing. So I wanted to expose that. Just like putting other people before you is what's heroic, I think.
- [63:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah. When is the book out? What are the details? When can people.
- [63:29]
Adam Kinzinger
It's May 5th. You can pre order it now. And like everybody did with Sarah's. Pre order it because.
- [63:34]
Tim Miller
Pre order. Will it be in the bookstores?
- [63:37]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. Yep, it is. And it's actually like number one under America on Amazon right now.
- [63:41]
Tim Miller
Okay, great. Go pre order it. It's great. I'm going to do it. Right. Well, I already have it, but I'm going to send it as a gift to somebody. I just. I do want to just admit that the teasing of the front was a slight bit of jealousy because my children's book pitch was rejected. That was just. Rejected. The book, was it called Trump is a Dick? The powers that be in big children's book looked at this. They're like, I don't know. No, I don't think so.
- [64:09]
Adam Kinzinger
You have to try again. You're more famous now.
- [64:11]
Tim Miller
Famous now. I don't know. Somebody's blocking me up there. I don't know. I don't know who it is. I don't know who's pulling the strings and big children's books. But there is of a couple conspiracy in our midst and you got yours.
- [64:22]
Adam Kinzinger
Big children's. They're always controlling.
- [64:25]
Tim Miller
All right, brother. Anything else for me? Anything? Any other things on your chest? Fun, gossip, Keep the hope up.
- [64:30]
Adam Kinzinger
Listen, I just want to say real quick, like there has been. You were talking about the pendulum thing, and I actually believe that the. The unseen pendulum that's going to swing is like positivity. So I think whoever comes up in 28, that's kind of painting a vision for America will catch fire. I believe that.
- [64:47]
Tim Miller
We'll see. This is counter conventional wisdom, but I like that.
- [64:50]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, you don't see it coming until it's come. And I just have that sense. People are kind of tired of everything.
- [64:57]
Tim Miller
You should just say zone is pretty positive.
- [64:59]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah.
- [64:59]
Tim Miller
You know what I mean? That's a very, you know, he's smiley and positive. Maybe smiles are back. Positivity and smiles. All right. That's my man. Adam Kinziger. I appreciate you as always. Go pre order his kids book. Don't avoid pre ordering it out of solidarity with me and my jealousy. Okay? Just order it. It's fine. I'll be okay. We want them on the list. We want kids to believe in heroes again. And we'll have you back on the pod. I don't know. Next month probably.
- [65:25]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. Sounds good, buddy. Thanks.
- [65:27]
Tim Miller
All right, brother, we'll see you soon. Everybody else will be back here Monday with Bill Kristol. Have a great weekend. See y' all then. Peace. We're gonna be heroes. Just for one day. What you say? I said we could be heroes.
- [65:54]
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