The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1053: Live from Chicago

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Adam Kinzinger joined Tim on stage in the Windy City Wednesday night to dis Chicken Trump, who's made bitcoin bros, private prisons, his family and friends—and himself—the main winners in his 'TACO' trade economy. Meanwhile, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran may be getting resurrected, and Trump finally seems to realize that Putin is a warmonger. Plus, Dems should put Qatar and El Salvador on notice that there will be a cost for their free gifts in the future, and we are the guys and girls on the white horse who will save this country. show notes Trump being asked about 'TACO' trade

Hello and welcome to the Bullhorn Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Good to be here live in Chicago. I wish I could say it's a pleasure to be in Chicago. It is not. It was... sorry. It was... I got out of the airport and I was like, holy shit! I needed to wear a parka and then I'm driving in the Uber here and we drive by the big building that says Trump on it and then I had to turn on a fireplace when I got to the hotel. Thank you to the Waldorf for hosting us. There was a nice fireplace in the room.

So it's okay, it's fine. I've been, you know, whatever. The lunch was pretty good. I haven't been able to get to the beef yet. Yeah, yeah. Look, by the way, he's gotta get some thicker skin, man. I mean, this is awesome. Chicago summers are awesome. Today's awesome. I get it

Is in the park. We'll see how you will see what you're saying after a couple years in Texas. That's true All right. I want to start here. How many people here remember the guest today? Who's Adam Kinzinger by the way? Give me a hoot if you remember Tea Party Adam Kinzinger. How many of you remember from ex-Urban Illinois? Did you ever think you'd pay $87 to see Tea Party Adam Kinzinger? That's been kind of a weird decade, wasn't it? Back when he was repealing Obamacare. Okay, sorry, I'm not going to go through your whole voting record. Just saying. What a dick.

Do you have any memories from your people? What's the Chicago highlight for you? Look, man, I just, you know, coming up here is always awesome. So I actually go to New York a lot, nothing against New York, but you just realize how awesome Chicago is when you go to New York. And it's like, it's extremely clean. It's got a cool, you know, cool waterway, great bars. I love it here. So it's great.

Now the winters are rough and you've got to have, you definitely have to wear your coat in the winters, but summers are amazing. All right. Go definitely have to wear your coat in the winters but summers are amazing. All right. Go Bears, it's going to be the Bears year this year. Go Bears. I think. I was, I did have one memorable night in Chicago in 2016 when the Cubs were, the Cubs did something good in 2016.

Yeah, yeah. They did. Hold on to that for a while. Things didn't go well the next week. All right. So it was go well the next week. All right. So it was a hit or miss fall. Earlier today in the Oval Office, it was an interesting exchange between the president and a Wall Street Journal reporter.

The reporter said, Mr. President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the taco trade. Trump always chickens out and Trump replied and was like, what did you say? I always kick out and they're like, no Mr. President, chicken out. He got very upset at the reporter in the room, but it's a real thing I guess and it was it seems to be a pretty telling exchange today. Look and he, the thing. If you go through that whole clip like he ends up a minute. I think into that his response. He's talking about how this country was stone cold dead six months ago and it's like what like what planet does he live

on but in his mind you know everything is he's got to make it all the worst and but the taco thing is perfect and I think look you know they always he's he's always really good at like labeling people with stuff This one may stick with him and by the way, it's not just tariffs. It's not just the economy It's not just Wall Street You can look at international politics and this has been the case in his first term and it's certainly the case in the second term We'll get to international. Do you know about the taco emoji? No, okay. We'll save this air alone the second term. We'll get to international. Do you know about the taco emoji? No. Okay, we'll save the Sarah. The the trade thing I do. Is there any part of you that kind of wishes taco wasn't

true? The like it would actually just be like sticking through it so people can feel the pain. I do worry a little bit like we've seen his numbers start to drift back up and I worry a little bit that Like people aren't getting the pain that is going to be required to cleanse ourselves of this horribleness Yeah, and I mean look you never want to obviously root for pain, but there's a point at which you look at You might not right JVL never say it right, but no But there's like there's a point at which you have to look and say, like, how many times, how many times is he gonna threaten things and are people gonna vote for it

and then never experience it? And then he can pretend that he did exactly what he said he was gonna do that he actually never did. And that's actually kind of his superpower. He can be like, look, we came in, we did this, we not does it, and he never actually does it. And so, yeah, I mean, I think to an extent, people have to understand.

They have to feel that pain a little bit. But yeah, I mean, look, this is what he does. This is just what he's always done. He has no actual leadership. It's all in entertainment. It's all a show for him. I do think that while the market has remained resilient, there are going to be real, kind of like under the hood

economic consequences from the taco economic policy. And it's going to take a little bit less, it's like a little less satisfying. Like we can just be honest, okay? I know what you guys like, I see the numbers, all right, on the YouTube clips. And the people like it when it's like, stock market tanks 800 points because Trump sucks.

And that's nice when that happens because it just happened a couple of times. But like, there is a more kind of serious, like long term, you know, a little bit, a little bit less of the immediate gratification element to this that I think maybe they don't quite appreciate kind of how like what the what is coming down the pike. Yeah, that's right. So if you think about the stock market is all emotional, right? So that's just you make, you and I make bets.

Everybody here makes bets on the stock market every day based on what you kind of think is going to happen. And that's where, you know, news changes, obviously the market reacts to that. But the back end stuff that's coming, and you know, the point is, if we go into recession, Trump will own that. But just what can you prove never happened, right, if it doesn't happen? And so if you're all of a sudden a company, let's say you're IBM or whatever, and you're looking at building a factory, and let's say you were even going to build a factory in

the United States, you have no idea now whether you can build it in the United States, whether you should build it overseas. If you're going to build it overseas, you don't know what to do. So you basically hold on to your money. And as we know how the economy works, anytime you reduce velocity of money, the times it's being spent, that's how you go into a recession. The other thing is this though, and I think frankly Democrats need to be making this case a lot more, which is I wonder what Donald Trump's friends are making every time the

market goes down and goes up. Because he signals it. I guarantee you, I guarantee you with as corrupt as this guy is, and this is stunning corruption, there literally has never been a president of the United States with even a fifth of the corruption that we're seeing. I guarantee you he is calling his friends up or through somebody saying, look, the president is going to announce 50 percent tariffs. Now if I had access to that information, if you all did, I would take my entire net worth in cash, put it in the market, or take it out of the market based on what the president was going to decide.

Now imagine his friends that are worth half a billion dollars or two billion dollars or three billion dollars making decisions on that and screwing not just the little guy but every American in the process. I guarantee you that's happening. It's definitely happening and I've talked to reporters who are working on this who have a pretty good authority that it's happening. And then in addition to that, like, you know, and I think this is a good, the Democrats can tie this message into the corruption, you know, because it also, look, the Wall Street guys, sorry if there's some Wall Street guys in here, are a pretty good boogie man as well.

They also do quite well. I've got some, you know, hedge fund buddies who are like, they kind of like the high volatility, you know, within a band type of the economy, because they're faster than you are, right? Like Trump puts out the bleat and they, you know, they can get in on it, like get like big money in, big money out, and so those guys are all making money, right? Like the people that are making money in this right now so far in this administration are Bitcoin people, private prison

operators, market timers, and the Trump family. Those are the key industries right now in our economy. And what is it I saw recently, of the however many thousand people own this garbage Trump meme coin, only 20 of the people have actually made money on it at the cost of the other 19,000. And the weird thing about it is this.

And this is where I think we have to try to have, and it's tough to do, I know it, but we have to try to have some compassion for people that have fallen into this trap, that truly think Trump is their savior. They think he's their guy on a white horse, and he's taking that trust they have, and he's basically pulling all their money from them. He's abusing them. He's destroying their family.

How many of you have lost family members and friends over this asshole? And so while everybody should be held accountable for their own beliefs, because we believe in that, I think we also have to recognize that he is abusing half of this country. I mean, he's abusing the whole country, but half of the country and their trust every day. Are any of the Kinzinger family members that wrote you that letter about how you've lost your soul to the devil in the audience tonight? Please stand up.

It's Maury Povich. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. No? Isn't that crazy? I mean, you know, the crazy thing about the letter, you're talking about the letter that ended up in the New York Times.

I didn't really... The family, and it's my dad's cousin, so it's not like my immediate family, they sent me a letter disowning me, calling me a member of the devil's army and said, Donald Trump is a Christian, Adam. And then I remembered, I remember when Donald Trump said he never had to ask God for forgiveness. And I'm like, wait, I thought that was kind of like a basic tenant. But anyway, they sent it to the New York Times because they thought it would be popular with the American people. And they wanted me to be shown. They showed it to the New York Times because they thought it would be popular with the American people and they wanted me to be shown. They showed it to the fake news.

Yeah, they showed it to the fake news. You know what? I haven't reconciled with them and I don't intend to, to be honest with you. There's a Devil's Army down in Boys Town I'm going to be introducing you to later tonight. I'm sorry I had to. All right I'm sorry about that one. Do I have to wear a half shirt like you? You do. You have to wear a belly shirt. I bought two. That was bad. Okay. One more boring economy question. We have to do one more. I know you've been tickled by it as well. I love that. I think that Donald Trump and these guys are going to negatively polarize the Democrats into caring a lot about the debt, which I'm

very excited about. Nobody's more excited than Sarah Longwell about that, by the way. And, you know, because, like, again, to the economic issue we have in front of us, like, these guys, like, you did some deficit spending when you were in there, and there was some deficit spending during the Bush days, obviously, but at that time, like, we're at a point where even though some people are like, we're going to be Greece tomorrow, we weren't really going to be Greece tomorrow, but we kind of are on the precipice of that now. There are going to be real consequences if they continue down this path combining the tariffs with the big, big, beautiful turd.

And this is what's amazing about it, because look, I've come to believe that on economic theory, I think both kind of the Democrats' theory of the case and the old Republican theory of the case are both right at specific times. So if you have an economy that's stagnant, so 1979, high interest rates, stagnant economy, I think it was important to put an influx of money into the people that are going to spend money to get the economy moving. I think, you know, frankly in 17 we were coming off still the Great Recession, I think it was the right thing to do. But when you end up where we are now, and you've talked about this a lot

on other episodes, where we're 38 trillion in debt, which is, I mean, it's really an unthinkable number, we're spending more in interest on the debt than the entire US military. So people say like, well we got to cut spending in the military. We're spending more in interest than on the entire national defense of the United States. And so if you look at a $38 trillion debt, you look at an economy that's struggling, that is dealing with high interest rates, is dealing with inflation, this is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

And the problem is tax cuts have become a religion to the Republican party and not like good economic policy. And I'm gonna tell you about half the people that voted for this thing know that it's not the right thing to do, but they couldn't tell Donald Trump no. I mean, I know these folks, I know what they're saying behind closed doors,

they can't tell him no. My other favorite fun fact about the bill is that the farmer bailout is going to cost more than like, I forget if it's definitely all of USAID, but it might be the entire department of state. I think it's actually the entire department of state costs less than the farmer bailout that we're going to give them. Yeah, by the way, if you look at how much the Department of State, which prevents wars, and USAID,

which prevents wars and creates allies, costs, it's less than one-half percent of the budget. And so what they're talking about doing to bail out farmers, I have a lot of family members that are farmers from Bloomington, Illinois, rural area, central Illinois, and go Redbirds. But none of them, and none of the farmers that were in my district when I was in Congress told me that they were excited about a government bailout because you've got to think that that farmers are just lazy if their idea is I would just love to get a government check no they want to go out they want to produce something they want to feel useful and what Donald Trump is telling

them is I'll just pat you on the head to make sure you survive. But they'll still go vote for him. You know, who the hell knows what's going to happen these days? You know, who's going to get pardoned? What the newest taco time is going to be at the White House? With so much out of our control, the future can feel overwhelming. You can regain control of some things with a life insurance policy found just for you by the licensed insurance agents at SelectQuote. They can protect your financial legacy, whether you need $500,000 or $50 million in coverage.

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Let's go to the taco policy and foreign policy. I was in quite the tacoization of foreign policy. I guess we'll start first with Putin and Ukraine. Trump had a very big revelation over the weekend which is that Putin has gone crazy and he might not want to stop the war after all and he's not gonna do anything about it but he's upset. I don't know. What do you make of the latest? So I want to give you guys a quick 30-second How Russia is losing this war now imagine when we invaded Iraq in 2003?

Imagine if three years into that war we only occupied 20% of Iraq of Iraq and we had lost a million people in that process Would there be a single person in the world that said we were winning that war? No Everybody would say we were losing that's exactly where Russia is in Ukraine right now. The day they initiated the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, they occupied 32% of Ukraine. Today that number is 19%. And there's been a million young Russian men either killed, captured, or wounded in this conflict. So the idea that Russia is inevitably the victor is insane. That's just totally not the case. And so. And so. And so.

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And so. And so. And so. And so. And so. And so. And so. And so. And so. And so. reasons why, but Donald Trump is constantly trying to impugn good, pure, solid motives onto Vladimir Putin. And so the reality is this, Donald Trump threatens sanctions.

How many times has he threatened sanctions against Russia? Maybe once or twice. He's never said Putin's name, by the way, in any negative connotation. He's threatened it, and then he always backs out. And one hour before I came here tonight, I saw that a reporter asked Donald Trump, okay, you're mad at Vladimir Putin. Are you going to finally increase sanctions? And he's like's like no because that'll affect the peace talks with Vladimir Putin Of course he is it and then you look at Iran, right? He started out regardless of your opinion on this

He started out saying we're gonna bomb Iran and then he's now negotiating JCPOA to he was a big ally of Israel now He's against Israel Remember when he loved Kim Jong-un and then he hated him and then he loved him again? Like this guy has no moral principles. He has no center. He has no view of what the world should be. It is all emotionally driven and it will cost Americans their lives because somebody's going to call his bluff and we're going to end up in a war.

Well, it seems like Putin's gone his bluff. And your point that he said that before the other thing He's been doing is you know we'll see how things go in two weeks like there's some did a catalog of how many times he said we'll see how things look in two weeks with the Russia Ukraine negotiations, so we're at the beginning of another two-week cycle. We'll see what we'll say by the way We have tariffed Ukraine ten percent Russia has no tariffs And then we're robbing Ukraine of their rare earth minerals yeah exactly part of the deal and then

one of the guys was asked like well why how come you haven't put tariffs on Russia and he said well because there's peace negotiations we don't want to affect that yet we did it to Ukraine I mean this is the insanity of it they're not part of the peace negotiations no they aren't actually which is another problem in and of itself. So like eventually You know after probably four more two week cycles of kind of kicking the can down the road like you get to a point where it's where I Guess one of two things is gonna happen right where Trump is just gonna do what JD Vance threatened to do a couple weeks

I could make a week ago maybe which is basically say all right. Good luck we're gonna wash our hands of this and we're getting out of here. Either that'll happen or some of the tiny number of remaining better angels around him are gonna convince them that they do some kind of sanctions, some kind of support for Ukraine. It'll be really half-assed, right?

Like what happens at that point? Do you think there ever gets to a point where the Republicans that support Ukraine in Congress and John Thune try to force his hand on this or do you think that's never gonna happen? I don't think so and that's this is like if you think back to remember the aid package It was stalled like six months or whatever. It was the one reason I was saying It's like the only reason I wish I wish I was in Congress at that time is because I would have gone down You know It was a tight majority and I would have threatened to vote against everything every procedural motion until this was brought up

And that's what you know look I love Don Bacon right? That's what people like Don Bacon could do right now Yeah, and say if only three of them pass the reconciliation thing by one vote these guys have leverage Yes, you could have had that love even if you say like yeah I know the last the last aid bill was $70 billion, let's do $10 billion. Just $10 billion. Buy a little bit of it. You could have threatened it, and they

would have put it in there. But you know the problem, and I learned this as a moderate in DC, is the moderates tend to want to get along. They tend to support teamwork. The problem is now they're playing on a pretty stupid team. And I think the other big thing, Tim, is like we need to get back to, and whoever is making the case as the next, you know, potential president of the United States, the next candidate,

has got to go back to ground zero and basically remind people of why America has the foreign policy we have. You know, the reality of it is this. The post-World War II order, we're a great nation, we mean to do good things, but it was not created to be nice to everybody else. We created the post-World War II order to benefit us because in 1950, we had an explosion of manufacturing

in this country, why? Because all the manufacturing in Europe and Asia was destroyed, we inherited that, we made a decision to be the sole defender of the navigation of seaways and waterways. Why? Because that allowed us to write the rules of trade. That allows us to get priority through the Suez Canal, through Panama. That is really beneficial to our economy.

And so when JD Vance and Hegseth say, well, Europe isn't doing their part to defend the waterways, two things. First off, the Brits and French were right there with us at that moment that he sent that text. Secondly, we told Europe that we will be the ones to do the what, to protect the waterways. We said, don't worry about it, this is our job. And I think Americans have to realize again, and that's gotta be sold again,

that the post-World War II order was not built out of our good heart, it's better for the world, but it was built for us to benefit us and it has. Do you, I don't know. My buddy, John love it. We're doing a live show next week, June 6th in Washington DC

to support the lawyers who are fighting for the guatamal and be there for a rally to on the six the veterans thing. Oh yes, come on by yeah. It'll be a little gare than this crowd, but you'll you'll judge. I want to get into El Salvador next, but before that I just want to go back to your world or to order things. I'm stealing a I'm still a line that love it likes to use, which is like sometimes like you go through a door and like the door closes and locks behind you and it's over and like you can figure out another way out of the room, you know, in this analogy, but like you can't go back through the

door. And I do wonder if that is an apt metaphor here when it comes to the post world war two order. Like I don't know if even if the 2028 candidate, which we're gonna get to the very end, is, makes a compelling case for that. Is it even possible? Like is Europe gonna ride with us still? Like is anybody gonna trust us to do that still? Will China be too strong by then having reoriented things? Do you worry about that? I do worry and I think it's gonna take real damage control on our end. I think the next president of the United States, let's say this person is very pro-NATO, pro-Europe, pro-cooperation, it will take probably their entire first term to rebuild that trust.

Meanwhile, the Europeans are going to kind of be sitting back going, well, let's see who gets, if he gets reelected or not, right? And so right now they see us as very volatile. I remember growing up, I was always, I loved the country of Germany. My family came from Germany in the 1850s, like half of people in Illinois, by the way. And so I learned German and I went to Germany

and I just remember all the Germans were telling me like, dude, Republicans and Democrats are the exact same. Because from their perspective, our variances were just a little bit, right? But we all believed in the post-world war two order and stuff so I think that's gonna take some work what I really worry about Tim is China and because We have been remember everybody was predicting I think like 2020 China was gonna overtake the United States and it didn't We were actually able to accelerate China's kind of flatline

The other thing is, you know, we had a robust immigration system which allowed our population to grow at the rate it needs to grow to have a healthy economy. What Donald Trump, what Trump is doing now is isolating us from the very allies we need to compete with China, and he's emboldening China. China's now trying to create trade deals with our partners and it's going to be the fastest way to flip that script on its head and everybody around him knows that except him and nobody will tell him that because of course he's the God King. Hey guys it's Tim and Sarah we're here with my friend and me John Lovett from Lovett or Leave

It. We're bringing you guys all a special crossover collab the bulwark and crooked media the never Trump rhinos meet the self-important podcast, bros You are definitely the fucking self-important one june is pride month And we're gonna be live in DC on June 6th for world pride for a very special live show fundraiser Featuring the three of us plus some gay special guests. This one's a little different. Proceeds from tickets will be donated to support André Romero, the makeup artist who the Trump administration wrongly disappeared to El Salvador and who is currently being held in Sikant. Crooked and the Bulwark will be donating the proceeds from this fundraiser to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

Tickets on sale now at crooked.com slash events. These are going fast. So get yours before they're gone. Go to crooked.com slash events and we will see you all on June 6th. All right. Speaking of uplifting topics back to El Salvador. Your wife is El Salvadoran. We were talking backstage. Man times becoming a flat circle for me. I forget who I was asking about this. Oh, I was asking Pete about this yesterday. Do you guys like him? Pete Buttigieg?

He's all right. We're going to talk more about Pete in the next level. But I was asking Pete about this. It's like, you know, obviously Trump and, you know, Bukele is like his little, you know, whatever mini-mini-me, like Zara Autocrats or whatever with his adult braces. And, you know, so that's going to benefit Bukele for a little while. And the little Bitcoin surge, Bitcoin treasury scam is going to benefit them for a little while. And yet, it's a small country, right?

Like it needs trade. It needs to be part of the world community. Like El Salvador does not want to become the next Venezuela. Like should Democrats, should Europe, should Canada be like actually throwing down right now and saying no, like this is unacceptable. Yeah I think what needs to happen, so like El Salvador, one of its, I mean it actually has made some amazing gains from a security perspective, but how did that happen? Well basically they threw anybody they suspected of being a gang member in prison without a trial. I mean if you're in El Salvador and a they threw anybody they suspected of being a gang member in prison without a trial.

I mean, if you're in El Salvador and a cop makes a decision that you're a gang member, you get nobody else to hear that. You literally go right to secote and that's it. You'll never be heard from again. And the thing is, is by the way, that's- Some of them like that. That's all right. Then you can speak to that.

Your wife's El Salvador and like, because it was horrible. It was horrible. There was El Salvador and refugees in Oakland. I was like part of a thing that I was doing where mentoring. And it was like the stories they told were horrible. There was El Salvadoran refugees in Oakland. It was part of a thing that I was doing, mentoring. And the stories they told were horrible. So there's some element of it that it was useful, I guess, that was practical. It was just worth thinking.

And I think we have to recognize that. Eyes open. Yeah, you have to recognize that. But you also recognize that every person that comes to be a dictator comes in on the back of security. Now, if you live, because I've talked to many Salvadorians, again, friends of my wife, who are like, well, look, we can now go downtown and eat dinner.

Last time I was in El Salvador was a couple years ago, and we were very limited to where we could go because of the security situation. We're going to go back soon, and it's going to be interesting to see. And so that's a thing. But here's the deal. It is imperative for, I'll say, Democrats, actually all Americans, Republicans too,

but granted that they won't do it, it's imperative for Democrats to make it clear to El Salvador. You look, your guys's internal politics is your deal. But when you start housing American prisoners that you know have been denied due process, that by the way has been required by the Constitution and by the Supreme Court. And by the part of international agreements. Yeah, part of international agreements and everything else. When you do that you may have a free ride on this for the next three and a half years. Qatar, you want to give us a bribe and a jet? You may be able to get away from it, get away with it for three and a half years. But

to the American people, if you put us in charge, and by the way, to Qatar and El Salvador, if we become in charge, we're going to make sure that costs you. And we're going to make sure that that is not forgotten. That's how you make the case to the American people of what your agenda is going to be. And I think it also puts into these autocrats kind of a catch where they start to think, maybe I shouldn't do this. Because three and a half years goes by pretty quickly. It does.

And I think that they're more manipulable than Trump. Right? And so here's the thing, like, you know, you're never handing it to Trump on the Bulldog podcast, but he does like to talk about how I have the cards and will punish you and the US has the cards and you like that is actually true in the El Salvador situation and the way that it's not like where he tries to throw that at Salensky or China or whatever. It's like El Salvador fucking needs us like if the next president comes in and says we are going to throw a full embargo on El Salvador like that and treat you like Cuba or Venezuela. That's not going to hurt the US at all. So hey wife

right, I'll hurt El Salvadorans in America, but besides that that's not going to hurt us at all. That will fucking ruin them. It will right and so like I think there is maybe some value in having a little bit of that bluster right now instead of kind of doing the you know, the the pansy foot kind of thing that yeah, I agree and I think it's important to have that and also have a carrot approach. For instance, there's a free enterprise zone in El Salvador where US companies can go and they're not taxed, but they basically hire Salvadorian labor, right? It's a great deal for everybody. We

started to see after cove it, which is the whole thing that pisses me off about the tariffs. We were seeing the supply chain correct itself anyway. We were seeing, you know, pretty serious things, whether it's penicillin or whatever, come back either to the United States or nearshore, to Mexico, to Canada, in some cases, El Salvador, Honduras. And I think you can also use a carrot approach. This could either be really good for you or really bad for you. And the really good means we could actually help develop your economy and that would be beneficial to everybody. I've got a couple of topics closer to home unless you have any anywhere else in your where in the world is Carmen San Diego. Do

you have any other foreign countries you want to rant about now? We come back now. It's okay. I want to talk a little bit about the threats here. And we did this a little bit on the last podcast, but the last time I had you on, but things have deteriorated. You know, we've seen the direct executive order going after Chris Krebs. We've seen the ridiculous stuff going after Comey for his live laugh love like beach seashell meme. You know, we've seen the increased pressure on Harvard. And it's not crazy to think that you are in the target line of something like that.

So I'm just wondering kind of how your process and all that what we're seeing right now. Yeah, I mean, look, by the way, he's suspended my security clearance three different times. I didn't even still have it. So nonexistent security clearance. I retired from the military and I'm out of Congress. So like, anyway, so good one, Trump. Hand it over right now. I'd like to take your security clearance.

And but look, I mean, here's the thing. Do I want to have to live through this? No, I would much rather the country not be going through this and I would much rather me not. But at the same time, screw him. Like here's the thing, I mean, the one thing, and we talked about this in calling him taco, the one thing about Donald Trump is if he's confronted he backs down. He backs down. And I've talked to people that you guys would know their names that are scared to death, that have gone quiet, that are going underground because they're worried that Trump's going to come after him. I'm like, look, I have a family too. If Trump comes after me, guess what? Well, I love it, no. But you know what? From jail, I'll be

three times more effective against him and I will make him rue the day he does that. And I think if everybody... And I think if everybody that he went after did that and said, you know what? Bring it, because you have nothing to file charges on me from unless you make something up. I still believe the court system is going to clear me and history is going to clear me and you're going to look terrible. Then guess what? They'll back down. They back down every freaking time. And if they don't, we beat them. Period. They do. We have a first. They are pussies. And we can say that we can say the P word again in this country. Thank God because we still have a first amendment. We can do seashell memes and we can

say pussy if we want to. You are right though and I look. I just want to say I appreciate that you say that and it's not just bluster like it is not just bravada or whatever like there are people that are not saying what they want to say right now. They're really like across the board. I get texts from people that are like, should I be worried about this? And I'm like, no, like we have a first amendment in this country. Was it ridiculous that Jim Comey had to be purple walked into the secret service to talk about his weird Z shell post on Instagram. Yeah, it was ridiculous. Um,

but it's over, but it's over, right? You know? And so do it like post, show up to that veterans protest, show up to your protests. And you know, I mean, I think that it's different. If you have, if you have a kid that's on a student visa, I do really worry. I think it really sucks the way they're targeting like people on student visas. You know if I had a somebody called me we have we have listeners and viewers from all over and they're like you know I live in the UK and my kid was supposed to go to whatever I would be like. I don't know. I think about it. They're good schools in UK. You know so

I think there are people that have to make legitimate choices right now, but it's not like privileged upper class commentators or professors at universities or university, you know presidents or any of us like we're we're we need to be the ones that are on the front of the line. I mean look, this is a thing guys is we're kind of a victim of Hollywood in a way that, you know, we've always seen these stories where at the end when things get bad, there's always a dude that rides in on a white horse and saves us, right? And so it's always been in the back of my mind still that like something's going to

happen, right? Somebody's going to come in and change. Obviously it's not. It is us. Literally we are the guy and girl on a white horse. And so, so we really have two choices here. We either look 250 year, I'm gonna get emotional talking about this.

250 years of American history is leading to a moment like right now, okay? All the generations of people, all of them that fought for this. My grandfather, you know, faced down the Nazis, like, you know, my generation post 9-11 in the war, the Vietnam guys that got spit on when they come back, you think about all that general, all that sacrifice, it leads to a finite moment in time, which is right now. And it comes to our generations, okay, I'll just call it generically our generation our moment and we have three choices. We either flee this

We either acquiesce or we fight that is it you either flee fighter acquiesce And I think the more of us that choose fight Will win because look When you have it when you have the greatest generation that lost so many people and sacrificed so much in World War II, and you look at all the sacrifices, I mean like the freaking Revolutionary War, these people had families and farms and everything and they made a decision, and even some of their neighbors were loyal to the crown. Nobody's calling for violence.

I want to be clear about that. But it is important for us to recognize that now this moment comes to where we are, our sacrifice that we have to make actually will pale in comparison to what other generations have had to make so yes we can be upset we can lick our wounds a little bit but we also need to smile and go out and kick their ass really we we do have the worst president of all those generations I guess I will say we do have to deal with the worst because psycho yeah. All right, so I have three data points on to bring to you to close to get to my

final topic. Number one, you are currently speaking, you know, with more passion and intensity and then I think I've ever heard you speak and I've been hearing you speak for a long time. Now You introduced Jeb at some events when we met nine years ago. Back when we had hope. And you were okay. You've improved a lot since then when it comes to the speaking part I will say. And then that's data point one. I don't know for any NBA fans I'm doing a Brian Windhorse thing right now if there's

any people out there. Data point two is you decided to wear a suit to this event which I think is kind of interesting data point three is I was on a sub stack live with Katie Couric today which is kind of a humble brag I don't it's very it's a weird world I live in right now I'm like how is this my life she was cussing at me I felt like I was talking to an AI kind of I was like how is talking to an AI, kind of. I was like, how is this real? But on that, on that Substack Live, do you know this yet? Have you heard about this? Okay. She said to me that she thinks that Adam Kinzinger is going to

run for president. And I was like, president of what? He was like, I didn't tell her that. He was like, president of his rotary club. But I don't know, man. Seems like you're sounding candidate-ish to me. I talk to a lot of candidates on the pod that are sounding a lot less candidate-ish than you frankly. So, I don't know. Do you have plans?

Do you have anything you want to talk about? I don't know. Listen, I'll honestly say this. This is like the thing. Thanks. The, uh, the thing I'll say is this, like what the reason I think you can feel more passion for me is because I don't, there's no filter anymore. And I don't mean that like in an inappropriate way.

I'm just like, I'm not going to hide like what I feel and what I'm telling people because that's what people want. That's what they want. So it's kind of an accident like by being a non-politician you're kind of acting more like an effective politician in a weird way right? Yeah. It's a conundrum a little bit. Look I will say this like I'm not ruling anything out. Okay now you're sounding like a politician. I would not run as a Republican for president because the party is gone. But I don't know. I mean, that's a decision. That's something, you know, my wife and I,

and obviously, Ken, would have to go through and deal with, and it's not a decision I would make for a year. But yeah, it's not out of my mind. And I think, because the thing is, I really think America needs, so if somebody comes along and does this, great. They need a truth teller, they need somebody who's probably kind of more centrist that can bring people together and that can give people a vision.

And so we'll see what that looks like. A lot of ideas coming from the community, that gallery. Yeah, that's right. All right, so we're thinking about it. We're praying on it. I'm thinking and thinking, you know, a little bit. We. We're praying. I'm thinking and think, you know, a little bit options. I mean, I think that you could I think you'd be a good Texas Democrat to their Texas things out there. They've been running some, you know, they've

had some some losses lately in Texas. I promise you all I will never run in the House of Representatives again. I did 12 years. Thank you to my former constituents in here for that opportunity, but I'm done. Yeah, thank you to the people that voted against you. Yeah. In the room. All right. You're finding your moment. Okay, that's Adam Kinzinger, everybody. I appreciate you all so much. Thank you, guys.

And my man, I appreciate you so much. I really do. I appreciate your friendship. Thank you for coming out All right Dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt all right to me And it felt alright to me Dying on the banks of Embarcadero's Scass I sat and watched you bleed Buried you alive in a fireworks display Raining down on me Your cold hard blood ran away from me to the

sea I printed my name on the back of a leaf and I watched it float away. The hope I had in a notebook full of white dry pages was all I tried to say. But the wind blew me back via Chicago in the middle of the night And all without a flight at the crush of veils and starlight Oh, I'll make it back, one of these days, you turn on your TV To watch a man with a face like mine He chases down a busy street

When he gets caught, I won't get up And I won't go to sleep I'm coming home, I'm coming home He is Chicago The Bullork Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.