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- [00:01]
Advertisement Voice
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- [00:30]
Adam Kinzinger
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- [01:01]
Charlie Sykes
Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy John underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe, thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands and their innovative horizontal Quick Draw fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to tommyjohn.com today for 25% off your first order with COD. That's tommyjohn.com comfort Tommy John comfort Perfected welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We still have chaos at the airports, which amazingly has not been solved by the deployment of ICE agents to our airports. Meanwhile, we're all wondering, are we actually talking with Iran? Are there negotiations with Iran or is Trump just simply making that up? Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham says the Trump should invade Kharg island, citing the invasion of Iwo Jima, saying, we took Iwo Jima, why not take Carg Island? Editor's Note Here the invasion of Iwo Jima cost the lives of 7,000 U.S. marines. 20,000 more Marines were wounded, another indication that maybe Lindsey Graham is going through some things. So we have a lot to talk about today. And joining us today, our good friend Adam Kinzinger. How are you, Adam?
- [02:30]
Adam Kinzinger
Good man, how are you?
- [02:32]
Charlie Sykes
I always answer day by day, which I think is an honest answer. Honest and fair answer. So, you know, at the risk of having events overtake us, since whatever's happening with Iran could change within the next hour. Donald Trump over the weekend via social media posts, of course, because that's how war is waged and diplomacy conducted these days, says that he was giving the Iranians a 48 hour warning that if they did not open the Strait of Hormuz, he was going to start destroying their energy infrastructure, which sounds very Putinesque, considered a war crime. Backed off on that this morning. Give me some sense of what's happening right now because we still don't have clear objectives or how the hell this thing ends. But give me your take of as you and I are speaking, where are we at?
- [03:22]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, look, I think, and I want to talk about specifically the energy stuff, but let me just say where we're at today, I think Donald Trump is desperately looking for a way out. I think despite the fact that he's completely psycho, I think he understands that until Iran agrees to open the straight, he either has to force it open. You know, there's a host of ways to do it, none of which are going to be easy, or he has to have them convinced basically to lift the straight. Because all it takes, Charlie, is one dude with a man pad to show an intention and that's it. The straight is close because insurers won't cover the shipping life. Here's something nobody's talked about is life insurers are saying, if you man a boat, we will not cover that journey if you're killed in that. So, you know, if you're a sailor, you're going to be like, well, I'm not taking that. And I mean, people are humans, they have a right to make decisions. And so, you know, you're kind of stuck with either a negotiation with Iran, which I actually think it's in Iran's interest to probably be like, fine, we'll open it. You know, stop this or you've got to continue to escalate until this is open. The energy thing specifically the danger in that. So one of the reasons that the Middle east is kind of coalescing slightly, I guess is maybe the right word against Iran is because Iran is just reaching out and bombing everything in the Middle East. Energy infrastructure can only be attacked by the laws of war if it is a military necessity. So we would do this, for instance, when we invaded Iraq, I think both times we took it out because you want to drop the light so that you have the advantage of night vision goggles. But understand and think about after the Iraq war in, oh, three, we spent the rest of our time There rebuilding the very infrastructure we took out. So it's not like, you know, we get to watch this thing blow up. It's fun, the lights go out, then you have to rebuild it. And the other thing is the Iranian people ostensibly are on our side in this. And I think it's important for our friends on the left to remember this, too, which is they hate their government there generally. And the fastest way to turn the population against you is to deprive them of power. I mean, you and I know you live in Wisconsin, I live in Texas. We. Texas has huge energy grid problems. If the lights go out for a day here, I mean, you know, they're going to have to deploy police on the streets because people are angry. It's no different in Iran. And I think Donald Trump, in his typical verbios, okay, fine, they're blowing up stuff, we're going to blow up their stuff. And then saw the reaction in the markets, right. Probably had a general or two tell him that would be a war crime. And then he's looking for a way out.
- [06:08]
Charlie Sykes
I'm not sure he cared about being told it was a war crime. I mean, I think there were obviously two, you know, two impulses there. People saying, you know, that does violate international humanitarian law. I don't think Donald Trump cares about that at all. But the markets clearly were responding. And also people were saying, you know, when you destroy this infrastructure, the damage will last for years. You know, it makes it much more difficult for you to take that off ramp to extract yourself from this. And, you know, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the impact on the economy is not going to be short term. It's not like Donald Trump can hit a switch and everything is going to go back. I see Justin Wolfer saying that this will hold down GDP growth for 2026 into 2027, and that's as of now. So I'm guessing that that's what caused him to taco. Do you think there are actual negotiations going on there? Because that was kind of weird, the Iranians saying, no, we're not talking to you. Yeah, yeah.
- [07:06]
Adam Kinzinger
I think both are right. I think probably the Iranians are correct in saying they're not talking to Donald Trump. And I want to be careful because I don't want to get in the mode of trusting the Iranians. But Donald Trump has not made himself trustworthy. Let's be pretty clear. And my guess is, and it appears kind of early indications that there's negotiations going on through, you know, third parties, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar. Well, I think they're kind of whoever, there's these third parties, they're probably passing messages. In Donald Trump's mind, he's having a negotiation with Iran. In Iran's mind, they're not having negotiations. And that's probably how both can be, right? And I think, though, here's the interesting thing. I mean, what this has revealed is just, you know, first off, how much better we are actually positioned in energy in this world in our country than we were in the 70s, for instance. That's a good thing. How dumb some of our rules are. For instance, you cannot take liquefied natural gas from Texas and move it to the Northeast unless it's on an American made LNG ship because of the Jones act, which by the way, there's no American made LNG ship, so you have to import from Russia. So Donald Trump probably correctly suspended the Jones act for two months. But the other thing is there's, there's a lot of things going on that we're unaware of or not talking enough about, which is the world helium supply has taken a massive hit. And this is more than just you and I have in party balloons for our parties. This is, this stuff I think in a way goes into MRIs. It's certainly important in supercomputers and microprocessing. I have no idea how, but that's what I'm told. And a significant amount of the world's helium comes through the Middle east and is now offline for as long as that liquefied natural gas plant is, which they're saying, according to Qatar, is three to five years. So the impacts that are going to hit here are not just in the energy markets, but it's in all these second and third order effects that I don't think we understand yet, especially at a time, Charlie, when the US Economy has been like, to use a pilot term, kind of on the buffet, a stall. And this is like the, you know, the one thing we don't need right now.
- [09:18]
Charlie Sykes
So let's talk about the Lindsey Graham urging, urging Trump to put boots on the ground in Carg Island. Obviously, you know, key to the, you know, the inner energy flow from, from the Middle East. But the weird analogy, we took Iwo Jima, we can take Carg Island. I, you know, I, I keep maybe joking a little bit, but I don't think it is that, that Lindsey Graham is going through something. I mean, maybe just a primary campaign, but I'm not sure that you want to be raising the specter of one of the bloodiest battles in American History. Unless he was trying to say that, hey, if we could do Iwo Jima, you know, Carg island is going to be easy. It's going to be a cakewalk. We'll be greeted as liberators. But your thoughts there? Because we are sending Marines in that direction.
- [10:01]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, and I'll talk about that operation because I think it may be necessary. But like, I think Lindsey Graham is losing his mind. And I think this happens you, these people because you as a former kind of conservative commentator, like me being a conservative, like, we know these people that had to sell their soul and instead of coming to terms with it, they kind of self destruct. Right. They. I know a lot of people that have like turned to drinking heavily. I think in Lindsay's case, it may be that as well. But also just this, like, lean in three times harder on it and try to sound like a man. And, and, and Lindsay will talk about how he served in the military. And I don't want to take this away from him. Also want to distinguish. He was a JAG officer. A JAG officer. He didn't go through the full officer training. He went through what we jokingly call salute and scoot, where it's like maybe three weeks just to learn how to be an officer, generally how to operate. So he's never seen combat. And, and to him it just, you know, he comes out very verbose in this. And, and, and it's, it's sad. Especially like, look, I think the car Guyland. If I quantum leaped in the Donald Trump's body, which would be a freaking nightmare, but if I quantum leap into Donald Trump's body and my task from God was in this war in a way that at least it's in America's favor. Okay, what would I do? And I think the one thing I would do short of invading, you know, the whole, the whole strait, which you don't really. That's going to be bloody, is take Carg island and use that as a bargaining chip to reopen the strait. Because that is like grabbing Iran by their, by their man parts because 90% of their oil exports go through that.
- [11:47]
Charlie Sykes
That is boots on the ground.
- [11:48]
Adam Kinzinger
That would be boots on the ground.
- [11:50]
Charlie Sykes
That is the one thing that I'm guessing that when he began this war, he did not want to do. But once again, we have the logic of war that leads people to do things that were pretty much unthinkable. Look, this is a very, very unpopular war to begin with. When you have Marines on the ground, unless it is a completely, you know, Blitzkrieg. No. No casualties whatsoever. That's kind of a nightmare scenario as well.
- [12:14]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it is, it is.
- [12:15]
Charlie Sykes
I mean, there's no easy solution here.
- [12:17]
Adam Kinzinger
There isn't. And I think it would be. I mean, just being honest, I think it'll be judged by the outcome. Right. If he. If it's like Maduro and we wake up and we all of a sudden have Carg island, very few shots were fired. Americans will say it was brilliant. If all of a sudden you have dead Marines, we won't. I do think we can probably take the island pretty easily. I don't want to say easily because there will be a cost, but I think that is short of invading the coastline of the strait. And then the question is, so you invade the coastline, which is very mountainous, so it's Afghanistan, basically. And then all of a sudden, what? So you've pushed five miles out in land, and then now you have to push a buffer. That's like the airport security problem. Right? You want to start, you keep moving security out, and next thing you know, you're sitting there in the middle of Tehran. So there is no answer here. I think the best way Donald Trump has out is to, frankly, and I hate to hear it, because it makes me sick, but to negotiate with Iran to reopen the strait in exchange for something, or take Carg island and pray it's enough pain on Iran to then force a negotiation. But I want to be clear. I would not have launched this war. Not that I would have never launched this war, because I think there's a case to be made for hitting Iran while they were weak. But he made no effort to sell this to the American people. And I think clearly made no effort to think through the worst case scenario, because the worst case scenario is what happened, and it was probably the most likely to happen anyway.
- [13:47]
Charlie Sykes
Well, yes, and this is the logic of escalation, is that you get in and you illustrated it perfectly well that, that you say, well, we'll just do a small buffer along the coastline, and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And clearly he did not think. He did not have a plan B, doesn't have a plan C. The best case scenario is for him to find some exit ramp, you know, some. Some fig leaf. But unfortunately, that will also mean that the regime will stay in power. I don't think that that feels like it's off the table. The idea that we're going to be toppling this theocratic regime, that. That is. That is not going to happen. And the Iranians can make, you know, promises. Yeah, we promise that we won'. Nuked, we promise that we won't do this or that. But anything that buys them time might be in their interest.
- [14:33]
Advertisement Voice
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- [15:03]
Charlie Sykes
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stock safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Chris? Okay, so I want to get to the and I know you and I have both commented on this over the weekend, Donald Trump's insult of Robert Mueller, which I do not want to pass over, but you mentioned something else that's going on. Let's talk about the airports. I know this is something that you understand well as a pilot. Just give me your sense of how bad things are at the airport and what the deployment of ICE agents to the airport will do or not do.
- [16:05]
Adam Kinzinger
So the deployment of ICE agents is clearly because they can't do screening the issues at the airports. And I can talk also about what happened in LaGuardia, but the screening at the airports are done by professional screeners. Right. People that go through training ICE can maybe stand there, but they can't go through your bag. They can't be the ones that look at the screen. They can't be the ones that wave you through the metal detector. So what's the point? The point is there. Yeah, to intimidate. I mean that's why Donald Trump is sending them, because he knows the left hates ice. And so now if he puts ice, he's doing a carg island operation. Right. He's trying to make it painful to squeeze the, the Democrats to, to come to the table, which they have been but to relentless on this funding. And I've flown A handful of times since the shutdown. I've never had an issue at TSA yet, but I see the same videos you do. These people are, look, it is a job where even if you work a ton of overtime, you're not going to make a ton of money. I have not heard, and I've had my interactions with TSA that are less than pleasant, but at least in these last few incidents, they have been nothing but polite, nothing but professional. And I fully expected they'd be sitting there going, you know, I'm not getting paid for this. Right. But, but, but they're doing it. They're sticking with it. But this is going to be a huge problem here pretty soon, I think.
- [17:29]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, it is going to be a problem. So. So who has the political upper hand? I always hate to go to the punditry here, but, I mean, there are some people who say, look, if anything, you know, goes badly wrong, the Democrats will be on the hook. I don't see it that way. I think that Donald Trump owns this. We had that report yesterday from Punchbowl News that John Thune went to him and said, hey, we can actually fund all of the, you know, the Department of Homeland Security, with the exception of ice, means we'll get funding for this. How about we do that? And Trump says, no, absolutely not. You know, I want to keep, you know, this game of political chicken. So Donald Trump could fund tsa, could get those men and women paid, and he's choosing not to because what. He wants ICE to continue to be the. The brute squads that it has been.
- [18:17]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I think this is where the Democrats maybe, I'll always say should do a better job messaging. You know, part of it could just be that they have been messaging and it's not getting out. But like, the point of, hey, we're not against tsa, of course we want to fund tsa. So keep trying to put up those bills that do everything but fund ICE and then make the connector point, which is, we're not actually trying to defund ICE here, but there's a lot of things that Americans know are wrong, I. E. Ice, we masks, ICE not identifying themselves. ICE being able to come into your house with an administrative versus a legal warrant, and as long as they can keep hammering that, it puts them in the right position. I think, yes, if, if there is a terrorist attack, probably Donald Trump will take the blame simply because he's in charge of the country as, as people perceive. We hopefully never get to that point. But, yeah, I think ultimately, I mean, the Democrats Won the last DHS shutdown. I think it's pretty clear. And so, yeah, I think Donald Trump. Well, ultimately the Republicans are going to have to, to relent on that. But I, you know, when it gets down to the pain at the airports, I mean, there are powerful people that fly all the time.
- [19:28]
Charlie Sykes
Right.
- [19:28]
Adam Kinzinger
That this is going to start bringing some real pressure. And especially again, you know, when, when these agents are just like having to be on food stamps and they're actually making the money, they're just not allowed to have the money is, you know, ridiculous.
- [19:43]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I was, I have to fly on, on, on Sunday and or at least, you know, theoretically fly on Sunday. I was thinking of bringing a care package, you know, to the tsh and it's just a, you know, like, hey, I know you guys aren't getting paid or anything. By the way, to your point about influential people, do you remember when they announced was a few weeks ago, they announced early on a Sunday morning that they were eliminating all, you know, TSA PreCheck.
- [20:06]
Adam Kinzinger
Yes. Yeah.
- [20:08]
Charlie Sykes
And, and, and the, the blowback was so intense, they backed off on that within hours. So you could figure the people who were on the phone saying, you are not screwing with me and I'm speaking of the Department of Homeland Security. Adam, your thoughts about the appointment of Mark Wayne Mullen as secretary? I mean, this is not like an undercovered story, but it is still extraordinary that, you know, we all, you know, Kristi Noem was deplorable. What does Donald Trump do? He points somebody who I think is arguably one of the two or three dumbest members of the Senate. And we saw that at the hearing. But, you know, the choice of Mark Wayne Mullen at this time in our history, domestically and internationally, Mark Wayne Mueller to be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
- [20:47]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. Well, I think first off, it goes to show that any notion that Donald Trump wants to bring the temperature down from DHS or for ICE is just not the case. Right. If you want to bring the temperature down, you put, I don't know anybody else in there in that position. Mark Wayne Mullen's the guy that threatened to fight the union leader, which creepily he's now friends with. And that just goes, that's just guys, I guess we always do that fight and then become friends. But Markway Mullen is dumb. Mark Wayne Mullen needs to answer and unfortunately he's not going to be forced to because Fetterman voted to pass him through the, through the committee. Mark Wayne Mullen needs to answer to what this Weird supposed war experience he has is he's told me personally, like, kind of whispered in the gym that even though I'm not allowed to talk about anything said in the gym. So let's say in the hallway. He whispered in the hallway like he just got back from overseas and always had me convinced that he was some, you know, contractor back in the day. And from what I'm understanding, that's not true. So there, you know, look, as people can embellish war stories, I get that. But to sit there and. And potentially lie about this or not answer the question is important. Not to mention his temperament. Not to mention the fact that his first reaction when Mr. Preddy was shot or. Or Mr. Good or Ms. Alex, the Preddy and good shootings was basically like they deserved it. This is a guy to turn up the temperature. Now, look, if God came down and said, adam, you have two choices. Christy Gnome or Mark Wayne Mullen, I probably would pick Mullen. But that's. No, that's not, because I think he's any good.
- [22:23]
Charlie Sykes
Like death. Death by arsenic or death by woodchipper.
- [22:26]
Adam Kinzinger
Exactly. Like, take your pick.
- [22:27]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, yeah, you get to choose.
- [22:30]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I'd probably take arsenic, by the way. Wood chipper. Unless you go head first. Seems like it'd be too much.
- [22:35]
Charlie Sykes
I think I probably would too. But that, basically that's where I felt in some of the elections. So, speaking of lowering the temperature, and again, I mentioned this in my livestream yesterday with Matt Lewis, that over the weekend you saw this one bleep by Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Now, with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the radical left, highly incompetent Democrat Party. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Now, with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy is the Democrat Party. So, you know, Phillips o', Brien, who you talked to the other day, said, you know, calling the opposition party the greatest enemy of a country is exactly what wannabe dictators do to justify seizing power. It also seems to kind of open the door to, what are you gonna do, bomb them? Are you going to take out their leaders? What the hell? So no lowering of temperature.
- [23:29]
Adam Kinzinger
It's not even. He didn't even say the defeat of Iran. Therefore, we need to defeat the Democrats. That would still be wrong. But the death of Iran, now we pivot to the next enemy. And what you're basically saying is, death to that enemy. And by the way, what else does that say? China and Russia. I mean, clearly, Donald Trump has no problem with Russia, but he pretends to have a problem with China, but China and Russia are better friends to Donald Trump than simply the loyal opposition. And I mean, it is the. The danger of this. I mean, you know, look, I think the thing you and I can kind of absorb this because we know who he is. We know the counter example because we live during prior presidents. But the problem is, is kids that are 25 years old that don't remember a political world before there was a Donald Trump in it. This is just reality to them. This is just what happens in politics. How do you convince them? I put out a video about how, like, in our hearts, we have a battle between light and darkness every day. And someday the darkness wins. Right? And some days the light wins. But for the light to win, it takes effort. It is so much easier to let darkness overtake you because it's a very passive thing. You let your hates, your prejudices, your divisions, all that. And Donald Trump is speaking this darkness. And we are inconculating in an entire generation of young people, darkness in politics. How do you then come along when Donald Trump is out and inject light and inject professionalism and inject calm debate and inject respect? I mean, can it be done? Yeah, but it is eight times harder that. It's like building a house is 80 times harder than destroying a house. And it's the same thing. And this is why I think it's important, Charlie, for all of us, not just you and I who have a public platform, but everybody, to recognize that and. And try to hold the line as best we can for the next two and a half years and hope that the next president can begin to be a counterexample. Otherwise, we're done, we're toast. Because I'm gonna tell you, self governance doesn't work when you start calling the other side basically a mortal enemy. Because the reason we invented self governance was to prevent that very behavior.
- [25:52]
Charlie Sykes
So this is a good segue to the other story of the weekend, the Donald Trump's attack on Robert Mueller, because I think this is another example. Now, what I wrote yesterday was, this is the real Trump derangement syndrome, because how do you look at that particular tweet and not understand its loathsomeness and its indecency? If you think this is normal, if you think this is the way that civilized people behave, if you applaud it, that's the real Trump derangement syndrome. But he has continually been moving that window of loathsome behavior, making it more and more susceptible. He's kind of put, look, I Mean, you know, cruelty and that sort of thing is. He didn't invent that, but he's put it on a mass production schedule. As you see many people who think that, yeah, if somebody you don't like dies, it's completely normal to celebrate his death, whether it's Rob Reiner or whether it's Robert Mueller. You've talked about this extensively, and I don't want to pass this over because, you know, Robert Mueller was somebody that we used to recognize on a bipartisan basis as a man of patriotism, of integrity, the kind of person who represented the best in America. And here he's dead, and the President of the United States is saying, I'm glad he's dead.
- [27:11]
Adam Kinzinger
You know, let's compare. Just to talk about the Overton Window. And I know everybody hates that term, but I think it's the best way to put it. Let's take where we were. First Trump to today. First Trump. If you remember, there was a time he had made a comment about Ilan Omar, and I forget whoever else, he said, like, they should go back to their country. And that ended up leading to a censure effort on the floor of the House of Representatives. And Donald Trump had to make calls. I talked to him, even called me to get me to not vote for the censure. That was so egregious. That is a dime a dozen a day now, now telling people to go back to their country. And now we are, I don't even think is affected by him wishing Robert Mueller or being glad Robert Mueller is dead than that. And so you see how callous we've become. So Robert Mueller is everything Trump isn't. And I think Trump, at his lizard brain depth, knows that, feels it, and is jealous. Robert Mueller actually was courageous and served in the military. Donald Trump had bone spurs. Robert Mueller got a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for heroic actions. Think of one heroic action Donald Trump has ever done, and I'll give you a million dollars. Robert Mueller had a family who loved him, and Robert Mueller had a country that respected him. And he was quiet and he was humble and. And he served. Donald Trump has never done a single one of those things. So does he wish him dead? Sure, because Robert Mueller is the antithesis of who Donald Trump is. And I think that's really. It's as simple as that.
- [28:49]
Charlie Sykes
I think it is as simple as that. And the fact that Donald Trump does this with impunity, and let's face it, I mean, how much of a blowback within the Republican Party has He gotten. Did you watch or hear about Scott Besant, the Secretary of the treasury, on Meet the Press yesterday?
- [29:07]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah.
- [29:08]
Charlie Sykes
So here's a guy who's not. He's not alone with a virulent maga. He's not Laura Loomer. He's not somebody like that. And yet he could not draw a single scintilla of decency into the conversation when he's asked about this particular tweet, and he's like, we need to empathize with how hurt Donald Trump was. All the terrible things that Donald Trump went through. So when you have Scott Besant who's like, he can't even move a finger, I mean, this again, I mean, this is what lick spittles do. But I think this is in some ways worse. It's like you start off by sort of kissing the ring and you end up eating sleep, you know?
- [29:45]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. And by the way, much to my chagrin, even Robert Mueller did not prosecute Trump. Right. And, you know, Trump claims that the Russia hoax investigation cleanly exonerated him. Robert Mueller should be his best friend.
- [30:00]
Charlie Sykes
Yes.
- [30:00]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, what he's saying and revealing is the truth, which is the Russia investigation did not exonerate Trump. It actually did point to a lot of bad dealings. But then Mueller said it was not his place, it was inappropriate, whatever it was, to proceed with prosecution. So Donald Trump is revealing something there, which is he knows the investigation actually was not the thing that led him off the hook like he thinks it was.
- [30:25]
Charlie Sykes
You know, and in retrospect, the mystery of Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin has only deepened in the years since that investigation ended. You know, on the right, it's all Russia hoax, Russia hoax. It was never a hoax. There was always something there. But, you know, I was reminded over the weekend as we were all talking about this, about the asymmetry of Robert Mueller, who was really from a different era, from a different culture, from a different age, up against Donald Trump. And he thought, you know, he believed in the rule of law. He believed in, you know, legal integrity, of, you know, assembling the facts, staying within the parameters of the law. And the asymmetry was that Donald Trump believed in none of that. And in our hyper polarized world, Robert Mueller was completely outgunned. And I'm not sure we saw that at the time, understood how much the tectonic plates of our political culture have changed, that the old school guy was just no match. Just like Merrick Garland in his early years as Attorney General, who thought I could depoliticize it, he was no match for the virulent partisanship and retribution of Donald Trump, was he?
- [31:35]
Adam Kinzinger
And I've got to tell you, I do too. And I think I would love to get back to that, but I don't think we ever get back to that. But we do it through justice. And this is why there's going to be more conversations as time goes about what happens when a Democrat wins the presidency. And the answer is, it was yes, we can study in history. You know, Nixon was pardoned and at that time, that was probably the right move. But at the same time, at that time, the entire country recognized that what Nixon did was wrong. And Nixon, you know, there's, you hear the stories about him, like basically in despair, rolling around on the floor of the Oval Office and because of what he did, when Merrick Garland comes in and says, let's do basically the same thing until literally my committee, the January 6th committee, has the very first hearing, which means we've already been investigating for a year. And only then he says, starts, I'm sorry, we have to have justice and we have to put out legal ramifications within the law and within the statute of limitations for people that violate that now, because only when people feel pain through justice and accountability, I think can we get back to a point where we do stay in the parameters of the law. But what we cannot have, because again, this is how you end self governance in a generation is you basically say whoever has power has control. And I'm sorry that you don't self govern at that point. Then it's just everything at the end of a barrel of a gun.
- [33:06]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, this is gonna be a big dilemma how to handle it. I think there's gonna be tremendous pressure on. Well, it'll give me your take on this. I think there'll be tremendous pressure on a House Democratic majority if they win in the midterms, to try to impeach Donald Trump for the third time. I don't know that that's the most prudent step. If they did that, I'm probably gonna get, I'm probably going to say, you know, yes, we need to have the rule of law. We need to, this is the way the Constitution is set up. On the other hand, I don't know what the right answer is in terms of prudence because one of the things we've learned is that in our modern world, given the dynamics, the harder you push, the stronger the push back. Do you have any thoughts on that?
- [33:44]
Adam Kinzinger
It's a great question and just my opinion is look, impeachment is inherently a political maneuver. And so you do have to take into account the politics. And I think what we've seen in the last two impeachments, I think they were both correct. I mean, certainly I voted for one of them. I think they were both correct. But you have to take into account, can we get a conviction here now if Donald Trump, you know, nukes San Francisco, okay, that's one thing, right? At that point you take a stand. If it's one of these things where, I mean, you and I have probably seen on the Internet already people that are advocating for impeachment now, it's like all that does is embolden him. What the, what the majority should spend their time on is investigations with the goal of exposing to the American people what this administration is and what it's become. The corruption. I don't think, I don't think 80% of Americans understand the true depth of the corruption that exists and self dealings. I mean, even the announcement, you know, of hey, all, all hostilities are suspended with Iran and then all of a sudden we find out like there was no actual direct conversations. The market swing was like $7 trillion in that or whatever, $3 trillion. People profited from that. That is self dealing corruption. And we could do a whole episode on that probably.
- [35:07]
Charlie Sykes
Well, you know, I mean, sometimes it's big and sometimes it's small. I mean, the fact that he's trying to monetize the, the 250th birthday of the United States with having all the Trump merch and stuff. I don't recall that Jimmy Carter did that during the, in 1976 for the 200th birthday. But you mentioned corruption and I agree with you. It is so blatant there's almost no attempt to cover it up. I mean, in Trump 1.0, they at least went through a little kabuki dance of taking those ethics rules seriously. Now it's like, screw it, we're going to make as much money as we possibly can. You have been doing some stuff on your substack about the corruption in the early years. And again, this is the thing about Donald Trump that if you paid any attention to who and what he was even before he ran for president, his corruption was well known and well documented. But people didn't pay attention early enough and they've sort of dropped it into the memorial. So talk to me about why you're going back into the, the early days of the Trump corruption.
- [36:12]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it's going to be a three part series. The first One dropped. That was the early days. I'm going to do like, family. And then, you know, Trump and stuff. And it's like, look, I think we get so. And this includes me. I get so channelized on what the current story is that you forget the big picture, Right? And I think it's important for us to look back and say not just Donald Trump has become corrupt. Donald Trump has been corrupt since he was a zygote. I mean, this dude that, you know, lied about his baseball statistics, he went to school because he was a bad kid, lied about being. Lied about how he graduated in college, then started taking money from people for Trump University and promising lectures that were never delivered and was sued for that. I mean, it could go on and on, but you begin to see that this isn't a guy that just somehow stumbled into power and then, you know, power corrupts. He is corruption that stumbled into power and infected power with corruption. I think it's important for us to. To remember that and then move into where I'm going to go on this, which is here is what is happening today. And, you know, the difference here, Charlie? My. So my lovely wife is from El Salvador, and she would always say, you know, our presidents, you know, they leave the presidency and then all of a sudden you find out they're worth $400 million they took from the government. Trump, you know, I mean, doesn't even hide it. He just takes the money. Like, we're not going to be surprised what he's worth because he's worth 80 times what he started the presidency as already. And this is sometimes when it's so out in the open, it doesn't feel like corruption because you're used to corruption being cloaked. And he doesn't cloak it. And 35% of Americans are happy to give him their $20 a month to his committee, even though they're on Social Security to make him richer, because somehow it makes them feel like they're on a heroic journey to save the country like our founding fathers, and they're just not.
- [38:13]
Charlie Sykes
No. And I think it's important to go back to that point that it was not that power did not corrupt Donald Trump. This was, you know, in innate in his character. And quite frankly, this was the central motivation behind Never Trump in the beginning among conservative Republicans who believed, who understood. I thought every conservative understood it. The character is destiny that you couldn't simply separate out policy from character. And so it is interesting watching some of the anti. Anti Trumpers out there who are going, oh, you Guys, you're engaging in moral preening or whatever, you should squint, you should ignore all of that stuff. How many of them are now sort of shocked to find out how deeply corrupt and how deeply dangerous, as if somehow this was not evident that the warning flags, you know, were not being waved there. You've probably seen this piece by Christopher Caldwell, which a number of people are dumping on where he talks about the end of Trumpism, you know, and he actually writes things like, you know, it's like. And again, as if it's a revelation to him that character matters. And he had this particular line. Americans did not expect Trump's character flaws to endanger them in the realm of foreign policy. Which American. I'm an American, you know, and I know other Americans who, from the beginning, from the moment he came down that golden escalator were saying, you understand how dangerous and scary this is. And now 10 years later, you got guys going, wow, didn't see that coming. Just, I mean, what the hell? That's the, that's the Trump naivete syndrome. We talk about the Trump derangement syndrome. This is the Trump naivete syndrome. How could you be so naive?
- [40:00]
Adam Kinzinger
And it's like even his very first day of being president, the first time, like he had this affection with Putin and even most people understood, well, he wants to build a Trump tower in Moscow. We already knew about that kind of, of self dealing. So of course that's going to affect foreign policy. I just look, and the other thing that drives me nuts, Charlie, is when people, and I won't mention him because I like him and I want him to speak out, but there is a certain member of Congress that is very good at concern tweeting, but doesn't vote, but he still votes 100% on the party line. But these people that'll sit around and if they want to attack what is happening in Iran or with Russia, with Ukraine, they go after the people around Trump for providing bad advice. It's always, let's go after this Elbridge Colby, who I can't stand, but let's go after Elbridge Colby for the fact that missiles are withheld from Ukraine. By the way, just a quick aside. Over a thousand Patriot missiles have been expended in this war in Iran. And however many weeks, and the total amount of missiles that Ukraine has gotten over four years is between 4 and 500. You think about the lives that could have been saved, the fact that we could have actually suffocated Russia out had Ukraine actually gotten the number of Patriot missiles that we've blown in three weeks in a war of choice. And it makes you sick, by the way. Each missile, $3 million and just unbelievable and how unprepared we were. Ukraine is offering drone interceptors in August. We say no because Donald Trump has too much pride to need anything from Ukraine. But in the meantime, it costs American lives or certainly injury. We've had 200Americans injured, certainly by these drones that couldn't be intercepted. It is disgusting. And it's gone beyond just mere morbid entertainment. It's gone into lives and injuries.
- [41:55]
Charlie Sykes
You know, I often will try to restrain my impulse to go after, like the people around Donald Trump who are giving him bad information. But I think it is important just to remember that, that this all flows from Donald Trump himself. This is not because the king has bad ministers who are giving him bad advice. It's certainly possible that some of those ministers were giving him good advice and he's simply ignoring them because he's the smartest man in the room, which he's constantly.
- [42:22]
Adam Kinzinger
I think, look, I think if you surrounded me and I don't, you know, not sitting here saying I'd be an epic president, but you could surround me with chipmunks as a cabinet, literal chipmunks, and I would make better decisions. And it's not the people that are advisors are there to help you to think about something maybe that you didn't think about or to take opinions. They're not there to make decisions for you. And Donald Trump would probably be the first to say, my advisors don't make decisions for me. So he owns these awful choices. But it is so much easier for a Republican member of Congress to go after the people around Donald Trump because dare you say anything about the king?
- [42:57]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. And by the way, there's a long, long, centuries old tradition of that is that, is that when you don't want to go at the king or you don't want to go at the emperor, you go at the people close to him. I mean, so this is a time honored time honored behavior of royal courtiers. But of course, not the way a democratic republic is supposed to work, is it? I mean, that's the slight difference here, Correct. Adam Kinziger, thank you so much for your time. I always appreciated all of your insights. Thanks for coming back.
- [43:24]
Adam Kinzinger
Anytime, buddy. Good to be with you.
- [43:26]
Charlie Sykes
And thank you for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. You know why we do this, why we have to continue to look ourselves in the mirror every single day to remind ourselves amid all of the insanity, we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [43:54]
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