Adam Kinzinger: The United States of Dystopia

hello and welcome to the bulwark daily i'm your host tim miller i'm in dc delighted to do this in person with my buddy he's a former congressman from illinois uh he was in the air force and the air national guard he's got a sub stack it's adam kensinger sub stack he's doing the adam kensinger report on there it's adam kensinger hey what's up hey uh all your i was listening to yesterday and you were promising people this great guest today it's not me that that wasn't who was promising yeah we flipped we did a little switcheroo okay so you sent some mailbag questions i made kind of a mistake uh which is i asked for mailbag questions at the beginning of the podcast and you know how podcasts are people listen at the beginning then they oftentimes will start to do errands and so if you if you give a prompt like that at the end of the podcast you get a manageable amount of responses but i gave it at the beginning so my inbox is just overflowing i appreciated everybody's notes we'll do the mailbag on tomorrow's show with sarah so if you have a really really really really good question for sarah email me but otherwise i've already got a lot of i got a lot of questions it's good to see you by the way and you know i have one of the two we might do for you at the end we'll see okay cool you know we see each other every now and again but i i don't know if people know that you and i kind of worked together on the jeb bush campaign like that's where we really met we were on the road this is yeah i guess maybe we can do a little lindsey graham death talk which wasn't on my plan like i say to people like you know the jeb campaign was a slog yeah and me and jeb got along really well personally and so like i initially was going to be like the guy at the office like running the response but like because the polls were so bad like we wanted good vibes on the road like i ended up going on the road with him a lot because you know we just would drink scotch and have decent vibes and um i was always like give me kinzinger and give me graham yeah because sometimes they would have other people like eric canter fucking i just remember one time in the car with eric canter announcing a poll to us from like all elsewhere in the suvs like guys you see do you see sienna you're at four percent right now jab and i'm like what the fuck are you do like shut up why are you in the car yeah what are you doing here but why are you talking business in the car yeah but we're always you're always fun and uh we did i have a funny memory and i think i think the people i think it was you that said this or it was jeb that said it and you responded but anyway we were having a glass of scotch at the hotel and i remember you jebs may have said like i think we're gonna get maybe 10 15 in iowa and i would think that as a good staffer you'd be like well maybe you know whatever and you just go like really no we're not getting any it was something like that and i'm like oh man and i can tell you had a good relationship with jeb because he wasn't like hurt by it no uh people call me rain cloud people call me rain cloud and i'm like oh man i'm like oh man i'm like oh man i'm like oh man rain cloud but i was like we're in last place i'm reality cloud i was like this is i'm the weatherman telling you it's raining i'm not like bringing the bat anyway we had a good time it's good to see you um we're gonna start with dystopia watch it's this uh the chapter here at the start of the show maybe i'm overreacting because i don't know it's like not a non-military guy it's like a libertarian you know somebody who has a just a visceral aversion to to fascist theater like the dudes in teagues and the military trucks around town yeah are freaking me out yeah and and it's and i'm in my hotel there's a lot of dudes staying there and it's like okay i'm not i'm not staying at the four seasons or anything but i'm not at the embassy suites either i'm like this is expensive i'm like i'm paying for this like are you getting room service on my tab right now so you know there's there's the fiscal conservative side of me but also it's just like this feels crazy we're in dupont yesterday um and it's like the guys are circling around me and they're like oh my god they're circling dupont marching around dupont circle and that's like this is where i smoked pot and did hacky sack in college i'm like what the fuck is this you were in the national guard like do you have a like what's your view on like seeing it i think if if guard goes somewhere it needs to be like kind of break glass you know in case of emergency scenario i don't think the guard should be out patrolling a common city you know look i mean crime in dc at one point was bad and i have no issue with a temporary search guard but like so some of these men and women want to be here because they're on active duty orders they get paid pretty well you think about it they're staying in a nice hotel and they get per diem on top of that it's like a couple hundred bucks a day and if you're like uh you know newly enlisted person that's fantastic but we're also coming up on another school year some of them are going to be taking off of school and ultimately what are they doing besides making the president happy because they got kids at school i don't think they're school right like i don't know what what's happening if they're not going to be in the military i don't think they're going to be in the military even if the other parent worked well this that's huge deal and even if the other parent doesn't work i was we may talk about it but the you know the aircraft carrier story yeah um the one thing i was talking to somebody trying to explain is i said look when i deployed in the middle east it was like since i was a pilot there were like three month deployments because you would fly and then you'd have to rest anyway and uh i'm like but even that three month deployment and i was single during the time if that got extended a week or anything like that it was morally or my morale would get crushed because you feel like trapped isolated alone and the damage it was doing to marriages you know imagine these army guys they were there at one point for 18 months this is a much milder version of that but it's the same thing if you're a married soldier here on active duty and your family's from i don't know alabama or something like that you're taking away from your time with your kids and everything else it's fine if it's necessary right everybody knows that but this is it feels like theater i think it's the best way to put it i posted about this on social media and i got a lot of pushback you know frank luntz was like there aren't tanks it's other military vehicles and i was like whatever yeah all right i'm like still it's weird military vehicle at the ladroit park circle well let me say on that there's no reason to have an armored military vehicle here there's no reason and and the other thing people were saying is like okay crime is down in dc it's working and so i i'm open to hearing that i but my reaction is like crime's down a lot of places crime was up because of the pandemic so i think there are a lot of different reasons that are that are happening there but also it's like couldn't the same thing be achieved cheaper more efficiently less fascist by just like giving more money to the mpd yeah yeah yes that is true also you could surge you know i don't know maybe the mpd is going to be more money than the mpd yeah yeah yes that is true also you could surge you know i don't know maybe the virginia state police want to send a battalion you know a small company out to help maybe i mean you can do anything like that i just the when people use the crime has gone down argument that to me is such a bad faith argument because yeah crime does go down guess what if we had 10 million members of the u.s military that we're deploying in every city in this country we could probably get down to no crime right crime is true crime is true crime is true crime is true crime is true really down in el salvador yeah a lot of people are in prison who didn't do anything exactly you know you live in a military state that's the question i mean literally i could put somebody on every block in america and there probably wouldn't be any crime right that's not the point though do you really want to live like that and i think that's what we're wrestling with all right the other big story in dystopia watch is um electric shot gloves oh yeah this is kind of like to me it's like when you see these stories on social media like is this kind of like when trump said he wanted alligators in the rio grande or is this like a real story feels real ice officers will soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals they plan to spend up to 20 million to purchase thousands of these and they'll give them to agents by march shock i'm going to shock you with something okay a no-bid contract no it's another no-bid contract okay keep the hand away it's a no-bid contract and you know ice had something it was either body cameras or like mace had that was another no-bid contract that just happened to be connected to somebody close to the administration i mean this is this feels robo-copish to me you know it's one of these things where it's like okay i don't know is there a situation where electric gloves is appropriate i don't think that's my libertarianism's coming out here like i don't think so we're just thinking through it like these guys have shown no discernment correct no judgment it's like we're going to give them other weapons to go after people and then lie about it and there's the video i played on yesterday's show it's the woman yeah who has a gun in her face like gun barrel in the face of her at a traffic stop yeah and it's just like if these guys are pulling their guns on u.s citizens women driving around and screaming at them what do you think that they're gonna do with their electric gloves did you see the the all of that video where she had like the the dash cam at the beginning of it and stuff and like she literally did nothing but talk them right and they got mad and pointed a gun at her and it's free country by the way yeah you can say whatever you want you get to talk people that's allowed it's it's it's unreal and there'll be no accountability for this guy probably but the electric gloves mean i would encourage you all if you haven't looked up a demonstration of these gloves i know cnn was playing them but look it up and i thought when i read about this i thought it was like you know when you touch an electric fence and you get a little e right yeah i thought it was like that and i saw the demonstration you kind of did it just for fun after a while you know you're just like come on or you actually zap yourself in the you know the you put the fork in the thing or whatever and uh but i saw a demonstration we reported americans my My kid wouldn't do this because she's just on the iPad. Did you ever do the ants, like fry ants with a magnifying glass? Okay, no, I wasn't a sociopath. That was cool, though, man. You did? Oh, yeah. That's sadist. You're killing animals? You're killing little. Not animals. I wasn't, like, magnifying glasses puppies. Okay, those are insect comrades, Adam. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what? Judge me. You know, everybody listening has fried ants with a magnifying glass. Except you. Okay, sorry, little gay boy wasn't frying any ants. You were dressing them up. Where were we? Oh, yeah, you were watching the video of the electric shock. Yeah, and it's a big cop, and he's, like, you know, he's doing the demonstration, and the electric gloves him, and he, like, screams and just drops. This is not a small thing. It's, like, 330 volts. Your typical volts are 115. This is scary. And, like, what are they going to do, run around and just zap an entire crowd down? And do you really need it? That's the point, is this is just disgusting behavior. I think they've used those audio weapons before. They give, like, screw up your inner ear. It's nonsense. It is the cruelty is the point thing. Like, they want this. Trump wants this. Like, you know, this goes back to why he was mad, reportedly, at Mark Wayne Mullen after they, you know, shot the person in Maine, killed the person in Maine. And then Mark Wayne Mullen's like, well, we're going to take a break on traffic stops. And Trump's like, no. Trump, they want it. Like, I mean, they're pussies. It's like, they don't want it. Like, Trump wouldn't want to do it himself or see it or, like, he's scared of blood. He's hiding, you know, he's hiding in the hot dog cart. We'll get to that. But he likes the stories about it. Yeah. You know? He likes the perception that he's got other, that there are other people out there doing violent stuff. I mean, it's like a problem you see on the right and, like, the alpha bro community is, like, the crueler you are, the more of a man you are. And that legitimately is toxic masculinity, by the way. I hate the term toxic masculinity. And I think it created a huge backlash. But that legitimately is. Remember, this is the same president that was asking. You know, I think Secretary Esper just to shoot the protesters in the legs. Like a 10-year-old boy, you know. So, yeah, I think it's disgusting. And, you know, the first person to get shocked by these electric gloves, I hope, is a big story. I mean, but again, I wouldn't even be surprised, Tim, if they bought this and never used them because it's a no-bid contract. And it's probably Steve from down the block that has this. I mean, there's so much corruption. It's unreal. It's the guy that did the reflective pole. Oh, God. It's also doing the gloves. You know, by the way, let me just say, I have been thinking more and more. About how Donald Trump said that somebody walked with a razor blade on the reflective pole. And how absolutely batshit insane that is. And one-third of the country either chose to or actually believed that. Well, it's kind of like a malicious version of when he drew the hurricane. You remember that from the first term where he was like, no, really, the hurricane ran into Alabama? Look, here's proof. Yeah. And it's like that. But instead of there being no real consequences. No real consequences. They tried to ruin a guy's life over it. Yeah. Yeah. Use the power of the state to ruin a guy's life. And they might do it again. This episode is brought to you by the New York Times. We're always discussing New York Times stories on here. Earlier this week with Amanda Carpenter, I was really focused on the story of Gurren Bobby. Bobby. Joe. This is the Chinese national who put $100 million into the Trump family crypto. We don't know where he got it from. He previously had a failed flooring business. The UK was investing in him for money laundering. He ended up in the Gulf states with all of Trump's Sharia law friends. And now he's throwing nine figures into the Trump family crypto kitty. It's insane. It's the kind of story that needs to be covered, that we need to bring attention to, that I always try to bring attention to on this podcast. And you need people out there doing the reporting, doing the shoe load of the reporting to find this stuff. Because, you know, they're not bragging about it. All right? You got to have a reporter out there get the goods. And shout out to our friends at the New York Times who reported out that story. The reporting that you depend on, that this show depends on, started long before the headline comes out. It's not just the Times. There are other great reporting. Your local newspaper is doing it. We've got people at the Bulwark that are working on beats, whether that be Adrian on immigration, Jonathan Cohn on health care, and more. It takes time. It takes time and hard work to cultivate sources, corroborate accounts, and gather all the facts and put together a story. That's what journalists do to keep us informed. Wherever you seek it out, nationally, locally, support fact-based reporting. Thanks to the New York Times for sponsoring this app. The other Trump crazy thing, I mean, they're a million, but I want to talk about from this week, is he's on with Wayne Allen Root, which itself is ludicrous. Do you know the Wayne Allen Root? Yeah, I know. He ran for president, right? Yeah, he's an insane Nevada. He's an insane right-wing nutjob, like proto-QAnon. He's like a freeload dude or whatever. Yeah, he was like the old, like the, what was Joe Farah's website called? World Net Daily. It's like an old-school conspiracy theorist, Republican, before the hotness. That before it was cool, yeah. He was like doing the birtherism stuff with Trump back in 2012. So that's who this guy is. Trump's on with him. He says this, Mr. President, you know, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. If you do this in the next month, we will get it. photo ID proof of citizenship and limit to mail ballots. Trump says, let me just say stranger things have happened. I'll leave it at that. So I know you've been talking about this in your sub stack, but it's alarming. It is. I, you know, in the past, I've kind of been like, hey guys, let's take this seriously, but let's not lose sleep over it. I'm still at the, we don't need to lose sleep over it, but we do need to take it very seriously. And, you know, I think as much as anything, let's just say the best case scenario with what he's doing here is just breaking people's faith in the election system, which to me, when you convince people that their vote doesn't count, that the elections don't work, that's how you end up with a country that falls apart. You've done a little traveling in your life. I have. And I, when I go to countries that are like failing democracies, most of them, what they have in common is people don't believe they can be heard through an election. That's what he's doing here. And if he declares a national emergency and let's say he does it three days before the election and deploys ICE agents to certain areas or whatever, he's not going to be heard. He's going to be heard. How does that get stopped? Because you can't very, I mean, I'm not the, I'm not the Supreme Court expert, but I don't think you'd get a court injunction against it within like 24 hours. And I think he will desperately do anything he needs to, to, to screw that up. And then, I mean, there's a whole host of things after the election that can happen, right? Including Mike Johnson choosing who he seats. And this is why the most important thing is it has to be a blowout this year, because it's like, when you think of Hungary, Orban would have been the one who would have been the one who would have been the one who would have been the one who would have definitely tried to stay in power if it was a close election. And it was such a blowout. This is why it is important for people. I'm looking at this. I always use the example of Pennsylvania, right? Doug Mastriano won against Shapiro the first time was like, he's now going to be the ambassador to like Switzerland or something. Yeah. Total insurrectionist election denier, but like not kind of one of those that did it halfheartedly. Like he was all in the whole deal. And it's like, well, he lost to Shapiro. You know, there's no storming of the Capitol in Harrisburg. Why? Well, it's because Shapiro beat him by 20. Yeah. You know, and so I totally agree with you. That's why to me, the biggest places to worry about are the red states that the Democrats are going to need to take over the Senate. Because I think it's hard to imagine like a blowout in Iowa, for example, or Alaska, or Texas, which I wanted to go right with you next. Like those are the most important states. And I think that is where Mark Elias and that crowd, and everybody should be kind of focusing resources because like that's where some of the stuff could happen. Texas is interesting, though. You're there now for people who don't know. I'm worried almost a little bit that things are going too well right now for Tallarico. Because Paxton has been a disaster. I mean, Paxton during America 250, like was with his mistress in Europe. Like, like what? And he was like, yelling at people videotaping him. There's a story I talked about this week about how I guess he is grifting off a hospital in Texas that where he's on the board where he put a cell tower on top of it and he's cashing in. You know, he's just making a little profit off the roof of the hospital that he's on the board of. He's a nightmare. Nate Silver analysis this week at the most, I think, surprising number for everybody is that he had Tallarico as a 63, 37% favorite, not expecting him to get 60% of the vote, but like, like, you know, basically, two thirds chance to win Paxton one third. I don't know, you're there. Like, what's that? What are the vibes like? Personally, I don't see a ton of enthusiasm for Tallarico. But that's because I live in a I would call it kind of a probably Republican area of Houston in the woodlands. But I do not see it for Paxton, which is a big deal. Paxton signs around. Yeah, none of them. Nothing. I haven't seen anything. And, and I think the Republicans there are embarrassed of Paxton. They voted for him. But you know, they're embarrassed of him. I legitimately think it is a I would say a toss up. I think the thing I worry about if I'm being honest is, you know how this goes. I try to be 50% of the time, 50% of the time. The thing I worry about is, if this race gets nationalized, which they all are going to be, that at the end of everything, there's going to be Republicans that come home to the party, because it's closed in the Senate. And you always see this, right? There's like that false hope. And then it breaks at the same time, the independents are breaking so much. And so, you so much for Tallarico that you could see the opposite, so. uniquely bad candidate and i think that this is i'm stealing this point from somebody i apologize i'm taking it from because i don't remember but like i think that a lot of democrats liberals like look like have a false memory of the beto race yeah like and that the memory is that beto was winning and we had all this hope and the rug got pulled and like the reality of that race is that beto was down the whole time he did build a lot of excitement he ran a great campaign his first campaign was really strong because he's like out there in in rural texas so kind of doing this sort of unifying one texas campaign he's running against cruz who everybody in the left hates right but like cruz in texas his favorability that like you know the month of the election was 51 he had a 51 favorability in texas paxton's is like in the 30s yeah like paxton got impeached by a republican legislature not a democratic legislature his own staff turned him into the fbi it is a little hard to process yeah it's a little hard for people to process that they're like but like paxton is actually like a meaningfully worse candidate than cruz yeah even though they might seem the same to some of the listeners you know i think if you're a typical republican you may not like cruz because he's a smarmy personally yeah piece of shit asshat whatever but in terms of his job you're the job he's done the stuff i thought he should do the the cancun stuff was after the betta yeah you know what i mean yeah but he's like your cookie cutter paxton is bad and paxton is now going around complaining about the fact that he has less money than talarico which you can have anyway because yeah you know talarico's kind of dynamic but you know at the same time he was in the uk having a vacation this summer i couldn't imagine tim you know three months before a very serious election i could my staff would literally beat me up and leave me in an alley if i decided to take a vacation with your mistress yeah with my mistress exactly with your mistress i mean what would you have done that he's like i'm gonna take a little take a week yeah the job worked harder than everybody yeah this is how it was supposed to be you know i was the one that felt bad as the staffer like you know sneaking away for like a little weekend with my buddies yeah it's like i'm taking two days sunday off oh boy exactly um doing conference calls hung over um my brother's bachelor party i don't miss those days man i've thrown up before a few conference calls let me tell you going on mute i've thrown up before a few candidate briefing calls one of my hobby horses recently it's not just paxton is just focusing on how terrible the republican nominees are a lot of these places because i do think i don't know there's something about we've done a lot of hong discourse this week there certainly are some questions about some of the democratic nominees but i do feel like the media feels like like the democratic infighting like gives them an excuse to do some balance right it's like okay we're not this way we don't have to talk about trump crazy all the time and so there's this like over emphasis yeah on these random democratic candidates and the republicans have insane people running everywhere like nobody even talks about like mo brooks organizing insurrection he's the governor nominee in arizona right there examples such as this in florida next week the republicans have a primary they have a groiper white nationalist uh candidates james fishback um uh he is likely to lose the candidates likely to win byron donald's former congressman did you work with byron were you guys ever maybe i don't know if we did one term yeah i might have had one term together byron's not great uh there was one clip of him i saw this week that made me chuckle um that i would like to play for you we're the reason why people are fleeing new york and california and illinois because they are stupid and they needed a place to go and that place was florida that's not what you know the people who are moving to florida they're stupid stupid and plus the people that are moving there are probably republicans right like what is he even doing i think it's just byron donald is really stupid and he's also extreme he's got a lot of terrible positions and all that but it's it's like man across the board it's not it's a pretty motley crew it is i think like it's interesting because if you look at like bad or crazy democratic candidates it's kind of the exception yeah right in the gop it's the rule i mean i can't really think of many normal republican candidates out there and the normal ones are or have their own side of terrible because the normal ones are like mike rogers yeah yeah there's like a normal person sell out though yeah totally knows the truth but sell out yeah and so it's like okay well so you might be normal and private if i had you but like what good is that if you're just going to go along with everything trump says that's almost worse like to me i mean i i obviously have huge disagreements with people that are like i don't know what to do with this i don't know what to do with this i don't pro-insurrection yeah sure but if they legitimately believe it it's wrong but i i have a weird respect for that versus the ones that know better obviously donald's by the way we should mention is running against our guy david jolly yeah i think david could win that one i did too i think vinman could win the senate race there too do you i think it's possible the senate race i do think it's tougher i got i've got nothing to do with respect for alex his opponent's a little bit stronger and also people just there's a some percentage of voters that like do look at differently than they look at national races you know like for the national races like team jersey you know i want somebody that's going to go there and like burn down uh and my enemies in effigy you know like i want somebody that is going to make my opponents cry on the senate floor but then for governor you're kind of like i need the schools to be good yeah i need somebody that actually does and i do think that helps david a little bit particularly with byron donald's opponent calling people stupid guys i am here in dc because i mean you don't even want to know what's happening in my house okay it's like breaking bad down there and uh that's just the thing about home ownership something always needs to be fixed you start one project all of a sudden there's a domino effect you think you're adding something and then you realize oh wait there's a shingle broken i gotta deal with that first here's the thing about home disasters they just sneak up and bite you and they end up costing more than a car repair more than you can afford sometimes with our friends at home serve you can take care of that they offer plans starting at just 4.99 a month with home serve when something goes wrong 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to renewal price void in florida sorry florida speaking of idiots we have um you could start every segment yeah uh carolyn levitt uh is out at uh as the press secretary she's leaving she's not an indian some of the people that will be discussing as possible replacements on the other hand she's just just a liar i saw something that they say that it was egger actually uh i said egger said that he thought that she was the best of his press secretaries which is like not necessarily a compliment but i do think that she was pretty talented i think so i think she was i mean i uh i it's weird because it's like okay i'll take the quality of the work versus like the morality quality of the work i think she was actually pretty good i mean she had an ability to stand up there and lie to your face and look like she's telling the truth and how often did she embarrass herself and just think about like the clips i played many we don't play trump's voice in here but i i talk about all the crazy things trump says many clips of the cabinet saying really stupid things everybody in the cabinet struggling to defend him i didn't play a ton of caroline yeah i don't think they have any snl you know recurring skill like sean spicer so she survived it um the replacement list on the other hand um i mean it's it's a cliche to say star wars bar and it's an ugly group and this is a list from the new york post i thought it'd be fun that we did that you know you and i would just do some brief word association with the character that are being considered um i want to i want to mention neither of us are the listeners probably don't know anna kelly she is the deputy to caroline she's a person that is that'll maybe get a try besides her i think everybody's gonna be familiar with all the characters so we'll start here with i think the front runner alina haba what comes to mind when you think of alina haba shallow shallow i think parking lot because i understood that she was a parking lot yeah maybe doing some other stuff in a parking lot that's yeah i thought she went out on bad terms with the administration i don't remember but like every one of them they always come they always come back okay katie miller um why don't you go first on that one katie miller i'd say mayonnaise and the only reason i say that is because she made this big deal about how stephen miller loves mayonnaise and it made me sick and i don't know why but that that's when i think of her i think of her with a big jar of mayonnaise i was going less funny because i had ava braun i don't know himmler's wife's name janet himmler karen himmler um okay uh we've also got here uh matt boyle i don't know matt do you don't not know matt we'll pull this up on the screen for the youtube viewers matt for me always comes to mind is ralph wiggum he looks and sounds like ralph wiggum he's a crayon up his nose he's a breitbart reporter he doesn't really look the part so it's a confusing choice um but he's on the shortlist going to the new york post my favorite matt boyle story is um i feel comfortable comparing him to ralph wiggum here because i did so also in my book ding book shout out why we did it travel for the republican road to hell and um he called me after the book came out and told me he appreciated that i wrote about him because i wrote about how matt boyle and breitbart like they were the ones that were driving the ship not the establishment and so despite the fact that i called him a grumpy man i'm not going to be a grumpy man i'm going to be a grumpy man i'm going to be a grown-up ralph wiggum that looks like he eats crayons he still took it as a compliment so that's the type of person that might be the next one all right we've also got uh steven chum big steven odd job odd job so you remember uh bond the big the big guy on bond oh i'm not a bond man all right i'll show you here uh you do yours and i'll have this up sumo sumo um you'll recognize kind of what's like a big wrinkly character who is like is it wasn't there wasn't there a movie of like a big like poop a character like there's a job odd job that's very nice for steven i think wasn't there like a star wars character i'm not a job of the hut java maybe he's maybe a java yeah i would also say like what is a word for somebody that is desperate to be liked but pretends like they aren't whatever that word is a german word for that yeah i think my pick uh for most likely person to get it is rachel campos duffy wife of sean duffy so she's on the list um another person i will we got three more these are all long shots but they were included in the new york post list carrie lake ambassador to jamaica what do you think of when you hear he's god that would be total clown just clown clown because she does put on clown makeup yeah don't touch me is what i think of with carrie like scott jennings fuck you for some reason the goatee is what he has a horrible goatee now why i don't know man you know what you've seen them recently what's that you've been debating him a couple times not really a little bit i mean we've we've gone back and forth but like you know these people that like start to get famous and everything about them changes yeah right you like there's an aura and it's that's i get that sense sometimes with them like there's a oh my god i'm on tv and people know me at the airport now yeah i'm like oh my god i'm on tv and people know me at the airport now i'm gonna start wearing a goatee and yeah goatee and glp ones yeah scott jennings that's what comes to mind for me okay final person that they've thrown out there spence pratt isn't he the white nationalist no he was the reality tv guy that ran for mayor of la oh yeah yeah yeah third place in the mayor of la right behind good luck to spencer pratt the hills wasn't he on the hills katie the hills yeah that's right yeah yeah yeah i'm fine good luck spencer pratt trt probably okay uh do you have a do you have a pick for you who think it's gonna be the most i actually think the most likely would be i actually think rachel campos duffy maybe too yeah i think it's right i think i think she's the favorite molly hemingway maybe throw her she would love to be thrown in if she was not on the short list nobody loves attention more than her did she used to be normal i i don't believe i can't believe so i don't know we were never friends um i don't know she's a federalist writer she kind of tries to do the intellectual insurrectionism yeah doesn't really look the part so to speak it's okay but lots of fox time trying to look the part going on fox a lot i i just i don't see it for her yeah i don't think it's gonna happen for her she did a she did a tweet the other day where she talked about how uber drivers should have to speak english she's like oh my god let me just say something i this is something that i've been stepping up on lately is just the amount of boomer rage that like fox news and the republicans do every day so she's sitting around like god i haven't had a good tweet that's been retweeted in a while uh uber driver should speak english just and just like boomer rage it's just oh my god it's fatiguing it is fatiguing luckily she blocked me like seven years ago so i don't actually have to see most of her rage but someone sent it to me i'll send your tweets you know i try to be just a regular guy all right i'm not that fancy but i get a little picky about one thing it's hotels all right before we went on a europe trip i went down a rabbit hole i was picking the hotels i was spending way too much time trying to figure out which one i wanted what neighborhood what had the fancy soaps i don't i don't spend that kind of time on other stuff you know i don't spend that kind of time on stuff that actually might have more of an impact things like life insurance you just if you're thinking about life insurance you're just like whatever whatever is the you know path of least resistance there's another way to do it select quotes a life insurance broker that does all that homework for you the licensed agents shop over 100 policies and find you a better rate for free with select quote getting life insurance is fast free and easy the whole process takes about 15 minutos after you answer a few questions their agents shop the carriers for you and you get your quote tailored to your specific situation even if you got something like high blood pressure or diabetes they'll still take care of you and you'll save an average of 30 percent uh i'm a procrastinator i hate paperwork i don't like thinking about stuff like life insurance so it's great to turn to select quote because they made it really easy they made it really simple for me you should check it out as well get your free quote at selectquote.com slash bulwark that's selectquote.com slash bulwark selectquote.com slash bulwark they shop you safe all right i want to do some serious military stuff well i'm gonna do a fun one i'm gonna do a some funny military stuff and then some serious military stuff i feel like i have to get you know your take on what you think the smell was like on trump after he got out of the food cart like imagine what's in the food cart for the airplane it's probably like a hot chicken parm it's like a hot dish that they're feeding to people he's hiding underneath like broccoli yeah some broccoli he's hiding underneath there whatever he's putting on his skin crying his personal stink the crying i just kind of want you to paint a picture for us of what you think was happening so i've said that i i consider his smell to be like a mix of armpits and butt yeah it's like you know a makeupy ketchup smell okay what i kind of figure is like a little bit of soup the waft even though i probably didn't have soup on it it's just i think of like a soup smell yeah so if you put together pits but soup soup and then yeah some ketchup smell yeah which is kind of like you know that it hits you with that tangy like yeah at first right and then the depth of the in of the aroma kind of can you imagine a situation where your security told you that you needed to hide underneath the you know uh the warm meals that are being served on the airplane you've got to get you gotta get on your hands and he's and hide under there to avoid potential iranian air fire can you imagine doing that no no and i can't imagine going how you know how my wife would react if i'm like i'm gonna take with me uh natalie you're going to natalie right marco had to stay on the danger plane the secretary of state stayed on the danger plane the caddy the human printer who leaves love notes for trump everywhere yep so it was caddy human printer hegseth and trump i think that's a crowded it's a crowded catering cart you know maybe i've sit on people's laps i don't know the whole thing is a lot of people's laps i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know the whole idea of trump going and being put on the other plane like that's not my issue my issue is the depth of the lies from day one you remember they brought the old air force one out and he's like well we have the old air force one because the new one we want to show the troops the new air force one and everybody knows it's a lie but we just are so numb to the constant lying and java the chung yeah like it was sending a tweet that day yeah like it's going after carol lennon friend of the pod and i calling her a liar for she and she was the first reporting that trump that there was security reasons why trump had to give him the other plane so she didn't even had the depth of the story like about just how much scaredy trump was hiding from potential iranian fire and they stripped the old air force secretary of his security clearance which they don't really do it but anyway because supposedly he talked about that air force one not having the right countermeasures which is a lot of people don't know about that because they don't really know about that because they don't really know about that because they don't really know about that which everybody knew right and then and then they sent fbi agents to i don't know washington post or some reporters yeah new york times the times yeah it was the times like this is insane and it was all true donald trump is delusional he makes up things his team does the same thing now to the point where when they're caught in the lie they actually use the legal system to create a new reality yeah i also just think that like it's important i'm going to keep talking about it because is the machismo with which they started the war. Like, this idea that's like, we decapitated them. We took out all their leaders. They can't even hide for us. Our intelligence is so great. We're going to overthrow the government in three days. Like, this was how we started the war. Like, we are so dominant. And it's like, that's how the war started. And how the war is going is Trump is, like, getting underneath the food cart inside the catering. I know. Yeah, putting a tray. He's got a tray on top of him as he hides from Iranian, I guess, missile, drones? I don't know. Probably drones and missiles. It's a pretty notable fall. It's kind of hard to say we're winning. It is hard to say we're winning. The more serious tragic story, which you referenced earlier, that I just didn't want to get your take on, this was military.com when it was happening in the USS Abraham Lincoln. Three sailors have tried to jump overboard. They've been saved by other crew members. Yeah. The Lincolns, roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines, have been on a deployment that began November 21st. The carrier has been deployed for more than eight months. It was supposed to end in May. But even more than that, it's not just that they're being deployed. It's that coming in too short. The carrier has been at sea 250 straight days. Yeah, no port call. No port call. Normally, it's like every 30 to 45 days, you at least get a port call. 250 days at sea. Three guys are trying to. Yeah. To kill themselves. It's that bad. Yeah. I mean, this is tragic. And I think, you know, if we were in the middle of a war with China or a war with Russia or World War III, you know, you could look and be like, yeah, it's too bad. We are at war. This is a war of choice. Or something that was an acute threat to our country. Right. Where it's just like, this is something that was absolutely necessary because of the scale of the threat to the country. And according to the president now, we're going to be doing this blockade situation for, in theory, ever now. Because, you know, that's our new brilliant plan. And it's interesting because during the initial strikes with Iran, when, you know, we were starting to realize that actually the counterattacks at Iran were actually having some impact. I'd have friends that were flying still that would say, like, they were out of food at one point. They couldn't shower because the water facilities were hit. That was being hid from us. On the ships, it's even worse because their ships that come out to supply them, one of the things I read says they're not even getting fresh. They're getting fresh fruit and vegetables because by the time the resupply ship can hit, it's basically they're rotten. And so they're eating, like, you know, rice and boxed goods. You know, like I said. For what? This is something like literally for what? Yeah. And by the way, we just recently, we may still, we had an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean. Right. Are we really prioritizing correctly? Should we be doing these anti-boat ops right now when you have this going on? It's really, it's really tragic. And I'm glad the information got out because it feels like the Pentagon has no interest in telling the American people the truth with this. No. Again, it's the machismo. It's like the war fighters. The war fighters out there. It's like, you signed up for this. Yeah. What are we doing now? It's like, it's like, so we need to keep this blockade going to get the Strait of Hormuz open. Like the Strait of Hormuz was open. Yeah. Yeah, it was. And imagine, Tim, living in a, basically the size of about two footballs. For 200 some days. And then your bunk, I mean, do you live literally a hot bunk or you have a literally about as, it's about as big as, as you can stretch out and you have about a foot space in there. That's your own personal quarters. Like after 200 some days, you're going to start to get pretty damn depressed. 200 days to three days. Yeah. That sounds horrible. Yeah. Yeah. Three hours, man. I mean, that's just like literally my health. Yep. Like I'm on. I'm on a fucking ship. Yep. In a tiny space. And I thought I was going to be there for 30 days and I'm, and I'm now on 250 with no end in sight. And that's the other thing is if they said, we guarantee you September 15th, we're going to be home. That would be one thing. Yeah. Because you would have an end date. If right now it's, it keeps getting extended. So you feel trapped. I feel trapped talking about it. I'm not even there. I know. And it's like, it does. It feels like a, like Guantanamo kind of. So, so Pete talks about the warfire. And, you know, and Pete acts like this tough guy. Here's how you take care of your people right here. You, you, you rotate them out. If we need an aircraft carrier, they're fine, but have that plan for, but when you have real mental health crisis in the military, it's not weakness. It's not weakness. You can break the strongest man on something like this. There's some relation with what's happening around now in Ukraine and a number of ways. Um, obviously like Russia giving Intel to Iran, Ukraine. And the attack, uh, Iranian, um, was it a, was it a boat? It was about a ship. Yeah. And when the material issue is, is, is part of the problem, right? Like, I mean, some of it is just the will that we have not been giving Ukraine what they need to win the war. Uh, that also some of it is like everything that's been wasted unnecessarily, you know, like could have been sold to Ukraine. I saw you posting and then Gary Kasparov and others posting about how there've been recent Russian, you know, drones and attacks on Kiev. And other cities in Ukraine and how, you know, Europe should be putting a no fly zone up. Like what, what's your sense on the kind of the state of play there? So on day one of this war, I said, NATO should put a no fly zone at the invitation of Ukraine to defend its own skies. There's nothing war about that. Ukraine's like, this is our skies. We'd like to have help. And what was the story that came out a couple of days ago was that vice president Vance sat down with Zelensky or called him and said, you need to stop these attacks on the oil tankers. In the black sea and elsewhere because Ukraine was taken out like 10 or 15 oil tankers of the Russians every, every few days and it was having a massive impact, but they were worried about further destabilizing the oil market, Russian oil, by the way, and Zelensky because they are so desperate for air defense to protect their people did it, even though that was a successful attack. It was being very successful. They are dangling a little bit, a few Patriot missiles over. Zelensky's head to control him and, and it's working. And I guess I don't blame Zelensky because he's like, my number one priority is especially coming the winter to protect my people. But instead of us actually saying, okay, here's what you need. We'll send literally five Patriot missiles. And so you just keep them kind of dangling there. And, and it's really disgusting, especially when the guy calling him and asking for this is the guy that said his greatest achievement in office has been to defund the Ukraine war effort. That's JD Vance. Look, if we would have given Ukraine everything they needed from day one, this war would have been over years ago. There's some blame for Biden for that for sure. But this Trump administration has been disgusting. And by the way, Russia, Iran, China are in an alliance and how many people know that North Korea has already sent 30,000 actual troops into Russia to fight Ukraine and they're supplying Russia every day with bombs. Ballistic missiles. And yet South Korea does nothing. The rest of the world does nothing. And everybody just sits around. It's like, we need to deescalate. Yeah. We need to waste all of our weapons and material at Iran. Our Middle East partners would fire four Patriot missiles to take down a drone. That's like $10 million, a $20,000 drone. It wouldn't have been coming their way if we wouldn't have started a stupid war with no plan. Exactly. The whole thing is fucking infuriating. And by the way, just quickly, they, Zelensky has begged for the licenses to build the Patriot missile. So far, it has been denied. We have, we have Japan that can build Patriot missiles. They're licensed to do it. We're going to help the Saudis get a nuke. Yeah, exactly. And we need more Patriot missiles. Give them the license. It's unreal. All right. You did a video the other day. I just want to let you cook on that. You're already cooking. So just keep you going. All right. Get in the kitchen about accountability. Day one. Yeah. Some ideas for that. So I think this is so important for Democrats. To talk about, and it should be, there should be day one for the new Congress and then day one for the new president that, you know, you get asked all the time. I get asked all the time, like, should we just move on? Should there be accountability? And I think accountability is essential. So I would, I do this from the perspective, like if I was president, here's what I would have done on day one, or I would do on day one. I'd put together in the department of justice, a team that is going to search for every corrupt deal that's happened in the United States. Everywhere the president or his allies have profited off of the American people or off of corruption, the department of state, I would put together a group to find every untoward deal with any other country. So the Qatar jet brings number one, right? What did Qatar get for that? What did they expect for that? And I would on day one, seize that jet from the Trump library, seize it. And then either, you know, use it for something for America or drive it off a cliff. I don't care, but he does not get to keep that. And so I would do that. I would have a commission, sell it, give the money. I would have a commission that would find everywhere that Trump's name was placed and I would remove it from everything. Take down Trump's picture on the walk of shame and put up Joe Biden's picture. All of this is about like, we need accountability. And for anything, it's not like scratching the itch of I'm pissed at these people. It's like, we need to make it clear to the next guy that comes along that wants to do this, that it doesn't end well. for you, that's what I worry about. things i was thinking about trump compares himself uh you know to like napoleon and stalin and all those guys this was in the book and obviously like the really dark way to think about that is who knows what he could do the next two years i kind of think how trump thinks about that is like those guys they branded and so if you look at napoleon for example when i was in france france it kind of ruined my trip to the arc de triomphe arc de triomphe yeah because i was looking at it and i was just like this is napoleon doing trump's thing like a napoleon there's this large effort right and it's not too different than the confederates right and like the lost cause right like this effort to memorialize things and i and i agree with your point for that reason that like it's important to stop it immediately you know because memories fade and then people start to be like what's the point of fighting about this who cares his name's on the fucking airport whatever he's not president every anymore and then like 30 years from now and 40 years from now he's not president anymore and then like 30 years from now and 40 years from now and then people start to be like what's the point of fighting about this who cares his name's on the now like the brand persists a continued fight to ensure that his brand is accurately portrayed by by which i mean sullied um i think is a necessary effort and not just like sour grapes yeah and how numb have we become to corruption i mean even me like you know we hear about a new corrupt thing or you know early access to truth social and it's like i'm outraged but i'm also like whatever what can we do about it that numbness is the thing that we have to be very clear like we don't tolerate corruption in this country to fight it all right really quick mailbag questions rapid fire we're gonna do bigger mailbag tomorrow but i promise people today so here we are there are two funny ones i wanted to give to you at least so we can close with a little bit of some laughs some levity if you will this email from tyler people this is how you do it this is the type of email i'm asking for it is it's short it's funny it asks for advice and it ties to a news item nice tyler tyler's doing it correctly here we go tim if you happen to suspect you had psychosporiasis cyclosporiasis this is the diarrhea that's the diarrhea okay if you happen to suspect that you had the diarrhea for the last three months and you had three months and you had quote high quality health care provided through your job and you got a fecal test that came back negative but it cost 543 bucks after insurance covered its share and then you learned that apparently i to 50 percent of fecal exams for psychosporiasis can be false negatives and you coincidentally had a family member currently taking the suggested antibiotic had enough extra for you to take a full course of it would you just take the antibiotic and see if it went away or would you continue to take the 543 dollars 50 accurate fecal exams until there was a positive result so adam what would you do take the antibiotic man take the antibiotic because if you've been having explosive diarrhea for three months it's i don't care what it is take an antibiotic man i agree take the antibiotic and our health care system let us know what happens here i would like to follow up on this yes our health care system is also a disaster yeah um by the way i read an argument somebody wrote and i'm going to put it out at some point about the conservative case for single payer and it was extremely compelling by the way i gotta tell you even when you went back when obamacare was happening and the argument that i made to my friends in private you know because like when i was a spokesperson for candidates they had various positions like when we were just talking about this around dc because we're dorks in dc you have a couple drinks and you start talking about stupid things like what do you think about obamacare my case against it was that it was like the worst of both worlds but like you know i wish that we lived in a world where there was like some kind of free market transparent system where there's catastrophic coverage for people like that but there are problems with that but that would be my opinion i would like to see my deal like the single payer system though would also be better than this like yeah it's like this is the worst of both worlds it is and so you know here we go i'm becoming socialist we have insurance men in the middle of this for no reason just taking profit all right here's the other one blair golden again short funny relevant to the news good question uh she asks or he i guess blair could be either they them um hello my question from wisconsin is what holiday should be canceled and why um i saw i heard you kind of crapping on thanksgiving yesterday yeah i i understand your point a little bit like it's kind of like yeah but i don't know i think thanksgiving's okay you think okay valentine's day buddy valentine's day i hope sofia's not listening valentine's day yeah it's just you're stocking all these love holidays on top of each other we do birthdays we do like here you go valentine's the gays don't do valentine well some do but we i don't do it already in my house that's fine i'd cancel father's day mothers deserve a day mothers put in a lot of work father's golf all the time most most sundays are father's days already and it's like we have to get i have to get a present for my dad again yeah and he doesn't want anything he doesn't care i gotta come up with something and then i don't do it i feel guilty yeah yeah and so you end up getting him a 50 or 100 gift card to amazon right now to get him another bag seriously yeah he's got 13 of them already yeah i get my dad and i basically exchange the same amazon gift card back and forth all the time like here's 100 bucks oh thanks it's the next time here's 100 bucks dad thanks like let's just call it a day let's call it good just boop all right that's adam kensinger anything else no man it was great to be with you good to be with you guy we could do this in person everybody else both today and tomorrow we're doing this in person we don't want to talk about what's happening back in new orleans uh but we're taping it a little late it's summer it's august prod's coming out a little later than usual it's okay you know please be generous to us we'll be back on a good schedule again soon appreciate to you adam everybody else to see you back here tomorrow send good funny questions like blair and tyler take the annabob and i just want to say one thing happy valentine's day i don't think y'all heard me i just want to say happy valentine's the bulwark daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer katie cooper associate producer ansley skipper and with video editing by dante de chico and audio engineering and editing by jason brown