Adam Kinzinger: Who Should Be Forced to Testify First?

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Boy, do we have a lengthy lineup today. It is going to be a big show and I couldn't be happier to have the exact right guest for the program. The subject matter is a former congressman from Illinois. He served in the Air Force, the Air National Guard. He's a host of the Kinzinger Report. He's on Substack. He's on CNN. It's Adam Kinzinger. What's up, baby? Brother, good to be with you. Thanks for the nice intro and YouTube. So if you're not a big Substacker, just it's on YouTube. So either way. It's right there on YouTube, right here on YouTube. Subscribe to both of us on YouTube. We're on over here. We're on the way to two million. Yeah, that's awesome. And we're trying to trickle down economics, you know. I'm at 300, so I could use a little of that Bulwark magic. Yeah, just a little trickle down. Yeah, it's a little like a waterfall, you know, Ronald Reagan. From my pocket. There you go. All right, here we go. We're going to start here with a metaphor. This is a metaphor. It's a news story. It's not the most important news story of the day, but I think it tells us something about the world. And that is this from the Washington Post. There are two floor globes used by General Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II that are housed in the Pentagon. Subsequent generations of army leaders became custodians of these artifacts, and their accompanying plaques kind of marked that these were the globes that Didi was looking at when we were beating the fucking Nazis. Pete Hegseth, Weekend Talk Show co-host comes in to the Pentagon and says, I want those globes in my office. Ordinarily moving historical items like this within the building is a deliberate process overseen by trained curators and professionals and experts. Those people have been furloughed, though. So Hegseth had some of his buddies, had some of the bros, not no beardos, no weirdos, just tough high tea men come in. Pick up the globe. Drop it immediately. We'll put the pictures on screen here. The globe has broken apart. There it is. The world is on fire. And Pete Hegseth has broken Dwight D. Eisenhower's globes because he did not rely on any experts. I know. It's a perfect metaphor. It really is. And, you know, I don't think anybody, this would be like page eight, nobody cares news, like kind of sad, but whatever. Except that it's Pete Hegseth. And the thing is, is like everybody understands exactly how that went down, where he's like, I want that globe. His people are like freaking out or they're too cool to like ask anybody else for help. Can I just also say, how do you drop a globe? I mean, like, for God's sakes. I mean, is there some secret mechanism that it needs? I mean, really, you pick it up. You have a handful of people pick it up. Somebody, it's just, it's ridiculous. And this is like just another. It's just another of a long list of reasons that Pete Hegseth needs to be the first person that they impeach, hopefully January, you know, in January. Every time I think about a new person, I want to testify, I get excited about that person. Like I was thinking, I was also there with you. I was like, I want the Pete Hegseth impeachment first. And then I had Robert Garcia on last week. And I was like, I really want slimy lizard boy, Jared Kushner up there first with his sweaty lip. And then I read a Politico story earlier this week where the oversight committee is divvying up who gets to investigate which part of the Elon corruption. And now I'm like, wait a minute. I want Elon first. So I don't, it's hard to pick who we want. I know we should start doing this. You know, you do your worst cabinet secretary rankings or whatever. We should do that. Like, who do we want first to be called in? And I got to tell you, I, I feel like it would be amazing just to have them all in one day, but you got to start, I think, start with Hegseth because Hegseth, obviously, there's a war going on. He's insane. There's already impeachment resolution out there, but I don't know, man, I would love to see Elon in front of the committee because his arrogance, his arrogance is astounding. And even what the last day or two threatening people, basically threatened him with jail. It's going to be an awakening. He says Kara Swisher better watch out. She's going to go to jail for doing too many podcasts. Kara Swisher. Hopefully doing too many podcasts isn't a crime or else I'm in trouble. I know. Otherwise we're screwed, man. But yeah, like look, they're going to have a rude awakening. I think this part of why you're seeing Trump melt down is like, there's this understanding that the last two years I've told MAGA, I've tweeted this before. I've said like, enjoy like deeply. And I mean this, enjoy the next two months as well as you can, because that's the end. Like your life is going to be hell from here out. Yeah. Elon might as well just buy a brownstone over there on Capitol Hill, because he's going to be testifying so much between Doge, USAID, you know, corrupt, like campaign, um, interference violations. I mean, allegedly you're not supposed to be able to coordinate in campaigns and yet somehow the leading donor to the Trump campaign and now to the midterm campaigns is also coordinating directly with the candidates themselves. So much to, much to investigate there. The most recent case, obviously what's happening in Ukraine with Starlink and Starshield. So let's turn to that. Marco, about a week ago was up there being, you know, like, well, look, Starlink is, is, a business thing and Starshield is the defense product. And, and, you know, what, I don't know what Elon's doing, but over here, you know, us in Ukraine are having discussions about how they can use it. And then, and then yesterday his tune changes. And all of a sudden it's like, well, I don't know what's happening with Starlink. Starlink and Starshield are not two different products anymore. They're together. And, and he calls Elon, Mr. Musk. He's like, I'm not sure what Mr. Musk did with that. So, so Marco is trying to point the finger, um, at Musk on this. And it, and it seems like that it just was Elon. I mean, I do think that Elon did call Trump and I think that the administration knew what was happening, but I think that Elon is throttling Ukraine's ability to use the satellite internet. And that is resulting in the deaths of innocent Ukrainian kids. Yeah, I clearly think that's true. And let me just, first off say that Marco Rubio to me is among the worst cabinet members because, because he gives this veneer to people that, you know, they're not going to be able to do anything about it. He's like a normie Republican. How many, I mean, I hear people all the time. I'm sure you do too, that are like, yeah, you know, I'm going to vote democratic this time. But you know, if Marco runs, if Marco runs, he's going to come in and save us. Like Marco, even if he did run as a normie Republican again, he has shown his true colors, which is he's enthusiastically throwing Ukraine under the bus. Let's say this Starshield issue was really some glitch or some accident. What are you going to do? If you were in government saying this is where sad this happened, we're going to do everything we can to make it right today. And instead it's just, also, can I just add on that? The person that did it is again, the biggest donor to your campaign and was the kind of shadow president last year. So it's not like it's some random guy, you know, at Verizon and you don't know what happened with the 5g. You don't know who to call. It's like, it's your biggest donor. That's right. Elon Musk, if you genuinely cared about this and wanted to protect the Ukrainian people and make sure that they had everything, you'd be out there saying, guys, we are on this right now. We're talking to Elon. We're making sure we're, we're fucking, you know, um, uh, we're troubleshooting. Like we're figuring out anything that we can do to help. That's not what they're doing. I have directed Pete Hegseth to sign the paper to allow Europe, their own Patriot missiles to be transferred to Ukraine. I mean, that's being held up right now, which is nuts. I think even the bigger concern beyond, and I really, you and I I think Ukraine is the most important foreign policy issue of our generation. And I think since world war two, but the fact that a man, one man with no government position, no government role can legitimately make foreign policy decisions that affect the future of a war on behalf of the United States is insane. And I don't care. Cause you have some haters that listen to this show. If you're out there and you're a big Elon lover, or you're a big Trump lover, and you just love sitting around and getting angry by hearing me, well, listen to this. Someday the Democrats can do the same thing that you guys are doing. Who's the, who's Soros. Okay. They all hate Soros and Soros is this evil guy. Well, imagine if Soros could now make foreign policy decisions on behalf of the United States. This is wrong in a hundred different levels, but like, I, you know, what else do you say? Except he needs to call it in front of the committee and he needs to understand that he will be held accountable. This is beyond the hatch act. This is, this is legitimately doing foreign policy without a position to do this. Preserve the documents. He also is not a phone guy. You know, he's texting, we got to, you know, baby, we're getting whatever, whatever you ordered people to do. Like we're going to find it out that the investigators are. And I just, just to put a button on the Marco thing, it's like the revealed behavior is all you need to know. Right. I keep that by not springing into action. You can tell that what he's doing is just, you know, just trying to spin something, a policy that he knows that Trump wants. Like this is what it comes down to a policy. He knows that Trump wants, Trump wants to leave Zelensky out to dry. He wants to pressure him. He doesn't care about the Ukrainian deaths and Marco knows that. And it's Elon and Trump that are executing it. And Marco is basically just like their spin Meister. Like that's what he's doing. Yesterday. I had a kid that hurt himself in front of my house and I, you know, picked him up. He hurt his knee really bad and, and basically held him. - I did, I did, I sprung in, but basically a hell him until his mom came to get him. I could see the kid's bone in a hole. Anyway, the point is that affected me, even just that little thing. Kid's going to be fine, probably three or four stitches. But the day, basically, the Starshield thing is announced, you've seen the picture out there of the kid in his stroller that's dead. And they blur the face of the kid out, but just dead in his stroller. I mean, every day, whether it's Gaza or what I'm focused on today, Ukraine, there are kids dying. And we shake our heads and act like, yeah, that's just casualty of war. I mean, you could have looked out the window and said, you know what, technically, it looks like he tripped on the sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house. And, you know, I don't know. We were looking around at whose fault it was. And I guess we just have to look at Mr. Flanders next door. And I'm sorry, I didn't want to, I don't know what else to do. The other big Russia-Ukraine news of the last 24 hours, is that there's been a deal or there's a release of some American prisoners in Russia. Witkoff was over there doing this. Now, that's great. We want prisoners released, of course. The way in which it was done now, well, I've got some issues with it. Let's listen. Here's Steve Witkoff talking to Vladimir Putin directly before this prisoner release. I salute you. I commend you. You're a humanitarian. That is what our envoy is saying to Vladimir Putin while he's killing Ukrainian children. Look, Tim, most people that I don't like in politics, it's not personal. Most people, you know, it's like, I don't like their politics. I probably could have a beer with them if I, if, you know, I don't like their politics. I don't like their they invited me, you know, whatever. Steve Witkoff is not that guy. Steve Witkoff is purely, he sits around giddy that he's in these rooms, right? He's like, feels like a powerful man. He's enriching himself on the presidency. He knows the truth that it's Russia that invaded Ukraine. I mean, let's, let's be clear about something. If Ukraine quit fighting, Ukraine would cease to exist, period. If Russia quit fighting, there would, cease to be a war. We clearly know who's on the bad here. And Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who have been to Russia, how many times now? A baker's dozen just this year. They are insanely destroying our foreign policy, taking the side of Putin and giving him, to the extent opposition exists in Russia, which underground, I'm sure it does. They are deflating that opposition. They are giving him, you know, a lot of support. They are giving him strength to Putin. Look at Belarus and Lukashenko. This is a guy that, you know, we're trying to normalize relationships with, who's a puppet state. Look at the country of Georgia, who has a government that is extremely pro-Russian. We've basically started taking their side. I mean, there can be no doubt, and to the Elbridge-Colbys and the, you know, let's say Dan Crenshaw's and the people of the world who, who think like, you know, they're going to be, you know, they're going to be a tough country that pivots to China. Not only are we on our knees in front of Vladimir Putin now, but we're doing the same thing with China. Do you remember that cartoon where there was that little mouse, I think, that bossed around the big elephant and he was like his sidekick? That's what's happening right now. We're the big elephant saying, yes, sir, anything else, sir, to the little mouse that's telling us what to do. I was, I had a different movie, a children's movie I was thinking of. I was like, Wyckoff reminds me of the parrot in Aladdin. And, and Putin is Jafar. And he's the parrot. He's like, yes, Jafar, whatever you say. You're so great, Jafar. And it's just like, it's so pathetic. I mean, like it is humiliating. He's like a little worm on the ground, just lavishing praise of this murderous fucking dictator. Yeah. And I guess I don't understand. It's the same question I have for any of the Republicans that were fine with January 6th. History will write books about this moment. Does Steve Wyckoff really believe this is any version of strength? I mean, look, it's, it's one thing to be diplomatic with somebody. If you meet Vladimir Putin, shake his hand, smile. It's nice to see you. There's diplomacy. Not for me. I was never meant to be a diplomat, but I understand there's certain things you have to do. Yeah. And calling him a humanitarian though, at the same time that he is an indicted war criminal, he's kidnapping Ukrainian children. This is disgusting. And while people don't particularly vote on foreign policy, I do think things like this on top of, of course, the failed Iran war. I think things like this do affect Trump. And I think people just feel like we are in a position of weakness that we've never been in. Yeah. And his kids are stupid and corrupt, so they probably don't care. But like, at least you got to figure at least one of the grandkids will read a book and we'll watch the video of their granddad just, you know, kind of like licking the feet of Putin who has committed all these atrocities. And the other thing, these guys are bragging about how we, again, about the prisoner release, but they're like, we didn't, we didn't give anything up. This is this whole like Trump, oh, we did an art of the deal. Usually there's this exchange where we got to give them a bad guy and they give us good guys. Look at what they've done over the last week. They struck the diesel deal with Russia. They restricted Starlink in Ukraine, as we've been talking about. They cut the Intel warnings. They canceled the Lindsey Graham sanctions. You know, they're demanding Zelensky. I could go up for election. They're involving Russia for the fight in Iran. They're pushing Europe to buy the gas. I mean, they're giving them more than they could ever possibly imagine. All of that for one dude. Yeah. Again, we'll just say from here out, blanket statement. We're happy the guy's home. That's great. But, you know, we used to believe you don't negotiate with terrorists. We clearly have here. And look, the foreign minister or somebody that's close to Putin just recently said that our fund, our exchange fund, is getting low talking about prisoners, because it's clear you're my buddy, Trevor Reed, the Marine that was in custody. You know, he was clearly taken so he could be negotiated away. Same with this guy. Now, I mean, you've just encouraged the arrest of more people. And then Trump has the audacity to pretend like something he did was strong when clearly, I mean, Putin does not give anything up for nothing. This episode of the Bulwark Daily is brought to you by our friends at Wildgrain. Cozy season is here, which means cooler temperatures, warm ovens and the perfect time to enjoy fresh baked breads and seasonal treats at home. Wildgrain delivers sourdough bread, seasonal pastries and French butter made with simple, recognizable ingredients by small, independent bakeries, all delivered to your door and ready to bake straight from frozen in 25 minutes or less. Customize your box with a class of gluten free vegan or protein options and skip or cancel at any time. And right now, Wildgrain is celebrating carbs, giving. I think we just made that up. That's I like the ring of it. Carbs giving their biggest sale of the year with their best offer of the year. I gotta tell you, here's something that's nice about this on the weekends. You know, sometimes maybe I went out and had a good time at a concert the night before you wake up your kids around. Yeah, you're telling them they got to read instead of do screens. But you got to give something, right? You got to give. And it's like, I don't want to wait in the bagel line for that long. It's like, boom, I got my Wildgrain in the fridge. I got the pastries, the treats. You get up, throw that in the oven. Starts to smell nice. House starts to smell nice. Open the oven. Take it out. Kids happy. Happy child, happy life. Couldn't recommend it more. If you're ready for warm bakery quality food at home this cozy season, I definitely recommend giving Wildgrain a try. And for carbs giving, Wildgrain's biggest sale of the year, you can get 40 bucks off your first box plus free croissants for life. That's the best offer you'll hear from me all year. Visit wildgrain.com/thebulwark40 to get 40 bucks off your first box and free croissants for life and use promo code thebulwark40 at checkout. Again, that's wildgrain.com/thebulwark40 or use thebulwark40 at checkout. Speaking of weakness and tucking tail, the United States ordered an essential U.S. embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia yesterday as the kingdom comes under sustained deadly attacks by Yemen's Houthis. Saudi Arabia had to cancel some economic summit that was going to be there. I was talking to a dad at school yesterday who's got to do work in the Middle East and he's like, "You don't know what you can even fly into now that it's safe." We talked with Hertling on Tuesday just about the shameful way that we treated the soldier sandwich in Bahrain when they were attacked there. The Iran war of choice has led to just a total retreat from the region, basically, at this point. I guess it stands now like total Iranian strategic victory, and who knows what they'll end up doing. Trump will decide to try to save face on that or just whatever, completely pull out, which he's done before. Even his moronic son is like, "Dad, what are you doing?" Yep. Even Don Jr. is like, "Dad, this is embarrassing." It's like if Don Jr. is looking at you and saying you're making some bad choices, that should be a wake-up call. Don Jr. Junior needs to do some shoulder lifts at the gym. He looks like a little tiny, you know, if your head's as wide as your shoulders. You don't like the kind of proportionizing of his body? Yeah, I'm not trying to, like, look smacks here, but, you know, it's pretty easy to do. Okay, so first off, I want to tell a quick story. There you go. You're looking good. You're doing your own exercises. Yeah, with my ladies' weights. I'm doing my ladies' weights class. Nice. You know, little six-pounders. Pink or purple? Purple, yeah. I like it. Okay, so I'm still close with a lot of people in the military, and particularly guard and reservists, right? So think of, which I was, an Air National Guard pilot. Now, an Air National Guard pilot, for the most part, there's a lot of them that are on active duty in the Air Guard, but they are, let's say, airline pilots usually. So they work for United. They still do five or six days a month as a military pilot. It's a busy life. They were activated with a 72-hour notice, which is unheard of. Even during the height of, with the exception of the day after 9-11, most of us, when we were deployed, we knew a month in advance, two weeks in advance, whatever. They were deployed with 72 hours notice. I heard a story of a girl that came from, she lived in Hawaii, and she came to California to do guard duty and was told, you're deploying now. So she couldn't even get home to set that forward. Okay, so they've been activated. They are there still to this day without a plan for rotation. Okay. One of my sources, I will say, just told me that they got extended now until April. So they are going to be in the Middle East as pilots for 15 months. Now, I can tell you, during the Iraq War, the only people that would deploy for 15 months was the Army, and marriages were destroyed. You know, there was a lot of damage that's done. You think about it, if you're away from your spouse for 15 months, you come home, you both have lived a life separate from each other, so you have to reintegrate, integrate. Especially in this case where it's like you're not, like these are not people that were planning for this at all. Right, right. And so the damage that is being done to retention in the military is massive, particularly the Guard and Reserve, because who is going to sign you as a pilot? You owe 10 years after you get your wings. Who is going to sign for that second 10 years when this has just happened to them? They can go to United and work for $350,000 a year, or the U.S. military as a, or the U.S. military as a pilot make 180 as a major and be gone from your family. I mean, that's a no-brainer. So the damage is being done to the military. On top of that, we have the Houthis, the Iranians, and the Russians. Let's call it the axis of evil just for now. One of those enemies is going to have to be defeated. So either we can decide to work with the Saudis to push back the Houthis, we can decide to finish the job in Iran, if that is even possible, or I would argue, if you actually help the Ukrainians finish the job against Russia, that is the domino that the other two hinge on. And I would honestly argue that defeating Russia right now is easier than defeating the Houthis or Iran. Let's challenge that premise. Why do we have to do one of those three? So from an energy perspective, you have the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf that are now being basically obstructed. You have, in essence, a three-front war. If you want to call it that, except I guess we're not really postured against Russia. Or we retreat from the Middle East. You know, we're on the Russian side. Yeah. Yeah, we are. That does complicate that a little bit. So if I was president, I'd be sitting here saying, look, we're going to have to bring down one of these so that we can actually catch our breath. And honestly, the easiest is Russia. We can do it without any U.S. troops. Give Ukraine what they need. That's it. They are in a real pickle. Like when you just lay it out like that. I mean, you know, other options, I guess, is like retreat and try to cut deals with the Houthis. And Iranians and give them a cut of the oil going through, you know, the Persian Gulf, which obviously is a worse outcome than the status quo before we started our war of choice. And so, I mean, like that's another possibility. But it was, you know, I've mentioned this a couple of times, but it's just so galling. I can't stop talking about it. It was J.D. with Tony D. on CBS on Sunday, you know, talking about pushing back on the criticism of the Iran war and being like, anybody can criticize what happened seven months ago. Why don't you come to us with an idea for what to do now? And it's just like, guys, you made this total mess for yourself. This is your thing. You made this total mess for yourself. And now you're in this situation where, like, yeah, energy prices are going to stay high. Our troops are going to be a threat. The ones that are in the Middle East, free democracies in Europe are going to be in threat unless you deal with one of them or tuck tail and cut a deal. Like, that's it. Those are the options. You did this. It's literally like me cheating on my wife. And then you come to me and you're like, you cheated on your wife. And I'm like, that was seven months ago. And Tim, you give me an idea then how to fix it. If you're so wise, tell me how to fix it. Why don't you come up with a plan for how we can move forward in this marriage? You know, dude, you did this. So it's on you. That's what we have. And I mean, I think JD and you've talked about this. I think this week is JD is obviously trying to walk this line. He's not a terrible politician from a tactical perspective. He's just people hate him. But, you know, you're stuck in this, guys. And you have. You have a decision. I think it's almost too late to do the old the war is over. We're just packing up and leaving. So I think you're going to have to figure out Iran, Houthis or Russians. And again, I would argue the best way to do it while keeping the the American military the safest is Russia, we already have somebody that's sure. But they actually are making it potentially. I mean, it seems like they might be making a choice, which is not to deal with any of those three, but to deal with Ukraine. Yeah, right. If you just look at their actions with diesel and all that, they're like, OK, well, let's let's get oil prices down by dealing with Russia, buying their oil, figuring out the problem in the Red Sea and pressuring Zelenskyy to stand down and giving away part of his country to Russia. That's their preferred solution right now, actually. I agree. I agree. And they think it's the easiest solution. I don't think they truly understand that Ukraine is not going to stop fighting. And I mean, to the people that always say, you know, here's a couple of things to keep in mind. And I think I've told you this before, but imagine. You know, there are people that say Russia is winning or Russian victory is inevitable. All the defense, all country defending itself has to do to win is defend itself. Keep defending. You're winning. If you're still defending, you're winning. And if you think about it, what if when we invaded Iraq, we would have four and a half years after we launched the war in '03, we would occupy 18 percent of the country at the cost of a million and a half men. Would anybody say that we're winning that war? Of course not. We lost that war and did a lot better than that. Way better. And that is exactly what's happening with Russia. And but yes, they believe turn your back against the Ukrainians. And it's the easiest thing to do, because, look, Donald Trump, you know, we've all been in the situation before where you're really mad at something you did and you kind of lash out and take it out on other people. That's where Trump is right now. He knows the war in Iran was wrong, and so he has convinced himself. That all this pain in the U.S. that comes from the Iran war is actually because Zelenskyy in Ukraine. Go figure. But he's nuts and he believes it. OK, back to J.D. for a little bit. And let's turn to the domestic stuff in the midterms. He was in Ohio yesterday, shows up at the Cincinnati Bengals practice. Totally ignored. Yeah, they totally, totally ignored him. And he just kind of has that look like and then he walks with his kid away and just gives the old thin lip nod. One guy gives him a handshake, looks like maybe the punter or something. Yeah. And everybody else is going to walk by. My guy, Joe Burrow, gets asked about him afterwards. He's like, you know, I just I like that what we do brings people together. And I appreciate that anybody that wants to come and see greatness. Oh, OK. They all just tight lip nod him, though, just kind of the old. Yeah, you know, J.D. gets cucked at the Bengals practice. And then he gives at two different events at a rally for Vivek and then at a press conference, it was supposed to be about fraud that features Todd Blanch. You see Todd Blanch in the background. Generally speaking, if you're doing serious press conferences about government investigations into fraud, you like don't also pop off about campaign ads like that was traditionally how things were done in the past, but not anymore. These guys just tie politics into everything. And the Department of Justice is totally politicized. So you have J.D. Todd Blanch doing a press conference where he's asked about Vivek's Amy Acton ad. And then he talks about it again at a at a rally with Vivek. Let's watch. But I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America. And now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is. Vivek runs an ad featuring a woman that was complicit in the child rape of his opponent who abused his opponent, this woman, this fucking monstrous woman left Amy Acton in a basement, locked her in there with her brother, had had to have the children taken away from her because she was such an abusive, horrible person. J.D. looks at that ad and says, you know what? disgusts me about this ad that any Republicans would criticize another republican over it this is the vice president of the united states of america the vice president of the united states of america is mad at people in his party because they got squeamish that a you know her mom was called her a liar now here's what i heard amy acton has not had any contact with her mom since she was 12 years old so her mom inevitably you know anything she testifies to would have happened between the age of one and twelve okay so keep that in mind when she was being raped by the mom's boyfriend so she is saying that she's a liar okay the mom is why because amy acton clearly told the truth about sexual abuse that was happening and based on amy acton defending herself as a child and talking about this rape her mother is calling her a liar and the vice president of the united states is like you guys need to grow up and grow some look i you know the school of hard knocks and politics it exists you did it well i did it well i understand it sometimes you can kind of you know blur the line a little bit but this is insane this is disgusting and this is something that if i was a republican in good standing in ohio i would almost literally throw up and i would make a public statement about how disgusting this is and what do you hear from other republicans some have spoken out okay but mostly silence mid-ass john who said said i wouldn't have run the ad okay nice how about you condemn something for once and again this is the this is what trump has done to our politics though and it's what he's done to the republican party you understand this because you lived it there used to be this feeling true or not that democrats could play hardball and republicans we were too focused on telling the truth and that clearly has switched now and republicans believe because of donald trump that you don't have to tell the truth nothing has to be truth you simply double down on something and that's what you see here just doubling down it's like jd vance also said this week he has seen no indication of pay to play in the white house like if somebody is paying to get access to the white house that is disgusting you're friggin kidding me dude like shameless shameless lies go up on that stage and be like oh the media and and democrats are criticizing vivek for telling the truth like that that ad is the truth that this fucking woman from the pit of hell who is like who stayed with by the way the man that raped her child yeah like that she is the truth teller and the jd wants to side with her i mean like there's some deep psychological stuff here and nobody wants to put jd on the couch because you know what he does there but like there is some there is something worth exploring here and he writes his book did you ever did you ever suffer through that book i did and it was before he was so you know so then you know for you and the other listeners who suffered through that book know that like i jd's never been one to be humble like the hero arc is him basically and there are also other people that he talks about his grandma etc but like it's about how there's this broken culture you know in appalachia where there's a lot of drugs there's a lot of abuse there's a lot of neglect and you know people need to take accountability and they need to recognize that and and you know there's a way to improve it and like he is an embodiment of that okay so that's the arc of the book and you know they've made up since but like the bad character in the book that represented the neglect and abuse of appalachian white culture was his mother and so now here we are and like amy acton is the jd character like amy acton overcame the neglect and abuse of her mother and you know overcame that doctor public servants running for governor and and jd is defending the abusive mother yeah like it's like jd is it has has switched sides in his own book like jd is now like on the side of the of the abusers in the book and he's like jd is defending in the book and and he is going you know targeting the person that overcame it something that he talks about all the trauma that he went through to overcome it i mean like there's some deep psychological rot in a man that would do that like this is so on the nose it's hard to even believe it makes you think we're in a simulation kind of and i don't understand like you know ultimately inevitably you try to get power so that you can affect some version of change in the country right you know obviously it's ego all of us have an ego if we run for office but there's that what when you start doing stuff like this what is the long-term goal what are you hoping to achieve for the country when you're willing to destroy a woman who was sexually abused by her stepfather or boyfriend or whatever what are you fighting for i don't even know anymore what it is the republicans want to achieve with this and let's talk the vague for a second this is the biggest uh at forehead clown oh you know alissa farah tweeted the other day remembering how he was destroyed in the debate by chris christie if you go back and watch chris christie where he says to him you know you would be you know voted like the biggest loser all this stuff boom boom anyway whatever it was christie crushes the vague everything he says is absolutely true and then some this is a guy that can put on a smile pretend to be some good dude with a family and he is a disgusting evil man and he is a and and what do they say again this thing comes out this ad comes out and instead of saying okay yeah we're reassessing we didn't know whatever it's now we're doubling down and putting four million dollars behind it i hope they name and shame every donor to the vague since this ad has come out we might have somebody working on that good i want to move on to some of the other midterm stuff i'm just staying in ohio really quick story out today in the senate race the crypto super pack has spent 55 million against sherrod brown they're supporting mid-ass john hustad in that race making them the like second i think behind kind of elon like basically crypto is the next biggest interest group putting money into these races but in this race particularly in ohio 55 million uh it's like man i don't know it's just another example of like where things have changed and it was the guy that we worked for or at you sport that i worked for in 2008 john mccain pushed this mccain fine gold campaign finance bill which i had some issues with but like in general like there was a notion within you know the reform-minded parts of the republican party like this is crazy like the way we're funding these campaigns now like what we're doing right now like makes the stuff that mccain and feingold are trying to fix in the 2000s look like child's play i mean 55 million from an industry that is propped up by criminality and scams and then they get they're taking that money and washing it and taking it from their fake you know shit coin money and turning into real money and then they're trying to buy a senator with it yeah like that's a broken system crypto let's be clear what crypto is it's an invented asset you can argue it's tracked and whatever and by the way i wonder if ai someday is actually going to be able to break into this chain the blockchain if it does it that destroys the credibility of crypto but it's literally an invented asset nothing actually exists and it has this value so they had found somebody remember donald trump used to be against crypto until he realized how much he could make on it and he's multiplied his wealth by like six times because of it and they are now investing fully in the republican party and making it clear that that's their that's their cats and i gotta tell you i hope democrats and that's instead of just coming in and just being knee-jerk anti-crypto do it with some thought be clear about what this is this is the equivalent of the uh credit default swaps or whatever in 2008 when the economy fell it was an invented thing you know selling off pieces of and then betting against it needs to be regulation and oversight that needs to be legitimate i mean there's this is like a lot it's also crazy it's kind of like the the crypto people and the tech you know libertarian fascists like try to to move the overdone window of the debate and make it seem like oh anybody that wants to do regulation is some like socialist european leftist and it's like casinos are regulated like what is regulated more than a casino like if you're steve winn and you own the winn resorts in vegas i mean like think about all of the different like city state federal like regulations you're doing for good reasons and yeah right and it's just yeah and so yeah you know the idea that a this gets through the wild west with no regulation at all that the president's family can enrich themselves on it and then you can use the money from your rug poles and your scams and the fucking arms dealers that are using your currency to trade weapons and from the uae bribing the families you can then use that money to to try to influence the senate race to try to buy a senator like it's a crazy system like it has to be reformed it's disgusting by the way i just want to quickly say this is what finally i i said i'm done with him with uh hunter biden is out of nowhere you know hunters out he started his own coin crashed 99 anyway like stop doing that people but a bigger thing here is just the the whole campaign finance system. I mean, I would not be surprised if in 2028, and think about this, it used to be, I think maybe last election or presidential election before, the total spent for one candidate was like a billion dollars between what they raised and Super PAC. Elon Musk could decide, and this is totally legal right now, could decide in 2028, he is going to invest a billion dollars per state in the union. Every state gets a billion dollars of ad. That is completely legal. That is also not, Tim, what our founding fathers intended with this country. Yeah, well, John Roberts and those guys disagree with that, but obviously it's not. And it's great. No, no, just to give you an example of how much this has been supercharged, Elon is going to spend more money in this year helping Ken Paxton lose than W. W spent in the primary and general election in 2000 against Al Gore. Like the whole campaign of the primary and general, Elon's spending more just on Ken Paxton than that whole campaign. This is nuts. And now that you're seeing where clearly pay to play in the government is not only okay, it's encouraged, you're going to see more money come in. Because look, if I'm a business owner, I have, let's say I'm worth $200 million, and there's something in front of the federal government, and I know that if I give $5 million, that'll go my way, I'm going to do it. It's not illegal, evidently. It's not going to be enforced. I would actually be bad fiduciary manager to not do it. That's what you're going to have. And then by the way, my competitor who isn't worth $200, $300 million is not going to be able to do that. So they're going to lose. That's called crony capitalism, if you want to call it capitalism. Yeah, we're seeing this in Georgia right now. Rick Jackson is doing this basically. All right, let's go back to Texas. Some interesting data. I, you know, friends don't let friends overanalyze the early vote numbers. But just it's just it is intriguing that you were seeing a lot of signs of Democratic energy in Texas. The first day of early vote was like a 19 point swing and people that had voted in the Democratic primary versus Republican primary and who voted on early vote. Now maybe that ends up just people are so excited on the Democratic side, they vote early and then Republicans end up voting later. So you can't over interpret that. But it's interesting. Voter registration numbers up. You are campaigning for the Democratic side. So I think it's interesting. And I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting because I think it's interesting, I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting. I think I don't think I've ever been to an event where I felt more energy. I went to where was the event, University of Houston, and I introduced Tallarico. And it was a lot of college kids, mostly college kids, obviously at the university. But I've seen events at universities where maybe a handful of the college Democrats or whatever show up and, and then it's all community members. There were a ton, a ton of college kids that were beyond excited, screaming and yelling and excited. And let's keep in mind, Tallarico is not the, like, he's a great candidate. He's not the guy that's like, spins them up at a rally, right? He's very mild mannered. He speaks like a centrist. I think he legitimately is one. And for him to fire up the base this much is worth, that's worth noting. I still am in the, Texas is always the one that got away. And yesterday, Fox News came out with a poll showing it tied. But I think Gallup had one showing Tallarico up five. So, you know, I'm not going to let it get away from me, but I'm feeling pretty good. If you compare that to Paxton's rallies, the one I went to had a whole lot more energy. Do you and James hang out at all? No, I didn't get to talk to him. So yeah, we've, we've chatted before, actually, when he had the flu. Oh, you're chatting when he was in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't hear any, you know, people in white medical coats. So I assume he was telling the truth. Here's another interesting thing that's been happening. I just want to flag in that race is, you know, how obsessed Ken Paxton and them are trying to make it about trans and, and Jay, you know, all JD does is talk about trans kids. But there's a couple stories of the last few days. Edgar wrote about one of these in Morning Shots. There's these mailers going out where they're pretending like it's, it's like a transgender advocacy, group. And they're like addressed to the student of the home and asking questions like, what do you do if you want to be emancipated? And what are the guy guide on bathrooms for trans kids at school? It's kind of like a pretend, you know, mail are trying to get the parents to be scared that these are going through. And then there's this viral post on the are conservative on Reddit from a guy in Texas. And I went and I went and like went through this guy's whole background to make sure that this was like, legit, not a troll. And this seems legit, shit. He posts, I'm in Texas, it seems like every commercial break has four to six political ads, most of them attacking James Tallarico on trans, I understand the angle they're going for. But dang, my kids didn't even know what transgender meant until these ads started. Now they're hearing about it constantly, because they went looking for it. And, you know, the guy kind of goes on to basically say, the person who's talking about this all the time is Ken Paxton. Yeah, yeah, not anybody else. Yeah. And so there's even some backfire within kind of conservative world over this. I sensed him and you tell me if you agree. I sensed that, like, it was a powerful issue in 2024. And I think the reason it was powerful is those on the right felt like this was an issue they had no control over. This was an issue that was, yeah, it was out of their hands. They would hear the horror stories. I mean, everybody, this is the best thing. Everybody has had a local high school that had to put in litter boxes because some kid identified as a cat. Fake, obvious, totally fake. Yeah, always fake friends. My life to asking me about this. Yeah. And they think it's their local town, too. Yeah. I'm seeing the same ads. So I think in 2024, people felt like this was out of hand. Now they have control of the government. I think they recognize, look, what is it? Half a percent of people that identify as trans. I don't know what the number is. And so I don't think it has had that power again. And it feels like it's an overused thing. So I've seen him. Paxton has the ads of like, he totally stole the old thing of like, you know, Paxton's for you. Tallarico's for they them. It just doesn't sizzle as much. I think it was a one cycle advantage for him. And they got other problems. People got other problems in their life. And they're just like, what? Now you guys are making this the issue. Anyway, I thought that's an interesting change. And now there's another migrant caravan. It's like going back to all the golden oldies to see if you could win. So weird. The migrants only start caravanning October 22nd of even years. Speaking of ads, there's a good one I wanted to shout out because, you know, me and Bill every Monday are kind of focusing on some of these stretch races, because I think this is where people's money can go a long way. There's a race in Maryland. Yeah, I should have looked at this before. I'm pretty sure he's the only Republican left in Maryland and the Maryland delegation, Andy Harris, Dr. Andy Harris. And Dan Schwartz's opponent ran a really, I think, clever and cheeky ad exposing the Andy Harris that you know, Adam, let's watch that. I'm Dan Schwartz, and this is our congressman. You are rude. You're rude, too. Then he threatened a student journalist. If you record, we will refer you. Everyone in here is recording. Get an officer in here. Andy Harris voted 20 times for the tariffs in the Iran war that are driving up costs, then talks down to us. Because it is still my turn to talk. It's OK. We have short term memory doctors for that. I approve this message because we deserve better. Maybe we can start calling Karen's Andy's now. I'm calling in the supervisor if you ask me a mean question. Anyway, you got to know Andy. Was that a pretty good representation? Yeah, look, he's such a he's always been just like a little kind of bitch, to be honest with you, just like annoying. He's always holier than thou. But what I see in there, so I never liked Andy, never got along with him, probably had two conversations with him and we served together the whole time I was in Congress. But I will say what you're seeing there, what you see in Trump, remember the other day, he was like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. What you're seeing in the are people that feel very cornered and they are getting exhausted of defending positions they don't want to defend. And I think that's what you see in Andy right there. And by the way, when you get to that point in your life, it is time to leave Congress. Like, can I just say Arthur Brooks, good friend of mine, used to run AEI. He he told me he told a group of people, he said, you know, you can do anything good for 10 years. And then after that 10 years, you have to rediscover your purpose or change jobs. Like he was just saying, that's human psychology. Andy Harris has been there, obviously, a very long time. He's at the point now where it's time to change jobs. When you start to feel like how dare you question me, when you start to feel like you're owed a win, when you start to feel like you can't be asked questions on serious issues, it's time to leave. There's 700,000 other people in Andy Harris's district. This guy, Dan, would be great. But at any time, any of them can come in with different passion than he has. Speaking of people who should be not back in Congress, and who should have stayed retired, I want to do a little Mike Rogers talk. Is that okay? Can we do some Mike Rogers talk? Yeah, I got some stuff on him. Oh, you do? Stuff to say. Okay, great. I didn't warn you about this. So you're coming in blind. But there was a drop site news story about Mike's wife and the defense contracting she was doing. And the Rogers campaign went, speaking of being cornered and acting crazy like sent them a cease and desist letter like acting like they're the trump white house that they can bully them and do into you know shutting them up and so that made me think you know i think maybe there's might be something to this it's worth at least presenting what was in the story and presenting what i've heard from several friends who were in michigan republican politics and don't like mike rogers very much and aren't clear why this hasn't come up so i'm just going to give a little just a i'm just going to give you some data points a little taste a little timeline of what's going on with mike and his wife christy clemons christy then now rogers christy clemons she was the finance director for his congressional campaign in 2000 she'd been a lifelong staffer in lansing you know working for the state legislature that kind of person um she's married to her child our college sweetheart at the time chad mike is married to his first wife this is 2000 then mike gets elected to congress she gets a job in dc not working for mike though and then she gets a job in iraq working for paul bremer it's a pretty good job to get for somebody who'd been a lifelong staffer in lansing and i think a lot of national security people probably wanted that job working for paul bremer then mike goes on seven codels to iraq in only a few years that's kind of a lot i don't know you were doing a lot of codels seven in a couple years not that many feels like a lot yeah then in 2006 she comes back to dc and starts doing defense contracting lobbying it's kind of surprised people but her at her level of success in that 2007 mike divorces his wife okay then they get married um during that time he rises to the head of the house intel committee she stays as a defense contract and not contract lobbyist um she keeps getting more contracts she has a massive 10 billion dollar deal a few months after he takes over the committee that's just something that just happened seems like maybe on one of the contracts she worked on there's some dispute about this in the story but but people can read it for themselves um was uh doing security in benghazi i don't know how that turned out drop site news has all the specifics um you can see then also on his financial reports you know the chart going up and a lot of that money was his new wife who's doing the contracting anyway i don't know exactly what was happening between the year 2000 and um 2007 when he divorces his wife i don't know exactly if anything about whether he had roles in her just shockingly successful career getting money for defense contracting so no accusations here just offering a few data points people can read the drop site news story if they want i should also mention i was watching john stewart scream about mike rogers and how he holds a special place in disdain for his heart because because he was a huge pain in the ass and getting the funding for the 9-11 victims there's a droga act that john stewart had worked on and how mike always talked about how he's a patriot but then he didn't he was standing in the way of getting money for those heroes on 9-11 so that's just a couple things about mike rogers i thought i'd share i don't know if you have any thoughts on that well i do which is this is a guy that i used to have a lot of respect for uh he and i were very similar in how we viewed life and politics uh this is a guy that hated donald trump and and the last time i talked to him talked about how how disgusting donald trump was and clearly he has now made a deal with the devil so he could become a senator i have zero respect for him people like him i dislike worse than even somebody you know that's a true at bleed bled maga because like he knows better the true magas are actually turning on trump right it's like mike rogers is turning into trump when some of the true magas are like wait a minute this is not we're not getting what we signed up for and by the way just on the pay for play thing clearly something that maybe we'll never be able to prove but worth looking at just like elena hobbit hobbit hobbit it just came out it was funny though yeah it was good yeah she got a 50 million dollar consulting contract with an llc that didn't exist until and she was still u.s attorney or supposedly u.s attorney she gets a 50 million dollar consulting contract and then uh magically the person close to the person that paid the 50 million dollars got a pardon one week later don't look here nothing nothing nothing here it's it's just business as normal this is normal i will say i'm just you know the uh the attorney for for rogers just to be clear to deny the fact that she was involved in the benghazi contract there it is who knows there you look at it you guys can look up for yourselves like wiki leaks did find that they had been that the con that the company that she's working for had been active in libya so maybe it was one of the other embassy uh spots there but i think that the broader arc of the story it seems interesting it's special it's unique it is unique okay final story about screwing over veterans that you promised things about tommy tuberville our friend tommy tuberville we'll end with this in 2020 tommy tuberville promised to donate every dime of his 174 000 senate salary to alabama veterans which makes sense he made a lot of money as a football coach getting beat by lsu and uh june investigation found no evidence he followed through given how many years he's been in in the senate that pledge is now worth about one million dollars pretty significant amount of money he was asked by a reporter about it tuesday night tuberville told staff to remove the reporter and then he uh said the reporter uh and the reporter said it's like the old trick also whenever there's a government shutdown i'll let people in on the story because people say i'm gonna not get paid during the government shutdown all we would do is like sign a letter that said hold my paycheck and then we'd release it like we're heroes but we only get paid once a month in congress anyway so the government shutdown was over before the check comes and then you still get paid for the time so that was a little trick and i think sounds like old tommy is doing the old i'm gonna donate all my salary please vote for me but now you can't prove i did or didn't so if you ask me a question i'm just gonna kick you out but this is why things like the bulwark like adam kinsinger.com as well right our stuff is so important because you will hear it here unfiltered whether on our youtubes adam kinsinger or whether on our sub stacks you will hear the truth and uh that's why i appreciate what you guys do so much pivot to independent media all right we appreciate you adam final we're not going to see you before the midterms two two one are you in the prediction business do you want to make any predictions no i i can't say i'm super into the prediction business but i i i think it's going to be pretty clear obviously democrats win i think they're going to have i'm going to say have a 10 or 15 seat margin which is good now the senate man i am you know obviously there could be under polling but i feel like this is going to be a day where if i was on your show the day after the election we're just going to be like you know we're going to have a 10 or 15 seat margin and we're going to have a 10 or 15 seat margin and we're going to have a 10 or 15 seat margin and we're going to have a 10 or 15 seat margin balls that was a blowout i think it's going to be a massive blowout that's just and i'm never overly optimistic i just feel that way right now your lips to god's ears that's adam kinsinger he is never checking out john hustad's ass because he's working on his glutes of his own i gotta work on my own we appreciate him very much we'll see you a couple months all right brother yeah sounds good buddy good seeing everybody else we'll be back here tomorrow with another edition of the show see you all then peace out once again find me a friend someone to walk with too too many boys too small a town feels like i'm always wandering the ground you call me up i let it ring heartbreaking me only one thing got me again it's the end of the world done with this year i missed drinking beer miss singing songs for you too slow to hate summer came late fires on the west side i'm rolling the waves let's misbehave catch it before it's almost gone try to pretend it's the end of the world so kiss me to death there's nothing left to decide the bulwark daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer katie cooper associate producer and with video editing by dante de chico and audio engineering and editing by jason brown