The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: MAGA Hates America

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Trump and his supporters don't like America as it currently exists, and their veep pick JD Vance is like the U.S.-hating Code Pink, but in a suit.  Meanwhile, the Democrats have seized the patriotism mantle, à la the Republicans of the 80s. Plus, the sick, unhinged, and inaccurate attack on Tim Walz after his 24 years of service in the National Guard.  Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller. show notes: Kinzinger on the swiftboating of Walz Kamala clapping back against some Gaza protesters on Wednesday 

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And we're here for the right reasons, and we all know what we're here for. So we're going to do our thing, make this music, and make way for the people that we need to hear from. Yes, we'll rally round the flag, we'll rally once again. Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

We will rally from the hillside, rally from the plain. Shouting the battle cry of freedom. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. That was Bonnie Ver singing the pro-union abolitionist civil war hymn Battle Cry of Freedom in his hometown Eau Claire, Wisconsin before the Harris-Walls rally there yesterday. And today I'm pumped to be with somebody who loves himself some freedom, Adam Kinzinger, contributor to the Bulwark, former Republican congressman, veteran, founder of Country First, which backs pro-democracy candidates.

What's up, brother? Hey, so I'm not just a fan of freedom. I'm also a fan of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. So I used to go do touch-and-go's up there with the military because, you know, my military unit's Madison, Wisconsin. So Eau Claire, it's a cool little place to go except when it's like zero negative zero thousand degrees but other than that it's great it was packed yesterday in eau claire that's a good sign you know that's not uh that's not madison right i mean you could get there from madison but it's not you know it's a

different crowd you can't get there very easily from madison that's a that's a drive yeah it's a good sign i mean they probably pulled a lot over from Minnesota too it's like that's a rural community right you're gonna you know fill a stadium with rural Democrats you gotta have a lot of them all right I've got a couple of things about the uh the rollout that's been peaking my interest but I'm just curious your big picture thoughts you've you've endorsed obviously there's Wall's ticket what what's your you know biggest feeling about the state of play here 90 days out? You know, looking back, like you and I both talked about this, which is like I always thought if Biden got out, it would actually be there would be a lot of energy behind the

new candidate, because I think a lot of what people were just so upset about was like it was going to be another Biden-Trump, right? That's where there was no excitement. So she's come in and she's, I mean, a ton of energy. And again, knock on wood, but I guess we don't have to knock on wood because I'm just talking about what has been, not what necessarily will be. This has been a flawless rollout. We're unburdened. Yeah. Yeah. This has been a flawless rollout. And, you know, I think the one area she's going to have to make a difference on here very soon is she's going to have to sit down for some interviews. This is starting to gain a little steam and it's got a point. But I mean, so far, it's been great. And the other thing is there hasn't been this feeling, at least to me, like I know that I'm going to disagree with her on probably most issues, but I haven't had this feeling that she's some, you know, left wing lib that's going to thumb her nose at me and my way of life. It's been more of a unifying theme. And I think Tim Walls brings a lot to that, too.

Yeah, I was going to do this last because, you know, I didn't mean to pick on him first, but you brought it up. So let's just get it out of the way. I agree. She's got to do some interviews soon. This has been a honeymoon of all honeymoons. I mean, not to get too tawdry with it, but they've just been getting down during the honeymoon period. It's been going great. It's been the honeymoon of their dreams. And I get why you didn't want to do an interview during that period and risk momentum stopping. But Trump's got a

press conference later today. J.D.'s been doing press conferences. To me, it's like just do a couple easy ones. You know what I mean? Like they have this hanging over them. And I don't I think at this point, I don't know why. And I think it's time to just check the box. Yeah, I agree. I think they will. I mean, I guess look, if I was running the campaign, and I never ran, you know, but a Congress campaign, so I guess I'm not going to say I'm the smartest. But I would say like, look, let's get as much juice out of this turnip as we can right now. And then at the point when the calls are super, super loud, then we'll knock out. And it would probably be good before the convention, knock out a few big interviews, say you did it, do a press conference and move on. Your honeymoon analogy is right, man. This is like the kind of honeymoon where you're like,

oh, they're going to be divorced because this thing, this honeymoon is just too hot and heavy. Yeah, how could it be going so good? They can't get off each other. There's no way that's going to work. I think the longer you wait, just the more pressure there is on her. Like, let's take the air out of the balloon. I had Dan Pfeiffer on last week. Pod Save America will have you. I'll have you.

You know, you can do some training. You can do some t-ball first. You don't have to go straight into the toughest interview. All right. Some friendly advice. And just look at how stupid, how stupid Donald Trump's interviews are. I mean, he doesn't answer anything. We all know his, I hate the term gish galloping. I hate it so much. I've hated it ever since the whole Biden debate and people use that. Just so you know, if you reply to me on Twitter with the word gish gallop, you're getting muted. I'm sorry. It might be well intended.

It just annoys me. I hate it as much as you do. Personal privilege. You're probably the reason I hate it because you were the one like bad mouthing it. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? I hate gish galloping too. But anyway, so you've rubbed off on me. Dang it.

But that's what Donald Trump does. He just word vomits all over an answer. And look, if Harris just goes and does what she needs to do, she doesn't have to be perfect. She doesn't have to be amazing. She'll be fine. Right. But it'll take that out of the blue. Exactly. Friendly advice on that one. Okay. Where I wanted to start with the battle cry of freedom. I got to tell you, man, Harris and Wallace together have really co-opted, obviously, freedom with the theme song. But a lot of these themes that

were very popular at Republican conventions in days of yore, the patriotism and the freedom and the opportunity of America. And that's not as if Democrats didn't use those in the past. But usually on the kind of issue qualities, when you use words and ask them, like, which party do you associate it with? Those were the words that people generally associated with Republicans in the 80s, 90s, and they're taking them back and i love that and i gotta tell you i thought the most moving part of the initial rollout speech in philly was them talking about kind of how unique this ticket is and how unique it is to america i just want to play one clip for for you. And after all, you know, the promise of America is what makes it possible for two middle-class kids, one, a daughter of Oakland, California, who was raised by a working mother,

the other, a son of the Nebraska Plains who grew up working on a farm. It's the promise of America, because only in America, only in America, only in America is it possible for them together to make it all the way to the White House. Only in America. Only in America. Only in America.

Only in America. USA! USA! USA! USA! That's right. That's pretty good, man. That's pretty good. Dude, I love this because for two things i mean i had a number of reasons i love this because first off this is going to drive the magas crazy because they somehow believe they own this chant right yeah it's going to drive them crazy but secondly the thing i've been trying and i wish I could articulate it better because I would be articulated it more often, is the Trump folks actually hate America.

Let's be very clear. It's not, when you think of America in 1950s America and farms, they don't hate that America. They do hate America that exists today. And what we don't get a choice of is to determine what kind of America exists today. And what we don't get a choice of is to determine what kind of America exists today. Now, you can get involved in politics and say, I want America to look like this tomorrow. That's fine. But America as it exists today, they've been very clear. The right has been very clear. They don't like this. They hate it, right? This is why they down talk everything. This is why they excitedly say the Russian military, which has lost 500 000 people in ukraine is better than the american military the woke american military the

woke american military and we don't do things like we used to right like that kind of stuff i mean yeah we can now strike somebody and kill them with a bomb that's made out of razor blades from a hundred miles away that's pretty pretty good. Thanks to our ingenuity. Thanks to American ingenuity. The free market says down the Department of Defense. What's more American? And we named it the Ninja Bomb, for God's sakes. That's cool. But anyway, the whole point is I've always said Democrats should be the ones trying to take back this narrative of we love America. We love America as it exists. We're America that gives people opportunity. And Tim, I got to tell you what, I'm sensing this. I'm curious your thoughts on it,

if you're sensing it too. I feel like people are starting to turn the corner of just exhaustion with the constant negativity and outrage out of MAGA. I feel like it's just running thin, not among MAGAs, but against the rest of the country what do you think i think so too i just the olympics was a good example of this you know where it's just like they want people to be mad that there was a drag queen last supper or something during the during the opening ceremonies and it was a greek fest yeah right or even the last and it's like but they can't accept that it was like they can't be happy with someone by us because she was a quitter before i don't have this good but one of my favorite quotes from yesterday was jd vance and they asked him like what makes him smile somebody asked him this is the press conference

and he's like fake news questions like that make me smile and i am angry actually it's like stop being people don't want to be fucking angry about everything like they just want to be able to watch the olympics put on you know, their little red, white and blue clothes, have a beer, glass of rosé, depending on which part of the country you're in. Root for Simone Biles, root for LeBron James, root for, you know, like the sprinters. That's it. Like that's what they're looking for. And yeah, they're like your grumpy grandpa, right?

Or like your grandpa's neighbor that would just sit on his porch and tell everybody to get out of his lawn. Like that's what the GOP has personified, that. And if the Democrats can be this party of opportunity, optimism, the party that chants USA. I mean, one of the biggest things that blew me away coming into kind of the left movement as a righty, you know, is these people actually don't hate America like I used to think they did. Right. Right? They actually, and I never really thought they hated america but like they down talked it they down talked it a little yeah they down talked and they certainly i mean everybody has to admit back

in the 80s you know the left was obviously had a real issue with it but i always thought that was them and then now i see truly in a party that's like, okay, they love America. They may love it for different reasons, but they love America. And by the way, they also believe dearly in the constitution. And that's the one thing I've come to realize. The Republican party really doesn't believe in that despite everything they would pretend to say. I had a brain fart there. I take these in the morning.

Shikari Richardson. I got to shout out my LSU girl. We just want to cheer for Shikari. We just want to be happy. You know, we just want to girl we just want to cheer for shikari we just want to be happy you know we just want to we just want to love our country and cheer for our athletes the other thing about that exchange kamala really embraced it and i have this so this is a self-criticism as well this is not just criticism kamala she's not that great of a faker i'm not that great of a faker you know what i mean like when i'm faking something you can kind of tell you know some people are good at that.

Some people are not. But when she's spinning you, you can kind of tell she's spinning you. She really looked overcome with emotion in that part of the speech that we were talking about. And just kind of thinking about the majesty of this and the enormity of it. That's another contrast. Like Donald Trump just doesn't. He doesn't actually feel anything special about leading America. He's like, I can just as easily lead Belarus Belarus and it might actually be better because I'd have more

power. And by the way, like what president? I can't think of a single president. Maybe I'm sure he's existed somewhere in the past, but that would say to the American people, I did you a favor by becoming president. Right. I could have had a better life. Yeah. This is literally Donald Trump's like election theme. Yeah. Is I gave up a lot to come do this job. You're welcome, America. His sons. I mean, they'll go on Twitter and they'll say, my father could have blah, blah, blah.

But my father, by the way, I would never repeatedly call my dad, my father. He's like my dad. Sometimes he'd be my father, but they're just like father. Anyway, whatever. Maybe that's a, maybe that's a Northeast thing. But like, if you think of every president in history, they've all said, thank you for this opportunity. What an honor it is to sit in the Oval Office, right? Every one of them, even those that probably didn't feel like it was an honor. Donald Trump is just a, everything around him is darkness and he's doing you a favor. And this is where I think the Democrats have a real opportunity this year is to be the party of hope, to be the party of vision. Even if you don't agree with that vision, it's like at least somebody's talking

about the future and not past grievances. Your first instinct when I played that clip for you was to say it's going to trigger the maggots and make them upset. And so I got a treat for you. It did. Let's listen to Ben Shapiro. If you go back far enough, he was a high school football coach. And don't you know, he's a teacher and a high school football. He's basically Mr. Feeney, but more athletic.

He's like Ed Asner, a vuncular, moderate, just one of the boys. You know, a guy who can crack a beer and can shoot a rifle, but is also really, really in favor of gun control and transing the kids. That's basically the pitch in favor of Tim Walz. So she does this routine. These rallies are incredibly well choreographed. I will say that. They are very well choreographed. She calls for a chant, and a chant goes up. First Democratic rally I've seen for a while where people start actually cheering. First Democratic rally I've seen for a while where people start actually cheering USA. And why are they cheering USA? Because she says, what an amazing country this is. What an incredible country where a person like me,

middle-class person, or Tim Walz, middle-class person can become the president and vice president of the United States. Now, I agree with that, but she doesn't agree with that. She believes that America is systemically racist. So does Tim Walz. oh my god oh what a coach a cope and cry baby oh poor little squeaky ben it's sad that they've taken over the usa chant from the guy that tried to terminate the constitution and try a coup poor little ben i saw two things in there first off what a dork he is can i just say i mean like i know i'm reverting to high school jerk here but what a complete dork right even yesterday he tweeted something about how waltz has no net income or like no net worth no stocks okay so he's obviously not corrupt okay maybe he's

not the best money manager but he's not corrupt So maybe we can at least admit that because if he was corrupt, he'd have something like he'd have some stock. But the other thing is like at the beginning and you just hear this and this is what you hear in MAGA now. You saw that Ben is ridiculing this idea that, oh, he's just a regular guy who you want to sit down and have a beer with whatever. Because Ben, and I mean this like both gently and seriously, Ben has never been somebody you would feel comfortable sitting down and having a beer with.

And that is a chip he's carried on his shoulder. And I truly am sorry for that for him because I think he's got social anxiety or awkwardness or whatever. But you can see that anger and jealousy coming out, and you see that, frankly, in the MAGA movement when they do really weird stuff it's called out as weird and you were by the way the og on weird let me just say george w was the og i took it from w and then all right so dem wall's got you're a nearby og charge it up to the game

you know but that's why that insult bothers them so much is because they've been called weird in their life before. And they thought they found a community that they can feel comfortable in. And again, I really don't say this meanly because this to me actually is sad. But we have to address this clearly because their little psychological problems that they've all come together for comfort on is affecting the larger country in this moment. Ben over the past week has compared Tim Walz to Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World and to Chris Farley with his man down by the river character from SNL. And I'm like, dude, I would vote for Farley. Both of those are beloved characters.

What? That's what you got? Okay, whatever. Dude, Vice President Farley van down by the river. I'd be in in i would be in speaking of weird and grumpy people assholes that uh weren't loved it's all high school cafeteria i know you made the high school cafeteria joke but it all comes back to that jd bowman or hamill or whatever his name was when he was in high school uh wasn't popular

all right he's a little little tubby kid and i feel bad for him as well you know his step parents weren't good to him and that fucking sucks uh you shouldn't take it out on other people therapy is the right solution to this we're not going to say what you do when you're in therapy we're not going to talk about that on this podcast the walls attacks the jd has engaged him starting yesterday he He's attacked Tim Walls over stolen valor. He said that he quote abandoned his unit before he went to Iraq. You wrote about this in your sub stack and said the swift boating of Walls is sick, inaccurate and will fail. Talk about that. Can I just say how angry I have tried to not become angry during the cycle? Because I mean, I mean that like I want

to be a professional, like angry, not really angry. I am furious about this attack. Now let me take it from the broad perspective and cut me off if I'm spinning too long. Cause I'm going to rant about this. So on the 50,000 foot overview, if you ever served in the United States military, why in God's name would you run for office? Because what you have done is yes, you have done what 99% of the country won't do, but now it has become acceptable to parse through military records. Look for any time you said something in a public comment that might have been a little bit inaccurate or take a completely normal thing that happens in a military career, explain it as something differently to people that don't understand how,

for instance, military retirement works and make it look like you abandoned your unit. Now, let me go into the details of this. So Walls retires at 24, I think, years, 24 years in the military. Let me be clear about one thing. He could have retired at 20 with a pension. He stayed for 24. That was four years after 9-11 and two years after the start of the Iraq war. Eventually, so I retired from the guard as well. I retired at 20 years. He stayed four more years. Eventually, he makes the decision to retire. Now, it just so happens that a month

later, his unit gets called to say, you're going to deploy. But he had made the decision to retire. Now, it just so happens that a month later, his unit gets called to say, you're going to deploy. But he had made the decision to retire prior to that. Now, let's say, Tim, that he had not made that decision prior. His unit gets the order to deploy, and then Tim throws in his retirement paperwork. Let's say that happens, and that's not what happened. Well, first off, thousands of people in that time frame did exactly that. They did 20 some years in the military, and then they had kids and they were facing an 18 month

deployment to Iraq, and they put in their retirement paperwork. I know five guys particularly that did that before going on another deployment. There's nothing wrong with that. Because by the way, if the military decides that you can't go because you're going to not fill some billet that you fill, they can stop loss you. They can prevent you from getting out of the military. So Walls never was prevented from getting out of the military. He retired before his unit deployed. By the way, J.D. Vance did not reenlist in the Marine Corps, and I could argue, and it would be inaccurate, but I could argue using the same logic, that since he didn't re-enlist, and he could have, he could have stayed in longer, he actually abandoned his unit that eventually went back

to Afghanistan or Iraq. But that would be an unfair attack. The other thing I'll say is this. When they said that he is claiming to have worn a rank that he didn't wear is complete bullshit. Okay. So how military retirement works is in 20 years, after 20 years, you're eligible to retire. You retire at the rank you last held for three years. Okay. So when I became a Lieutenant Colonel, the year I hit my, I finished my third year as a Lieutenant Colonel, I was then eligible when I retired to retain the rank of lieutenant colonel. Had I gotten out at two years, I would have reverted to major. That happens in about 20% of retirements. That's what Walls did.

He reverted to senior master sergeant. What was his highest rank reach? Chief master sergeant, which is like the highest enlisted rank in the Army. And then since he didn't finish his education requirements for that, which happens all the highest enlisted rank in the army. And then since he didn't finish his education requirements for that, which happens all the time. And since he wasn't in that rank for three years, he reverted to senior master sergeant. That's not like a disciplinary, you know, demotion like Captain Ronnie Jackson got, and he still has admiral on his Twitter bio. He says he's a rear admiral. He was demoted for disciplinary reasons to a captain. So I could go on and on, and I'm happy to answer any questions,

but what makes me furious is not even so much the attack on walls, as unfair as that is. And I'd be this furious if people were attacking J.D. Vance, by the way. It's the fact that if you served in the military now and you think about running for office, you're like, God, did I ever say anything that somebody happened to get that maybe wasn't entirely 100% true?

And if so, I'm never running for office and it's bullshit. Yeah. When the people that are throwing these arrows, one of them avoided the draft by claiming he had bone spurs. The rest of them, you know, our friend Eric Erickson in Georgia down there sitting jiggling in front of his microphone with his anger, who's never served a day in his life in the military, talking about Walls' service like he has any effing clue. Yeah, a lot of that going on. We had Fred Trump on the podcast last week, and I read his book, and I don't think I got into this with him in the interview.

But like, the Bowens-Ferris thing is actually even way worse than i realized the degree to which they you know went and like called in favors from friends doctors and you know during this period where people are going to get drafted and it was a was not kind of like a oh they're exaggerating thing like it was a concerted effort to dodge the draft which again i've never served so whatever but like if you're going to start like making these attacks and somebody that was in the military for 24 years, you know, maybe look in your house first, just a couple of the facts here. I just want to drill in on Alexander Vindman, friend of the show tweeted this, you're a damn liar to JD Vance. And he goes to the timeline. May 2005 is when Walls retires from the National Guard.

And during that time, he retires saying he's planning to run for Congress. And I think actually Vindman didn't put this on, but I think in March, he actually said he was planning. He was like looking into running for Congress. So it was even earlier. July 2005, his unit receives orders for deployment. September 25, unit prepares for deployment. March 2006, it's like a full year later is when the unit deploys so i mean you like you got into this in your answer but just like talk about that like if we're being ungenerous to walls is this the kind of thing where you know he knew it was coming

right like all that you know all that sort of stuff like is there any any validity here with that timeline i don't think so in this case let me first off say as a chief master sergeant this idea that he's you know leaving somebody else to take up bullets for him is is insane a chief master sergeant would be sitting at some you know headquarters tent somewhere in iraq like or afghanistan yeah i mean he's not going to be on the ground shooting with the guys like he's's going to be back at headquarters. That's what high ranking officers do and high ranking enlisted people do. Right. Cause I guess this is 19 years ago. So he would have been 41. Yeah. 42. And so the other thing is, so let's go through that timeline. So with the national guard and I'm

air national guard, and we're a little different because the air national guard, we actually do federal missions all the time anyway. And whereas the army national guard we actually do federal missions all the time anyway and whereas the army national guard goes back i don't want to get too complicated but i don't know give us more i know not this is like where i feel the stupidest this and car repair and military okay talk to me like i'm a child perfect good detail so as a national guard officer for me i have both a federal commission and a state commission. Okay. And then depending on what mission I'm doing is who is my commander, but I was obviously trained federally. I went to U.S. Air Force training, et cetera. That's how the Army National Guard works as well. Except with them, they only do one week in a month. As pilots in the Air Force, we do much more. We stay current

constantly so we could actually deploy to war the next day. But when the Army gets an order, the Army National Guard gets an order to war, they usually have to go through that personnel spin-up process. Then they go to a fort somewhere, Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, and that's probably where his unit went. And they do training for two or three months to get spun up, and then they deploy. First off, if you think he got out simply because there was an impending deployment coming, let me point out that for four years he had been in the military after 9-11. So he was literally sitting on the edge of a deployment for four years. In the last two years of that, he could have been deployed to Iraq. And were National Guards getting deployed back then, like in 03, 04?

Yeah, they were. deployed back then like in 03 04 and actually the national guard little known fact was actually both air and army had a higher per capita deployment rate than the active duty forces did because they're typically in the air guard we're actually better that your force guys are going to hate this but we're actually better than the air force when it comes to like air-to-air fighting and stuff because we typically are older you You have older, more experienced pilots. But anyway, so you have to believe that he, for four years, was within basically the threat of being deployed and just somehow magically knew he wouldn't. And then you have to believe he made the decision to run for Congress

to get out of being deployed, even though he had no idea he was going to be deployed. And then you have to believe that he magically knew in May that they were going to get the order to deploy in two months. And he would have known none of that. He wasn't some general that knew what the order was coming down. It is a completely unfair attack. And again, Tim, this bears repeating. If he had known they were deploying and then made the decision to retire, there is still nothing cowardice or unethical about that. Once you pass 20 years of service, you have every right to retire at the moment you decide to retire. And if it happens to be a bad moment and the military is like, sorry, you will leave this

unit unmanned if you retire, they do what's called a stop loss which thousands of people got which says you cannot retire until this mission is complete so it is an unhinged and wrong and sick attack against a man that did 24 years of service even among like the boys like you guys are chatting about that you said you knew people who retired like in that in that environment like is there like a little bit Is there snickering? Again, this is just not my world. I'm just curious. Here's how I would put it.

We had people that would avoid deployments that would stay in the military. They'd come up with some reason that they couldn't deploy, or they'd go be a pilot training instructor to get out of deployment. Those people we could make fun of but we didn't lack respect for them but we would be like this guy's uh we called him uh what do we call them like seagulls because you'd have to throw rocks at him to get him to fly right so that's that but if a guy's like hey i'm getting ready to get deployed but i'm retirement eligible and i'm retiring not once were we ever like that guy's a sissy.

We're like, good, get out of here, man. You did your 20 years. Good job, right? Somebody else can come do this mission just like you can. And so even if Tim Walls had made the decision to retire when they got that deployment, I got to tell you, sitting here today, if I got an 18-month deployment order and I was still active guardsman and I could retire, I'd probably consider retiring instead of going on that 18 month deployment. I have a two and a

half year old. Exactly. Yeah. You have young kids, right? Okay. That was very helpful. And I felt out of my element. I was where you were instinctively, but I wanted to hear from somebody who's actually like been in the shit who knows about this stuff and here's what's working to their advantage tim is like very few people to the to the republicans advantage very few people know how the reserves or guard work okay very few people even know how the military works but particularly the reserves or guard because it's a specific thing and then retirement how that works in the military. And then the culture of the military, which the culture of the military is not, you've been in 24 years, you have to give us another year or you're going to be deserting your men. The culture of the military is you're eligible

to retire. Good. Get out of here. You don't need to deploy. You can throw out any attack, call it cowardice. And it works because to explain the opposite takes 10 minutes it takes 10 minutes to do the one thing that we that i knew for sure in this whole situation is that jd vance is a fucktard asshole and a part of the evidence on that uh was i want to go back to 2022 it's not the first time that jd's throwing stuff around actually before we get to jd's 2022 tweet like can we just talk just for one second again all respect for everybody that chooses to go into the military all respect for their service the jd gets on his soapbox and starts talking about how he went you know to actually serve in iraq where tim walls didn't you just talk a little bit about what jd's

you know service was like yes okay so this is a great point. If Democrats wanted to play the same game Republicans are playing, J.D. Vance, and again, I'm going to say this as an example, not as an attack, because I respect anybody's military services. We all should. This is what a bad faith attack on J.D. would look like. How about that? A bad faith attack on J.D. Vance would say, okay, first off, J. JD, your unit deployed back to Iraq in 2000, whatever, after you were out, you didn't reenlist. Therefore you left your unit out to drive. The second thing is JD Vance was a public affairs officer, not even an officer. He's a public affairs soldier Marine. So what he did is he went to, he went into Iraq, sat in a headquarters building, and wrote stories either for like Stars and Stripes, for the Marine Newsletter, put out press releases, maybe work with an officer about a certain village they're stabilizing.

I think he was in Afghanistan or Iraq. I don't remember which, but regardless, Iraq. So he put out those statements. There's nothing wrong with that. Again, that's honorable service. And like me at an airbase in Iraq, you know, we were not in direct combat with guns facing another enemy, but we got attacked with mortars, you know, etc. But you could attack him if you wanted to play bad faith game and say, dude, you're a public affairs Marine, quit pretending like you were a door kicker. And that's what a bad faith attack would look like.

That is what they're doing to Tim Walz. And I think it's amazing that Democrats, and I think it says a lot, that Democrats aren't doing the same back to J.D. Vance. And it's smart. Just respect his service. He served his country. He did more than most people did. There you go. Here's the kind of character J.D. has on this sort of stuff, though. Here's J.D. Vance 2022, going after Barry McCaffrey. Barry McCaffrey reached the rank of general. He commanded the US Southern Command 24th Infantry Division. He was talking about why he's posting publicly about why we should support our allies in Ukraine, which JD Vance does not support. And J.D. quote tweets him with this. Your entire time in military leadership, we won zero wars.

You drank fine wine at bullshit security conferences while thousands of working class kids died on the battlefield. Oh, by the way, how much do you stand to gain financially from a war with Russia, Barry? What a twerp. Barry replies to that with, well, two of those kids who served for my children, two more are now serving my grandsons and I don't drink wine. So that's a mic drop. Let me just say, and I've got to go find that tweet and retweet it. Like, what a terrible thing. I get hit with this all the time because obviously I support Ukraine, God forbid, where people are like, how much are you gaining from this war? What is your financial interest in this war?

Like, actually nothing, obviously. And I don't even need to reply to that because it's stupid. But it's like, actually, some people still believe in things like freedom and the ability to defend yourself against a country that's attacked you and jd vance is like part of this terminally online right that sees those comments thinks he can tweet and you know attack mcafree for it and guess what he'll get a ton of accolades by the 10 of crazy batshit crazy people on far right twitter yeah and uh 2100 retweets for that yeah yeah i mean and it's just we have melted into this like this like echo chamber insanity and this is why i am more every day more convinced that the only way to stop this is to make sure that jd vance and donald

trump are crushed in november and i don, frankly, if the new administration doesn't believe anything I believe, because I know that the Trump administration would be the same and would destroy a democracy I love. That's what I know. All this ties back to the not liking America part of it too, right? Just like these childish attacks on people that served their entire career, 80-year-old generals. You can criticize military leadership for their actions. It's America. childish attacks on people that served their entire career 80 year old generals like you know you can criticize military leadership for their actions it's america it's a free country but just

like the condescending you know shit posting bullshit about people that dedicated their life to service it's like what what's your problem this is what we used to attack the left for doing like jd vance is code pink in a suit right he's sitting here attacking everything the u.s has ever done it's about blood it's about money it's about oil it's like whatever jd vance is code pink and that's like the madness of how we've made this switch but it's good the point here to my democratic friends is the country hasn't become this. Okay? The Republicans have.

This is your opportunity to take the mantle, you know, call back from earlier in the show, take your mantle of USA, USA, be the party that has pride in this country. And I think you'll never lose an election again if you can take that mantle from the GOP. All right. One more example of these guys stepping in it over the last few years. I gotta tell you, one thing I was worried about we've been talking about on the show about the Walls pick

was just reanimating this conversation about the protests after COVID and how Walls was governor of Minnesota when we've already seen some ads about this from the MAGA folks and when minneapolis quote-unquote burned and it also kind of an unfortunate coincidence ties to like one of i think harris's weaknesses which is that she tweeted out that bail fund for rioters in minnesota right so you could kind of put together a 30-second package that i think looks pretty bad um using two of them. But, you know,

Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, as always. A little piece of audio that I have a feeling that the Harris vetting team had in their back pocket dropped yesterday on ABC News. Let's listen to it together. I know Governor Walz is on the phone and we spoke. And I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that and the whole world was laughing. Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor. The governor's, I think on the call, he's an excellent guy. You've got a big national guard out there that's ready to come in and fight like hell. I tell you, the best, what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated. And it happened

immediately. Tim is on the phone now, Tim Walz. Again, I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim. You called up the big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast. It was like bowling pins. Yeah, our city is grieving it uh incredible

dominated immediately he did it immediately uh that's that's good stuff by the way i was one of those national guardsmen that went into minneapolis and uh we actually went in and we were flying reconnaissance overhead and i was the first of the air guard to be there. And the second we got there, you realize the situation was under control. So obviously, for a couple of days, Minneapolis burned. It was a disaster. You could see that from the sky. But when the guard did finally roll in, and I think it's as much the mayor of Minneapolis

that takes the blame for not having the guard, because I don't think they requested it. Remember, they abandoned the whole police station and just created this environment. But yeah, when the guard did roll in, it stopped and it was completely peaceful. And, you know, Donald Trump recognized that. I need to let Tim Walz know and remind him that I was actually there as a guardsman. Yeah, I did not know that. Look at you, Adam. You're everywhere. I'm the everything guy. I'm like the Forrest Gump man of political issues obviously it was that this was not perfectly handled in in minnesota in minneapolis and i think it's a fair vulnerability it's a fair thing to criticize him on as just a political practitioner though it certainly takes the oomph out of it when donald trump is on there talking

about how much they dominated immediately uh i think that's a pretty good uh it's pretty good clap back as the kids say speaking of clapbacks last thing josh comlin detroit last time uh no i didn't see it okay uh it's pretty good you kind of need the whole visual of it so uh we'll put the we'll put the link in the show notes for people to play the audio as much but the uh what was it called what's the undeclared movement the gaza protesters were interrupting her speech several times and i get reports show that she actually met with some representatives from the undeclared movement before the speech so it's like she's heard their feedback she's heard their complaints she spoke out about this when bb came to washington and yet even still they tried to just derail the speech shouting kamala kamala

you can't hide something something genocide i hate those oh my god yeah and it's just like and kamala just like looks at them and says you've been heard it's my turn to speak now if you want donald trump to win keep going or something to that effect. And, uh, and the crowd just goes insane. I mean like a huge, overwhelming cheer, uh, which I think also speaks to like the Republicans are like, these protesters are the base. And it's like, no, the base of the people in the audience shouting at them to shut up. That's actually the base. And that's going to be important because I got to tell you, like, for me, I have a visceral reaction against these people too. Especially their stupid rhymes. I hate the rhymes, right? And this interrupt. And they tried to do it to me. I was speaking on my book tour in a synagogue and they did this in a synagogue and it was so disrespectful. I just kept talking and that made them even worse,

even angrier. But when she can push back on that the people that are that are the undeclared they have a choice they can vote for donald trump or her right or they can stay home fine whatever but if she pushes back on them like she did yesterday and keeps doing that i think again this goes into that whole i'm not ashamed of america right i'm tough i stand up i think they can win this thing big but don't succumb to it I thought she looked really strong uh like it was a very it was a badass moment uh for her last night and you know my only note was that just after the first round of cheers died down if she would have just then added I mean what the hell these people just fall out of a coconut tree

no I think then I think then it would have been a 50 state blowout just like people throwing panties at the stage but you know okay you can't you can't you can't do it perfectly can't give me exactly everything i want immediately you know there's got to be anticipation for the coconut line adam is there anything else anything i forgot anything else no it was good being with you uh it's just gonna be a nice three months and it'll probably feel like two weeks and also a year. So we'll see how this goes. It's unbelievable.

It's been such a fucking whirlwind. Thank you so much to Adam Kinzinger, Bulwark contributor, my friend, veteran, lover of freedom, lover of America.

We'll be back here tomorrow for a weekend edition of the Bulwark Podcast. See y'all then. Peace. Can't, can't, can't Can't trust this time Can't control you Can't control you Take the world Dweud gwah!

Dwa, dwa, dweud gwah! Dwi'n llwyr i chi Dwi'n llwyr i chi O! Dwi'n llwyr i chi! The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.