The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: Trump Is a Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Donald Trump gave away the store in the second worst treaty signed at Versailles. The bounty POTUS delivered has already started to flow with the lifting of oil sanctions on Iran. The unfreezing of r...estricted assets—and a $300 billion reconstruction and investment fund—is just around the corner. Trump is even defending Iran's right to have ballistic missiles. He likes to talk tough, but he is a wuss, and the Dems can't let up on calling him out for his cowardice and his stupid war. Plus, gaming which group of Trump supporters got cucked the most, Republicans on the Hill are already rushing to protect Trump on the deal, and a Texas temperature check on Talarico v Paxton.Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller.show notes Text of the agreement between the U.S. and Iran  Kinzinger's Substack  "The Kinzinger Report" podcast  Tim's and JVL's reading of Vance's new book 

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:40 and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted back to welcome back to the show. A former member of Congress from Illinois. He served in the Air Force and Air National Guard. He's got a new podcast, the Kinziger Report. He's on Substack. It's Adam Kinzinger.
Starting point is 00:00:56 Hey, buddy. What's up? If we're going to have a surrender, if we're going to celebrate Donald Trump, the cheese-eating surrender monkey, signing away the war that he started in France next to Emmanuel Macron. I can't think about anybody.
Starting point is 00:01:10 to have to discuss it than you. So thank you for joining. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks. You know, when my brother and I used to play, you know, those green army men and then you had the gray army men, we used to play that game. And of course, my brother's five years older, so he'd always win. And I just, I remember once I was a kid, of course I was a kid. I'm playing green army men, but I remember I surrendered to him. And there was an old church song. It's like, I surrender all, you know, that one. So I started singing that. And my brother made fun of me. And so anyway, there you go. Okay, well, obviously I went with the, you know, alt-rock suicide song. But sure, Hillsong Worship, I surrender.
Starting point is 00:01:48 We can look at that one, too. Discussed this with JVL yesterday. We were reading select excerpts of J.D. Vance's book together in his conversion to Christianity. Excuse me, his conversion to Catholic. It's hard to tell kind of from the book he wants to be a Catholic. He's trying to be everything. That's right. In the book about his conversion to Catholicism, he talks about how the music is so much
Starting point is 00:02:09 better at evangelical churches. He's got to throw some bones to the evangelicals for the primary. Yeah. And he said that he's telling his priest to maybe go check out like the local Baptist and evangelical church to hear how they do the music. And it's kind of like, bro, you just joined the club. Like you just joined us two minutes ago. Don't be fucking telling the priest what music to play. I mean, you can kind of have a vote on what you guys are having for potluck lunch, but you're not at music yet. And I got to tell you like, I don't know, I've only been to a few Catholic services as a Protestant, but I can't imagine a drum set up in front of the priest.
Starting point is 00:02:44 And I mean, maybe that happens. When I was growing up in like the 90s, there was a move, you know, as the evangelicals were getting some steam, you know, what they would do at Catholic Church is on Saturday night. There'd be like a teen mass. And they're like, this is how we're going to be able to the youth. And there'd be like a rock band doing Christian rock. And I just remember going to those things and being like, this is awful.
Starting point is 00:03:10 This is making me less interested. And you always had like the youth pastor that's like, bro, we're going to bring pizza. We're going to hang. We're going to talk about stuff. And it's always like some 25 year old that ends up getting caught up in a scandal. The old Catholic hymns are the only thing I like about the Sunday morning church. You've taken them away. And now you've got this ear poison.
Starting point is 00:03:30 By the way, speaking of JD, I saw Jason Kander actually, who was the former secretary of I think of Missouri. He found J.D. Vance's tell. So J.D. Vance now, when he's going to go into talking points, right before he does it, he says, let me say this or let me just go ahead and say something. And he said every time he says that, there is the administration-approved talking point. I tell you, it's too early for J.D. to be revealing his tells if he wants to run for president. I should check in with Jason Cam. That's a good dude. All right, let's run through the elements of the surrender. the 14 points in the MOU. We're going to talk about how it's in Versailles,
Starting point is 00:04:11 because it really is, it's really something that we're back in the Treaty of Versailles to Electric Bugaloo. But we're to go through a couple of them because I think actually reading them is pretty, pretty telling. Speaking of tells. This is point one of the MOU. The United States of America and Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military
Starting point is 00:04:35 operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, the final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon. It goes on. There's three mentions of Lebanon in the first point. Like the war wasn't even about Lebanon. And so I think that tells you a lot about who felt like they had the cards, so to speak, in the negotiation. Completely. I mean, look, and from Israel's perspective, and there's a lot to criticize Israel for, But from Israel's perspective, they have this requirement, honestly, that if they get attacked and they get attacked by Hezbollah from time to time, that they have to respond. And somehow, this was drug in and forced on Israel without Israel's approval of it. I mean, it is clear in once you start reading that.
Starting point is 00:05:25 It's almost as if Donald Trump grabbed them by the pussy because when you're a star, they let you do it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, by the way, the other. thing is even just noticing when they say there is now a permanent ceasefire. And of course, we get into this later, but it's like then we're going to negotiate everything else. But that term permanent is basically laying out there to say there is no intention to ever resume military operations. And again, a ceasefire typically is with the understanding that hostilities can resume. And it's that
Starting point is 00:05:56 sort of Damocles that's hanging over you that is compelling you to an answer. This is already saying, no, we're never going to fight again. Don't worry about that. Now let's. Let's talk. This was on the NMOU. One of the crazy, I mean, Donald Trump said somebody insane things the last 48 hours. But one of them was where he was just like, you know, we should just go let Jalani in Syria kind of deal with Hezbollah now. In part because Bibi's just kind of like bombing all these apartment buildings. And it's like there's not even Hezbollah in there sometime.
Starting point is 00:06:24 And it's like Trump's basically saying that we should just go ahead and trust the Al-Qaeda leader running Syria to handle Hezbollah. because he wears a suit now. Yeah, he's a little more controllable, you know, and is showing a little bit more prudence than the Prime Minister of Israel, our ally in the war. It's totally insane. It is incredible. By the way, I'll just say quickly too,
Starting point is 00:06:47 I'm one of the few people that U.S. congressmen that have actually been to the Hezbollah, the Lebanon side of the blue line. And one thing you realize is, Hezbollah is extremely integrated there. I mean, it's a real problem. but also Israel should fight this differently, but it's a real existential threat to Israel, and not that they should necessarily blow everything up there, not that they should invade, but they should at least have the ability to fight back if they're attacked.
Starting point is 00:07:15 That's the only way to prevent, you know, to push off, frankly, future attacks. It is totally a real threat. And, well, I don't want to get sideline down to Israel track again. We can circle back to that at the end. But I do think that, I guess my short point about this is that that, That is why getting in bed with Donald Trump in this war and totally isolating all of your other allies was such a stupid strategic move because they do have real security interests. Completely. They've undermined their ability to execute them anyway.
Starting point is 00:07:46 Number two. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other's sovereignty. You got that right, people. And territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs. Iran wasn't really interfering in our internal affairs. I mean, you know, maybe trying to do some cyber attacks here and there. But, like, we had a lot of involvement in their internal affairs covertly. I had a lot of things to say about their internal affairs.
Starting point is 00:08:18 And so, again, like, the first two points are clearly things that Iran wanted in there. Yeah. And if you take this to its logical conclusion. So this doesn't mention cyber. Iran is very good at cyber attacks. they're getting better at it. This doesn't mention cyber attack. In fact, as far as I know, there's no mention of that in the whole MOU.
Starting point is 00:08:38 The cyber attacks, which is certainly if I'm the United States and trying to get something out of it, that's one of the things, one of the conditions I would put on. The other thing is it's not like we're going in and creating opposition to the Iranian regime. Many of the Iranians are actually more affectionate to the United States. We may have liaison with them. They also are very important for our CIA, right, for the ability to gain intelligence. And by the letter of this, and certainly the CIA can still do its thing, but by the letter of this, we have to basically cease all of those operations even to get intelligence on the Iranian regime in theory. I remember when the Shah was going to fans of the former Shah was going to Republican events.
Starting point is 00:09:26 People were like, we're bringing them back. Yes. Okay. No, it doesn't seem like that happened. Okay, we're to skip ahead to point six. It's a pretty short document, actually. I'd recommend everybody just read the whole 14. It's pretty easy to read, but, you know, we only have an hour.
Starting point is 00:09:39 Point six. The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, at least $300 billion, not just for the reconstruction, but for economic development. Yep. And that's like most of Iran's GDP. Yeah, it is.
Starting point is 00:10:04 Like, I'm pretty sure their GDP is like $300 billion. I'm Googling this right now. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So it's basically we're saying we're going to double your GDP for a year. And remember, literally 48 hours before this, J.D. Vance said the rumors of $300 billion were BS. That's information operation.
Starting point is 00:10:22 Now we're not only finding it's $300 billion. That's the floor. So they're basically saying in this, up to $300 billion in reconstruction economic funds at least. So it could be a trillion dollars. And frankly, if, you know, if Kushner gets in there and he finds that we can put a Trump tower in multiple locations, I think you could see this thing rise above that level. And, you know, this idea of making Iran great again. Remember when people were, Lindsay Graham was wearing the, yeah, he was wearing that, that hat. And it's like, yeah, I guess, I guess in a way he's following through on this.
Starting point is 00:10:57 It's just the Iranian regime is in control in this process. Yeah. There's a lot of coastline there. And by the way, we have to mention here the obvious thing. For years, for years, and I was part of this, we were attacking the Obama administration for the quote-unquote pallets of cash that was released to Iran. And I still think it was the wrong move, but in comparison to this, holy cow,
Starting point is 00:11:22 this is 300 times what Obama gave to Iran. in order to seal that deal. This is brutally the worst thing. We can get to the top lines of it after we get through this, but my goodness. Yeah, more than 300 times because of what we get to in the future and the other elements of the MOUs. Number 7.7, the United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. I don't know if you can actually do that the MOU. And I was making fun of Lindsay on the pod earlier this week where he's like the agreement has to come through Congress.
Starting point is 00:11:56 The Lord didn't have to go through Congress, but the agreement does. But the sanctions are, those were passed by Congress and signed into law. So that is the one part of this. I don't know that Trump can actually just do. Yeah, what they can do because they've done this with Russia, remember the Russian sanctions, they can waive them. Yeah. And so what he'll do is waive them. He will probably get enough of his toadies to get rid of it in Congress.
Starting point is 00:12:22 But at least when you simply say, we're going to waive these, we don't have intention of enforcing them, it'll be a law on paper but nothing else. And that's what you're going to end up seeing here. Point nine, pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program. I skip point eight. There is a lot of discussion in point eight about what we want them to do with their nuclear program at the 60 days. But that's more of an aspirational item. For the MOU itself, it says right, there, 0.9, Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program. So that's what
Starting point is 00:13:02 we got out of the deal. It's incredible. And on top of that, when we were in Congress, and this is where I can bring value as like, here were the arguments we were making that I think at the time we're founded in legitimate concerns, which is, okay, yes, they have restricted Iran's nuclear capacity. That's something that we all acknowledge, at least for the time being. What the Obama administration didn't do is restrict their ability to create ballistic missiles that can ultimately deliver these weapons. And that was from Donald Trump's perspective, from the Republican perspective, that was a huge failure of the Obama administration. Donald Trump yesterday said, basically, Iran deserves to have ballistic missiles because other people do too. And again,
Starting point is 00:13:46 we have taken a party that claimed in the past to be based on this idea of international values and security and stuff, and they have waived everything because a guy that's 80 years old that just had a birthday party, like a 14-year-old, got his ego hurt. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:02 That's where we're at. Because he's bored. Toddler got bored. Birthday boy, big boy got bored. He wanted new presents. And he wanted, he wanted an MOU on his birthday because that would be the most special present
Starting point is 00:14:13 he could ever get. And then he wanted to do it in Versailles because there's so much gold. Okay. Two more points in the MOU. We'll go through these quickly and then back the lines up a bit. Number 10.
Starting point is 00:14:22 The U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products, and derivatives and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurance, transportation, etc. Point 11, the USA undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon implementation of this MOU. So that's done. That's happened. Yeah. So all of the whole stuff where J.D. was going around talking about how they need. need to behave good and we'll give them carrots. And if they do good behavior, they get rewards. Now, upon the implementation of this MOU, which happened last night at Versailles, now they
Starting point is 00:15:03 have fully available their frozen or restricted funds. So the $300 billion in, at least, in rehabilitation of the country, the immediate availability of the frozen or restricted funds waivers on their sanctions, waivers for the export of crude oil. I mean, this is an unbelievable bounty. Unbelievable. For the Iranians. Unbelievable. And right now, by definition of all this, we are treating Iran the same we treat
Starting point is 00:15:35 Germany, France, Spain, the UK. They are now basically welcome into the global economy to do business at free will. And that's where we're at. And, you know, Europe could make a decision to try to restrict if they wanted. They won't, obviously, but they could. But they don't have the strength. we do. We had to be the kind of bad guys on this one with Europe.
Starting point is 00:15:56 And Iran is right there. They are actually a threat. Again, going back to the beginning of this and how stupid this fucking war of choice was, was that we didn't have any real security threats with Iran, at least the short term. Proxies in the region, you know, there's certain things. But like the American homeland. Israel did. Europe does.
Starting point is 00:16:15 Like they can reach Europe. They can reach it with their ballistic missiles like now. Forget development. So their calculus is different. This is not like the Ukraine war, you know. And in all of this, Tim, one of the biggest mistakes that this administration made that they probably will never realize because they're that dumb is, you know, I think I've talked about with you that dime model, right, diplomatic information, military and economic. The military hammer, we actually used well in this. Now, what I would argue is during the last 30 days of negotiations, as the straight has remained closed, we probably should have continued.
Starting point is 00:16:51 bombing. There would have been really no downfall in that. That would have been a hammer that would have compelled. So the military aspect of that did what it was supposed to do. I mean, our military, they were given an order. They achieved it. The problem is on the diplomatic side, we alienated our allies. We should have brought all of them to the fight if we were going to go to the fight. And I would argue that we weren't ready for this fight and we never should have undertaken it. But still, you should bring that. You should isolate Iran further. Economically, at no point should we have lifted sanctions or allowed them to sell any of their oil while we were striking them. And, you know, what was it?
Starting point is 00:17:26 Informational. I mean, the biggest problem in all this, too. Crushed to the information. That we got crushed. I mean, dude, I watched 10 times the Lego videos that Iran put out. They were hilarious. And what did this White House do instead of put on, I'm sorry to say this, but the information war is now fought by memes on the internet.
Starting point is 00:17:46 That's, that's, it's no longer radio free America as much as it's, you know, memes on the internet. But this administration, instead of putting out their own meme, you know, the Ayatoll is gay or whatever it is, instead they go after Democrats. They spend their whole time going after Democrats. And then they wonder why they lose the information war and then blame Democrats for it. They made no effort to engage in it. And in the 21st century, information is just as powerful or more powerful than military strikes. They walked into this blind. Donald Trump wanted to see things blow up. He got bored, scared, and gave away the store because he was desperate to get out of this. That's the reality of what happened here.
Starting point is 00:18:27 And America is far weaker. My four-year-old son is now much more likely to have to face a better armed, bigger threatening in Iran because of what Donald Trump just did. And he's more likely to have to face him alone without allies like we have had in every other war we've thought. I have to slightly quibble with you on the diplomatic and ally front. This is something from Hugh Hewitt, he posted yesterday, ally of the president's, one of the president's big foreign policy hawks. And he thinks that the kind of diplomatic failures weren't really Trump's fault, actually. It was our allies in Europe that let us down. NATO took a pass, Hewitt, writes, because of Greenland.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Think on that a while and assess the character of our allies. They have as much as anyone save Israel to loose, typo, from a crazed regime with ballistic, missiles and nukes. And they let the reality of Greenland's important part in North American defense and President Trump's style get in the way of showing up. Hard to see NATO the same way now as on 227. Okay. So let's open the curtain here and I want people to peek into the psyche of Donald Trump supporters that are upset with him here. Okay. And Hugh Hewitt is a prime example. They will never, and Lindsey Graham, everybody else. Ben Shapiro is blaming J.D. Vance on Fox yesterday. Exactly. And so is Lindsay Graham, by the way. For God's sakes. But here's what you do.
Starting point is 00:19:52 Because I mean, I've been in this seat where it's like, okay, I'm opposing Donald Trump very publicly on this one thing. Now I need to hedge by finding something I can be very supportive on with him. So that he'll be upset at me on this. But then I'm going to come out and talk about how brilliant he is in this other thing. And this is what Hugh Hewitt's doing. I mean, Hugh Hewitt, if you put him on CIA Truth Juice, which doesn't exist, by the way, sadly, but let's pretend it does. If you put him on CIA Truth Juice, he would tell you, like, yeah, we probably shouldn't be threatening Greenland. Yes, all this stuff. But he knows that he can hit that to kind of give Donald Trump the pass on the ally front.
Starting point is 00:20:30 Let's be very clear about something. You could be critical of the allies if, just like, you know, and keep in mind also, Donald Trump gave the state of the union two days prior to the beginning of this Iranian war and barely even discussed it. So not only didn't he prepare the American people for it, he clearly, he clearly, didn't prepare the allies. You think of the painstaking effort that George H.W. Bush and his son took in preparing for the wars of the last decades. And they took months to bring the allies on board. It's like being in a bar fight, look, you could be the biggest guy in the bar and your chances of getting in a fight are pretty high. If you're the biggest guy in the bar with 10 friends that are my size, nobody's going to fight you because they know that you're going to, they have nothing to prove and they're going to lose.
Starting point is 00:21:15 You also got to get your friends on board. I mean, I was in a couple of bar fights back in the day where I didn't, where I threw the last punch, you know, and so somebody's shit talking me, and it's more of a go to my drunk buddies and be like, okay, you want to kick his ass? That's how you do it. Okay, that's how you do it. You don't start the fight. You don't throw the first punch against the biggest.
Starting point is 00:21:36 And then expect them to jump in. Yeah, and then expect them to jump in while you're on the ground. But that's the point. So the war starts and then he offends the allies. Yeah. He says, we don't need them. Yeah. We don't need them.
Starting point is 00:21:48 And we might invade you, by the way. We might invade you, too. Who knows? We might invade you. We may fight NATO. And then, by the way, now we desperately need you. Get your ass over here. You're not coming.
Starting point is 00:21:58 You're not our friend. We hate you. We don't need you anyway. And if I'm the leader of the UK, I'm sitting there going, dude, let's just let him figure this out. If he really needs us, come talk to us. But I'm not going to sit here and be his whipping, boy, because we're a respectable country. That's unreal. This episode is sponsored by Better Help.
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Starting point is 00:24:03 But we're going to just take a moment to be former Republicans for a second. It is pretty telling. I mean, it's pretty ironic and mockable that Donald Trump signs to surrender in France. I know. In France, we called this. them cheese eating surrender monkeys for a reason. And he's there. Marco Rubio looking over his shoulder as he has signing the document, the French leader
Starting point is 00:24:25 next to him. He's like, Mr. Mola, Mr. Ayatollah, sir, I surrender to you. I don't know how to say I surrender in France. I should have Googled that before we started the podcast. Just we surrender. How? How did, how does there, do they have nobody that understands history or optics? Like, dude, stick with the document.
Starting point is 00:24:46 Because remember they electronically docu signed like on Monday. Stick with that, dude, right? Don't this is insane. I don't get it. Jumoron. Jumoron, Donald Trump says, Jumarant. I surrender. The other bad optics of it is, you know, the first treaty of Versailles didn't go well.
Starting point is 00:25:06 Didn't. A lot of differences. Part of the reason why that didn't go well is because of just how tough the sanctions were on the losing party there. and obviously the economic fallout in Germany, and we don't need to explain how World War II started. But it's still just, again, from an optical standpoint. And also, Wilson had his 14 points. And it's all just a peril.
Starting point is 00:25:30 The MOU is 14. Wilson has 14 points. Henry Cabot Lodge. All right, we're doing junior year, high school Western Civ here, you know, had the 14, what was it called? It was the 14. Oh, I did too many bong hits in college.
Starting point is 00:25:45 It was called the 14. something. I don't remember it. Reservations. Okay. All right. Henry Cavett Lodge did great states.
Starting point is 00:25:51 I don't know. I'll pretend like I knew that. We don't have a lot of Henry Cavett Lodges. Did you do AP Western Sav? I think this was just for AP. Yeah, I did all kinds of stuff. That one fell out on that. Pinguins on the iceberg, right?
Starting point is 00:26:01 Yeah, fair enough. Every new penguin, another one pops off. You know, Donald Trump, I don't think cares about any of that. Obviously, he hasn't read any books. No. He doesn't know anything about the Treaty of Versa. He literally said it. He wants to go to Versailles because of the gold.
Starting point is 00:26:13 Yeah, too. He likes gold. I mean, look, he's 80. He's clearly been wrestling with his mortality kind of publicly, right? And if he wasn't president, I would have some compassion for him if he wasn't bringing the country down with him. You're nice. You're a good person. You're still going to church. I'm trying. Yeah. But I think he, I think he thinks in terms of, okay, how long am I going to be alive? Maybe in his mind, he understands it's not extremely long. And he doesn't care about the consequences past that. He really doesn't. And unfortunately, he's surrounded by people, Tim. that have no desire to tell him the opposite or the truth or to say, hey, let's not try, let's not do Versailles, even though you want all the gold because of this reason. Or Mr. President, we're going to really have a hard time spinning to the American people. And by the way, don't think, Tim, that there aren't senators out there trying. I checked Twitter this morning. But we're going to have hard time spending to the American people.
Starting point is 00:27:03 Yeah, and Eric something from Missouri. Schmidt, yeah, he's out there. Eric Schmidt is like literally a blood and soil nationalist. And I think I just would be happy if we weren't involved at all over there. and just wants white people in the country. That's true. Here's the big question, though, and this is something I wrestle with. So let me ask you this question because I've never understood this.
Starting point is 00:27:23 If you are as arrogant as Donald Trump is, you want to be seen as tough, what is the benefit in coming out of these things weak? What is the benefit in alienating NATO? What is the benefit in dropping to your knees in front of Russia? This is something that I haven't been able to put together in my own mind. why a nationalist who wants to look tough would not be out there, you know, leveraging NATO to take down Russia or standing strong. I can answer this. I got this for you.
Starting point is 00:27:51 I want to know. There are some critics among listeners' friends of my initial analysis of this war. And, you know, they're like, you don't really understand. All the players. And I was like, I don't. You're right. I don't. I can name, like, two cities in Iran.
Starting point is 00:28:05 I would have failed Tucker Carlson's Ted Cruz quiz on how many people lived in Iran. And I was like, I know Trump, though. I know Trump. And Trump is a bully who's a wuss. And so, you know, and that it's like as simple as that. He wants to seem tough, but he can't back it up. He doesn't have the gumption to back it up.
Starting point is 00:28:22 He also believes very strongly. He loves that book. Did he ever read the book or did he just meet the author? And the author explained it to him probably. I remember this was an 80s self-help book, I think, The Power of Positive Thinking. Yeah, I do. This is Trump. This is the power of positive.
Starting point is 00:28:38 And he, like, believes that he can warp reality to his, will. And so he's a wimpy bully that didn't have the backbone to finish the fight. And he thinks that he can take this dog shit, MOU, and do the power of positive thinking and spin, convince people that it's good. And I think that's what happened. Up to this point, he's done that. And now, granted, the thing about X that I hate is the algorithm, how that works, right? You reply to one tweet, and all of a sudden you're getting all the White House stuff. And so I understand reality on this is skewed, but it appears that the right that just yesterday thought this was a complete surrender document is now making their decision to come around and defend it. Newt Gingrich
Starting point is 00:29:20 put out something about how brilliant this is and how this gives us a chance to really, but what they're doing though, and I think every listener should understand this is they're bracketing it with, okay, this is perfect. Now he has 60 days to really drive and get what he needs to get, and then he should resume the attacks if that doesn't work. And so that gives them the ability to kind of play both sides. But I want to be very clear about something. If Donald Trump actually ever resumed kinetic action because of what he doesn't get over the next 60 days, that will surprise me more than I woke up than if I woke up with like three heads. He's not going to do it. He has no intention of doing it. Iran knows this. And they're going to drag him for everything
Starting point is 00:30:00 he's worth. And this is going to end up being just some kind of unfinished war that just kind of fades into memory with Iran and control the strait. Exactly. And I would say right now, I would say 60, 40 against there actually being another agreement. I agree. I think this is it. I think this is it. Like, why would Iran keep negotiating? Trump doesn't want to. Trump's going to move on. He's going to do Cuba or whatever. I don't know. Find some island that he wants to take over or do, you know, do a new project on the national mall, a big Trump statue or something. Like he's going to move on from this. Let's talk about Marco, who can't move on for this, wants to have a political future. Marco has mentioned earlier with standing over Trump's shoulder when he is signing the surrender.
Starting point is 00:30:47 And so that's going to make it pretty challenging for him, I think, to pitch that he was on the other side of this. I'm not sure that this is as much of a political harm within the Republican Party as some of the commentators think. I do think that, like, there's a Trump cult. And increasingly Republican voters are kind of isolationist. But anyway, that's for another day. His face told the story, though, when Trump was doing the press conference, he's like joking about how if it goes poorly, it's J.D.'s fault. If it goes, well, it's mine. And Lutnik's laughing, Marco, like, looks like he saw a ghost.
Starting point is 00:31:19 Yeah, yeah. So I think Marco's face told him all. He's clearly not happy with this. Marco, let me say something complimentary to him. He has actually played. His ears are just unbelieverly big. And it's, like, amazing. They're like, they've got their own weather system.
Starting point is 00:31:35 No, dude. I know. Is that the compliment? No, that wasn't it. Actually, it's funny. I met with Marco for breakfast right after he dropped out of the presidential raves over at the Senate dining room. And we had this like plan to, you know, fight back for the GOP. And here he is. But anyway, he's a political survivor. And I will tell you, he's been, I have to compliment his ability to, I couldn't do it morally, but his ability to kind of walk this line of being almost Trump's favorite. You know, and Marco, Mike Weiss was saying. saying this. You know, when it comes to things like Ukraine, it's good to have Marco there compared to, you know, let's put Rick Grinnell in there or something like that. Sure. But I don't, I don't know if. Really marginal, but okay. Yeah, sure. I don't know if this is going to impact them or not, because here's the thing, once we make the decision, we being, if I'm a Republican sitting here thinking, once Republicans make the decision to accept this Iran agreement, it is now in their interest for this Iran agreement to be the best
Starting point is 00:32:34 thing that was ever signed or negotiated. And so Marco is playing this position of, okay, let's say Iran somehow starts attacking Israel again, this thing falls apart and the agreement looks bad. He can point to those pictures where he's frowning. But otherwise, if what is probably going to happen, which is the Republican Party rallies around this is the best thing that's ever been thought of, you know, Iran probably does not initiate a war again or anything like this. This kind of fades into history. There he is. He's made Donald Trump happy. He's there for the signing. And his soul is burning up. I think his soul is a hollow husk and filled with dust. But, you know, look, he's played this politically right as well as you can play something like this, I would say.
Starting point is 00:33:15 Well, here's something that might be an issue for him is that we do have videotape. And I want to play for you, Marco's thoughts on the JCPOA on the Senate floor. God, about a decade ago now. Iran will immediately use the money that it's receiving in sanctions relief to begin to build up its conventional capabilities. It will establish the most dominant military power in the region outside of the United States and it will raise the price of us operating in the region. They're going to build anti-access capabilities, rockets capable of destroying our aircraft carriers and ships, continue to build these swift boats that are able to come on us, these fast boats that are able to swarm
Starting point is 00:33:53 our naval assets. And they'll make it harder and harder for U.S. troops to be in the region. They'll also work with other terrorist groups in the region to target American servicemen and women. and they may or may not deny that they're involved, but they will target us and raise the price of our presence in the Middle East until they hope to completely pull us out of that region. They'll also continue to build long-range missiles. Missals capable of reaching the United States, those are not affected by this deal,
Starting point is 00:34:18 and they'll continue to build them as they've been doing. And then at some point in the near future, when the time is right, they will build a nuclear weapon. And they will do so because at that point they will know that they have become immune. I didn't know swift boats were coming on us, though, But that's a big threat. I mean, look, dude, this is, that's perfect. I mean, that's a perfect video.
Starting point is 00:34:38 That literally describes this exact moment. Like, times 100, by the way. Times 100. It's worth mentioning that, like, that stuff didn't happen after the JCPOA because, like, Marco was exaggerating the amount of, like, money and resources of what the sanctions regime looked like, et cetera. But, like, it very aptly describes the deal he just signed. Completely. Completely. And here's something that I've been trying to wrestle with a little bit.
Starting point is 00:35:01 I remember maybe even just a month or two, three months ago, whatever, thinking about how quickly the Middle East had changed from this, you know, looming Iranian threat with the Israel situation to basically Israel crushing all its enemies, Iran. I remember I was watching a TV show called Tehran. I think it's on Netflix or something. And it was this big Iranian regime and these people within the regime. And it's like, boy, that regime is gone. They've been crushed. and they basically were after the 12-day war. Iran's position in the Middle East was humiliation, and we have single-handedly resurrected them. Had Donald Trump after the 12-day war, maybe allowed Israel to mow the grass, as they say every now and again, maybe we even mow the grass every now and again,
Starting point is 00:35:49 Iran would have been massively diminished. The only thing that Iran was able to do, and this is the point about why you don't go to war unless you're ready to see it through, The only thing that Iran was able to do effectively, they had some kinetic strikes that worked, right? Like credit words do, I guess, from a military perspective, but they were able to bear far more pain than we were. And why were they able to do that? Because Donald Trump from day one, Tim, signaled to the Iranian regime that he wanted out. Day two, he's like, we've won this war. What is it? Day 20, he's like, open the straight, you crazy bastard. Day 25, he's threatening to destroy civilization. Day 26, he's begging for a ceasefire.
Starting point is 00:36:30 Day 29. I don't know if these days are actually right, but he's begging for allies to come in. And all he is doing is signaling to the Iranian regime. Like, all we have to do is wait this guy out. He immediately ruled out the use of ground troops. Look, I'm not saying we should have used ground troops here, but I hate when politicians rule them out because that is a sort of Damocles. you hold over the head of Iran.
Starting point is 00:36:55 Maybe we will use ground troops, even if you have no intention of using it. He should go quiet and say, we're going to strike until this thing is complete. We'll negotiate with Iran, but we're going to keep going. Instead, he's out there hysterical in public. And Iran, in their meetings, wherever they have them, caves or not, they're sitting around going, this dude is desperate and we can outlast him. That's what happened here. And I think the important part of that is to just kind of enunciate, is,
Starting point is 00:37:23 we are so much worse off in the region than the status quo. Totally. The regime was kind of collapsing already. What would have happened? Who knows? But the regime was very weak before this started. And that was one of the cases that the Hawks made for it. And it was one of the cases that Israel made for it.
Starting point is 00:37:41 They thought there was an opportunity. And I think the degree to which the credibility of America to use our power overseas is weakened by this, the degree to which Israel is now isolated after being in this moment where they're gaining Arab allies and where they had the back of the U.S. and had demonstrated their power in the region, I feel like that Israel is in a way worse position, way more isolated, facing now a foe that, as Marco said in that video from 10 years ago, is going to be much more militarily powerful, just a catastrophic. fuck up. Catastrophic. And can I say this to my Democratic friends because I've heard your debate on this show as you've discussed it. Guys, if any of you think that we should not be humiliating
Starting point is 00:38:34 Trump for this, that's why you lose. I'm sorry. Right. Trump lives and feeds and breathes and his whole existence on this faux idea of strength. Loudness, tweeting in all caps, going to war. The truth is he is weak. And that has to. to be called out. And I got to tell you, no tweet from a U.S. Senator or a political operative is going to compel Donald Trump to reenter a reckless war. But if you are not out there making it damn clear to the Republicans and to the American people that this is faux strength, this dude is a coward, then you cannot expect to win as big as you should win in November. It's like this weird, like, oh, you got to hand it to him as a good deal thing. It was better
Starting point is 00:39:18 than, it's like, no, it wasn't, actually. It wasn't. And you can, and you can do bull. Because I do, and this is maybe where you and I might have some disagreement on the strategic path forward for Democrats. But I do think that's important for them to recapture the voters who are skeptical of foreign incursions, excursions, as Donald Trump like to say. And I think to say to them that these are stupid and they backfire and we should be investing in America more. I think you can do that while also being responsible on the global stage, et cetera. And I think that the Democrats, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can say that this was a really stupid military engagement. We will not engage in stupid Middle East wars.
Starting point is 00:39:57 And also, he lost it and he's humiliated and he's weak. You can make both those arguments at the same time. Yeah, what is it they used to say about abortion? It should be rare, legal, safe legal and rare. Yeah. And I think Democrats can kind of play both sides here and be like, war should be rare. And it should be overwhelmingly in our, you know, favor if we engage in it. We're not going to just start bombing stuff.
Starting point is 00:40:20 because we feel like it. But if we find it's in America's national interest to attack Iran, we're going to do it and be victorious. But I got to tell you, you don't have to worry about us going into war for things that are out of our interest. I think you can play kind of both sides on that and actually mean it. And actually, exactly. Yeah. Trump did, by the way. Trump played both sides of this successfully. He convinced, and this gets us to our game, he convinced both of the Palestinian protesters and the Israel Hux that he was on their side. So Democrats can play that game too. So this takes us to the game. I did a post yesterday on social media. I should be posting less, but, you know, I should too, man. I should too. I'm going to
Starting point is 00:41:02 be reviewing this on vacation at the end of July and, you know, talking to the therapist about it and, you know, talking to my colleagues and see what I can do about my posting habits. But, you know, a little bit of posting is good, balance in all things. But I did a post, but I don't know who was more, he has been more humiliated by Donald Trump in his second term. The dearborn for Trump people that were going after Joe Biden and Kamala Harrison protesting them, thinking that he was going to be better for Gaza, or the Israel Hawks for Trump, the Magga Hawks for Trump, who now are left holding the bag. And I got some feedback on that.
Starting point is 00:41:39 And I decided to be a fun game to play with you, Adam Kinsinger. We can have a draft. Who has Trump screwed over the worst? of his supporters. Which group is the most cucked has been the most betrayed by Trump? Who has he screwed over the worst? We'll do it draft style.
Starting point is 00:41:58 Open-ended. You're the guests. I'll let you take the first pick in the draft. I think the first people had been humiliated the most and cucked the most are the fiscal hawks of this administration. Wasn't even on my draft board. I love that.
Starting point is 00:42:13 I think it's the fiscal hawks, man. Do you want me to explain it? Please, yeah. Okay. The fiscal hawks, because I remember shutting down the government or coming close to it over a $500 million discrepancy in the federal budget once. I don't even remember what it was. It came pretty close to doing it.
Starting point is 00:42:30 Yeah. And now we're spending a billion dollars on a ballroom. We're painting a reflective pool that's algae-ridden again so that we can have three days of post of how beautiful it is. We're building an effing arch for God's sakes. We're buying a new jet for. every cabinet secretary. I mean, it's absolutely incredible. So I think they've been, and I think they're sitting here pretending like this is still a fiscally conservative administration.
Starting point is 00:42:56 Now, the fiscal hawks, tea party crowd, the first draft pick in whose Trump screwed the worst. Okay, well, I guess I've got to do it then. I assumed you were going to do it. I'll take the Maga Hawks. Yeah, that's good. I will take the Maga Hawks. I just, here is why for me. They were riding so high. Like, and they all know. knew better. You know, if you look at Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, this crowd, like they all, Marc Dissom, they were all never Trump originally, because they all knew who Trump was. John Potter yesterday was going back forward with David French and he was like, I knew this was a risk. And I was just like, oh, you knew the leopard was going to eat your face and then you
Starting point is 00:43:36 got into the cage anyway. Like the Maga Hawks did the snake poem. They knew he was a snake and they let him in. They were all against him, but they were. let him in anyway. And he gave them what they wanted for a year and a half. You know, he was bombing Iran, bombing Venezuela. They were all bragging about how they made this bet. And now he has signed the most humiliating surrender since the Civil War in this country in France. Yes. And I think that the Maga and the Maga Hawks now are going to lose their party and lose their credibility. And I think that they have been screwed the worst. That's my first pick. Okay, round two. Who do you want? So I'm worried this comes under Maga Hawks, but I'm going to go with it anyway, which is
Starting point is 00:44:24 kind of the Israel Republican crowd. So three years ago, four years ago, the APAC, and again, I'm not one of these APACs. Miriam Adelson. We'll use Miriam Adelson. We'll use Miriam Adelson. Like, you know, three, four years ago, the kind of the pro-Israel crowd played both sides pretty well, you know, supportive Democrats, they supported supportive Republicans. In the last few years, they've really gotten into bed with this idea of BB and Trump. And they just got absolutely waylaid right now, just absolutely waylaid. And I've talked to a few of them. They're kind of sitting there huma to hummeda right now trying to figure out where to go from here. I think they got screwed probably as big as anything. Add something on top of that, by the way. They had a really good
Starting point is 00:45:06 partner in Joe Biden. They really did. Israel Hawks had a really good partner in Joe Biden that gave them like 85% of what they wanted in the face of real legitimate at the times and harsh criticism from within his own coalition. And he was stalwart with them. And Kamala Harris, you kind of wasn't really showing her cards on that. Husband Doug Emhoff, I think was obviously potentially somebody that could be worked with on these issues. He's been talking about anti-Semitism a lot since she lost.
Starting point is 00:45:38 And so they had a partner there that was not 100% of what they wanted, but was a lot of the way there. And they decided instead to attack him. Yes. And smear him and throw all of their eggs in with one of history's greatest con men. Yeah. And now he's conned to them. And it's kind of like, whoops. Yep.
Starting point is 00:46:01 Yep. Oops. Kind of deserved, actually. Sit in it. And you have alienated the Democrats who are going to be in power soon. Right. And by the way, sometimes, you know, like October 7th, terrible day, there's a lot of emotion. Probably every Israeli wanted to nuke everybody.
Starting point is 00:46:17 But you need somebody on the outside that's like, all right, you know, hold on, hold back a little bit. You need a moderating force. We all need a moderating force in our life. And so there you go. That's what happened. So now they have right. That's your pick.
Starting point is 00:46:31 They had a good year. I'm glad you said that. Okay. Good choice. Boy, I'm looking at my draft board here. A lot of good ones. This one's not as funny, so I'm just going to be brief on exit. It's pretty depressing, but the Hispanic Trump voters I've got to go with as my second pick.
Starting point is 00:46:44 A little shot in a little bit. But I mean, it's all so. Yeah. Yeah. It's horrifying what's happening in their communities and was also predictable. But he said he was going to do it. They told them they were to do it. They had signs.
Starting point is 00:46:58 It said mass deportation now. There were signs. It was clear. Like not like there were signs like you could have seen signs like they were literal placard. signs. Yeah, I know. It wasn't a Jesus sign. It was like a real printed sign from Kinko's. Third round. Okay. I'm going to go with, this is one that's personal to me. Great. Is the man, the manosphere. Oh yeah. They're on my board. I've got to use the manosphere because
Starting point is 00:47:27 Andrew Schultz, Gerogen, Theo. Yeah. And I don't I don't know if they've gotten their comeuppance yet fully. But it's coming. Here's the thing. Like, so let's be, let's be of Democrats for a second, or some on the left. I'm not even going to say Democrats, which is, you know, there was this period we went through where everything masculine was called toxic. And so you created this environment where young men felt like masculinity was evil and wrong. And men like us weren't out there defending healthy masculinity, which to me healthy masculinity is fighting for a cause, punching up, not down, defending your family, stuff like that. It's a good thing. But in the absence of that definition, this toxic manosphere comes along and it really is.
Starting point is 00:48:08 toxic masculinity and it exploded. Well, so people began to believe it was all tweet caps, be mean to people, be loud, that's masculine, make sure you lift weights, all that kind of stuff. The truth is, the guy that they are seen as this masculine hero who is a fat, sick man, who's a husk of a man now, president of the United States, who smells ridiculously terrible, who needs a UFC fight, he is collapsing in front of them. They're now waking up to it. And I think the backlash, unfortunately, I think it's going to be too strong. But I think the backlash against the manosphere is going to be pretty intense. Also, what were the main issues that they cared about?
Starting point is 00:48:48 Anti-war. Yeah. Epstein. Free speech. Like, those are like the three main things that they were criticizing, either the Democrats or the Uniparty about. Like, right, was that, you know, not dealing with all this. Trump got us into a stupid war, did an Epstein cover up.
Starting point is 00:49:06 And it's been a full assault on free speech. from this administration. So, yeah, no, those guys got totally cucked and humiliated. Okay. My third round pick, well, I've got, how many more do you have? How many rounds can we do? I can give you two rounds. I got one dark horse, so I say this one.
Starting point is 00:49:21 Okay, good, good, good, two more. I will pair, I'll pair with the Manosphere, the Crypto Bros. Oh, God, yes. I was just Googling this as we were chatting. Year to date, Bitcoin is down 39%. Ethereum was down 41%. I bet if we went and looked at Trump coin, that'd be down about 98%.
Starting point is 00:49:45 And so Trump is making ungodly sums of money on crypto, like unimaginable generational wealth. And your average crypto investor, if you want to call it that, is holding the bag and getting their ass handed to them this year. Thanks, Donald Trump. All right, round four. So my wife is Salvadorian, by the way, And, you know, El Salvador is big on the crypto thing.
Starting point is 00:50:09 And last, I'm going to El Salvador in a week or two. But a year ago, we went. And I'm sitting next to this fat dude. Sorry, overweight, man, whatever you're supposed to say. And he started talking about how great El Salvador was. And I'm like, all right, what's going on here? And yep, huge trumper. Thankfully, didn't recognize me.
Starting point is 00:50:25 Sold me on Bitcoin. And shortly after that is when it dropped 40%. Anyway, I don't wish him ill. I wish him no ill. But, okay, here's my dark horse. This is why nobody's going to think about. So that's why I wanted to mention it, which is veteran advocacy groups. Okay.
Starting point is 00:50:41 Because we have allowed, you talked about this. I think it was you talked about. I only listened to two podcasts. It was you or somebody else. But it was, who else you listened to me? It's like, I don't, I don't remember who this one was, but like maybe Sykes or something. But anyway, people were talking about how we have let the Republicans basically own the flag and own patriotism. And I think some of that came on the veteran side of things, too.
Starting point is 00:51:09 And people have kind of seen the Republicans as pro-veteran. And I don't think Republicans are anti-veter. But what we've seen under this administration is criticism of VA disability. Now, that's with Graham Platner. I've also seen it on the total expenditure. And by the way, VA disability is not there for if you can't walk or you can't move your shoulders. It's, you know, granted based on any physical ailment you have on war. Right.
Starting point is 00:51:35 But this administration has looked at things like the VA to cut people, to cut things to save money, while increasing their tax cuts for the wealthy. And I think pro-veterans advocacy groups have been screwed by this administration. Good pick. My fourth round pick is the farmers. Yeah, good one. Folling on board, the economy and farm country is worse than anywhere else in America. Tariffs were destroying them on both sides. So they were destroying their markets, like demand is down.
Starting point is 00:52:06 They don't have China to sell to. And then we had the war and the increase in cost of fertilizer meant that their inputs are up. So it's harder to sell and it's costing more to buy. That's tough for the farmers. The Doge program cuts, we should mention. A lot of farmers supported school lunches, healthy school lunches. USAID did work that were some of it was American food and also did research into things, such as the screw worm.
Starting point is 00:52:34 He also cut from Doge, the program that was looking into the screw worm. Now that's getting into our cattle. Farmers are just getting bent over left and right by this administration. And I'm hopeful that they'll come around. Welcome. Wasn't that long ago that farmers voted for Democrats? There's some good farm Democrats out there. Josh Turek, Dan Osborne.
Starting point is 00:52:56 This is why the Democrats, this is why the Democrats need room. You talked about this yesterday for social moderates to conservatives in their coalition. You can win over the farmers with that. Yeah, there's a couple of good candidates and candidates. And I'm not putting my finger on the scale because I'm kind of intrigued about the Kansas Senate race. Roger Marshall, I mentioned earlier, is a clown. And it was on TV, like kind of doing like, yeah, Iran does deserve missiles. I was just like, I'll just do whatever Trump wants.
Starting point is 00:53:22 And they've got a couple candidates. One of them is like a pastor. And I, you know, I'm just intrigued by that. kind of model. I agree. Somebody in farm country that reflects farm country and, you know, maybe has some socially conservative views, but it's going to be with the Democrats on economic issues, foreign issues, democracy, et cetera. And also the ketamine industry got screwed because ketamine is a helpful therapeutic, but Elon Musk made it look like a real dumbness thing. So that's your fifth pick, the ketamine industry? Okay, I'll go with the catam industry. I can't, I was,
Starting point is 00:53:55 I had steel workers and Shaw fans for my honorable mentions fans of the Shaw. You win. You win. You You had a better list. The steel workers. Yeah. Manufacturing jobs. Okay. Yeah. Well, we spent so much time when the draft that the podcast is over.
Starting point is 00:54:11 It's a shot and point of podcast. We deserve it. I had other things I had. I cover Ukraine with Michael Weiss and Ann Applebaum. We can kind of move forward on that. I guess the one thing I want to get your take on is what you think you start to see now from Congress. I mean, like these guys have the Republicans in Congress. have been really, on the one hand, totally embarrassed by Trump in every way.
Starting point is 00:54:36 I mean, particularly in the Senate, there's still a lot of old school hawks that kind of have swallowed their pride at various times, and I think are looking at this going, you're really going to stuff Bill Pulte down my throat still. You're going to do this surrender in Iran. Like, there's no consideration for, you know, what the Senate wants to put forward priority rise. There's Cornyn, Tillis, Cassidy, who have all gotten directly. screwed by Trump. So on the one hand, I don't know, I think we might see for the first time some real pushback. On the other hand, the ending of the war is really bad medium term. Short term probably
Starting point is 00:55:15 helps Republicans in Congress because I think the worst case scenario was like a true energy crisis, obviously. And so maybe Republicans and Congress kind of just do the same thing they've always done and kind of use that as a rationale for getting back around. How do you kind of see that shaking out? Look, I think they're desperate to get out of town and to go home. I think they're desperate to get this midterm over with. They're desperate to get past their primaries for those that have them. I don't think you're going to see a meaningful opposition to Trump grow. And here's the important thing for people to understand because I lived it. And thankfully, I decided to go a different route when I got out of Congress. But people ask me all the time, you know, why will Bill Cassidy now not speak out
Starting point is 00:55:56 on everything. He occasionally puts out a tweet or something. And it's this. It's because, yes, you want to get invited to the cocktail parties. Your political affiliation is now your tribe and getting kicked out of your tribe sucks. You want to go lobby again, which is something you didn't do. Kudos to you afterwards. And Cornyn said that directly. He was like, he's like ex-senators make a lot more money. That's exactly right. And I made a conscious decision to keep speaking out. And that would cost me an ability. I didn't want to lobby anyway. But yes, if you want a lobby, you think about it. What is it based on? It's based on your ability to call somebody and access them. And if you were a, if you're a, what is it, an un-chosen, or you're an unworthy, or you turned against the party, they're not going to take your call.
Starting point is 00:56:39 And that affects your value. That's why you can sit here and say, I did my best while I was in. And now my job, somebody else's job, my job's to make money. There's an argument to be made on that. Tons of people leave, you know, the federal prosecutors and go be defense lawyers. This revolving door happens everywhere. But it's kind of sad. All right. Lastly, you're in Texas now. A lot of big races there this year. Just kind of just wanted to do a temp check with you. I was kind of interested.
Starting point is 00:57:04 One is there was focus groups recently. And this is where sometimes I think focus groups are very valuable for just like curing sentiment among people, like not as valuable among like candidate stuff because you just like might get a group where that. And so it was interesting. Like in this group, Gina Hinojosa, who we had in Austin with us running against Greg Abbott like was more popular than Talico. which is among the Swinger group.
Starting point is 00:57:28 I don't know if there's that much to read in the bet. That's not what the polls say. But I don't know. So you've got those two races, governors race, Senate race, our guy Bobby Polito, anything else you're looking at your sense for what's happening there? Yeah, in terms of Texas as mate,
Starting point is 00:57:41 I try to stay out of Texas politics, like just personally because, you know, it's nice to live somewhere where you're not involved. But I think Tala Rico's got a real shot here. And I think we're going to best know in September. I think that's a good time to take a poll. If Tala Rico's down, it's going to be hard for him to come back. If he's up, it may be worth investing a little more money in. The reason I kind of want to temper expectations in Texas is because at the end of the day, everybody comes home.
Starting point is 00:58:10 Because if you think about it, you can be one of these George H.W. Bush Republicans that are like, I might vote for Tala RICO. And then the Republican Party will spend millions of dollars talking about how Nancy Pelosi is going to rise from the ashes again. and you end up holding your nose. So I do think there's enough swing vote here. Beto came within, what, a couple points at one point, so it's doable. And I think there's a couple of races that the Republicans expected to win with the remap for the House that they're not going to. So I think it's going to be a pretty big reflection of what you see nationwide.
Starting point is 00:58:43 It's interesting. I'd like to see some more aggression going after Paxton. I know it's early June, but I'd like to see. There's a lot of material there to work with. There is. So hopefully that's. comes for fruition. I do think the one other counter thing in Texas, this kind of relates to my draft question about the farm country. And this is a sense, not something that's hard and fast, but it's
Starting point is 00:59:05 something to keep my eye on. It is the stupid war, in any place where it didn't hurt the economy, it was Texas. And the oil and gas companies are doing great. And I'm right by them, yeah. Yeah. And in farm country, it's not as good. Right. And so I kind of look at that Iowa, Nebraska, of Kansas. If you're like going to get a stretch seat, it's like maybe a surprise comes from there where things are going worse. Anyway, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:59:28 Something to monitor. We'll keep an eye on it. Adam Kinsinger, always appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, it was great being with you again, man. Who else was I going to make fun of the French with?
Starting point is 00:59:36 Yeah, it's us. It's us. I'm going to France. We love you. But, you know, sometimes you tease with love. Yeah. You guys, in France, you make fun of us. So, come on.
Starting point is 00:59:44 We're going to punch back a little bit. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the show, weekend pod. It's going to be a good one. We'll see you all that. Peace. The Borgue podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer, Ansela Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jay Jason Brown.

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