The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: It's Starting to Happen

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Boos at a Republican town hall in Fulton County, and boos at the White House: We're beginning to see signs of people refusing to be ruled by unelected billionaires, oligarchs and CEOs. This may be the time for Democrats with some heterodox views to run for office. Meanwhile, the supposedly free speech president and his shadow are trying to intimidate people from criticizing them—including a member of Congress and one of Elon's baby mamas. Plus, Trump's advisers seem more worried about Zelensky saying mean things about him than the fact that he wants to hand the spoils to the losing side of the war.  Rep. Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes Tim's interview with CA Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia Sam's interview with FEMA chief who was fired and has now been rehired Evidence of Elon shadow-banning Grimes Kinzinger's substack Tim's playlist

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Congratulations to our friends in Canada for their overtime hockey victory against the US in the four nations faceoff last night. I'm pumped to be here today with a great American patriot, one of our faves, formerly a Republican congressman from Illinois. He served in the Air Force, he's the founder of Country First, he writes a sub stack newsletter, and I guess he does sub stack videos now, sub stack multi platform content producer, it's Adam Kinzinger.

How you doing, bro? Good, buddy. You know, and it's weird because I've never rooted against America. But last night, I mean, I'll be honest, it was part of me that's like, it'd be nice to see Trump have to eat his words a little bit. Yeah, the guy in the MAGA hat right behind the bench they kept showing was impacting my rooting interest. I'm not going to say who I was rooting for, Canada.

But you know, it definitely was nice for the Canadians. And no offense to our friends up north, but I don't give a rat's backside about hockey. So it's not like, like if this was American football and we were against Canada, but you know. Yeah, no, me neither. They didn't change the Canadian national anthem to take a dig at Trump about how this is their country, which I liked. So anyway, I like the digs.

I like the digs. It's good. All right. We've got much, much to discuss. Too much probably. But you did a sub stack yesterday, an emergency substack. I want to start there. The message of it was basically, let's get loud. Let's start to do something. This is a moment for a Democratic Tea Party of sorts. We can quibble over the particulars.

But as somebody who was in the Tea Party wave of Congress people, what do you call it for? Yeah, look, I mean, and this is, I gotta give you credit because you were talking about this yesterday and just like, you know, hey, we've gotta do something. And then you were talking about how the Tea Party came about and that got me thinking. And it's like, you know, it's exactly what is happening now.

And here's the key that I wanna say on the outset though, is I don't want this to be, hey, this is a left-wing movement. You know, the Tea Party came in and they were trying to pull the country right. This is actually a pro-democracy version of the Tea Party. So you're gonna have people from all over the political spectrum here,

but basically what happened in the Tea Party, Republicans felt defeated. And I remember I went exploring, running for Congress, talking to the Republican congressmen, like in January after Obama won, and they were just beat down. They were just sad, tired, like, yeah, I guess you can run. I don't know what it's going to look like.

And it was this grassroots energy then that started showing up at town hall meetings. And then they'd show, I think it started with Chuck Grassley and it had to do with the healthcare bill. They started basically, you know, yelling, protesting, whatever. Then members of Congress quit doing town halls, and that obviously looked like they were hiding, which they were, and you just had this gasoline on a fire that ended up really overtaking the House of Representatives

in the Senate in 2010. I think that's what needs to happen now. Everybody is kind of waiting, including me, I mean, we're all in the same boat, for like some action plan. Here's the one, two, three step that's going to guarantee that we can stop X, Y, and Z. That's not going to happen. Like that doesn't happen. What is going to happen is there's going to be grassroots energy that rises up that

begins to build whatever this movement is that it looks like, but that's how when you have historical things that change a country, it never comes from one person giving somebody a blueprint, it always comes from like just this outrage or this anger and this demand for change, and I think we started to see that yesterday at this Georgia town hall, and I don't know, I just feel like we're at a moment where this is going to and can grow into something, and again, I do want to stress,

don't make this a left-wing thing because it'll flame out. Trust me, they always do. Make this about pro-democracy and defending our government. We can always debate the particulars later when we have power. Let's just talk about the Georgia thing for a second. This guy, Rich McCormick, and this is quite a red district. This is not particularly a red district. You know, this is not particularly a swing district. It didn't seem like he, you know, knew what he was signing up for.

He won 64-35 in the last election. So again, not a close district and just a ton of energy, a ton of people speaking out, folks pouring out of, you out of the town hall. And I do wonder, as somebody who's been in this position, both as kind of the insurgent Tea Party candidate, but then as a congressman who's getting yelled at at town halls, this stuff does have an impact on these guys, right? Oh, gosh. Huge, huge.

Listen, I mean, there's always this feeling, we talk about how the voices on the far right, like the anti-Ukraine voices, they're outrepresented on Twitter, for instance, and it seems like they're everywhere. This is the same kind of dynamic, where all of a sudden, you're in a red district, 75% red district, you show up to do your town hall that you've done every couple months or whatever,

and now all of a sudden outrage is showing up? That is intimidating. There is not a single person out there, unless you're a psychopath that just loves that, and there are a few people like that, but there's not a real person out there that's going to stand in front of that, get yelled at, get screamed at, make national news for not having an answer like Rich McCormick didn't, and then say, you know what? We got to go do that again. Let's do that again next month, right?

No, what happens is you quit doing town halls. Now people continue to be outraged more because you're hiding from them. And this is what builds over a one to two year period. And look, I've been protesting at town halls. I'm gonna tell you, it sucks. I also know, and for me it was like, why are we doing these town halls then?

And when I ran in 2010, you know, with respect to the lady I beat in 2010, we had a lot of people showing up at her town halls and she quit doing them. And in fact, at one town hall had her chief of staff answer questions. And what happens is they end up going into defense mode, they end up reacting poorly. And also, they now may end up finding the courage to stand up to Donald Trump, truly, because now they're like, gosh, I may lose my election. Maybe not in a 75% red district, but there are a lot of districts that Donald Trump over a 10-year period turned that are actually gettable here.

Pete Slauson So, here's my thing, anything we can just noodle over it here live together, because I do think there needs to be a rallying cry for the protests. Like, I hear what you're saying, I agree that it shouldn't be ideological. It shouldn't be particularly lefty populist for say, though, if they're lefty populist candidates, I'm open to hearing from their arguments. But the rallying cry for the protest in the Tea Party originally, as I mentioned yesterday, was this CNBC ramp by Rick Santelli about how people are getting screwed. I'm paying my mortgage. Why are we bailing out my neighbor? And so I do think there needs to be something, something like people are getting screwed. It, I'm paying my mortgage, why are we bailing out my neighbor? And so I do think there needs to be something, right? Like something like people are getting screwed. It can't just be like democracy writ large. And I don't know, I think maybe there's something with

Elon, you know, I think that is like grabbable, even on the elected South African billionaire that's like randomly firing veterans. Like maybe there's something there. That is the part that I think there's going to need to be something tangible. And I do think that last night was a good start, but I was wondering if you have any thoughts on what some of those topics could be. Yeah, I fully actually agree with you. So I think when I guess, maybe I misstated it. When I said not ideological, I mean, don't turn this into a defund the police movement. Don't turn this into, you know, we need to triple the amount of genders we recognize, you know, something like that, right?

Because the Tea Party movement started out with the Rick Santelli screed. And you know, at one point, and this is maybe after the election, it ended up with, you promised me you'll never raise the debt limit. You promised me, right, you'll always eternally vote to defund Obamacare. I do think you're right about there's got to be a rallying cry. And honestly, I agree with you. I actually think it's Elon Musk. and I think it's the billionaire oppression the fact that I think you said this yesterday the richest guy and The most powerful guy our best friends and now in control of government and they're out there trying to determine what the government looks

Like that we live under not Congress not the people that we elect to go figure this out for us I mean look if Congress wanted to you know shut every agency, honestly, I'd oppose it, but fine. That's what Congress's job is. And so I think when you tell the American people, look, the Founding Fathers never intended for Elon Musk to have more power than you. Yes, they intended for Donald Trump to have more power than you. There's nothing we could do about that.

But Elon Musk, no. Jeff Bezos, no. They never intended that. So what are we going to do? We're gonna stop it. We're gonna rise up and say we're not gonna be controlled by billionaires. I do think that is a brilliant rallying cry and it's and it's frankly it's not just the anti Trump stuff, right? Which kind of ran its course, still has some legs. But this is real. This is like Americans don't feel good about this. One particular example, and I don't know that Scott Curtis himself is gonna be the person people's picture they put on flags, I doubt that he wants it,

but I appreciate that he was willing to talk to us yesterday. He did an interview with Sam Stein. If people wanna listen to that, that's in our blog. Takes podcast feed. But Scott was a retired Navy captain, 32 years in the Navy. He came back, went into FEMA. He was the Section 7, was kind of the Midwest, Chief of Staff. But 55 years old, got that fork in the road email from Elon Musk, figured, okay, this

might be a good time to retire from public service, look for a job in the private sector. He didn't have a lead or whatever, but I'll take it. We've got eight months. I'll figure it out. Accepts the offer to resign. 13 days later, gets canned because he's one of these probationary employees. And this is just one example, right? But it's like this guy served the country 32 years in the Navy, in war zones, real, real service to this country. And he was made an offer, a good faith offer by the government. And they just fucking pulled the plug on him. Like it's like some evil movie CEO, you know, I mean, the joke is like the George Jetsons, like Mr.

Spacely, you know, this just like somebody that's just like a dick. It's like, I made you a deal. I have billions of dollars, billions and billions and billions of dollars. I'm a South African immigrant. You serve the country. I'm going to fuck you over. And I don't know.

I just think that like that is going to, like those kinds of stories I do think are going to build up and resonate with people. And Elon is a very easy bad cop in a story like that. I agree. I agree. Look, I think, you know, when all this is said and done in Doge, fake agency Doge actually ends up saving

They're gonna say a gajillion dollars. Let's say it's 10 billion 20 billion even 30 billion, which it's not going to be real money on that But let's say it is Elon Musk makes that in a day by the way So he takes what he makes in a day could have just written a check to the government by the way and been a hero We'll do that. But instead he does he could they rid of these people that, and it's not even just the veterans, Tim, it's the next generation of government employees, right? The Gen Zers or the millennials that we need in those positions, that in 15 years we need to be the experts in social security. We need them to be the experts in logistics and FEMA. We need them

to be the experts in those things. That generation, because those are the probationary folks, are gonna get wiped out. I have a former staffer that works at DOD doing very important stuff that thinks he's gonna get canned actually this week because of he's a probationary person because he just started there a year ago, even though he has plenty of experience in other areas. So they're gonna do that.

The other thing about this with the veterans thing I wanna bring up is, look, they don't care about veterans. And I'm not saying that as a cudgel, I'm not saying that as like, you know, you run a campaign every year and say your opponent doesn't care about veterans and they really do. Look, all you have to do is look at Twitter, let's take that for a second,

and anybody who served in the military, the number of kind of MAGA folks under there that degenerate their service, that call them not manly or whatever. No love for Dan Crenshaw here, but every time he posts something, there's all the people that call him eye patch McCain and make fun of his eye.

Like that is what we're dealing with. And also look, there was just a discussion a month ago that they need to start cutting, and I'm a recipient of this now, cutting VA disability from veterans. Because there's just too many veterans with VA disability, despite the fact that we passed the PAC DAC, which is the burn pit thing. And these veterans that are getting on disability, including myself, are recipients of the burn pits because they were exposed to terrible things that did bad things to them.

And we decided as a country, we need to take care of them. But they don't care, and that's a big concern. And just one more thing on this front. Again, this is just a fact. This is not like a political talking point. VA Crisis Line employees, among those fired amid the federal workforce purge. This is from the military.com. I mean, some of these guys, some of these guys have talked about this, right? Like the mental health issues, like coming out of service in Iraq and Afghanistan and like what we owe to these folks. Like is it really, you know, that critical for our 30 plus trillion dollar budget debt, which I know you and I both agree needs to be resolved in some way?

Is the veteran, VA crisis hotline employees are like, are they the reasons that we are running a deficit? Like, I don't think so. I think that that's something we could prioritize. Yeah, of course not. It's insane. And plus, as a guy that knows plenty of veterans that go through some mental health crises, look, what happens is you always hit a low moment.

Maybe you're drinking, right? And you're sitting there and all of a sudden you're looking at your pistol or whatever it is. And then you need somebody to reach out to. Maybe you have friends left in the military you can reach out to, hopefully. Maybe you don't. Maybe you're a Vietnam veteran.

Maybe you're an early Afghanistan veteran that's dealing with the fact that we left Afghanistan in shambles, and you have that crisis at night just calling and talking to somebody, somebody that says, listen, I care. That is the difference between life and death for a lot of people. And it is cold, it is cynical, and it is disgusting that that be the thing you target simply because Elon wants to be able to tweet, you know, LOL, I cut X amount of money.

Elon is a veteran of the Doge Wars, of the online of the meme wars. He's a veteran of the meme wars. You saw it with his big fat belly on stage at CPAC yesterday. Anyway, one other thing people can do before we start, I have more Elon Rants coming and Rants about several of the people we've mentioned already. But before we get into all these guys bad, one other thing I think people can do, and I want to have, then sometime in the next couple of weeks, my friend Amanda Lipman on, she runs a group called Run for Something that encourages people to run for office. And I know that this is something that you and I are aligned weeks, my friend Amanda Lipman on, she runs a group called Run for Something that like encourages people to run for office. And I know that this is something that you and I are aligned on, but I

haven't actually explicitly said it on the podcast, I don't think. We'll see how everything goes. But I think that 2026 will be the best time in the foreseeable future for somebody to run as a Democrat who maybe doesn't have full, like all the traditional Democratic views to your point. Somebody who has some heterodox views, somebody who has an interesting background, somebody who's a little different. You saw this in 2010 with Republicans like you running. We saw this in, God, I got to go back to the year. What was it? The Mark Foley year, 2006, where a bunch of weird Democrats, like people that never would have won, like one. You get these wave years where people are pissed and there's a backlash. And I think

this is going to be one of those years and people always are asking me, what can you do? What can you do? And obviously not everybody's going to run for office. But I don't know. I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to like encourage people who are thinking about it, because this guy, Scott Curtis, that I mentioned, this retired Navy captain who just got fired, he just kind of said that as an aside in his conversation with Sam on YouTube, where he was like, I don't know, maybe I'll run.

And I just want to encourage people that are out there that have kind of background like his, they're thinking maybe I'll run, that this is the time to do it. So you did that in 2010. I'm wondering what you think about that. Yeah, look, you're exactly right. And I just did the quick math.

I'm like, every massive wave election is about 12 to 15 years apart. And if you think about the last one, 2010, I mean, we're there now. It's weird. So yeah, I mean, it's 100% true. So I decided to run in 2010 against a Democratic incumbent that had won by 25%.

And when I decided to run, people were like, hey, we'll back you. And that goes to show how much times have changed. I was the establishment guy and I got 75% in a five-way primary. You know, they're like, we'll back you. But man, this is tough. Your opponent, her name is Debbie Halverson. She's a freshman, younger lady.

And I ended up beating her by, it was the largest swing actually, an incumbent had won to what they lost by the next election without a scandal, I think in the country in like 50 years. But the point is, I knew I could win, but nobody else did. And there were people, look, I had a friend in my class that was an airline pilot that just decided to run because he had a little extra time. Billy Long was an auctioneer.

I mean, all these people came from all ends of life. Sean Duffy came in that class and basically said and ran against and beat the chairman of Transportation and infrastructure by the way, you know Everybody decided to run because they were pissed off and there were a lot of surprise victories In fact almost every race if not every race that was on the radar so to speak where they're like, yeah We're kind of watching it went Republican. This is that moment. Now look, maybe it's not as big as 2010, but I would put probably all of my money on the fact

that it is going to be a Democratic year. So if you have any interest in running, run. Look, make sure it's good with your family. I wanna say this as a new dad and kind of a fairly newly married guy. Make sure you run it by your family, that's essential, because this is a draining process, it's hard. Don't be afraid of losing. Now, it doesn't mean a suicide mission here, but don't be afraid of losing. If you ran

and you lose, trust me, you're at least not going to have any regrets later on in life. All right. Well, I did you a solid and I didn't start Googling the Houston congressional districts or, you know, look at John Cornyn, but I am just saying, while we're talking about people running for something, there might be somebody who might want to think about it. At Catholic Charities agencies nationwide, we are there is more than a phrase. It's a promise. When storms hit, Catholic Charities is there to help families and communities recover and rebuild. As neighbors

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And they walk together with clients on the road back to a better life. Help Catholic charities serve your neighbors in need and make communities stronger. Join them at wearethere.us. Wearethere.us. That website again is wearethere.us. Let's talk about the new director of the FBI, Cash Patel. Listen. I don't even have a fucking question.

What do you want to say? Listen, I watching people like Todd Young, like Bill Cassidy. Dave McCormick.. Dave McCormick. McConnell, McCormick. Like I look at this and I'm like, you know, I don't understand. If I would have said of all the bad people, if I would have said, man, I can take one bad vote,

who's it gonna be, one tough vote, who's it gonna be? It would have been Cash Patel, because that has ramifications beyond this, you know, this presidential election or this presidential cycle. All I can say is this, is every one of those senators, and I have a special place for Bill Cassidy because he voted to remove Trump, and I thought that was courageous until I remembered, oh yeah, that was a non-election year. Now that he's in an election year, he's doing whatever he needs to do, which by the way,

has no courage because every congressman that voted to impeach this last time that was Republican, the 10 of us, we were always in an election year. Every House member is in an election year. So don't you dare look and say the Senate is braver than the House because every time they're in an election year, they're as bad as the House. And Cassidy gets a special place in my contempt because I trusted him, honestly. Pete It's Dave McCormick for me. I ranted about this yesterday, but I'm still boiling. He's not up for six years. Pete Yeah, I mean, come on.

Pete All these guys, like, Dave McCormick was like the safe example for all the people that we know, everybody in the donor class, I mean, like, I said this yesterday, even W himself, like, did an event for him, like, doesn't do politics. Like, the big bank, like, all even W himself, like did an event for him, like doesn't do politics, like the big bank, like all of the like moderate or traditional Republicans or kind of non-political centrist type people. Like Dave McCormick was like, oh, well this guy ran a international edge fund. And you know, he's a veteran and like, you can trust him. He's like, what is the fucking difference between Dave McCormick and the fucking porn pizza man from North Carolina in the Senate?

Nothing. If for governor's race, you can talk to me, but in the Senate, nothing. Like you might as well have Mark Robinson, like tweeting about how MLK is terrible while he looks at weird porn in the Senate and cause he's going to vote the same way as, as Dave McCormick. We got Chuck Grassley. Here's what he tweeted yesterday. Congrats Cash Patel. And I have to, I have to just explain this.

He spells his name K a money sign H K a money sign H congrats Cash Patel on UR confirmation as FBI director. It's a good thing. Change is coming. One thing that won't change is my oversight. I'll be keeping a close watch to ensure transparency. Yeah, the hell you will stop it. Oh, stop it. Chuck Charles, Charles Grassley.

Yeah. Listen, a 99 year old American is on the American is like keeping a close eye on you Cash. Like, oh yeah. Hey, KAMoneySignH, be careful. Chuck's coming to the headquarters today. Like what do you do? Just like throw a sandwich out there and he's a nap by 10 o'clock and you're good to go. Listen and the funny thing about Chuck Grassley is when I talked about the Party in 2010, and I mentioned him, he's the dude that,

what happened is, he was gonna vote for this Obamacare bill, or he was negotiating it. And the Tea Party protested his town hall, and he immediately after that said he's exiting negotiations. And that's when what was gonna be a bipartisan healthcare bill fell apart, and Democrats made the decision we're just gonna run this through on partisan votes.

But he's the one so look if there's anybody to exert pressure on I mean he probably thinks he's gonna be in the Senate till he's 138 so maybe maybe now I don't think now I don't think there's any pressure yeah no the cash thing is I don't know how much more there is to say about it just because it's so disheartening but you know it'll be interesting to see the net what the next shoe drop says. I've got a lot of outreach from former FBI people, even current. And you know, like the most of these agents are Trumpy, are mega.

And the fact that they are planning now to shutter the domestic terrorism department, right, because you can't go after white bad white people. I just think that the ramifications are going to be really, really serious. And we don't exactly know what yet, but it is a category difference from some of this other stuff. Yeah. It feels like when you own a house and you just decide to delay maintenance on it, right? Like, you know, you don't need to paint the walls. You don't need to replace the roof. And you know, for a couple of years, you don't. And then all of a sudden everything falls apart and it kind of feels like maybe that's going to be what happens, but it's, it's not good.

And it's politicizing the FBI, really politicizing it, not like fake politicizing it, like Trump says. All right. Let's talk a little bit about Ukraine. Boy. That's kind of like my cash question. The president and the vice president are basically in the secretary of state. I guess are all on the side of Russia now. We're having a negotiation.

It's unclear what we're getting out of the negotiation. It's unclear what Russia is being asked to give out of the negotiation. The current negotiation is that Russia will get everything. They'll get economic opportunity with us in Europe and they'll get the land that they have and they'll get Ukraine not being in NATO and maybe Ukraine will get some security guarantees that nobody actually believes that the Trump-vance administration would follow through on. Is that a summary of the state of play here for you? It is. I think we're all in disbelief because I guess we're not

surprised. We're not shocked by this, but it's the pace at which Trump pivoted is shocking. And the fact that, by the way, there are all of his advisors walking around saying, I mean, Walt said this, you got to quit being mean to him. Hey, Zelensky, you're being mean to him. What do you expect? What is this? This is a toddler. I mean honest to God I've got a three-year-old and I'm careful at what I say around him because I don't want him to go off

But I recognize that he's a not developed toddler and that's exactly what they're saying. So so this guy President Trump is so advanced in 5d chess and all that that you have to be careful that you say some mean words to him You had said this yesterday. It's like and whoever came out and said well, he likes people Crenshaw. He likes people Yeah, no, we got the audio. We got the audio I said this yesterday and we had so many comments about it people couldn't believe that it was actually true So to be fair to Dan Crenshaw, let's listen to him explain Trump's behavior Let's listen Trump has responded by calling Zelensky a dictator without elections and says he better move fast or he's not going to have a country left, saying he's very unpopular, his country's

in ruins, et cetera. Trump tends to talk that way to his friends. Yeah. He tends to talk nicer to his enemies. So if he's talking to you that way, it still means you're his friend. I might, I might. And I would always, of course, warn people like Zelensky, just don't get into it with Donald Trump.

Don't get into it. What's the point? What's the point? We've been backing you this whole time. We will continue to back you, but there must be a paradigm shift. And that's what President Trump brings to the table here is a paradigm shift. That's what they're attempting to do.

You expect us to believe that shit? I mean, like what? Adam, I guess you, Adam, and Trump must be best pals. Crying Adam Kinzinger. When are you gonna get your invite down to Mar-a-Lago? You guys are just buddies. Maybe you can go golfing together because he's mean to his friends, so he must love you.

Look, I've been trying to unfriend this guy for years and he just keeps, he keeps tweeting at me like I'm his buddy. I can't, I don't get it. I mean, look, this is, in a way I feel sorry for Dan only because I know he knows better and he's like sitting there going, gosh, how do I, but I don't feel bad because he could just say the truth

He's like Mike Waltz, right? They know better like what is this job worth? I mean, I don't know if you saw the clip where Dan was DJing at the like whatever the inauguration thing is and drinking a beer and being all cool. I guess that's it You have screaming throngs of 19 year old freaking, you know, Charlie Kirk types, I guess and maybe that's worth it He could be a DJ though. I think he could be a DJ without having to apologize for Donald Trump and be made into an ass clown multiple times on the Piers Morgan show. He could just DJ.

He could be like Tiasto, man. Just go do that. Go do those big events. And the pretzels these folks twist themselves into, it's like we are doing everything we can to not admit that Trump just likes Russia and he doesn't like Ukraine and why is that I mean there's any number of theories out there but it's just a fact we know this and so you know Marco Rubio and waltz and can say you need to quit being a meanie to him and all this stuff but the reality is he just loves Russia now let me make one other quick point

the United States the casualty numbers are around 400,000 people we lost and or injured, I think during World War Two, that number may be a little low. But Russia is approaching twice the number of casualties of the United States in World War Two. And think about what we did in World War Two, we island hopped all the way to Japan, we liberated Germany, we liberated an entire continent, you know, and Russia's lost twice as many as we have and gained a fraction of just the territory of Ukraine. I mean, if you extrapolate how much Russia has gained in the last two years to saying how long will it take them

to take the rest of Ukraine, it's the cost of 10 million or 20 million men, and it is 100 years from now, at that rate that they will actually take Ukraine. Ukraine is winning. Like, look, for a defending country, all you have to do is keep defending yourself. That's it. I'm sorry, the vice president put out yesterday, as more effort for his tough negotiations,

that it's actually Russia that's crushing them on the battlefield. It's nonsensical. I mean, anybody that went to third grade history understands it's nonsensical. Look, if you're a country getting attacked, yeah, you have to defend yourself and you're probably going to lose some territory defending yourself. The hope is to create enough pressure and attrition on the attacking country that eventually they fall apart. That's exactly what's happening.

That is military history 101 that every freshman in ROTC learns and these guys don't understand it, don't care to, and honestly they believe. I've started listening to 1984 again on Audible, and you're just sitting here and you're like, this is exactly what this is. Don't believe your own eyes, believe what I tell you. Yeah. Ukraine did the invasion, right? It is just another big lie.

I want to go back to this cruncher thing just about how beta it is really quick, just because I want to take it out of the context of Trump and the president and put it into a real life context. There's no way that Dan would act like this in any other situation. If you go back to ROTC and there's some bully that is also serving with him and he's walking around and he's going, crying Dan Crenshaw just wears panties because he's a cry baby boy and starts calling ugly face Joe over here and sleepy Todd, calling everybody nicknames. In that moment would Dan be like, the right thing to do here, the grown up thing to do here is just to let him call you names, let him call you names. Because he really likes you.

Because he really likes you and you just take it. You just take it. You just let him call you names and then he really likes you and you cuz he really likes you and you just take it You just take it you just let him call you panty-dan and like you just say, okay, sir Yes, sir Like you would be the biggest beta bitch in the world if you do this in any other context Like why is this like the tough guys say like only in the context of Trump must we just like bend over and let him Call you names. Like what? Like Zelensky is the person that is showing traditional alpha masculine virtues. He's the one that didn't leave when his country was attacked.

It stood up to the bully. Yeah, I think I put this on Twitter on one of the tweets I probably shouldn't have done, of course, but I just remember writing to somebody like... You're hurting my effort to recruit you to run with all these tweets out. Well, look evidently you have to have Twitter and speak real now. That's true. That's a good point. But like I said something about like how how freaking you know beta it is to follow a man and literally be sitting around going Everything Trump says is right and this is a guy that is fat, that golfs all the time, that literally is the biggest whiner. He's never done manual labor in his life.

This is exactly the kind of person that folks would be like, he's the opposite of a man. The only thing he does is he yells, he's petulant, and he tweets in all caps. If that's manly, great, cool. But what this reminds me of is like those cartoons where it's the little mouse and he's got like a big elephant as a sidekick and the

little mouse is the bully and the big elephants like what do you want, sir? Right? That's the whole GOP male establishment that could be like they could schwack, you know, Donald Trump down and be like, listen, man, you're nothing but a whiny little bitch, but they don't they sit there and they follow him because he's scary. And he can bring people to tweet against me and I might lose my job.

I'd be like, Zelensky should just act like me. Zelensky should just lick Trump's balls like I did. That's how he'd be a real man. Could you imagine? Like, and that's where I'm like with Ukraine and I hope Europe, by the way, Europe has got to step up in this moment. The only bad thing about that is, you know, the Magas will say this was Donald Trump's plan all along. He really wanted Ukraine to win. He just wanted Europe

to step up. Don't fall for that. It's not true. He wants Ukraine to lose, by the way. But hopefully this is a moment where Europe can step up and be like, you know what, America, we'd love to have you. You're very important. We don't need you. Rheinmetall, NAMMO, all of our other, you know, European defense agencies, they're going to make enough stuff for Ukraine and we'll stop the Russians and you can basically take your tariffs and leave Europe. Let's game this out for a second, that outcome, because that seems decently likely at this point.

It puts us in a big bind. If Marco, if our possibly Cuban agent, I don't know, possibly communist-cuban agent, I'm just throwing it out there, might be possible agent, I don't know, possibly communist Cugin agent, I'm just throwing it out. There might be a possible, but we don't know if he cuts a deal with his Russian counterparty and you know, whatever the contours of that, something like what I laid out at the beginning and Zelensky says now, and there are enough European countries that say, no, we'll keep backing you. Where does that put us in that situation?

Like, what do you do? You know, it was going to leave them in a very tough, you know, situation to game out. Like, are you then on actually on the side of Russia, we just like check out and say good luck, you know, impact on relationships with Europe. I mean, I don't know that that whole possibility has really been thought through. I think that there's this kind of like notion that whatever Mr. Trump want and Mr. Putin want is going to happen. Yeah, there has been that notion. Honestly, that notion exists

in Europe too. I mean, Europe, they have been paralyzed for 80 years and this has actually worked to our advantage, right? Like, because we can write the rules of the road. We get to basically determine what's important for defense, but regardless, Europe has basically kind of gotten paralyzed and relied on the United States. And so what happens if they finally do kind of find their cojones and decide that we're gonna support Ukraine? First off, it'd be great for the European defense establishment, because that's atrophied so much.

Secondly, it will take a while for it to continue to spin up, but they're leaning forward right now. And Denmark especially has made it very clear, like we're gonna buy the best weapons. If they clear. Like, we're gonna buy the best weapons. If they're not available, we're buying the second best weapons. The key here is speed. That's what they've said.

What does that mean for the United States? Look, there are rumors right now that are pretty strong. They're not just internet rumors that Trump plans to announce a withdrawal of all American troops from Europe within the next month. Now, maybe it doesn't happen, but I honestly won't be surprised if it does. So if Europe steps up and says, fine, we'll do this with Ukraine, I could see Donald Trump

pouting, taking his ball, going home and saying, good, obviously you've got Europe all yourself. The point is though, like yes, he has the power to do it. Not much we can do to stop it, except I think that is going to be seen as a bigger betrayal than Afghanistan and and Joe Biden Which by the way, he was just executing honestly Donald Trump's brilliant negotiation in Afghanistan Biden went underwater on his numbers after Afghanistan and never recovered Donald Trump could do the same But you know for those looking saying well, what's the quick answer to that? I'm sorry They're just isn't we have a system set up where you can really have a voice in two years, and we're just going to have to

wait that out. On your 1984 thing, I do think we should mention the free speech party here, our free speech president and shadow president. That was their animating issue, was that everyone should have the right to make racist jokes if they want and not be shadow banned by the social media companies. A couple of interesting wrinkles though about the free speech White House. The first was I interviewed Robert Garcia last night, congressman from Long Beach. He was on CNN and he said basically Elon is a dick and the Democrats need to bring weapons to the bar fight. Kind of just like, I think I kind of mangled the phrase of, you know,

we shouldn't be bringing a knife to a gunfight, et cetera. Like that very common figure of speech. He receives a letter from Eagle Ed Martin, the US attorney, a letter of inquiry saying that he wants to look into whether this was an illegal, physical threat on Elon Musk's life. Obviously, it is ridiculous, like Dan Goldman, another congressman wrote, there's no such thing as letter of inquiry.

You're literally making things up to use your letterhead to chill free speech. Why don't you stop weaponizing the DOJ against Democrats while you still have your bar license? This is Robert Garcia's not being quiet, But this is they're trying to intimidate people into stopping criticizing Elon and Trump and cash. Like they want regular people to feel like they might have to get a lawyer if they do it. And it's scary. Yeah. And it's intimidating. I mean, it is, right? You get something from the US attorney and you're like, gosh, I just, I went on CNN, they don't pay me or if they pay me, they don't pay me a ton, it's just not worth it. That's exactly what they're doing.

Here's what I, and I would suggest this to anybody that gets a letter like this, including if I get one, take a photocopy of your butt, right? Sign it and send it back with that letter. Because honestly, there's nothing he can do. And what we have to do, and I mean this seriously, is make a mockery of the system they're making a mockery of.

I've always said to call me back to the January 6th committee. Let's talk about that and honestly I hope you put my testimony on television because it's going to be good. It's going to be really good including let's go through some of the tweets of some of the people on the committee and stuff like that and you know hey let me go through this Bible verse there Christian how do, how does this compose with what you're doing? So I think what's we have to do, like take, you know,

legal stuff seriously, obviously, but when it comes to where they're making a mockery of it, if you can afford to and by the, you know, make a mockery back, that's the way we're gonna win this thing. Yeah, I mean, obviously it takes when people have other considerations in their life, but I like your butt idea because I think the right answer here is don't behave. Don't behave.

Say arrest me, arrest us, arrest me. Like, okay. So I, I used a figure of speech on CNN, arrest me. Let's see it go to a grand jury. Cause this is like where their whole strategy breaks down because they believe they convinced themselves with their own BS that Donald Trump was targeted by the deep state and that it was unfair. Like all of the indictments, the US government got evidence, went to a grand jury, the grand jury had to improve

the indictment. They had to move forward. It's like, go ahead, go to it. Take this to a grand jury. Take my CNN clip to a grand jury. Good luck. Call me back when you have it. Yeah. Arrest me. Yeah. And I think that you'll find that a lot of this stuff will crumble. And I think there might still be some scary stuff coming behind it from Cash Patel,

but this sort of stuff. And look, and by the way, if they arrest you on spurious charges like this, you'll be famous in the country. Monetize that so you'll make money from it. Then you can run for whatever you want to run for it. Cause now you're the famous resistor. So look at the bright side of things.

There you go. All right, Adam, Adam's ready to get arrested. I can tell he's, he's, he's itching. The other free speech item. I think I'd be remiss to not mention on the podcast. I'm sorry, I love Grimes' music. It's not for everybody. She decided she wanted to kiss with Elon Musk.

I think that was a very bad decision in her personal life, but I do think that she's a great artist. I saw her Coachella a couple of years ago. Her video about how she only eats spaghetti is one of the most inspired things on the entire internet if you're looking for a laugh this weekend. So anyway, she has a child with Elon Musk. She was tweeting yesterday, basically, Elon, please return my calls. Our child is sick. She goes on, I'm not giving any details, but he won't respond to texts or calls or emails. He skipped every meeting and our child will suffer lifelong impairment if he doesn't respond ASAP.

So I need him to fucking respond. And if I have to apply public pressure, then I guess that's where we're at. She sent that on X. Then Elon shadow bans it. Usually I kind of like roll my eyes at this idea of shadow banning. I went to see it. I went to look at the, you know, because I saw a screenshot of it. I went to find it. I couldn't find it. Same. And then you had to go into the replies and you could find it. Same. And then somebody tweeted at her with a

screenshot of the shadow band saying, did you delete this? And she replied, lol, no. No. So, Elon is like blocking his ex, his baby mama's tweet about how he is a deadbeat dad. That's where the free speech party is right now. I mean, look, we've got to get past this. When they talk about free speech, all they mean is oppression of speech that's not theirs. That's literally all they mean. And remember when they wanted to repeal section, is it 230 or whatever, because, you know,

and now all of a sudden they're all for that because they own the platforms now. And look, this is sad. And can we get past calling Elon just such a good guy because he wants to repopulate the world and he's a family man and he carries X on his shoulders, who by the way, tells the President of the United States that he's not the real president

because he definitely heard that from somebody in his life, who's in his life that would like to tell him that he's the real president, I don't know, Elon Musk. And so can we get past this idea that it's cute that he carries him on his shoulders? Look, I hope he's a great dad to X, I don't know, Elon Musk. And so can we get past this idea that it's cute that he carries him on his shoulders? Look, I hope he's a great dad to ex, I do. But he has obviously, you know, through IVF, which is weird, you know, gotten another girl pregnant

and then ignored her and then now with Grimes and the guy's got a gajillion and a half dollars. Like you could write a billion dollar check to baby mama and probably never have to see them again. And it wouldn't even dent your... So there's something else going on. And it's just narcissistic psychotisy is what you have in Elon Musk.

And for whatever reason, he just doesn't care about anybody but himself. I understand people have issues and family problems and things sometimes are complicated. But when you have two Baby Mas hate tweeting you within a week, and you're on stage in sunglasses slurring with a chainsaw, I don't know. Seems like maybe your priorities are a little off. And one has health problems, whatever that means. It sounds like, you know, for Grimes to tweet that,

she's gotta be really actually concerned for her child and not just like, I wanna embarrass Elon because that's embarrassing to her too. Yeah, you're right about that. These are sick people. Okay, it's Friday. Everybody take a deep breath. I've got two little land yap, a couple of two piece of audio for everybody. One is substantive, the other one, we're going to close with some fun.

It's interesting. Trump had an event yesterday for Black History Month at the White House. I actually think that's illegal and I don't know why Eagle Ed Martin didn't send the cops in to start arresting people because there was an executive order that bans DEI events. So I don't really understand how that's legal, but I guess we'll have to turn to Ben Wittes or Andrew Weissman on a future pod to have them clear that up for me. But he acknowledged the CEO of Pfizer while he was there. And I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons, the crowd reaction,

but also to what we were talking about at the top about where some real anger might get and where Trump might be getting himself into trouble by being so easily flattered by these rich guys and having these rich guys around him, he might start to find himself out of touch with the forgotten man. And here's some evidence of it.

Let's hear his acknowledgement of the Pfizer CEO yesterday. You also have the head of Pfizer here. So I want to thank him. One of the great, great people. One of the great businessmen. Thank you, Albert. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That's tough getting booed at the White House event by a crowd of maggots.

Look, I think this may be the thing that kind of unites everybody a little bit is this, it's not going to be Elon, cause the right loves him, but like this kind of eat the rich sort of, and we've got to walk the line on that. But let me just also say, that doesn't mean kill these people folks, like this Italian dude, that's whatever. Not Luigi.

Yeah, not Luigi, but you can boo them all you want. That's great. Yeah, and I also think maybe it shows a little bit of a disconnect on the vaccine thing. And that's, there's going to be some interesting, interesting choices ahead for us as we have a measles outbreak in this country. So let's just say we're monitoring it. When you're, when, uh, when a CEO gets booed inside the White House by MAGA, it's something that we're going to be keeping an eye on. All right. Here's what I want to take everybody out with.

I'm assuming you haven't seen this yet because you don't, you don't suffer as much as I do on the mega internet, but your friend and mine, a new host of the weekend Fox show, actually before we get to that, I do notice everybody wants to be a podcaster. I appreciate that you are also now in the sub-stack space. I saw Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman have a podcast together. Matt Gates has a podcast. The water is warm, everybody. Welcome. It's a competitive marketplace. You're still losing to me in the ratings so far, but I'm going to keep an eye on how you're

doing, Gates and Cory and Lara Lee Trump. She is also in the content business now. And it's not happy. She's not satisfied, rather not satisfied rather just have a weekend Fox show. Okay. She, she wants to go into another industry and she has released a song this morning with French Montana. No, and I'd like to play it for us. Oh yeah. You're so mysterious.

How much more can you take, Adam? Work, work, work, work, work. Yeah, Lera. Work, work, work, work, work. To those who think they know me. You do the math because you're gonna go through. Yeah, Lara. If you listen closely, Cause you're bound to the right. Let the music take control.

Go, days off. Okay, alright. No days off. No days off. That's enough. Jason, please. That's enough. I'm begging you.

Alright, 9.30 club. No days off. Coming to you soon. Lara Lee Trump in French, Montana Any closing thoughts for us? Are you are you ready? Yeah, it just starts in it starts in your toe We start tapping next thing, you know, it's overtaking the body and you're just like, you know I've never done Molly, but that might be a good time I feel you know to join to join the Elon ranks and just let it flow through you. Yeah, little Molly, a little candy-puppin' for some Lara Lee Trump.

Well, that's a good one. I won't be putting the song in the show notes so people can Google it for themselves if they want to find it. Thanks. Thank you, Adam Kinzinger. Everybody, go subscribe to his sub stack. He's doing great work over there. And it's starting to happen.

You can start to feel it out in the streets. I think that's good. So I appreciate you coming on the pod today. You bet, buddy. All right. We'll talk to you soon out in the streets. I think that's good. So I appreciate you coming on the pod today. You bet, buddy. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Everybody else, we'll be back Monday with Bill Kristol and over the weekend, actually, I'll be at Principles First in DC. If you're around, I'm interviewing Jared Polis. A bunch of your other friends will be there. So we'll be checking you all out. Some of you in DC, the rest of you on Monday's part. Peace! Cause I get out for free, I gotta fight But they don't know me, cause I'm only a man

And I do what I can B-E-E-A-J-A-B-E-E-A-R-E-F-E-R-E-T-O-R-E Tell me and I'm all star, look and feel pressure B-E-E-A-J-A-B-E-E-E-N-E-V-E-M-O-R-E You gave up being good, you declared your fate as wrong A-O-L-E-A O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A

O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A O-A-O-L-E-A Cause I'm only a man who can do what I can

Cause I'm only a man who can do what I can Cause I'm only a man who can do what I can I know something bad, maybe I was wrong Sometimes people say I'm a big time bomb But I'm only a man And I do what I can B-E-H-A-B-E, the rapper Tony and the monster, lookin' so pressure

B-E-H-A-B-E, nevermore It gave up being good, and you declared a state of mind Oh wait, oh no be afe, oh no be afe, oh wait Oh no be afe, oh no be afe, oh wait Oh no be afe, oh no be afe, oh wait You're going to the final, you're going to the show Cause I'm on the island and do what I can The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.