The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump’s DEEPEST SECRET Gets FLUSHED OUT by Adam Kinzinger (Interview)

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger who unlocked the Pandora’s Box into a secret that Donald Trump may never recover from. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. And remember this, Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. He's a threat. And, you know, we'll bring in adversaries and I'll bring it in right now. But even Vladimir Putin, has anybody ever heard of Vladimir Putin of Russia, says that Biden's and this is a quote, politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy. So, you know, we talk about democracy, but the whole world is watching the persecution of a political opponent that's kicking his ass. It's an amazing thing. Well, we are joined by Adam Kinzinger, a proud rhino, self-professed dad, husband,

Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force National Guard, a CNN senior political commentator, and former congressman. Welcome to the show, Mr. Kinzinger. Good to be with you. I'm excited to be here. It's so much to talk about. Well, let's talk about that clip we played at the outset. You now have Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican Party,

a party that you were once a member of Congress under the R banner. The leader is quoting Vladimir Putin as a source for American democracy. What's your response? Look, I mean, this is the thing we have to battle against here is our tendency to just kind of gloss over this and just Yeah, we've heard this before. And, you know, it's no longer outraged. And this is this point, he drives a throw so much crap on the wall that it just like no, we are no longer outraged. But the thing that drove me nuts beyond, you know,

the credence, obviously, he's giving to Vladimir Putin is listening to the people in the audience, particularly when he goes, how many of you have heard of Vladimir Putin, you heard a couple booze in there, you heard a lot of cheers, like, yay, Vladimir Putin. I mean, this is a guy who is murdering innocent people in Ukraine as a territory grab. And Donald Trump, for whatever reason, you know, I, who knows the exact reason besides he definitely admires strongman is using him once again as a source. And remember, he stood by

Vladimir Putin and said he trusts Vladimir Putin over our own CIA one time about this election. It is. It's nauseating. And the problem is, I think too many people are becoming numb to it. And they're like, Yeah, but the border or Yeah, but inflation. This is a damaging, devastating thing in the brain rot in people's minds. The brain worms that are from this are just are just they still, it still shocks me daily.

You know, and then one of the things that Donald Trump consistently brags about in interviews right now is that he created a song with some of the most dangerous January 6th insurrectionists. And they came up with a band together called the J6 Choir. So before Donald Trump gives those traveling fascist circus events that he calls rallies, instead of playing the national anthem first, he plays the J6 choir anthem and then brags, of course, it's a lie, that it gets more downloads or more people listen to it than Taylor Swift here. Just watch this here. Play this clip. By the way, that's sort of like... You're really beating Taylor Swift, by the way.

Yeah, I did. The J6 is beating Taylor Swift. It's Donald Trump and the J6 prisoners. The Pledge of Allegiance. On iTunes and on Amazon and on Billboard, which is the big deal. Number one, Donald Trump. So now I feel like Elvis because now we've done The Apprentice that was a great success we did now I've done now I've done a recording or whatever you call it but no it was number one and you know what that is that's a tribute to the fact that people feel the J6 people have been very unfairly treated just what's your response to that, Mr. Kinzinger? Yeah. So look, it's a couple of things. First off, let's just state the obvious. There's not

more people listening to that than, I've never even heard it. I just know he does it. I refuse to listen, but there's no more people listening to that than Taylor Swift. Okay. So that's obvious. We all know it, but I think we have to point the truth out. The only way to defeat lies is just to consistently say the truth. The other thing is, I think at one point he called them hostages. Now that's interesting given what we're seeing in Israel right now, how he would call them hostages. And there's something very interesting about what happened after these folks were arrested after January 6th. So I lived right in the middle of it where for about three weeks, maybe even up to a couple months, these people would get arrested, they'd get

put in jail, they'd be ashamed of what they did. I mean, they would all say, you know, look, I got you know, got out of control, I got misled, whatever it is, they were ashamed. And then something happened. Fox News, eventually Donald Trump, but that right wing kind of media ecosphere kind of coddled these prisoners, the January 6th insurrectionists, told them that they were political prisoners, told them they did nothing wrong. And what that happened is this media ecosystem, and then of, the base that came along, has turned them from actual criminals who actually

are criminals into this idea of political prisoners, every kind of evil, wrong, bad movement needs a martyr, they got their martyr and Ashley Babbitt. And they got their living martyrs in these January six insurrectionists. And again, it's Yeah, it's awful that what 2530 whatever percent of the American people believe that they are political prisoners. It is important for us to note though, that in a democracy that still exists, we

need to make sure that a majority of people and I think we're definitely there know that these people broke the law, and that we come together and unite in an uncomfortable alliance. It's not comfortable, you know, the sane right, the left and the center to defeat this guy. Because if he gets in there, I'm going to tell you, Donald Trump, a second term Donald Trump will pardon all of these folks. And he's going to put people around him that aren't going to hold the guardrails of the Constitution, but are going to specifically not hold the guardrails of the Constitution. And I don't see any way back from that, quite honestly. You know, we cover the 14th Amendment Section 3 disqualification cases here and the various legal arguments.

And I don't need to get into those legal arguments here. But one of the reasons, I think, why we even have to talk about the 14th Amendment, Section 3, and one of the things that the architects of that provision, I think, didn't necessarily contemplate, is where you clearly could identify somebody who is treasonous and traitorous and who engages in an insurrection, that one of the major American political parties would rally around that individual still and coddle that individual. And the fact that the Republican Party, which you're very critical, of course, of now their behavior in coddling Donald Trump, supports that behavior. They now say, if you oppose our support of an insurrection, you are thereby politicizing an issue, which is

apolitical in normal times to just say, that's an insurrection, that's treason, that's traitorous. As you look towards your former colleagues, some I'm sure are intelligent people, some I'm sure may not be so much so, but an amalgam of people. What do you say to them when they coddle blatant fascism, and then they politicize it like that's normal political behavior? Yeah. I mean, the only thing I can say to people is, you know, because I lived it is like at some point, and you know, what I have to what I personally have to fight against is this idea of like, I'm going to get discouraged. And just think like, there's no way out of this versus no, because what they want, they want us they

being the bad guys, they want us to get discouraged, because they get energized on this. They love chaos. We get discouraged with chaos, we get fatigued, they get energized. And so what I tell to my colleagues whenever I talk to them, and I'm in touch with some of them still, is like, look, all of this is going to go away. Now, it's either going to go away when Donald Trump is defeated. And I'm not saying like it's going to all go away. There's still going to be strains of it. But that's the way to at least defeat him. Or it's going to go away when this whole experiment collapses, this whole experiment

being democracy. But either way, there's going to be a moment in your life where you're going to look in the mirror, and you're going to have to face your own personal judgment for what you've done. And it's like, look, I can tell people from somebody that did the job for 12 years, the job is not worth your soul. I mean, being in Congress is actually pretty hard. It's not all that fun. You're constantly on. Why do you have to stay there? And I'll tell you, telling the truth and finally like unburdening yourself,

if some of these people can do it, is a cathartic experience. And we need more people to just come out and tell the truth. I don't. I don't understand what that draw of power is. But I will say this, when I was a boy, you know, I always imagined a moment in my life where I could like kind of stand alone and do something right. I think every young boy and probably every young girl think about that. But I've learned that very few people get the chance and a minuscule amount of people that actually get that chance have the courage to do it because they fear more than they fear death.

They fear being kicked out of their tribe and that's what we're up against. So we have to, the sane people have to defeat this cult to give these people an exit. But this idea that there's going to be an awakening in the GOP anytime soon i just don't think it's going to happen you know and meanwhile over the holidays donald trump continues to post deranged messages number one he tells his perceived political opponents to rotten hell he then says special counsel jack smith to go to hell um and then he posts about the January 6th committee, which you were a member of, you know, over and over again. And Donald Trump posted the following. He goes, why did the unselect, and that's, you know, that's a stupid name

for a January 6th committee of political hacks and thugs illegally delete and destroy all of the evidence they use to write their fake report? Why do they not show that I use the words peacefully and patriotically in my speech? They actually pretended that those words were never uttered. Crooked politics, exclamation point. And again, all of this is in caps. And this stuff is archived. The reports, the evidence is archived. When the Republicans came in to power, they shut it down. But this is something that's one of those things that's so easily disprovable. I mean,

anybody with the internet can look it up. And I know you've commented it before, but over and over again, this is just push that the evidence was destroyed and deleted. And what do you make of that when it's just such an obviously blatant lie it's just a cult i mean so if you think about it this way in a cult like the the worst thing that can happen you have to do everything to belong because you believe that there's no existence outside of your existence in the cult and so if the cult comes in and says look uh the january 6 committee destroyed all the evidence and i show you proof that here's all the evidence, like it's right in front of your face. You may, at your heart, if you're put on CIA truth juice, you may say like, yes, okay, it's there. But you can't say

that publicly because you'll get kicked out of the cult. I was in a really strict kind of religion growing up until about college. And I would talk about how if you leave that religion, you feel isolated. They isolate you. Well, that's what a cult does. That's what the GOP is doing now. So yes, I think the vast majority of these people don't believe that we destroyed the evidence, but they're going to spread it because that is a tattoo of your tribal identity. And the worst thing that can happen right now is that you get kicked out of your tribe. And I got to tell you, some people may say, well, that's good that people then know the truth. I'm actually

more frightened that people may know the truth about like the January 6 committee, for instance, and not accept it. That makes me more frightened because then I run out of ideas on how to how to frankly get us out of this. But there's no doubt there are some people that believe in and we have to keep trying to get to them. But the other thing is, again, looking at our fellow, I guess, pro-democracy American as our ally, and coming together in this unnatural alliance to beat these people, because that is the only way we're going to save this country is to defeat them. And I'll say

quickly to massive failure from the pulpit of the church as well, these evangelicals that are being told by their ministers, that somehow Jesus gave gives a rat's behind on what our tax rates are, or woke ism or anything like that he doesn't he didn't. And they are being misled from the pulpit. And, you know, these churches are frankly feeding into the cult as well. I think one of the things that you're being very effective

at and exposing the cult is that in the cult of Maga, that the wannabe emperor has no clothes. And you've been showing that, you know, and you've been pointing out, you've been saying, look, this is such a weak and whiny movement. And you wrote too that like you had this epiphany, I think it was two weekends ago too, where you were just like, you know what? That's it. They're just the biggest bunch of losers ever. And let's start with that one and that revelation. And then I have one more for you, but let's start with that revelation. Yeah, so I was, I mean, literally, you know,

I've always thought they were weak and whiny and whatever, but like it was a couple of weekends ago or something, I'm sitting around and I was doing something on Twitter or whatever, and I just kind of like threw these papers and I'm like, I am so sick of their whining. Like they're always victims. Oh my God, everything. Donald Trump was the most powerful man in the world

for four years. For two years, the Republican Party had every branch of government and he's still the victim of everything. Okay, so let's say that's true. Then that makes him weak in general because as the most powerful man in the world, he couldn't even push back.

But it's just everything is victim and whiny. And I was raised in a tradition, a traditional Republican tradition, which was all about self-sufficiency and strength. And, you know, we're all against perpetual victimhood. And they've become this perpetual victimhood. And I think we have to call that out. You know, there are some people that will say, well, no, you can't. You've got to help shepherd them into the way.

And like, to an extent, maybe there are some people that that works on, but these people know the truth and they're whiny victims. And we've got to call it out because nobody really in their heart wants to be a whiny victim. They've just got to be shown that they're whiny victims and they're following the whiniest idiot that's ever served in the presidency. This morning you posted another morning, another day of hashtag Trump smells, Trump smells like ass,

hashtag Trump stinks leading the charts. And look, this all began with a post that you made. I'm genuinely surprised how people close to Trump haven't talked about the odor. It's truly something to behold. Wear a mask if you can. Then Donald Trump responded to that and he had his team go after you and say, no, Kinzinger is the one who's smelly. And as Hillary Clinton said, if you could be baited by a tweet, how are you supposed to be expected to handle Vladimir Putin and other authoritarians?

And Donald Trump clearly got baited by your tweet and your post. But let's just start with your post. The odor, the stench, the stink. How bad is it? What do you know about that? Yeah, I mean, it's not good. I mean, think about the best way to describe it. I've tried to like, so take like armpits, ketchup, like a butt and kind of put it in a blender and makeup and put that all in a blender. And that's, and you bottle that as a cologne. That's kind of that. But it's amazing. Like I've been amazed that you know, everybody's just kind of like learning about this now. But again, I think the bigger point is, he's a weak human being. But look at this. He had he had his

people respond to me on this. By the way, they're always unnamed spokesman, because none of them want to put their names, even though I think I know who's doing this, the way they're always unnamed spokesman because none of them want to put their names even though I think I know who's doing this like they don't want to put their names behind that because they know that their words are gonna live forever and like my goodness I mean Vladimir Putin I'm gonna tell you she president Xi of China they're licking their chops at the idea of another Donald Trump term. Because I sat in the Oval Office once when Donald Trump begged a group of us to pull China's ZTE

out of the sanctions list from the National Defense Authorization Act because he made a personal promise to President Xi because she asked him nicely on the phone. I mean, this is the kind of leader, you know, of the greatest country in the world that we're looking at reinstating. And the odor is the odor. And, you know, I think that needs to stay alive. People need to keep talking about it because he's the kind of guy

that would use something like that all the time against other people. He needs a taste of his own medicine. A lot of people are confirming exactly what you said. People sharing stories going back decades that the stench is not new. It's been with Donald Trump forever. Finally, any final words to the Midas Mighty out there about where we are heading into 2024?

Look, 2024 is gonna be an awful year. And I'm not saying this to end on a bad note. I'm saying this to say, get yourself ready for battle. Because again, the forces of chaos get energized on this. People like you and I get fatigued from this, and this is what they're counting on. So this is going to be the year where we have to put aside our differences on whatever policies or whatever, and just unite to defend democracy. And we can get back to bickering and arguing

about all these issues that have been issues for a hundred years and will be for another hundred years. But this is the year where we have to be singular focused on saving our Republic. Cause I truly believe another Trump term does irreparable damage to this country if we can survive it. Adam Kinzinger, thank you for joining us.

We'll hope you come back again. Anytime, you bet. Stay away from that stench, everybody. Thank you. Thank you so much. Adam Kinzinger, make sure you hit subscribe. We're on our way to 2 million subscribers and check us out on the podcast as well. Midas Touch Podcast at Legal AF. Have a good one. Thanks so much for watching. We're only a few subscribers short of 2 million subs. Please subscribe right now to the Midas Touch YouTube channel for free and help us grow this unapologetically pro-democracy network.