The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: Trump Is Q

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Policy differences pale in comparison to maintaining self-governance and restoring sanity in the country—high time for the anti-Trumpers to endorse the candidate who's not posting crap like a 17-year-old in his parents' basement. Plus, the Arlington incident, jealous Megyn Kelly, and why Russia is freaking out about the Telegram-related arrest. Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller. show notes: Will Selber on the Arlington episode and Section 60 Tickets for The Bulwark LIVE next week in Dallas

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He is a small man pretending to be big. Man, I am proud to bring back to the Bullwark podcast, contributor to this very website, founder of the Country First Pack, which supports pro-democracy candidates, former Republican congressman, my buddy Adam Kinzinger. What's up, man? Hey, buddy. What's going on? What a week, huh? What a week. I'm excited to talk to you about it. But first, really quick, we're going to be together in person next Thursday, a week from today, Bulwark live event in Dallas. It's almost sold out. It must have been your convention speech. Huge rush of tickets over the last week.

So we've almost filled up this theater. It's going to be awesome. It's gonna be fun. We'll hang out afterwards, have a beer. Check out thebulwark.com slash events if you are in Texas or want to make a last second trip and, you know and have a Lone Star with us. So I'm very much looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I've never done one of your live events, so it should be pretty good. They're fun, man. One nice thing, it always makes you feel good about everything because the people that shows up to these things are nice.

They're good people. They genuinely get people from different ideologies in one room. It's almost like a throwback. I had a text message from one of my buddies in Dallas. It was like, my mom was at dinner with a Trump to Kamala voting friend. And she was like, oh, you'd like this podcast my son's friend does called The Bulwark. She's like, I'm at the live event in Dallas next week. Dude, listen, I did an event up in Cleveland. It was just like some event.

And so I did like kind of a shaking people hands line thing. And seven, eight, 10 people, something like that, were all mentioning The Bulwark. It was just like some event. And so I did like kind of a shaking people, hands line thing. And at seven, eight, 10 people, something like that, we're all mentioning the bulwark. It's crazy. You guys have done something. We're killing it. We're taking over the world. Let's talk about that convention speech, man. As much as we're taking over the world, you really did. That had to be just like the reaction to it. Did your phone just turn into a brick? I mean, they gave you the pretty prime time slot there, like that you were the opener opener for Kamla. Yeah, so I went, I gave the speech. And it's kind of interesting, I never get nervous before speaking or doing like TV. This was the exception.

So I was nervous kind of in the back, you know, because everything's very machine like they have, you know, a plan for you to rehearse the day before. And then they, you know, 45 minutes before they bring you up. And I just had to kind of keep not focusing on the fact that I was going out to give a speech. And then, of course, literally once I stepped foot on stage, it was you're in your zone. So I left the speech after I gave it. I'm walking up to the box where my wife is, and this was probably a 10-minute walk. And by the time I got there, my phone was just almost unusable, which was nice.

I mean, everybody sent me nice, encouraging things. And thankfully Kamala went shortly after me. So all the attention was taken away, which is good. And so I was able to actually make it back to the box. But yeah, it was a good experience. And at first, I'll be honest with you. I didn't know, like, you know, at the beginning when I kind of laid down the marker

about still being conservative, you know, I expected initially, maybe there'd be some boos or kind of some muted applause. And there really wasn't. I mean, people understood the game. They understood that this is an alliance that's bigger than just them. And I had a blast. It was a fun time. I saw a cute photo of you hugging the wife. It was really, you know, got my feels going. You know, I'm a softie on the inside. When did they tell you that you had such a prime slot? Like, you know, I my feels going. You know, I'm a softie on the inside. When did they tell you that you had such a prime slot? Like, you know, I mean, I knew that you were going to be there, but I don't know. I would have thought maybe you had had the Tuesday at six o'clock.

When did you realize that you were the featured man? Yeah, I did too. I thought it would be like the, you know, the, they jam all the Republicans in one day and it's before prime time. But well, so it's funny because everybody kind of knew I was speaking before I did. It was like the January 6th committee. Pelosi already announced me on it before I even accepted it. But I got the call only about, man, it's got to be a week to 10 days before it. And then I found out just a couple of days after I learned I was speaking about the location of it. And I'm like, well, there must be two Adam Kinzinger's because there's no way they'd put me like right before her, but they did. And actually in hindsight, I think it

worked very well because her speech, you know, was very reaching out, I guess the best word is very big tent. And I think it made sense to have a Republican just before that, which kind of set the tone well. So yeah, it was cool. Yeah. I mean, I just sometimes I need to check on myself, you know, you know, I'm a moderate squish, and I'm also susceptible to like peans to like the American exceptionalism and the American spirit, like all that stuff. I'm a softie for all that. But I felt like there was a legitimate effort made in the speech by her to target, not even me in particular, but the haley primary voters the georgia suburb voters that she's going to need and and i thought it came off very authentic i don't know were you

kind of surprised by how much emphasis there was on that yeah i was surprised by a couple things so first off not only her speech but the whole convention it did not go into like the woke direction right it wasn't anti-woke me and crystal talked about this on monday like it was really kind of like not about you know oppression or grievance or or the systemic things we need to fix which you know there are systemic things we need to fix what's appropriate to talk about that but like it was the opposite it was about how grateful she was in a lot of ways yeah you know it's funny because i basically after the speech was over i really it's something that hit me as like, okay, you know, you and I have been well

aware that over the last like eight years, the Republicans and Donald Trump specifically have like vacated a lot of centrist territory, national defense, right? Like American pride. That's like generally kind of regular conservative, regular liberal centrist territory. He abandoned it. And for the first time, she took hold of that. She basically came in and said, if you're going to abandon the national defense real estate, if you're going to abandon USA chance, if you're USA chance or for the wrong reason, like I'm going to take that. Upside down flag USA chance. And that's what she did.

And I was impressed. You know, is it going to make a difference in the election? I think impressed. You know, is it going to make a difference in the election? I think so. But even just as importantly, it's going to make a difference in how people perceive the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party used to be the working man party, right? The party of, you know, maybe a little different than the Republicans on defense, but still were kind of unabashedly America's role in the world. And they're reclaiming that territory. And Donald Trump's just a whining, bellyaching, America sucks. You know, you say you love America, but you only love America as you envision it 50 years ago. You hate the America of today. And those are the kinds of

things that even if not in two months, over the next couple of years, will really start to seep in. If it wasn't Trump, you know, if we'd lived in an Earth 2 where like Nikki Haley could have been the Republican nominee, where she never was, like 70% of Kamala's speech would have been unnecessary. Maybe it's not 70%, but about half of the attacks that were delivered, or not even attacks, but half of the themes, you know, about patriotism, about the prosecutor element, like if on the other side, it wasn't somebody that was a criminal, that talked America that wanted to tear up the constitution, you know, it would have taken away the potency from a lot of what she said. I mean, they, like you're saying, like they literally ceded the territory to her, but

I'm glad she seized it. The other thing that, by the way, just cause I don't know if I've ever said this on here before that always bewildered me about the Haley Trump thing and how the party just collapsed with Trump is look, Haley, I think probably could have won this election, right? And not only could she have won, she would have been president for eight years. Like, it was hard to imagine a chance that she wouldn't have gotten reelected. We'll just do the inverse. Just flip it. Like, let's say that Biden was a stubborn old fart and stayed it out. And the Republicans had a powerful people like Nancy Pelosi, like Mitch

McConnell, that were able to push Trump off of the edge and they replaced him with Haley, it would have just been a total inverse situation. Totally. And again, you would have had the presidency for eight years. Now, what they did is they backed a guy that probably, hopefully can't win, but, you know, has less of a shot of winning and can only be president for four years anyway. So, I mean, it's like, even if the Democrats lose, we'll get to that. Yeah. Well, but even if the Democrats lose,

they'll probably win in four years if it's Trump. Okay. You know, I got to nag you a little bit. You know, I love you. We're old pals. It was great that you were in that slot. Shouldn't somebody else have been in it? Yeah. Where was everybody else? Have you talked to Chris Christie? Have you talked to Mitt? Have you talked to John Kell? Any of these people? No, I mean, with the few that I have, it's all like, oh, let's see how it goes. Or, you know, I'm trying to play this by ear. Let's see how it goes.

There was a riot at the Capitol. That's how it went. We've seen how it goes. Anyway, sorry. Here's the reality. And you and I talked about this offline a little bit. and I'm just going to spill the beans to people. So a lot of these folks, they're making money now. Okay. So they got out of politics. They're making money. Their money is not in media. Their money is in, I'm going to work at private equity or I'm going to

be a consultant and they can survive in that role. If they are not overly aggressive against the Republicans, you can survive with a past but not a future that's aggressive against the Republicans. And that's why they're being quiet. I mean, because if all of a sudden you come out against Donald Trump, and you work for a private equity firm, and that private equity firm has defense contracts, and they're worried that Trump's going to win and then, you know, violate that defense contract, turn against that defense company because of that, you're a liability all of a sudden. And this is why a significant amount of people are staying quiet. Not all of them. Like, I don't know what Liz Cheney's doing or anything like that, but some of them I can tell you for

a fact, because I've talked to them and they've told me they're concerned about their ability to make money. And I'll say this, look, if you were in the Bush administration 20 years ago, I don't think you still have a responsibility to always speak out. There's a point at which you do your duty and then you can move on. But if you were recently in government, you saw this stuff and you actually care about the future of the country. I mean, you've got to speak out. This is like the most important moment. You can shut up after November. You can shut up all you want after November, but this is like this moment. God. You can shut up after November. You can shut up all you want after November. But this is like this moment.

God, making it about money is even more depressing than some of the other theories, to be honest. And I do think Liz is going to end up coming out in the fall. And I think maybe some others, Esper. Esper seems like he just needs the tiniest nudge on CNN the other day on your network. What about Christy? Again, you don't have to betray private conversations. like i don't know maybe you should call him what's happening it feels like he should be there if you just listen to his speech and people if you haven't seen it go back in youtube the speech when he was dropping out in new hampshire it was powerful man like just doing that speech on stage in pennsylvania i think would. Like he's good at that part of it.

And you just can't imagine that he's going to be not voting for Kamala. Look, I haven't talked with Chris about this. I've, I've, I guess I've kind of tried, but like, I wouldn't be surprised if he kind of pulls a Liz comes out towards the

end. You know, it's, it's maybe a decent strategy. It's always good to show momentum at the end. As long as he does. Maybe the anniversary of the hurricane Sandy hug with Obama. You know, it's maybe a decent strategy. It's always good to show momentum at the end, as long as he does. Maybe the anniversary of the Hurricane Sandy hug with Obama. Yeah, there you go.

That wouldn't create any conspiracies. But, like, he would be good because he can prosecute such a case. I mean, he's also been clear. He said this on the campaign trail. Like, he doesn't envision himself having a political future anymore. He said this was kind of his last hurrah. So I don't know what he's doing last hurrah. So I don't know what he's doing in the private sector. I don't know if any of that comes into explain. I would

be surprised as I would with Liz if by the time we get to October, they're still quiet. And then I think we can speak out even more at that point if they if they haven't. I'm glad you're in there. I'm glad you had the balls to do that. And it was a great speech. And I think it bears out right to your point. Like you agree to do that. It's worth noting, you agree to do that you it was a great speech and i think it bears out right to your point like you agree to do that it's worth noting you agree to do that you don't really know what the democratic convention is going to be like like you don't have control over who they put after you or before you or what you know what i mean like it was just you're doing the right thing and you see how the chips fall and i think they put on a convention around you that was like right in theme with what you would have said regardless which is great yeah i mean that's the thing is there wasn't a time that she said in

her speech after me that i would have been like, oh, I don't want to be associated with that. I mean, she was unabashedly hawkish, pro-American. You know, the interesting thing, though, yes, I got all the nice texts, but, you know, we've all experienced this. This was a few weeks ago, but I had somebody that texted me. So this wasn't related to the speech that said, basically, it was my fault that the guy tried to shoot Donald Trump because of what I'm saying on television. You know, I had somebody that texted me after the speech that, you know, it was a great friend that basically is like, well, I was able to tolerate you going so far, but this is too far. And it's like, you know, you deal with that and it hurts, but this is what

taking a stand is. And that's why not everybody does it. I'm proud of you. We haven't mentioned on this. I just will take this opportunity to. There was an FBI report this week about that shooter. And it plays out exactly as I think what you and I talked about after it when we were speculating, which was it's a young, troubled man. Man, barely, you know, that was looking for various ways to go shoot something up to become famous. And he realized Trump was coming to his neighborhood. And when it comes down to it, it is the same story as so many of these situations where it's somebody with mental health troubles who has too easy access to high-capacity weapons.

That's it. That's what it was. And it's something about all the navel-gazing we do to just think about how much breath was spent on what was said on CNN panels. And like that really just wasn't it. And it's still insane to me that we raise the age of smoking. But you can buy in some states, you can still buy an AR-15 at 18. You can buy the ammunition for the ARs at 18. You can't buy a handgun until you're 21 which i guess is okay but there's yeah there's this mismatch and it's like between the age of

18 to 21 we are all psycho like i hate to tell you we all have crazy thoughts at that age and uh if you could at least delay that to 21 you can get a lot of the shooters out of the schools because many of them are like 18 19 years old but we've got to have a conversation but evidently you can get a lot of the shooters out of the schools because many of them are like 18, 19 years old, but we've got to have a conversation, but evidently you can't smoke now, but you can still buy a extremely, have a white claw. Yeah. All right. Speaking of why this was so important that you, and hopefully some of your other colleagues eventually come around to where you are on this.

Donald Trump has been posting on his social media feed the last couple days, and he's like back in 2016 form. And it's just, I think, important to highlight a couple of these. He had put up a, I guess, a transcript of something that Nicole Shanahan, who was RFK's VP back when he was running, who's just kind of an insane person, frankly, had said something, I think on CNN, about how she now believes that the justice system is out to target Trump

and all this conspiracy nonsense. He posted that. And then a bunch of people replied to him, naturally, with conspiracy memes. And he started reposting all of them. It includes how to actually fix the system,

an orange jumpsuit, Joe Biden, Hunter, Nancy, Hillary, Fauci, Gates, and Kamala. It includes retruth if you want to lock them up. So then he retruths it. So he wants to lock him up. That includes you. Congratulations, Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson, Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff. Also a retruth if you want military tribunals. And then one more to your point from earlier, this is not another four-year election, which maybe is a little less direct than the other three,

but still it's a little concerning to hear somebody that tried a coup already say this is not a four-year election because it is. What the fuck? What are we doing? I mean, I get it because humans, like you can't continue to be outraged over and over, but like, why isn't this on the front of every paper on every news channel if like randomly comrade started posting these things it would

leave the nightly news rightly rightly it would absolutely and the problem is is nobody's you know besides bulwark listeners and people on true social are going to know he's doing this crazy stuff because you know true Social is an echo chamber. He uses that to spin up his base, but it's also giving marching orders to folks. I mean, by the way, quick aside, I don't know how many times I've been threatened to be in Gitmo. So just get on with it, people. Either send me to Gitmo or quit talking about it.

Like, I'm happy to go. If you want to have a military tribunal with me, okay. It's been six years of threatening this, so let's just get on with it or just move on. Right. Cause it's like the same stuff. Okay. This over and over the Q's coming. Kinzinger is going to get low. We're going to have military tribunals, but Donald Trump is basically not even flirting with Q anymore. He is Q now, like he is doing this. And this is like, if you're a Republican, if you're an anti-anti, or you're like, I don't like Kamala's policy on, like, fine, okay? But do you want America to continue as a country? Do you want self-governance to continue? Then get over yourself. Get over your little policy differences, because guess what? You're going to have policy differences with Trump. You're going to have policy differences with your what? You're going to have policy differences with Trump.

You're going to have policy differences with your wife. You're going to have policy differences with Kamala. And if you live to be 100 years old, you're going to have policy differences with whoever is president then. But this is an existential moment. We're calling for a little more than your little pride about a policy difference. We're calling for actually returning sanity to this country and getting rid of a guy, flushing him down the toilet of history that's posting stupid crap that 17-year-olds in their parents' basement post. Yeah. I mean, if you were working at an Arby's and your fellow cashier was posting this, you'd be like, that guy's not on the management track.

I mean, this is crazy shit if your grandpa was posting this you'd be like i i think it's time for gamps to consider a home i mean honestly yeah let's give them let's give them one of those uh things you do for the kids where you give them an ipad that only lets them go to certain websites like what the fuck or the big telephone the jitterbug yeah it is insane and crazy but all our listeners know this so we can have one moment of fun with it given those names joe hunter nancy hillary fauci gates kamala you liz benny thompson zoe lofgren adam schiff pete aguilar stephanie murphy barack obama i want you to tell me who you would most like to dorm with at gitmo and who you at least like to dorm with

probably among the top is like benny thom Thompson because he's real easy to get along with. Okay. And I feel like I could drink with him if we could get some rum snuck in. Yeah, I could see that. Stephanie Murphy was really cool. She's tough. She always like defends herself, which I like and I respect. So I think we could kind of cook some stuff up or cook some escape routes out of Gitmo.

Pete Aguilar is fun too i mean the young guy so i feel like between me pete benny stephanie murphy like the parties would be off the chain and that probably the gitmo like you do would give us our own little like area where we can kind of like be detained but also throw big parties you know okay who's at the bottom of the list i noticed you hid from that question who do you not want to be who do you not want to be jailed with i don't know i mean i don't know interesting questions for bob with gates yeah that's that'll be the headline so yeah there'd be some boring people on that no i don't know interesting good party hillary i mean if you're on get mo you got nothing you can say it it's hillary you can say you just spoke at the DNC convention. We honor you, Hillary.

I voted for you. Okay, I voted for you. I don't know if I want to be in a jail cell with you. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah. We got some other business. Arlington Cemetery. Oh my gosh.

Will Selber, our former colleague at the Borg, is just an unbelievable Afghan vet. He wrote for us this morning. We'll put it in the show notes. I highly recommend everybody go read it. The headline is, Trump spoils one of our few sacred spaces. Section 60 matters deeply for post 9-11 veterans. There was a confrontation between one of the women that works at Arlington. It said you're not allowed to video in this section 60.

And there was a physical altercation. The Trump campaign put out a statement that she was having a mental health episode. You know, they were videoing Trump and put it up on TikTok amidst the gravestones. So anyway, thoughts on that? I mean, first off, to go after this lady for a mental health episode, look, she probably was irate, because she knew exactly what was being done. And if you think about it, if you're an employer, a volunteer in this area, your whole being is focused on honoring these folks and keeping politics out of it. I mean, that's the thing is this is not political. And, you know, they can try to say, well, you know, wherever we were, that family wanted us there. Okay, fine.

Guess what? You don't get to make that decision. Even if you have somebody you love that's resting in that area, you don't get to make that decision on behalf of the thousands of others there either. You don't get to do a thumbs up and smile, even though you may want your picture with the former president. If this was a cemetery with just your fallen loved one, I would agree. You get to make that decision. But this is a decision as a country that we have decided to keep this up. It's not even that he doesn't care about the fallen or he calls them suckers and losers. He's physically, you talk about a mental health problem. He is physically incapable of having empathy, sympathy, or thinking of anything besides himself.

And I'm going to tell you, if you're only thinking about yourself, that is the best photo op you can get is standing there in Arlington National Cemetery. Only if you give a rat's ass about the people that have fallen and about politicizing the fallen, would you defer? But he obviously doesn't care. And by the way, I guarantee you that whoever his staff was that had this confrontation with the lady has never served a day in their life, never considered serving a day in their life. And frankly, is the same people that are on the internet that are going after veterans that don't like Donald Trump and saying that they're betraying their country. How many times I've been called a traitor, you know, despite the fact that it's by these kids

that have never served a day in their life, like fine, whatever. But I hope America sees through this. I beg it. There was a little karma in that photo op. I don't know if you noticed it. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who I've always liked. I've tried to get him on the pod a bunch of times. As far as Republicans go these days, he's about as decent as you can get. I mean, he stood up to an anti-trans bill in the state, tried to find a compromise. He's good on refugees and immigration stuff. He seems like a decent person. And he was anti-Trump.

But for political reasons in Utah, he put out some statement a couple weeks ago about how he was going to be for Trump. And Trump loves a convert, right? So he was with him at this. So he's in that photo. And it's just like, I don't know, man, if I were a Mormon and I believed that, that, uh, you know, there was consequences for your sins. It seems like, uh, he might've experienced it. Cause he has to like put out this statement and be like,

I didn't know. And you know, there he is, uh, doing the opposite Kinzinger in Arlington cemetery with Donald Trump. Yeah. And it's, it just goes to show, I mean, I like Spencer Cox too. I know him and I mean, he's legitimately as anti-Trump as we are. And I'm disappointed that he has, he has made this, you know, deal with the devil cause he's made it through his primary and everything. Like he's good, but like, obviously he's never served. So he posts a picture of smiling thumbs up at a gravestone and to him, it seems fine. And and yeah it backfires and he deserves every bit of that backfire this is this is insane and and i just again if we're gonna sit here and say that this it's okay to go into now every congressional campaign every state rep campaign

is gonna have to go to arlington national cemetery with their campaign signs and get their picture taken if we want to do this we can't just just make an exception for Donald Trump because he's Donald Trump. We can't just make an exception for the people running for president. Now every candidate can go to Arlington and make a spectacle of it. Do we really want that America? I don't think we do. Great point. Some of the families that I think are pro-Trump or Republican, whatever, families of the people who died in Afghanistan did defend him. And one of the things they pointed out was that Kamala has, you know, not been contacting them, not been supporting an investigation into what happened at Abbey Gate,

taking the Arlington bullshit aside. Like there's something to be said for that, right? I don't know. I kind of understood why Biden, like this was baggage. If Biden was at the top of the ticket, doesn't help at all to talk about it. Shouldn't Kamala do something, right? To like acknowledge the folk that died at Abbey Gate and try to like bring a little closure to this. Is that element of this at least a little bit fair? I think so. I think the first off we need to keep in mind, if she does that, it's not going to swage this. They, I mean, I really believe that Trump people have used Abbey Gate now as a political weapon, as terrible as it was. And we need to be clear about something. The whole reason we were faced with an Abbey Gate is because Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump cut the worst deal with the Taliban

and basically put Biden in a situation where he either had to increase troop numbers, which was politically untenable for him, or withdraw. Now, the execution of that withdrawal was a disaster. I'm not sure how much better it could have gone with the exception of keeping Bagram Air Base open instead of Kabul International Airport. But I heard you mention the other day, we've been critical of this withdrawal forever and we should be. And so, yes, combo,

I think can get some answers on that. I'm not sure what other answers there are to get besides, look, there was a pretty jacked up withdrawal and terrorists took advantage of it. That's the answer. Yeah. Right. And she could just acknowledge that she can,

there's going to be a review. I mean, you know, cause nobody was fired, right? Like I'm going to do a review. I just think that there's some like basic things. I gonna do a review i contacted the family i i just kind of seems like a basic decent thing to do and it doesn't have any the baggage of biden right like

doing it right because she wasn't in the chain of command i fully agree and and there should have been people fired from dod and state department because keep in mind how jacked up the visa thing was. Oh, my God. It was worse, really, honestly. It was awful. And I remember in May, by the way, Tim, that State, when we're like, hey, you guys have got to process these special immigrant visas because this thing is going to fall apart, they basically announced they were taking COVID protocols because COVID was increasing

in Afghanistan, and they basically vacated the embassy and decided to do this all virtually. So, yeah, I'm still pretty bitter about all that. I want to do some quick poll talk and then a couple other items to news. I'm going to get your take on Ukraine, and maybe we can just dunk on Megyn Kelly for one second. But the polls, Fox out yesterday. Fox is a pretty good pollster on the news side of things. Plus one in North Carolina for Trump. Harris is plus pretty good pollster, unlike the news side of things. Plus one in

North Carolina for Trump. Harris is plus two in Georgia and Nevada and plus one in Arizona. So it's these Sunbelt states, Harris winning three, Trump winning one, but all within the margin. Emerson, less good pollster, but we'll just say it, throw it in the pile. Trump plus three in Arizona, plus one in North Carolina, plus one in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania tied. Harris plus one in Nevada, Georgia, and plus three in Michigan. I bring all this up just to make two points. One, the Georgia news is objectively good on both of those. An eight-point swing in Fox from Biden to Harris in Georgia from down six to plus two.

Harris then also winning Georgia in Emerson. That's important because Trump's path to victory pretty much requires Georgia. And so I think that that is encouraging. On the other hand, you know, there's a lot of people are maybe sniffing their farts a little too much right now because things have been very good the last five weeks. But man, that is those numbers show a very, very tight election here coming in the fall and polls that come out today, Wednesday, Thursday are starting to maybe not completely take in the convention bounce. But now we're getting, you know, what things look like

post convention. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, look, it's, uh, it makes me sick that it's still tied to be honest with you. I, again, I don't understand it. I don't understand how anyone can vote for this guy, but let's just be objective now. And of have an opinion which is it is a devastatingly tight race and i you know short of something major happening i don't see any way we go into election day with a good feeling about who's gonna win and this is where then as you guys have covered a bunch the ground game does matter like no more money. I mean, money is important, and everybody still give. But, you know, it's like, okay, I saw three ads during, you know, my daily stories, instead of four ads is not going to make a difference in how you vote. It's important to be on TV. But what is going to matter

is those field operations, making sure that everybody votes early, because, you know, any given day, whatever it is, one person in the country is sick, right? So you want to make sure you get your vote in early, driving people to the polls. And this is where Harris has a massive advantage. If you take literally all things being equal, it's a tie race in Georgia, for instance, Harris will win every time because she has a better ground game. So that's an advantage that they have. But this is a dead nuts close race. And we're not going to have any idea come election day who's going to win. I really don't believe it. Yeah, I agree with that. If you have any elderly family members voting early is important this year. If it keeps that tight, I love the Jimmy Carter thing. I love that. He's like, I'm sticking

around to vote early in Georgia. I don't have it in front of me. Like the Georgia early voting starts in late September, I think mid September, but it's like, I'm making it to then just so that I can file my, if she wins by one, that'll like the most that's how you know that you know history is not random somebody's writing it at that point yeah or living in a simulation yeah you were on you told me a uh ukraine pod this morning so um i feel like i've been remiss in covering ukraine or doing the best we can with all the domestic news from your sense what's the latest following the incursion to kursk and everything else happening over there? Yeah, so it's the podcast Ukraine the latest.

It's Telegraph, and they basically cover Ukraine very well. You had Michael Weiss on, and he's one of the best on this. Just the basic top line is Ukraine continues to own and expand the area of Kursk. So basically, they have taken more territory in Russia, of Russian territory than Russia has taken in Ukraine in the last year, which is incredible. But the big issue right now, as Russia continues to ramp up its ballistic missile attacks, its drone attacks, is that we are still preventing Ukraine, it's nonsensical, we're still preventing Ukraine from hitting Russian targets in Russia with American weapons.

And so if you have these glide bombs or these missiles that are being launched literally at civilians in Ukraine, they're sitting there with the capacity to take out these planes on the runway, but the United States is not letting them. This continues to be a big, a big problem. And I don't understand. This is one area where I'll be critical of the administration. I don't understand what their continued hesitancy is. I mean, Ukraine has invaded Russia, for God's sakes, which is actually Russia's stated red line for nuclear weapons. They're not going to go escalate to nuclear weapons because they're now using American weapons in Russia on legitimate targets. So this is the big thing. The other big thing we're watching is continued personnel shortage on both sides of this fight.

I mean, Russia's lost 600,000 people, more than the U.S. lost in World War II. Think about that. Russia has lost to take almost no territory. This is just a matter of, I think Vladimir Putin is waiting to see who wins this election. There's no way he'll negotiate in good faith until he sees Donald Trump lose. A hundred percent agree with you on all that. Obviously, this reminds me something that I almost forgot to bring up on the podcast, but just listening to you talk about allyship with Ukraine,

there was another big news story involving you this week. And that was Senator Mike Lee, also out of Utah. oh my god mike lee well it didn't personally accuse he elevated the accusation of a criminal who lives in new zealand named kim.com made the accusation that there there's an online group called nafo n-a-f-o that does you know basically memes and pro-ukraine support right like you know trying to you know support the effort in ukraine online being positive, with outing Russian bots, things of this nature. Mike Lee said that that group, NAFO, this sort of online meme army, if you will, was actually a CIA operation. And the point man for that CIA operation is right here on this podcast, Adam Kinzinger. So I have to ask

you, is Mike Lee correct? Are you a CIA operative running the NAFO campaign? I can neither confirm nor deny. I'll say this. There's no way this podcast episode's going up now. I got people in high places. No, look, this is what's insane. So NAFO is literally kind of at the beginning of the war,

this dude created North Atlantic Fellas organization. And the whole point was just to like, you know, push back against this crap we see on the internet of this Russian bots. And it actually has grown into this like phenomenon that truly will be studied for a long time. I would consider myself a NAFO member. And usually they have, you see cartoon dogs like Shiba Inus, right? Like, and anyway, it's been really effective. I mean, it's actually driven Russian officials off of Twitter because of this. So this Kim.com says that it's dying because the CIA is not funding it anymore. And I've been the leader of it. And I pushed back on that kind of laughingly, like, yeah, hey, guys, our budget was reauthorized and now we have to

be worse. And freaking Mike Lee, used to be a serious constitutional scholar, tweeted something along the lines of there should be no government, blah, blah, blah, and doing this online. First off, screw you, Mike, because there actually should be government efforts to push back against propaganda. But beyond that, this is just a bunch of people from a bunch of different countries doing some fun stuff. And what an idiot. What an unserious idiot. Seriously.

Mike Lee, one of our senators, based Mike Lee is his Twitter. The unserious idiot. So cool. One more foreign, relatively foreign, but it's become a domestic issue I saw you tweeting about that I want to get your take on. So Telegram, it's kind of like WhatsApp. People are familiar with that or signal it's an app that people use for one-to-one communication but it is expanded on the right and apparently into some other areas but at least politically on the right as it's kind of like a mass communicating thing for like a for a list serve almost like a texting list serve i was on lynn woods telegram for a while which had

a disturbing number of followers he was he was one of the stop the steel freaks who was who was arguing that trump was the secret president like well into like 2022 the telegram founder uh pavel durov got arrested over criminal activity on the platform the tucker carlson's that world is all out there saying oh this is you know part of the new world order's plot to stop us and you sent a tweet that titillated me a little bit, saying that that's not really the full story here. Yeah, so two things. Let's back up a second. When you now see Republicans defending all this idea of free speech and Donald Trump,

you have to ask yourself why. Do you remember back when Donald Trump almost shut down the government or wouldn't sign an NDAA on the issue of Section 230? Section 230 is part of the law that basically protects Twitter and Facebook from being sued for what is done on their platform. Donald Trump wanted to rescind that to basically make Twitter and Facebook accountable for what's on their platform. Now, all of a sudden, Donald Trump is Mr. Free Speech. Why? Because Elon bought Twitter and everything else. Telegram, so on this platform, they have done nothing to push back against child pornography,

against drugs, against prostitution. So as well as this right-wing chatter, there is this stuff that's happening, which is basically why he was arrested by France. But the reason the Russians are so scared, and some on the right, is because a lot of Russian intelligence operations and Russian military coordination is done through telegrams. So it's basically a commander here and a commander here, an FSB operative here or an FSB operative here. are not only happening in Telegram, they're actually using Telegram to then coordinate their influence operations around the world, again, as well as military movements. So, that is why they're scared to death. It has nothing to do with all of a sudden, Vladimir Putin's newfound appreciation for free speech. Got it. Okay. So, those are some valuable servers then, potentially. We'll keep monitoring that story. All right. We're going to close with a one-minute hate and then a one-minute joy. Our one-minute hate is going to be Megyn Kelly. Let's listen to Megyn Kelly talking about Caitlin

Collins of CNN. I'm sorry, but she's only a star with leftists. And the fact that she has some roots in Alabama does not make her a fair and balanced reporter. I will submit to the record, her biggest sin is not that she is biased, though she is, it's that she's boring. She's extremely boring with no personality. I have a pro tip for her. Try smiling every once in a while.

Try not to be like in your delivery, such a cold hearted all the time because it gives people nothing to bond to you can be a tough interviewer and also have some warmth maybe it takes one to know one situation megan kelly uh talking about caitlin collins uh your colleague at cnn what's fucking wrong with these people i don't know i actually think caitlin collins is a great journalist i actually just told her that recently is like a journalist job isn't to to be your friend. A journalist job is to be serious. Is she not smiling all the time?

Good. That means she's a serious news person. Megan Kelly is the one that went from like Donald Trump saying blood out of her, whatever to now as hardcore in Trump village as she can be because she got fired and she needs to make money. Like that to me is poor journalism, not somebody who doesn't smile all the time. What a huge jerk. I mean, and then

it sounds more like jealousy because at least Caitlin's still at a major network and, you know, Kelly's out there doing her own Twitter or whatever she's got. It does sound like jealousy. And it's just like, what are you doing? Like you're putting on a cheerleader outfit for Donald Trump for this? Yeah. Like, calling Caitlyn Collins the B word. Caitlyn Collins, I think, has done a great job. She got put in a really bad situation by CNN on that Trump town hall. And so I think some on the left think that, like, whatever, that she wasn't tough enough on him or that she didn't.

But she was put in a horrible situation by Chris Licht. That was all Chris Licht's fault. And I think Caitlyn has done a phenomenal job. I thought she did as good of a job as you could do for the guy that just basically vomits words out constantly. Yeah, with a rooting section in the audience. So anyway, Caitlin, we honor Caitlin on this podcast. Megyn Kelly can eat a dick.

Not in a good way. I saw you tweet this. I was like, we have to share this joy with the listeners. There's a little musical number that was put out by, you might remember Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. Strong Republican. Strong Republican, Ron Swanson. It turns out like Adam Kinzinger, Ron Swanson is for Kamala. Let's listen to a little bit of his musical tribute to Kamala Harris. So I'm proud to be a Kamala man who's quit the GOP Cause I just can't stick with a man convicted of 34 felonies

And it's time to stand up and face the facts After all the scams and tricks He's a half-assed Putin wannabe Yes, Trump's a half-assed Putin wannabe Yes, Trump's a fucking dick Trump's a fucking dick. We don't bleep on the Bullwark podcast. That was on whatever I scrapped that from that they had to bleep at. There you go.

Nick Offerman, Ron Swanson. That's an Adam Kinzinger, Kamala man song if I've ever heard one. That is. And Nick Offerman is from the district I used to represent from Minooka, Illinois. He lived, he grew up about three miles from where I live and I haven't met him yet. So Nick, if you're a Bulwark listener, let's get a beer sometime. We got to make that happen. Maybe he'll be like the Beyonce of the Bulwark live event in Dallas next Thursday. Secret guest that we think might come that everyone says might come but it doesn't actually show up we appreciate you nick offerman adam kinsinger you are the best can't wait to have

a beer with you next thursday everybody else will be back for friday edition of the bulwark podcast tomorrow see y'all then peace see you i am light as a feather and as stiff as a board. I pay attention to things that most people ignore. And I'm alright with the movies that make jokes about senseless cruelty, that's for sure. And I am built like a mother in a total machine I feel for your every little issue I know just what you mean And I make light of the darkness I've got sun in my motherfucking pocket Bless me, we

Yeah, you know me, I'll fight Forgiving, I forget I know my age and I act like it God, what you can't resist I'm a perfect American I am white as a feather, I'm as fresh as the air Coca-Cola bottles that ail me used to curl my hair Got class and integrity just like the goddamn Kennedy I swear, with love to spare Forgiven, I forget

I know my age and I act like it God, what you can't resist I'm a perfect all-American bitch With perfect all-American lips And perfect all-American hips I know my place, I know my place The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.