The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: Detoxing from Congress

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Watching from a distance, former Rep. Kinzinger tells Charlie Sykes that House moderates have a lot of power they're not willing to use, while the Freedom Caucus —AKA "The Terror Club" — is willing to shoot hostages. Plus, McCarthy will say whatever he needs to say to stay in power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We are only about one week into the new Congress, not even really one week into the new Congress. So this seemed like a good time to talk with a guy who is now able to look at this snow globe of shit

from the outside. Adam Kinzinger joins us again on the podcast. Adam, how the hell are you? I'm good. I kind of feel like I can float now a little bit. You know, once you've been weighed down for 12 years with increasingly heavy pressure, as you get been weighed down for 12 years with increasingly heavy pressure as you get to the end, it's like, now I feel like I weigh about a 10th of the,

you know, it takes a while to detox out of this. You know, that's, that's not something that happens overnight. I'm probably halfway detoxed and I don't know how long the other half takes, but every day that goes by and every percent more closer to detox is like more of a permanent smile on my face. It feels good. I love that. But what do you mean by detox? What is the process like? Man, it's hard to explain. It's like everybody has had a job or like a situation that just kind of weighs on you that like, no matter if you go home at five o'clock at night or it's a Saturday, it's always there. And that's like politics all the time, particularly in the last couple. Yeah, it just grinds. And so

the detox to me is just kind of like, okay, I can start putting it away more. I don't actually have to watch the news all the time, you know, and just, I feel less responsible for the dysfunction and it's nice to feel less responsible for the dysfunction of the greatest country in the world. So, yeah. So I have to ask you, what was it like for you sitting there beginning your detox, watching what your former colleagues were up to, watching what all the things that Kevin McCarthy had to go through. Well, I say this, you know, with the full understanding that obviously what happened wasn't good, but it was good that I got to watch that because it kind of, when you get out of this job, it's like, okay, are you going to miss it? Are you going to feel irrelevant? Whatever. Just watching it happen the whole time because I knew what it would be like to be on the floor. And I just thanked God that I was not there. I mean, you know, going through one speaker vote, Charlie, is painful.

You know, 435 names called, it's hot on the floor, half the people you don't like to be around. You know, going through that many with that rising pressure, like for me, I was feeling, you know, the part of me that wasn't detox jet. I felt what it was like, what we've been going through, which is like looking and saying, okay, all the terror club, the freedom club, is extracting all this, and the moderates have so much power that they're never willing to use. Never. I think you were talking about this yesterday or something. And it's like, you're 100% right. Because even Nancy Mace,

I like her as a person, goes on, speaks tough, says, you know, I'm going to vote against the rules package, and of course doesn't. And I've been there because we like to get along. We think the party should function. And watching like kind of the normals be completely unwilling to do anything to stop this from happening was probably one of the more frustrating things for me. Well, and probably a preview of what we're going to see. So let's talk about the quote unquote normals. And we have to put quotes around it because there's always like, you know, the abnormals and the less abnormals, the extreme and the extremers or whatever to make that up. Okay, But we'll break it down for me because you know, most of these folks, there are some new faces like George Santos. We'll talk about that because

I love the fact that he's trying to get into a slap fight with you on Twitter. I mean, just for people, you know, yesterday, George Santos, who apparently has a lot of time on his hand and probably should be at the top of the list of people who ought to know when to shut the fuck up is attacking you, but whatever, who ought to know when to shut the fuck up. Right. Is attacking you. But whatever. Who cares? Break down what the caucus looks like. We know about the bomb throwers. We know about the crazies.

How many actual normals are there? You know, there was a lot of speculation that there would be a group of congressmen that would vote against this. You know, the complete surrender by Kevin McCarthy, the empowering of the Freedom Caucus. And there were numbers thrown around. What do you think it is? Five, six, seven, ten? Yeah, I mean, look, so the normals, I would say it consists of, and granted, I don't know the freshman class, so I'll put that caveat on it. It consists of like the bulk of the thing. So like the hundred some people, but if you want normals to include people who are willing to do something, like who are actually like, they're not just sitting there saying, gosh, I don't like what's going on. They're actually willing to step forward and do something. I don't know. I mean, it could be five

people total that would be willing to like go to the wall. But I think the vast majority of Republicans are like, this is a bad deal. I mean, I talked to some of them when all this is going on. It's a bad rules package. It's terrible what the Freedom Club is doing. Well, then why don't you guys stop it? And so look, if you're willing to shoot a hostage, you'll win. Well, that's right. And then the question is whether or not the quote unquote moderates are willing to shoot hostages. There's no evidence that they're willing to do that. But let's just talk about the mentality and what the conversation goes like. I mean, it is the, as you mentioned, you have to go along to get along. And so, you know, if you break with leadership right now, you're going to be made irrelevant, right? I mean, there are threats and there are implied threats. How does it go? I mean,

do you want to be part of the team? Do you not want to be part of it? I mean, how, what is the pressure on someone like a Nancy Mace or somebody else that knows that this is a shit sandwich to eat it anyway? Yeah, so here, I'll give you the insight. So first off, the perception is that you have to get along with the team in order to be able to do stuff. Now, I'm going to get back to that. But when you look actually at what happened, so, you know, there were the 10, 20 holdouts, right, up until the last couple ballots. Every time one of those holdouts then voted for McCarthy, everybody cheered. Kevin McCarthy walks over with a big smile on his face, puts his arm around him, and they end up getting better assignments. Look, this idea, and by the way, I'm a victim of it

because I never executed this power either when I was there, so I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'm somehow better. But you realize if you actually are an asshole, you actually will come out being the person that they pursue more. Look at Marjorie Taylor Greene. So that's the reality. The perception when you're in that group, generally politicians are people pleasers. It's just the nature of who we are. It's a bad nature, generally politicians are people pleasers. I mean, it's just the nature of who we are. It's a bad nature, but it's who we are. You know, people like me, my goal in Congress is always to see the 200, some of us all pulling in the same direction, right? We want to work as

a team. I'll take an 80% bill as long as we can advance as a team, but there is a caustic 10 or 20% that don't. And so in that group of people, the moderates will call them. Here's how every conversation goes. Cause I've been in about a hundred of these. We need to do what they're doing. Yeah. Harumph, you know, we're eating lunch, you know, it's probably not Chick-fil-A cause we're the moderates, right? So we always get tacos or something. Cause anyway, but it's like Harumph. Yeah, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. We talk a huge game until it comes down to it. Kevin McCarthy then talks to us or one of us or the leader of the Tuesday group or the leader of us. And we always collapse every time.

100% the only time I've seen the moderates. And again, I use moderate loosely and I'm going to quit saying that, but I think it's important to say the only time I've seen the moderates, and again, I use moderate loosely, and I'm going to quit saying that, but I think it's important to say, the only time I've seen the moderates really go to the wall was on the export-import bank and reauthorization. It was the one time we successfully did a discharge petition. But that's what happens. It's just the nature of it. Look, if you're in the freedom club, the terror club, you are willing to burn it all down. If you're a moderate, you want to work together as a team. And at the very onset, you are outmatched because if you're willing to burn it all down. If you're a moderate, you want to work together as a team. And at the very onset, you are outmatched because if you're willing to shoot a hostage, you will win every time. So Kevin McCarthy comes up and he talks to you.

What does he say? What does that conversation go like? Well, it's a hierarchy. So let's go back a year or two and say a whip against a bill. So let's say it's an important bill to the Republicans. I say no. They send Patrick McHenry or somebody over to me, right? Kind of a frontline whip. Then they send the real whip over. And Scalise is such a nice guy. He'll never like throw down the hammer. He'll just smile and come on, you know, okay.

And then Kevin comes over eventually and smiles at you and tells you to do it. None of these guys actually are really good at bringing the hammer down. You know, I had seen in the past, the last person I saw that could actually bring a hammer down was like Eric Cantor, who could actually just look at you in the eyes and be like, you know, F you, man. It just ratchets up the pressure. And then they start having your donors call or they call your donors in some cases, or you have these outside groups come in and it is much easier, Charlie, to just be like,

fine, I'll collapse. I did that early on on the Budget Control Act in 2011. Speaker Boehner promised us, this is the thing that led to sequester. It was never supposed to go to sequester because they had the super committee. This is a blast from the past. Boehner promised all of us,

because I was worried about defense cuts, vote for this, we will never get defense cuts. We'll make it through. We end up getting defense cuts. And it's the reason we're playing catch up on hypersonics and stuff to China. I voted for it because I didn't want to be the one standing alone, because in our nature, the moderates want to get along. So that's what's likely to happen again, even when it comes to defense cuts, when it comes

to the motion to discharge, when it comes to raising the debt. Right. Is that what you think? Absolutely, because... That's scary. We put the economy, to use a pilot term, we had it in like a stall buffet in 2011 when we approached the debt limit. If you compared Congress in 2011 to the majority today, we were way more sane, even though we were a little insane still. We were way more sane. I think it's quite possible we end up in another sequester type situation, particularly if we're approaching the debt limit. As you guys were talking about yesterday or the day before, this idea that now the Democrats have to negotiate with Republicans for the debt limit, it's asinine because it is

literally, literally like me saying, my household income's out of whack. I'm going to quit paying my credit card. All that does is put you way more out of whack. And that's what this is. I do worry about the summer. And I think that needs to be repeated. You know, the refusal to raise the debt limit does not cut the debt. It does not cut spending. It just merely says, we're not going to pay the debts that we've already incurred. That's right. There is nothing that is less conservative than that. Now, you mentioned defense spending, and this, of course, is one of the big questions, whether or not one of the flexes of the new Republican Party is not only do they want to defund Homeland Security, defund the IRS, but they're actually now talking about rather dramatic cuts in the military. How is that going to fly in the caucus?

Well, I mean, I think the majority of the caucus won't like it. But? I think, you know, the majority of the caucus would say no, but that doesn't mean they have the power to do anything about it. And here's the thing, which is so misunderstood about defense is half of defense spending right now is just personnel costs. So it doesn't go into anything of winning a war. It is, you know, we always say like we want the troops paid the best. We want to give them a pay raise. We want them to have healthcare. I agree with all that, but that's what half of the defense budget is right there. Boom. So now cut

the defense budget in half and now understand that every year when you have inflation, particularly with the inflation numbers we have now, you know, you either have to increase it to maintain parity. If you hold that number level, all you're doing is, in theory, it's a real cut. Then you take into account that we have to be investing massive amounts in cutting-edge technology to stay ahead of China and Russia, if we do end up not even just cut, even if we don't cut defense, but we don't grow it at the rate of inflation, we are losing ground. We're losing ground. And that's what a lot of people don't understand on that, particularly when half of it goes to personnel costs. And China, which doesn't spend as much on defense, but it's pretty close, they don't spend near anything on personnel. So I think when this

comes down to it, it won't be that most Republicans will turn around and vote for a defense cut, but they will end up getting sucked into a trap, which is probably the only way out, something along the lines of another sequester or another super committee. Had the super committee worked, it would have been great. I don't think in this polarized environment, something like a super committee can work. So you described how you had, you know, gone along to get along, you know, many, many times until you stopped. And you and I have talked many, many times, but I don't think I know the answer to this question. So what was the moment that you basically decide, screw it, I'm not doing this, I'm going to vote to impeach

Donald Trump, I'm going to go off into the wilderness. They must have been twisting your arm. They must have, you know, gotten in your face. Was there a moment when you said, I'm out? I'm done? You know, I mean, for four years while Trump was president, you know, you go through these moments of like, okay, he has this good guy around him, you know, General Kelly. So maybe he's going to put good people around him. Oh, now he went bananas on Twitter. And so it's just like constant emotional train wreck that we've all experienced, right? The thing that I can remember most clearly, I mean, when he retweeted Civil War comments, that made me mad.

There were all these things that kind of pissed me off. The thing where I clearly remember being like, holy shit, that's it. Like I'm done was the night of the election when he tweeted, stop the votes. And then he said, this is being stolen. The reason that made such a trigger for me is because as a guy that frankly is very obsessed with foreign policy, with America's role in the world, I realized that the second you take away people's just basic faith in the voting system, you put a time on how long democracy can survive. It can't survive if you believe your vote is stolen. That was the moment I said, I'll put everything on the line because I cannot be part of this anymore. I cannot be part of watching this country fall

apart. When I got back from Iraq in 2009 and made the decision to run for Congress, I remember thinking, if we are going to ask young people to die for this country, which I had seen, and obviously it was a big thing back particularly in that time, I have to be willing to give up my career for the exact same cause. And that just stuck with me. And when I saw the president literally going beyond just saying stupid things to actually undermining democracy, I was like, I'm off this train, bro. And I was hoping that it wouldn't cost me my career. I was hoping that other people would follow, but I was willing to cost the career to do it. All right, so let's look back

on the January 6th committee and also connect the dots to where we're at right now. I find it extraordinary that many of the architects of the coup are making no secret of the fact that they are celebrating and cheering on the attempted

neo-fascist coup in Brazil. So you have Steve Bannon out there just beating the drums about the Brazilian freedom fighters. And I mean, there's no way around this, right? I mean, you don't get Bolsonaro without Trump, you know, without the January 6th insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, you would not have the January 8th insurrection in the Brazilian Capitol. There's a direct line there. It's not that subtle. Totally. Let me first off say that to anybody that's ever been on your podcast that was a naysayer

in our committee, ha, ha, ha, right? Like we defeated your expectations, including my own expectations. We exceeded what I thought we'd be able to do. But yeah, you are 100% right. Brazil would not have happened without January 6th. And Ron Filipkowski had this like a dude in a, like a shaman, except he was in like yellow and green instead of red, white, and blue. I mean, it was about as direct as you can get.

I remember talking to Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister, has actually become a friend of mine. And he has always talked about how whatever happens in the United States has a direct connection to other democracies. You know, we can experience what happens in other democracies can sometimes trickle to the United States, but whatever happens in the United States will trickle, particularly among conservatives and liberals. So as the conservative movement in the U.S. goes authoritarian, that's what you can see in Brazil, for instance. And so, you know, look, yeah, there's no doubt the two are directly connected.

The impression from these folks, from what I understand in Brazil, was the election was stolen. They believed that if they occupied the capital, that the military, where Bolsonaro comes from, would actually come in and install him as president. And you see these videos of the military coming in, frankly, to arrest them, but they're cheering because they think the military is coming in to install the new president. You can see where that happens. And by the way, Steve Bannon, they're not even trying to hide it anymore. They want nothing except fascist right-wing authoritarian governments, and they can't pretend otherwise anymore. Well, and they're willing to embrace violence, as apparently is Tucker Carlson. I mean, this is kind of a reminder that these lines, if you actually convince people that these elections

have been stolen, then no one should be surprised when people act out, right? I mean, if you sincerely believe all of these lies, if you have been misled, then it's not a completely irrational response to say we have to do something about it, right? So, I mean, the lies lead to this inevitably. It's not irrational at all. I can't speak as a Brazilian, but as an American, everything we've learned in school and the history of this country, and frankly, the mythology of this country is based on revolution. And it's based on revolution because we had no representation. And so if you believe in the founding of this country, which I think we all do, was a good thing, you have to look and say, if you truly believe blood-drinking Satanists are overthrowing the will of the people, I would have been on the Capitol on January 6th.

And that's why it's so dangerous. You mentioned the January 6th committee. Just the other day in the mail, I got my bound copy of the final report, which was, wow, that is a heavy lift. I want to get your take on all of this because you think that this exceeded your expectations. There were, I mean, it must be somewhat vindicating to go back, you know, read the people who wrote columns about the committee has already failed before it began. So give me your exit interview on that committee. Did you accomplish everything you wanted to accomplish?

Well, I think close. I mean, you know, I think back to when we were starting the hearings and even groups like No Labels put out some tweet about this is a partisan sham. Like, No Lab labels did that. I go through these kind of moments, these trauma memories of like, oh man, we are going to screw this up, right? I've put everything in line for this. I'd say we didn't accomplish everything we wanted because what I would have loved to accomplish is to have all of my relatives that have written me off and said I worked for the devil have their mind open to realize that actually I'm the one telling the truth. Short of that, though, and that's probably a pretty tall order to think you're going to deprogram people through it, I think we did accomplish a ton. The Department of Justice,

whatever they end up doing, particularly if they prosecute Trump, I think will be a large part because of the information we uncovered, which launched their investigation, I think most importantly, in 10 years, there is not going to be a single person besides in like the weirdo opium dens of whatever city that will ever admit that they actually believed, you know, that the election was stolen. Because I think the facts that we put out, the truth that we've put out that we discovered will be the mainstream narrative in the future. It doesn't mean there's not going to be another conspiracy theory of some sort, but I think we've done what we needed to do in the committee chairmanships, they have the gavel, and apparently they have a little bit of committee envy here. So they have created a new select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. How's that going to go, Adam?

I don't know. I mean, it's like, if you truly believe that the government's weaponizing things, I'm not attacking for that. I believe in congressional oversight, but that's what the oversight committee is. It's for that. Like, if you think there's abuses and problems, I mean, this is just obviously a Kevin McCarthy thing to win votes for speaker. Actually, while this was going down, this whole speaker vote, I go, you know, people would ask me, is he going to win? And I said, absolutely, Kevin's going to win because he will literally do anything at the cost of the country or anything to become Speaker. So he'll get it. He did. It's somewhat eerie if the DOJ goes after Scott Perry because he tried

to overthrow the government, and now he can use the arm of Congress to embarrass individual members, individual FBI agents, whatever, it's frightening to me. You know, look, the Department of Justice, the FBI should never be scared to do their job. And I think they're trying to intimidate them. I think they're clearly trying to intimidate them. So how is Jim Jordan going to play out? I mean, Jim Jordan's been very high profile. He's about to become extremely high profile. He is ready for his close-up. These things can go either way. So, you know the guy, you've watched him, you've sat on these investigative committees, you know how they can go off the rails. How will Jim Jordan's act wear?

I think everything's going to go off the rails. I mean, I think if I had to guess, I would say that what you're going to end up seeing in the near term is a lot of kind of Fox News fodder. You're going to see a lot of fundraising stuff that can come out of these committees, Hunter Biden's laptop, whatever else. But there are still people in the middle that are going to watch this and see this and realize that I think this is not a serious legislating party. I think this is going to ultimately damage the GOP. That would be my prediction. I don't know that, obviously, for sure, but I've never seen an investigation, frankly,

go off without damaging the party that does it, with the exception of the January 6th investigation. So I don't think Jim is going to necessarily do himself any favors, but, of course, he'll probably get reelected and everything. But the GOP either has to wake up or it's got to get seriously beat in a number of elections before it wakes up. Regardless, it's going to wake up. It's just what's the cost before it does it? Because this is not a serious party to lead the country. Well, speaking of which, I want to talk to you

about Biden's classified documents and everything. But we have to talk about George Santos for a moment. I'm just reading a tweet here from Scott Wong. Speaker McCarthy says, well, a lot of folks here in Congress have fabricated part of their resume, and Santos will have to build the trust of voters. And he says that Santos will get some committee assignments, not the top ones. Of course, he's a freshman. I mean, why would he? But Santos will get some committee assignments. So Mike Kevin being Mike Kevin when it comes to George Santos, they're not going to do anything about him, are they? Really? No, Kevin's a piece of shit. And let's just be honest about this, because Kevin is, he will say whatever he needs to say to stay in power. I'm not even saying that gratuitously to be mean to him. It's just a fact. Look at him taking Swalwell and Schiff off of committees, okay, and Ilhan Omar. He's saying, well, that's because you guys took Marjorie Taylor Greene and Gosar. Keep in mind, both of those were bipartisan votes, okay? We did it because Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jewish space lasers, you know, school shootings never happened, among other things.

Paul Gosar, because he attended a white supremacy conference. It's a little different than this case. And that was a couple years after Kevin McCarthy threw Steve King off of committees for doing even less than what Paul Gosar did. So, no, on the Santos things, it's different. Yeah, tons of people can exaggerate parts of their resume. It's different than making up a whole new life. And it's different, too, than going from being worth $50,000 to, what, $20 million in a year and trying to figure out how that happened. But Kevin needs his vote.

If this was a 20-vote majority, he'd throw Santos under the bus. But it's a five-vote, so he needs him. Let's talk about Marjorie Taylor Gre green and her normalization i mean her rise a normal healthy political party would have treated her like a pariah given all the crazy things that she has said the offensive things she said the conspiracy theories the bigotry the anti-semitism and yet one of the first things that kevin mccarthy did after being elected speaker was to take a selfie with his new best friend forever, Marjorie Taylor Greene. I knew that she was going to be a problem. I don't think that I had on my dance card that she was going to become this problem.

I also didn't have on my bingo card that she and Lauren Boebert were going to get into a scrag fight. It's so funny. It's funny because it's like you realize everybody that stands up and says like they're doing this for some cause, it's all just because of their own ego and fame. And so they're all going to fight each other. Green is going to fight Gates and Boebert and what, because they're all competing. If you'd have told me two years ago that Marjorie Taylor Green would end up being not a pariah, I would have been like, probably not, but I can see how the party would go there. If you'd have told me two years ago that she'd end up being the default leader of the Republican

party, I never would have believed it. And now I think it's so obvious why, because she can raise money. She gins up the base. Truth doesn't matter. She's somewhat articulate in how she speaks. And Kevin needs her. And she knows that. Man, I just actually finished Robert Draper's recent book. I'm trying to think of the exact title, but it's a really good book. Actually, it's called The Weapons of Mass Delusion. I'm looking at it over here on my bookshelf. Yes, it's The Weapons of Mass Delusion. He does a lot of kind of deep dive on a Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I hate to learn that much about her because I think as a sophomore, she's not worth knowing that much about, honestly. But she is very influential and powerful. And for me as a Christian, I believe in truth, and I'm not saying I'm always perfect, of course, but I believe truth matters. For a party that kind of like sinks itself to Christianity, to be so unmoored from truth is still something I can't really get past. And the fact that McCarthy doesn't seem to have any problem in allowing her to become the face of the new majority. And again, just from strictly, you know, prudential grounds, you would think that he would want to downplay her role. And he's like, ah, screw it. I'm all in. Well, you think that, except I'll give you a counter narrative.

Okay. Kevin McCarthy doesn't actually care about the power and the decision-making. He cares about the title. Here's the thing about Kevin. He is very driven. That's why he's actually been so successful. He can never be a U.S. Senator. He can never be a governor because he's from California. Same reason I can't in Illinois. He's never going to be president the highest thing he can achieve is speaker of the house so he gets that in his mind and that becomes when you're a striver when you get your identity and advancement and success that is his whole goal and he will give away power I think to attain that goal the problem is you know as I think you and I who are

somewhat healthy individuals mentally understand, life is about way more than your title and way more than, you know, being seen as your successes or failures. And I think that will come crashing down on him at some point. And I don't actually envy him for that. I truly have some compassion for Kevin because he was a friend of mine, but I think he's a man that has gotten so lost in his ambition that he's taken the country with him, unfortunately. And for what? He'll get his picture up, he'll get the bust, and 30 years from now, he'll be the answer to a trivial pursuit question. Because I'm sorry, this is one of the things that I learned early on in politics was that, for example, the Speaker of the State

Assembly thinks they're a really big deal, really, really powerful. You get five miles away from the Capitol and nobody knows who you are. You get 10 minutes after they leave office and nobody remembers who you are. That's so true. I think every, every speaker, every, every politician should be handed a, a copy of the memoirs of Marcus Aurelius, who was a Roman emperor who wrote, you know, nobody's going to remember me very soon. And they wouldn't remember him if he hadn't written what he wrote. But he actually went through all of the former emperors and go, you know, nobody remembers them. These guys are emperors of Rome and nobody gives a shit about them anymore. He understood that, which is amazing. I think that everybody in temporary political power ought to have to read Marcus Aurelius.

Okay, that's my two cents. I'm lucky because I'd seen a lot of people that had left politics since I've been in there who are all of a sudden kind of wandering around the halls looking for relevance. And it's like, you just got to understand, look, you know, take advantage of while you have power, you know, yeah, people care. It's great and everything, enjoy it. But there will be a day, and that's exactly what's great about our country is people can go away. We don't have dynasties here. I like playing a game sometimes where I, if we're sitting around having a couple of beers with my friends, I go through all the list of presidents, but I named the ones that nobody ever knows was president, like John Tyler or, you know, Millard Fillmore, or you go through some of those names that nobody

thinks about. I'm like, oh yeah, I didn't know he was ever a president. There's always like five presidents that people are like, really? James K. Polk was a guy? I didn't know that name. So I just think that's fun. I used to play the game of vice presidents in my pointless youth. And I think one of the fun things is to realize, I mean, when you're the vice president of the United States, you're a big deal, but utterly obscure. I think it was John Nance Garner who said it wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit. He didn't actually say CNN, so you are required to have opinions on everything. You were on the air the other day and asked about this. You said, from a political perspective, this is actually pretty bad, not just for the president, but really for the idea of getting justice through the political system. So give me your take on how this plays out. Obviously, with all the caveats, his document issue is dramatically, significantly different than Donald Trump's,

but does that matter? Yeah, I mean, I don't think it does politically. You know, thankfully, justice does nuance, right? Which, and it will, it'll reflect that. But on the political side, when Mar-a-Lago was raided, you had a lot of Republicans who were unwilling to defend Donald Trump in that, and that was healthy for the democracy. I think now with what Joe Biden has done, it's given people, even sane Republicans, the ability now to kind of defend Donald Trump, the excuse to do it without the cognitive dissonance. So I think from a political perspective, it's really, really bad. And I don't know if Joe Biden personally bears any responsibility or if it's staff or whatever. I just don't understand why when they knew that this happened, how come they didn't put that information out at a different time instead of letting it kind of come out in this secret thing?

And it seems a lot more weird that way. I've gone through all the differences, you know, and the way that, you know, Biden has cooperated, the fact that he's being somewhat transparent. But that point you just raised is one that that's going to be a sticking point. They actually discovered these documents six days before the midterms and decided not to tell anybody about it. Now it's the middle of January. And I have to say, you know, I don't think there's going to be a really good answer to that. Yeah. If you're transparent, you have to be transparent.

But you and I both know why six days before the midterms, they were not going to have a press conference or an announcement that they had discovered these documents, you know, in this think tank. So it's going to be messy. You've called the, you know, U.S. attorney in Chicago who's heading the investigation a very fair man. Somebody was appointed by Trump. You know him. You have confidence in him. I do. He's a good U.S. attorney. He's gone after corruption. I mean, he's gone after, you know, Mike Madigan and Illinois corruption, which we've been desperate, you know, for a long time. I think he's fair. I don't think he's going to come out and

exonerate or attack Joe Biden based on politics. So we'll see what his report says. Honestly, I mean, look, I think if you take the politics out of it, there's a massive difference, obviously, between what Trump did and what Biden did. And it'll just depend on what that report says ultimately. And if Attorney General Garland has the ability or the capacity to still go forward prosecuting Trump with this thing hanging out there. I want to go back to something we talked about right at the beginning of this podcast, which is the so-called moderates, the normies. You tweeted out that the so-called Republican moderates own the dysfunctional rules and the Freedom Club committee appointments. They could have played hardball, but they never have and never will. They have more power than the freedom kids. I think so much rides on this particular point that they have the power

and they've never used it. That's been the story of the last six, seven years, right? They have more power than the freedom kids because they can align themselves with Democrats. And I think this is going to be the big test of the Republican Party leading up to 2024, whether any of those same grownups will stand up. And you think they never will. I think part of when I say they never will, I hope it's somewhat of a challenge to them to do it, because I just know I've lived through this. And I know, and again, I'm not only placing responsibility on them. I'm just as guilty when I was in Congress. There were many times we were talking about taking it to the well and, you know, shutting it down and doing whatever, and we never did it. And so I think it's important for them to

get frustrated enough. And honestly, Charlie, I thought they would have gotten frustrated enough in this rules package. The easiest thing they could have done was to tank the rules package, because now McCarthy's already in. Yeah, the freedom kids are going to get angry, but you don't have a rules package. You've got to go back to the board, and they didn't do it. And that, to me, was like the easiest way because you didn't even have to shut down everything. So that was a little disheartening for me to see that only, I think, Tony Gonzalez was the only one that did it. Nancy May spoke a big game and then capitulated.

That was worrisome. And, again, I've lived it, and I'm guilty of it. So thatace spoke a big game and then capitulated. That was worrisome. And again, I've lived it and I'm guilty of it. So that's the disclaimer. This is why your perspective, I think, is so interesting because you live through the process by which, or at least you understand now, the process by which people come in, go into politics for a certain reason, go into Congress with a certain mindset, and then lose it. They forget, why am I here? What is it that I want to accomplish? Because all of the then the norms of Congress and the going along to get along and the pressure and the personal relationships

and all of that throw up so much dust. You have the perspective of knowing how that happens, but also knowing what it feels like to liberate yourself at the other end of that tunnel. Oh, the liberation's amazing, by the way. But don't underestimate just the fact of physical discomfort. Like, there is a reason that every government shutdown is decided on December 23rd, because it has to go to Christmas, because then that compels people to make a decision. Sitting on the floor forever, not wanting to deal with round after round to vote again. Humans are human. I'm interested in exploring that more because I think it's one of the things I can bring both in talking

on your podcast and what I'm doing with CNN is kind of just pulling the curtain back a little bit and saying, look, here's human beings. Here's how they think. Here's how the dynamics work because I've frankly been there in kind of one of the most historically at this moment in time, kind of crazy times to be in Congress. It's funny because I was talking with a veteran Republican politician from Wisconsin the other day, off the record conversation. And we were both sort of talking about, you know, how you can get caught up in things, that you get caught up. There's a certain momentum.

There's a certain tribalism. It's us versus them. There's a certain excitement. There's a competitiveness. There's a desire to win. And you do and say things that afterwards you step back. If you have a little bit of perspective, if you break the glass just a little bit, you go, what the hell was I thinking? Yeah.

Why did I do that? But you can understand how it happens. And the question is, how do you get more people to break that glass? Yeah, it's true. It's like in Tim Miller's book where he talks about it's at points, at least from a staffer perspective, and I think this is the case with members of Congress too.

It becomes less about policy and more about winning a game, right? We are competitive people. Ultimately, I think more people will break the glass. I am optimistic long-term, both on the Republican Party and on the country, but it may end up having to be a self-made economic crisis. It may end up having to be more bad things, which I'd hate to say and hate to see. I think ultimately we do choose the right thing.

I think you talking about it, people talking about it, people demanding better. I think implementing things like rank choice voting in more states to force people to not only go to the extremes, but also go to the center. That's how we're going to make a difference here. And we can do it. That's an excellent idea. Adam Kinzinger, former Congressman from Illinois, free at last, free at last. Thank God you are free at last. Now a political commentator on CNN, also leads Country First, the organization of political action committee that was active in the midterms backing candidates about the state and federal level. Adam, thank you so much. It's always great to chat with you. You bet. Anytime, Charlie. See you.

And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.