The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: The New Axis Power Alliance

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

This D-Day is a good reminder that the growing nationalist movement across the globe aims to undermine the alliance between free and democratic countries. Meanwhile, Trump gets two stooges on the House Intelligence Committee who will have access to top national defense secrets. Plus, his New York conviction is the Big Lie 2.0, and Biden's executive order on immigration. Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller. show notes: Piece on Jared's anti-NATO memorial The Allahpundit piece Tim mentioned New Republic story on Tucker and Erik Prince Send your mailbag questions here: [e-mail]

Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't, and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafe.to Today, as 40 years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose, to protect and defend democracy. Here in this place, where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened, I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value, and born by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died. Thank you very much, and God bless you all. Hello and welcome. It's the 80th anniversary of D-Day. That was Ronald Reagan 40 years ago today at Pointe du Hoc with a pan to the fallen's memory, our values, and our allied democracies. I am pleased to have here today another American patriot and veteran, Adam Kinzinger, who's officially a Bulwark contributor now after years of being a kind of unofficial one. Yeah.

So welcome aboard, Ehrman. Thanks, buddy. It's good to be with you. And I feel a lot better today than last time. And I'm going to just jump right into this if I can, because I'm pretty fired up hearing that. It is so inspiring to remember what leaders used to be. And especially somebody like Ronald Reagan, who I love, and I'm sure I know you love, to see the Republican Party and how far it's fallen and how dare they hold Ronald Reagan up as an example. He would have nothing to do with them. But that clip is from 40 years ago. If you think about it, when he did that, again, the distance from him to Normandy was basically from us to him at this point when I'm doing this, like, you know, that math and it's like, you realize

how fast time flies, but just how far we've fallen in 40 years, unfortunately. Yeah, that's, that's exactly what I wanted to play it. I watched the whole point dog speech this morning. And, um, you know, it's interesting because there are elements of it where even in his time, it's like, man, you know, it's been 40 years and we need to have resolve. We need to understand why our troops are still here. You know, at that point, Soviets are still in Eastern Europe. And so he's talking about the fight against the Soviets for a bit. But again, the need for continued notion that we have some responsibility,

that it actually benefits us to help to stand stalwart and to potentially send troops or send weapons or send resources to our allies in Europe. You can just feel it collapsing slowly, but surely like decade over decade. You really can. And you think about how much both things change and they stay the same. So, you know, when Ronald Reagan's giving that speech, I think you had mentioned yesterday on your podcast about how there was kind of this, you know, it used to be the 1980s left that was like anti-American pro-communist. And, you know, you think of the context, Ronald Reagan's giving the speech, that movement exists,

this kind of anti-American left. Today, it's the opposite. You know, I'm sure the far left is still anti-American. You see that, but they don't really exist much. You don't see much of them. But on the right, I mean, by and large, it's an anti-American right. And who's the enemy in Europe right now? It's still the Russians. We may not call them the Soviets anymore, but it's the Russians trying to rebuild the Russian empire. And this is a day where we should be looking with the same clarity we had 40 years ago and saying, look, how dare we as Americans leave our kids when our parents and grandparents.

My grandfather was your grandfather over there? Yeah. Yeah, same. He was. Yeah. He actually went in. He went in right after Normandy, trained stateside for a year, learned German. Wow.

And we never got to know exactly what he did, except he operated behind German lines. And so, yeah, I'm very proud of him. But yeah, you think about it like our grandparents left us this great country. And now the people that are making decisions are doing the opposite. They're leaving their grandkids a country swimming in hate, swimming in division, swimming in anger, swimming in conspiracy. Why? Not because they really believe it, but because this makes money. This is awesome to be famous. I hope this is a moment where we can look back and say, in five or 10 years and say, we crushed the authoritarian movement here at home. We did it

overseas, crushing the Russians with the Ukrainians, helping the Ukrainians, and we did it here at home too. And let it be another 40 years until we ever have to face anything like this again that's another thing that reagan was talking about in this speech and he said talking about what they were bound by that was the same as 40 years ago we are bound by loyalties traditions beliefs and reality that's interesting like it's like it's's kind of wonder why that was included in there, who he is referencing, who is in the reality at that time, I guess, the sympathizers to the Soviets. But now, we could not say that now. Joe Biden could not say that today. We are all bound and united in reality. Right. No, he couldn't. And you think about it, from back in the day,

when Reagan said that, maybe he was just sitting there going, we actually are bound in reality. couldn't and you think about it like from back you know from back in the day when reagan said that maybe he was just sitting there going we actually are bound in reality i mean that's something we took yeah he's like look reality is reality we know the truth we may disagree on the truth and you know maybe he was referring to the to the the anti-americanism but the the sad thing is today we don't have reality i mean mean, one person's convicted felon is another person's hero. I saw today on Twitter, the Air Force Lieutenant Colonel that was arrested on January 6th is out of prison. And he was wearing the same uniform I wear, his dress blues uniform with his pilot wings and his ribbons, talking about how he was a political prisoner and crying and thanking

Jesus for getting him out of prison and all this kind of garbage. And I'm like, you know what? Look, this guy has no understanding of Jesus. He has no understanding of the constitution he swore to defend. But the sad thing is there are so many people in this country that have been led to believe that he is a political hero because the people they trust are telling them that. Tim, it's just going to take raw political power to beat these folks in November and then make sure that our kids are growing up again, focusing on what it means to be Americans, what our history is, what it meant at Normandy, and why it is that we fight for what we fight for.

Yeah, well, I want to listen to a little bit, I agree with all that. I want to listen to a little bit of Joe Biden today. Some, you know, you can close your ears, some of the lefty listeners who are maybe not ready to accept that he is the imperfect but unbowed inheritor of the Reagan mantle. Maybe not on everything, obviously, but certainly when it comes to foreign policy and just American democratic values. So I want to listen to just a little bit of him this morning in Normandy. And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked, we cannot let that happen. To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable.

Were we to do that, it means we'd be forgetting what happened here in these hallowed beaches. Make no mistake, we will not bow down. We will not forget. Let me end with this. History tells us freedom is not free. If you want to know the price of freedom, come here to Normandy. Come to Normandy and look. Go to the other cemeteries in Europe,

where our fallen heroes rest. Go back home to Arlington Cemetery. Tomorrow, I will pay respects at Pointe du Hoc. Go there as well and remember, the price of unchecked charity is the blood of the young and the brave. In their generation, in their hour of trial, the Allied Forces of D-Day did their duty. Now the question for us is, in our hour of trial, will we do ours? We're living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than any point since the end of World War II, since these beaches were stormed in 1944. Now we have to ask ourselves, will we stand against tyranny, against evil, against crushing

brutality of the Iron Fist? Will we stand for freedom? Will we defend democracy? Will we stand together? My answer is yes, yes it only can be yes not not too shabby adam look is it reagan no is it good yes you know but i don't think anything's reagan was that unfair was it unfair for me to do that we had a couple minutes in between you know for people to you know have the sing-y cadence. I'm sure there are people listening. They're like, I was better than

Ray. Like, fine. Okay, whatever. We're not this isn't figure skating judging. Let's talk about the content. Let's talk about the content. The content was great. I mean, you know, look, it's a time when this country and honestly, the world and Europe needs this moral clarity. And he did it now i guarantee you if that was donald trump there would be nothing similar to that he probably wouldn't be even gone let's be clear and he wouldn't have as he's talking knowing that the beaches were stormed in 1944 he'd have thrown out some weird date about you know when during the american revolution when we took over all the british airports or something like that he probably

watched saving private ryan i'm sure yeah He probably has watched Saving Private Ryan. I'm sure. Yeah, he probably has. He has done a Saving Private Ryan. Might have been wrong for the other side, but you know, no, but like, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's good to hear. And again, especially at a moment when he's not talking, you know, in just some esoteric way where it's 1990, we're at peace, you know, the world's kind of awesome every now and then we may have to bomb Bosnia, but that's about it. He's talking at a time when there is a real threat from actual Russia against freedom, and there's a real threat here at home. I don't think there's probably

been given a speech at Normandy that has ever been during such a moment when that threat is actually in our face and real, it is today you made this point your little side there about bombing bosnia made me decide we need to bring up one thing i haven't mentioned yet on this podcast did you see this that uh jared kushner president's son-in-law has a uh has a recent contract with the serbian government yes you know to do some building you know we're going to build mar-a-lago Belgrade or something. And part of that deal is he has to build a memorial dedicated to all the victims of NATO aggression, a condemnation of the United States' efforts

to stop the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. So there you go. The whole family's picked a side. Here's the thing. Could you imagine if that was Hunter Biden that did that or something similar? Of course not. I mean, that would be all over the front page news. Look, if I was an autocrat, here's what I would do. I would do a Trump hotel in my country because it would cost me probably what? 500 million, I guess is the amount. And you would have the

Trumps on your side in the event that he actually wins in november so for bosnia 500 million dollars is nothing much probably funded by russia to be honest with you because they're almost a client state and you know who else is big in serbia mccall richard grinell he has contracts in serbia he has been the one that is acting as kind of an unofficial diplomat for Donald Trump in Serbia. I have talked to people in that region that are like, I don't know what he's up to, but I guarantee if he doesn't end up in the cabinet, he's going to end up in some kind of an ambassadorship in that area. And it's only for corrupt reasons, only for corrupt reasons. Well, the other thing I wanted to bring up was, related to grinnell we're so myopic and american focused always here but you know listening to biden

talked about the threats to democracy which are obviously very present with fucking donald trump but it's true in europe too the far-right parties in europe are gaining steam there is eu elections this week who knows the eu pollsters how they stack up with the american pollsters we'll see but you know if they're to be believed the far-right parties are going to be gaining across europe uh the new republic wrote this week about a secret far-right group chat with like eric prince and tucker carlson and some romanian mercenaries and a bunch of other weirdos i don't know if you saw that article so i this is it's it's weird to say it like this globalist nationalist movement like there's a growing axis movement across the globe of nationalists that want to undermine the alliance between free, democratic, small, liberal countries.

That's true. So you look at Hungary, obviously Orban, kind of the face of this. Look at Slovakia now. Is it Robert Fico, I think? He's out now of the hospital after an assassination attempt. And one of his first speeches was, in essence, anti-NATO, anti-West, pro-Russia. That's what I was... Obviously, I don't want to see anybody assassinated or an attempted assassination, but I knew that this was only going to give him permission to be more anti-West. The AFD in Germany, which is the far-right party, is for the first time going to have a significant

showing in elections, which, you know, let's keep in mind, even having a Nazi flag or even saying anything Nazi-related is illegal in Germany. Yet, you're starting to see basically the movement that has captured this. And, you know, you can see how it's worked. Like there was a stabbing by a Muslim of a police officer and I was furious watching it, but they take those events and then they feed into the anger of people, right? These cultural clashes. And then you just look at South America, Central America. My wife is Salvadorian, Tim, and, you know, watching the Trumps and, you know, Matt Gaetz at Bukele's inauguration saying that this country is better than the United States of America. You ask any Salvadorian, they'll laugh at you if you say that, that that country is any better. Yes, crime is down because about 10% of the population, most of them without any kind of

a trial and without any kind of evidence have been locked up in jail. Basically, they're just walking through neighborhoods and putting people in jail that fit the profile yeah and sure it's safe but the problem is and that's how dictators come to power is this is what they aspire to yeah that's what they aspire to that's what they aspire to right okay you know there aren't any mass shootings in guangzhou yeah there's certainly fewer than there are here and like that's just part of the deal right like yep the el salvador model i mean if trump had his druthers, like that's his model, and he says it, he's like, we'll just do death penalty for the shoplifting, we'll do death penalty for drug dealers, we'll put people in jail, we'll put migrants in jail. And he said

in the interview, we were talking about earlier this week, you know, where he's like, you know, you'll get 10 bad guys, and then there'll be one mother and maybe she did something, maybe she didn't. But that's kind of what happens, right? I mean, like, that's his system of justice. They're crying and whining about the working American system of justice, where defendants have rights, and we have basic liberties. And you know, there's a constitutional, you know, protections, but now that he wants a different system that's fair to him and his cronies and everybody else. It's like, Oh, well, if it's a borderline call, whatever. Yeah, that's right. Well, you'll get I think Ken Paxton the other day here,

here in Texas said, all of crime is committed by 15% of the population. So if you put the 15% of the population in jail, we'd have no more crime. And yet he's probably saying that for shock value, but that's how they think. Of course, unless you're a January 6th insurrectionist, then you deserve pardon. You deserve praise. If you're a Bernard Carrick and very corrupt, you deserve a pardon. You know, Paul Manafort, you deserve a pardon. Everybody that's white and conservative and pro-Trump, that's the key, pro-Trump. Speaking of criminals, you've got a couple that are on the Intelligence Committee, a couple of your former colleagues here.

Big announcement at Trump's request, reportedly, Mega Mike Johnson, the breeding bromance between me and Mike Johnson, it was never meant to be. It has passed officially. At Donald Trump's request, he has put Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson on the Intelligence Committee. I want you to explain to us

the significance of that, but just for people who aren't quite as familiar with these guys' rap sheets. Scott Perry's from Pennsylvania. He was integral in the scheme to install Jeff Clark into the DOJ as part of the Trump coup attempt. He's had his phone seized by the feds. He was complicit in the effort to seize voting machines. You guys were on the January 6th committee, uncovered much of this. And then Ronnie Jackson was the doctor, the White House doctor who was demoted by the Navy after an investigation where he was getting all fucked up on trips and harassing women and being

drunk while on the job. There's a recent video from last year outside of a rodeo where he's yelling at cops, telling them that he's going to fuck them up. So these two Confederates, these two upstanding individuals are now on the Intelligence Committee. Yeah. And so here's the thing, quick primer on the Intelligence Committee. Yeah, please. Every other committee in Congress is extremely partisan. You know, for the most part, foreign affairs wasn't, but it was kind of going that way. But the Intelligence Committee is the thing that, I mean, literally they sign off on kill orders, you know, covert action. They know

about everything going on in space and everywhere else. These were always seen. They're appointed by the speaker, only by the speaker and the majority leader. There is no other confirmation. It was always seen as the committee that you have to put the grownups on that can put aside no matter what the debate is of the day and actually do the real work of national defense, particularly with intelligence. You know, it kind of devolved in the Trump eras under the shift time. And then, you know, they came in, the Republicans came in and Turner and they basically made a decision, we're going to go back to nonpartisanship. And they have, they've done a good job of that, but they have adults on there.

Instead, now Mike Johnson has put these two on. And I just read today that this has taken Mike Turner, the chairman of the committee, by complete surprise. Johnson didn't even have the gahonies to go and talk to him and tell him. He just announced it. And literally, Turner read about it when we did in the paper. There are so many other good people that have been trying to get on the Intel committee for many, many terms.

And so Scott Perry, as you said, he was basically the driving force behind January 6th. If there was only one congressman that we actually could have subpoenaed, forced to testify and gotten records from, for me, it would have been Scott Perry because he was the one talking to Donald Trump. He was the intermediary. When Donald Trump said, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman. Scott Perry, I think, is who he was talking about. I served on the Foreign Affairs Committee with Scott Perry. Scott Perry was the most partisan member of that committee to the point where Mike McCaul, I saw him a number of times yell at Scott Perry because he's like, what you're doing is blatantly

political at a very important time. And Scott Perry didn't care. Okay. So he's a danger, not to mention the fbi has seized his phone and they will have some oversight into the fbi particularly into the counterintelligence side of things ronnie jackson is a joke of a man he is a drunk he still has admiral by the way on his twitter profile he was demoted to captain to 06. So technically what he's doing is stolen valor. And this guy tweets pro-Russian, anti-American, anti-democracy garbage every day. So these two individuals are going to not only make the intel committee probably dysfunctional, I have no faith that they would actually keep the secrets they learn secret. And these are the kinds of secrets that even I in Congress did not get to know because it's like what's basically the extreme national defense stuff.

I don't get it. I guess you can't give us an example of a secret you don't know, but like, you know, just what category of things would fit into that? You know, a lot of it is like if I get briefed on something, even on the Foreign committee for instance if they say which i did get briefed on like hey we know for a fact that russia is invading uh ukraine okay and so i they were briefing me and mccall on this in like september well what you would get on the intel committee is okay here's how we got that information here's our source right here's what what assets we're using you You know, the Intel Committee knew about the nuclear weapon in space before anybody else did. And, you know, remember when Turner came out and said, everybody needs to get briefed on this. Yeah, sent that weird press release about that.

Yeah, yeah. And now we know the Russians have a nuke in space. This was actually launched not that long ago. So, it's that kind of stuff, like pretty serious stuff. I mean, let's just put our conspiracy hats on for a second. This isn't the Joe Rogan podcast, but, you know, we can let our imaginations go a little bit. The report that Trump wanted this, it just doesn't sit right with me. It's just like Donald Trump knows what the committees do. Like, I just refuse to believe that Donald Trump knows what the congressional committees do, right? So, there must be somebody around him or somebody that's communicating to Mike Johnson that wants some stooges on the intelligence committee. Why?

Like, I just, I'm trying to understand motive here. Say what you want about Mike Johnson. He's done whatever Trump wants. So that part checks. But he hasn't like done this kind of just reckless nonsense for no reason. Like there has to be a reason for this. Did Donald Trump call him and say, I want them on? Maybe.

Maybe Ronnie Jackson and Scott Perry, who've been doing Donald Trump's dirty work, really wanted on the Intel. By the way, Scott Perry's statement when he took this appointment, at least Ronny Jackson's was like, I look forward to doing this work as a military officer, whatever. Scott Perry said it was something like, I look forward to not just taking the basically the deep state intel industries word for it and having a deep dive on what's really going on like holy crap so anyway i mean it's possible that donald trump just these guys called him and convinced him and he's like okay yeah i'll do it it's also possible that you take somebody like cash patel right who's got donald trump's ear yeah right so that let's just play that out. Let's say Kash, why would he want people on the Intel Committee? What would be the advantage? Leaking?

They are sympathetic to his viewpoint. As I mentioned, both of these guys are sympathetic to Russia. Both of these guys have voted against aid to Ukraine, as an example. And if you're going to put somebody on, Kash Patel, for instance, you know, they're going to want a leak on the committee. They're going to want to know what's happening on the committee. They're going to put somebody on, Kash Patel, for instance, they're going to want a leak on the committee. They're going to want to know what's happening on the committee. They're going to want their guys there. And so it could be anything as simple as that reason. But if you take somebody like a Kash Patel and somebody like these guys, there is a real desire. And I actually mean this, a real desire that there be like an authoritarian right-wing movement and they never have to face elections again.

And if you can get somebody that's sympathetic to that on the intel committee, that's a huge win. Well, okay. One more thing. I want to get into the mass delusion since Donald Trump's been arrested, but since you mentioned Ukraine, one thing I wanted to ask you about, there has been, I guess, what seems like a policy shift, like a little taking the handcuffs off, maybe Ukraine or giving them a little bit more wiggle room to attack Russia on Russian soil in certain cases. Talk about that policy change and whether it's significant, whether it's good enough, just how you kind of assess it. Yeah, I mean, look, it's significant. It's good. look, everything anybody knows about warfare, including me, is if you're a country that is

being aggressed against, if you're being invaded, you have a law of armed conflict right to attack any legitimate military target in the attacking country, period. We had for way too long handcuffed Ukraine on this. So they had to send their flimsy drones. They'd go hit like oil refineries, but they weren't able to really respond to military targets. So this pressure, which once again, now I want to put this in the context of between Biden and Trump, Biden is far better on Ukraine. OK, so let's just write it. There is no other choice on Ukraine. But this administration has continually slow walked, whether it's weapons, whether it's authorities, whether it's anything, until like all this pressure comes on and then they're finally like, okay. So this is a positive move because now they can defend themselves around Kharkiv.

They can attack, you know, groups of military vehicles or people that are gathering for an attack. But I still think they need to have their handcuffs taken off in a bigger way. And they also apparently have limited or said they cannot use the ATAKMs, which are the long range missiles that we gave them against Russian territory, which is nonsensical given that Russia is constantly being supplied by North Korea and Iran with the same kind of missiles, even longer range missiles, by the way, to attack Ukraine. So I don't understand the restriction on the ATACOMs. Quick story, ATACOMs are our old stuff. This is stuff we

made in the 1980s that is defeating the best Russian air defense out there. We even have better stuff now. There's two important sub points to that I just want to highlight. One is, yeah, our old shit is still dominating the Russian. Every once in a while, there's some times where there's a rhetoric that's a little overkill about, you know, the Russian capabilities here. Like, we should be a little bit clear-eyed about what's really happening over there. But just the other thing is just, like, on the question of replacing this stuff, this is another reason why it's good that we're giving them equipment. Because we now get to build new equipment here that's even better, which is good for jobs, better for military preparedness. Yeah, and you think about these ATACs, a significant amount of them were actually put

aside to be destroyed. Some of them were these cluster munitions and now we've given them to Ukraine. Now we can replace them. We're actually, they actually reopened the ATACOMs line now. This is great for the U.S. industrial complex. And by the way, the S-400, we used to think it was this vaunted missile defense system of the Russians. Remember the Turks were going to buy the S-400, we used to think it was this vaunted missile defense system of the Russians. Remember, the Turks were going to buy the S-400. Maybe they did, and we were scared to death about it. The S-400 is being crushed, crushed by our old stuff, whereas the Patriots are not. Second person to praise the U.S. military industrial complex on this podcast, you and Jake Auchincloss.

Sometimes you got to have it.oss sometimes you gotta have it sometimes you gotta have it that's not happening on pod save america okay um let's talk about something that might be uh the mass psychosis that's happening within the party i was on nicole yesterday i've started to decide that i want to frame this up as like this is the big lie 2.0 because it's just groundhog day like we're seeing the same exact shit that we saw with the election lie about how trump didn't really lose and how he won now with the fact that how trump wasn't really convicted it was rigged etc the premise of the lie is the same it's to help protect donnie trump's little ego and help protect his propaganda sheen that he's some tough winner or whatever so the premise of the lies are the same

the way that they're being executed is the same by attacking american institutions you know it's saying that things are rigged and broken our election system's fucked our legal system's fucked the way that these guys are coming to his defense is exactly the same if anything worse this time it feels like they're even more in lockstep with the lie than last time i mean they were very in lockstep with the lie but you know. I mean, they were very in lockstep with the lie. But you know, there was you and Liz or on the front lines. And then there's like kind of another group of people that like weren't really going along with it last time. Everyone's going along with the lie this time. And and then there's the radicalization of the people that are

listening to the lie. I mean, it really does feel like a carbon copy of what happened with the election lie. And we saw how that ended. It's exactly that. And, you know, with each time that you have to compromise your integrity, you have to compromise what you truly believe. You think about it, the first major, I mean, obviously throughout Trump's tenure, there were moments where everybody had to compromise what they believe to like not piss him off. But on the big lie, yes, there were a number of congressmen that just stayed quiet when they were asked about it at Lincoln Day dinners. They'd

maybe riff on how bad the Democrats are, but they didn't say much in public. But that is just a little compromise of your soul. And now the requirement of this thing is that not just you say, oh, well, let's let the jury system determine this, like Larry Hogan did and got disowned by the party and by the Trump folks. By the way, they need Larry Hogan. The fact that they're willing to say that to him shows this has nothing to do with the idea of politics or Republicans being in control. This is a cult whose sole purpose is to help one man. And so, yes, the constant compromise of what you believe in your soul has led to this mass psychosis, where basically everybody is trying to one up each other on the more extreme things they can say, the more disabusing of reality that they can do. I mean, Ron Filipkowski can

post something about literally every day Trump has gone golfing. And I guarantee under there, there's probably comments about saying this is fake news. Not true. He's the hardest working American there is. He's out there fighting for us. Despite the fact that you have a picture of Trump with golf clubs in his hands, but that's what this has become. And honestly, I think a significant amount of the particularly rabidly Trump base doesn't care what's true or not. They don't care. All they care about is what's being said and what they can say. And if it's not reality, they don't care. I feel bad for these people in the long run, but we have to defeat these people in the short run. Yeah, I don't know if I feel bad for them, but I'm with you on the defeat. I look at just circling back to the theme of the podcast in the

top. There's so many people who know better that are going along with this that I just don't think are allowing themselves to consider like how dire the consequences of this type of rhetoric is. And if you just think about the Reagan speech, and you think about the Biden speech, and how a crucial part that underlies all of this is the shared values element of it, right? That this alliance is not just about safety. It is. But part of the reason why it works and why it's been so powerful is that we have shared values. We believe in democracy. We believe in the rule of law. These other guys do not share our values. They believe in the iron fist, right? They believe in, you know, getting theirs and screwing people over and doing whatever, whatever they need to. It doesn't matter what the law is. Doesn't matter,

you know, whether the people give them power, right? Like there is a, a contrast in systems between ours, freedom, liberty, rule of law, and theirs of a despot. And by advancing these lies, they are contributing to the Russian argument that, no, there is no difference between our systems. That those talking points were all just a bunch of bullshit. That the U.S. system is also politicized, and we also jail our political enemies enemies and that our elections are rigged just like russian elections right like the whole message out of the republican party and fox is in lockstep with the putin message and people are believing it it is and people are believing it and i i feel like this is the scary i don't know how to put this in words. I can only feel it, so I'm going to try to put it in words. I feel like four years ago, internally to people, they would care about that. I feel like now we have crossed a Rubicon.

Again, this is not everybody, but a significant amount of the MAGA base or the Fox News base. We've crossed a Rubicon where what you just said, these people share the same values as Putin and not us. I feel like we've crossed a Rubicon where there are people inside their heart going, yeah, yeah, that's true. And we don't care. Like Vladimir Putin to them, for some reason, is this vanquisher of the left, which they hate more than authoritarianism. And if authoritarianism is the way to go after, to hate, to own, to lock up the people that they hate that wear purple hair or that have, you know, drag story time or whatever, then they will go with authoritarianism because to them that aligns with their values more than this idea that you

can be whoever you want in this country. And the sad thing, Tim, is it took us two world wars and 80 years to inculcate this idea into people that democracy and freedom, freedom of choice, freedom of individualism matters. And it's been destroyed in a short decade to a significant amount of people. There's a column yesterday by Guy Benson over at Fox. This guy at Fox. It's like somebody like I think knows better. And like, yeah, you know, he's been at Fox, hasn't voted for Trump either time. And he writes in his column yesterday that because of the brag indictment and how he feels like things are politicized, he's thinking about voting for Trump now.

And I just want to shake him. I just want to shake him just want to shake and be like what like what are you talking about like this is how he is not because of brag this is the thing whenever they say this like i'm because of brag i'm a bull crap he is doing this because this will alleviate the discomfort he has to deal with by being a not Trump voter. And this allows him to convince himself that this is the reason why everything he stood for, he's no longer standing for. This is just a self reassuring. You see this, you see this in the, you know, the anti anti Trump people all the time, desperately finding a reason to blame the left for why they now have to

support Trump and all they're doing is soothing their own conscience I cut you off I'm sorry but that is a big crawl no no please I'm glad you're coming up but this is why I want to shake him because it's just like has it sunk in that like by creating this post-hoc rationalization to feel comfortable that somehow Alvin bragg and the democrats are as bad as putin and jailing navalny or whatever that like that you're giving aid and comfort that you're that you are just adding one small brick to this effort to undermine the american you know the whole american system the american idea like that's like what i just want to get through to him so this is why i

occasionally adam need you know just to make sure i'm not the crazy one like i need somebody i need to drink from somebody's cup of real talk and so here's all upon that over at the dispatch who i just adore we've had some dispatch people on that i disagree with on this number but ala and i are totally aligned here he is if you can't muster a vote against Trump, your conscience should not be clear. It's a matter of answering this question. When you had the chance, did you do everything in your lawful power to spare America from the completely foreseeable authoritarian nightmare that awaits? You didn't? You couldn't be bothered to check a box on a piece of paper that might have prevented it, knowing full well that some battleground states of 2020 were decided by as little as 10 000 or so votes well then you are partly responsible for

what comes next i just like i want to send that to all those guys i want to say if you guys have an uncle in your life that's on the fence send them i'll we'll put it in the show notes send them all i'm i'm too never trump cucked out sometimes for to people you know for people to buy that this is legit like allah starts this column by talking about how he liked trump's immigration policy which i disagree with him on so anyway but that's good that's credibility giving to some of these far right guys but like why just like that seems so obvious to me right adam why isn't everybody saying what alice like because it's too hard it's too hard take somebody like guy benson look and i like guy he's a nice guy right but you know like take somebody like him who's Look, I like Guy. He's a nice guy, right? But, you know,

like take somebody like him who's now saying, well, I'm looking to go to Trump maybe because of this. He's going to do more damage than somebody that's been with Trump for 10 years. Yes. Because he's now giving a permission structure for somebody that's been sitting there struggling with like, I want to vote Biden just because, but I, you know, I'm more aligned. Like now when they read, they're like, you know what? He's got a point. And if he, who I respect is going to now vote for Donald Trump, then I can, and I can soothe my conscious with knowing that somebody else has made that decision for me.

Yeah. All right. The one other thing on this, and there are a million other things we could talk about, but one that you were posting about yesterday was in addition to you know giving aid and comfort to vladimir putin's effort to undermine the american system as if that wasn't bad enough you guys are also just kind of common crooks i mean like this is like it is such a grift they are robbing people i said this at the time it's another parallel to stop the steal you know the the rhetoric and the text messages and the emails that are going out to mega Americans, a lot of them elderly people, is just the world is ending, the world is on fire, you need me to save you. All of it is going into Donald Trump's pocket,

Donald Trump's lawyer's pocket, it wasn't actually doing anything. And you know, he banked millions, and now they are all doing it again. They're just robbing people blind with lies about the rigged justice system. You know, one of the things we saw in the January 6th committee was actually that the emails, the number of emails people were getting during the stop to steal, sometimes up to 10 or 15 a day with headlines like, you know, Pelosi wants to kill your family kind of stuff actually did as much to radicalize people as anything. I mean, imagine that message 10 times a day in your email inbox. Eventually, that's going to radicalize you. This is elder abuse, Tim. And I'm just going to take the senior citizens,

and I think this goes obviously beyond senior citizens. But what's the difficulty with fighting elder abuse? The difficulty is you have a caregiver, for instance, that comes into the home, convinces an older person to give them money. That older person who has agency is making a legitimate legal decision to give somebody. And so, you know, how do we write a law to say you can't do that? It's the same thing in politics. When you radicalize senior citizens to believe that they are defending their grandkids by giving to Donald Trump because Nancy Pelosi wants to kill them, that is elder abuse. And in many cases, they're dipping into their social security checks when they can't pay for medicine and food to give money to Donald Trump because they have been radicalized for a decade on a steady diet of Rush Limbaugh

and then Fox News. And families, Tim, are being blown apart. There are senior citizens that should be spending the last few years of their life enjoying their grandkids, relaxing, and they're spending the last few years of their life more angry than they have ever been, shortening their life and destroying their families this to me is one of the most egregious disgusting things of donald trump the stain on this country he will be he's killing a lot of people yeah they're thieves it's thieving it's stealing it's just it's straight it's straight thievery from old people from our elders from some in the greatest generation, from some people who are, you know, we saw some of those veterans who were there in Normandy were there with

Joe Biden today and they're stealing from them. And yeah, you're right. And it's also that, that emotional thievery as well that you're talking about, right? Like you're, they're robbing them of what should be years of peace and love. You have them in your family. I get emails from people all the time that are like, my parents have a great life. They're eight and they're like them in your family i get emails from people all the time that like my parents have a great life they're eight and they're like living in fear like that some fucking migrant caravan is

going to come to their door and real quick think about this so they're sitting around angry you know lives and families are being destroyed why because donald trump is radicalizing them to raise money and because fox news has hooked them to sell ad space they have used them as a commodity to make money and basically throwing them out that's what's happening to families today in this one more on policy then i got a fun one we can we can laugh we got a point and laugh at the end it's the only way to survive this got to on immigration i wanted to get to this yesterday but you're in texas so you know you're not exactly on the front lines of this and the out in the burby burbs know, you're not exactly on the front lines of this and out in the burby burbs, but you know, your state is on the

front lines of this. You know, Biden makes the policy shift this week by executive order to try to do something to curb the asylee issue at the border. Now, the border crossing number is quite a bit down actually over the last couple of months, but still, it's still an elevated level, particularly people trying to get asylum in this country. Thoughts on it just on the policy and the politics. Is it meaningful? Is it not too late? Look, I think it was smart to do because he actually took the language out of the,

you know, the bipartisan compromise in terms of shutting down the border. He ticked off the left and ticked off the right. Usually that's how you know you have a good policy. Look, he's not going to be able to win on immigration. I think we have to accept that. But to the extent he can dent the intensity of the right on immigration, and to the extent he can go to the debate, for instance, to say, look, I tried to get this done, you know, whatever, I did something. I did more than you did. I think it's- You scuttled it, actually.

Yeah, exactly. You scuttled this. Like, I think that's beneficial. But did more than you did. I think it's been- You scuttled it, actually. Yeah, exactly. You scuttled this. I think that's beneficial. But here's the one thing. I get it. Right now, they're kind of hiding a little bit that they did it because they've ticked off the left. You've got to put this front and center.

I don't even know who wrote this article, but I read something a couple days ago where it was basically like, if Joe Biden is able to go after these issues that the center cares about, he can win. But if they continue to worry about, you know, what people are saying about Gaza or whatever, when it's literally ranked number 15 on the list of concerns, it's going to be tough to pull this one off. I kind of think that the reality on the ground is probably more important than the policy. And so if the policy helps, even on the margins, curb the influx for a few months, that's probably worthwhile, you know, and, and I think the Biden can speak to, you know, principles and values on this stuff, too, in a way that Trump can't, and I might be this lone person on this, the Republican

strategy on abortion right like the republicans obviously had this radical abortion agenda as we've seen in your state we talked about length yesterday but their strategy to kind of neutralize it was always like well the dems are the radical ones what about partial birth abortion what about later right and that worked that just just straight as a bullet we're just talking about as a political strategy here that worked the democrats like sometimes feel feel like unwilling to try that on social issues and i just i feel like i'm a lone person here but as much as people are unhappy with the influx of migrants at the border the majority of this country does not want 15 million people on buses

and massive camps across texas and local law enforcement shaking people down, you know, to check their papers because they have brown skin. Like some people want that. Some people want it. Right. The key voters in this election, I don't think want that. And I think if Biden can kind of try to retake the middle on this and highlight the extremism, I think there might be something there.

Maybe I'm naive. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, to the Democrats listening, look, you don't get, this is something I learned in 14, 15 years in politics, and Tim knows as well, you don't get to choose what the American people are upset about. Fox kind of gets to pick. They do get to pick. We don't get to pick.

If the polls are saying the number one issue is immigration, sorry, you don't get to ignore that, or you can ignore it at your own peril. So yes, finding a middle ground on immigration, recognizing that this country can have a liberal small L, a liberal immigration system that allows a lot of people in. But we have every right as Americans to know who's coming here and to control who's coming here and to pick who's coming. We have every right to do that. There's nothing wrong with it. Every country in the world does that. So to get a middle ground and then yes paint the republicans as you remember the ellian gonzalez who was it in florida that got ellian yeah my goodness that was a huge issue and that was just one kid imagine now 15 million people being torn apart you know by this like

paint the republicans as the extremes on this because they are. Yeah, Elian was a radicalizing moment for me as a early teenager. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. My last thing on this, this is not a political message, but I just always feel like I need to say this when this immigration issue comes up. It's actually a good thing that people want to come here. And in some ways, it actually undermines the whole American carnage message. You know, if things were so bad here, you know, if the country was in such economic turmoil, if Joe Biden had ruined America, then there wouldn't be fucking hundreds of thousands of people begging to come. Right.

And by the way, for the small business enthusiasts in the GOP, the majority of small business starts are by first-generation immigrants in this country. Because when you're here, third, fourth, fifth, sixth generation, you tend to be comfortable. You tend to be a little less interested in risking it all. And so you see that most small business owners now in this country are first generation immigrants. That is the kind of energy we need in America. And we have a record low unemployment. You don't grow by having a shrinking population. You grow by having a growing population duh one billion americans okay final thing we've had the right stuff segment on here and you know you know you know our buddy uh that will be this is going to be the person that is going to be determining who's hired if donald trump wins again so we just like to just check in on his inner thoughts from time to time

so this is the right stuff this is a good one adam are you ready for this yeah i am let's take a listen cash is freedom that's why they're getting rid of it you know that right oh my god what the fuck are these people talking listen dude first off johnny mcatee is the biggest ass bag that has ever existed i'm serious okay terrible man and then what he's doing is feeding into this like cashless society conspiracy theory these people are just they're just insane and the problem is people are going to see that and be like, yep, that's why they're getting rid of it. It's nuts.

It's nuts. People. This is why we have the right stuff segment. We are still the normal ones. People just need to know. People just need to know what these fuckers really think. People just need to know what they really think. I think that is our secret weapon over the next five months psychosis brother thank you uh welcome aboard

officially even though it's been unofficial for a while my good friend adam kinzinger cheers to you as a veteran and especially to all the veterans listening and uh to the heroes that were there on that d-day uh it's a wonderful anniversary. We'll be back tomorrow with an extended mailbag. If you have any life advice for me, BullwarkPodcast at TheBullwark.com. Big mailbag tomorrow. Fun guest.

We'll see you all then. Thanks to Adam Kinzinger. Peace. We'll meet again. Don't know when. Don't know when, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Just like you always do Till the blue sky Drive the dark clouds far away So will you please say hello To the folks that I know Tell them I won't be long

They'll be happy to know It was you saw me go I was singing this know we'll meet again some sunny day The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.