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- [00:00]
Charlie Sykes
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- [00:16]
Adam Kinzinger
To see it up close and personal.
- [00:18]
Charlie Sykes
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- [01:03]
Unknown
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- [01:30]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the to the Contra podcast, joined today by Adam Kinzinger. Adam, we have so much ground to cover. You know, the whole Elon Musk thing, the, you know, Trump's whining about China, you know, and the fallout is happening.
- [01:50]
Adam Kinzinger
It's happening.
- [01:51]
Charlie Sykes
Well, but see, we knew that it was happening. We've actually said this before a couple times that the bromance was over. Right? We'd actually said that. It's just when he drops the bomb and calls it an absolute abomination that you're realizing, okay, I suppose in, in, in musk world, you know, you pop a few ketamine and you go nuclear, right? I mean, yeah. Good grief.
- [02:10]
Adam Kinzinger
It's, it's crazy though, because here's the thing. I don't know, like, will this lead to a breakup? I don't know because I'm not actually sure that Trump is really, I mean, the, the bill is like, yeah, he probably wants it done. He's more interested in retribution and, you know, tweeting than he is in, in legislating. So know, is he willing to, you know, break up with the world's richest man over this? I don't know. Maybe. Not maybe, but the, the, the Elon thing is crazy because I think this goes to show the level of like arrogance. And one of the things you see particularly with ketamine use is. Yeah, it's like with ketamine use they say you, you become, I forget what the psychological term, but you basically become the center of the universe in your own mind. And you kind of see that in this guy where he's just like, you.
- [03:00]
Charlie Sykes
Know, hubris, a little bit of megalomania.
- [03:03]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. Gets on a bender or something and just decides he's going to tank this entire bill. Now I'm going to tell you this, if I was a member of Congress that voted for this bill, I'd be really pissed and really scared right now. And they deserve it because it's a terrible bill.
- [03:17]
Charlie Sykes
You know. You know, going back to the megalomania though, Elon Musk had a head start before he started popping the pills. Right. So look, I mean this was predicted. We knew that was going to happen. There was only one, there was room for only one world bestriding narcissist there and they were gonna break up. It does seem a little bit messy now. And they're starting to leak against one another. I don't know what triggered Elon Musk to do all of this, but you know, this could escalate very, very quickly with a few tweets because these guys are egos. And you're right, Donald Trump does not care about the deficit of the debt. I think that, let's just start with that. He doesn't actually care about most of what's in that bill. What he doesn't, what he does care about is looking weak. He does care about disloyalty. And if in fact there's a split from maggot, I want to get your insight because you've been there, you know how the right wing ecosystem works. Part of me thinks that Elon Musk's about to find out how little real clout he has in the MAGA universe when he goes up against the Orange God King. On the other hand, the eat of the right for 20 years has been to be against big spending bills. Right. To vote no on these things. I don't know what's actually going on on in right wing social media, but there have been voices out there saying, you know, this thing is a big pork laden deficit bomb and Elon Musk now provides them a huge echo chamber. So what, what, what are representatives can be hearing from the grassroots? Because my guess is they're, they're kind of pre primed to think that you know, these big bills are bullshit.
- [04:55]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, look, I, I agree with you there. I just think that Donald Trump's so all consuming that they don't care. And I've come to realize, like, deficit concerns, not for people like you and I, but for a lot of the base. You know, back in the day, I think deficit concerns were kind of a stand in for culture war somehow. Right. Because the assumption was they're spending all this money on liberal crap and if we spend less money, it'll be less liberal crap. And I think, I think we're starting to see that. Or at least, I'll say this, at least the base generally has been concerned now that deficits don't matter because it's Donald Trump. Of course, they were really obviously into them when Biden was president, which to me goes to show that it's not the deficit issue. There's a stand in for something else. And, and I think from Donald Trump's perspective, look, when you're megalomaniac, I guess that is the most extreme term we can use. You only think about the world in terms of your moment in your life. And look this, it's probably a good chance the deficit's not going to come home to roost or the, that's not going to come home to the next couple years. So he doesn't care. He just doesn't care.
- [06:09]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. And I mean, let's go back to Elon Musk because, you know, they built him up, obviously, you know, put him in the position with Doge and made him a rock star on the right. I mean, when you think about the, you know, the iconic moment with the chainsaw that was at, that was at cpac. And so at least in the minds of a lot of the MAGA folks, he represents the attack on the deep state and big government and cutting waste and all that. And they were cheering for him. Cheering for him, cheering for him. I'm with you. On Trump's grip, on the other hand, now they created this big Muskian voice for fiscal conservatism and he's turned on them angrily. And it almost feels like there is a personal element to all of this. The fact that this post drops just a couple of days after. Clearly there were people in the White House who were responsible for leaking some of those stories about the drug use and the cocktails that he was doing and how erratic he was and how nobody liked him and all of that. So I don't know, I. They. These two guys still need each other, but I'm guessing The little X has wiped his last booger in the Oval Office. I'm just that part that's. That's history, right? I mean, that's just. Yeah, that's a memory we have, but we're gonna have to cherish that memory. But I think it's gone. It's over.
- [07:26]
Adam Kinzinger
I agree with you. I think one of the interesting things is going to be, you know, is, is Elon going to be able to outdo Trump? Probably not at this moment. But does Elon actually become, and I don't know, he may not even want to be interested, but does he end up becoming the heir apparent to Trumpism? Right. Does he end up building something that he basically can come in and in essence, take over with?
- [07:49]
Charlie Sykes
Obviously, he seems to want to get out of? Paul. Yeah, I mean, this is the weird thing about it because it sort of sounded like he was kind of leaving with his tail between his legs and he was, you know, kind of whining about, you know, the threats and how hard it was and how he was not going to be as involved in politics. And now he's throwing these rocks from the outside. So I don't know. I guess going back, though, to what members of Congress are. I think I'm seeing some of these Freedom Caucus guys going, thank God for Elon Musk sounding the alarm on this bill when these Chodes actually voted for the same bill. And look, I mean, the reality is there's a lot of shit that members of Congress are getting for not having read the bill, not knowing what's in the bill. I mean, that's par for the course, right? I mean, nobody reads these bills. Nobody knows what's in these bills, right, Adam?
- [08:41]
Adam Kinzinger
Nobody, Nope. Especially these last minute bills. And I'm going to jump in on this and say this is where the Democrats are just absolutely committing malpractice. Because if you remember, Charlie, the explosion of the Tea Party. So up until the Obamacare bill came along and the stimulus, the Republican Party was dead. I mean, I went and talked to Boehner and cancer and everybody about running for Congress and he was like, February of 09, and everybody had their head between their legs, like, well, I don't know, we'll never beat the Democrats ever again in our life. And then the Obamacare bill came along. You remember Boehner did that big, have you read the bill? Hell no, you haven't. Speech. Right. And that, that kind of like brought together, at least for a couple years, the opposition. Now that bill just passed that the version of that just passed out of the House of Representatives. I don't see the Democrats doing any thing. I mean, like, they're going to their old, like cutting Medicaid talking points and sure, that's going to be effective. Right. But we need a baner. Hell no, they didn't kind of moment. And now, you know, all of these Freedom Caucus. This is kind of the bad thing about the fallout between Musk and Trump is Musk, we were able to hang around Trump's neck and around the Republican neck. Now he may be divorcing himself enough that they can be like, oh, yeah, he did hold a chainsaw at cpac, but we don't like Elon Musk anymore. But yeah, I mean, the reality is the Democrats are committing malpractice in their opposition here. You know, again, our opposition, the Republican kind of Tea Party thing didn't start until, I guess, a little. Well, maybe in about a month, the equivalent of about a month from now. But I just don't see that. I don't know.
- [10:28]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I don't disagree with you. On the other hand, the Republicans seem to be going out of their way to writing ads that Democrats are going to be using. I mean, I don't know what is going through Joni Ernst's mind where she knows, asked about the medication, well, we're all going to die anyway, and then decides that she's going to non apologize with a video. I mean, help me with this video filmed in a cemetery. I was, I was at an event last night in D.C. and somebody was asking me about this and I didn't have a chance to answer it because I, I went off on a tangent about all the people whose brains have been broken. You know, when I flew to D.C. i was actually on the same plane with Ron Johnson like a few z. You know, and I was. I started talking about, like, guys who used to be normal and reasonable and their brains are broken. And, And I texted one of my friends, Ron John's on the plane. And he said, how did he get the tinfoil hat through tsa? And I said it was probably in the Czech luggage. But anyway, so Joni Ernst has this ad. That ad ought to be everywhere, not just in Iowa, but say, yeah, people are gonna die anyway. And one after another they are providing ammunition because clearly they don't know what's in the bill. They're admitting they don't know what's in the bill. The question is whether or not Democrats are gonna be able to find a way to weaponize this and do it. And I agree with you. I continue to be amazed how bad they are at all of this. And at some point, this doesn't have the feel, the reverse feel of what the Tea Party felt like in 2009. I think that's the point you're making.
- [12:06]
Adam Kinzinger
It is. And I think, look, by the way, the Republic, could you have imagined back in our old conservative days, like naming a bill, a big beautiful bill, like we were always against big bills. In fact, one of the things I fought against the right on all the time was they had this notion that we could do single subject bills only. Like where you, you know, there's only one thing. And I'm like, I fought against X. I'm like, it's stupid. You can't do it. This is a gajillion subject bill that now they're all for in fighting. And if, look, if I was Democrats right now, Charlie, I would probably put aside, unless they literally don't have the cash, but I'd put aside 30 million bucks for a nationwide ad campaign playing Joey's comments right now. Yeah, that's how you chin people up.
- [12:49]
Charlie Sykes
You know, there's all this talk about, you know, how you change your message. What do you do? Well, the first thing is you recognize that there's no such thing as the normal political cycle. The cycle is, is 247 and you need to be up on the air right now pounding on this stuff, exposing this stuff. Don't count on people knowing about it because we're talking about it or MSNBC is talk about it. You have to get the message out. So we're gonna see whether they're able to do that. But going back again to the Republicans and the, I won't say the disarray, well, there's clearly, I'm in a MAGA civil war here. So what happens to this bill? I mean, Musk has given some significant ammunition and cover to the people who are breaking with Trump. I mean, this takes place at the moment the Trump, Trump is turning the screws on. The squishes. Turning the screws on. I'm not saying he's a squish, but I mean, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, other fiscal conservatives, and here's Mr. Elon Musk coming out and saying this thing is a fucking abomination. I mean, that's gotta, that feels like a torpedo right into the heart of the Trump lobbying campaign.
- [14:01]
Adam Kinzinger
I think it is. And I think mainly because the majorities are so close. I mean, if the Republicans still had a 30, 25 seat majority I'd be like, yeah, they'll probably gut this through, you know, because the moderates always pretend like they're going to throw a fit and they never do. But I think this is so what. I think what you're going to ultimately end up seeing is a much watered down version of this. These guys are dead set on getting the tax cuts. And let me say this, as a guy that voted for the 2017 tax cuts, I believed in tax cuts then. I think it was important to do it then. That was before COVID that was before rampant inflation, high interest rates, and before we. We couldn't have even imagined in 2017 that we would hit almost 40 trillion in debt in a short amount of time. And I think, not that I'm saying we should let all the rates expire, but I think times are very different now. And this, like, orthodoxy, this Republican orthodoxy that we always have to vote for every tax cut that comes in front of us is. I think it's a little outdated now. And so the one thing I will say to people like, you know, crazy Johnson is he's out there. At least Ron Johnson, he at least stood against this. Yeah. So people like this for now. Yeah. Until. Until Trump calls him and he gets googly eyes. But I think ultimately this gets watered down into basically an extension of the tax cuts with probably a little bit of Medicaid, something like work requirements, and that's about it. I think it'll end up being basically what this thing probably was going to be from the very beginning. Again, if I will say this, though, here's a little cheat sheet for people. If the opposition is the far right, you can assume that probably there will be something change in the bill. If the opposition is the moderates, they will always collapse. They will always capitulate 100% of the time.
- [15:58]
Charlie Sykes
Oh, I think that, that, that's. That that is a safe bet. Okay. So I want to get to the bigger issues a little bit later. But, you know, in. In my newsletter that I put out this morning, actually, I did something I. Adam, I actually wrote and sent my substack newsletter from the sky from a chair.
- [16:16]
Adam Kinzinger
Oh, nice. Good for you.
- [16:18]
Charlie Sykes
Southwest, the flight from. From DC to, to. To me to Milwaukee, it's about an hour and 40 minutes and I was able to get. Get on and I actually thought I'm going to try to see if I can actually send. Send on all of this. And so that newsletter came from the sky. I know that when you're flying, you're usually flying the plane.
- [16:35]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah.
- [16:36]
Charlie Sykes
So you're not doing.
- [16:37]
Adam Kinzinger
I don't have Internet. Yeah.
- [16:40]
Charlie Sykes
Kind of a cool thing. In any case, though, you know, one of the things, I mean, talking about the abomination, but also just the incredible pettiness, you know, the pettiness is the point that our Department of Defense has taken time out from whatever else it's doing right now with the world on fire, to rename some ships. And so they're renaming the Harvey Milk because he was gay. He's a veteran. He fought. He served the United States during the Korean War. He was the San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated. They've decided that they're going to go through the list of all of the woke identity names, and they're going to change the names of the ship to make it more of the. What? The warrior ethos. And by the way, this is not a fighting ship. It's an oiler or something like that. But I don't know, the mentality that, you know, like, what do we do today? We have China, we have Russia, we have Ukraine. Let's rename the Harvey Milk. What the fuck?
- [17:35]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. I mean, it's insane. And plus this idea that the Republicans still try to pretend like we've seen the light on, you know, gay marriage and stuff and gay issues, and Trump pretends like he has, and then you do something like this. It's one thing to put out an edict that says all future ships will be named after either presidents or fallen American heroes. And I frankly think that should be the. Should be the thing that delineates it. But to turn around and say. Yeah, to turn around and say the. The Harvey Milk. There's a couple other, like, black heroes that they've named Harriet Tubman.
- [18:12]
Charlie Sykes
They're going to take away Tubman.
- [18:14]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, it's just. It's insane. This is what happens, though, Charlie, when you put not. Well, not a whole entertainment complex in the White House, but specifically an entertainer at DOD where he's just sitting around thinking, how can I produce a Fox News week with my power? That's all it is. It's performative.
- [18:35]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, no, it's all performative. And it is kind of you. We're talking about the, you know, the culture wars and everything. They're more excited about stuff like this than they are about whether or not they're going to be expanding the deficit. Okay, so today, today, the day that you and I are speaking, the new steel tariffs go into effect, and, you know, neither you or I are economists or play them on television. I actually had Justin Wolfers on the other day, the interesting thing about steel tariffs is you can certainly understand the political attraction because, look, you have a steel industry, it's going to be great for, you know, people who work in the steel factories can be great for Pittsburgh. On the other hand, the ratio of jobs in industries that use steel to make steel is 80 to 1. That for every. And again, this is, you know, back of the envelope, non economist talk. But for every, you know, steel job you might be helping or saving, you may be putting at risk 80 other jobs. And so all of the industries in America that buy and use steel, like the car industry now, are going, this is going to be expensive. This is going to be a, this is going to be a problem. Trump is touting, you know, the protectionism and all the economists are saying, you understand that this is a net loser. But he doesn't get that at all.
- [19:54]
Adam Kinzinger
He doesn't get it or care, like, because they sound good. Steel tariffs sound good. Of all the tariffs, they sound the best. Yeah, it's just like Pennsylvania. And look, here's the deal with steel tariffs. I do think there's a role for them in, you know, for instance, when I my early days in Congress, one of the big issues was China dumping steel, right? So they were subsidizing steel exporting. I think it's important to put tariffs on China, whatever the equivalent would be of their dumping. So in essence they end up basically subsidizing our tariffs, if you look at it that way. So that's like using tariffs as a way to level the playing fields. Important. And even if you decide we need to protect U. S. Steel industry, you start with small tariffs and you keep them there. Here's the problem. Charlie and I watched a video of some guy that makes, it's like basically like kind of a small vending machine. And he makes them in China. And he was going through, he said, so here in China, I can buy the steel, they can polish it with a certain polish that the United States doesn't even do. And you know, he went on to that stuff, he said, I have reached out to steel companies in the United States and all of them have said, how much steel do you need? He said, I told them and they're like, it's not enough for our time. It's not worth our time. So now think about it. As a US Steel company, you're sitting here going, okay, we can make X amount of steel. Now we get these tariffs. So the demand, everybody's going to ask us if we can sell them steel so we can raise our own prices. We can be choosy. We're only going to pick the people that are going to buy enough steel from us. And what does that do is it makes the small manufacturers that still need steel that can't compete with the big purchasers of steel, they now have to go to China and pay the 50% tariff.
- [21:41]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, so let's talk about China, because this is very interesting. Trump put out a bleed or whatever you call it. He's supposed to talk to President Xi sometimes this week, and he says, I like President Xi of China. Always have, always will. But he is a all in caps, very tough and extremely hard to make a deal with. Trump wrote early Wednesday. So he's very tough and extremely hard to make a deal with now. Now, which is interesting because, you know, Trump is the, you know, guy that wrote the art of the deal or had his ghostwriter write the art of the deal. And now he's going, this guy's Xi. I mean, I've sucked up to him quite a bit, but he's, he's tough. I don't know, that can make. I can make a deal. And then he basically goes on to say, you know, that, you know, I made a fast deal with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation. And I didn't want to see that happen, he wrote. But the interesting thing about China is, I think it's starting to dawn on people I know, I get your take on all of this, that the Chinese are, in fact, going to be tough to negotiate because they have a much higher tolerance and they hold a lot of cards. I mean, I think there was a little bit of bluster going in saying, we are the big dog, we are the market. If we don't buy their stuff, they're screwed. But I don't know if you saw what the New York Times been writing about the rare earth minerals. And I'm not claiming I'm an expert on all of this. In fact, I feel like I'm a member of Congress, you know, just suddenly discovering stuff, just pretending. Yeah, no, I mean, China essentially has a lock on, you know, incredibly valuable rare earth minerals. There are 17 types of metals known as rare earths, and they're, you know, found near the bottom of the periodic table. They're very, very rare, but essential for a lot of American industry and the defense industry. China mines 70%, 7 0% of the world's rare earths, but China does the chemical processing for 90% of the world's rare earths because it refines all of its own ore and also practically all of Myanmar's in nearly half of U.S. production. So in other words, they have lots and lots and lots of stuff that we desperately need. And since April, they've basically kind of put a break on all of this since April. 7 kinds of rare earth metals. And again, we make these very powerful, very specific magnets from them. They basically say we're not going to be shipping them anymore. And they're sitting there, they're not going away. And it seems to be dawning on a lot of people in American business and industry that they're not acting like a country that's about to blink.
- [24:22]
Adam Kinzinger
What do you know? They're not. They're not. And think. I think Trump's tweet is a, or his bleed is a reaction to being called Taco. I think he, I think that is killing him, by the way. So he's trying to put out a reason for it and everything. But look, we, this is the problem is China and basically cornering this market on rare earth. And I think it's 300 pounds of every F35 fighter jet has rare earth minerals exclusively in China. And so, you know, that's the jet that's supposed to fight China. They have spent 20 years cornering this market. You know, obviously the disadvantage of democracy and four year election terms is we don't think long term China does and China can. But at least we usually have a president that at least thinks far enough ahead into his four year term. This guy isn't doing that. And, and so it's going to take us a long time if we want to cut back into the rare earth minerals. So first off, my lefty environmentalists aren't going to like this, but we have a lot in the United States that we need to open up for mining as well. This was a big reason many of us also were against leaving Afghanistan, was Afghanistan has a ton of rare earth minerals that could have been beneficial to us. Instead, China has moved in and cut a deal with the Taliban. And on top of this, China, on top of having a higher pain threshold, they also have taken advantage of the fact that simultaneous to us taking on China, we've taken on the rest of the world. And so now China has been able to build trust, goodwill and in some cases trade deals with the people that we should have been strengthening trade deals with as we took on China. I would be all for this fight if it was us against China. We're joining the Trans Pacific Partnership. We're strengthening our alliances with Europe. We're doubling our investment in USAID to make sure that our soft power is very important. If we're doing all of that, we can beat China. We can't when we're on an island. And this clown has put us on an island, and now he's begging for a reason to back out. And his reason is that she is not negotiating with him. Is he really that bad at business that he gets beat simply because somebody just isn't negotiating with him? Like, God, I wish I would have built the Trump Tower and had him try to short me 30% on that, because I'd just be like, oh, I'm not negotiating. And he'd be like, oh, Kinzinger drives such a hard bargain. And he'd pay me 120% of what it costs to build the tower. I mean, it's insane that people still think this guy's a serious person.
- [27:02]
Charlie Sykes
Well, that was a really good explanation, though, of the flaw in all of this, that America first becomes America alone. You're gonna take on China when they have that many cars? You can win that, but you need allies. But America first, if it becomes America alone, means that exactly the kinds of people that you need to have your back to have a, you know, go shoulder to shoulder, you've been alienated from them. So instead, what have we spent the last few months doing talking about Canada and Denmark, by the way, I spoke kind of a travel group yesterday, and I said, we want to get a sense of how just crazy the world is. You all know this. It's like just two words, Canada and Denmark. You know, of all of the countries in the world that we had to antagonize, you know, why would we pick on that, you know, the nicest countries. Does anybody in this room know anyone who hated or was angry at the Canadians? And yet we are at the Canadians. And then we went to Denmark. We're going to take away Greenland and all of that stuff. Well, meanwhile, there is a real, you know, geopolitical rival and foe out there. The Chinese and the. And there's been a recognition of this, as you point out. You know, the Pentagon spent about almost a half of alfa. Well, spent $439 million to establish a domestic rare earth element supply chain in the last five years. We know we have a real problem, but we are still in the infant stage of production. So instead of waiting for that to ramp up so that we're in a stronger position, instead of strengthening those alliances, we've just gone off on our own. So this is one of those moments where I think Trump blunders into this, thinks, you know, I'm so strong I'm going to take on China or Xi's my buddy and he's going to do me a solid and all this and suddenly realizing, you know what, the Chinese really are in a stronger position than we are. And the threshold being just one of them.
- [28:58]
Adam Kinzinger
And I want to add like even another layer on this which is to me actually more chilling than the economic side, which is China and Russia have developed secretly a strong alliance. We're now seeing Ukraine is now showing basically videos of Chinese weapons that are being being flown into, into Russia. China has decided to allow Russia to come in and recruit its citizens to join the Russian military. They're not preventing that. Like India has North Korea on top of this, which obviously has, has donated close to 7,000,123 artillery rounds as well as a bunch of other stuff as well as 20,000 men. And then Iran with its Shaheed drone production and ballistic missiles, which is why Russia has not run out of that stuff. You have create genuine axis of evil now. This is no longer about the United States taking on China. This is now an axis of evil versus the rest of the world. And we have abdicated that. And we've basically told Europe, you guys are the ones that have to back Ukraine now against Russia. But the under, the thing we have to think about is it's now Europe against Russia, China, North Korea and Iran and we've walked away. Even Donald Trump with Iran was all talking tough about how we're going to bomb Iran and, and now he's negotiating JCPOA too. Like this guy is his inability to see the playing field for what it is or his lack of care, whichever it is, it's equally as destructive. But I really think in 10 or 20 years, your grandkids, my grandkids are going to be fighting the war against this axis power we're seeing. Right?
- [30:39]
Charlie Sykes
Oh man, I sure hope you're wrong about that. Okay, so let's talk about Ukraine and what happened over the weekend. I know know you've posted about an extraordinary 48, 72 hours, Ukraine launches this massive complete surprise drone attack on many of the long range bombers, we don't know how many were destroyed. And then blow up the Kerch Bridge, the, you know, the Vladimir Putin's bridge, you know, linking Crimea. So just give me your thoughts about that because I know you've been talking about that. This was, I don't Know, I mean, certainly at least a very significant symbolic victory feels like a substantive one as well. But your take, you follow it more closely than I do.
- [31:19]
Adam Kinzinger
This is a strategic victory. And so a tactical victory would be like Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russia. A strategic victory is like we're changing the pieces on the field. And the fact that this was so successful. Let's think about this. This a third of Russians and we do have confirmation now of the numbers because they. Ukraine just put out a video with basically all these hits. And one of the biggest one is against an A50. And there's actually two hits against an A50, which is the equivalent of our AWAX, which is airborne command and control. Without getting into too much details, they now don't have enough to basically protect Moscow's airspace and the front line, immense. And they're not making these anymore. And so each of these bombers that was blown up have also been bombers that have delivered cruise missiles against civilian targets in Ukraine. So each one of these hits, so anybody out there that's like, oh my gosh, this is escalation. First off, it's not escalation. According to the law of war, which Russia of course doesn't follow, these are legitimate targets. A target of war. There is nothing illegal, wrong, unethical about this in a war. What is unethical is Russia's inevitable response against civilians. And, and so this is, I would honestly say, Charlie, this is as game changing for Ukraine as the pager attack was for the Israelis against Hezbollah. This is the kind of thing where you see that the Israelis had planned that for years. They basically decapitated the leadership of Hezbollah and destroyed them. This thing Ukraine has planned for years, this now takes Russia, which had limited air defense because they've been destroyed and depleted. Russia was defending basically Moscow, and then within like 500km of the front line, they now have to defend the entire country of the Soviet Union of Russia, which is entirely too large to do that. I just saw before we got on, in fact, there's videos coming out of mile long queues of trucks on interstates because they're now paranoid and searching all these trucks. So you look at what it's doing to commerce, not to mention the fact that Ukraine on that same day, it just didn't get as much attention. Took out two bridges that were basically essential for train traffic to the front. Yep. And, and so this is game changing. So let's just take a quick look at three years. Very quick. They sunk the Moskva, the flagship of Without a navy, the flagship of Russia. We thought the Black Sea was going to be closed. They cleared the Black Sea of Russia, Russia. They had a counteroffensive. They've killed or captured or wounded a million Russians. A million. And they just destroyed a third of the strategic bomber force of Russia. So this is crushing for Russian morale, amazing for Ukrainian morale. And actually now this is going to affect Russia's ability to deliver cruise missiles into Ukraine and certainly crush its ability to protect its own skies.
- [34:23]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and also, you know, was an interesting commentary on Donald Trump's jibe that, you know, you don't have any cards to play. You don't have any cards to play. By the way, I thought one of the most ironic things was when J.D. vance tweeted out that Ukraine had just done us a favor because they took out some of the jets that had been some of the long range bombers that had been buzzing Alaska. And so I kind of wonder, when is JD gonna thank, you know, Volodymyr Zelensky wants, is he gonna thank him at all? But here's a point that I would just wanna to go back to is how different and asymmetrical the Ukrainian attacks are from the Russian attacks. And there's a Russian blog, I mean, sorry, a Ukrainian blogger named Victor Kravchuk, you may see him on Substack as well. And he wrote something interesting. He said, we launched one of the biggest operations deep into Russia. Dozens of successful strikes. Some targets were 4,000km away. But tell me, did you see a single image of a bombed apartment apartment, A Russian mother screaming in the dust, a Russian child buried in bricks? No, because we don't hit civilians. We fight to live, not to destroy. And I think that that was really a statement to the world as well.
- [35:35]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I mean, think about this. So they were able to sneak in miraculously and, and blow up 1100 tons of TNT and the Kerch Bridge. They could do that to a, they could do that to an apartment building in Moscow if they wanted to. They could level that, kill a couple hundred people. People, Right. Like that's vengeance. They're not doing that. And, and so this is what, this is what's amazing about Ukraine is when the war started, I think they were producing 5 to 10% of their own defense material. Now, by the way, they are the largest army in Europe, just to be clear, partially because they're mobilized, but they are the largest army in Europe. And, and so, you know, they had nothing. Now they're producing about 40% of what they need to fight, fight. 4 million a year. 4 million first person view drones. I mean, this is. By the way, we've advanced warfare 30 years and three.
- [36:29]
Charlie Sykes
This was. My next question was you get the sense that the wars of the future are being fought out right there between Ukraine and Russia. And it really felt as if Ukraine had rewritten the rules of modern warfare. So there was some immediate. It kind of. I mean, a little bit of paranoia among Americans saying, you know, what if Ukraine can do that to Russia, could China someday do that to the United States? Could some of these cargo ships pull up and open up and have, you know, thousands of drones? You ever seen videos of the Chinese drones, what the Chinese can do with their drones?
- [37:02]
Adam Kinzinger
And we can do the same, by the way. Well, I know.
- [37:06]
Charlie Sykes
So, I mean, this is. There's vulnerabilities that we hadn't really thought about. You still have Donald Trump talking about the Golden Dome, and I'm not against missile defense, but that may be completely obsolete in. In, you know, in an era of AI and drone warfare.
- [37:23]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. Let me go even a step further. First off, I think the future of war is going to be World War I and drones. I think what you're seeing in Ukraine is the future of war movement is going to become impossible. And so you end up, in essence, these wars of attrition because it's just these cheap drones. Now, here's the other thing. So what's our thought? Well, okay, if there's drones, probably our defense needs to be jamming. Right? That makes sense. Except now in Ukraine, both sides are using fiber optic drones. They have this really thin line of fiber optic that's about 4km long, spooled up. The drone takes off. They fly the first person drone, unjammable. Unless you can somehow come with scissors and cut that line, which you can't. And so what you see in battlefields now in Ukraine is it's littered with strings because these are unjammable drones. And so let's now put that into effect in the United States of America. Milwaukee, okay. Your backyard. That's where I flew the KC135. Okay. For. I flew that for two years at General Mitchell Airport, just a civilian airport. Out on the ramp at any given time are 5 or 6 KC 135 lives.
- [38:36]
Charlie Sykes
I saw them coming in. Flying in today. Yeah.
- [38:39]
Adam Kinzinger
Yep. Now, about 200 yards from that is a civilian road outside of the gate. Okay. So you see where I'm going with this isis, Anybody? Some. Some domestic terrorists could pull up with an explosive drone or six and fly them right into those tankers. Every Air National Guard base, by the way, with the exception of like F35 bases, have exposed large, heavy metal out in the open. So maybe DOD should be taking this and now figuring out how to harden National Guard Reserve active duty units against this kind of attack and not renaming the Harvey Milk. This needs to be what we're thinking about right now. And, and look, we are really good at drone warfare. Ten years ago that I saw a video recently of testing drones, drone swarms, and we're amazing at it. Ten years ago, which means we're magical at it now. But, but the defense of the drones is what we're not good at. And I don't see anybody really thinking this through. That's going to take gajillions of dollars, by the way, to harden every, you know, Air National Guard base against these kinds of attacks.
- [39:47]
Charlie Sykes
Well, and also to develop the battery technology for the drones of the future. I saw a post by Noah Smith saying for some reason some of the folks in MAGA are deciding that battery technology is kind of hippie dippy or something. That it's, you know, there's a wokeness to it which is totally ins. Because the batteries. Yeah, they're so stupid. Because the batteries are going to be really, really crucial. Well, in so many different aspects of. So in terms of what should we be doing as a country to make ourselves great again? You have things like the drones, the warfare, and instead, you know, as you and I are speaking, the Department of Defense is deciding which black woman should not have a ship named after. And by the way, we were talking about her being milk. Good. I gotta just mention the irony of Donald Trump's obsession with continuing to name military bases and things after Confederate generals, but not against. I mean, this is what. I'm sorry, go ahead.
- [40:42]
Adam Kinzinger
It's insane. It's insane. Let's. I want to jump on the battery thing just real quick. So yeah, imagine if we're at war now, you know, we're literally launching millions of drones. I mean, that's what it's going to come down to. Each drone has a battery. What makes a battery? Rare earth mineral. So now you see, were going what we were talking about 20 minutes ago with China. Now the good news is Doe has been having these pilot programs to basically figure out how to do storage without the rare earth minerals or recycling old stuff. Those grants are being canceled now by Doge. The stuff that is being spent to figure out how do we do batteries without rare earth minerals, which, you know, if Jesus came down, he could show us a way to do it so it's doable. But you've got to spend money and science time to get there. That's what Doge is canceling. So not only didn't we save any money with Doge, because now, by the way, we're going to have to spend more to do what they effed up. Yes, we're going to be, we're going to be stunted at least five years in things like battery technology.
- [41:42]
Charlie Sykes
Well, this is, this of course, is the tragedy of Doge. We know when you had these, you know, drug addled kids running around you know, with hammers in the, in the china shop, they just, they were breaking, breaking things. They did not understand, they did not know what they were doing, they did not know the damage that they were doing. We are going to spend years picking up the pieces from all of that. And you just have to hope that they didn't destroy some, some or, you know, cancel some kind of research that will be the key to what we need in the future. Adam Kinzinger, it is always a pleasure. This was a substantive discussion. Today you brought your A game. I really appreciate that.
- [42:17]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, thanks man. Thanks for having me.
- [42:19]
Charlie Sykes
And thanks for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. You know why we're doing this? Once again, to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [42:40]
Unknown
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Charlie Sykes
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Unknown
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- [44:41]
Charlie Sykes
Night.
- [44:41]
Unknown
But it's not just for food. I order from CVS all the time. I'm always ordering from the grocery store. If a friend stops over, I have to order champagne. I also have this thing that whenever I travel, if I'm ever in a hotel room, I never feel like I'm missing something because I'll just Uber Eats it. The amount of times I've had to Uber Eats hair items like hairspray, deodorant, you name it, I've ordered it on Uber Eats Eats. You can get grocery alcohol everyday essentials in addition to restaurants and food you love. So in other words, get almost anything with Uber Eats. Order now for alcohol you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
- [45:26]
Charlie Sykes
Hi, it's Dani Pellegrino from Everything Iconic and I couldn't help but wonder when is the official and Just like that podcast coming back?
- [45:34]
Adam Kinzinger
Back?
- [45:34]
Charlie Sykes
Well, it's back baby.
- [45:36]
Adam Kinzinger
And Just like that is back on Max. And so is the official podcast. Each week on In Just like that.
- [45:43]
Charlie Sykes
The Writers Room join writer, director and.
- [45:45]
Adam Kinzinger
Executive producer Michael Patrick King as he.
- [45:48]
Charlie Sykes
Unpacks every episode after it airs on Max. Listen to and Just like that, the Writers Room on Max or wherever you get your podcasts.