The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: Everything Is on the Line

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Republicans are tamping down the crazy and the weird at the convention—like no election fraud, no abortion ban talk, and no vaccines—to present their dangerous agenda in a non-threatening way. Meanwhile, why can a 20-year-old buy 50 rounds of ammunition, but not a White Claw or a pack of cigarettes? Plus, we introduce a new Kamala-themed segment: The Coconut Meter. Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller. show notes NY Times analysis of Saturday's shooting

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is a beautiful day to be back with my buddy, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, now a contributor to the Bulwark, senior political commentator for CNN. He's the founder of Country First, which backs pro-democracy candidates what is up my man hey buddy if i sound like somebody filled my face with cement i've been sick all week but i'm feeling better now but that's what that is so we'll get through this okay i thought maybe that's what happened to matt gates yeah he had his face filled did you see that he looked like something out of like it nuts and the congressman sometimes listens to this podcast so i you know i don't want to be too mean but uh i saw him last week you know i was in milton covering his event with kyle rittenhouse which is which was some weird shit and um you know it was a different pace and no judgment all right i got friends who are in the botox business it's a good business there's you know whatever makes you feel good but you know maybe everything in moderation i guess that's all i'm saying there's you know whatever makes you feel good but you know maybe everything in moderation i guess that's all i'm saying there's botox and then there's like whoa botox he got some low botox let's say i would have gotten that done and i was scheduled to speak at the convention

i would fake sick because it was that bad i'd give it a potato or two to let it deflate before i'd go all right that's tough it also is tough because he was on that high of just really trolling Kevin McCarthy on the floor the day before and then just kind of crashed. It's been a roller coaster for Congressman Gates. Okay. I want to mostly talk about the convention, but we have two important story items I want to get to first. First is a great, I think the most full report about what we know so far regarding the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania comes to the New York Times. Former podcast David Farenthold and Glenn Thrush have the bylines. They wrote, when the FBI was finally able to access Mr. Crooks' cell

phones and other electronic devices, agents could see that he'd searched for images of Trump as well as President Biden, Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray. Crooks also typed in major depressive disorder. He searched for dates and places for appearances for both Biden and Trump. One of Mr. Trump's planned appearances happened to be about 50 miles from his home in Bethel Park. On Friday, the day before the attempted assassination, Mr. Crooks went to the shooting range, according to investigative summary. The next morning, he bought a ladder at Home Depot and then 50 rounds of ammunition from a gunshot near his home. You know, you saw this with school shooters, which is they just, you hate humanity because of the depression, you know, so you have no empathy to like whoever's

life you take. And all of a sudden you're like, I could be instantly known and I can kind of get my retribution. And particularly even if he was a Republican, I think, again, I think his affiliation should have nothing to do with anything, but that would bring extra pain, right, to him and his family. I don't know. But I do know, obviously, it was an epic failure by Secret Service. And one of the things, though, that has driven me nuts in this is, like, I existed for the last three years with this belief that the right was the main conspiracy theorists. And seeing the conspiracies on the left of this thing has been really disheartening for me. Now, it's Twitter. So is it real or not? I

don't know. But this idea that he faked the shooting, or it didn't really happen or the ear bandage, you know, I saw where they had inverted an image and he had the bandage on his what looked like his left ear, but it was just the image inverted. And they're like, see, look, this kind of stuff has got to stop. And the left is doing a really bad job, I think, in these conspiracies of differentiating themselves from the right. I totally agree with that. Absurd.

There is one thing, though, I wanted to get your take on it. And I'm not into a conspiracy place on this. This is just more about norms and the way that kind of trump has broken how normal politicians are supposed to act in these situations we still don't have like a doctor's report right like and we still haven't really had a press conference with a government representative taking questions about ballistics, about what was found in Crooks' phone. That is kind of strange, right? Shouldn't we have more information by now about all that?

Yeah, you really should. And, you know, the only thing I can think in terms of the ear is like, I mean, look, when you have the zoom up, like right when it happened, there's obviously a hole in his ear, right? There's obviously a hole in his ear right there's obviously blood and truthfully i mean if it was as close as it seems he literally was a quarter of a second from having literally his head blown off versus his ear shot you know it's possible what i know about guns especially two to three rounds or five five six which is what comes out of an ar you know it's possible that since there wasn't a lot of thickness to his ear it created just the hole but typically if these rounds hit like your skull or hit your body they create so much damage

they blow a massive hole because of the way they wobble and everything else and so it's possible that he actually lost a good chunk of his ear i mean and he doesn't want to admit that i mean who would want to show missing a significant part of your ear i wouldn't want anybody to see that that's possible i don't know evander holyfield had his ear bitten yeah that's true kind of cool yeah it was kind of cool yeah okay i've got a couple other gun things for you um because to me as an as a person that's never shot a gun it seems like the shooter was far but as i've i've been reading more and and watching videos from people that are experts like he really wasn't that far actually you know to have that kind of weapon and be able to shoot from that range so like what is your sense like that also speaks speaks both to the

secret service failures i think that's i guess what's most interesting to me is that that distance whatever was 150 yards is like not i guess significant compared to military training you know how far you shoot from with those rifles what does that sound right to you yeah so like an ar particularly is very accurate for people that are not overly great marksmen so the soviets you know they created the ak-47 that was an easy to use easy to maintain gun where you could train like indigenous populations that don't have a lot of education to fight insurgencies our guns were made for like pretty moderately educated soldier they're a little higher in

maintenance but they're very accurate very easy to shoot and the early models jammed a lot these don't now the m4s don't so if i took you shooting an AR, you would actually, after about a couple shots, realize, first off, there's no kick. Like, it's a really easy gun to shoot. It's not like a shotgun where it hurts your shoulder. There's no kick. And, frankly, I could teach you pretty quickly how to put iron sights, so just the basic sights on somebody, and get pretty close. So I think 150 yards is pretty close for somebody that has shot a gun before, particularly in AR and to hit where he did. The crazy thing is like, yes, seeing this

guy climb the building and not shooting him, but I don't know if it was you, you guys were talking about it, but in 2004, there was almost a police sniper that was killed by the secret service in 2004, almost because they had identified a sniper secret service was about to take the shot until they realized it was a police sniper so i think there could have been a lot of like okay there yes there's a dude with a gun on a building what is this who is this okay call around to the police is it one of theirs not because it would be very hard to take a shot and then all of a sudden find out that was one of your guys right so it's not an excuse but i guess

it's a from a human perspective and understanding could you do a warning shot i don't know what the fuck do i know you know kind of just fired at the at the roof there freak him out a little bit see what happens shoot his heel or something maybe but you know at least they should have pulled the president off the stage right you can do that another thing this is maybe one of the issues that we we have disagreement on so i think it's just worth hashing out now with five days difference is we had all this discourse about discourse right uh whether our tone is good and i'm i'm for it you know i i think that turning down the temperature is important to the extent that that's possible when you have someone like Donald Trump on the ballot. But we now are five days away. And it's like, there's no discourse about the fact that

we live in a country where 20 year olds with mental health problems have like copious access to these kinds of guns. And so maybe there's a policy solution to that or whatever. There are some potential policy solutions that people aren't going to like. It's pretty crazy to me. Ben Carson went on stage at the debate and was like, the weapons they've used to get Trump. It was like, Dave, it's a weaponization of government and the weaponization of the media.

And he lists like four things. He didn't mention the fucking weapon that was used to shoot at him so i don't know i mean shouldn't we at least be focused a little bit more on that than on you know whether joe biden used the word bullseye in a private convo yeah i agree look here's the thing i've always said and i said this since uh the parkland shooting is like first off and now granted this kid took his gun from his dad. But he bought bullets. I mean, should you really, should a 20-year-old really be able to buy 50 rounds but not a white claw?

That seems wrong to me. Cigarettes even now. You can't buy tobacco. Not just alcohol. You can't buy tobacco in this country. You can't get a Zin. You can't get a Zin. We all love Zin.

You can get 50 rounds of bullets. That does seem misaligned i don't know and here's what i've always said is so also in this country you can't buy a handgun till you're 21 that's always been the law right handgun 21 long gun 18 but long gun includes ars now which ar you had talked about you know shooting at 150 yards with an ar i could give you the best nine millimeter or 45 or whatever pistol you would not be able to recreate that shot at all with a pistol and so that's why law enforcement now carries long rifles because they were fighting long rifles with pistols and would lose every time

so the question is this why in the world in this country did we raise the age of smoking? I mean, the kids used to smoke at 16 when I was in high school, right? Now that was bad, but like didn't destroy the world, but you can go buy these guns is wrong. And by the way, the one thing we have seen is that when it comes to making decisions, typically 21 year olds, even more than 19 and 20-year-olds, are much less likely to turn violent like that because a lot of these big school shootings are people that are 19 and 20 years old that still have a bone to pick with that school. So I agree with you. Yeah, I think it's a discussion that needs to be had, certainly. And I'm tired of saying we need to have a discussion. I guess that is politics.

But eventually, can't we all agree that maybe let's just make it 21 to buy guns period. Let's see what that does. Let that set in for a little bit. Can't hurt. I know he got this gun from his dad, but then you have the ammo element to it. And if it's illegal to carry it around, it's like an open container law. You know, it's like if you're under 21, you can't carry it around. But at the Gates Rittenhouse event, they were calling on moving the handgun law down to 18. That was one of the things that they talked about. So there you go. We got some other news. And I did a pretty dark next level podcast yesterday.

People can check out if they want when we're at our low, thinking about the state of our politics. That's what we need, yeah. I had a little skip in my stuff last night, and here's why. Reports from various news outlets, Hakeem Jeffries met with Joe Biden last Thursday at the White House, told him that we're on path to lose the House, we being the Democrats in that case, or on path to lose the House if he stayed in the race. Schumer went to Rehoboth Beach on Saturday and encouraged him to get out of the race and then put out the biggest non-denial denial in history after the John Carl report on that. Then we have a CNN

report that Pelosi called him Friday. So that's Jeffrey's Thursday, Pelosi Friday, Schumer Saturday. Pelosi, the two haven't spoken since Friday, but Jeff Zeleny reports that Biden has become more receptive. So big picture, where are you at on all of these conversations? Well, so just for full disclosure, since I'm campaigning for whoever runs against Trump. Right, you've endorsed Joe Biden. Yeah, I haven't called for anybody to get out. I'm officially saying Democrats need to just put their strongest foot forward. Now I'm going to talk about this from an analyst perspective, which is the Democrats have got to put forward the strongest candidate.

And right now it does not appear to be Joe Biden. I mean, I get it. People like to pull up the national polls and say, look, oh, they're tied at 49-49. Those are totally irrelevant. Those used to matter a little bit because they'd show trends. With the striatation and the polarization of this country, literally those polls don't matter anymore because we're packing Democrats in California and packing Republicans in Texas, right?

Right. The reality is the state by state polls matter. And now we have to be honest, Trump is making a run in Virginia. He's making a run in New Hampshire. He's making a run in Minnesota. These are like tier two targets that now he can win in. The Democrats have got to think this through. And the one thing I would say to them as well is like, look, Liz and I put everything on the line, our careers, I'm not saying this for sympathy, but we put everything on the line to defeat Donald Trump. Now, we don't care about our egos. What you cannot do is allow your ego to get into the way or somebody's ego to get into the

way of winning. This is too, if this was George H.W. Bush against Bill Clinton, fine, whatever. It's kind of- Let's ride it out. Yeah, ride it out, whatever. This is existential. So it does appear as what I saw yesterday too, that the momentum is certainly in the sense of like, you know, that Biden's got to step down and he just needs to come to that on his own, I think. Yeah, a Biden advisor who had to speak on the condition of anonymity said that they were looking at three things, polling, cash, and which states are in play. And all three are trending in the wrong direction. Okay, there was one other thing that Jeff Zeleny reported that I wanted to talk about with you.

He said that Biden is now asking people if they think that harris can win and that takes us to a new segment on this podcast called the coconut meter you think you just fell out of a coconut tree all right adam i want to know how coconut curious you are you at the base of the tree? Are you climbing the tree? Are you shaking the branches? Have you ascended the summit? Are you coming to terms with Kamala as the nominee? Or are you still a little coconut skeptical?

So I'm standing next to the tree. I'm jumping. I grabbed the first branch and I'm kind of hanging there. You're looking. All right, you're contemplating. Now I'm going to see is the branch holding? Is it going to bend? Right? Like what's going on here? all right you're contemplating now i'm gonna see is the branch home is it gonna bend right like what's going on here again you know i'm not gonna pretend like i've been the biggest harris fan i

haven't but as i've thought about this and i look at the dynamic of this race i'm like anybody knew so harris or you know freaking what you said mayor mccheese whoever anybody knew i think will bring a new dynamic into this race with a whole set of energy. Because people have been dreading Biden Trump, and all of a sudden there's somebody new. I think that could be really a ton of energy. And by the way, regardless of whether it's Kamala, and obviously she can inherit all the Biden money if it's her, I don't think money should be a consideration at all because whoever the candidate is will raise like $8 gajillion in three days, have 100% name recognition immediately because they've just been slated as the

candidate and will have a huge burst of energy. Money doesn't matter anymore. Up to a threshold, you know, and then that's it. Totally. You and I couldn't be more aligned on this. It drives me insane when people are like, what about the money? It doesn't fucking matter. Joe Biden has been on air.

Joe Biden spent like 80 million or something already. I don't know the number in front of me, but he spent tens of millions already on ads that have done nothing. Do you know why? Because every person seeing the ad already has an opinion on Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Ads work if it's like, you know, Jackie Rosen in Nevada. She can probably use some money, right? Like you should donate to her campaign if you support Jackie Rosen for Senate Nevada

because like her, she's been Senator, but her name ID is kind of low and you can introduce her a little bit to certain groups of people who have moved into the state from Vegas. Everybody knows Joe Biden and Donald Trump. This is insane. So, and whoever it would replace him

would, I agree, raise unprecedented money in the first week. If the Democrats pick like, you know, Phil McCracken, right? As the Democratic candidate overnight, he would have 100% name recognition. That does the job of $500 million right there. Well, I'm climbing the tree. I'm climbing the coconut tree. I'm interested.

I also think they should have an open process. I still do. I think they should. And I think it'd be good for Kamala, frankly, to take the pressure off a little bit, but we'll see how that all shakes out. Obviously, we keep being posted. All right, convention time. You just pick.

Where do you want to start? What struck you so far? What about the ear bandages? You know, conventions are always weird, right? Like, it's always the hat people and the outfit people and all this kind of stuff watching everybody wearing these like index cards on their right ears it's like this is a cult this is a crazy cult yes your guy got shot in the ear that sucks honestly and i don't mean this

pejoratively but then to walk around wearing a ear index card because like that's weird have you seen the meme that i posted about the ear thing with the my pillow branding on it yeah i did actually yeah that was good yeah so that's weird but like from an agnostic perspective i will say the convention has probably done a good job of doing what they wanted it to do one of the the things that struck me, and we'll see more later, is Donald Trump has actually appeared to be kind of chill. He's appeared to be like, I don't believe this yet. Almost melancholy, kind of, even, like in his body language.

Subdued. You know, I'm one of these that doesn't believe he's capable of human emotion, but I've got to imagine to some extent, almost being assassinated has got to be even to the most, you know, narcissistic dude has got to be a wake up call. You've been in some fights and it takes a few days to settle in, like how close you were. Right. I got PTS a little bit from my knifing incident in Milwaukee, and it took me literally a couple of weeks to actually come to grips with it. But so, you know, the melancholy thing is, I think that's going to work to his advantage. Although then I see his true social and I'm like, yeah, it's the same guy. But I think as much as I can't stand

JD Vance, I actually think politically, it's not a bad pick for him. And I thought the Republican party did a good job of trying to put all these weirdos out there to make it look like we're a big tent party. I don't think they're going to get a bump from this, but I think it probably so far has done what they needed it to do. There was a lot of weird stuff, but generally, and I'll tell you the thing that actually I will give them more credit for is I don't like using Gold Star families as a prop, but I thought it was very effective yesterday. I did too. Here's how Bill Crystal wrote about it in this morning's newsletter. The most authoritarian ticket and the most extreme party agenda in modern American history have been presented to the American people at this convention in a relatively non-threatening way. I think that's right. I mean, like like these guys they think they're in the lead and so they've just kind of sanded down the edges a little bit you know people are staying on

teleprompter they're not talking about the 2020 election fraud they're not talking about abortion like jd vance didn't even mention ukraine last night like they're not like all the vaccines like they're not talking about that like the crazy stuff they haven't changed their mind on it they're not talking about dismantling the the administrative state really you know there's been some extreme policy stuff discussed but they're tamping down the weirdest shit i wish they didn't because i i think america needs to see it and that's why it's important that you and i talk about it but if you know whoever ran that convention i think or is running that convention probably is doing a good job. I mean, here's the thing I would actually say, like, if I was advising Trump, I would say, look, okay,

you had a chance to win in 2020. After you got COVID, you could have come out of the hospital and been like, look, I was wrong. This disease sucks. Everybody needs to take it seriously. And the Republicans would listen to you. And the middle would be like, okay, he came around and I think he would have won the race. This is his chance after the assassination attempt to be like, you know what? Yeah, my rhetoric's been a little much and, uh, you know, I, I, I never meant it personally and let's do this. And I think he could, he could win a lot. That said, I don't think he's capable of throttling back. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think he's capable of throttling back i hope i'm wrong but i don't think so and and i i'm worried too that it's going to give people the the false impression that he's grown up when he's just changed his tone is all somebody said

las vida i think that the speech was going to be an hour and a half cool i'm stealing i'm stealing this from john lovett but love it's like they just kept the original speech and then they're just adding new stuff on the beginning and the end. It's like, how the hell is it going to be an hour and a half? So bear down, everybody. An hour and a half. We're going to do a live YouTube during it. And I should be on there. I should be on there at least for a little while. I've got some other TV obligations.

So go to the Bork YouTube for that. A couple exceptions to this peter navarro yesterday was uh straight from jail to the convention floor where he gave a speech literally sounded like a guy at the bar that's had a couple drinks and is complaining about how how you know he got screwed and his felony conviction and the judge was biased against him and like and then he brought his cougar wife up on stage and it was a pretty weird scene to have to have an ex-con fly straight to the convention i don't know there's a lot of precedent for that no and look this is what happens when people get their heads broken you know i assume you have but i've been in a moment in my life where i'm kind of like

you know you're depressed you're kind of struggling with stuff and you your behavior pattern gets a little weird right maybe it's maybe it manifests as too much drinking or maybe it manifests as like anger, whatever it is. We've all been there. This is his moment where, you know, he's obviously, it's not fun to go to prison. I'm sure he didn't have a good time. And instead of coming out and like chilling, it's like, I'm going to double down. I mean, this is a guy that wears all black on every podcast, like really creepy, like looks like a heaven's gate leader. And so he tweeted yesterday, like I went to jail, so you don't have to. And I just replied like, no public service announcement. If you refuse to testify to Congress, you still have to go to jail. Right?

Like he didn't stop that. This is just a man who was trying to find his way. This is not Jesus dying for your sins. Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, this like lawlessness that everybody's proud of. And I, you know, I shudder to think what Bannon's going to be like when he gets out. But who knows? Maybe I'll find Jesus. And Manafort was there too. Manafort is on the floor.

Now he's not speaking. I mean, a literal Russian asset. Yeah. Also jailed. A lot of convicts for the Law and Order Party. The other thing that jumped out at me was the signage last night. Mass deportations now plus end of the war in Ukraine. I might be a lonely voice on this one, but I don't think that that's a winning combo.

I really don't. And I think it's a different, it's obviously a sea change in the Republican Party, you know, from the Bush-McCain days. But anyway, you can take either one of those first. You saw even when that dork David Sachs, like, spoke, and he was talking about Zelensky causing the invasion. I don't know if there were a ton of boos, but there was no applause. And he's, like, dorkily standing there waiting for people to applaud and they didn't he's kind of like looks around he's like and then he caused it and so could have just been because most like old republican boomers are like who is this guy that

has a tech bro podcast that can't speaking like an automaton so it could have been the substance but also could have been the style which is very bad with the last name sax look there is the hardcore maga base that for whatever reason ukraine's become a touchstone but i think the vast majority of republicans they may not be like hardcore like you and i are about you know ukraine needs to win but i think their concern with the war is more the spending and less that they actually want russia to win so when people are like blaming ukraine for russia's invasion i think even the ones that are like yeah quit giving ukraine money are kind of looking around going yeah i didn't think they caused it the sign says end the ukraine war now i just i'm stuck on this right we're holding the signs they're passing it out like what does that mean in the context of the trump vance ticket it means

surrender it means you're pressuring zelensky and the ukrainians that have bravely fought to defend their country to surrender in the name of what something something american strength and you know i got a buddy that's in the venue that is still a republican one of the few that still talks to me i was texting and i was like is there anybody from like our era that's like uncomfortable with this like this kind of signage and hit and he i said basically no so i hear you that like the crowd is not fully on board with like the based broken-brained we cause this like you know because because ukraine's skirt was a little too short and they were like tempting putin to come take them but like people aren't also upset about the Trump Vance move. You know, and by the way, yeah, the end of the Ukraine war now,

there's only two people that can end the Ukraine war, Zelensky by surrendering or victory or Putin by stopping the invasion. It's really not the United States. We can't end the war. Like, I mean, I guess we could if we actually came in on behalf of Ukraine or stop or yeah, or stopping to stop giving them weapons. Yep. And so that's where I just don't know because I'm struggling between I've seen these polls

say most Republicans still want Ukraine to win, but I haven't seen it. And I haven't seen like even Republican members of Congress who vote for Ukraine aid. They're not embracing that. They're just like, they'll vote for it and then be super quiet and try to hope people never noticed on the deportation thing. Look, it's one thing to say,

like we want only legal citizens here and we should blah, blah, blah, mass deportations. When you say that, I feel like that is something that you would have seen at Madison square garden in the thirties at the Nazi rally. Right. The Lindbergh rally. Yeah. when you say that, I feel like that is something that you would have seen at Madison Square Garden in the 30s at the Nazi rally, right? Or the Lindbergh rally. Yeah, yeah, that feels very

gross. And I've got to imagine no matter how people feel about immigration, this is just my hope. This is just having some faith in humanity still, that seeing mass deportations now is just not going to be a feel goodsy for many people yeah i've said this once before but i just it's now my most strongly held view of what needs to be done by the democratic super PAC ad makers is like i don't think it's sunk in for people what mass deportations now is and they need to paint a picture and like a cinematic view for people because like there's no it's not like hey, President Trump has announced mass deportations today. Everyone show up to the, to the friendly deportation center where you, you know, hand in your cards

and we put you on a plane and you go back home. Like, that's not what it is. It's like, it's fucking cops breaking down doors and neighborhoods and taking people and pulling people over and, and stereotyping them, you know, based on whether they're speaking Spanish or English. And it's like, there's, there's a lot of really ugly stuff that goes on with mass deportations. I'm not saying that nobody should be deported or whatever, but like mass deportations implies that you're like going out and finding people and deporting them. And that's, that feels very un-American. Yeah. And so like, you know, my wife is Salvadorian. She was actually born an American citizen.

So she's not, you know, she, she's not like green card or anything, but like, you know, and, and she speaks perfect English, but it's like, I think about people in that kind of a situation, like, are they going to look at somebody like her suspiciously just because she's Salvadorian? And all of a sudden that makes you guilty by, and how do you find out, is she truly an American citizen? Cause she can show you a driver's license, but none of us have citizen cards. Like that's not a real thing. There's no papers. You remember Ileon Gonzalez when they, the whole Florida thing, like the guns pointed at him. Imagine that times 6 million. I don't

think it's going to hold water. No, I wrote God probably four years ago now about this kid, Francisco Galicia. I think I'm having, I think I'm remembering that name, right? And I forget if he's the younger sibling, the other one's the older sibling, whatever. But he's in the car with his brother. They're both from, I forget, Mexico, I think. And one of them was undocumented. One of them was documented, right? Because they're born in America or whatever, or their parents did the paperwork correctly. I don't recall the details but because the one was didn't have papers that didn't speak english they detained both and francisco was detained who is a legal citizen was detained for like days and to me to me i was like this is outrageous like he was detained only because he was a brown

person in the car with with somebody that's undocumented like that is not illegal you know and that is not american right so that's just one example from the first trump administration anyway i don't think people like mass deportations all right jd before i let you go jd time it wasn't really palin-esque and i mean that is an unusual compliment to sarah palin her her convention speech was had some juice you know when she her first introduction to the world jds was a little limp i thought there's not much when i think back on his speech that i can really point out that i remember i think he passed yeah sure i don't think he excelled wasn't katie brit wasn't creepy katie brit in her kitchen yeah it wasn't that like that but she's somehow a star again

because i guess once you embarrass yourself enough, you're back to being a star. Yeah, so I think he passed. And the reality is the guy's only like 39. He's young. Remember, Dan Quayle was like 38 or 39. And I remember he had a reputation when he was announced because he kind of came out too excited. And they're like, oh, he's just a kid, right?

And he got that tattooed on him unfairly. Well, that's what J.D. Vance had to avoid. I think he avoided that. I'm glad he didn't mention Ukraine because maybe that the whole thing I'm hoping is maybe his Ukraine, because the guy was a Marine. Maybe his Ukraine stuff was just to get the attention of Donald Trump, which is cynical, but I don't know. I guess we got to look at something good, but I think it was probably a safe political pick for Trump. I'm not one of these that thinks he gains nothing by it, i also i don't think it's going to change the dynamic very much of anything i'm just going to admit it i'd really find him unappealing

oh i do too on the list of people that i want to have a beer with in the united states congress and senate iq would be at the very bottom of the list but i bet ted cruz i guess but very few people below and the fact that he's the first millennial on ticket you know that stings a little bit since like he would be at the very bottom of the list, but Ted Cruz, I guess, but very few people below. And the fact that he's the first millennial on ticket, you know, that stings a little bit since he's so full of shit. My takeaway of him last night is Trump has this thing that works for him, which is Trump is totally full of shit,

but his meat, his presentation makes you think that he's telling you some truth, like what he really thinks, right? Like that's challenging to pull off. JD to to me it just screams like this guy's full of shit i hope he is kind of because if he ends up being pp it'd be i hope he doesn't believe all the insane stuff that he's been saying about cat ladies and vaccines and ukraine like it'd be not i guess it'd be nice if yale author of hillbilly elegy jd returned i don't expect that but like

there's some discussion with the choices like he's the mantle carrier for maga i don't know i don't know if he's got that kind of juice it's interesting like he's the vivek ramaswamy he's the same thing right like i know people that know vivek that are like oh vivek was you know total moderate he knows this is a game He doesn't believe anything he says, but they're just so cynical that they don't give a shit. They'll just like, oh, I'll just say whatever, because it's just how to get to power. And this is what's sad is this generation has learned that this is how you get to power. Like to you and I, it's still an exception to them. It's the rule. And so JD Vance goes from, how do you go from being such a clear eyed, never Trumper to seeing him in action for eight years and now being so hardcore pro-Trump?

Most of us went the opposite way. Yeah. Like, realizing this guy was bad. Well, because there's no moral center. Because J.D. Vance wants power. He got to taste power. And everything about him was fake. And by the way, he also has made it clear, as much as I said I appreciated him not mentioning

Ukraine, he's been very clear that he doesn't give a rat's ass about ukraine and if it burns that would be fine with him yeah sick it's not just an ever trump thing i actually think the more damning flip for him is like the whole reason he came to fame was hillbilly elegy and like the fucking theme of the book is that there is some cultural rot in Appalachia and people need to take responsibility for their lives these are good people but but like they should take some ownership of their lives and and you know you can achieve he's totally flipped on that like his message last night was that Joe Biden and the elites are the reason why Appalachia is bad and they're the victims.

And J.D. Vance will help them. Big Daddy J.D. will help them. So his whole shtick has flipped. It's all totally phony. Did you know, fun fact about J.D., his kid is named Vivek. And his birth name was James Donald. But it got switched to James David. So the ticket would have been Donald John and James Donald had he stuck with

his birth name. Either that would have freaked Donald out or Donald would have loved it because he's so narcissistic. I don't know. He might have freaked him out. It's a little creepy. All right. Thank you, Adam Kinzer. He'll be with us in Dallas, September 5th. Get your tickets to bulwark.com slash events. I appreciate you and our fates right now. I know that maybe you probably weren't Nancy Pelosi's biggest fan before, but Nancy hasn't called him since last Friday. He's got COVID now. He's got a lot of private time.

She stepped aside. She passed the torch to Hakeem. We're in your hands, Nancy. You can do it. You can do it, girl. We'll see you back here tomorrow with S.E. Cupp to recap Donald Trump's nomination speech, his third acceptance speech. How fucking crazy is that? We'll see you all then. Peace. You keep saying when you ought to be a-changing Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet These boots are made for walking

And that's just what they'll do One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you You keep playing where you shouldn't be playing And you keep thinking that you'll never get burned ha I just found me a brand new box of matches Yeah And what he knows you ain't had time to learn These boots are made for walking and that's just what they'll do One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

Are you ready, boots? Start walking! The Buller Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.