Adam Kinzinger: Don't Feed the Dictator

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Hello, and welcome to the Bullwork Concast.

I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Delighted to welcome back one of our green jacket guests.

He's a former Republican congressman from Illinois.

He's a retired Air National Guard pilot, the founder of Country First.

And you can find him on Substack.

It's Adam Kinzinger.

What's up, man?

Hey, what's going on?

Good to be with you, man.

It is good to hang with you.

I'm sorry to start with some uncomfortable news, though, but I do think we need to talk about it.

I saw a breaking report from Sparks N123.

It said this, the FBI sent an official referral to the Justice Department seeking a grand jury to indict Adam Kinzinger.

He has no explanation for the $108 million he acquired when he joined the January 6th committee.

Wondering if you have an official statement on this, if you've heard anything from the grand jury.

Listen, man, I saw that yesterday.

And here's the best part about it is like underneath that comment, there are people that are like, it's about time, you know, good.

I've always wondered, and I'm like, dude, do you guys really believe this?

So, no, I haven't received anything to the grand jury.

And you know what, Tim?

If I had $108 million, I would be in an island right now.

I believe in American politics, but $108 million would allow me to walk away from it.

And I might do that.

I was going to say the thing that pissed me off, and at at first I was sad for you and for your family and for your young child that you might be going to jail.

But after that, I was pissed.

I was like, why didn't he fly me private to Chicago for a

live show?

I was like, I haven't been invited on any jets.

You know, I want some of this.

And here's the best thing to think about it.

Like, okay, let's say if people believe it, who, what, and why would I get $108 million for serving on the January 6th community?

But I love how when somebody made it up, they did 108 because it's not like 100 or 50.

It's more believable if it's exact.

So ladies and gentlemen, let me just publicly say here, I've not received anything from the FBI.

I'm not worth $108 million.

Although I wish I had a lot of chatter out there, though, about how they're coming for you.

Are you worried at all?

Does Deputy Dan have you shaken in your boots?

Yeah.

I mean, look, it's been, I think, close to what, eight years?

Well, since the advent of Q that I've been, you know, people have been threatening to send me to Gitmo.

So I have all my plans together.

I mean, you know, I've got a preferred bunk mate if we need, you know, and, but no, I haven't heard anything yet.

You no longer have a security clearance, so they've taken that away several times.

That I didn't have anyway.

That's the best.

It's like, I retired.

I got out of the, out of Congress, and like, they don't re-I think they realize it.

Like, you don't take your security clearance with you.

It's not like you just have it, right?

You lose it with the job.

And so I've had it suspended twice.

The non-existent one.

Congrats.

Yeah, I saw James Clapper got it suspended again yesterday.

It's like a free press release for them.

I like the serious, and we'll get to actual news, like the serious subjects of this, we're joking, but like

something that pisses me off is that

you occasionally hear people, you know, alibi for people, for Republicans in Congress, for business leaders and stuff that they like don't speak out against Trump because they're worried about their safety or because these guys might come for them, et cetera.

Like, I don't know.

How do you think about all that?

Because you're out there, as I mentioned, you got a family.

I hate when I hear that.

It makes me angry because, well, first off, let's just take away from us, right?

Members of Congress and the Senate usually travel to places like Iraq.

We traveled to Afghanistan, you know, all these kind of like, I guess I would call them struggling democracies.

And we meet members of parliament all the time that literally will be assassinated or attempted assassinations have already occurred.

And they are there fighting for their country, you know, the Iraqi parliamentarian or whatever.

And so when I hear hear this at home, it angers me because look, you can make more money and have a better life if you leave the House and the Senate.

If your concern truly is like, gosh, I don't want death threats.

And so I'm going to vote this way to make Trump happy.

Not only are you part of the problem, you are absolutely weak.

And go find a different job because I promise you that there is somebody that probably believes what you believe, but is willing to stand up to people.

Look, here's the thing.

If somebody's leveling death threats against you, 99.9% of the time, they're bluffing because they're not going to level a threat

before they do anything.

It's just, this is what it's like Hollywood and politics draw out the crazies, and you have to make a decision.

If you're going to put yourself in that arena, you have to be willing to stand to the pressure.

So, it infuriates me because there are people that have taken real threats because they've done the right thing.

And, you know, you take the whatever, the guy from North Carolina, the senator who's, who's, oh, woe is me.

Yeah, Tillis, like, fine, dude, quit.

He's quitting, but he's still not taking a courageous stand.

It's unbelievable.

The thing I don't get, Tim, is people have to look at them like there is going to be a point at the end of your life where hopefully you have a chance to reflect.

What do these people think they're going to think of themselves?

That's what I wonder.

It's a great question.

I don't have a great answer to it.

And I think a lot of it is that

the bubbles have gotten so thick that they're like not really even exposed to what a counter view would be.

Because I was always like, what about the kids?

It was, you know, during that first term, it was like January 6th, the images, you know, Lafayette Square, whatever, who knows what horrible images we have ahead of us.

I was always like, you know, if you have young kids, some of these guys are old, so maybe their kids are grown, they don't care, but like, but your grandkids, young kids, grandkids.

It's like, and they're in high school.

Like, I think about like things that I learned about in high school that like I didn't live through, like civil rights or something, or, you know, whatever.

Like back at the time, there were people, obviously, that rationalized all this but then you eventually get to a point where like things get flattened and all you learn is like you just see the pictures and it's like your defense i think is going to be pretty weak in the face of your 15 year old grandchild or child when they're like wait a minute so you were on the side of the people like with the Confederate flags attacking the cops like that was the side you were on

and they're like well you have to understand it was complicated you know the president there was also some black lives matter protesters who did bad things.

It's like, you know, so I don't, that's the part that I don't really get, but I guess I just don't think about it.

Compartmentalization.

I don't think your grandkids are going to care that you were worried about your re-election.

I mean, that's the thing is, like, I'll tell people, because, you know, folks will ask me what was the difference between you and other members of Congress in January 6th.

And I'm like, well, I don't know what the difference is, but I do know, and I consciously thought about this, which is Kinzinger is not a very common last name.

And so when Christian, my three and a half-year-old, is learning someday about about this, which he will, he's obviously going to read my name in some capacity.

I can't blend in and say that wasn't me.

And so then I've got to sit down with him at some point as his father and talk to him about doing the right thing, about standing alone, about courage, about morality.

And how can I do that when he can just literally open the history book and say, okay, dad, is this a do as I say, not as a, not as I do thing?

Because I'm reading what you did right here.

And I just don't, I don't understand it.

And lastly, is like every member of the House and Senate goes when they get elected, and I really believe it's almost every one of them, they like fantasize about this time when they are so compelled by something that their Mr.

Smith goes to Washington and they stand alone on the Senate floor and they blah, blah, blah.

Very few people get an opportunity to do that.

And a fraction of those that do actually do it.

You can almost get no senators or congressmen to turn against their tribe.

I think people fear being excommunicated from their tribe more than they fear even death.

It's very optimistic that you think Christian will read about what you did, as opposed to having like, you know, a little AI robot Claude tell him, brief him.

It'll be zoomed into his brain.

Yeah, exactly.

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all right let's get into the actual news ice biggest picture i'm curious your take on where things stand in the uh negotiations uh via ukraine uh what the trump's new favorite word his aspirational tri lat he like learned the word tri lat recently and so now he keeps saying it over and over again what do you think about the state of play well let's first off say that donald trump put down a marker and said if we we don't have a ceasefire to begin negotiations, there's going to be these massive secondary sanctions.

That didn't happen.

And so automatically at the very beginning, Donald Trump said to Vladimir Putin, here's my red line.

Okay, never mind.

I'm going to cross it.

Vladimir Putin, we all know this, knows how to play Donald Trump.

Probably more than Melania knows how to play Donald Trump.

I mean, what we saw in Alaska was disgusting.

I'm watching some of our conservative friends trying to say that this flyover at the Alaska Air Base was all about showing strength.

And, oh my gosh, I can't believe you had the courage to put a B-2 flying over Vladimir Putin.

No, that was a sign of respect.

A flyover is a sign of respect.

So he rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, embarrassed himself, emasculated himself on TV.

So you're saying it wasn't a flex?

It wasn't a flex.

There's no way that was a flex.

And so, you know, he emasculates himself on TV in front of the world.

And then all of a sudden, Europe, the fact that all of Europe basically had to come to the White House the other day is embarrassing enough because it shows that they don't believe that the president is consistent and they have to be there to strengthen his spine around Zelensky.

So let's take aside his affection for Russia and just look at him and say, he is so malleable that all of Europe had to come to make sure that he wasn't manipulated.

Then he walks away in the middle of that meeting to call his friend Vladimir Putin because he wants to be respectful and not call Putin in front of these folks.

And in the meantime, we have this back and forth about is there going to be a security guarantee?

Let's think about something.

Ukraine had a security guarantee.

In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum signed by the UK, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine said, You give up your nuclear weapons.

We will make sure your territorial integrity stays intact with a security guarantee.

Obviously, that wasn't done.

So the question is now: is there a point of a security guarantee?

Maybe.

I have a hard time believing that's going going to happen.

I have a hard time believing that Putin is going to, you know, acquiesce to U.S.

or European troops there.

Can we just sit on a security guarantee for a second and then we'll come back to that?

Because something caught my eye recently.

One of my competitors in the podcast space, one of the more quasi-normal people on the right, Lobar, Ben Shapiro, who, you know, like Ben Shapiro has been coddling up to Trump in so many ways to fundraiser for him.

So he's been awful.

But like on Ukraine, he has opposed Trump from time to time and given a real view.

You know, he's wanted the U.S.

to support Ukraine.

So I was intrigued to see this little thumbnail cross my screen.

Could Trump's all-caps master stroke end the Russia-Ukraine war?

Democrats have been bamboozled by Trump again.

I want to just play for you a little bit about what he thinks the master stroke was.

But the fact that President Trump is willing to hold Russia's feet to the fire by even talking about these kind of significant security guarantees is a major move from the president.

And pretending that that's a pro-Russia move is silly.

If there were a significant security guarantee, a sort of NATO light, an Article 5 light approach to Ukraine in exchange for territorial concessions in Donbass,

that would be a masterstroke from the president of the United States because otherwise this thing keeps going.

His voice is awful.

I don't know how people listen to that.

It's like unbearable.

But anyway, besides that, how about the substance?

What would be your response to that point of view?

Well, I agree with him in the extent extent that if there was an Article 5-type security guarantee, that would be obviously a masterstroke.

That's a stupid word, but whatever.

Let's call it that.

Where I break with him is Donald Trump is not basically saying we're going to do a security guarantee.

This is

what is it that Weiss calls him, Dim Philby?

This is his comment and some people around him.

Now, and maybe Donald Trump is willing to do a security guarantee.

That's good.

Okay.

I'm not trying to discourage from that.

But this idea that then you have to vacate the Donbass in order to get this security guarantee.

If Ukraine makes that decision, that's their decision.

But it came up, the Institute for the Study of War did a study that said basically for Russia to take the rest of the Donbass at the current rate they've taken everything so far, it would take basically 2 million more men and four years.

And so it's not like it's just this little tiny area that Ukraine would just be like, okay, you can have a couple of feet here of land.

It's also an area where there's a pretty extensive defensive belt, which is what they're holding right now, which is very hard for Russia to get through.

So look, Ukraine can make that decision if they want to, but for us to say it's a masterstroke for Ukraine to give away their land for a security guarantee, it's not a masterstroke.

That's at best a truce.

At worst, it's a defeat by Ukraine.

And Ukraine is winning this war.

This is the thing, Tim.

I want you to imagine when we invaded Iraq in 2003, so put your opinion of the invasion aside, and just say, okay, imagine now it's 2006 and a half and we occupy 20% of Iraq.

We've lost a million men.

We did occupy 35% of Iraq two weeks into the war, but then they kicked us out.

So now it's 20 and we've lost a million men.

Is there a soul in the world that would say the United States is winning this war or is inevitably going to win this war?

No, that is exactly the position Russia is in.

They've lost, you know, what, the second biggest military in the world owns 20% of Ukraine after having 30 of it losing a million men the idea that they're like on the edge of winning i've heard this for three and a half years you have two every month they're always on the edge of a breakthrough ukraine can defend itself and the ultimate way to get to an end of this war is not to feed the dictator feeding the dictator never works it's to say we are standing with ukraine they will defeat russia and then that compels russia to the table this has to be a negotiation sure but it has to it has to be a negotiation with Russia understanding that they're not going to achieve their goals.

I got a kick out of that when you're like this small little sliver that they pretend like that's a small little sliver they want to take in the Donbass.

There was a report from the FT.

Those guys have done the best coverage, I think, of

the Ukraine conflict, just from a straight news standpoint.

They have this little anecdote that apparently at the White House meeting on Monday, Zelensky compared giving away Donetsk to giving away eastern Florida, like showed a map to Trump.

And apparently this resonated with him.

It's like, no, wait,

you would mean we would lose Fort Lauderdale?

I don't know that I don't know that we could do that.

That is like the level of what we're dealing with here, I guess.

You know, the problem is, is as Americans, we have this kind of, and I'm guilty of it too, this predisposed bias to think of every other country as small.

And therefore, if you look at a map and you see a little bit of red taken away or added, it's like, eh, whatever, no big deal.

It's a small country.

Well, Ukraine's the size of Texas geographically.

It's the largest largest country in Europe.

This is not a joke.

And again, the area that Russia is talking about taking, and let's keep in mind their initial goal was to take over all of Ukraine in three days.

But the initial area, the area they're talking about taking is a significantly important area because it's where Ukraine can defend itself best.

I don't know if it was Weiss on your show or whatever that compared it to the Sudetenland, but it's basically like you would give away the forts and the defensive line.

And then the question is, what if a security guarantee now?

Is it an Article 5 5 NATO thing?

Do we honestly believe right now, if Latvia or Estonia was attacked, that Donald Trump would follow through on Article 5 and NATO?

I don't know.

I don't.

And the other thing is, do we also the Putin?

This is the thing I don't understand about this conversation that I just, I feel like people are just throwing around terms like security guarantee and there's no like detail.

Like, what exactly do you mean?

Because why would Putin,

if Putin's whole thing is that the root cause of this war was that Ukraine was going to join NATO, which is stupid bullshit or whatever, but if that's that's like his position, okay, well, then why would he be okay with an essential, what did Ben Shapiro call it?

Article 5 light, like Article 5 without the name, you know, basically.

Why would he be okay with that?

And then there was some discussion I saw in one of these, you know, conservative hawk sites who are still pretending Donald Trump's a hawk about how like we would do air protection of Ukraine.

I'm like, really?

You think that Bannon and the MAGA base are going to be for us flying jets over Ukraine and getting shot at?

I don't think so.

They're already freaking out.

They're already freaking out about it.

And I mean, look, you know, I've done some news hits on it, and the question is always, you know, boots on the ground, boots on the ground, which is a stupid term.

But regardless, would America put boots on the ground?

Like, it's this huge red line.

Look, America has boots on the ground in Baltics right now.

I don't know if they actually have a rotation in there, but occasionally we put a rotation in the Baltics.

And it's 100, 200 troops that could not hold the Russians back, but they exist for one reason, because they're a tripwire.

The Russians will not attack attack with u.s troops there because they don't want to trip the whole military and so that's what we're talking about in a security guarantee but also a security guarantee could be as simple as hey we'll give you aid that's what they're arguing when people argue that we actually held the budapest memorandum they're saying that well by the the fact that we aided ukraine is that security guarantee so ukraine who has a huge mistrust for things like security guarantees is going to need to see something on paper do you think vladimir putin will get there i don't think so unless Vladimir Putin knows he is going to lose.

And this is the only way to prevent like a counteroffensive that's going to kick him out of territories that he occupies now.

One of the most important reasons for the security guarantee, even beyond just we don't want the war to start again, is we have to rebuild Ukraine.

The world has to rebuild Ukraine.

If you're a company and you want to invest in Ukraine, which, by the way, is an amazing country to invest in post-war, is your board going to allow you if there is no guarantee that the war is not going to resume?

No.

And so what do you have now?

Poverty?

You have more mass migration.

You have to have those guarantees so that you can rebuild the country.

My buddy Jaymart has an article in Politico this morning basically saying that, you know, the Putin posture on this is going to continue to be stall, stall, stall, as it has been.

And that's worked to date with Trump.

And so, you know, Trump needs a new ultimatum.

to potentially get him to move, which he might not anyway, but let's just, let's just play that out.

And that he has this bill, the Graham and Blumenthal bill, with 84 senators co-signing it, which is this kind of maximum pressure sanctions campaign against Putin that's sort of been the sword of Damocles, but the sword is like very high in the sky and nobody's really afraid that it's going to fall anytime soon.

J.

Martha Jay is going to be like, let's bring that sword down right over Putin's head.

I don't know if that'll work.

And I don't even know if Jonathan and Graham would go through with it.

But what do you think of that?

From what I understand about the legislation, there are some loopholes, which allows the president, you know, huge waiver power.

And so that's a little worrisome.

But I mean, look, is it going to be the thing that compels Russia immediately?

Not necessarily.

But what it will do is basically take away a significant amount of Russia's financing for the war, which continues.

I mean, the thing is, is their economy is teetering right now.

It doesn't mean that in a week it's going to be the post-you know, the Soviet Union and collapse in 91, but like they have huge inflation.

They've actually had to pull back on bonuses they're giving to soldiers.

My good friend Sean Pinner did a British soldier that was captured by the Russians, but he did a big documentary about how they're recruiting people out of Africa with promises of visas and then tricking them and putting them into the war.

And so these people are coming up not knowing.

So Russia is very much struggling.

There's a reason they're not doing mechanized assaults anymore because they're out of tanks.

And so this would be important to basically compel those that are still financing Russia to stop doing that.

Is it going to change Russia overnight?

Probably not, but who knows?

Because

Putin is smart enough to recognize his tenuous position.

Oh, Canada.

Hey, y'all.

We're going on tour this fall.

We're going up north.

I demanded it.

I wanted to support our Canadian listeners and friends being attacked by this administration.

So we're going to do the whole deal.

Mounties, Tim Hortons, maple syrup.

I'm going to be drinking Seagrams on stage.

Is Seagram's Canadian anymore?

I said that in the last episode, and I think they might have been bought by a multinational corporation.

Anyway, I'm going to have a Canadian cocktail on stage.

You guys can tell me what I should do.

And

yeah, we get to all be an allyship

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Once again, it's thebulwark.com/slash events.

We're going to talk about the National Guard.

Some I went off on YouTube yesterday, folks, missed it on this.

Our my National Guard, yours too, I guess Texas, Louisiana is sending people to D.C.

National Guard troops.

I think Louisiana were sending 135 troops.

This is, to me, just preposterous in every way.

We're in hurricane season.

National Guard is big support on that.

And also, what are they going to do?

Like, sit outside without any arms outside Union Station, like in their fatigues, looking like that really a good use of our resources.

So, I want to get your take on kind of how the National Guard has been used.

You wrote about this a little bit in your sub stack, how Trump is undermining the National Guard in America.

But I just want to start, like, for people who are listeners who don't know anybody who is in the National Guard, just like talk about what that is, what that job is, because I know that you were in the National Guard for a while.

Yeah, so basically, the National Guard, and I'll try to keep it at 50,000 000 foot they are a reserve component so they're the reserves federally of a different military branch so i was in the air national guard so we were an air force reserve so i had a federal commission as a federal officer and so i'll get to the second part in a second army national guard is a reserve component of the army there's also army reserves and air force reserves but those national guard components also have a commander in chief who is the governor and when they're not under federal orders they're under the commander of the governor.

What that does is it allows constitutionally that reserve force to be used by the governor for sandbagging.

You know, we know what the guard is used for, riot control, stuff like that.

When the president activates the guard, they are federal troops at that moment, no different than like the 82nd Airborne.

If a governor activates them, then they can do all that stuff according to the Constitution.

So when the President activated the Guard in LA and Governor Newsom did not consent, they were federal troops.

They were not National Guard troops, okay?

Clear as mud.

But the reality is most people join the Guard for a few reasons.

Number one, helps pay for college.

Number two, they want to serve their community or it's extra income, you know, or the patriotism.

And so you do one week in a month, two weeks a year, sure.

Now, as an air guard pilot, we did a lot more than that.

But as your typical guardsman, that's what you do one week in a month, two weeks a year.

You go through basic training and everything like a regular army soldier.

And what are you doing those two weeks a year?

Most of the time you're doing training?

Yeah, it's usually in the summer.

Yeah, usually going to like a camp somewhere and you do like, you know, your maneuvers or your job or whatever it is, basically to stay kind of current.

And so you may get activated.

And when you're activated, keep in mind, every one of these guard soldiers, most of them, have a civilian job.

maybe a doctor, maybe a nurse, maybe a police officer.

When you're activated, you have to leave that civilian job to go to the guard.

And so it's very disturbing to families, right?

Especially single parents who all of a sudden have to find child care.

It's disturbing to employers and ultimately to people that join the guard that may be on the edge of re-enlisting are going to be like, I can't keep doing this.

This is nuts.

And so it's terrible for recruiting.

So you've taken a military force that usually has 90% approval by the American public and you've made it partisan.

And these guardsmen and women don't want to be made partisan.

And so it's very frightening because, again, the last kind of institution we have in this country that is bipartisan is the military.

And Trump is doing everything he can to destroy that.

Yeah.

And that is the crazy part about just, it's only 130 people only, but they're humans.

They're Louisiana citizens.

There's the same number of people in all these other states.

And it's like, you're taking them away from businesses, hurting the economy and the community.

You're taking them away from their families, as you mentioned.

Like, we're back to school time.

It's like, for what?

And now you're sending them to DC to make Daddy Trump happy.

And then they get there.

This is not what they're trained to do.

Right.

Like, so what, like, what are these guys doing?

Like, you see the pictures of them just like sitting outside Union Station in their fatigues, like drinking Gatorade.

And it's like, well, what, what is this for?

Yeah.

And by the way,

the only military units that are qualified for this are military police units, which, by the way, most of the people activated are not military police.

But the interesting thing, too, is like the DC Guard, when that was activated, there are a significant number number of people that were activated with the D.C.

Guard that were D.C.

cops that have to leave their D.C.

cop job and leave that open to come and sit in the National Guard.

By the way, this makes sense for people in national security roles.

I haven't confirmed it, so I just will anonymize it.

But I have some tips for people who are in federal government national security roles.

who are taken out of those like serious jobs and now instead they're patrolling the mall to make sure that you know there's no littering outside the washington monument yeah and the worst part about the fact that it's red states that are sending the guard

is again, that's

you know without getting too dramatic, if you ever see a time where there would be like, I'm not going to call it civil war, but real significant differences in the states, you can start seeing a red National Guard and a blue National Guard, a red army, a blue army.

And even back, and I'll blame the Democrats on this one, back in Trump's first term, he actually had a guard deployment to the border.

I was part of that, by the way.

And blue states were refusing to participate.

And that was stupid of them because the guard on the border is actually a pretty important force.

And so it was red states.

Now you have the opposite of that where red states are eager to put the guard out and it's creating a real mess.

And I just think we're becoming numb to this.

You've talked about this a lot.

We're becoming numb to this.

And that's what frightens me more than anything.

Do you have any election concerns about this?

I mean, just as far as, I don't know, deploying the guard to various places

ahead of elections next year, And like, there's something I could imagine where, I don't know, maybe there's some protests in Democratic precincts in Texas, whatever.

And Abbott's like, okay, we've got to station some dudes in fatigues outside polling places, intimidate people.

Maybe there are even more nefarious things that could be done.

I don't know.

Where are you at on that?

It's not something that keeps me up at night, but it's not a 0% chance.

I think we have to be aware of it.

I would caution people, don't be hysterical about this.

No, I'm not there too.

That's why I keep like trying to dial in, focusing on something that we know they've already tried that I think they might try again, which is a post-election.

I'm not certifying.

Yes.

You know, now we're getting into dystopian fantasy, but like we're already there.

We're already in dystopia.

Yeah.

So we should at least plan for it, which is Democrats win, you know, narrowly.

Maybe some of the gerrymandering Texas backfires a little bit because the Hispanic districts sort of revert back towards how they were voting in Democratic times.

Democrats win the House narrowly

and, you know, they say that it was fraud, right?

And, you know, then there are protests and then you're deploying the National Guard to tamp down the protests, right?

Like that, like that is not a crazy scenario to me.

And that one is more realistic, I think.

It's not crazy.

And, you know, what else isn't crazy is, you know, red states saying, oh, gosh, this high crime area of big city A.

here, we're going to put the National Guard in to secure that for the election.

And look, in reality, in a lot of poor communities in the city, they have a lot of mistrust for guys in uniform.

And so is having a couple of military guys at the polling station going to encourage them to go vote, or will they just take a pass that day?

That's the kind of voter suppression thing I think we should worry about a little bit.

All right.

I want to talk a little bit about MAGA communism.

A little exaggerated, but it is noteworthy.

When you start seizing the means of production, the U.S.

government has a plan to acquire a 10% equity stake.

So not 100%,

but a 10% equity stake in Intel.

The plan here is then for the White House to put pressure on other tech companies to buy Intel chips or use its foundry, either by twisting their arm, making a compelling national security case, or via an array of carrots and sticks.

And the government using carrots and sticks against American companies to buy chips in a company that the government is taking a stake in.

Scott Besson confirmed that they're in talks to do this on TV yesterday and

said the plan is to take the loans that were going to be included in the CHIPS Act and convert them into an equity stake.

It seems like socialism to me.

Totally.

I mean, and here's the scary thing, or the sad thing or the whatever thing is that they're not even hiding it.

It's not like they're trying to convince us it's something else.

They're bragging about it.

Donald Trump with this started with the whole

Japanese steel, U.S.

steel,

Nippon, yeah.

And he called it the golden share.

United States now is a golden share.

I didn't like that, but I guess that wasn't necessarily egregious because of some national security interests.

This is worrisome.

And this is basically the president feeling powerful.

This is the federal government having a significant seat on the board of private companies.

And that is no different than what you see in at least socialism, right?

Real socialist countries, that's what you see.

If this was obama doing it i mean it's the old stamp if this was obama doing it there'd already be riots on the street by the right but since it's their god doing it yeah they think it's brilliant yeah i mean obama giving startup funds to solyndra was like the end of the capitalist system yeah and i was against that by the way but like okay uh you know i mean that was just the government giving investing we did investigation on this that was legitimate government investment you can you can talk about whether that was good policy or bad policy but that wasn't that wasn't the government owning solyndra right and typically when the government helps you know like whether it's with the chips act or like nuclear for instance we have loan guarantees which means we will loan you the money we can guarantee that money because we recognize it's high risk but we want paid back and we don't have an ownership stake that's how you do stuff like this if if intel needs the government's money you could do a loan guarantee but not this and uh i don't know i i i haven't heard the democrats talk about this but that's a whole nother subject which is what are they talking about and you know will the American people buy it?

Will they care anyway?

I don't know.

Let's talk about the Democrats actually, but just really quick on the bullet, because I just want to sit on this for one more second because I haven't talked about it yet on the pod.

Like, the fact that they're already just signaling that it's going to be government bullying.

And like, that's the other thing, that it's whatever word you want to use, whether it's authoritarian country, socialist country, the idea that the government itself would pick a winner, pick a company that it would have investment in.

And then it would go and pressure the other companies in the supposed free market market system and say, hey, you got to use ours, you know, or else you're going to get hit with this tariff on the backside, or else you're going to get this.

Like that is

at least a step towards how the Chinese system of communist capitalism works.

Like it's like this fake market system, state-run market system, right?

And like they're just...

like throwing out there, like that is the, that is their plan for Intel and the chip makers.

Yeah.

And as bad as this is by the government for what they're doing, and you're right, I'm sure there's differences between the Chinese system, but it's pretty close.

But I also blame the corporations, the companies that are going to acquiesce to this, right?

I mean, at some point, you have to resist.

If you're, I don't know what Intel's like rules are here, but Intel should be like, hell no.

You know, we're not going to have any part of the government owning this.

All these companies, all these law firms, all these universities, they're acquiescing to authoritarianism.

And so that's why we're seven months into the president's administration and we're hit with, it's called an OODA loop.

It's a quick military thing, it's like a decision circle.

And your goal is to get inside of your enemy's decision circle.

Trump is inside of our decision circle every day.

Every time we're about to complete that circle, something new comes in, and we have to start over.

Yeah, I mean, the Chinese, you know, like they took over Alibaba.

So, like, we're not all the way to China.

Donald Trump hasn't, you know, seized Amazon from Jeff Bezos because Washington Post wrote him a negative article already.

I'm giving you any ideas.

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All right, let's talk about invading their decision circle back.

I guess just open-ended question about what you think.

You were in the House, what you think House Democrats should be doing as they're returning here soon?

So, look, I, the one thing, and I've served in the minority in the majority, and the minority, they say, you know, the one thing you have is your, your voice.

That's, that's your weapon.

It's your, your ability to get a message out there.

Democrats are a little different right now because they have such a close majority.

The Republicans have such a close majority that they do have options.

Here's the thing is,

let's let's go back to the very beginning of the year.

You know, people like you and I were screaming after Donald Trump was elected until he was sworn in, like, get your horses in a row because he's your ducks in a row because he is going to assault the government.

And they didn't.

So Doge is implemented.

What happens?

Congress is sworn in.

Trump is sworn in.

Congress goes home for two weeks and Doge is on fire.

And the Democrats should have come back, but they were on vacation.

And truly, trust me, it sucks if you're on vacation and you get called back.

I've been there.

They should have come back.

They should have demanded entry into every building where Doge was because they have a right to that.

They're oversight as government.

And when they got rejected, they should have walked to the DC district court and gotten a court order to have entry in this.

They should have done that every day.

You know, that's the kind of street fighting you have to do in politics to get a message out.

It's all about visual.

It's all about, I don't know what the Democrats' message is about the big, beautiful bill, besides calling it the big ugly bill.

Medicaid cuts are bad.

Yeah, in 2010, we were elected.

I got elected on the stimulus package and Obamacare.

And you remember that one speech where

Boehner is standing there and he goes, Did you read the bill?

Hell no, you didn't.

And he throws it down.

Iconic.

15 years later, we're still thinking about it.

Where is that moment with the Democrats?

This is the worst bill to ever pass the House of Representatives.

And I don't see it.

Now, look, there are people people that are doing God's work and trying their hardest.

And the frustrating thing about being in the minority is it's hard to get that message out.

But

I just don't see it.

And there's got to be better coordination to get it done.

And lastly, look, here's the other problem: Democrats are dealing with what Republicans dealt with, which is they have their own internal battles.

You have your left that is mad in the center, the center who's mad at the left.

And it's like in Venezuela, the opposition against

Maduro just never got its act together.

If you, you

were given a magic wand and were like, hey, you could control the Democrats' actions and thoughts, is there a particular issue that you think that they should be leaning in on right now?

Yeah, I mean, I think the Big Beautiful bill is one because that's everything.

That's massive and it's very unpopular.

But here's another example is the corruption.

you know, we know and we've all forgotten that, you know, we got a free $400 million jet from Qatar that the U.S.

government is spending a billion dollars dollars now to retrofit that will go to Trump when he's out.

It will be his jet.

That is stunning corruption.

Here's what I would do if I was Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.

I would make public statements to the government of Qatar before they gave that plane away, to any government that maybe holds American citizens without trial as an example.

Any government, you need to understand that we will be in charge in a year and a half and in four years, and we will not forget and hold you accountable for any corruption you cause in in this country.

And that way you have Qatar sitting there thinking, well, maybe it's not worth a $400 million jet because if the Democrats are in charge in three and a half years, we're going to pay for that tenfold.

El Salvador, same thing.

These different countries might think twice about that corruption.

And the other thing that does is the Democratic leaders now are not just defending American kind of, you know, non-corruption, but they're sending a message to the American people of what their agenda will be by actually doing that agenda.

I think that's essential.

And anytime you put Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries together at a press conference, making a comment to a foreign government, that's going to get news and that's going to cut through.

I think the corruption stuff is good to go after.

When Hakeem was on Friday, you know, the various feedback that people had about

his thoughts with the internal Democratic stuff, I thought he was good on talking about bringing Christy Noam forth.

If they get in, that she's going to be the first one subpoenaed.

I thought that was good.

And I think that it's right for them to go after immigration, which is a change from the Democrats since the beginning of of the year.

And I think a change from Jeffries, even from his posture at the beginning of the year, the corruption part, it was like he was saying he agreed with us on it, right?

But I just think we need actions to match it, right?

And if I'm out there, if I'm Raskin or Garcia or these guys, it's like signaling to, you know, we talked about yesterday with Kirk Patrick, like investors, if you want to even call it that,

bribe givers to Trump's fake coins, you know, should know that they're going to have subpoenas, right?

I mean, you see this, like, this is why there's this asymmetry where you hear people say, oh,

some corporations, some groups are afraid to do certain things because they think that Trump will come after them.

Well, I had Chris Murphy when he was on was saying that some big Democratic donors are on the sidelines because they just don't want to be hassled, right?

Yeah, I believe that.

Well, I believe it too.

So the Trump, the people that are putting money into Trump businesses should start to have the same fear.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

This is it.

And this is like, look, I hated as a Republican, I hated how we did oversight because we were hysterical.

Everything was the biggest issue.

Fox News, you know, had their outrage of the day.

But let me say this, it worked.

It worked.

It obviously worked.

And so now, as Democrats, here's where I think there's an asymmetry too, which is...

Yeah, Republicans care about careers and stuff, but they're really kind of in this for

whatever their principle is or whatever the thing they want.

Democrats, a lot of times, they get very comfortable in their seat and they want to just kind of maintain their seat.

And it's not every Democrat, there's exceptions, et cetera.

But I've seen this where you'll have a chairman of a committee that's been there for 40 years simply because he or she has seniority.

Republicans didn't use seniority as a determination to make chairman.

We made who was better at raising money and who was more articulate.

And that's effective.

That's what the Democrats, so yes, out there even today saying, okay, Intel, just so you know, if you give up 10%, I don't know what Intel's role in this is, but as an example, Intel, you give up 10%, we will haul you in front of our committee and have a month-long of hearings about why you did that.

And then you at least counter the pressure.

And it's not just about the politics even.

You at least have to give us your emails, like show

your communications.

Who suggested this?

What were they doing?

What were they offering?

Was there a quid pro quo?

Yeah, those kinds of questions.

That's what they've got to be doing now.

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All right, former Republican hot minute for you and me right now.

We have a new baseline drop today on the debt.

It's heading to 120% of GDP and deficits of $2.6 trillion.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act adds a whopping $4.6 trillion to the 10-year deficit.

The new tariffs, if they remain

in effect, subtract $3 trillion from the American people, debt will grow faster than before through 2030 and then keep growing.

And that's a new analysis that's out this morning.

I'm curious for you just to riff on that for a minute.

And also,

you know, assuming we ever get out of this mess, like the tariff thing is now creating a future pickle, right?

Where if you want to get rid of these painful tariffs, then you're going to have to deal with the debt a different way.

And that's going to create some pain.

Totally.

We used to believe as Republicans that economic growth was the biggest driver of revenue.

I still actually believe that.

If tariffs hurt growth, which they will, they don't help growth.

Let's at least say that.

Then you're obviously losing revenue on that delta, on that growth.

So, okay, let's say we're still gaining revenue from the tariffs.

The debt is out of control.

I mean, the thing is, is like when I was in, we were 10, 15 trillion.

You know, COVID skyrocketed the debt.

And COVID should have been the moment when Republicans said, look, our orthodoxy of tax cuts by any means at any cost needs to be thought about because we just doubled the national debt basically in about five years.

And at some point, the debt reaches a point where there is no way to grow out of it.

You've got to raise taxes.

You've got to do that.

And they are unwilling to leave that orthodoxy.

The fact that we're spending more now in interest than on national defense is stunning.

And I actually, when I saw that a year ago, it was the first time I realized that we had actually broken that point.

That was shocking to me because you could imagine if we didn't have a debt as an example, we could spend $1.6 trillion on the military or we could all have money back or we could double our investment in healthcare.

This is a mess.

Republicans are not the party of fiscal responsibility.

And I would certainly encourage Democrats, you don't have to be like, we need to cut everybody's benefits, but be the party of fiscal responsibility.

And you can do that through increased revenue.

But I think this is going to be a big issue probably by the end of Trump's presidency.

I think we're going to cross some kind of a real Rubicon here.

Concur.

All right.

We've got rapid fire three fun topics.

Well, depending on your definition of fun.

I want to start with this.

Have you seen the Secretary of Defense doing pull-ups?

He's been posting some videos of himself doing pull-ups.

I'd like for you to give me a little play-by-play analysis of it.

Listen, listen, Tim, I don't know.

I don't know.

He could have been on pull-up number a thousand, okay?

But let me just say this.

First off, the one thing you learn in the military is if you do underhand pull-ups, that's what the girls are allowed to do.

The guys do overhand pull-ups.

And in that video, RFK Jr.

is doing overhand pull-ups.

Pete is doing underhand pull-ups, and he's like hoinking around his legs to try to hoist himself up because he can't get up on his own power.

So look, I mean, you know, great, good job working out.

But, you know, in a environment where alpha males rule and your image is everything, that was a pretty big violation of that today.

Kind of a gender-affirming care a little bit on which type of pull-up that he was doing.

You might want to call it that.

It's a little reinforcement.

You really are strong, Pete, even if it is underhand.

Yeah.

I'm not a big pull-up man, but I'm not bragging about it.

You know, it's kind of a put-up or shut-up type thing, you know?

If you're going to talk about your masculinity, you should at least be able to do overhand pull-up, I would think.

And by the way, I mean, if you have no upper body strength, but you're allowed to jerk your legs around to the level he did, you could do as many pull-ups as you wanted.

It's just using momentum.

You can't get it, Pete.

I don't know if you can.

And it was like seven-inch movement total.

His chin didn't really get all the way up over there.

He's really stretching the neck.

All right, good try, Pete.

Nice try.

I've got another one for you.

And I just want to say before we start this,

I'm

98.7% of the time against outing.

So I just, I'm against outing.

Okay.

And I don't, you know, sometimes I think that libs get a little overexcited about their allyship with gays and they start to feel free to do outing when they don't, when it's not their fight.

Okay.

So

I will just say that.

That doesn't mean we can't do teasing.

And I have a story from the Daily Mail this morning.

I do have to read to you.

One DC-based male escort described having a two-year relationship with a sitting Midwestern Republican congressman.

Oh, God.

Who during that period had multiple serious girlfriends?

The 29-year-old sex worker with boy next door looks described dinners at downtown D.C.

eatery Butterworths, which is a very popular MAGA hangout.

It is.

And he said that was followed by late nights.

The congressman is now engaged to a woman.

So.

Wait, wait, do we know?

So he's not naming them.

He's not naming them, but you are a Midwestern congressman.

Can we rule you out?

Yeah, you can rule me out.

Okay.

Do you have any other thoughts?

Do you have any other friends in Congress who were kind of?

Yeah,

it's going to end up being a surprise, I guarantee you.

But I mean, if he's taking this dude to Buttersworth, like, you'd think,

they obviously have to have a cover story, like he works for me or something like that.

I'm telling you, you can kind of tell.

Aaron Schock had cover stories back in the day, you know, about his staff

was very muscled, great teeth.

You know, they all had kind of a similar look about them.

And maybe it was just a coincidence, you know.

So cover stories, sometimes there are some weaknesses in your cover story.

Listen, I think if this is true, if this male escort's telling the truth, it's probably not going to be long until this comes out because if I actually sat down with a list of Midwest congressmen who just got engaged to women,

I'm sure it's down to one or two.

It's a short list.

I I just don't know, but I'm sure it's not.

Was there gossip about this back when you were there about kind of the

closeted

thing?

I mean, you'd hear that sometimes.

Like that rumor was out, like right when I got elected, that was the rumor about me because I was single.

And like, so everybody kind of gets it at some point, but like, no, I haven't heard of anybody recently, but I've been out for two and a half years.

So

I've never seen somebody just.

Don't let anybody clipping that.

I've been out of Congress.

We can hear Christian yelling in the background.

So we know that you've sired a child successfully.

What about Shock?

Were you guys, because you guys are the same year, right?

Same state, same year.

Yeah, no, he actually was elected two years before me or four years before me.

He was actually really helpful to me.

And he's a good reason I got elected.

And yeah, I mean, you know, he's out, obviously, now, but that was kind of like...

It was a big mystery at the time, you know, because he's on Full MAGA, which is pretty depressing.

Full MAGA.

That is very sad.

And I told him that I was like, it was a different moment.

This wouldn't work now in 2024.

This will be a nice little gossip reveal for our listeners.

I had one conversation with him besides a hello at the gay bar back in the time.

And it was like just asking for advice or whatever.

And I was like, dude.

This is when it was, I forget, I don't think the scandal had happened yet.

I think this was like during the period where I didn't get my timeline right, but we're like, people started to realize that he was gay or maybe it came out.

So he wasn't gay.

But it was like, people knew.

And it was it was coming and we did not know about the um the financial scandal about how he like did his office up as like at like what was that show downton abbey

office it was before that anyway and i'm just like dude come out you're from fucking illinois move back to illinois run as a moderate republican for like a bruce rauner yeah style mark kirk you know the name flash from the past style republican and like don't vote against gay shit and you could probably do it.

Like you could have, and I stand by that.

Like, eventually that would have not worked because, like, once Trump comes around 2016, you have to go full MAGA or nothing eventually, like 2018, 2020.

But

didn't take my advice.

Now he's in West Hollywood hanging out with MAGA gays.

It is what it is.

Yeah, just be yourself, man.

I mean, that's the big thing is like you realize in life is, you know, all of us wear masks to some extent.

And it's like, all that does is it's destructive.

It destroys you.

And the more masks you can take off, the better.

It's great advice, Adam.

And that takes us into our final topic, which was an uplifting topic.

I figured we'd shovel some laughs.

You did a sub-stack with a guy named Jason Riddle.

Yeah.

Talk to people about that.

Listen, this is, I've kind of done this series of people that left MAGA.

And, you know, Pam Hemphill, who was at January 6th, and now Jason Riddle, he was arrested at January 6th.

The dude was basically deep into alcohol, got fired from jobs.

His marriage to his husband was like really on the rocks.

Husband was about to leave him.

And, you know, and he ends up basically in the Capitol raiding a liquor cabinet.

I did joke with him.

I'm like, it's not hard to find a liquor cabinet in the Capitol.

But he ended up going home, you know, kind of is made a hero, ends up serving time in jail.

He was a corrections.

He made a hero inside MAGA.

Yeah, inside MAGA.

And at one point, he was a corrections officer and actually ends up going to the jail he was a corrections officer in.

And to make a long story short, eventually he's kind of looking at a prisoner who's having a detox from alcohol and realizes that's going to be me someday, gets kind of forced sobriety because of his parole from January 6th, and in essence starts to see life very clearly.

And it's one of the most raw and real interviews I've ever done with anybody where he talks about what are the things that drew him to MAGA.

And I'll give you a little spoil alert.

It's not issues.

And that's the thing.

They don't care about issues.

It's belonging.

It's like community.

It's purpose.

That's what manga is which is why they can be so inconsistent in what they believe and he talks about that so i would really encourage people to it's on youtube as well but my sub stack take a look and uh i think you'll learn a lot from it honestly was there any last thing was there any um

you know insight into i i mean i was his awakening just like sobriety and the scales falling from his eyes or was there you know something that we could learn as far as talking to other people in his boat yeah i mean look he the one thing he said is so he had mentioned another guy Brandon Fellows, and he said he ended up in prison and ended up kind of getting surrounded by this MAGA group.

And so he's still unabashedly kind of pro, you know, stop this or pro-stop the steal.

And whereas Jason was kind of in a different path.

So I think what we can learn is if somebody shows an openness to leaving or they left, you have to embrace them in community.

And I mean, I don't mean that to sound all soft and sensitive, but you have to embrace them in community because I see too too many people on the left.

I even see it in the comments I do, which is like, well, he never should have done it in the first place, right?

And

look, people can come to realize they've done wrong and we have to be willing to forgive them.

That is Donald Trump's superpower, by the way, is he'll forgive anybody.

He'll forgive anybody once.

And we have to be willing to wrap people in community because I think that's more than anything else, what drives people to MAGA is isolation and loneliness.

And it gives them a sense of purpose.

He talked about one of the things he mentioned, he had 5,000 Facebook Facebook followers, and he mentioned to him how that was his identity because, you know, at one point he came to realize, like, they don't even know me.

I don't know them.

But for a long time, that was his identity.

I have 5,000 people that are relying on me to give them the truth.

And that's, you know, that's a reality.

You know, we've gone full live when we're talking about embracing community.

That's right.

I know.

All this other new woo-woo lingo me and Adam are learning in middle age.

Buddy, it's always good to talk to you.

Everybody go check out his substack.

And for listeners, we'll be back tomorrow.

I had two guests I wanted to get on this week, and I wanted to talk to both of them so badly.

We're just going to do a doubleheader tomorrow.

So it's going to be a good one.

Stick around.

We'll see you all then.

Peace.

Connected to the stars just projecting where we part at Pull up where you park at aim a little dark

Where you'll bark at It'd be a shame if you stayed in them apartments Twill barely even came to them parts Catch a play and then parlay in them apartments I swear it's like a party every day in them partners You was raised in them parties dang Jump a shot or join a gang in them apartments My mama say we gotta get away from them apartments It's graves in them apartments and they ain't gotta end this way.

Cause we ain't start shit.

I don't give a fuck about no industry beef.

Ain't nobody give a fuck when Taylor's dead in the street.

I don't do the shit you see on the screens.

I've been tapped in with true things.

I peep your rap cap and I unscrew things.

I don't give a fuck about them niggas at the top.

The biggest nigga on the block still gets shot.

Pop, you thinking pop?

I'm thinking.

Can't talk about that shit from

you seen Fox.

Lee's son, Aligaib, I I see a tiny line of silver.

A way to make a play, although they say it's unfamiliar.

It's off the kilter, I say the words without a filter.

You gotta have nerve, it'll make you strong if it don't kill ya.

I'll put a bullet and bob the fucking building for they try and kick us out the building.

What about the children?

When I check a news channel, I get a similar feeling, but still, we gon' make it to heaven, high water, or hell.

But don't take the highways.

285 behind the damn wheel, it's like a driveway.

Even now, I could give Christ and I do it twice.

Shot Gil Chris, heard thunder hit with lightning.

And still, I didn't feel shit.

Talk about resilience.

Off of Stone Mountain Lockthonia, where I honed it to my brilliance.

It was after then I took my talents right up to Virginia.

Heard they said that she for love, but shit was good, her shit was gritty.

I could tell you what it was, but let bro tell you what I'm missing.

Pay attention.

What's missing in my hood?

I identified.

Then I brought white to my hood.

Shit, I gentrified.

We had military arms, we would simplify.

Point blank, let me simplify.

I've been light post corner boy, green box sitter, crack nigga, tryna hustle up and act vigorous Six deuce buyer, niggas really live the wire from lookouts, then we meteor to suppliers Caved in one way in, one way out Rubble cops on mountain bikes, ain't pulling mace out.

Just tryna get back home from getting chased out.

A week ago, a boy like me don't got a face now.

Departments, the projects, the ghettos, all the same shit.

Crazy how we hop scotch and double Dutch danger.

We ADHD and all the pills that you gave us.

How we supposed to process this anger.

The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Labor Day is the last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year.

Now through September 2nd, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Plus, two years' interest-free financing, and we pay your sales tax.

The Floor Stores Labor Day sale.

Don't let the sun set on this one.

Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.