The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Kinzinger: Yes, Russian Propaganda Is Infecting the GOP

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Two powerful Republican congressmen say some of their colleagues are advancing Russian propaganda, but they're still letting Moscow Marjorie run the show. Plus, Biden needs to hammer the GOP on Ukraine, Trump's weird smell, and how the Bush 43 contingent in Texas can help KO Ted Cruz. Kinzinger joins Tim Miller. show notes: Tim's article on Red Dog Democrats Trump ad, with his head blocking out the sun

landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm just so thrilled to be here with my old pal, former Republican congressman from Illinois, Jeb Bush endorser, endorser, endorser, and endorser. I think probably

mutual. Senior political commentator for CNN, founder of Country First, which backs pro-democracy candidates. You had a book called Renegade. You have a Substack newsletter. You have a child. You're keeping busy, Kinzinger. Yeah, I'm trying. When you're not in Congress, you got plenty of time to do other things like live life and enjoy life and you know enjoying life is important we talked about this the end of the podcast yesterday with bill crystal and i think that a key constituency for joe biden is people who just enjoy life yeah you know these are joe biden's core supporters yeah they just they're not angry they're not like looking for that upset for some violation of their rights or whatever you know they're just living violation of the you know patriotic correctness right you know nobody offended them there wasn't a trans person giving

them coffee this morning they're not upset about that anyway we'll get into all that i meant to get to this yesterday and forgot and you're the person to talk to it about a couple congressmen a couple mics a couple of your former colleagues, Mike McCall and Mike Turner, current Republicans, they both indicated over the weekend that they think some of their colleagues have become susceptible to Russian propaganda and are advancing it. Let's just take a listen real quick. Let's turn to Ukraine, an issue that's important to you and your fellow Republican chairman, Michael McCaul, who runs the Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman McCaul made a comment this week about

what he says sounds like Russian propaganda from some conservative media and why it's so difficult to explain to Republican voters why supporting Ukraine is important. He told Julia Yaffe, quote, I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base. He singled out primetime shows on conservative channels. Do you agree with him? And how big is this problem? Oh, it is absolutely true. We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor. I mean, there are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict

between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not. Just two Republican congressmen saying that, I think this would be front page news. Like, you have two Republican congressmen saying, my party infected with Russian propaganda. Anyway, what's your take on all that? Well, I mean, let's look in a different world. This has just been like a non-enemy France, right? If they're like, yeah, French propaganda, government of France, people would be outraged. This is Russia. This isn't just some country that we're agnostic about.

This is one of our enemies. Look, they're both right. Obviously, they're both right. But here's what really kind of drives me nuts about that, Tim. Yes, they're both right but here's what really kind of drives me nuts about that tim yes they're both right they're also both going along with the russian propaganda in the party it's saying yes okay tim i'm going to come in front of you because you have an audience that will react well to this which is what he did on cnn yes russian propaganda is infecting and people are going to praise me for saying that. But then he goes back today.

Both of these mics will go back today to Washington, D.C., and not pull the trigger on forcing this bill to the floor. Now, maybe they will eventually, but it's been six months of them listening to Russian propaganda. And these aren't just two rank and file Republicans. These are the two Republicans that are head of the most powerful committees dealing with this issue, foreign affairs and intel. And yet they'll go on CNN and say it. And again, I don't want to discourage that. So I'm not sitting here just like crapping all over. But it's like at the same time you too

alone consider newsmax yeah you go to newsmax go to fox put out a tweet you too alone without anybody else with you can guarantee that the aid bill gets on the floor and yet again it's this go to the correct you know news outlet where you can say the things because nobody on your Fox outlet is going to be watching CNN and then just go quiet and let Marjorie Taylor Greene run the day. That's what drives me nuts because this isn't just an exercise in what are our tax rates going to be, you know, are the trains going to run on time? This is human life. And it just drives me nuts. This is the thing that is kind of related to your point right but it's like if you've accepted the premise if you've accepted the premise that the reason why

the aid isn't going to ukraine is because russian propaganda has infected your party then there's like a natural response that should follow on to that premise right which is that that i should do something to combat this i should maybe work with the democrats i should use some procedural maneuvers i should confront the propaganda right but it's like they think that that's the end right like they acknowledge that this is happening that's bad but now i don't have to do anything about it it's not my responsibility it's like my body is riddled with cancer do you want to go to one right like how about no how about we take you to the hospital right so that you can figure out how to get rid of this right it's like chemo is called for over

on newsmax yeah i've never had chemo but like chemo isn't fun everybody i know that's had it it's brutal just like taking on russian propaganda and infection in your party but it's like the two guys like mike turner and mike mccall are the most respected on foreign policy left in the congress and they'll go on tv and say russian propaganda has infected our party but boy i'm endorsing donald trump for 2024 because you know make america great again do you see these guys in the cnn green room not your cnn man you, like the remaining normals, like, are they mad at you because you say this sort of stuff? Or do they, are they whispering, Hey, I'm with you. Keep going. Like what kind of, what are you getting from them? So it's like, it's funny. I stay in touch with a lot of people, you know, and they're,

they're still polite. I try to put myself on the other end, which is like when I was in Congress, if there was somebody that was kind of critical of what we were doing, would I hate them? And the answer is no, because I'm like, I probably would agree with them, you know, in a large part. So most of these folks, yeah, I stay in touch with. I mean, there's a few that I have no contact with. Mike Gallagher is one of those because, you know, he was a huge disappointment on impeachment. And I heard your discussion about his early retirement. And I agree. agree i mean mike gallagher should be the one right now on the floor of the house representative shutting the floor down for god's sakes he's leaving he's got nothing better to do he's got 10 days 10 days left might as well do something and he's not

gonna run for office again obviously retiring this early and so but i stay in touch with most of them look i get it from their perspective. I don't agree. I understand how hard it is to speak out, but like, for God's sakes, this is, this is just such a moment in history. And I'm not saying this is like just to make a good podcast. Like I really believe like in my lifetime, this is the most important thing that we have ever dealt with. This being the Ukraine, Russia war, or this, the democratic threat or the whole, the whole kit and caboodle? I think it's all of it. But I guess in this context, it's Ukraine, it's the Russian interference, it's the division in the country. It's like the most important moment. And like these guys could get statues in Kiev built to them. They literally could get, you know, Mike McCall Avenue in downtown Kiev and they just can't do it.

Let's talk about what that looks like. So, you know, you're talking about how maybe Gallagher could be shutting down the floor. There are a lot of procedural, this is really more my husband's turf than mine, once you get into kind of what is happening in the procedure on the Capitol Hill and the arcana of how to, you know, get bills moved to the floor. I was never a Hill man, but you were over there. So, like, talk about what some of those options are i to me as a as an insider outsider right as somebody who knows washington but doesn't know the hill stuff i'm like why are these guys getting circles run around them by matt gates and marjorie taylor green like it doesn't seem like it's that hard to exert your will if morons like marjorie taylor green can do it you know so like what could they do why aren't

they doing it i can get long-winded on this so if i am just give me a signal right okay yeah all right here's the thing when you go to congress the first thing they tell you is you know on procedural votes now procedural votes are things like rules rules you have to vote on a rule before any bill or any action on the floor happens so it's basically the house saying okay here's how many minutes of debate etc etc okay right so anytime there's a bill that comes on the floor there has to be a rule vote before the bill vote before any amendments before any motion before the discussions yep and so that's one thing then you have other stuff which i won't go into called like motions to recommit whatever whatever. All that is called procedural votes. What it means, it's just governance procedure.

When you go to Congress, your party says, look, we all have to vote together on these issues. And that was the agreement. You can disagree with the bill, but you got to support your party on the four rules. The Freedom Caucus is the ones that started violating that really for the first time, at least in modern history, where they now will vote against rules. And what that does is it can shut down the floor from doing anything. So imagine being in DC for two weeks, and now you have a group of people saying the floor can do nothing, including even really come into session. So that's why they have such power. So if there's a group of 10 of us sitting in a room and I hand everybody a hand grenade.

So just really quick before we get to the hand grenade analogy for the layman out there. So when people hear that Mike Johnson isn't bringing something to the floor, part of that is the speaker's discretion. But part of that is because there's a group of people that are like, no, we're not going to let you bring it to the floor because we'll vote down the rule. Right. Right. That's essentially how it's going.

They'll like, we'll vote down the rule. And you'll see that in some of the like, kind of, you know, keep the government open stuff. Yeah. Or they'll, as you see right now, softly threaten him with a motion to vacate and he doesn't want to get vacated. And so that's why he's kind of paralyzed. And I think he is paralyzed right now to be honest with you but if you put 10 people in a room i give everybody a hand grenade we all have the equal amount of power right right none of us will want to pull the pin on that hand grenade but if there

is a psycho in that room that wants to all of a sudden pull the pin on that hand grenade they become the most powerful person even though we all have the same tools and that's what you've seen in the freedom club i call them the freedom club because it's like there's nothing serious about them they're not a caucus they haven't earned the right to be a caucus no no no you got to be a respectable american for that but they are willing to pull the pin on the hand grenade and the problem is like until you call their bluff and one of the 10 pulls the hand grenade, until you're willing to be like, all right, I can play this game too and see if they're very serious, they're always going to be the most powerful person.

So that's the moment with the Ukraine stuff right now. You have discharge petitions, which I can get into if you're curious, but neither of those are going to pass. What can really happen to compel this is if just two, maybe it takes three. It depends how many are in DC that day. Sane Republicans go to the speaker of the house and say, we like the freedom caucus does, we will vote against every rule with the Democrats that comes to the floor until you agree to put the aid package on the floor for an

up or down vote he would be forced to do that by the way because now he couldn't nothing could happen on the floor and it would actually give speaker johnson cover to get this done right because he'd be like i have two guys but nobody's got the courage to do it i don't get it if i was still in dc tim this is the one thing i would be doing is voting against every rule. I would be staying in DC. I would be on every microphone, which I'm good at, and just be like, I'm going to shut down the floor until they put this on the floor. Help me understand the psychology. And, you know, we don't have to rake our friend Mike Elgar over the coals any more than we

already have. But just like, I really don't understand why I would understand it if they were trying to do political survival. Right. but a handful of people have quit like enough people to do what you're asking for have quit have quit that like they could have just done this rather than quit yeah so why is it you want to know the reason yeah please explain financial i won't go into details but in my case i've talked to people about some like kind of post congress stuff and it's like well wait wait until we see if donald trump wins and then come and talk because if he wins right you're gonna piss him off and we don't want you involved right and it's like i get that in a way these guys aren't gonna return your call right you know

if i'm raytheon and i want to hire adam kinzinger it's like well actually maybe i shouldn't hire him i should maybe hire mike gallagher because all the Republicans will return his call still because he wasn't the turd in the punch bowl. And that's the key. Now, the rumor is Gallagher is going to Palantir, right? He's probably going to be Palantir's guy in the Hill, make a ton of money. He can't piss anybody off. That's what this all is.

That sounds like a prison. It is. That doesn't sound that great to me actually that sounds like a rich prison it is a rich prison it is because at this moment i guarantee you and again we're picking on mike but there's so many people that this falls under there are a million examples of this it's just that like he's he's when we expect the most yeah he is like we can pick on ken buck if we want but like he was a tea party guy from grayley you know anyway i like mike gallagher was the great hope for our people.

So we're disappointed. That's why we pick on him. Yeah. And so it's that. And it's like, well, look, OK, so now in the last three weeks of Congress, I'm going to make sure I get everybody's cell phone in there on the floor, which he's doing, I guarantee. And I need to make sure I don't tick everybody off because, look, I get it. He's out in three weeks. Right.

But again, that's what you have. I think I've told you, Tim, probably offline. I'm like, I think people fear more than they fear death. They fear being kicked out of the tribe because that's like a social circle. You and I have both experienced that. It sucks. Right. Right.

You know, that's like your identity. On top of that, you fear losing any economic opportunity and i think a lot of this is what what it has to do with to be honest with you to me it seems like the wall street journal has lost their mind but i want to be open to trying to understand their argument wall street journal editorial board yesterday had a headline that made me think it might be opposite day. It said, Mike Johnson's Ukraine moment, colon. The House speaker is stepping up, but Biden needs to help get Democratic votes. Now, to me, it's like,

the Democrats have already passed Ukraine aid and the Democrats seem to want Ukraine aid. I assume what they're talking about is this discharge petition that the Democrats should be going on with some different type of... What the fuck are they talking about? Help me understand

what they're talking about. I think it's two things. It's, there's two discharge petitions, which Mike Fitzpatrick, you know, has one that's like basically with remain in Mexico and all the immigration stuff. He's got 18 signatures on that. Not even the Republicans are signing onto that, which is weird. And then there's the discharge petition, which by the way, these are rarely done. The last successful one I was involved in was in 2015. The last successful one before that was 2000. So this is how rare these things are. The other discharge petition is like just the straight up Senate bill. So I think what the Wall Street Journal is saying is like Mike Johnson's stepping up because he's made statements like, oh, I want to pass Ukraine with this like kind

of hardcore border bill, border security bill. And so they're like, Democrats have got to come over on this. Look, I think the border's messed up. And I actually think that they need to do quite a bit more on border security. But Republicans, in my mind, have lost any moral authority on that because they turned down the one compromise they got that was actually pretty decent, you know, done by Lankford. They've lost all authority. So I think that Wall Street Journal is trying desperately to turn this against the Democrats. I will say though, I don't know why Joe Biden and his team are not out there every day hammering the Republicans on Ukraine every day. And I've got to tell you,

everybody's like, how does Joe Biden win the 20% Nikki Haley voters? It's really simple, fight and win Ukraine. Okay, I want to get back to the political side of this. But let's just on the policy first, is the answer that the Biden's, you know, playing a little bit of poker here, he's got this cards close to his chest. And it's like, well, if I get out there and start doing this, that's going to make it harder on these people, the McCalls of the world. I don't even know if I agree with that, but I think that's their theory of the case. Yeah, I don't really actually think so. I think, you know, look, he went hard during the State of the Union, right?

And that would be the time when you would want to throttle back a little if you were worried about that. Honestly, the overused term now, Occam's Razor, is... Is Occam's Razor overused now? I got to find a new theory. I think so. I did get chastised at a dinner recently for using Occam's Razor. And what was the other one? Overton Window?

Yeah, the Overton Window. But I like that one still. That's still in vogue. But anyway, so Occam's Raz, in my mind, is I think there are still elements of the National Security Council, it may not be Joe Biden himself, that are worried about escalation. There's this escalation fear in Russia, and they want to see Russia not win, but they're fearful of what happens if Russia loses. And I think that's the concern. And it's kind of like, we don't want to own Ukraine. If we get out there too much in front and Ukraine loses, then we own it. Well, if Ukraine loses, you own it. I hate to tell you, that's just a fact. Maybe this is what's happening. But to me, the Occam's razor, we'll just Occam's razor back and

forth at each other. What's the most obvious answer? Yeah, let's do it. Here's to me what the most obvious answer is. The Democrats want this. They've been willing to sacrifice things that are going to create problems with their own base for this on immigration, as you mentioned, they've passed it. They're not even really playing hardball. It's not like they're forcing the Republicans to be like, oh, we'll only go along if you do this. To me, this most simplest answer is they want this, the Republicans are bumbling it, like one of Joe Biden's strengths is not the bully pulpit. And so he's like not using it. So the Democrats are just kind of like, well, let's let the Republicans like fumble with their

dicks for a while. And we'll just sit here. We wish we could have the money for Ukraine, but we don't know what else to do, because it's their fault. And so we're just going to sit here and wait and watch their little shit show. To me, I think that's what's happening. Yeah, I think we kind of agree on that. Like, I do think that's what's going on. You know, my criticism is, as you said, Joe Biden's not the best bully pulpit or, and I think he needs to be in this case. I think his, even if it's not him, his team needs to be in this case. Cause I actually think, I think this is an issue you can beat Republicans on. I think you can beat them in the election on it. Cause I do think Haley's voters, for as we talk about Haley's voters, it's 20% of the Republican electorate. They all, 99% of them, it's probably in their top two or three phase.

So I think it's important to get out there. Just on the policy of this, I am curious, your perspective, having been a congressman, having served, looking at the Biden team right now, there are people that are like one little baby step to the right of you, or maybe not even to the right, but to the to the MAGA of you, like one step more MAGA curious. They're like, you're not MAGA curious at all. And they like don't like MAGA, but they're a little curious, right? Like, so you know, the type of person I'm talking about in the Wall Street Journal world. They've delved into they've experimented.

Yeah, they're dipping their toe in a little bit, seeing how warm it feels. If you ask them about the Haley donor class and the Wall Street Journal types and the McCalls, this world, about the Biden foreign policy, like they'll say, well, you know, I don't know. He hasn't been doing enough on Ukraine. He's been being a little too mean to B and it might make me vote for Trump. I assume that you're like kind of sympathetic to their foreign policy critiques of Biden. So I'm curious how you grade Biden on foreign policy and then how you compare that to Trump, just purely on the policy merits. I'm sympathetic in that, like, I think Biden has a weak foreign policy right i think so but i think the choice is weak versus evil and i'll take weak any day you know the thing is is like the hooties i'm kind of like

huh israel i get it okay that is this is a tough the hooties you're like uh we should be bombing the hooties more that's yeah i mean it's like what was it they just came out the other day that we offered to take them yet again off the terrorist list if they quit attacking in the Red Sea. I mean, I think it's... Let's send a few ICBMs into Houthi territory. That's where Kinziker's at. Yeah, see what happens.

No, maybe a few more. We had Crystal on yesterday calling for a no-fly zone in Ukraine, and now you want to bomb the Houthis. I'm open to it. This should be the place to have these discussions. Let's move that over to Wendell. I've been all for the Ukraine no fly zone. But anyway, so, you know, after those two Americans were killed in the Middle East,

we bombed the living hell out of Iranian proxies. And it's gone quiet for two months. I think that's an important message. It's a fair point on foreign policy. C plus B minus. Not terrible. Like what's your Israel critique? I'd probably put it about a C.

I mean, I understand the tough position he's in and i mean you look at reagan in 1982 reagan was no israel you know yeah he was no huge israel star but but at the same time i think it's important to keep in mind you know we destroyed we flattened mosul to defeat isis the difference is the people of mosul had a place to go what's happening in gaza egypt and jordan will not let people in that's the difference right the war is still being kind of handled the same way anyway that said this idea that donald trump was any good on foreign policy is garbage he was the weakest weakest president. He's evil and weak. You know, everybody will say to me, well, Russia never would have invaded Ukraine if Trump was president. Okay, maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. We have no way of knowing, but it wouldn't have been because they

were scared of American response to an invasion. It's because he wouldn't have needed to invade because vladimir putin was getting everything he wanted anyway right the only thing trump did that was worth praising and it is worth praising is killing solomony that was mike pompeo's decision but guess what trump gets credit for that and the democrats get a bad on him because they were screaming about world war three remember when they shot down that giant drone that was $300 million and we did nothing? Remember when they hit the Saudi oil field and we did nothing? Remember when they bombed US troops and we did nothing? Remember when Donald Trump stood by Vladimir Putin and said he believes him over his own intelligence agencies? I was in the Oval Office with Donald

Trump when he said that President Xi asked him for a little favor and could we do it, which was to take Chinese telecom ZTE out of the sanctions list because he asked him a personal favor, ZTE, which is spying on the United States. Donald Trump was the worst, Tim, the worst foreign policy president, not even about his personality, about his just actions. And this is what concerns me is there's this like blessed memory of Donald Trump's foreign policy and economic policy. He was a frigging disaster. It's a great rant.

And I'll add to it. I'm reading David Sanger's books. We're gonna have him on the pod, hopefully in the next few weeks. I had forgotten because it happened right before January 6th and it got washed away kind of in just the news craziness. Do you remember the solar winds attack, the cyber attack? Yes, I forgot all about that. Me too. I'm reading the book and I was like, oh, right. Russia committed a cyber attack on

our government, a very serious one. Where we lost a lot of government workers, private information, a high level cyber attack, not one of these like random ones that penetrated the federal government. Trump puts out a tweet that's like, ah, maybe it's the Chinese. The fake news always say Russia, Russia, Russia, right? It's like Trump is doing propaganda for the people that literally are attacking our government. And it just kind of got washed away because the next day the Capitol got stormed. So I don't know what's been declassified. I got the classified briefing of it. So I'll have to speak kind of high level. SolarWinds was not a one-time intrusion hack. This was an infection that at least at the time I was in, and then of course I got sidetracked to all the

January 6th stuff, the government was talking about like gajillions of dollars of damage to actual government infrastructure. I'm sure they've been going after it now. I'm glad you brought that up. I forgot all about that. And that was like, like made Edward Snowden look like a kitty cat type devastating stuff to the US government.

And Donald Trump, what does he do? Right. I mean, look, the Havana syndrome story that just came out. What is MAGA doing? They're calling it a ray. Oh, Russia has a ray gun. Sure. Yeah.

You're always going after Russia. Russia is cooking the brains of American government workers with microwave directed microwave energy, which we've known for decades exists and can exist. So it's not a magic ray gun on a sci-fi film. And MAGA is out there defending Russia and pretending like we're making the whole thing up. Screw them. Period. Neocon power hours over for now. Thank you.

Do a little politic in. You're in Texas now, right? I am, yeah. You're one of many people that have moved to Texas that are of your ilk. Yeah. College educated. You went to college, right? Yeah.

What's your alma mater? Illinois State, baby. I was an ivy leaguer got straight c's illinois state what that used to have a native american name you switched right no it didn't uh illinois did that was the illini which is still does the chief uh redbirds i mean look the redbirds i knew it was a red something i had read in my mind and maybe that's why i had native american okay what uh redbirds. I mean, look, the redbirds, I knew it was a red something I had read in my mind. And maybe that's why I had Native American. Okay, redbirds. All right, Illinois State redbird, college educated, you've moved to Texas. I assume you're living in the suburbs or somewhere suburbish. Yeah, you know, probably voted for Mitt Romney. And they're kind of like, Whoa, I don't know what's happening here with the Republicans. And it's people like you that are

kind of turning Texas a little bit. I'm not sure that like Texas, we're not like in the swing state territory. I'm not, I'm not into delusional. This is why Texas, I think will be closer than Florida. Yeah. This time people like you. So you were talking about the Nikki Haley voter. You're that's you. So I'm just wondering how you assess how Biden is doing with that group and what advice you'd have. The Texas thing. It's funny. We kind of moved here accidentally. It was just kind of, we came here after all the death threats and then moving across the country with a family is not easy. And we really liked the Woodlands, which is where we're at now in North Houston. And my wife let me buy a big plane if I stayed here. So I was good with that. So I have my own big plane now.

Former fighter pilot. I've since signed the Woodlands oh yeah that's good that's good you see a good food there cool you know a lot of good ethnic food yeah and it's close to the houston airport which is nice and then the airport i keep the plane out but texas is obviously crazy like the republican politics here is bat shittery but i think there is still this kind of undercurrent it'll be interesting to see how colin all red does in the senate race because he's about as moderate as a dim of a democrat as the democrats have put up you know i've thought about like is there room for conservative democrats in texas because if the democrats play their game right they would put up a conservative democrat you know just like you know republicans should be putting up liberal Republicans in Illinois. I think really the longer we go into this election season, I have been a pessimist.

I would put myself right in the middle ground now of pessimism and optimism because I'm watching Donald Trump's brain cook in front of the American people. Like Biden, you know, being slow and, you know, with Alzheimer's, which I don't think he has, but regardless, that's kind of cooked into the American people perception already. So all he can do, I think, with the exception of a trip down Air Force One, is like improve that position, right? He improved it at the State of the Union. You don't hear a lot of attacks on his mental state since then.

Right. People are kind of like, oh, okay. Donald Trump has a long way to go down. And I think he's determined. You had, I forget what it was you had on your podcast. Was it David Frum that just said he has been determined to make this election all about himself? Yes. And that is going to damage him. So, I think the state of the Haley voter, you know, the Kinzinger in Texas voter is, you know we'll support obviously joe biden i still think a

good significant part of that haley voter does go to joe biden not happily and i take a little issue with when you know we argue about should there be like i i i'm glad no labels is not on the ticket but i think there are certain voters and not a voter like me and not a voter like you that we do need to give permission to either abstain from the presidential line or vote third party because it's not everybody this is why when we did republican voters against trump at 2020 we called it republican voters against trump not republican for biden yeah you know i was like the people that were in charge of it me and sarah and others and mike murphy we were all for biden but we were like look

some of the people that we can appeal to just won't be able to get there. That's right. And it's better to move them off than to do nothing. And I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, and I think the best thing is to make the case like, look, you do have two choices.

Again, like I said, it's somebody I don't agree with all their policies or pure evil. I'm going to go with the policies guy. Right. But if there's somebody that just can't, know whether it's abortion whether it's whatever the issue is they can't go to biden giving them permission and saying look your country did not present you choices that you like it is your right to skip that line that's at least half a win for us and i think that's going to be important as long as we're not giving people an excuse to not vote for biden i don't want to presume but you are preferring all red over cruise also in that race oh yeah dude i i would rather jump in a pile of lava than vote for ted cruz okay i

would rather be nude on television like in a very embarrassing so what then vote for ted i don't know that might get you some slides into your dms i know you're still maybe but you know maybe i hear you though okay so let's give con all your DMs. I know you're still doing what, but you know. Maybe. I hear you though. Okay, so let's give Colin Allred some advice together then. Because you're there. Yeah. I had Allred on before he even announced a long time ago. He had George Bush in his district.

I think he might be a Colin Allred voter. I was like, have you asked him for his vote? And he's like, no, I don't know. I don't want to put him in that place. But I was like, yeah, there are people out there that are pretty conservative that he could get because Ted Cruz has gone so far off the defense. Yeah. But he's got a signal. He's got to give him a signal. He was a good moderate

congressman. He worked across the aisle, et cetera. Performatively speaking, I'd like to see some performative efforts to reach out. And that part, I feel like has been a little bit missing from his campaign. That'd be my one critique, but I don't know. What kind of advice would you have if Colin Allred called you about about winning it would be the same i'd probably give to the biden team right now which is you know there should be no republican on the sideline that says they haven't been contacted by you right chris christie unless something changed still hasn't been contacted by the biden team i got contacted by somebody at the white house saying hey we'd love to be in touch i'm like great let me know heard nothingard nothing again. Right.

Like it's fine. And my ego doesn't need that. That's the same advice I would give to Colin. He's reached out to me and he and I are friends anyway. So I give him credit on that, but yeah, reach out to the bushes. You know,

Bush will stay on the sideline regardless, probably, but he can signal things quietly. And the other thing I'd give on a messaging is, sorry, you gotta be somewhat tough on immigration. This is a 90% issue, by the way thing i'd give on a messaging is sorry you got to be somewhat tough on immigration this is a 90 issue by the way be somewhat tough on immigration be somewhat just do what swazi did at least yeah do what swazi did and then be a you know be a little

a little giving on guns you don't have to be a huge like gun nut but just kind of like understanding the importance of concealed carry stuff like that, for Texas. And I think he has a shot to win, at least a shot, particularly depends what happens on the national side, but certainly a shot to really embarrass Ted Cruz, because Ted Cruz deserves every ounce of embarrassment he gets. Yeah, that's right. Tom Swasey, for people, ran that special election in New York and really kind of focused on crime and immigration and led with that. It was a strategy to talk about crime and immigration it wasn't it wasn't going far right really but it was just like look we need to deal with these threats in new york maybe crime isn't so much at that in texas maybe a little bit but immigration really is right and then like lead with your chin a little bit and you kind of maybe

distance from from some people on the left on that and can i say too like to the people that like and i hear them that say oh well you're just basically asking us to become Republicans. No, I'm not. All we're asking is that you listen to what the American people are saying and actually reflect that and get elected. That's what democracy is. Like parties were never meant to be in this static position that could never move. And as the American people move, they just moved in and out of parties. Parties are supposed to chase voters, right? That's like the general nature of a party system. Exactly. I wrote the article about Adam Kinzinger a long time ago about the Red Dog Democrats. I don't know if he's accepted it,

but people can go find it. We'll put it in the show notes. But in this article, I was like, there are a ton of progressive policies that Red Dog Democrats and the Dallas suburbs don't care about. Marijuana legalization, raising the minimum wage infrastructure spending universal pre-k environmental conservation i i'm going down and down criminal justice they're a bunch i dream act right there are a bunch of stuff a bunch of progressive priorities you can do it's just you know on a few things you gotta that's right try to put an olive branch that's right okay we're running out of time i want to do a quick rfk and then we do we do need to talk about Donald Trump's smell. I want to listen to the New York. I think she was running the New York ballot access operation for RFK really quick. Things I guess will change over

time because you do have to only pick one candidate at the end of the day, but the Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, the enemy, our mutual enemy is Biden. Since Biden is counting on us with Bobby in the mix, my thought is for the Republicans, see Bobby right now he's pulling from both sides. Right now he's actually pulling a little bit more from Biden, which explains why the DNC is kind of ganging up on him. They have a special committee to go after independent candidates. Yeah, they say independent candidates like non-affiliated candidates, they really mean Bobby, because Bobby's the only third party that anybody's taking seriously. So they developed a committee just to go after him and to get him

off of the ballot in any way they can. Especially, it seems as though they're going after the battleground states more than the deep blue states. Bobby's moving the blues on his own. If the Republicans accept the fact that New York... I can't listen to this lady anymore. But she goes on to say that part of the strategy, which I think is insane, is that Bobby wins some blue states, and that sends the election to the House. This is probably not going to happen. But really, they are saying the quiet part out loud about where they think things are on this. You know, some of these voters, particularly some of the types of people we're talking about who are more conservative instinctually, more low info voters that aren't paying as close attention, that aren't listening to the broadcast. Like some of them, RFK might seem like an appealing off ramp, like, oh, he's not.

So what's your take on the RFK side of things and the nature of the threat there? First off, to that lady, I don't know, I forgot her name, but like, thank you for telling the truth publicly. Because, you know, we need that, right? Tell the truth. You know, it's just what they found is that there is an audience of conspiracy nuts in MAGA that will fund their campaign. As I've said, the campaign's been hijacked by MAGA. And I think probably voluntarily because it's audience capture. You know, this risk in media, it's like, and in politics, it's okay, well, here's our donor base. So now we need to feed the donor base. And then our donor base becomes more like what we've been feeding. And it's this kind of vicious circle.

He's been feeding conspiracies, which now is naturally found on the right. It used to be found on the left. You know, the horseshoe theory has now officially happened. They've met. And so I look at it and I say, he's nuts. I think the bigger risk is certainly to Joe Biden with Kennedy because Kennedy, of course, the name is a scion in democratic politics. But I think Democrats are doing the right thing by continuing to talk about him and ridicule him because I think their biggest threat is that low information voter, as you mentioned, that doesn't like Joe Biden, that thinks Kennedy is Kennedy and instead needs to see that he's basically Donald Trump. Now, he's not going to pull much from Trump because people that love Trump.

He's like Donald Trump that believes in climate change. And so if you want Donald Trump, vote for Trump. If you don't want him, then Kennedy should be off the table. And I think as the election gets closer, that'll become more obvious. I don't think he's going to have the poll of a Ross Perot. But at the same time, what, one or two percent can make a difference this year, unfortunately. Yeah, big time. All right.

So you've been the one person brave enough not just to speak out about January 6thth and to get those death threats but to also speak out about donald trump's smell one thing i've noticed and we we're trying to get the bottom of what the smell is i've noticed his tint his face tint has changed like it was it was a pure orange mango for a while it moved to like a burnt sienna and lately it's kind of like it's like a pine tar yeah i mean it's getting it's getting very dark it's like i can't imagine that is helping the smell so give us tell us a little bit about about what you think that was is happening there well it's like it's old man in shame i mean it's like you know uh what it's not i don't know if it's diaper if it's like just i don't think it's the face that whatever he's could be the face could be the sweat sweat mix with the sweat here's the important thing about this tim is maga sees donald trump now we've got to put ourselves in this mind for a second as almost a non-human entity and i'm

serious about this like everything about him is almost non-human like honestly if they saw him sitting on the toilet it would shatter their image of him i don't mean to say that to be fun you see the eclipse ad they did of him or like donald trump is the blocking the sun it is so weird we'll put that in the show notes too i wanted to just play the audio but you can't really get it without looking at it it's so fucking weird yeah it's like it's nuts but like that's where they're at so i think there is benefit in humiliating him both as just a human with failings which we all are are. And I don't say that to be, but like he's trying to put himself above that, but also the whiniest weakest. I mean, my God, the guy was president of the United States and somehow the inept democratic party was able to pull over on him the greatest steal of an election in american history he's that weak that he allowed it to happen and he just whines and he complains and he belly aches and tim when you and i were junior republican babies what we loved about the

republican party was its toughness it's like self-reliance from your bootstraps yeah he has turned the republican party into a bunch of whiny licking their wounds like people and we have to call that out because nobody wants to be that and donald trump needs to be painted as that i think that's what country first is going to spend some time doing whiny and smelly and like obese and not athletic and look at him on the golf cart it just it's a disgusting he's a disgusting figure and he's scared he's a scared person right now you could just tell he's frightened like a little kitty cat he's scared like when do you ever see that image of him with the with the eagle the eagle goes to bite him he's like i love that one i love that one okay adam kensinger i man i just appreciate you so much. You're a great American.

You'll be back on the podcast soon. You too, buddy. Country First. Go ahead and check out his organization, Country First. We'll be back here tomorrow with another one of my favorite people. So we'll see you all then. Peace. This ain't Texas.

Ain't no Hold'em. So lay your cards down, down, down, down. So park your Lexus and throw your keys up stick around round round round round and i'll be damned if i can't slow dance with you come pour some sugar on me honey too it's a real live boogie and a real live hold down Don't be a bitch, come take it to the floor now There's a tornado In my city In the basement That shit ain't pretty Rugged whiskey

We surviving A break of kisses Sweet redemption, passing time, yeah One step to the right We headed to the dive bar we always thought was nice Ooh, run me to the left Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can't read your mind This ain't Texas, ain't no Hold'em

So lay your cards down, down, down, down So park your Lexus, and blow your keys up Stick around, round, round, round, round And I'd be damned if I can't so dance with you Come pour some sugar on me, honey, too It's a real-life boogie and a real-life hold-down Don't be a bitch, come take it to the floor The Bullwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.