Pod Save America - Hamas Makes War, Republicans Play Politics

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Israel has begun a full-scale siege of the Gaza Strip after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Saturday. Republican politicians wasted no time blaming Biden for the attack, despite his administration offering full support for Israel. Meanwhile, the race to be the next Speaker of the House kicks off a busy week. RFK Jr. announces he's dropping out of the 2024 Democratic Primary and launching a third-party bid for president. Later, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger stops by to talk about the chaos his old colleagues in the House have created. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. Join the World-Wide Digital Experience "Pod Save America Live from DC" on October 19 at 8 PM ET with Co-host Symone Sanders and Special Guests Senator John Fetterman, Chef Jose Andres, and Jennifer Carroll Foy. Tickets: https://www.moment.co/psa 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Jim Jordan gets Donald Trump's endorsement as he faces off against Steve Scalise in this week's vote for speaker. RFK Jr. announces he's dropping out of the Democratic primary and launching a third-party bid for president. And former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger stops by to talk about the mess his old colleagues in the House have made. But first, Israel is engaged in a full-scale siege of the Gaza Strip after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Saturday that led to what one Israeli military leader called, quote, the worst day in Israeli history, a 9-11 and a Pearl Harbor wrapped into one.

Hamas killed, kidnapped, tortured, and terrorized thousands of civilians. More than 700 people in Israel have died, including at least 11 American citizens. More than 700 people in Israel have died, including at least 11 American citizens. More than 100 hostages are being held in Gaza, including elderly Israelis, women, children and babies. At least 400 Palestinians have also been killed and thousands more have been injured so far in a retaliatory strike the Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is calling the beginning of a long and difficult war. President Biden offered full support to Israel during remarks at the White House over the weekend. You know, when I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning, I told him the United States stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has

the right to defend itself and its people, Full stop. There's never justification for terrorist attacks. And my administration's support for Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering. Let's start there. Tommy, I know you and Ben covered some of this in the special episode of Pod Save the World you recorded over the weekend. Everyone should take a listen. But what's your take on the Biden administration's response so far? And what are some of the risks you think they're worried about right now? Yeah, I mean, I think still there's another statement out today, a written statement, is pretty much exactly what I would have expected.

When we heard Biden speak there, the terrorist attack was ongoing. So I think like expressing solidarity, pledging support makes a lot of sense. Biden had just talked to Netanyahu. People up and down the food chain and the national security team are connected. So that's what I would expect. But to your point, John, I mean, now this gets a lot of sense. Biden had just talked to Netanyahu. People up and down the food chain and the national security team are connected. So that's what I would expect. But to your point, John, I mean, now this gets a lot more complicated now because we now know that 11 Americans were killed in this attack. I've seen reports that say Hamas is holding up to 150 hostages and the Israeli government is going to be under tremendous pressure to get them back, to get them back quickly, and to do it by using any means necessary. So, you know, we all lived through the 9-11 attacks

here in the U.S. and the U.S. response. We know that short-term political incentives often are more about feelings of revenge than fixing the underlying problems. And I think, you know, that feeling is understandable, but I worry it's going to lead to these hostages dying. I think it's going to lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. We know the IDF has launched hundreds of airstrikes into Gaza. There's reports already that hundreds of Gazans have been killed. Thousands have been injured. This is, again, just the beginning because Netanyahu, according to Axios, said he's going to move ground forces into the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli defense minister today ordered the complete siege of Gaza. He said that, quote, no electricity, food, water, or fuel would be allowed in. And just so everyone knows, the Gaza Strip is home to 2 million people. It's one of the most densely packed places in the world. Half the population is kids. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to hide. It's been called the world's largest open-air prison, and life is hell for the people who live there already. The Bush administration in 2006, in their infinite wisdom under their democracy agenda, pushed the Palestinian Authority to hold elections. Hamas won those elections.

And Gaza has been blockaded by Israel ever since. So there's not enough electricity on a given day. The water is undrinkable. Unemployment is at like 50%. So there's no way for Israel to conduct a military campaign in Gaza that is targeted at just Hamas. Hamas lives in and among the people by design. This will be urban combat. And now Hamas is saying they're going to execute one person for every airstrike that hits Gaza. So this is very, very scary. I'm also very concerned about

Hezbollah getting involved, launching maybe a second attack from the north. There's a lot of discussion about Iran's role here and the question of how Israel may or may not respond to Iran directly. So the Biden team, I mean, I think they're right to support Israel in this horrific moment for the country. But I also hope that behind the scenes, Biden is pushing Netanyahu to urge some restraint to try to limit civilian casualties. And then long term, we have to get back to a process to fix the underlying political problems that lead, you know, the average Palestinian person to think there's some hope of living in a Palestinian state someday. It also seemed I saw that administration officials were saying that Iran sort of wants to draw us into a larger conflict in the Middle East as part of this too, part of the response. Would not surprise me. Although there's been some reports about Iranian involvement, how much or how little they may have been involved in this. We just don't know yet. And this also sort of risks the normalization of relations between Israel and

Saudi Arabia that the Biden administration was trying to broker? Yeah, they've been pushing very hard to try to create normalization between the Saudi government and the Israeli government. It would involve giving a lot of incentives to the Saudis, but it would also, according to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and according to Tony Blinken, who actually talked to me and Ben about this on Pod Save the World, there would have to be some sort of significant steps taken towards a Palestinian state. And I think the politics around that get a lot harder in the wake of this terrorist attack. Yeah. Love it. Obviously, there's a broader context to this

war that's not always easy to find if you're just wading through some of the shittier takes and debates on Twitter. What are your thoughts on the politics shaping the Israeli and U.S. response right now? Yeah, I mean, one thing that just was striking in how quickly people jumped to their instinctive and natural previously held political stances while watching something unfold that isn't, this isn't like a news event that is, you know, at the speed of a 24 hour news cycle. It is something more in the context of like 50 years of history and within hours, if not thousands and all, and within hours, you see people within minutes, you see people jumping to confident takes confident takes. And it was there is a, I think, I think part of it is, you know, you and Ben talked about

this, the intractability, and the way in which the evil and darkness of what's unfolding puts even further away any possibility of a positive political solution. I think that that leads people to not say what a solution might be or not be even willing to talk about what people believe or know but can't say in a moment like this, which is, I think, something, again, you and Ben talk about a lot and you talk about even when the world isn't focused on this, which is there can be no end as long as there is no hope for people who live in Palestine. And the thing I found really sort of depraved in watching it unfold is in the absence of any space for any kind of positive dialogue or any way to talk about what a solution might be, you see right-wingers going right to attacking the Biden administration and

misinformation and propaganda. You see a ton of just virulent anti-Semitism. And then at the same time, I think in some corners of the left, you see a more subtle version of anti-Semitism in which there is a leap made from legitimate, fair, deserved criticism of Israel's abuses and cruelty in Gaza to the belief that in order to demonstrate your understanding of that, it is somehow wrong to acknowledge or even look at the horrors and evil that Hamas is inflicting. And there's an instinct that I think is really toxic, which is to believe you can provide context to the murder of children and elderly people and innocent civilians and look at that rave where at least 250 people have been killed.

The biggest mass shooting in US history was 60 people in Las Vegas. And if your instinct is to see a moment like that and believe that your politics dictates putting that in a larger context as if compassion towards those people is some kind of a limited resource, I think is morally wrong. And my reaction to seeing this all unfold was, this is a moral abomination. And it's not just because it is evil, it is terrorism, it is monstrous on its own face, especially when you consider that a lot of the people killed probably would feel quite at home

at a US college campus protesting the Netanyahu government and have been protesting the Netanyahu government for their abuses, but also because it is reprehensible in that it will not redound to the benefit of a single Palestinian kid. This will lead to more horrible abuses and more cruelty and more violence in Gaza. And so just like being willing to step back and just say, more violence in Gaza. And so just like being willing to step back and just say, this is like, like a moral abomination, full stop. I just should have been the first instinct. And you saw from both the right and on some parts of the left, a refusal to just start at that place and look for the kind of the look for, to go back to their sort of political priors. Yeah. I mean, a guy interviewed on Patsy of the world too, I consider a friend now because we just, you know, we talk on DM, right? Like so many friends do

these days. He is a reporter for Haaretz. He moved from Tel Aviv to one of these communities on the border of Gaza because he covered that community in one of the prior Gaza conflicts. And he was so inspired by the community's commitment to peace in the wake of like, you know, you're in the line of fire, literally from these rockets. And this guy, Amir and his wife and his one-year-old and his three-year-old ended up sitting in the safe room in their home, which safe room doesn't mean room full of guns and supplies. It means your kid's room, because that's the most fortified in case it gets hit by a rocket for eight hours. And they were saved by Amir's dad who rescued them.

It's like unbelievable. So like, love it. I think what you said was really well said because Hamas is responsible for what happened Saturday. Like it was a terrorist attack. There's no defense for massacring a fucking music festival or kidnapping kids and babies. And I don't care who does it. There's no defending it.

And like the inability for people on Twitter to say that just like made my head explode. But to your broader point, like you can't view this in isolation because there are these broader security and political contexts in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. And it starts with the fact that there's no hope for a lot of Palestinian people. The talks have been dead for a long time. The Trump administration pivoted to the Abraham Accords, which is just a bunch of efforts to incentivize countries in the region to cut deals with Israel, usually giant arms sales. But the Palestinians were an afterthought in those talks. And they were an afterthought in the Biden administration, less so for the Biden administration. But, you know, listen, they were not, the focus has not been on a Middle East peace agreement or

two state solution for a very long time. And meanwhile, life for Palestinians is beginning worse and worse. We talked about Gaza, but Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel have limited rights compared to their Jewish counterparts. In 2021, one of the most influential Israeli human rights groups called it apartheid. Palestinians in the West Bank are getting pushed out of their homes by settlers. There's been settler violence. That settler violence is often protected by the Israeli military. And so, you know, then there's Netanyahu coming back into power with the most right wing government in history, these ultra orthodox, ultra nationalist ministers that he

made common cause with to get power to prevent himself from getting prosecuted, basically. But that, you know, has led to this context where people feel like they've just foreclosed any future for them. And so, again, there's no justification for what Hamas did. But we have to try to understand how the average Palestinian feels, how little hope they have, and how that context under occupation can fuel an armed resistance. It can fuel terrorist groups like Hamas, and that we need some sort of political track for a two-state solution to solve the underlying problems. There's no military response that's going to fix this. There's no military response that're going to condemn violence against civilians you have to condemn violence against civilians wherever it happens wherever you like you can't just pick and choose

you know it's very easy to me i just like it's amazing like bb is a terrible right-wing leader of a right-wing government bb did not force hamas to target kids for murder and torture and take them as hostages. No one forced Hamas to do that. Hamas chose to do that. And by doing so, they put Palestinian lives in danger as well. And so it was not only barbaric, it was self-defeating. And now it's up to the Israeli government to respond in a way that is just and proportionate, lawful, that doesn't put more Israeli lives in danger as well as killing Palestinian civilians, right? So, like, I don't know. It's just, you know, Matt Dust was, who was a Bernie Sanders advisor.

I know you guys have talked to him a lot on Pod Save the World. He did a great interview about sort of how the left sees this. One of the smartest voices in foreign policy on the left. Really great. Out there. Did this great interview with Alex Burns at Politico. And he said, you know, true anti-imperialism supports a world of rules and not might makes right, and one of those rules is the protection of civilians. It's like, yes, that's

just basic. Right before we were recording this, or a couple hours before, Netanyahu spoke, and he, in that speech, talks about how important it is for Israel to be united, how important it is for Israel to come together. And obviously true, there is strength that comes from being united. It was also true when he was making common cause with some of the most right-wing and despicable figures in Israel. It was also true when he was trying to pretend as if he could govern without consideration for the lives of Palestinians. There was a, in one of his depositions or interviews for one of his corruption charges, he said,

it's impossible to reach an agreement with them. Everyone knows this, but we control the height of the flames. And no, you don't. You don't. And, you know, we'll talk more about, I think, the way Republicans are trying to turn this around on Biden. But I think it goes to, I think, the fundamental way in which right-wing governments weaken countries. Yeah. So, as you pointed out, Republicans have wasted no time blaming Biden for the attack, especially the party's presidential candidates. Here's Donald Trump in New Hampshire on Monday. They gave him $6 billion in ransom money. Joe Biden betrayed Israel.

You know, when I see Bibi Netanyahu come and he tries to talk them into doing something, they never do it. I can't imagine how anybody who's Jewish or anybody who loves Israel, and frankly, the evangelicals love, just love Israel. I can't imagine anybody voting Democrat. The other candidates piled on as well. Tim Scott, nice guy, Tim Scott, was calling Biden complicit in the attacks. And this is all because, in their minds, the administration agreed in August to make $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue

available to Iran for only humanitarian purposes in exchange for the release of five American hostages. Tommy, why are Republicans saying that that makes Biden complicit in this attack? What's the truth about this criticism? Yeah, I mean, just a quick point, which is that the Obama-Biden administration cut a 10-year MOU with Israel that provided Israel with like three to four billion dollars of military assistance per year. So a lot of the reasons people are being saved from these rockets attacks from Gaza are because of things that Joe Biden was a part of in the previous administration. In this case, what they're talking about is Iranian influence. So historically speaking, Iran provides financial support, training, and weapons to Hamas.

That is absolutely true. I think the State Department estimated it at about $100 million per year. This attack from J.D. Vance and Tim Scott and all these guys, this is a lie because what they're referencing is a hostage swap that the U.S. made with Iran earlier this year. We got back five Americans who were in prison in Iran. The U.S. let some Iranians out of prison. I think a lot of them decided to stay in the U.S The U.S. let some Iranians out of prison. I think a lot of them decided to stay in the U.S., by the way.

They didn't want to go home. But as part of that, the U.S. agreed to allow $6 billion in Iranian funds that had been frozen in South Korea due to U.S. sanctions to be transferred to a bank in Qatar. Again, this was not taxpayer dollars. This was not our money. This was Iranian revenue from oil sales that at the time were illegal, but then later were sanctioned. So the money is being held in a bank in Qatar. It can only be spent on humanitarian supplies like food and medicine. Those things are all approved by Washington. Qatar directly

pays these suppliers. Iran doesn't touch this money. But most importantly, this money hasn't been spent yet. So even if you want to argue that money is fungible, it couldn't have funded this terrorist attack. Money is fungible. That's the, it's like so crazy. And clearly like Hamas has been planning this for a long time. They weren't waiting for like the big hostage check to clear. So, you know, I also saw one journalist in Israel tweet that no one in Israel is talking about this. No one thinks this happened because it was Joe Biden. You know why? They know that bad guys don't release hostages because you, you asked them nicely. In 2011, Israel did a prisoner swap with Hamas. They sent over 1,000 prisoners to Hamas in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit. He was taken in a similar cross-border

attack in 2006 and held for a very long time. So they get it. It's just our politics are so fucking stupid. And by the way, just one last quick thing. Remember in early 2020, pre-pandemic, when the Trump administration assassinated the head of the IRGC, this guy named Qasem Soleimani. They all, Mike Pompeo's of the world, they all told us that this was the deterrent we need, that now Iran would stop its malign activities, its support for terrorism. Absolutely not. The exact opposite has happened. You can't kill your way out of these problems also the whole fucking money is fungible argument it's it's not as if like the iranian government was spending all this money for humanitarian purposes and now that they know the six billion dollars there they're finally free to redirect those funds to hamas finally we can stop helping our people like that just wasn't happening you know i mean but the republican argument here is they want you to believe that any attempt to use diplomacy instead of force is weakness that invites more

violence and no matter how many times they have been proven wrong about this um they will continue to make that argument because it's the only argument they have so they also any any anything that was a negotiation any kind of, anything else is weakness and responsible for any bad things that happen. Well, right. Well, if there's a, and if there's a terrible intelligence failure and, and a response that exposes a weakness under a right-wing government that nobody could have imagined a few days early ago, it must be some Democrat or some progressive or some liberals fault somewhere. There must be some way in which we can protect our understanding of the world, which says that like a kind of performance of bravado and bellicosity and

a refusal to recognize the value of diplomacy or even empathy, like we have to be able to protect that feeling. So it must be because of Joe Biden somewhere taking a nap caused all of this. Also, the North Koreans are giving Russia like tons and tons and tons of artillery shells. Are people now attacking Donald Trump for having talks with the North Koreans during his administration? No, they just they're following whatever the cult leader says. It's also it is obviously a purely political attack to gain some kind of political advantage from an international crisis. And RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said the quiet part out loud on Fox News over the weekend. Let's listen. I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have

stood with Israel time and time again. And Joe Biden has been weak. It's a great opportunity. What an opportunity this is. She's truly like she's disgusting and she has been disgusting every single day that she has been in that role. She is disgusting. And like, the, it's just like, we're so like a nerd to it at this point. But the fact that like, all of these people, these 1% polling people are looking at the news, Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, all of them, they look at the news over the weekend, they're like, I know what I'll do. There's got to be some way I can use this to get in the news cycle and attack Joe Biden. It's fucking disgusting. Really was.

Republicans are clearly trying to make a broader argument that somehow Biden is a weak leader and the world was less chaotic under Trump. How much do you guys worry about that argument? I worry. I worry about it, especially like the way they're doing it. Like I've seen a bunch. I've joked about it. But like, you know, Joe Biden clearly fully engaged on this

over the last, whatever, 72 hours. Today, no public statements, but working round the clock, the White House working round the clock on this issue. And then you see Republicans trying to make hay, like, oh, he's not going to the microphone. He's not speaking. They put a lid on. A lid is just that he's not speaking publicly, but of course he's working the phones. And the idea too, like all these people know what kind of person Joe Biden is, who views himself as like a foreign policy expert. And someone's cared about these issues for a very long time. Is there any doubt that Joe Biden as a person and a president isn't like deeply concerned

and involved and understanding of the importance of U.S. involvement in this issue and in rescuing any Americans or coming to understand how many Americans were killed? Does anyone actually believe that Joe Biden isn't fully engaged on this? Ridiculous. I think when, yeah, it worries me because I think when people see images of chaos, wars, conflict, economic instability, migration, they want order and they're more susceptible to the appeal of a strongman. And I think with Biden, they are remembering the crisis in Afghanistan and leaving Afghanistan and how it seemed like the images out of Afghanistan made him seem overwhelmed by the situation. whether it's Russia, Ukraine, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's the southern border, and they just want people to see images of chaos on their screens all the time and say, hey, you know, this guy's the president. Doesn't he seem a little old and feeble? And like, he can't,

you know, he can't fix this. And so, look, what do you do about that? Because you can't necessarily control events around the world. But you can go out, you can project strength, project confidence, you can, I mean, it's what Biden is doing right now. But I think he needs to show that he is acting to shape world events and not letting world events sort of overwhelm him. And that requires going out to the microphone and talking a lot that requires all the all the things you'd want to do as a president probably requires over-communication in a moment like this. But it does worry me a little bit. Yeah, it worries me too.

I mean, I remember during the Arab Spring, you turn on the TV every night and there'd be like chyrons, like days of rage. I think our numbers would tick down because people just saw very scary images on their screens. on their screens and like i agree with you that being a part of the conversation is important like talking about you know principles what we stand for what we believe is important i don't think you want to get caught up sort of narrating the day's events for people i think the reality is these events are entirely out of his control i hope behind the scenes he's pushing bb really hard not to do something scary and stupid in gaza but I don't know that he has a ton of control. Like short-term, the politics of being tough and killing people, and that's really easy,

but like ending conflicts requires diplomacy, talking to enemies, making concessions, and our politics just provides no space for that. And that's like the, like the, I do think like the other half of this, and we'll talk about it, but like I do think we need to be making this argument like the what connects these stories is the way that like right-wing politics the way it divides people sows chaos and just the way it focuses

the attention to things that don't matter uh is so fucking dangerous and like leaves no space for anything other than peace through war there's no there's no space for nuance or empathy or diplomacy that any any effort to compromise or or think long term or think strategically is viewed as some kind of weakness. And all the promises of right wing politics are empty. Yes. All the promises of peace and security and and safety. It's all bullshit. Trump's messages wouldn't happen if I was president. That's right. And I do think you refute that part of the argument Democrats need to make is that a second Trump term would be even more chaotic than the first. And part so part of it is reminding people of what the Trump years were like. We remember very well, but maybe not everyone in the country. And then part of it is pushing it forward to say this is a choice between two visions. And this is what a world under Donald Trump would look like for the next four years. And I do think I do think there's also room for pointing out that America right now is weaker for Republican chaos. America is weaker

because of Republican scapegoating of abortion, meaning that there are positions in the military open or the Republican infighting over the border or refusal to fund Ukraine is the reason there's no speaker, which is part of the reason there isn't a resolution right now showing support for Israel. That Republican infighting, chaos, right-wing nonsense, scapegoating, it is all connected to our inability to solve big problems, to be a force for good. I like when Joe Biden goes to the microphones and scolds these fucking Republicans for not being adults. And he's the adult in the room. I, I, I, I want that now too. Yeah. And that's sort of, you're, you're totally right. Tell me, like, I wouldn't want him narrating events because then you get tied to the events, but like that kind of, and look, this is hard, right? Because it's, he's not going to do that all the time in the

white house, right? This is going to be more of a campaign thing as the campaign gets going, showing that kind of fight, I think is going to be more of a campaign thing as the campaign gets going. Showing that kind of fight, I think, is going to be important. Democrats are already trying to turn this argument around on Republicans by pointing out that our response to this crisis is currently being hampered by the fact that we don't have a Speaker of the House. And Tommy Tuberville, the Republican Senator you mentioned, is holding up all kinds of military nominations. Tommy, is that fair? Do you think that can stick? I mean, good question. Look, we don't have a U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt. The State Department counterterrorism coordinator spot is open.

The USAID administrator for the Middle East spot is open. Some of those have been open for years. You mentioned this moron, Tommy Tuberville, blocking all military promotion. So, look, it's a big world out there. Joe Biden needs his team in place to manage it all. Will it create political pressure i don't know like tommy tubber already said he doesn't care he's going to keep his hold going fucking ted cruz is holding up some of these other guys so it's like the worst people in politics

yeah who are causing some of these things but i think it's worth messaging it and trying yeah i mean i think i think what's believable and also true is that republicans are focused on their own petty grievances and culture war bullshit instead of the shit that most people care about and are worried about, right? It is hard to love it when you talked about the fact that there's no speaker and how that's holding up the resolution. I sort of laughed when I saw that too, because it's like, they're like, there is a bipartisan resolution condemning Hamas and showing support for Israel and it's all ready to go, but there's no house speaker. And it's like, oh, we're one resolution away from solving this.

Look, to be clear, I understand the limits of a House resolution. But I do think it's like these Republicans are going to spend all day pretending that Joe Biden isn't doing his job while they're literally not doing their jobs. Then we should be hammering on them. We should make this the issue. The issue should be what they're going to say that, you know, Democrats are weak and feckless. Like we need to make this a debate about Republican chaos and the failures of right wing politics and right wing politicians to deliver on any of the promises that they make.

Let's talk about the race for speaker because we got some more news there. It seems like Donald Trump's dream of holding the gavel won't come to pass after he endorsed Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan in his race against House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. There will be a no longer televised candidate forum between the two on Tuesday. It was going to be a Brett Baer was going to host something on fox for like an hour and then it got canceled because everyone realized that was insane and i believe they were going to i think the way they did it they were both going to be nude am i confusing my shows i don't know sounds right so yeah so nude or not they're going to do a candidate forum on tuesday and then the uh there's an internal republican election currently scheduled for Wednesday.

So basically just all the House Republicans get together internally behind closed doors. And I think they're going to try to have a vote. And it's unclear yet whether it will be, OK, a majority wins or it's unanimous. Because if it's a majority and then they go to the floor for the final vote with the majority, then it helps, I think, Scalise, because Scalise thinks he can get just a majority of Republicans. But Jordan's people are trying to get it unanimous behind closed doors before they bring it to the floor, which then brings up the same challenges as trying to get as McCarthy had, which is trying to get to 18. Yeah, there's no you know,

it's the same exact problem. Scalise has the same voting block that McCarthy had. So they're trying to kind of say like, look, if we all come to, we don't want to do the same 17 thing. We don't do the multi-ballot thing. That's what they're trying to avoid. But one possible twist now. Oh, for some reason, Kevin McCarthy, backbencher from Bakersfield, held a press conference on Monday. And when asked if he's reconsidering his decision not to run for speaker he said he'll let his fellow republicans decide who unites them i like he's like he's like someone thinks kevin should run should kevin run what if kevin came back what do you guys think you guys ready for kevin's comeback uh the comeback kevin thirstiest man in the world pretending he needs to be drafted to the job okay buddy i want him back he also like pointedly declined to endorse scalise or jordan jordan not not as much of a surprise

that they somehow grew close during uh kevin's brief tenure but scalise is his number two and usually the speaker would endorse the number two in this but there's no love they don't like each other they've not liked each other for a while i mean scalise has just been waiting there for this moment the whole time they both knew it and there's you know a those two. They've not liked each other for a while. I mean, Scalise has just been waiting there for this moment the whole time. They both knew it. And there's a lot of reports about McCarthy pushing Scalise aside whenever Scalise was given many opportunities to say kind

and supportive words about Kevin McCarthy. And he always found the least number possible. I mean, I get what Kevin's trying to do here. He's thinking like the first two candidates are always, that never works when it's this close. And so he's thinking of like, he candidates are always that that never works when it's this close and so he's thinking of like he'll just be there waiting in the wings when neither scalese or jordan can get the requisite number of votes but i think what mccarthy's forgetting is the eight holdouts that voted against him that cost him his job they're still there that gates guy

they haven't changed their minds like what i like the narrative that there's a foreign policy crisis and we need kevin we need kevin now it's just like we need a bipartisan resolution we need kevin i literally read that somewhere it's amazing bb's on the phone with biden being like i need kevin i can't figure this thing out without kevin mccarthy send him to the west bank who do you guys think has an edge in this race? And do you want to talk about how a Jordan or Scalise-run house would differ from life under Kevin? I don't know. It's really unclear right now. But the thing that worries me is less about the distinction between the two of them and more that the lesson of the last, I can't believe it's been 81 days. But what worries me about it is that the lesson they learned is the reason Kevin McCarthy is not speaker right now is because he didn't allow the country to default.

And he did bring a clean CR to the floor, continue resolution to keep funding the government, though. Now, in hindsight, it looks a little bit like he was just kind of fucked that up and thought he was going to pull one over the Democrats, but didn't. But regardless, like that's what worries me. It's less about, it's less about how different they are as individuals between each other or from Kevin McCarthy and more about what they've learned about the dynamics of the, of the house Republican caucus. You know, you know what they say about speakers, the days are long, but the years are short. Oh God, damn it. I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to ask Kinzinger. What do you think? Like Scalise to me seems like kind of your typical, like, look, it's real bad that he

once called himself David Duke without the baggage. We should never forget that. And there's more reporting in 2014, I think from Bob Costa about how close Scalise's campaign manager was with Duke's people because Steve Scalise attended this forum with David Duke. I mean, that is really troubling, But he seems like kind of a traditional politician that cuts deals. Jim Jordan is a weird kind of crazy zealot.

That makes me a little more nervous when it comes to like defaulting on our debt. But I don't know. I mean, I think that just to talk about sort of like who's got the edge here, I've been surprised by how many endorsements Jordan has. And along with Trump's, which is a big deal too. The list of Jordan endorsements is longer than the list of Scalise endorsements Jordan has, and along with Trump's, which is a big deal too. The list of Jordan

endorsements is longer than the list of Scalise endorsements. I think Jordan has, he's going to have all the crazies, the craziest, but then, you know, he has made a lot of allies in leadership over the last, during Kevin's tenure. But here's the thing. You just look at the two pitches from both of them. Steve Scalise's pitch to everyone is like, Kevin McCarthy was a great fundraiser and I can also be, I'm like the next best fundraiser. And Jim Jordan's pitch is like, you've seen me on TV a bunch. I annoy liberals. And like that has always worked better for this Republican Party than the fundraising. But I don't know. It's hard to tell the difference between who's louder and who has the numbers. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. Yes, I think Scalia's like,

I'll be Kevin McCarthy, but maybe a little bit smarter. And Jim Jordan's like, I am your retribution. But I don't know what happens when they're behind closed doors because it would make sense to me that a lot of people

might find it useful to their politics to endorse Jim Jordan, but not endorse Scalia. Jim Jordan reportedly has a history of covering up crimes. That could be useful. That's yeah, that's a big that's a big part of this. That might be a selling point. And trying to overturn elections. He was of all the Republican members of Congress, he was probably one of the people who worked most closely with Trump and his goons on trying to overturn the election, which is so that's where we're headed. But, yeah, to your point, Leavitt, Jordan also supported.

I saw primary opponents for 12 sitting members of Congress right now. So there are people who are in their seat, Republicans in their seat, and they're like, jordan tried to support a primary against me so i don't it's hard to envision again a unanimous republican caucus saying like yeah we're we're all we're all in behind jordan yeah and and i just there's no way he can get like the mike lollers of the world and those and like don bacon and those people like the eight votes of the dumbest fucks on that caucus are worth the same amount as the eight quietest, most moderate. They just are. And like, there, there just isn't, their majority is so slim, uh, that there just isn't a majority of the house for either one of these guys. So that's, that's why I don't understand how it shakes out and why it actually does like open the door for something like for McCarthy to like throw his hat in and try to fix it. Even though I don't understand how you get a yes to McCarthy, but not Scalise anyway.

I do think that the entire Republican caucus looks a lot more like Jim Jordan than it does like anyone else these days. And so like if Jim Jordan was running five years ago, six years ago, I'd be like, no way. But I don't, they're pretty right wing. I also just, I also don't understand, like, what are the people that don't want Jim Jordan want less? A Jim Jordan speakership or like a chaotic, unending fight over the speakership? Like who gives, who blinks? I don't know. Yeah, it depends on how hard people go to the mat for Jordan who are supporting him.

Oh, God. He's a wrestler. Was not even trying. Was not even trying. Like that. All right. Finally, RFK Jr. Oh, man.

What a cast of characters today. This is why we can't have any fucking trains. RFK Jr. announced on Monday that he's dropping out of the Democratic primary so that he can run as an independent or third party candidate for president. There's been a debate as to whether RFK Jr.'s bid would take more votes from Biden or Trump. And there's been reporting in Semaphore that Trump's team is actually worried about this and will soon begin dropping, quote, napalm after napalm on his head. That was a Trump advisor to Semaphore about RFK Jr. Meanwhile, there's also a big piece in The New York Times over the weekend about how outside Democratic groups are doing everything they can to keep third party spoilers like Kennedy, Cornel West and whoever no labels nominates off the ballot.

In his announcement today, Kennedy claimed his candidacy will hurt both Trump and Biden. The Democrats are frightened that I'm going to spoil the election for President Biden. And the Republicans are frightened that I'm going to spoil it for President Trump. The truth is, they're both right. I will say, just because you all deserve some fun here, that is not how the speech started. The speech started with a few hiccups. Let's listen to this clip. I need my speech. You can't read anything. It's upside down.

It's upside down, Jim. It's upside down. Well-oiled machine. What do you guys think about Kennedy's move here? Reminds me of my favorite political moment when Judge Jeanine Pirro was running against Hillary Clinton and she couldn't find page 10 in her speech. Has anyone seen page 10? That's such a good moment. When, when I believe it was the day that Obama was announcing that Hillary was going to be secretary of state, it like it happened quickly. And so I had to, and we're still operating on facts at that time. And so I was at, uh uh i was at a hotel and i finished the speech i printed the

speech i grabbed it off the printer i ran to a fax machine i faxed it to where her plane was landing and then i like i was done i walked back to the room and then i found on the ground page six i don't know that we we got her page six but uh but I just whenever I hear about a missing page in a speech I just go back to that moment five mid-level bureaucrats were left out of the announcement hey how dare you there was some soaring pros on that page she was going through the second page of acknowledgments and uh hey hey there was there was a lot of important words about smart power on that page I'd like to thank my counterpart at Echo Wass. A couple of Madeleine Albright quotes left on the cutting room floor.

America's an indispensable nation. What if people didn't know? That was okay. Anyway. RFK? Yeah. What do you think? Why did he do this?

I mean, remember when I freaked out and made us talk about this idiot the first time? This was my fear at the time. It was baseless. And then I talked myself out of this being a possibility. But he was never actually trying to run for the democratic primary he knew that we knew that he just knew this was the hack you pretend you're running for president to get press and then you share your anti-vaccine views but this is nerve this makes me scary yeah but this is what and i remember you saying this and it's what i thought then what i think now is like it's if he was

saying i'm running on the libertarian party's ticket uh i'd be like oh fuck but like as an independent candidate with no party it's really hard to get on the ballot that's in 56 and it's also we should say that cornell west who was running for the green party nomination which made me pretty nervous because the green party's on the ballot in many states including a lot of swing states announced last week that he's also running as an independent candidate, not running for the Green Party nomination. So it's like, I don't know how Cornel West or RFK Jr. is going to, at this stage, get ballot access for, even if it's not all 50 states, at least a lot of them. Can he just write him in, though? You can write him in.

I don't think that, I think... A write-in campaign is hard, but it's a little easier when your name is Kennedy. Yeah, I just think, I don't know. I think he's going to, the thing that worries me

the most is that he has a super PAC supporting him and so that they will spend a lot of money to get him on the ballot. For sure. And get him on the ballot in a few swing states.

But like, look, no labels has been trying to get on the ballot for, and they've been spending a ton of money and they've been at this for a year plus and they're still not on the ballot everywhere. They're've been spending a ton of money and they've been at this for a year plus

and they're still not on the ballot everywhere. They're in 11 states though. They're enough to be a spoiler. I mean, that's the issue. You don't have to be on 50 states. You're in the right states enough to be a spoiler. You can destroy this country in four states if you want. Right.

But I'm saying like, I'm very worried about no labels, but I'm saying they've been at it for a while and now RFK Jr. is just going to start now. I don't know. I'm just like, I, yes, I find it all to be just sort of like a despicable, narcissistic, kind of pointless exercise. Everyone involved in it should be completely ashamed. that makes space for all of this noise that like his name id and the fact that there are all these

sort of avenues for someone with these anti-vax like conspiracy theory views like that there are all these sort of like organs that that that exists to kind of get that in front of a lot of people's eyeballs that just like we don't have a good way to like keep like to tamp down this kind of noise and in a world where we're going to be in an election with a, that could be decided by 30,000, 40,000 votes. I worry about all of them. I worry about no labels, but also about Cornell West. I, you know, I worry about RFK Jr. I worry about these guys being able to get in front of enough people with their message. And because everything is so fractured and reaching people so hard, what they're not going to hear is how a vote for them

is pointless and might ultimately redound to Trump being president. And that to me is what worries me. Yeah. Anything that fractures the anti-Trump coalition is a threat to Joe Biden. What do you make of the Trump people saying that they're worried about him? I mean, it makes sense just intuitively. The MAGA base is anti-vaccine. They are anti-deep state. They are hyper paranoid. RFK Jr. is strumming all those strings. You know, I mean, like he's your guy. If you think that like the Deep State killed Kennedy, he'll confirm that for you. So yeah, I worry about it. Also, but it depends on how Kennedy runs. Kennedy could run attacking Joe Biden as he has been, or he could run attacking

Trump for his policies. And I think he has a lot of agency here, which is scary too. I think he'll probably do both. Yeah. I worry about it because I worry about the like different levels of enthusiasm for the kind of people that might be susceptible to the message because the kind of like, like Trump has done, I think a very good job catering to the kind of kookiest corners of the right. He's flirted with QAnon. He's obviously embraced a form of like kind of anti-vax vaccination skepticism. And like, so he kind of, he knows how to excite those people. And then the kind of people that might find a third party candidate appealing on our side, the people that might be susceptible, they're less engaged, less reachable, less open to Joe Biden. So that that asymmetry is the thing

that worries me most. Yeah, I think the best you can say about all the polling on this is that it's mixed. I know Dan wrote a piece about this and used sort of the echelon insights polling, which shows that like it's one of the few polls that's tested a three way race between Trump, Biden and RFK Jr. And it has Trump leading by three in a two way. And then Trump's lead going to four when you throw RFK Jr. in. That's one poll. But then Nate Silver wrote a whole piece about this and picked apart the New York Times Sienna poll about RFK support. He did point out that like RFK Jr. is relatively popular with people who didn't vote in 2020 at all for either candidate, which sort of makes sense. He also does worse among Biden

voters than among Democrats. So that made Nate conclude that some of RFK Jr. supporters are anti-Biden Democrats who were not going to vote for Biden anyway. And I do, you could see, I don't think that he's going to necessarily help Biden, but I don't know how much he's going to hurt Biden because it is hard to see someone with those views, a voter with all of the views that RFK Jr. has now, and that they, that are known about RFK Jr. who wasn't already going to, I feel like either that voter was going to vote for Donald Trump or stay home. Well, that's like sort of like the strange thing about that quote. First of all, it's grammatically confusing napalm after napalm. That doesn't make sense. Napalm is not accountable set. Um, uh but i also it's like it's a strange posture to take like even an interview

like that wouldn't you want to be signaling like oh they're now two democrats in the race and we're going to destroy both of them you know i don't i find it like i find it strange i have a little anxiety over what happens if democrats are attacking rfk js MAGA and then Trump, people attack him as a radical leftist. And then people see, oh, well, both sides are attacking him. So he must be, you know, he must be somewhere in the middle. So that dynamic worries me a little bit.

And plus he's such an inspirational figure. I just feel like it just makes the whole thing so chaotic and so much harder to predict. And we just, we love in this country to repeat our mistakes. I know, 2016, you know, vote for Jill Stein. What's the problem? What's the worst that can happen? much harder to predict and we just we love in this country to repeat our mistakes i know 2016 uh what you know vote for jill stein what's the problem what's the worst that can happen 2020 vote for nader in florida what's the worst that can happen you know gore and bush they're all the

same you know it's like and and by the way to that point also there is a certain kind of brand of of political pundit that just loves the polling that shows that americans are open to a third party candidate and And the questions are always written in the, to be the most like, given the failures of politics. Yeah. Do you find the failures of Democrats and Republicans so egregious that it leaves the door open to you supporting a third party candidate? Everyone's like, yes, of course it does. It's like, how many people are like, no, I am a partisan hack. I'm blindly partisan. So the times piece makes it seem like Democrats and Biden allies and Democratic officials are

still most worried about a no labels bid more than anything else. Do you guys agree? Yeah. I certainly do. Of course. They're on the ballot in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina. That's scary stuff. The ballot access they have is the first thing that worries me. And the second thing that worries me is centrists, independents, moderate Republicans are not going to vote for Trump. They probably voted. A lot of them probably voted for Joe Biden in 2020. And if they don't like either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, no labels will give them a home if they don't realize that that home is

going to spoil the election in favor of Trump. When Biden was asked about this in that John Harwood interview, his response was sort of interesting. He, cause he mentioned that, uh, Joe Lieberman is obviously his, his, uh, his friend, uh, but said that, uh, look, I, I told he said, Oh, you know, I've talked to my friend Joe about this. He has every right to run, but I told him, I think he's going to help Trump. He's kind of like trying to take the temperature down on the whole thing. When Nancy Jacobson did that donor call and the donors are all like, hey, what are we doing? We think this might help Trump. What she said on that call was, if we're getting closer and it looks like we have no chance of actually doing meaningfully well,

but might act as a spoiler, we won't put it. We won't put a candidate forward. actually doing meaningfully well, but might act as a spoiler. We won't put it, we won't put a candidate forward. And I, I do think that like, look, uh, this is all so foolish and dangerous and stupid and, and, and selfish and, and counterproductive. But I think like, if you look at the way Biden's talking about this, like maybe there's some hope that as we get closer, there's a way to like, kind of walk this back. Boy, that'd be nice. I don't know. I mean, look, you know, 60 worse and better things have happened. $60 million. Who gave $60 million to no labels?

Probably Republican billionaires. Republican billionaires who don't like Trump. Yeah, that's right. I do think that's our guess, our opinion. The challenge is you want to tell people that these are poor choices of candidates just based on the merits and what they believe and what they stand for. But you also want to communicate that these people are not going to win and that by voting for them you're going to vote for trump without being too heavy-handed and telling people like do not vote you cannot vote for this person that's why you that's like the biden biden gets this and like

that's why his tone was so like everybody is america everybody's got a right to run i'm just just worried for the country right right right so it's a it's a tough balance this is a good lesson though for everyone on social media you probably can't scold anyone out of their votes whether it's republican democrat or third party you should try to convince them yes that's right two quick housekeeping items before we head to break we just announced our guests for the october 19th live show in dc we got senator john fetterman hell yeah yeah. He's going to join us. Jose Andres, state Senate candidate,

Jennifer Carroll Foy, good friend of the pod, and guest co-host, Simone Sanders, also a good friend of the pod. All-star show. What a show. It's a great, great show. See where else we're heading

and get your tickets at crooked.com slash events. Also, you can enjoy new and old Pod Save America episodes completely ad-free when you subscribe to crooked's friend of the pod community that's right no distractions no fast forwarding just sweet

sweet takes look it's a great community i know the friend of the pod community gave you and ben a bunch of questions on discord that you answered during your special episode of the world there was a lively discussion about my interview with cassidy hutchinson on the discord over the weekend that i had a lot of fun engaging in a lot more fun than talking about it on twitter why did you platform her i platformed her i platformed her anyway cricket.com slash friends we have great conversations of the discord ad free pods of america it's fantastic check it out When we come back, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger talks to Tommy about his old colleagues and the party he now calls a cult. I am thrilled to welcome to the show Congressman Adam Kinzinger. He is a former Republican congressman from Illinois, serving from 2011 to 2023.

He is someone who has stood up to Trump since the very beginning. He refused to vote for him in 2016. He voted to impeach after January 6th. He served on the January 6th Select Committee. Congressman, thank you so much for joining. Yeah, it's great to be with you. I'm glad we can make this work. Thanks for having me. It's great to talk to you again. I think we talked once for Pod Save the World about

foreign policy nerdy stuff. But today, I want to talk to you because you served in Congress. I did not. You caucused with all the Republicans' leadership or who may soon be in leadership. You get the systems and the individuals better than I ever will. So I was hoping you could just like start with some basics, right? Like how much power does the speaker of the house actually have? We know about the kind of line of succession, but you know, what about day-to-day operations impact on members like you? Well, look, I think it depends. So when the speaker's being held hostage, it does reduce his or her power. You know, when every time it's I saw this under Boehner, under Paul Ryan and under McCarthy, obviously, you know, he might want to bring a bill forward that, you know, is decent. And then all of a sudden he's being held hostage by the far right.

That's just, you know, not going to let him bring it. They're going to deny him the votes. But in terms of actual power, it's quite a bit because they can control, as we saw with Patrick McHenry evicting Nancy Pelosi, you control all those kinds of resources in the House. You get to determine what comes to the floor and what doesn't. And it's good and bad. You obviously need somebody with some power in this position because you have 435 egos. At the same time, I think we've kind of lost this reality that the Speaker of the House really was intended to be just that, the Speaker for the whole house. And it's really become the leader of a certain political party.

But yeah, I never saw Boehner or Paul Ryan really have the ability to do what they wanted because they were always like herding cats to try to get anything done. Yeah, that's very true. I know that I sort of assumed that Kevin McCarthy's tenure would be pretty brief. I know that you made public statements at the time saying the same because of the devil's bargain he made to get the job in the first place, specifically allowing one member to offer a motion to vacate. But what do you make of his tenure? And what was your experience dealing with Kevin McCarthy in the House? So it's interesting. So the first, really before Trump came onto the scene,

but particularly the last couple of years of Trump, I mean, Kevin and I were pretty close. He's actually a very good politician. If he came to my district once to raise money, for instance, and he really can hold a crowd's attention. And he's very good at storytelling, you know, and you've seen his personality. He's kind of an aw shucks, you know, he would, he would text my mom, like, which is odd, but that works. Yeah. And he does that with everybody's mom. But when I started, I always had thought that Kevin McCarthy had a red line, that he had some kind of a soul. Because he'd talk about, hey, Republicans need to get on board on climate change. And we've just got to figure out our way to do it.

And Republicans need to reach out to Silicon Valley. But he threw that all in the toilet. And I came to realize with Kevin McCarthy, he is nothing but a political opportunist. And will do whatever he needs to win. And so what do I make of his speakership? Look, the fact that he got the debt limit done was actually a huge deal. I thought for the first time we were probably going to broach the debt limit. The fact that he kept the government open, but for 45 days, so who knows how that ends up going. I guess those can be achievements, but I think he was a massively failed speaker. I mean, the fact that he only lasted a few months is obviously huge. The fact

that he's the first speaker to ever have his job taken away from him is huge. And the fact that he's the guy that, I mean, literally Kevin McCarthy, and I'm not exaggerating in saying this, he's the one that brought Donald Trump back to life politically. I mean, that like two weeks after January 6th, if you were in a Republican conference meeting, everybody had their heads down. It was really quiet. Nobody knew where we were going with this. And the second Kevin McCarthy showed up at Mar-a-Lago, he resurrected Donald Trump.

I think history is not going to be kind to him. I'm still reeling from the texting everybody's mom. I can't get past that. My mom liked him better than me. Not anymore. He became mean to me, but she liked him. Yeah, they turned. I imagine you don't think much of the Bring Back Kevin movement that was being floated in like political playbook this morning? No, I mean, you know, look, I think given what's been going on around the world, the timing couldn't frankly be worse, but I also have no love loss for Kevin. I mean, Kevin, like I said, he's, he's the whole reason I think that Donald Trump is back. So no, I'm not super excited about the bring back Kevin movement, but I do think,

look, we need a, we need a speaker that's kind of normal. And unfortunately, I don't see too many names floated right now. Well, yeah, I want to get to that. So this week, Republicans are going to meet behind closed doors and eventually choose a new speaker, we hope. What are those meetings like? Are the rooms literally filled with smoke? Do you think people are deciding the day of? Or is the lobbying kind of happening in advance?

Like, how does this work? Yeah, so it's like the rooms used to be filled with smoke when bayner was speaker because he he actually changed the rules so he could just smoke wherever like anywhere but the house floor really and uh which i'll be honest it's kind of you know i mean smell cigarette you're like oh it's you know kind of takes me back a little bit to back to my parents station wagon or whatever like baseball games all the dads are smoking. But yeah, I mean, so it will be a very intense meeting. These will be intense meetings.

I think for the most part, people have, I guess, generally started to make up their mind. I've talked to a few members who are trying to figure this out, particularly when it comes to Ukraine. And I've tried to make the point to them, like, you guys cannot support anybody. You can't. You can't support anybody that's not going to put Ukraine on the floor. Whether they actually have the courage to do that or not, I don't know. So I think you'll see if you were in these meetings, everybody kind of lollygag, slaps each other on the back, and then you stand up at these microphones. So if you imagine probably the candidates and those that are actually in leadership right now sit at the front of the room looking out towards the room and you know they each stand up and give their

little five minute introduction or whatever and we all need to unite and brah brah brah and then usually have a couple of lines and all the members stand up and get a chance to say their piece and a lot of times there's yelling sometimes there's people that think they're funny that aren't and um and i don't know if anybody ever gets their mind changed in these meetings, but they're important to have, I guess. I love the idea of like some backbencher going up and doing like a tight five, you know, see if they can get some laughs. So here's a really quick funny story. So Bruce Poliquin, I always had this like, he was out of Maine and always somebody would stand up. I think it was always Steve Scalise. And, you know, a couple of people would clap and then he'd always see Scalise.

I was like, thanks, Bruce. And then Bruce would make some joke. This was like every time. And then, you know, Scalise would make some comment about go Louisiana. And then somebody in the crowd was like, no, Michigan. Ha ha ha. Okay. Let's talk about America's business.

That got kind of old after 12 years. Okay, let's talk about America's business. That got kind of old after 12 years. Oh, man, that brings me back to my time working in the Senate and making stupid mayor's bets when there was some playoff game or something. Oh, yeah, I'm going to get ribs, or we're going to give you a case of beer because we're cool when we drink beer. Yeah, some sort of local cheesecake. Oh, God.

So anyway, you mentioned Steve Scalise. He's one of the leading candidates. Congressman Jim Jordan is the other. What do you think people should know about the two of them? You know, you just said we need someone to be normal. Does anyone fit the bill there? And do you have a sense of who the next speaker might be? I would say the closest that fits the bill would be Steve Scalise. You know, he's got an interesting background, obviously, but generally in terms of how he is, he's, I would call him a fairly mainstream Republican, but he's not a very strong leader. You know, he's a, he's a, I call him a

smiley McGee, like he'll smile at you, he'll shake your hand, but he's not really good at, you know, as a speaker, you have to have somebody that's going to be able to sit you down in the chair and call you out. And that takes confrontation skills, which Steve Scalise doesn't have. I also don't know where he stands on Ukraine. And again, I really think the Ukraine issue right now is the defining issue of foreign policy in our generation. Jim Jordan, look, Jim Jordan is a true believer. He is a true Christian nationalist. The reason he operates as he does, outside of extra constitutional, why does he ignore subpoenas from the January 6th committee? Yes, he's a politician at his heart, but he's a true believer. And that's what's frightening. He is somebody that really believes that you have to defeat the left at any cost and through any route, because the left is doing the business of, frankly, the devil.

And so that Jim Jordan is very worrisome to me because the fact that, first off, the fact that the party has actually come to a point where Jim Jordan is considered a possibility to be speaker blows me away. But secondarily, I think he has the best chance of becoming speaker because as you know, these right-wing echo chambers are going to start making these members of congress go on record with who they're supporting they're not going to let you have a secret ballot and be quiet and if you say steve scalese and this is what's crazy now you're a rhino if you're with steve scalese jim jordan is a real concern to me for this country man yeah me too i've never even met the devils. That's not fair. I do want to talk about Ukraine in a second. But I mean, I guess I wonder if the look,

you got these crazy rules that Kevin McCarthy put in place to get the job, including the sort of one member being able to kick the speaker out of the job by putting forward the motion to vacate. I worry that the House remains ungovernable unless you fix those bills. Do you agree? And do you think there's any talk of like fixing those kinds of underlying problems? Yeah, there is talk of it. I agree with you. And I have mixed feelings at the moment because part of me wants to be able to easily knock out the next speaker in this case, because if it's Jim Jordan, for instance, and you know, let's say he throws somebody under the bus, what like Ukraine, I want some of my colleagues that are pro-Ukraine to be able to have that ability. The problem is they won't. They're

not the kind of people that would do that. I think that rule has to change. And, you know, in the past, I think a single person could bring up a motion to vacate, but that was never considered a realistic tactic. And as you know well in politics, once you violate some standard, once you violate some order, some like kind of baseline thing, you never go back up to accepting that as baseline again. So when somebody said, we're going to move to vacate the chair, and that actually happened, that is now in people's playbook for, in essence, every bill they disagree with going forward. So yes, for the sake of the country, that needs to change. I wouldn't mind if they waited a few months on it, but it does need to change. Yeah, I hear you. You'll see some talk of like a unity government between Republicans

and Democrats where, you know, some moderates come together, they cut a deal, they try to govern in a way that's more bipartisan. That's treated by a lot of people, I think myself included, and maybe is kind of like West wing fan fiction, but I don't know. I mean, it shouldn't have to be. Do you think there's any hope of that kind of approach? Look,

I actually am not as pessimistic about the possibility is that as, as of that, as a lot of people, because look, has it ever been done? As far as I know? No. Some state houses have,

I think, you know, some of those have had to pull it off. Texas. Yeah. Texas and others. And we're now in that territory of like things that have never been done before anyway. Here's the way that happens is if, you know, the Republicans can't settle on a speaker. And again, if we can get five to 10 brave Republicans, which I don't think

exist anymore, I've learned that over the last couple of years, but if they can hold out and say, we're not going to vote for, again, somebody that's going to not put Ukraine on the floor, as an example, you will force that. I mean, that's a way to guarantee that you force that. The problem is, is those people that would have the tendency to do that are the moderates who just like to get along anyway. So I don't think it's unreasonable. I think it's unreasonable to think it'll happen now or within the next week. But if we get down the lane and the Republicans can't put forward a candidate, imagine somebody like, I'll just throw a name out there, like a Fred Upton, okay, who Democrats respect. He's a moderate Republican. Republicans generally respect him. And you can find enough Republicans to vote with the Democrats on this.

That would actually be game-changing for the country. Can you imagine how healing that would be to actually have a speaker that creates a power-sharing agreement that says my job as speaker is to actually just facilitate debate on the floor, facilitate votes? I think that would be essential. So the way I look at it is

I wouldn't put my money on it at this moment, but if the American people think about it and want it, they can actually make something happen. And I also wouldn't bet everything against it happening either. Okay. Well, that's a little more helpful than I mean, it would be incredible. It would be, it would be an important thing. So you mentioned a few times, both of us are big believers in the U S continuing to provide support for Ukraine. I've been watching the polling on this pretty closely for a while. I've noticed it kind of ticking down further and further among Democrats, but mostly among Republicans. I'm wondering why you think that's happening and how hopeful you are that we can get

another tranche of money through Congress, because, you know, I suspect this is kind of the last shot before the 2024 election. Yeah, I expect you're right. Look, I think so broadly speaking, I think the president needs to continue to make the case for why Ukraine. I mean, the thing I learned in my time in politics is for generally the American people don't pay a lot of attention to foreign policy and they need leadership. That's where, you know, obviously we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, but, you know, you see George W. Bush making a case for Iraq prior to Iraq and brought the people along. And that's where leadership comes in. And whether it's a member of Congress, somebody in the Senate, or the president making that case, that needs to happen more.

But on the Republican side, I'm not sure Biden's going to be able to sway the right on this issue. I'm not sure Biden's going to be able to sway the right on this issue. And that is because of a lack of leadership on the GOP who are too effing scared to just tell the truth. Like, look, Russia is our enemy. We're getting a bargain. This is the most fiscally conservative thing we can do is empower the Ukrainians to basically do what we've spent trillions of dollars to be ready to do if we had to against the Russians. It's not a hard case to make. But when you're scared to death of what Fox News or Newsmax or whatever is going to say about you, it's really easy to just be quiet. And so there's been an absolute lack of leadership on the right in terms of this. Voices like Tucker Carlson,

who was absolutely in bed with Vladimir Putin and with the guy out of Hungary, it's just Orban. It is amazing to me to watch this complete, what used to be the party of Reagan that would brag about being a strong national defense, has shit that down the toilet. And I think that's the reason you're seeing this collapse on the right. And look, war is hard. War takes a long time. We are used to, as Americans, being

able to go in somewhere and knock out an army in three weeks and then come home or enter a peacekeeping operation. That's not what happens when you don't have air supremacy in Ukraine. But I'll tell you what the most inspiring thing to me is, and frankly, something that has changed my opinion a lot on the left. I never saw the left in America as the enemy, right? Obviously now they're my allies because we believe in democracy, but watching the left generally stand up and stress the importance of defending democracy in Ukraine has actually made me realize that that foreign policy from, I'll say just left generally, you know, actually believes in defending democracy. And my old party doesn't. I guess I'll say my party still doesn't, but I don't really identify as a

Republican. And it's amazing to me also to watch a welder in Ukraine and an actor in Ukraine fighting together in a foxhole to defeat a tyranny. It should be an inspiration to all of us. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I wonder, I wonder how much you think the opposition to Ukraine in the Republican Party is, you know, earnestly held kind of isolationist views that, you know, we should be worried about things back home

and not wars abroad versus, I don't know, like maybe reflexive opposition to something Biden does or like, hey, Trump doesn't like Ukraine. So now I don't know, like maybe reflexive opposition to something Biden does or like, Hey, Trump doesn't like Ukraine. So now I don't either. I mean, I'm just, I don't want to like assume that people, uh, don't, you know, aren't telling the truth about their motivations or intentions, but I just can't suss it out. Yeah. Well, so there's a few that, and they're the guys that have been around forever. You know, the old Ron Paul's the old, uh, uh, uh, what's it? Rohrabacher Dana Rohrabacher, that were always

kind of isolationist, but they were always a very small fraction of the party. I think the rest of this is let's own the libs, right? Everything that Biden does, we're against. Somehow, Vladimir Putin through the internet, through social media has convinced some on the right that he is this defender of Christianity, which is just the most insane thing I've ever heard. But some people believe that, that he's against whatever it is, gays or whatever they're angry about at the moment. And so he's our guy. And I think a lot of it is just this kind of reflexive anti-Bidenism, this reflexive kind of Western liberal ideology is anti-Christian, which isn't true. And I think that's what a lot of it comes to. I don't think many people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, for that matter, have a well thought out position on it, except in Tucker's case, I can make some money.

Maybe it's a direct payment from Russia, which I actually would not be surprised to find out, or it's just being crazy and driving people to him. But there is no, I think the opposition to Ukraine, for instance, is not really a serious thought out position because anytime you engage them in the debate, they're unable to really argue their or articulate their position. Yeah. Last thing, I know you have a book coming out. It's called Renegade, Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country. It released at the end of this month on October 31st. What'd you write about and where can folks pick this up? Yeah. So again, Renegade, you can pick it up anywhere you get books. I just actually finished recording the audio book. So if you want to hear my wonderful voice, yeah. How was that? Oh, dude, you just go blind when you're reading. Obama hated that. It's hard. It's hard. But really it's a humble and kind of self-effacing, if that's the right

word, kind of like I admit my own faults and looking at what the Republican party has done since I was a kid from where I was actually at the Christian Coalition meeting in 92, where George H.W. Bush came for the first time and addressed the Christian Coalition. And you saw for the first time the Republican Party and kind of Christian nationalism join up. And so I talk about that. I talk about what we've seen in the party. Obviously tell a few stories about January 6th and some of the behind the scenes. But the big thing is just, I think, a humble look at where I've made mistakes, where the party has gone, and hopefully optimistically as Americans, like what we need to

do to pull ourselves out of this moment. Well, listen, I think everybody should pick that up. I just want to thank you because I know that there would have been a lot easier political path for you. Just saying, yeah, you know, shutting up about Donald Trump, maybe endorsing him, sitting in a safe seat, maybe riding that to, you know, going all in on Trump to win a primary, to run for governor in Illinois, right? There's a lot of paths you could have taken that didn't involve getting attacked by your own party, attacked by the president of the United States.

And you and I don't agree on a lot of things politically, but I really do admire the courage to say this in that moment. Thank you. And I want to say, I mean, you and I have a decent relationship over time. We've always respected each other. And I appreciate that.

The thing that I took away from all of this though, is, you know, like when I voted for the violence against women act, and I was one of just a handful of Republicans, or I voted for the Violence Against Women Act and I was one of just a handful of Republicans or I voted for immigration reform or whatever. It's the times you stand alone against your party that you're actually the most proud of because I think it proves to yourself that you have what it takes. Yes, it was a tough last couple of years and I'm still coming to grips with how much that impacted me.

But I know that my kid, who has the last name Kinzinger, which is not a common last name, will be proud to read his last name in the history books. And I'll say that to brag. And I don't say that I wasn't courageous. I was just surrounded by cowards. And unfortunately, we need more people that aren't cowards, at least in the Republican Party. Amen to that. Well, thank you for everything you did. Congressman Kinzinger, thanks for joining the show. And again, Renegade Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country will be out at the end of the month. So check it out and pick one up. You bet. Take care. Thanks. Thanks to Adam Kinzinger for joining us. Everyone else, have a great day and we'll talk to you on Thursday. See you at the RFK fundraiser, April. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Writing support from Hallie Kiefer.

Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Thank you. at youtube.com slash at Pod Save America. Finally, you can join our Friends of the Pod subscription community for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and a great discussion on Discord. Plus, it's a great way to get involved with Vote Save America.

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