The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: Trump Has Never Seemed this Scared

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

As a man who’s not used to losing, Trump is going through a bit of a rough patch since his party turned against him over the Epstein case. He’s flailing, lashing out, and acting afraid. After all, he knows how many times his name comes up in the Epstein files, and Ghislaine Maxwell continues to enjoy a bevy of special perks at her cushy prison for some reason. At the same time, the economy isn’t helping him, the stench of a lame duck is growing, and the threat of oversight by Dems after the midterms feels real. Plus, some skepticism about MTG’s new-found clarity, Fox and Trump’s war on Christmas, the crash of bitcoin, and the Kinzinger documentary. Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes "The Last Republican," the Kinzinger documentary or watch on YouTube Kinzinger's Substack CBS News on the prediction market Kalshi Ghislaine Maxwell's special prison privileges Tim's playlist For a limited time only, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/THEBULWARK

Experience a legacy that lasts at Dawn Valley North Lexus. Right now, Lisa, 2026 NX 350 premium package from just 628 per month for 28 months at 3.9%. Plus qualified Lexus loyalty guests receive a 1.5% rate reduction for rates as low as 2.4%. See Dawnvalleynorthlexus.com for details. Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We are back with a fave. He is a former member of Congress from Illinois. He served in the Air Force and on the January 6th Committee. He can do some bicep curls. And he's a subject of a new documentary, The Last Republican, which is available on Apple TV, Prime Video. and other platforms is Adam Kinziger. What's up, man? Hey, I'm at the bulwark studio today. You're not here. And it sucks. I did get to see you in person, give those arms a squeeze, and see your wife.

And it was, you know, it was a funeral. So, but it was still good to see you. But I had to pop up to New York. You know, what's funny is they did the old, like put out some pictures, you know, from the funeral, like the AP pictures. And they did put out one of Sophia and I, but we're laughing in it. And we're the only ones where people are laughing. I'm like, what were you laughing about, do you think? I don't know, probably George eight,

you know, George made a couple jokes. George Connoy, so probably one of, no, no, no, George W you met,

not George Conno. W. Yeah. Or else Sophie and I were laughing about something, I don't know, but. I wanted a couple more jokes at the funeral.

Can I give notes on the eulogies? Please do. The grandchildren's, the grandchildren's eulogies were really great. And W. And W. is like a character. So he was just in W. And Liz was obviously good.

I wanted one of them to give me a joke about Dick Cheney accidentally shooting the guy, though. I feel like you got to just own it. I figure you got to just own it. And there was a prime spot. One of the grandchildren, and again, you know, not to criticize a young person's usually for their grandfather because she was great. And I was getting emotional. But she has a line where she's like, you know, whatever they call him, grandpa, Dick, sometimes would let us sit in the front row of the fishing boat. And he wouldn't get mad even if we accidentally hooked him with our rod. And I was like, this is a prime spot to say, because he has some

experience with that. Tim, I honest to God at that exact moment thought the same thing. I remember at one point in the funeral being like, they should joke about him shooting somebody in the face. And it was exactly there because it would have been perfect. Like he hooks some people, but that's all right. He has no place to judge. You shot a guy in the face, right? Well, if you're doing a, if you're doing a eulogy, send your drafts to me and Adam. We'll just make sure you're not missing anything. We've got a bunch of disgust today. I guess we should start with Donald Trump saying that democratic lawmakers should be that they have done sedition, which is punishable by death. That was a bleat that Trump put out.

This is in response to something we talked a little bit about with Susan Glasser on yesterday's pod, but in case you missed that, you're not, you're supposed to be listening every day, but just in case you missed that. There was a group of Democratic House and Senate veterans who put out a video that was basically saying, you know, to the men and women in uniform, if you get an illegal order, you shouldn't follow it. You should follow your oath and the code of conscience. I played the clip yesterday of Stephen Miller saying this was an insurrection.

His boss went a little bit further saying this is sedition and punishable by death. I want to hear both your reaction to just the video that the Democratic veterans did as a fellow veteran and the message and then what you think about Trump. Yeah. So on the video itself, I think it's fine. I think it's good. It's just the question is in what context. If they're saying it and I didn't see the whole video, if they were saying like, hey, these current strikes on drug boats, those are illegal and you should refuse. to execute it, then I think that's a bridge too far because you can't put necessarily

geopolitical decisions on an individual soldier or airmen or whatever. They did not give that example. Okay, then good. So then in that case, what they said is not, shouldn't even be controversial. In fact, I tweeted it yesterday. I came home and tweeted military members should refuse illegal orders. That's basic constitution. The fact, though, that they then jump into while they're talking about the drug boats,

they're talking about what Donald Trump is doing, that says more about. the Republicans defending him. The fact is, as a military member, it is your responsibility not to do an illegal order. And that's basic. It shouldn't lead to threats of execution, for God's sakes. On the second part of it, like, you know, having been at Cheney's funeral and recognizing that probably even three quarters of the people in there were not Dick Cheney fans, but they were there because they honored the fact that this is a man that, you know, did service to his country. They honored that he was an honorable person. Rachel Maddow was there, for one example, of somebody who wasn't, you know, probably

probably not a huge Dick Cheney fan. Yeah, yeah. But then leaving that and seeing this time where there's like the left, the center, and the right, some on the right, not many, you know, all coming together to celebrate this man's life. And then seeing the contrast when I got cell phone reception that Donald Trump's calling for execution, it is just, it was a perfect kind of example, visual example of how far we've fallen.

And so I'll say this to the members of Congress. Congress that said, you know, to the military members, don't execute an illegal order. Keep saying it. First of, it's your right as an American to say it. Secondly, it is the responsibility of the military to not execute an illegal order, period. I've always cautious when I say this because I want the Democrats to do more. I'm always like, do more, try things, not everything's going to work. And so when I offer some feedback on something they try, I don't want it to mean like, don't do anything or that I'm being a hypocrite. So I want them to do stuff, you know, these folks are veterans. I trust their judgment on what other members of the military need or want to hear

right now. And they're probably hearing more from active duty folks who are worried about the types of orders they're getting, either with growths to, you know, probably mostly with, you know, the military in the streets of our country and posse commentatus. But just as a political matter, there's so many places to go at Trump right now. I'm not sure this is like the sharpest spot to be picking a fight with them on. I've watched that much Fox, but I do watch Fox in the plane when I get an excuse to us when I was flying. here, I watched it, and like a lot of coverage of this on Fox. And that says to me that Fox thinks this is much better turf for them to be discussing

than, I don't know, the economy, Epstein, Trump's other behaviors, the war. What do you make of that? They're looking for any way, I think, to get off what's been going on. Donald Trump's losing his mind. Even the call to execute is losing his mind. So they want to go back to the reason. What was the thing that people felt was inappropriate? Here's where I kind of at the beginning was starting to say where I would have some

concerns with how they did it is, you know, when you start saying that, you know, it's up to the individual what an illegal order is, I think you put an unfair burden on your average soldier, right? So first off, if you're in the streets as a National Guardsman, you know, an E3, which is kind of like a basic enlisted or whatever, it is not on you to go through your moral decision matrix to figure out if you being on the streets in D.C. or in Philadelphia or wherever you end up going is a constitutional order. It is the responsibility of your high-ranking officers if there's an order like that. Where your responsibility comes in as an individual member is if you get an order to shoot an American citizen, right? So something

that obvious, if your lieutenant or captain says, hey, you know, Kent State shoot those protesters or whatever, that is your responsibility to say no. And so I think we need to be very clear, Because the one thing I don't want to do is take a well-meaning kind of, you know, E3, E-4 in the Army Guard, have them take some stand that they think is moral that actually really shouldn't have that kind of, you know, really isn't a moral stand, really is not, you know, refusing an illegal order. I do think Trump's reaction is maybe in part because he thinks this is a good ground for him to fight on. But also, the stench is on him. And I don't really mean the stench that you were talking about before, about how he literally smells like, but he literally smells. bad. That's always on him. So he does literally smell bad, but he also has the lame duck stink starting to get on him in a very real way. You know, I'm sometimes hesitants to do the like,

Trump's really losing it now. Like, you know what I mean? Because it's like Trump has always been like kind of crazy and an emotional, emotional roller coaster and up and down. But you do look at it and it's like quiet piggy. He yells at a reporter. He's now yelling at Democrats and saying that they should be killed. It feels like somebody that's flailing right now in his political standing. Yeah, to me too. I actually put out on my substack yesterday, shameless pitch, follow me, a six-minute video after the funeral when I had heard like what had happened. It's like, dude. And that was kind of my take is this doesn't mean that Donald Trump is now on a permanent downhill trajectory, but I think he feels cornered. This is the first time probably

every Republican has voted against him on something. And I don't know if we ever did in the first administration, but certainly this administration on the Epstein list, for instance. he was forced to come out and be like fine release it he's obviously afraid of it coming out this is obviously set him on a trajectory of kind of like self-destruction or like you know fear whatever it is and plus you know the election results a month ago the impending election results in a year the fact that he probably has advisors if they are advising him telling him that he has to recognize and say publicly that cost of living is out of control but he takes that personally because if he says it's out of control, he's admitting he's at fault.

And I think all of this has forced him into a corner where he's going to lash out at somebody. And he can't necessarily lash out at every Republican because he still needs him. So he's going to lash out at a reporter because he's angry, he calls her piggy. Or he's going to lash out at Democrats that said to refuse illegal orders because he's just, he's angry. And that's where he's displacing his anger. I think your kind of knee-jerk reaction on that is correct. I think he's very worried. Now, he could come back from this, let's be clear.

Don't you think if Trump was shirtless, he would look kind of like a pig. Oh, kind of like distended belly, you know, kind of like that pink skin. He's got a pig face kind of now. I mean, if you think about it, like the wispy hair is kind of like pigs have hair. It's like that hair, actually. Yeah, a little, you know, kind of a little bit of a projection situation. Yeah. All right.

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On the Epstein stuff, well, I want to talk about there. There were some emails that came out from Jelaine, Glenn Maxwell in jail. She's getting extra toilet paper privileges. So there definitely is something happening there. Still. Why did she get this special treatment? Why was the guy that Raskin talked to that worked at the prison that was like, I'm tired of being Jolene's bitch? So something weird is happening there. And even after now that Trump has folded to MTG and others on the Epstein

situation, it still seems like they have some games that they're planning on playing with the actual release. The cover up is still on, I guess, at some point. But I'm wondering what you think the statuses. Yeah, I mean, look, it's take Jelaine. I hate when people correct how I say her name. I don't even think she really deserves. I kind of appreciate Sarah. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but Sarah has just settled on jizzling, which is like very far off. And she's not usually, you know, potty talk. So I don't know if it's just her botching it in a funny way or if it's intentional. I don't want to know. I don't ask her because I don't want her to stop saying it. Stick with it.

Stick with it. Yeah, I think here's a thing with Jelaine Maxwell. So they have all the files that are going to come out. And I think the big question is, are they going to be redacted? Is there going to be stuff that isn't released? I think there's enough public pressure on this now that if there is stuff redacted or if there is stuff that doesn't come out, that's going to be known. And the pressure is going to ratchet up more. Okay.

So there is whatever is going to be in the files that's going to be out. But the one thing that they know is that Jain Maxwell can probably do far more than the files can. She probably, in theory, could testify. I saw Donald Trump or I communicated with Donald Trump or whatever and is very clear that I don't think there's anybody that honestly doubt she's going to get a commutation or a pardon. I think it's pretty clear. It may come at the end of Trump's term. Why would you do that except that she could take you down? Unless you have an affection for child sex traffickers.

If you have an affection for child sex traffickers, okay. Otherwise, the only reason is because you're protecting yourself. And I think that's the big question. And again, it's not just that they're entertaining commutation or pardon. She was actively moved to, you know, from a prison perspective, a really nice place. Like, if you and I were in prison, it's where we'd want to go. And, yeah. She's getting the triple ply on the toilet.

Yeah, I mean, dude, my hotel here doesn't. even have triple black and if you're president trump and you know that she can bury you you're willing to take the hit of a pardon or a commutation to protect that information like the real truth is i think trump doesn't even fucking remember yeah you know what i mean like he doesn't know what she knows the only part of his spin that is accurate we don't know exactly what the reason was because he's told 90 different stories but like he did stop becoming friends with epstein so like in these last in these latest rounds of emails, they're not hanging out because they weren't hanging out for whatever reason in the late teens. So, like, their friendship was in the first round of Epstein, like before

he went to jail the first time for being a petto. And that, you know, is 25 years ago now. It'd be kind of like, like a reporter calling me and saying, hey, your buddy from college is dropping a cache of texts that you set to him like 25 years ago. I'd be like, I hope not. I don't, you know, I don't know what's in there. Maybe I didn't do anything. I just got to be something bad in there. I don't even know. So I think that's probably where Trump's mind is on her.

It's like he doesn't fucking remember exactly. He knows he did that. You know, and he knows that there were young girls around all the time. He said it. It's possible he didn't remember that birthday card legitimately because they were friends. They were hanging out. They were creepy.

And like that was just the life that he led for like a decade. So the details are probably a little fuzzy. That would be my guess. I think it's true. But also like he's scared. of something, because I've never seen him this scared. But he's seen some stuff in the share files, because they showed it to them. They've showed them something.

Yeah. And plus they, what, they had, like, DOJ count the number of times his names mentioned. I would not want my name a thousand times in the Epstein files. That's just weird. Have you seen Megan Kelly's latest defense? She's out with a new one today. She's out with a new one today. It's not if she's off the Epiphilia defense.

And now she's on to, they're coming after Trump on this. And the only thing they've got is this woman that, Epstein brought to his office and he groped her. And I'm like, that's it. I was like, that. I mean, that's bad as it is. Like, he was a child sex trafficker, came to his office with a young woman who is of age, and he groped her.

That's sexual assault. That is bad. But Megan, that's where Megan's land in right now. As much as I'm in, like, shock about how bad the Republican Party has gotten still, I'm in as much shock that Megan Kelly is who she is right now. like when she was at Fox she was like kind of reasonable right she was all for she's the one at NBC she went woke yeah she was doing like trans youth episodes yeah it's crazy it just goes to show like the thing I I have a lot of respect for anybody who argue something that believes it okay I can't stand Rand Paul's politics but I think he really believes it and I respect that he believes it okay what I can't take are people that know better you know like a Mike Johnson like Like a Megan Kelly, Marco Rubio, for God's sake. The whole Senate, basically.

Yeah, basically everybody. And I don't understand Megan. I mean, she is now, maybe the money is so good that she has to try to out crazy everybody else. But to sit there and at one point even say, you know, 15, I mean, come on, guys, 15's not that bad. How that even comes out of her mouth, I don't know. But she's got to live with that. I'm sure she feels guilt, but she'll never express that because you can't express sorrow in Marga or you're woke. What a great transition to the topic I was most excited to talk to you about, which is your old friend, Marge.

You were in Congress with her, right? Yeah, you're together. So you've met, you've like hung out? I'm not going to go with hung out, yeah, but I know her a little bit. You've chatted. Yeah. Like, I've never chatted with it. Like, a lot of the people we talk about is more like I know a lot of the people because I was a repul.

You know, like she was after my era. So I didn't hang out with her ever. But you have at least spoke. You guys have spoken about something besides work. We've communicated before. We've communicated, but not like, she's not a pal. Got it, okay. But I'll give you what I can.

You, you tweeted, I don't have in front of me, something to the extent of you're going to have a bunch of, I told you so is coming when Marjorie Taylor Green goes back to her old ways. So you're not as excited about it as maybe me and JVL. I think I would put her in the camp of the Rand Paul, though, of somebody that's saying what she believes, no. Come on, Tim, you're better than this. Listen, I think with Marjorie Taylor Green, I think it's all a scam.

I mean, I think there is definitely a political decision here. You don't think she's authentically crazy? Oh, yeah, she is that. She is that. But I think, like, there's rumor that what Donald Trump chose not to support her for governor or Senate, I think that could cause something. Or she could. And I'll give her this a little credit, which is like she could see the tea leaves,

which is like Trump is going away. If I want to run for president or governor or whatever, I'm going to have. If I can be the former crazy that now is normal, that, I mean, it's not a bad tactic, to be honest with you, because you'll maintain credit with the crazies. I think you were talking the other day about, like, she's won in theory that could take on Donald Trump and win because she has a street cred. And then if she's like now normal, she could win some of the normals. I just think she was not sitting around one day, read a certain passage of the Bible, and realized that everything she was doing in Congress was wrong, right? until she comes out and says, and this is what drives me nuts, is not a single that I've seen. A reporter has asked her, tell me your thoughts on January 6 now.

What do you think January 6th was? Did Donald Trump win the 2020 election or did he lose? And if she starts coming clean on that stuff and like, maybe she genuinely believes the election was stolen. Well, yeah, then that just tells you everything you need to know. But she doesn't believe it. Like, I think she's actually smart. I think she knows better. but until she starts kind of what I will call repenting a little for her past instead of just saying, you know, that I'm not buying it.

Now, I hope I'm wrong. I want to be honest. I hope I'm wrong. I hope she really did find politics, Jesus. And I am all for this like inner party battle that's occurring now. What I worry about is everybody's going to start really believing that Marjorie Taylor Green's good. And then she's going to like, you know, flip double birds at the camera one day and be like, I was trolling all of you. I can't believe you're that stupid. I want to listen to a little bit of Marjorie Telle Green because I want to believe, baby. I want to believe. Let's listen. I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually six years for. And I gave him my loyalty for free. I won my first election without his endorsement beating eight men in a primary.

And I've never owed him anything that I fought for him for the, policies and for America first. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me.

are you ready? Are you ready to hear the patriotic string music going? No. No. This is the same woman that thinks Zawinsky is like the worst person, doesn't care if Russia invades and destroys Ukraine. The same person who, well, let me tell you about my experience with Donald Trump. I could tell you, but you know, you guys all know my experience with Donald Trump. I'm sorry that he was a meanie head to you. You've been a meany head to a lot of people, Marjorie Taylor Green. I'm sorry Trump wasn't mean he had to you. And let's remember where were we six months ago? We were sitting around talking about how Elon Musk may be the new savior now because he's fighting with Donald Trump. And now he's in the Oval Office, you know, laying on the ground to Donald Trump. The only thing that's different with the Elon thing is I think that most of us were just enjoying the cat fight, you know?

Like we just want, like we're just enjoying the show kind of more than I actually. I don't think anybody is like, you know, Elon. is really turned a corner. I don't even know if Arj is turned a corner. I'm just saying that like, I don't know. If she keeps saying good things, I'm going to be like, great. Let's keep listening. Let's keep hearing them. Yeah. Okay. So I've got a good middle ground for us. Let's appreciate the thing she says. Okay. Let's honor the things she says. Honor. Wow. That's pretty far even. Yeah, I'm good with saying honor the thing she says, but let's not believe it. Okay. That's fine. Let's honor the chaos and not believe it. All right. And I hope

I'm wrong, but I'm not. Yeah, hope instead of belief. Okay, we've landed in an area of agreement. I want to talk about one other hill thing. I've been dying to talk about this all week, and I just haven't really had an appropriate guest for it. I don't know if you are either, so this might end up just being a Tim rant, but I had to just,

I have to talk about it before the week is out. Have you been following the Chewy Garcia situation at all? And it was just kind of near you. Yeah. This is an Illinois thing, too, by the way. Yeah, you probably knew him pretty well. Did you know him a little bit? A little bit.

Yeah, just a little bit. But this is democratic machine politics. I'll let you explain it. And then I do have thoughts. Yeah. So for people who haven't been following this, it's a long time, democratic, operative, Hispanic in Chicago. As you said, it's like one of the few left of like traditional machine politics.

Like you, you know, work your way up. You're the alderman, you know, the whatever. And then eventually, you know, you become the member of Congress. In this case, he decides he's going to retire. He tells his chief of staff, gives the chief of staff a heads up that he's going to retire. that he's going to retire so that the chief of staff can go out and get the, I think it's 2,500 signatures necessary to get on the ballot. They do that under the radar.

The chief of staff files right before the deadline to file for Congress, right? So it's like nobody else can get in the race after a certain point, which is just as a quick aside, it's insane that's this early in Illinois. You should be able to file for Congress, like up to four months before the election or something. You know, whatever you need to just get the ballots done. But anyway, so in Illinois, you have to file by a year out. And the chief of staff gets in, doesn't tell anybody. The deadline passes.

Chui Garcia says he's retiring. So now the chief staff is the only person in the race. There's no primary. This is an outrage. It is. So I didn't know this happened. And then there was the Democratic member who spoke about it on the floor. And I'm like, you know, there's all this like self-Civil War censure stuff going on in the house right now.

And I'm like, wait, there's some blue-on-blue action. going on here. What's going on? And I read the story and it's outrageous. But this happens all the time in Illinois, Tim. This was probably less so now, but particularly when it comes to like state reps and state senators, you would always get this where the state senator, it was bad among Republicans too, by the way. This wasn't, you know, Republicans used to have power in Illinois and they did it too. And there's an example of this in a Florida district too of a Republican doing this recently. It has happened. Yep. You just handpick your successor because probably what happened. The chief of staff literally

was at the State Board of Elections probably one minute before filing closed and turned it in and you get a stamp, you know, it'll say like 4.59 p.m. whatever, probably closed at five. So literally nobody else could have gotten in. And then of course, you can withdraw your name off the ballot up to a certain

period of time. So this is outrageous and, you know, I hope there's a Democrat that runs a write-in campaign because I think this is outrageous enough that they actually may have a shot. Probably not. But like, yeah, this is And this is the, again, this is what happens when you have this like this entitled feeling in politics. And you know, you get it. It happens a lot among Democrats in Illinois. But it's like it really exists on both parties right now where people just feel entitled to a seat. I left 12 years, you know, after 12 years in Congress and it's amazing how many people tell me that they think that was early. Do I wish I'd have stayed for 20 or 30 years? Like, not really. I mean, 12 years, it's hard to stay passionate for the.

the job for 12 years. But yeah, there's people in there 30, 40 years and they just feel entitled to it. You represent 700,000 people. The chances that somebody is in your district that's better than you is pretty good. I mean, if we're being honest here. Yeah, you know, especially as in the context of what we're doing now, like Democrats trying to take the mantle of democracy, even like we're fighting for democracy. And it's just like not to get on a high horse too much anything, but like this is just, this isn't democracy. This is, you're not, this is not an English lordship. You get to pass down the seat to your, you know, your nephew if you want to. And it would be, it would still be an outrage, but it would be different if it was like a state

senator that he put there or a state representative. He put a staffer who has never been elected by the people that district. At least a state rep maybe had been elected by 120,000 people of that district had been through elected politics. It's, it's egregious. And I hope, I hope he feel shame for it, honestly. I do too. So I do want to say to the member. you mentioned was Marie Gluson Camp Perez, who I'm a fan of, that she was the one that brought a censure to the floor on this. The Democrats freak out, and it's not really down ideological lines. Like, it's, for some reason, the Progressive Caucus gets really defensive of Garcia. And, like, one member from Illinois, I'm forgetting her name, like, says that

Marie Luzon-Perez is, like, giving aid and comfort to the authoritarian's by doing this. I'm like, what do you talk? You're the authoritarian. Like, you're the one that is a converting democracy. And then Hakeem Jeffries came out in defense of Garcia. And so a bunch of establishment types did as well. And so I said on Twitter that there were 26 Dems that sided with Marie-Glusingham Press and said this was bad. I said, we'll be doing a montage set to some soft string music in their honor later this week on the pod, a group that is ideologically diverse that actually opposes bad things, opposes anti-democratic actions when they happen on their own side. A couple of the names, some of the faves who have been on. Jake O'Conncloss, Angie Craig,

David's in Kansas, some important seats over there. Greg Lansman, Ohio. We really like him. A Vindman. Alex Vindman's brothers in Congress. You forgot about that. He's there, Pat Ryan, my boy, Pat Ryan, and some others. So, appreciate all of them. Shout out to all of you. Shout out. Three presents. I'll take a present. As long as it wasn't a no. We got a present from Suhaas Submarmonium. You're not a present guy? No. It's weak. President is so weak. In fact, when I got to Congress, I remember I wanted to vote present on something because I didn't know. This was a hard decision. And it was like Boehner or somebody that's like, kid, you never vote present on anything as he took a drag of his cigarette. So no, I only ever voted present on like a quorum call. That's it. Be a man, be a woman. What do you think about this? I think that if I went to Congress, I would just say at the front that I am not. voting on any non-binding resolutions. Yeah, that's good.

Non-binding resolutions are not real. It's in the name. It's non-binding. It's a tweet. It's just a tweet on a piece of paper. And so if you want my opinion about something, I'll tweet about your, I'll tweet and let you know my opinion or put out a press release or post on your, on your app of choice. There are a lot of non-binding, like, oh, we're going to condemn this or condemn that.

It's like, what is the, what's the point of that? Yeah, okay, I could see it. If you go in there and you're like, I'm going to vote present on stupid things. I'd be for that. Listen, my very first, like, kind of big bill in Congress was HR1. It was this, you know, Bainers basically like has this open rule for all spending for Congress. So we were there like a month and everybody could present whatever thing they wanted. It was painful. But I would vote no on like really stupid things. Like some of people in my colleagues would be like, we're going to take $10,000 from the White House lighting bill and put it to the deficit reduction fund. And I would vote no on all that stuff. That's also how I got the reputation. of being the Republican least likely to cut spending. But I had the same approach. I'm like, I'm not going to vote yes for stupid messaging

amendments, but it cost me. Some other news. I want to talk about the Russia-Ukraine deal. These guys are, it's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the Ukraine-Russia stuff. Yeah, like what the hell? You never know. I guess it's kind of cyclical. It's like, oh, we're siding with Russia now.

And then it's like everybody kind of has to rub their bellies again and remind them. Oh, actually, we're not on Russia's side. Russia's the bad guy. And then they start to come around. And then Trump's like, oh, actually, maybe I'm really for a Ukraine, even more than I've ever been. I'm going to give them weapons down.

That happens for a week. And then that starts to die down. That's like, wait, I'm on Russia's side again. We're back to the Russia side of the cycle. On the Washington Post this morning, White House is pressuring Ukraine to sign on to its new peace proposal by Thanksgiving or lose U.S. support to the country. I find this kind of weird that like we've chosen the Thanksgiving deadline, like the people in Ukraine care about Thanksgiving.

It's like, oh, you mean, you're putting the future of our country on the line. You're giving us a deadline of the day that you weirdos mass murder, a bunch of turkeys. I don't really understand how that's relevant to my war. But Narco Rubio put out a statement, ending a complex and deadly war, such as one, Ukraine, requires an extensive exchange of serious realistic ideas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We went through the ideas yesterday. It was glasser, but I mean, it's basically a Russia wish list. Yeah, totally.

And here's what drives me nuts. So Republicans will, some of them will oppose this, right? They'll say this is bad, but they won't blame Trump for it. They'll say Steve Whitkoff, right? Or, you know, who Michael Weiss calls Dim Filby, which I like. You know, and there's this like Whitkoff versus Kellogg versus whatever thing in the administration. Ultimately, Donald Trump is responsible for this. Let's just be clear.

He always defaults back to Russia. So him expressing any, like, you know, affection for him. for Ukraine is the exception. Affection for Russia is the rule. And it's always like that. So what this plan is, and you guys went over the points of it, but it's basically a surrender for Ukraine who is winning this war. I mean, look, both sides are, you know, they're like boxers in the 10th round that are barely

standing up. But Ukraine is winning this fight. And I think Ukraine has to be the one willing to say what conditions they're willing to have peace for. And I always knew it. So, you know, there's this corruption scandal in Ukraine right now, which is terrible. And that's a moment where the Trump administration is like, I think we can get them because they're weak. So I think that's why they've kind of come in with now.

But I was thinking about this. I'm like, yeah, there is a corruption scandal in Ukraine, which is, which sucks. It's terrible. But the corruption scandal going on in the United States, like makes that look like nothing. We have a president that basically had Saudi Arabia here and is probably going to build a number of Trump hotels now. I think probably part of the unspoken deal of a deal with Ukraine will be a Trump hotel in Moscow. He's always wanted that. You know, $2 billion. We could go through all the corruption, a free jet from Qatar. We're doing it. We're doing a hotel in Vietnam, a UAE, Dubai.

Yeah. Yeah, everywhere. Everywhere Donald Trump goes, his kids just happened to follow. He's not involved in the business. So they just happened to follow. And yeah, so the corruption here is incredible. You know, it'll be interesting to see what I, because what I think is likely is this will be rejected or this will be the beginning of like kind of back and forth negotiations. And the question is, will Donald Trump actually cut off U.S. support? The most important thing he needs to do is not even weapons because Ukraine's been able to step up on weapons is like the intel sharing piece. That's really important. Well, we'll talk about the economic stuff because I think as much as maybe even more

than Epstein, the economic situation is what's underlying Donald Trump's unrest. traveling. Another jobs report. We did gain jobs that it was only in the health care and social assistance sectors again. I guess maybe a little bit in leisure and hospitality. Private sector employment has declined in each of the last five months outside of health care, basically. We've got taking care of old people, cryptocurrency, AI data centers, and private prisons holding up our rickety economy right now. I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert on what's happening with the Bitcoin market. But something that I did notice from back during when inflation was going up back after COVID is like all of these fake products started to do really well.

You remember the NFTs, the fake basketball cards, the digital cards and the digital monkeys and stuff. Like when people had a lot of cash and had a lot of time on their hands, like those assets were going up. And right now, I just think it's noteworthy that Bitcoin is crashing at the last week or even a little more. And that tells me that that's possibly an indicator that people, are like, ugh, you know, not secure about their finances, right? And they're like, you don't have as much interest in the play money when things are getting tight. So that might be an indicator. There could be some other things going on. But just across the board, things are looking pretty rough. And they don't really seem to have a plan.

Like, the other thing that jumped out to me is John Kennedy was on the floor yesterday basically like, we need to do another reconciliation bill to help get people money. Like, that sounds that sounds desperate. Yeah. I mean, look, John Kennedy probably did as like, we need to get a wagon ride of money to the people in their haystraw. You know, like that stuff. Like, I hate that. Yeah. It's like you went to, you were a road scholar, sir.

Yeah, we quit. Don't stop with the foghorn, leghorn. Just stop. It's like Tim Burchett and Tennessee too does that. And I'm like, come on, man. He said, like, biscuit wheels on a gravy train. Anyway, I hate that stuff. You're the true Yankee, Adam Kinsinger.

You've moved down to Texas. This is why the people. Texas. That's going to be an issue for you if you ever decide we want to go after running against Ted Cruz in two years. You're going to start to have a little bit more appreciation for Landman. What's the show that's the West Texas show? Yeah, Landman. Okay. So on the Bitcoin stuff, yes. I think you're right. It's like Bitcoin is like the most not real asset, right? And I'm not, I don't want to get into the debate on it because it is real, but it was kind of an invented asset, right? It's not backed by anything, except it's

scarcity. That's the only thing that backs it. And then stock actually risky, yes, but you actually have a tangible asset with stock. And I think as people get nervous, they pull away from those things that they're a little scared of. So I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think the great Gaspby party that the Trumps did, it was almost like too perfect for what we actually feel like we're in. I mean, it does feel a little bit like we may be coming to the end of this kind of decade or two of just kind of crazy prosperity where we're literally inventing stuff. I want to invent, you know, flubigation and then make it worth $100,000 and then just sell it to people, even though it's not real. That's what crypto is. And so, yeah, it feels like

we're coming to the end of that. One of the things that's frightening to me, by the way, and I just thought of this, and this is probably off topic, but I think it's important to mention so I don't forget, the betting markets on politics are really frightening to me. I was looking at at him the other day. And like every vote coming up in Congress, you can bet on how a member of Congress will vote yes or no. Now imagine if you're that member of Congress like me, let's say Adam Kinzinger is still in. And I can go vote on Adam Kinzinger. And let's say the odds are 97% that I'm going to vote yes. But I put $1,000 on 3% that I'm going to vote no. And then I vote no. Like, guarantee you that stuff's happening to him. And the question about like tariffs, when are

the tariff's going to be lifted before June 30th or after June 30th. But weirdly, the odds always shift right before that. And by the way, I think Don Jr. or Eric is on like the board of call sheet, the betting site. And this is also this ties right into the crypto stuff too, which is like Barron supposedly. I mean, like there's reporting out there has made, I've seen amounts of money betting on, you know, when Trump's doing those announcements about like, oh, I'm going to do the crypto reserve for whatever. And then Barron is putting money in. Barron also has a cut of the Trump coin.

You know, it's not even just Don Jr. and Eric, like this is definitely happening. Did you see the Colchie, my girl, Julian Kent over at CBS did an interview with the Colchie, founders or CEOs or whatever. I'll put a link in the showdown. It's pretty funny. Don Jr. is on their board. Yeah. So Colchie, for people who don't know is these betting markets that Adam's talking about where you can bet on, you know, sports and politics. There's random things that happen. Like, who's going to be the next LSU coach or whatever. You know, like there's as you can bet on a bunch of different stuff and she was asking them about that like why is don junior on your board and like watching them stammer and stutter and try to just be like

well you know like uh we just need we just need expertise from people who are champions and it's like it's like something yeah like something we don't know exactly what's up but something is up and you also see like these these companies i know of one specifically i don't know the name and I guess I probably shouldn't say if I did. But like they were getting ready to go public and magically Eric and Don's hedge fund buys into it before it goes public right before they get board seats and then it goes public. I mean, if you could invest and get private shares right before they go public, you'd be the richest guy in the world. And that's what the deal is. So if you're, I mean, if you're a startup and you're like, hey, we can bring in Don and Eric and guarantee that we'll be successful.

We just got to do this little thing. you would be you would do it who wouldn't right the betting market stuff i mean i think we're going to find out because i don't think you have to identify who you are when you bet on this stuff and and or you could do it on we're going to find out that there are members of congress betting on their own actions and it's one thing to sports bet on yourself which i think is illegal it's another to do it when when it comes to voting like that is corrupt well we don't have the public corruption unit anymore in the department of justice that's pretty noteworthy but i got to tell you if and when the democrats to take back the house next year. I'm just going to be like a dog on a bone on these guys

about how you, they just like the oversight stuff has to be an absolute immediate priority looking into Don Jr. and all and these businesses making making all of these businesses that they've invested in since Trump has gotten back on, come before Congress subpoenaing them, like holding them contempt if they don't. And and here's the thing. People then say to me when I say this like, well, Trump will just part in all of them. It's like, well, I don't know. Are they doing any state crimes? I think if we start, if Congress starts investigating them, you know, and then you find that whatever, some of this inappropriate behavior is happening, you know, in California, New York, right? Like, this stuff can be referred to attorneys general, Democratic attorneys general in some of these states. And even if not, like, getting this stuff out there is the most important thing. Absolutely.

And this is why it's important for Democrats to talk about this now is there are people making decisions today in government about whether to be corrupt or not. And if they know that they have maybe another year of free reign and then they're going to be held to account, they're much less likely than if they think they have three years of free reign and then they're going to get pardoned by Trump, right? So this is an important thing for the Democrats to hear, which is, yes, affordability is the number one. an issue. I'm not saying, do this around that. But as part of that, talk about how you're going to have hearings about Qatar and the jet. You're going to have hearings about domestic. And you will help to at least discourage, I think, future corruption. And you're also letting the American people know the contrast of what you are compared to this corrupt administration, which is beyond, this is beyond any corruption. Ice, we're going to investigate the FBI agents that

have been reviewing the Epstein files and we're asked to flag Donald Trump stuff. We're going to be coming for you, the crypto people. everybody doing business with Don and Eric, the Democrats are coming. Watch out. Oversight's coming for you. Yeah. And like ICE, by the way, you read about the shooting of that woman where the guy was, the ICE agent was bragging that five shots, seven holes.

Like, okay, that's the kind of stuff we need to put in front of the American people, right? That's what they know. We got a little off top. We got one other economy thing. I just, I can't skip over because I think I got a B minus an econ 101. once. I'm not an expert on identifying recession trends. But I think this might be a recession indicator. Over on Fox, they were discussing Christmas plans and the state of the economy. And I want to play a little clip. Also remember, adults don't need gifts. Okay. Focus on the people

in your life who are age three to 18. Grandma doesn't need slippers. If they don't live by you, don't get them a gift. Now's not the time to spend and break the bank sending packages across the country, Dana. Focus on the people in your life, ages 3 to 18. The Trump economy. Grandma doesn't need slippers anymore. Dana's the one that continues to surprise me because she knows way better. Yeah, I know.

But Dana was interviewing the other, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's so tone deaf. It's crazy. I mean, it really is. It's like that's the equivalent, really, of like, Elon Musk also telling people that, yeah, it sucks to be poor. Just don't buy things, right? Like, just don't spend money.

And all these people on Fox. that are wealthy that have done everything to put Trump in place and promote him and promote him. His politics are now just like everything is great. Just don't buy stuff for people and you'll be good, right? Like, isn't Christmas supposed to be about sharing and joy? Isn't the woke liberals kill Christmas in the past? And now it's the right trying to kill Christmas? My God, Christmas is under attack from all sides, Tim.

We have to, there's a war. Christmas is definitely under attack from Donald Trump right now. You can only have two or three toys if you're a little girl. And the tariffs or the dolls, you only need two or three dolls, you don't need more. And grandma, you know, sticking with the holy slippers you got. We can't afford. The war on Christmas is in full swing and it's the right this time. It's coming from MAGA.

As mentioned, really, you live in Texas now. Do you have any hot takes on the Texas Senate race that's developing either side? Not really. Look, I like Colin All right a lot just because I know him. And I think he actually ran a good campaign given it was not the best year, obviously, Ted Cruz. One thing on Colin, because I do think that I understand people have a bad taste in their mouth about 2024 and want to move forward and want to have fresh people and ideas and like there's a we're not going back element to this that I totally relate to. But I do think sometimes he's like slandered when people assess that race because he did lose by more points than like Beto had or whatever. But the environment was horrible.

He outperformed Harris. He wasn't really his fault. He ran, he ran, I think, eight points ahead of Harris. Eight points. So, you know, I mean, had it been a closer election, that maybe could have been in place. I don't know. Anyway, that's just my thoughts on college. Yeah, I agree.

I think he's been unfairly hit with that. Him, I liked Terry Vert, who was going to run. He's backing out of that race, and he's running for Congress now, which is very smart. But he was a commander of the space station, astronaut, great dude. I think he has a shot actually at winning the house. And the Tala Rico, look, I mean, obviously I've seen all his videos and stuff. He's an amazing speaker. The thing I worry about, he has to address.

And I think he's probably in the catbird seat to win is he has said things like, from what I understand, things like God is non-binary, stuff like that. And I got to tell you, folks, you can get mad at me for saying this that don't play in Texas. So you're going to, even among Democrats. So he's going to have to figure out how to walk through that. But he is well-spoken. Our God in Texas has a huge. slog. In Texas, God is a man and he's packing. He ranches and he can rope you. God is a rancher. But the other thing is, here's the question. I don't know the answer to this. Does his

good speakingness come across as genuine? If he can tie that with genuineness, he's going to be great. But I think people right now, the biggest trait they look for is genuineness. That's my opinion. Yeah. Jasmine. Yeah. It's talking about getting in. Jasmine Cracken. That would be interesting. That would be a whole new dynamic. Yeah, she's really good at, you know, at the attacks and speaking and everything. She's a good at going after Trump. Yeah. I don't know. And I think that I'd have some concerns with her in a center race in Texas. I think statewide viability. I think a primary right now in Texas for Democrats is probably the best thing. Yeah. Because it's going to shake out all these different theories. And Texas Democrats, I think, understand that, you know, generally they don't

need to put the most, you know, liberal firebrand out there because they actually want to win Texas. So I think they kind of get the game. What about the other side? How are you assessing Paxton, Cornyn, and then Wesley Hunt is now a third. Yeah, I think it's, so here's the thing. It's possible Hunt could actually pull a sneaker here because people are scared of Paxton. You know, the other dude, John Cornyn, they, you know, obviously they think he's too liberal or whatever. So Hunt may pull that little sneaker, but I think right now it's probably still Paxton. Because, again, the Republican Party, and particularly in Texas, it's like whoever the crazy it is, we'll get my vote. And that's

usually how it is. All right, the movie. I just, I'm going to admit, I haven't watched it. Come on. I want, I have a lot of time with you, okay? And I have to watch Candace and Steve Bannon, you know, to know what's happening over there. And I need the nuggets. I've got to watch the nuggets. And life

is busy, but I'm going to watch it. But what, so I'm coming in blind. Many of the listeners are coming in blind. And this is, you know, we have to encourage them to watch it. So give us the pitch. So it's called the Last Republican. You can get it on like Amazon Prime, Apple, Google, and it's like multi-layers, I would say. So it goes over the January 6th stuff.

So they followed me during all the hearing. You actually get some really cool video from the floor of the sixth, like cinematic that exists. But it's also a story between me and the director, Steve Pink, who did Hot Tub Time Machine. He's very far left. And so we have this kind of fun interaction where we, it was unintentional, where we kind of like make fun of each other, but we grow to really respect each other. And I think it's a great human story. and then you see the human story of, you know, just me, Sophia, and what it's like to go through

what we went through at the same time having a baby for God's sakes, right? Like all these changes, you will not regret watching it. I promise you that. It got amazing rate. It's got like 80 or 90% on rotten tomatoes. That's a good pitch. Yeah. So watch it, it's only an hour and a half.

So you're not going to get, and it's fun. It's funny. The Last Republican, go watch it. I will know if you don't. And if you don't, like, we're not friends anymore, Tim. Really? Yeah. We're not friends.

It's over. I've got to spend 90, you're assigning me 90 minutes of homework. I am, yeah. You know, I was a little contrarian SOB as a young man. If you assign me homework and say, I have to do something, I will not do it out of principle. Okay. Let me incentivize you in a better way. There are pictures of me as a 12-year-old with Republican yard signs.

So how about that? You think you were a dork? I've got some good pictures. You are a dorkier than me? Okay. Finding dorky Adam, finding dorky Adam pictures is a good incentive. I'll watch it. What was it like having, like, the cameras around all the time?

Did you feel like you're able to be natural? It was an interesting thing because I made it a point to try to be natural because I'm like, I don't want to do this and perform for the camera. I want this to be genuine. And I didn't love having cameras around because unlike some people, I'm not one that, like, you know, loves walking around and having all this attention in cameras where I look like I'm producing something and feel cool. But we barreled through it.

And I'm glad we did because it's just, like I said, it's good from a historical perspective from a personal perspective. And we wanted to be able to show that to our son, Christian. And I think when he's old enough to appreciate it, it'll be cool. That is really cool for him. Yeah, I don't know. When I was doing the circus, it was harder than I thought to be natural. It was there was definitely a learning curve there of you can't control it. Like I found myself like using a, I don't know, a voice or something. And I'm like, that's not my voice. Why am I doing this? Why am I talking like that? Yeah. Or I would have like, where they're there? and, like, a friend would come over to the office.

And I'd be like, hey, just so you know, there's cameras here. So they're not, like, you know, saying things that we would not want out there. Like that kind of stuff. Oh, what kind of stuff might they be saying? I don't know. I don't know. You know, things and stuff. Gossip stuff.

All right, brother. It's good to see you yesterday at the funeral. Yeah, you too, man. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Appreciate you. We'll be doing it again soon. Everybody go watch it. The movie's The Last Republican.

You can find Kinsinger over on Substack as well. And we'll be back. Wait, what day is today? I've had a long-ass week, bro. It's Friday. Hell yeah. All right. Well, then we'll see you Monday with Bill Crystal.

Bye, everybody. I'm coming up only to hold you under. And coming up only to show you roll. It is hard And we wonder To know you All wrong We won

Oh Ooh Oh, ooh. Really too late to call so we wait for earth. morning to wake you is all be God but you know me as hard they would know me as hard they would At every occasion, I'll be ready for the funeral. Every occasion once more, it's called the funeral.

To the outside, the dead leaves, they are the Lord. The boarders have trees to hang their fault. The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.