Kyle Clark: Colorado's Mad Libs

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Bulwark – "Kyle Clark: Colorado's Mad Libs"

Date: June 27, 2026
Host: Sarah Longwell
Guest: Kyle Clark (Host of "Next with Kyle Clark" on 9News Denver)

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the complex political landscape in Colorado ahead of the June 30 primary, spotlighting embattled Democratic incumbents and dramatic Republican challengers. Sarah Longwell welcomes respected Colorado journalist Kyle Clark to unpack character-driven races, high-profile personalities like Lauren Boebert, and the challenges journalists face when holding politicians accountable.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Colorado's Unpredictable Political Arena

• Democratic Headwinds:

  • Major Democratic figures (two U.S. senators and a Denver-area representative) struggle with anti-incumbent sentiment despite the state’s blue tilt.
  • One senator is running for governor, another seeks reelection at 74, both facing discontent even within focus groups.

• Republican Turmoil:

  • Colorado’s Republican politics remain chaotic and provide a rich area for media scrutiny.

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2. Lauren Boebert: Evolution and Contradictions

[01:18 – 08:28]

• Media Double Standards:

  • Kyle Clark [02:11]:

    "It's time that we acknowledge something that may be obvious by now. We hold Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert to a different standard... If we held her to the same standard as every other elected Republican and Democrat in Colorado, we would be here near nightly chronicling the cruel, false and bigoted things that Boebert says..."

• Boebert’s Growth and Change:

  • Initially celebrated ignorance of congressional procedures, reinforcing her outsider brand.
  • Kyle Clark [03:28]:

    "When she first went to Congress, she knew nothing about the institution, and she almost celebrated the fact that she didn't know how Congress worked... But now, now that she's been there, she's learned about the institution. She's learned about how some of the levers have worked."

• Taking Difficult Stands:

  • Boebert’s resistance to Trump’s pressure over sensitive issues (e.g., release of Epstein files, Arkansas Valley Conduit) surprised even critics.
  • Kyle Clark [03:28]:

    "I've given her credit in the last year for taking a couple of, I think, really impressive stands that have united Coloradans across political affiliations."

• Boebert vs. Trump:

  • More willing than other CO Republicans to push back on Trump, refusing full submission.
  • Kyle Clark [05:09]:

    "One of the things that President Trump demands... is that they're willing to take his abuse... But I will say she is more willing than any other Republican of the four in Colorado's delegation to draw hard lines against Trump."

• Complicated Figure:

  • Longwell and Clark discuss the contradictory, gendered aspects of Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace’s roles.
  • Sarah Longwell [08:28]:

    "We can agree that she's a…complicated person."

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3. Colorado GOP Gubernatorial Race & Victor Marks' Tall Tales

[08:28 – 11:15]

• Victor Marks: Extraordinary Claims:

  • Front-runner Victor Marks boasts of unlikely global exploits—calling in airstrikes, conducting rescues, etc.
  • Kyle Clark [08:58]: (debate moderator, questioning Marks)

    "You claim that you've been all around the world, armed to the teeth, rescuing women and children from captivity... that you as a civilian called in a U.S. military airstrike... that you've done 150 high risk missions... How should voters decide whether you've lived one of the most extraordinary lives in human history or whether you're a liar and a fraud?"

• Marks' Evasive Responses:

  • Deflected, relied on anecdotes and odd appeals (including bringing up his dog’s “service” in Syria and Iraq).
  • Victor Marks [10:19]:

    "Simply go back. I have 20 years of videos and documentation and people... I can't help it if I've had an extraordinary life. I'm an ordinary fellow."

  • Kyle Clark [11:01]:

    "The dog's not running for governor. You're running for governor and you spent precious little time answering the question other than to say that folks have to take the word of you and your staff."

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4. The Challenge of Interviewing Serial Liars

[11:15+]

• Holding Politicians Accountable:
  • Longwell lauds Clark’s tough, clear journalistic approach, contrasting it with the difficulty the press has faced holding serial fabulists, up to and including Trump, to account.
  • Sarah Longwell [11:15]:

    "The press has had such a difficult time pinning down politicians who habitually lie, including the president. It's like nailing Jello to a wall..."

  • Clark highlights the inherent journalistic bind—when politicians evade, obfuscate, or overwhelm audiences (and interviewers) with falsehoods, it’s challenging but vital to persist in seeking truth for the benefit of the public and democracy.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Media's Lowered Standards for Boebert:

  • Kyle Clark [02:11]:

    "This is about us as journalists, recognizing that we'll hold a politician accountable if they say something vile once, but we won't do it if they do it every day... Our double standard is unfair to all the elected officials in Colorado, Republicans and Democrats, who display human decency."

• On Boebert's Growth:

  • Kyle Clark [03:28]:

    "She was willing to sit down with me for an extended interview for the first time. Seven years. And I thought the most telling thing in that exchange was when I asked her, why are you and other Republicans willing to take such abuse from Donald Trump? And she said, well, it's not abuse. It's just how Washington works."

• On Politicians Dodging Questions:

  • Kyle Clark [11:01]:

    "The dog's not running for governor. You're running for governor and you spent precious little time answering the question other than to say that folks have to take the word of you and your staff."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–01:13] – Introduction: The Colorado political landscape
• [01:18–03:10] – Lauren Boebert: Media coverage and standards
• [03:28–05:43] – Boebert’s growth, challenging Trump, and contradictions
• [08:28–11:10] – The Victor Marks debate exchange: challenging serial exaggerators
• [11:15+] – Press struggles: holding habitual liars accountable

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Tone and Style

The discussion is direct and incisive, mixing dry humor and honest critique—particularly around the spectacle of American political personalities. The tone is conversational but unflinching, with both participants seeking clarity for listeners in a landscape clouded by dramatics and disinformation.

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This episode provides an eye-opening look at Colorado’s political theater and the ongoing struggle of journalists to cut through noise and hold candidates—of any stripe—responsible for their words and actions.

Transcript

[Kyle Clark]

I've referred to Michael Bennett as the cicada of confrontation. He's dormant. You don't see or hear from him for years, and then he explodes in some furious confrontation.

[Sarah Longwell]

Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and this week we're going to Colorado. Colorado isn't much of a swing state anymore, but there are three longtime elected Democrats who are facing anti incumbent headwinds going into June 30 primary. You've got one of Colorado's U.S. senators running for governor and struggling to put away his primary opponent. The other senator is running for reelection at 74 years old and plenty of people in our focus groups are not happy about nominating him again. Same goes for a longtime representative from the Denver area. And even though Colorado is basically a blue state now, there are some Republican goings on that will be good for us to pick over two. My guest is going to be a real treat because he's covering these races in ways that I think a lot of people wish more journalists could cover politics. That guest today is Kyle Clark, host of Next with Kyle Clark on nine News in Denver. Hey Kyle, what's up?

[Kyle Clark]

I Sarah, thanks for the invite.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I want to start by asking somebody that I didn't mention in the intro, prominent MAGA politician you cover, Lauren Boebert. You said back in 2021 that you and other Colorado journalists hold Lauren Boebert to a much lower standard than other politicians.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Representative Lauren Boebert launched an Islamophobic attack against fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on the House floor today, suggesting that the congresswoman from Minnesota is involved in terrorism, calling her a member of the jihad squad and repeating an unsupported smear that Omar had married her brother.

[Sarah Longwell]

The jihad squad member from Minnesota has paid her husband and not her brother husband, the other one, over a million dollars in campaign funds. This member is allowed on the Foreign Affairs Committee. While praising terrorists,

[Interviewer/Moderator]

it's time that we acknowledge something that may be obvious by now. We hold Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boeber to a different standard than every other elected official in Colorado. We hold Congresswoman Boebert to a far lower standard. If we held her to the same standard as every other elected Republican and Democrat in Colorado, we would be here near nightly chronicling the cruel, false and bigoted things that Boebert says for attention and fundraising. This is not about politics, assuming politics is still about things like taxes, national security, healthcare, jobs and public lands. This is about us as journalists, recognizing that we'll hold a politician accountable if they say something vile once, but we won't do it if they do it every day. Our double standard is unfair to all the elected officials in Colorado, Republicans and Democrats, who display human decency.

[Sarah Longwell]

So you just did your first extended interview with Boebert since 2019, when she was first campaigning for Congress. Has her relationship with these outlets like yours evolved over the years? She happier to talk to you now? Is she growing in office? What do you make of Lauren Boebert these days?

[Kyle Clark]

I think Congresswoman Boebert certainly has learned and grown and changed in her time in office. I think when she first went to Congress, she knew nothing about the institution, and she almost celebrated the fact that she didn't know how Congress worked, and it helped to reinforce her outsider image. My last interview with her was the day after she announced in 2019, and she sat on my show and talked about how she was upset that the Republican incumbent, Scott Tipton, was playing second fiddle on a committee to Maxine Waters and that how she would never do that. And I had to explain to her, well, it was because he was in the minority, so he doesn't run the committee. The majority runs the committee. Oh, okay. Oh, well. But now, now that she's been there, she's learned about the institution. She's learned about how some of the levers have worked. And I will also say I've given her credit in the last year for taking a couple of, I think, really impressive stands that have united Coloradans across political affiliations. When she stood up to pressure from President Trump and others to force the release of the Epstein files, I mean, what, they took her into the Situation Room and berated her about it, and she still held strong on that. She's mixed it up with the president over the Arkansas Valley Conduit. That's a clean drinking water project in rural Colorado that people have been waiting for for 50 years, the President blocked that because Tina Peters was still imprisoned in Colorado. Boebert got right in his business about that. So, yeah, I think. I think she's. I think she's learned. She's grown, she's changed. And she was willing to sit down with me for an extended interview for the first time. Seven years. And I thought the most telling thing in that exchange was when I asked her, why are you and other Republicans willing to take such abuse from Donald Trump? And she said, well, it's not abuse. It's just how Washington works.

[Sarah Longwell]

Interesting. You know, a little bit how Washington works. Do you think it's Just how Washington works. I mean, it's how it works now for Republicans.

[Kyle Clark]

There you go. It's how. It's how it works. Yeah. One of the things that President Trump demands of other Republicans is that they're willing to take his abuse, they're willing to take his humiliations, that they must be willing to change their positions as he changes his. That's the standard French. Now to the Trump show. And she. She understands that. But I will say she. She is more willing than any other Republican of the four in Colorado's delegation to draw hard lines against Trump and say, I will not debase myself by doing that. You may not have that, which I think is. I think is noteworthy, especially given kind of her reputation when she entered Congress.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I mean, and look, she's not the only one. Like, I actually find it sort of interesting that three of the most. I don't know. I don't even know. Maybe this is even sexist because there's a lot of the men in the caucus who are absolutely, completely out of their minds. But I sort of had Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace in a particular category of congresswoman. Like, they. They are people who have. Nancy Mace is almost in a category her own. She's been a never Trumper. She's been an always Trumper. But lately, all of them have been people who have stood up to Trump. And I think it's kind of wild because they. They kind of made their careers being as Trumpy as Trump, loving Trump the hardest.

[Kyle Clark]

How.

[Sarah Longwell]

What do you make of the fact that they're the ones, almost the only ones, with the. With the exception of Massey, who have stood up to Trump in Congress.

[Kyle Clark]

Couple of thoughts. I don't know that Lauren Boebert would love being siloed with the two of them.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, well, I'm sorry, but she's. She's earned her spot, in my opinion, in the pantheon of weirdos that Trump has brought into this party.

[Kyle Clark]

I understand why. Why you would group them. I also think that they are somewhat distinctive in. In their various approaches, but I do think that gender has something to do with it. I do think that there is something about certain women who say, I will not allow a man to treat me this way or treat other people this way. I don't know Nancy Mace and MTG as well as I do Lauren Boebert, but I do think that that's a strong vein of Lauren Boebert's ethos, which is, I don't like to see less powerful people abused by Powerful men. Right. And I think that that had to do with her push to release the Epstein files. Of course, I also pushed her on that in our most recent sit down interview. I was like, you know, I was like, you have this strong stand about how you will not allow powerful men to, to abuse less powerful women, but you're buddies with Matt Gaetz. And she said, well, I think that the charges against Matt Gaetz weren't really anything. That's why they didn't go anywhere criminally. So. Well, they went somewhere in the Ethics Committee. And she said, well, the Ethics Committee, he is a joke. And Kevin McCarthy this and that, whatever. And I said, and also, most of the time you show fealty to President Trump. And we know his history with women just kind of brushed that off. But not to say that, like there is a line there, I think in Lauren Boebert's mind of I will use whatever power I have to stand up to powerful men. I think that's the stand that she's taking, even if she won't particularly articulate it in those words.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, you know, I listen to voters all the time, so I know that people are full of contradictions. And so I think we can agree that she's a, she's a, she's a complicated person. Speaking of complicated people, I want to play a clip from the recent Republican debate for Colorado governor. The front runner is a guy named Victor Marks, who is telling some tall tales about his life as he campaigns. I want to play an exchange that you had with Marks during a recent debate about that got a lot of attention.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

You claim that you've been all around the world, armed to the teeth, rescuing women and children from captivity. That you've stopped human smugglers at the Mexico border and made them pay a price. That you as a civilian called in a U.S. military airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters, that you were the first American into Gaza during the war with Israel, that you've done 150 high risk missions and every one has been a success. You told me last week that it's all true and that you don't need to prove it to anyone. But you're talking to voters now. How should voters decide whether you've lived one of the most extraordinary lives in human history or whether you're a liar and a fraud?

[Victor Marks]

Can we back up to her for one second, please?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Please answer the question, sir.

[Victor Marks]

I will, but this. I'll make a little informal complaint. The folks at home don't want to hear about her past and what she did. That's not going to make a lick of difference to those who are having trouble putting food on the table. Kyle. Paying their electricity bill, having to try to figure out how they send their kids to school.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Sir, how much of your time to burn before you answer the question of whether you tell the truth?

[Victor Marks]

Do I tell the truth?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

How should voters discern whether you have had one of the most extraordinary lives in human history or whether you are a liar and a fraud?

[Victor Marks]

Well, simply go back. I have 20 years of videos and documentation and people. We just had our head of security in Iraq call in a video today. The proof is just in people and what we document. I can't help it if I've had an extraordinary life. I'm an ordinary fellow. And starting from my childhood all the way to now, me standing up on a stage running for governor Reagan. I said I was going to talk about you. Come seats this little dog, she's going to go bite you right now. Kyle. She was in Syria and Iraq. So is she lying too?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Well, the dog's not running for governor. You're running for governor and you spent precious little time answering the question other than to say that folks have to take the word of you and your staff.

[Victor Marks]

No, no, I said.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Mr. Bottom question for you as as we approach closings here.

[Sarah Longwell]

Nice. First of all, great suit. You're wearing a great suit in that clip. But the press has had such a difficult time pinning down politicians who habitually lie, including the president. He's like nailing Jello to a wall. What do you think people can learn from your experience? And what do you wish the armchair critics knew about the bind journalists are in trying to get the truth out of these serially lying politics?