Loading summary
Transcript168 lines
- [00:00]
Rocket Money Advertiser
I didn't realize I was wasting $415 a month until I downloaded Rocket Money. I thought I had my finances under control until the app laid out all my spending and categorized it for me. Takeout shopping and unused subscriptions were quietly draining my account, and as a result, my savings took a backseat. But Rocket Money doesn't just tell you what you're wasting money on. It takes action to save you money. First, the app looks at your income and monthly expenses and calculates how much you can safely spend each day to stay under budget. Rocket Money also fines and cancels unwanted subscriptions for you, and even negotiates better rates on your bills so you have more money in your pocket. On average, Rocket Money members can save up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Users love the app with over 186,000 five star ratings. It's time to simplify your finances and take control of your Money. Go to RocketMoney.com cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com cancel or RocketMoney.com cancel tax.
- [01:00]
Ryan Seacrest
Season has arrived and doing taxes without the right help can feel overwhelming. Intuit TurboTax is here now to guide you through it with confidence. Match with a TurboTax full service expert who handles everything for you. From start to finish. Your dedicated expert checks every single deduction and credit to help you get the best possible outcome so you can feel confident you're getting every dollar you deserve. And the best part? You'll see real time updates on your expert's progress right on your phone while you live your life. Plus, you get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com Only available with TurboTax Full Service Experts Real time updates only on iOS mobile app.
- [01:52]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back one of our faves. He's a former member of Congress from Illinois. He served in the Air Force and Air National Guard. He's the founder of Country First. They got a new campaign to push back on the politicization of the National Guard. He's also on substack with the rest of us. He's in the gym a lot. He's doing peptides. It's Adam Kinzinger.
- [02:13]
Adam Kinzinger
Hey, buddy. What's going on? Good to be back with you, man.
- [02:15]
Tim Miller
It's good. It's been a minute. Yeah. And you know, we just put this on the calendar. We didn't know it was Going to be happening. And like, this is insane. We could do nine hours of podcasting today with all the shit. Just pick a day, though.
- [02:26]
Adam Kinzinger
It's like insane. Every freaking day.
- [02:28]
Tim Miller
I mean, you know, yeah, much to cover. We've got to start with Pam Bondi. Unfortunately, it's unpleasant having to listen to her talk, just to be candid. But I'm going to punish people. We're going to listen to a little bit from yesterday's performance on the Hill.
- [02:43]
Adam Kinzinger
So I really have just one question for you. How many of Epstein's co conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?
- [02:59]
Rocket Money Advertiser
First you showed it. I find it.
- [03:03]
Adam Kinzinger
How many have you.
- [03:04]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Excuse me, I'm going to answer the question.
- [03:06]
Ryan Seacrest
Answer my question.
- [03:07]
Rocket Money Advertiser
No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the.
- [03:10]
Adam Kinzinger
Question, the way I asked it.
- [03:12]
Rocket Money Advertiser
You don't tell me.
- [03:13]
Adam Kinzinger
Oh, I did tell you because we saw what you did in the Senate. Not even a lawyer.
- [03:19]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Have you apologized to President Trump? Have you apologized to President Trump? All of you who participated in those impeachment hearings against Donald Trump, you all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the president and I am not going to have it. I'm not going to put up with it. And none of them, none of them ask Merrick Garland over the last four years, one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump. The Dow, the Dow right now is over. The dow is over 50,000, $50,000.
- [04:00]
Tim Miller
The Dow's over. That's the Attorney General of the United States of America having a temper tantrum on the Hill because she's not investigating any of the perpetrators of child sex trafficking.
- [04:12]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, you know why nobody asked Merrick Garland? Because Joe Biden didn't run on Epstein files. Transparency. I think they should have released him, but that's not what he ran on. Trump did. Here's the crazy thing, Tim, is they're like, hey, we're just going to take what Donald Trump ran on, okay? And I'm going to ask you if you've fulfilled that. Well, screw you. You, you know, and I've got to just say. So let me just take the broad view, which is when we end up in, in a situation like we've had over this last year, where these people from the administration come in, speak before Congress and have complete and utter disdain and disrespect for Congress, I get it. Because people hate congressmen and women and it's fun to watch them combat. If you're on the side of maga. But this is honestly how democracies can die when you do not respect the oversight of the people. Keep in mind, Jamie Raskin, love him or hate him, represents 700,000Americans with a right to a voice. You know, every one of these folks, and she comes in and basically refuses to answer the question. And what I really think is going on here, and I'm not a psychiatrist, but I think there's something to this which is. And I've seen this in kind of MAGA folks too, particularly my old friends in Congress who got mad at me because really, they were mad at themselves. Like they know inside what they should be doing. And when I was doing what they should be doing, in essence, putting a mirror up to them, their anger at themselves would be projected outward. And I honestly kind of see this in Pam Bondi, where she knows what's going on here. She knows what she promised. She knows that she tried to cover up in March and now she's being called out by it. And not impolitely, quite honestly. And her anger at herself, maybe at Trump, maybe at the situation she's in, is projected outward. If she thought that she did anything good for herself, I think she came out of that hearing quite the opposite. I think even MAGAs were sitting around going, this was a pretty bad presentation here. And I think it's only going to make it worse, Honestly, I think it's only going to grow the interest into, why is she so defensive? Why are they so defensive?
- [06:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree. And Eric Erickson said she should be fired or resigned. I was getting mocked in the manosphere. It was an extremely unhelpful performance. I would also like to answer her rhetorical question about why Merrick Garland wasn't up there. Another key difference is that Joe Biden was not, did not lie about being on a plane with the child sex trafficker and the victims. So, you know, Donald Trump was in the files more than anybody. So that is. That is another key difference between him and Joe Biden when it comes to oversight of what was happening with the files.
- [06:49]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it's kind of a big deal. And also, people forget this. Donald Trump was president during the Epstein suicide, Right?
- [06:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Right.
- [06:55]
Adam Kinzinger
There's a lot of people I see.
- [06:57]
Tim Miller
In the magazine, it wasn't Hillary Clinton. She was not the president.
- [06:59]
Adam Kinzinger
They think it's Hillary or they think it was Obama or they think it was Biden. It was Donald Trump. And I'm, again, again, I'm not making the accusation that Epstein was killed, but there are questions and certainly in these files, like you said, I did not see Joe Biden's name. I think you said yesterday, I didn't even see Hunter Biden's name in there. I've seen Trump a lot. So there's legitimate questions. He's the President, United States. And you know, that's kind of creepy.
- [07:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Epstein preyed on dorks that needed, needed help with women and you know, Hunter Biden got his prostitutes all by himself. I guess just from your vantage point, having been a member. So like, how different this is because there are a lot of people who like kind of came awake to this in 2016, came awake to politics, are not sure how this is supposed to go, or maybe they've seen some, you know, the British Parliament's pretty rowdy. Like this performance by her yesterday, both just like the style of her presentation, but also like the idea that I guess they were looking at what the members were searching for in the Epstein files and she had like an oppo briefing on each member. I mean, that's very different than anything you would have experienced even in Trump 1.0, right?
- [08:06]
Adam Kinzinger
Oh, completely. And this is like, this is Big Brother stuff. Now, I'm not going to give them the credit to say that they're building some well oiled machine surveillance state, because I don't think they are. But I think they are so insecure that instead of looking at and saying, well, let's just get the files out there, let's have transparency, let's, you know, if somebody deserves to be prosecuted, let's prosecute them. It becomes like it always does with maga, in particular with Donald Trump. They automatically insert themselves into the position of victim and they automatically insert themselves in the position of defense. The only way to defend themselves is to attack somebody. It can be crazy, it can be real, but that's all they know. And so, yeah, I mean, look, if I was a member of Congress and I found still and I found out this happened, I'd be furious. Not because I necessarily have a reasonable expectation of privacy that other people don't, but the idea of what I'm doing in my position as a member of Congress should be completely separate from the knowledge of the executive branch, if I so choose, comes down again to the basic thing of separation of powers. And I think we, unfortunately, because Congress is unpopular and because people say, look, only 15% of Americans approve of Congress, which has been that way since the founding of Congress, because it just is a faceless institution. But ever since that, like we have been okay with Chipping away at their power or their ability to do what they need to do. But that is really the only voice you have. And that's an important thing for people to remember. You do not have a voice through the President of the United States. His job is simply to execute the laws that you, through your member of Congress have created. That's his job. You know, we've changed that a lot. But that should be offensive to every American, honestly.
- [09:53]
Tim Miller
I mean, there were some pretty mild mannered Democrats that were like, this is fascist. You're spying on me in the skiff. And it's really chilling. On the other hand, it's also extremely ham handed and she got called out for it and literally had the spy papers in her binder and the Getty photographer caught her.
- [10:12]
Adam Kinzinger
Keep in mind too, when you're in a skiff, because I assume that probably most of your folks listening haven't been in a skiff.
- [10:18]
Tim Miller
Is. I've never been in a skiff. My candidates lost.
- [10:20]
Adam Kinzinger
Except. That's right. Sorry. We'll get you in a skiff someday. It is very sanitized. You are allowed to walk in with a, basically a notebook and a pen, but you cannot take your notes with you. I've seen people take notes with them, so I guess it's gray area, but you technically can't do that. So you walk in basically defenseless, you know, as it should be. Because your job is then to just see what's presented in front of you, commit it to memory and leave. And for them to do that is just, it's, it's disgusting. And they probably violated skiff rules, to be honest with you, and how they did it. Yeah, but they don't care.
- [10:55]
Tim Miller
One other thing that came up yesterday that is a little bit of a tale as old as time, but it's worth not letting people forget that they're doing this. Bondi was pressed by Jonah Goose, congressman from Colorado, Boulder actually, on how she had hired Jared Wise. Jared Wise is a January Sixer who is there storming the Capitol and he was shouting kill them to the police. Bondi's excuse for hiring this insurrectionist was that he was pardoned by Trump. And so everything's okay now. That guy works for the Justice Department. The guy that was shouting killed him to police. Separate news item yesterday, another January 6 rioter who had been pardoned by Trump was convicted of sexually abusing children, including an 11 year old. Andrew Paul Johnson tried to bribe one of his victims by promising to share expected January 6th restitution money from the Trump Administration. So, you know, while she's testifying yesterday, two of the people they pardoned, one, you know, one works for her, and the other one was convicted of child rape.
- [11:52]
Adam Kinzinger
If you take the universe of January, six pardoned defendants and you say, what is the recidivism rate of them? And quite honestly, the recidivism rate, although it's not recidivism per se, but the rate of being arrested for child abuse, sexual child abuse, it is higher than illegal immigrants. Way like this is the thing. You remember how there. It's. The whole reason they're saying we need to go after those that are here illegally is because of crime, because they commit all these crimes. And, you know, we always push back with the real statistics and say they're more likely to actually start if they could do it legally. Immigrants are much more likely to start a business and hire people than a second, third, etc. Born American. But they would always bring up. They're bringing their rapists, they're bringing their druggies. I guarantee you, if you picked 1500 random people that are here illegally and you said, who is doing more child sex abuse, it would be the January 6th defendant. So why don't we have ICE go after the January 6th defendants after that? Because we really do want to. I mean, this is like the 10th, 15th, 20th person that has been arrested for this crime, Tim, not just for shoplifting or breaking and entering for child sexual abuse.
- [13:07]
Tim Miller
And she's literally at this, testifying in Congress and getting questioned about how they are covering up the investigation into the biggest child sex sexual abuser, you know, in modern times. And like, simultaneously, they're pardoning people that are committing child sex abuse. I couldn't be more on the nose.
- [13:24]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, and let me ask you. So, you know, you were talking about the guy that was hired by the doj, and she said, well, he was pardoned. So the question is, five seconds before the guy who was soliciting children, who also was pardoned, was arrested, would he have been qualified to work at the DOJ simply because he received a pardon?
- [13:42]
Tim Miller
Seems like, yeah, because it goes both ways.
- [13:44]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, yeah, it sure seems like he would be.
- [13:48]
Tim Miller
All right. Hey, guys, Here to tell you about our friends at Aura Frames. Aura Frames. Easiest gift to give. We're kind of past Valentine's Day season, but look, what about a teacher at school? What about a colleague? Sometimes it's nice to give a gift for no reason. You know, it feels a little better as a gift recipient to receive a gift for no reason than to feel like somebody was checking a box. And a great way to do that is with Aura Frames. Aura Frames offers free unlimited storage, so you can add as many photos or videos as you want. So you can go up to your work colleague and just give them a bunch of, you know, photos from last year's Christmas party where they're acting a fool. Or go to one of your college. You know, if you go through a. You go through your archive on your phone, you know, find some old college pictures, put them together, throw them in the aura frame, send it to one of your college buddies. That's a good gift. Grandmas are the key, though. Grandmas, great aunts, great uncles, baby pics, kid pics. Put together a little collage. Couldn't be easier. You can preload all the photos for it ships. They open it up, they can put it on there. Mantle. Is that what you call it? Whatever. Mantle, side table. They throw it up there. Looks good. They have good mems. It's a great idea. You should go do it right now. Named number one by wirecutter, you can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com for a limited time. Listeners can get 35 bucks off their best selling carver mat frame with code bulwark. That's auraframes.com promo code bulwark. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Kind of related to this because he had worked in the federal Justice Department, Dan Bengino. I got an email today from Dan Bengino that I want to mention because he's back to podcasting. He's back. He's a competitor now and we wish him the best. And I somehow got onto his list. And this morning's email says this FBI's bombshell Fulton county affidavit. And it goes in to talk about all of the evidence that they had of the alleged theft of the 2020 election. And I got to tell you, I just think that is such a good encapsulation of this Justice Department that, like, they hired a podcaster to be the number two person at the FBI, and he left the FBI without successfully investigating anyone that allegedly stole the 2020 election, without successfully investigating anyone that was involved in Jeffrey Epst Epstein's child sex ring, without investigating anyone that was part of the Russia Gate hoax against Donald Trump. And now he's back to podcasting without successfully arresting or indicting or investigating anyone. And he's advancing the same conspiracies he was advancing before. Like, are the people this stupid? This is really gonna Work. Aren't the listeners like Dan? If the evidence for the Fulton county affidavit was that great, why isn't anybody in jail yet? Why didn't you get anybody? You were the number two person at the FBI. You had agency here. You knew you had the tell.
- [16:41]
Adam Kinzinger
And if it's so great, do you don't think they'd be all over Fox News right now presenting the evidence? You think it would? They'd sneak it to Dan Bongino to be the guy to leak it. This, like, fame addiction they have. I mean, I would like to think if I was ever hired to be the director of the FBI, that I would very happily put my doing media and podcast thing aside with pleasure and focus on being the FBI director or the deputy.
- [17:09]
Tim Miller
I would really miss you. If the next Democrat puts you in charge of the FBI, I would miss you, but I wouldn't ask you to. Come on.
- [17:16]
Adam Kinzinger
I'll text you, but I'm not coming on.
- [17:17]
Tim Miller
Okay, we'll stay.
- [17:18]
Adam Kinzinger
We'll still keep a good friendship. But unless you do something illegal, then I'll come after you. But I'm going to kind of go a quick different direction, but it'll make sense. One of the things that we didn't have the time in the January six committee to really flush out for the American people, it's in the report a little bit, but is the role of emails, fundraising, and kind of clickbait in actually radicalizing people. So one of the things we came to realize so between the period of the election in 2020, in January 6, the Trump, which I love to know where the money went, but the Trump campaign and Stop the Steel combined raised close to $400 million, I think, in just three months. Keep in mind. And they did that through five to 10 emails to everybody on their list every day that basically would say, imagine the headline, they're stealing this. The Democrats are coming for you. Nancy Pelosi said this. Boom, boom, boom, Right? And you get 10 of these messages to your face today. You don't even have to open the emails. Miles Bruner, who, you know, who wrote for the Bulwark about leaving, he talks about his role in some of the fundraising and stuff like that. All of those emails, those headlines, you do not need to open the body of the email. Each one is a dopamine hit.
- [18:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [18:37]
Adam Kinzinger
So if 10 times a day you get a dopamine hit for three months, you become radicalized. And that's what Dan Bongino is doing. Of course, we know that he doesn't have any specific evidence that proves the Fulton county case. But if you see that and you get that dopamine hit, you will watch him, you'll listen to him, you'll go to his YouTube feed or whatever, and he makes money off you. This whole thing, all of politics on the right has become the opportunity or the, the, the operation of basically sucking every bit of wealth away from people that don't have wealth to be drained from them to give to the most wealthy. You know, the Candace Owens is all these people, they're worth millions of dollars, but they're going to get that person on a fixed income to give them money to pay attention so they can drain that further wealth from them. And I think we have to talk about it in that terms. Dan Bongino, screw you. You're a con artist as well.
- [19:32]
Tim Miller
You are kind of. I like you snuck in there that you're demonstrating no fear or favor. If you get appointed to the FBI director, you come after me if I did a crime, and I appreciate that.
- [19:40]
Adam Kinzinger
I'll come after my own mom if she did.
- [19:42]
Tim Miller
Dan Bongino is a con artist. I just also want to say clearly that Dan Bongino is a loser. And he is a loser. He got into the FBI and totally failed. Think about this. Jim Comey walks free. Tish James walks free. Don Lemon walks free. I was on his live stream earlier today. The people who supposedly stole the 2020 election, none of them have been arrested. None of them are in jail. None of the people that were part of the child sex trafficking ring that he talked about all the time are in jail. He got nobody. He arrested nobody. His successors at the FBI seem to have detained the wrong person in the Nancy Guthrie investigation. But like, they, they did nothing. Like, he was in there for a year. He advanced all of these theories about how there are all these criminals out there. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and you guys were all going to get arrested. There was all this bluster. Nobody. Nobody's behind bars yet. Total loser.
- [20:35]
Adam Kinzinger
Nobody. And. And I just want to say one more thing. If you're like, I'm. I'm all for health and physical fitness, okay? One of the things you won't see me do is like, yeah, damn. One of the things, man.
- [20:50]
Tim Miller
Guns, ladies. Weight class paying off.
- [20:55]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, there you go. I got my two pull ups in. Listen, one of the things that, like, drives me nuts is be in good shape. Be healthy. Please do it. Everybody, great. But when that becomes your image and you're a 50 or 60 year old man, I'm sorry, you're a loser, right? Unless it is your. Specifically your job. But when you become one of these, like, I do MMA and I'm gonna. And wear my shirt and I'm gonna have Velcro and I do my like, and you're 60. I'm sorry. You are trying to compensate for something. I'm sorry you're trying to, I mean, wear a revealing shirt, whatever, a tighter shirt. I don't care about that. But, like, when you. When you're out there, just all you're worried about is how people perceive your physical prowess at 60. I don't know. I'm sorry.
- [21:42]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [21:43]
Adam Kinzinger
And that's Dan.
- [21:44]
Tim Miller
It makes you think there's some other deficiencies too. We won't get into that. All right. Deleteme makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable. Delete Me does all the hard work wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. Delete Me knows your privacy is worth protecting. Sign up and provide Deleteme with exactly what information you want deleted. And the experts take it from there. They send you regular personalized privacy reports and update it. This is something that we've been using to try to scrub out some of my information online. And I appreciate that. I've gotten an email bomb lately like I had a couple months ago, so that's a win. I was also reading the other day, one of the areas where AI has been advancing really quick, contributing to the insidification of our society by their tech overlords is in the scams department. It's a lot easier for just regular people to start grabbing information, sending you texts and emails as part of a scam. Usually that was left to professional scammers. Now we're democratizing the scams thanks to AI. So having something like Deleteme that updates constantly is a good way to protect you and your loved ones. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Bulwark and use promo code Bulwark at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark and enter code bulwark at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark code bulwark. There's some other news this morning. A bunch of other news. Tom Homan, White House border czar, said he's going to end the aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota. Homan cited increased cooperation by local officials and announcing the end of the surge. But he didn't actually cite any concessions or changes that they've made. But, you know, got to do some face saving. We'll see. I'll believe it when I see it. But it does seem like just a total failure in their Minnesota operation completely.
- [23:36]
Adam Kinzinger
And here's the thing is we have this tendency to believe that Donald Trump and actually you guys talked about that. You guys talk about everything, which is great in your show.
- [23:46]
Tim Miller
I got a lot happening over here.
- [23:47]
Adam Kinzinger
Totally. The assumption that they want you to think that my guer that Donald Trump wants you to think is he doesn't care about public outcry. He doesn't care about public opinion.
- [23:56]
Tim Miller
He does.
- [23:56]
Adam Kinzinger
And he cares about it more than a regular democratically elected person because it is key. His, his facade of power is key for the fear because if he loses that facade, and one way to lose the facade is, you know, public outcry, you don't have as many people on your side as you think. And the ability of the local Minnesotans to have pushed back as hard as they did, as peacefully as they did, as kind of neighborly as they did, is absolutely incredible. They went into these ICE operations, they went into Minneapolis with the assumption that we would see the equivalent of George Floyd, you know, 2020. And by the way, full disclosure, I got activated with the guard for the George Floyd riots. I was flying overhead in Minneapolis and it was very violent. Half of the city felt like it was burning. This is something completely different. And they wanted to provoke this. And the discipline that freedom loving Americans have shown in this, I think has been incredible. And I think we need to take a victory lap here. Now. Inevitably this operation would have ended at some point, but it ends when they lose their talking point value on Fox News. The whole reason there was an ICE surge to Minneapolis was because of the Somali, you know, issue. And they wanted to go on Fox News and stir up that like fraud issue and then say we're reacting by sending ICE and it was really going to give the feel goodsies to everybody on Fox News. And they failed at that and they lost the value of that and they're pulling out. That is the role of ice, by the way, is to be a Fox News talking point. And so I think we as the kind of pro democracy coalition should take a victory lap here. We won and the Only violence was against us and our people. And as terrible as that is, that the discipline has been incredible.
- [25:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that is tragic. But I agree on the victory lap. I mean, we are. We're in Minneapolis next week for two shows, excited about it and 18th and 19th, and was planning when. Initially when we had planned it, it was like, you know, we're going to be there in. In a wartime setting. And now it's kind of a victory lap, which is nice. People deserve that. So hopefully we can bring everybody some attaboys and some joy.
- [26:10]
Adam Kinzinger
And by the way, Minneapolis is such an amazing city. I was there, like, right before all the ice stuff started, and it's cold and just an amazing.
- [26:17]
Tim Miller
Cisco.
- [26:17]
Adam Kinzinger
It really is. I don't know why anybody would act like it was anything but that. I don't get it.
- [26:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Insane. Kind of related on this immigration stuff. Something I haven't talked about yet because it happened last night and you're the perfect person to talk to about it. Little Greg Bevino posting late last night, maybe drunk posting, I don't know. But he was tweeting at Amanda Moore, who's been a journalist friend. She's been on the ground covering the CBP and ICE actions, doing great work. And he was tweeting a bunch, like, controlling her. I thought they took his password away, but I guess he found it or, I don't know, Stephen Miller gave it back to him. Among the things he said to her, to Amanda was, I'd love to see you bustling around the governor's kitchen fixing us a piece of. I truly would. He also tweeted that he'd really like to try beaver. I don't know what. I'm just telling you. I'm just telling you what he was tweeting last night.
- [27:11]
Adam Kinzinger
Not great, dude, you have to have been. He has to have been hammered, right?
- [27:17]
Tim Miller
I don't. Yeah, I guess I don't. I don't know. The little guy. Little. You know, the Sean Penn from One Battle after another. He's probably lonely. I mean, you know, he found his purpose, which was menacing and intim. Intimidating people in the streets of the cities. And that has been taken away from him. And now he's just doing gross reply guy material. It's gross and should be condemned, but it also feels like a victory. Feels very sad. It's like sad like that's what he's been reduced to now. It's very sad.
- [27:46]
Adam Kinzinger
You know, it's interesting. So everybody I know that's been in politics for any length of time has been through something sim. Not similar to Greg Bevino. But you'll see where I'm going on this. Something where you kind of hit some dark months, right? Some months where you're kind of depressed. You maybe don't know you're depressed and you covered up by drinking or you party too hard or whatever. Maybe that's Tim's entire life, you know, whatever it is, right. I went through a phase like this in my life and. And I think frankly, it's kind of thing like you see Nancy Mace going through right now where the pressure is.
- [28:18]
Tim Miller
I've never been through the Nancy Mace thing, okay? I've had some dark moments, okay? I've had some dark moments and I've made some bad calls after a few pops. Okay, that's true. But come on, let's just. All right, all right. Yeah. Impute too much.
- [28:35]
Adam Kinzinger
He's only half Nancy. No, but you go through a point when you hit like, I don't know, professional walls. Everybody's kind of done this in their own way. You hit a wall and you kind of go through dark moment. This is probably what he is going through. He was just recently pictured in Vegas, got kicked out of a bar in Vegas, not because his behavior, but because he was a disturbance being in there, because he looked like Himmler with all.
- [28:56]
Tim Miller
It's hard to find him in the pictures, actually. I saw people like, these are the pictures of Greg Bevino. And then I'm looking like, where is he? It's like, oh, wait, he's the guy that. Oh, yeah, he's just.
- [29:04]
Adam Kinzinger
That's the best thing is when I can call people short. You know, they're really short.
- [29:07]
Tim Miller
Right?
- [29:08]
Adam Kinzinger
And he's. But I don't. I just remember one time he's walking in Minneapolis and he was surrounded by other short guys. And I'm like, he literally had them recruit people that were also 54 to walk with him and because he had seen all the pictures anyway. Yeah. I mean, I would say what you're seeing here is just a guy that got fired, probably is in a pretty dark, depressed place and probably had a couple pops and hopped on and said that last night and probably should be fired from Federal Service for that. To be quite honest with you, in Earth One, he would be fired from Federal Service.
- [29:40]
Tim Miller
I agree. He should be fired. I agree with that.
- [29:43]
Rocket Money Advertiser
The holidays are expensive. You're paying for gifts, travel, decorations, food, and before you know it, you've blown way past what you were planning to spend. Don't start the new year off with bad money vibes Download Rocket Money to stay on top of your finances. The app pulls your income, expenses and upcoming charges into one place so you can get the clearest picture of your money. It shows how much to set aside for bills and how much is safe to spend for the month so you can spend with confidence, no guesswork needed. Get alerts before bills hit. Track budgets and see every subscription you're paying for. Rocket Money also finds extra ways to save you money by canceling subscriptions you're not using and negotiating lower bills for you. On average, Rocket Money users can save up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Start the year off right by taking control of your finances. Go to RocketMoney.com Cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Cancel RocketMoney.com Cancel hey, it's.
- [30:43]
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry, they've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items like Gummy Savers, Five Flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch watermelon, M&M's party size stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [31:14]
Tim Miller
I mentioned the intro the Country first campaign that you guys are talking about. I want to hear you talk about that. And there's, I assume you know, there is overlap here at the other but big news item of the last 24 hours, which is the grand jury rejecting the Trump administration's effort to get an indictment in connection with that video featuring six Democrats who are urging members of the military intelligence community not to comply with unlawful orders. This is another, I should say another group of people who walk free that this Justice Department tried to indict. They've had just a disastrous record on this. I thought one sick little side effect of this was that Mike Johnson was asked about this. Yeah, basically said that he thought that his colleagues deserved to be indicted, which is extremely low blow and I think a beginning sign of the death throes of the Johnson speakership. But anyway, I was wondering what you made of the grand jury rejection and also kind of talk to us about the campaign you guys are doing.
- [32:09]
Adam Kinzinger
I've actually testified in front of a federal grand jury and I'll tell you, you're not even allowed to as a witness. You're not even allowed to take your lawyer into a federal grand jury, much less the defense has absolutely no presence. So this is a uninterrupted, you know, infomercial for the prosecution. And so to reject a indictment is incredible. This happened so many times and in this time this was obviously the right thing to do. Now keep in mind, again, the prosecution is presenting the case against these six. There's not a defense attorney sitting there saying, yeah, but. And the jury on their own go, no. And so that's an amazing thing. And I think that should give us some faith in not just the grand jury system, but frankly our judicial branch. The point though is achieving what they wanted to achieve. I don't know if they ever thought they were actually going to be able to keep rank from Mark Kelly or if they ever thought that they were really going to be able to indict or at least get a conviction. The point is the countless number of retired military members that are scared to speak out right now. And I know too particularly that are, you know, generals that are retired that I, everybody would know their name that are not speaking out because of their fear of this. So that has done its job, sadly. And that's, you know, part of the.
- [33:24]
Tim Miller
Reason they're afraid they're going to get court martialed.
- [33:26]
Adam Kinzinger
It's. Yeah, it's all of it court martialed. Security concerns, you know, have their rank stripped and, or actually now I'll tell you, this is the sick thing and this is actually why you also don't hear a lot of retiring members of Congress speak out because they have to have jobs when they get out. And their job relies on their ability to have relationships with people in power. Whether you're a four star general or whether you're a former member of Congress. Why are these guys retiring but they're still voting party lines because they want to go back and lobby and they need to have access to their friends to do it. That's a sad thing, by the way.
- [34:01]
Tim Miller
Thank God. It's just, we should just shout out my colleague, our colleague Mark Hartling now. Yeah, not being bowed by this because there is, there's risks for everybody that are doing this.
- [34:10]
Adam Kinzinger
I see him and people like Ben Hodges who was, you know, the, the general for Europe has spoken out. There are a few that are willing to speak out and they should. Seriously, they get high comments from me on that. On the country first side. It'll just be very brief. Look, our goal is just to remind people of the role of the National Guard. You can see it@country1st.com and you know, we have a commercial that's out there that's basically talking about, imagine the floods actually hit your district, but the Guard's not there because they're being used by a politician to suppress people. One of the things we've seen in polling is that one of the things that actually compels people to the Guard the most is the idea that if a natural disaster hits their Guard is, you know, doing some political thing off somewhere. And so we talk about that. It's information for Guard members and for the public. And so I'd encourage people to take a look at it. And that's all I'll say on it.
- [35:03]
Tim Miller
I think that's good. It's good and important because a lot of people don't know what the National Guard does.
- [35:07]
Adam Kinzinger
Yep.
- [35:07]
Tim Miller
Right. And so just even as an education effort, you know, the more people learn about what they're supposed to do, I think the more mad some of them will be for good reason about how the, how the Guard's being used. As I asked you this question, I just got this text. We have a breaking little item from Senator Slotkin who's saying that she hears that they're going to another grand jury tomorrow, so they're trying to go back at them again.
- [35:28]
Adam Kinzinger
Good lord.
- [35:28]
Tim Miller
How many Ls do these guys need? Good Lord.
- [35:31]
Adam Kinzinger
You know, when we talk about, like, what can we do in the future to put up guard rails, I will tell you, there should be some rule against double jeopardy in front of grand juries. You cannot. Like they've done to Letitia James. James Comey. Now these six, okay? One grand jury says no, Bill. And now you're going to go to another one and another one and maybe we'll find one in the South. Like, I'm sorry, you can't. Grand jury hunt. That's got to be. That's got to be on the agenda in three years.
- [36:00]
Tim Miller
Well, we're kind of running down the list of their rake stepping. I want to talk about the situation in El Paso yesterday. So I was flying home in the morning. I was a little nervous about this because they were saying that they're shutting down the flight area around el Paso for 10 days. And I was thinking in my head, I was like, I don't know, Los Angeles to New Orleans, that kind of flies over El Paso. Then there's some misinformation out there about how New Orleans had a no fly area. But that's Mardi Gras related. Just can't fly drones Over New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Safety first. But anyway, the initial claim from the admin was that Mexican cartels had deployed a drone across the border. Sean Duffy declared that threat had been neutralized. And so then they reopened the airport. It turns out it was a Mylar party balloon that was shot down. And this has not been confirmed. We're hearing that it was not shot down by the military, actually, but it was the border patrol who were given some weapons to use, some experimental weapons to use. So the border patrol guys shut down a party balloon and as a result, they shut down the airport in El Paso.
- [37:04]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, look, I want to be fair and say, I understand I once shot.
- [37:10]
Tim Miller
Down a party balloon by accident as well.
- [37:14]
Adam Kinzinger
I did it in an F15. It was.
- [37:16]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [37:16]
Adam Kinzinger
Now I, I want to be fair and say like the actual, like it's comedic that they shot down a party balloon. I understand it. Right. Because there are real. I, I will tell you one of the things that was eye opening to me because I have worked the border in the air National Guard, particularly against cartel operations. And they are better funded, maybe not than now, but they were better funded than us back then and they had better intelligence and stuff. And so the idea that there would be drone defense against that is good because you'll see a lot of cartel drones come and spy, look for where border patrol isn't, look for right times for crossings, drugs, you know, people, stuff like that. But the 10 day closure of the airspace is what's indicative of what happens in this administration, which is instead of there being a mature discussion about what's. I mean, first off, if you're going to shoot down a drone, you really don't need to shut down airspace. What you have to figure out is simply, are there aircraft in the flight path? No. Okay. And we can know if there's aircraft in the flight path. This overreaction happened. People woke up. Wtf? I got a ton of email or texts from people that wondered if it was aliens related. I'm dead serious.
- [38:26]
Tim Miller
Okay. Because it was. It is kind of near where this happened. Was near. Once it called. I'm not an. I'm not an alien conspiracy theorist. The thing in New Mexico.
- [38:33]
Adam Kinzinger
Alien thing, whatever.
- [38:34]
Tim Miller
The thing in New Mexico is that they're at an independent Roswell or something. Near that. Yeah.
- [38:39]
Adam Kinzinger
But anyway. And no, it was just an overreaction. But on the issue of these, this drone defense, this is a good thing in general because it's laser. Laser is returnable and cheap.
- [38:51]
Tim Miller
Right. Right.
- [38:52]
Adam Kinzinger
Now to shoot down a drone in many cases we're using, you know, massively expensive weapons. It's a, it's a kind of a miss, a mismatch, right? Like a drones 300. The weapons we're using are 50,000. So this is a good thing. But this is comedic in that I'm not sure the border patrol should be the first using this. I actually think the best use of a weapon like this is to send it to units in Ukraine who are actually defending against a real drone war right now and see what happens there. Similar to what the Brits are doing. They're creating an anti drone weapon that's a laser maybe further along than we know. And they're deploying that in Ukraine before their own side because there's a real life saving benefit to it.
- [39:35]
Tim Miller
Also, it was communications fuck up. It doesn't feel like they've got the A team here, right? Like there's a, you know, CBP is not communicating with the military, not communicating with DOT they're shutting down the El Paso airport for 10 days is what they initially had said before they pulled it back.
- [39:51]
Adam Kinzinger
Everybody is scared to underreact and so they're overreacting. Everyone's worked at an organization like this, right? If you've been in the military, it's like, hey, the boss says we have to line up for formation at 7. So your squadron commander says, let's all get here at 6:30. The flight commander says, let's all get here at 6:15, because the commander wants us at 6:30. And you end up with that way front loading thing. And that's, I think, what you see here. Like, hey, we need to shut down the airspace temporarily. It's like, okay, 10 days.
- [40:18]
Tim Miller
10 days seem tough. We're tough. The cartels can't send any balloons our way. We'll stop people from flying to see their grandma.
- [40:25]
Adam Kinzinger
It is perfect though, that it was a balloon. Just perfect.
- [40:29]
Tim Miller
You matched Ukraine. I went deep on this with Ben Wittes yesterday, but I just, I wanted to give you a chance to cook on the latest study, Ukraine, if you want to.
- [40:36]
Adam Kinzinger
I thought Ben gave a really good rundown. This war is by no means over. This war isn't even close to over. It is a industrial fight right now between Ukraine and the West, I will say, and Russia, who can produce the most stuff, who can produce it for the longest, and who can continue to put men on the front lines. And what Ukraine has been able to figure out is how to reduce their footprint on the front line, thus how to put less people in danger. You're only seeing movements now in groups of one and two people. Not platoon movements, not massive armored movements. So you're seeing a lockdown front line, because anywhere within 50 kilometers, basically, of each side of the line of contact is now under complete control of massive amounts of drones from both sides. So this is now a matter of who can strike medium, who can strike deep into each other's territory, who can defend themselves, and quite honestly, who has the industrial capacity to win. I wouldn't have said this last time I was on the. On the pod, but I think it's possible that in five or 10 years, there is still this thing going on. And unfortunately, we have to come to grips with it and not get numb to it.
- [41:45]
Tim Miller
I know. Yeah, that really, it was that Economist article. It really sat with me. I mentioned with Ben yesterday where they kind of painted out a way that, like, it's 2030 and, you know, we're still in the stalemate in Ukraine. Russia and Belarus have more formally united. You know, maybe they pick off a little island in Estonia. Like, this is just where we're at now.
- [42:06]
Adam Kinzinger
And I just want to add to that real quickly, which is in February, Lindsey Graham was talking about his sanctions bill that's ready to go. And Trump is going to try one more time.
- [42:17]
Tim Miller
It's February right now. You mean he was doing that this.
- [42:19]
Adam Kinzinger
Week a year ago.
- [42:20]
Tim Miller
Oh, a year ago.
- [42:22]
Adam Kinzinger
And we. He's constantly talking about his sanctions bill. And then Trump wants him to hold it back because they have this one chance to do something. It's been a year, Lindsay. I know you or your people listen to this. It is either get that bill done against the wishes of the president or shut up and just admit you're only going to do what Donald Trump wants. But you cannot not have your cake and eat it too, anymore. I'm sorry.
- [42:45]
Tim Miller
I don't think Lindsay listens anymore. I gotta tell you, I did bump into him, I don't know, maybe a year ago now. And it was one of those situations where he remembered me from the old days. When he saw me walking up, he did the politician. A smile came across his face. It's like, oh, good to see you again. And then you saw it click in his brain. Like eight seconds in, as I started to talk, he was like, oh, wait.
- [43:09]
Adam Kinzinger
This person hates me.
- [43:09]
Tim Miller
Yep. And start to stay like. And then started. He started yelling at me, which is fine. Which is good. I like that. He should have to deal with more exchanges like that. He shouldn't be hiding.
- [43:19]
Adam Kinzinger
He was a Jeb guy. Too. He was a Jeb guy, too. Let's do the 60 Second Savings Challenge Step 1 Download Rocket Money Step 2 Link your accounts and see every subscription you're paying for. Tap one you don't use and cancel it. That's money back every month. Step three create a financial goal $50 every paycheck. Or let the app automatically move small amounts of cash when you can afford it. In a week, you'll forget you set it up. In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up. In a year, you'll be shocked at how much money you've saved. Bonus Challenge Upload an Internet or phone bill and let Rocket Money try to lower it. You only pay if they find you savings. On average, Rocket Money members can save up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Users love the app with over 186,000 five star ratings. Make saving money the resolution you actually keep. Start the 60 second savings challenge at RocketMoney.com cancel that's RocketMoney.com cancel RocketMoney.com cancel.
- [44:23]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's cough, cold and flu season. Do not get caught feeling under the weather. Get back to feeling good with savings on all your cold and flu Essentials now through February 24th. Shop in store or online to stock up and save on items like Mucinex Fast Max Liquid Gels, Vicks Dayquil and nyquil combo packs, Hall's Cough Drops and Tylenol Children's liquid. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [44:55]
Tim Miller
I want to do a little politics. Should we do the Republicans or wussies first or should we end with that? Maybe let's end with that'll be a little fun place to end. So let's talk about. Let's talk about the Democrats real quick. Two areas that you're in Texas. You live in Texas and then you're in Indiana yesterday. So I kind of want to talk about both. Let's start with the Texas Senate race. It feels like a shit show to me and a huge opportunity to pick up a seat. And it's part of the reason why I'm talking about it a lot because it's just extremely frustrating that we are where we are, but you're on the ground there. I'm hoping maybe it isn't as bad as it seems to me from my podcast studio.
- [45:27]
Adam Kinzinger
It feels like it's bad. I mean, first off let's just. On the Republican side, it's basically a three way tie, which is. Is crazy. And if I was Cornyn, I would be embarrassed about that. Right.
- [45:36]
Tim Miller
Just for people who aren't paying attention. So there's John Cornyn, the sitting senator. Ken Paxton is a MAGA Tea Party guy who has a million issues. Corruption, cheating on his wife, everything. The whole, the whole gambit of MAGA foibles. He's done all of them. And then like a third kind of MAGA ish guy, Wesley Hunt, got into the race as well. And that's I think, the only thing really keeping Cornyn alive. Really. Kind of, because it's dividing up the vote a little bit. So anyway.
- [46:01]
Adam Kinzinger
Yep, I think so too. And so that's probably, I think good money is going to bet that Paxton is going to win. That's bad. And it's good if you're a Democrat because Paxton is the one that Democrats could potentially beat. And keep in mind, in 2018, it was Beto who ran to the left, actually came within a point of winning statewide in Texas. And so this is the equivalent of that election cycle.
- [46:23]
Tim Miller
It is equivalent, but I think, I think it's important to correct the record for people to be clear eyed on what Beto's 2018 campaign was because it was not as left as his second campaign. And he was, he was growing as a moderate or anything, but he like, he was really focused on like, I'm going to go everywhere in Texas and remember he did that thing with Will Hurd, right, where it was like the two of them were in Congress, the road trip. So like on the policy wise, he was running still as a liberal Democrat, but his brand, he was trying to cultivate a brand that was more bipartisan in 2018. Yeah, I just think that's important to remember when you think about the fact that that's the closest the Democrats have gotten to success.
- [47:02]
Adam Kinzinger
Success.
- [47:02]
Tim Miller
Yep.
- [47:02]
Adam Kinzinger
And like within a point. I mean, incredibly. And so you have a situation. It's Talrico against Crockett, both very well spoken in terms of passionate, kind of getting everybody fired up. The polls show that Talarico would have a much better shot against Paxton. And I think people in Texas need to simply know I haven't obviously taken a side in the Democratic primary, but people need to know that if Paxton wins, if basically Paxton wins the primary, it has to be everything unleashed to beat him. That is the only thing that matters at that point. Because if you think Corden or Ted Cruz are bad, holy cow, wait till Paxton comes. So unfortunately it looks like it is a, it is a bloody fight. And I'm not sure that the guy that's, that probably could do the best in the general election. Talarico is going to win. I don't know. But that's the situation we're sitting in. On the other hand, and on the House side, there's like Texas 9. My buddy Terry Virts is running astronaut running in the primary there. If he can win that primary, I think that can be a takeaway from. It wouldn't really technically be a takeaway from the Republicans, but it would be one of the districts they counted on to go Republican. It's 60% Hispanic. So there's real opportunity for Texas.
- [48:18]
Tim Miller
Yeah, similarly to Polito, who Bobby Polito, who I couple weeks ago running down there in South Texas. So no, they're on the House side. There are two. There are opportunities. This takes us into the Indiana thing that I want to talk to you about. And so I want to frame it up through this poll. This is kind of why I'm obsessed with the Texas thing. This is Trump net approval. Morning consult did that this checked his approval in every state, state by state. There's margin of error and all this. So I don't want to get overstated, but directionally you can get a sense for what the battlefield looks like. And you look here at the states where he is just a little bit in the green still. Montana, he's plus four. Nebraska's plus six. I should mention, because I think that Dan Osborne Senate race is interesting. South Carolina only plus 3. Florida plus 2. Texas plus 2. Kansas plus 1. Indiana, where you were even Ohio, even a big Sherrod Brown Senate race there. Alaska and Iowa, two other places where there are conceivably competitive Senate races, he's minus one. And then you kind of jump into the blue states. But I just think if you look at that batch and those are all states he won by 10 points or more, Alaska, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Texas, Florida. And his approval is between plus two and minus one in those states. Could get worse as the year goes on. We'll see. But Democrats need to be very serious about competing in those states and winning in those states in the Senate. And you need to have the type of candidates that can appeal in those states. So anyway, you were in Indiana. What do you think about the broader picture and what you saw in Indiana?
- [49:49]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, so I met with Indiana Democrats in Anderson, Indiana. It was one of the congressional districts. Here's the thing is I think back the best example of what this year could be is 2010. And you were part of 2010 with me, which is, you know, look, I ended up running against a Democrat that won my district by 23 points and I beat her by 15. Okay, now that gives you an idea of that kind of swing. And it was without a scandal. She didn't do anything scandalous.
- [50:18]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry, just. I've just calculated there, she had won by 23 and you won by 15. Or she had won by 15, she.
- [50:24]
Adam Kinzinger
Had won by 23. And then I.
- [50:26]
Tim Miller
23. And that's crazy.
- [50:27]
Adam Kinzinger
Massive, massive flip. And then I ended up serving with a lot of people that had no clue they would actually win. I mean, honestly, people that were showing up to freshman orientation, like, looking around, they knew they'd probably only be there two years, but they're like, what in the. Wow, this is a cry. I didn't think I'd be here. That is, this year.
- [50:47]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [50:47]
Adam Kinzinger
Except on the potential for a blue wave here instead of a red wave. There are going to be people that win races in Indiana or Texas or any of these states that. That we're going to look at and be like, that person was never on the dccc, the Democratic Congressional campaign, never on their radar, never on the NRCC's radar to defend. And they won by 5 or 10%. So this is why it is essential to put good candidates in place to elect the best one to compete in the general election out of a primary. Because this is not the time to, you know, pass a purity test. This is the time to defend our democracy by taking power away. Not just barely, but crushing the Republicans so that Mike Johnson never does anything public again because he's so embarrassed by how much they lost the House. And by the way, now the Senate's in play, which is insane. It's insane just to your point.
- [51:43]
Tim Miller
And it's not over. That's why I'm continuing to talk about this. It's February 12th, and filing deadlines have passed in some states, but not others. Like California is still in March. Colorado is in March, Hawaii's in June. I'm just like kind of scrolling down here really quick. You know, Iowa still. So Democrats have a lot of candidates. The House recruitment is going, I think, much better. You know, I think those stretch districts are still going to be so critical and. And that's kind of what I'm focused on as well. Just encouraging people. It's not too late to decide to run, to choose to run, and to think about different types of candidates that might fit Those districts a little better than what a typical Democrat is.
- [52:22]
Adam Kinzinger
Amen. And vote strategically in the primary. I get it. Somebody may have a different view on one thing than you or five things even. Yeah, vote strategically. In many cases, it's that versus a maga. And I'm sure I know who you would prefer.
- [52:36]
Tim Miller
I want to say this every time because as a former Republican, people, like, people here vote strategically and you're like, oh, vote for the most moderate person. And then some districts that does mean moderate. But I also just, I want to see more like working class Dems running who have backgrounds, who like, are from the community, who maybe, you know, maybe they're economically way more to the left of me, but like are they were a cop or something, you know, and so they have some cultural cachet that's a little bit more in the middle. You know, I just think that that, that more. More of that type of thing is better. Anything in particular from Indiana strike out to you from the conversations from your time?
- [53:08]
Adam Kinzinger
Just energy, man. I mean, honestly, I went there thinking, well, it's probably. I'm probably going to have to deal with, you know, people are going to be down and kind of, you know, muttering, it's Indiana. And I even had made a comment once to somebody like, you know, I know it's a red state. And their response wasn't, no, it's not. We're really close. It's not as red as people think. And that is exactly what I wanted to see because they have a fighting spirit, which was pretty cool.
- [53:31]
Tim Miller
Is it weird just for you to speak at a Democratic rubber chicken dinner?
- [53:34]
Adam Kinzinger
I've been doing it for about a year now.
- [53:36]
Tim Miller
How does it feel?
- [53:38]
Adam Kinzinger
It feels much more welcoming than if I went to a Republican, that's for sure.
- [53:42]
Tim Miller
Nobody's telling you you're the devil. Satan has entered. Satan is in the house.
- [53:48]
Adam Kinzinger
You're on the Epstein files. Actually, no, I'm not.
- [53:50]
Tim Miller
Well, you should be on the Drama Secretary is not. Look, is all right. Last thing that I teach. I don't believe I've played Nick Fuentes's voice on this podcast ever. And you don't ever have to hand it to white nationalists and racists. Nick Fuentes, I have no love for him at all. I think he's deeply pernicious sometimes, though. Deeply pernicious. People that say what they really think occasionally have some clarity that the hacks don't have. Right. Like Sean Hannity never has any clarity because he's just a hack. All right? He's just saying whatever the Party wants because Nick Fuentes is a gross incel. Like he's occasionally says stuff that the party doesn't like to hear and every once in a while it's right. And this happens to be one of those cases. I'd like to listen to him.
- [54:38]
Ryan Seacrest
It's not funny anymore. It's not edgy. It's really just become a drag. At one point we were the trolls and now we're the butthurt ones. There was a point in time when we were having fun and we were laughing and we were trolling and we were making jokes and now our side are the biggest butthurt faggots of all time. The far right has become the biggest butthurt faggots ever. Everybody's mad all the time. You can't make jokes. Everyone's moral fagging about everything. Purity spiraling. At the end of the day, people don't even really have a vision for what the country should be.
- [55:18]
Tim Miller
The Republicans are butthurt. They don't have a vision. They're not fun anymore. They're whining about Bad Bunny and all the Olymp think that like that in summation explains why JD Vance is going to have a really hard time.
- [55:32]
Ryan Seacrest
I agree.
- [55:33]
Tim Miller
Because all those things that all those complaints he said divide just define JD Vance like he is just. He's constantly butt hurt about everything. And Trump at least has some fun sometimes. And I think it is, it is a correct assessment of the problems with the right right now.
- [55:50]
Adam Kinzinger
As a right in the middle of X and millennial, some zenial. I can understand the idea of why trolling has such a draw to people, although I can't really explain it. Right. I will say he's right on in that whole thing about they used to have fun doing this. They love to take people off, they love making people victims. And now listen, this is the party. I can't tell you, even up to my last year in Congress, we would talk about the ruggedness of the individual. And the Republican Party that believes that men should be able to, you know, provide for the family and whatever, whatever. We have created an entire generation of victim sissies. I mean, I've got to tell you, watching, you know, 50 year old white men who are complaining that they're being, you know, pushed out of society. Look, you can have real issues with things like hiring preferences, I understand that. But to say that you now are being discriminated in society, this is not. It wasn't just Bad Bunny Tim, that they were upset about. They've been upset about Every halftime Super bowl since I was one year old. Every halftime super bowl that didn't include Lee Greenwood. I mean, we are creating an entire generation of men that sit on the Internet. They watch other men talk about how unfair their life is and how things are terrible. And my grandfather stared down Nazis in World War II and came home and never talked about it. He wasn't the nicest guy ever. So I'm not saying we need to be exactly like that. But for once, practice what you preach. Grow up, be rugged. Stop being a fricking whiny victim. And my advice to Democrats is keep calling these people out as whiny victims because it drives them nuts and it makes them more victimy. And ultimately, Americans hate whiny victims. Okay, that's my diatribe.
- [57:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's not appealing. Yeah, no, they're diaper babies. It's not appealing. And like, you think about the people, the gains that they made among men between Obama and Trump. A lot of those guys, like, they're not, not signing up for, like, they were upset at the woke scolding, you know, and like, I don't think that they're going to take any better to J.D. vance's like, you know, patriotic hall monitor scolding. I don't, I don't think nobody wants a hall monitor in chief. It's, it's not fun. It is not in the American spirit or tradition, frankly. And, you know, just grow up. They're diaper babies. I'm not going to say the words that the Nick said, like, just grow up. Up.
- [58:25]
Adam Kinzinger
Like, be a man. Grow up. I don't care.
- [58:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Or no, don't keep whining about everything or keep bitching about bad money. We'll see how it goes for you. We'll see how it goes. You know, you made all these gains among Hispanic men, and it's like, it's like, oh, the society is over. There's a Spanish halftime show.
- [58:40]
Adam Kinzinger
By the way, we only speak English in America and am. English is American. Actually. English English is from England. We imported that, too.
- [58:49]
Tim Miller
Did you see the other guy at the. Not Kid Rock. The other guy at the alternate halftime show. It was the saddest, most pathetic thing I've ever hear. It was this fat country up there doing a sad song. And I like sad songs. Sad things happen to people. There's, there's, you know, there's a lot of great. The history of the blues music is talking about all the bad things that happened to folks, like, legitimately bad things, because the blues musicians like were descendant of slaves and they were in Jim Crow south and it's like they have legitimate things to complain about. This fucking whiny bitch was up there just going like, it's hard being country in this country. I just want a fish, fish and mow my lawn without having to turn on the news and hear people being mean to me. And it's just like, okay, don't turn.
- [59:32]
Adam Kinzinger
On the news, dude.
- [59:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right. Just fish. If you want, you can fish.
- [59:37]
Adam Kinzinger
I'm having to take this fish and knife and stab myself in the leg. Well, you could also just not do it and then you wouldn't be stabbed in the leg. Good Lord.
- [59:47]
Tim Miller
Just an idea, something to think about. All right, Adam Kinzinger. It's always a joy being with you, my friend.
- [59:52]
Adam Kinzinger
You too, man.
- [59:52]
Tim Miller
Hope to see you soon. And every go check him out on substack wherever else he is gonna go support country first. And for the rest of y', all, I'll be back here tomorrow because it's Friday for another edition of the show. We'll see you all then. Peace. We used to have fun we used.
- [60:09]
Adam Kinzinger
To have fun but something's changed.
- [60:16]
Ryan Seacrest
We.
- [60:17]
Tim Miller
Used to have fun we used to.
- [60:20]
Adam Kinzinger
Have fun Things don't feel the same.
- [60:23]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [60:29]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry. They've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items like Gummy Savers. Five flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch watermelon, M&M's party size stand up Bags and Ferrero Rocher mixed varieties. Squares offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Are you a fraud paying American? 1 in 4 tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity fraud with Lifelock. If your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed or your money back. Last year, billions in refunds were stolen. Could be from your salary, overtime or second job gone. But this year you don't need to stay a victim because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply every year people make the same fitness goal train harder. But most fail because recovery gets ignored. Especially connective tissue that muscles depend on to grow. Frog fuel was developed by Navy Seals and perfected by a Stanford trained scientist. Delivering 15 grams of nanohydrolyzed collagen protein.
- [61:47]
Adam Kinzinger
That digests in just 15 minutes.
- [61:49]
Ryan Seacrest
It's science backed and ready to drink. No mixing, no sugar, no junk this year, don't just train harder, recover smarter. Go to frogfuel.com that's frogfuel.com Stay unbreakable.