Adam Kinzinger and Pat Ryan: Bring It On

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Speaker 21 Hello and welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Speaker 21 I'm here today with former GOP Congressman, our friend Adam Kinzinger, who is apparently a candidate for imprisonment, according to the president-elect, but he's out on the lamb and he is with us today.

Speaker 21 What is up, renegade Kinzinger?

Speaker 22 What's up? As I said, bring it. Just bring it.
I mean, really, come on. Like, just throw me in jail for something you make up.
Let's see what happens at that point.

Speaker 21 Bring the dogs. That's your message to Donald Trump on this?

Speaker 22 Yeah, like, what are you going to do? You're going to make up a charge against me? That's fine. I'll just, I'll be double a pain in your butt.

Speaker 22 Double it when I'm doing it from prison because people will pay attention to that. So just bring it.

Speaker 21 I have some more news that is added for you on this front. It's not just Donald Trump that might want to see you in jail.

Speaker 21 My colleague Andrew Egger was over on the Hill yesterday and was talking to House Republicans about Trump's

Speaker 21 claims that January 6th committee members should be in prison. Here are a couple of them.

Speaker 21 Jim Comer, if you've used a congressional committee and you've lied and tried to set people up and falsely imprison people, then you should be held accountable.

Speaker 21 Tim Burchett, Tennessee, if we find they broke the law, then they should be imprisoned. Now we know they've manipulated evidence.
So if that's the case, then absolutely.

Speaker 21 Lauren Boebert, it's not looking good for them. I think anybody that has politically imprisoned American citizens and completely ruined their lives needs to be investigated.

Speaker 21 Not every House Republican agreed with them, but none were willing to publicly criticize it. Mike Lawler just mumbled.
Nancy Mace smirked and ignored the question. So there you go.

Speaker 21 What do you think about that?

Speaker 22 It's sad because, okay, first off, the question about, yeah, anybody that imprisons somebody should, well, first off, let's just be clear. The January 6th Committee threw nobody in prison.

Speaker 22 Is that right? It was the Department of Justice. Right.
And this is the funny thing, is even the basics, they get wrong. One of them said something about manipulating evidence.

Speaker 22 And Donald Trump keeps repeating this. One of the things that really ticked me off about the Welker interview is, you know,

Speaker 22 they let him throw out BS and don't respond to it. Or if they do call him out, it's only like a one-time iteration.

Speaker 22 I think if the president is lying, you stick to that point and you don't come off of it until you get a satisfactory answer.

Speaker 22 And one of the things he keeps saying is that the January 6th committee deleted all the evidence. This is completely false.

Speaker 22 There was no evidence deleted.

Speaker 22 And in fact, if you go on, if you just type in January 6th Committee evidence, govinfo.gov has all of the evidence that we collected, all of the, has the report, all the supporting evidence.

Speaker 22 But they just make things up. And so, yeah, when my old colleagues are saying, well, if you break the law, you should be in jail.
Look, I agree. If you break the law, you should be in jail.

Speaker 22 We didn't break the law. And they don't want to say we didn't break the law.
They also don't want to say we broke the law. They just do this metaphorical, if you broke the law, you should be in jail.

Speaker 22 And that way it makes everybody happy. Trust me, after 10 years, they've gotten very good at not answering a question, but making whatever audience wants to hear it happy at what they heard.

Speaker 21 So on this point, as you rightly point out, none of you did anything wrong. No laws were broken.
And so, you know, this is kind of this pardon discussion is out there.

Speaker 21 But one of the things I've been saying to people is like, okay, well, if you believe that Trump's just going to throw people in gulags, then like the pardons aren't really going to matter because they'll just come up with some other fake reason to do it that is not covered by a pardon.

Speaker 21 But on the other hand, you know, I think there's some people that are that are worried about it looking to protect folks.

Speaker 21 I'm just wondering, kind of, from your vantage point and from people you're talking to, like, how are people weighing like the pros and cons of the preemptive pardon question over the next 40 days?

Speaker 22 Yeah, I mean, everything I've heard is it's kind of from both sides of what you're saying. So on the one hand, it's like, you you know, some folks are wondering, well, why not just go ahead and do it?

Speaker 22 Because Donald Trump has made it clear he doesn't care about the law. And this way, at least we, you know, prevent people from being caught up in

Speaker 22 these lies, you know, and make it as kind of broad as he made the Hunter pardon.

Speaker 22 On the other hand, there's a lot of people that feel like, listen, if you get, if, if I accept a pardon, then that is, in essence, saying I'm guilty of something.

Speaker 22 And I think the vast majority of people are saying, basically, look we're not guilty of anything we didn't do anything so why would we accept a pardon and you know in essence bring it on so that's kind of and the folks i'm talking to that's kind of the different sides they're taking on it it'll be interesting to see what the president ends up doing ultimately i i actually tend to think he probably was leaning towards the pardon thing, but probably not now.

Speaker 22 But, you know, who knows? I was surprised at the timing on the Hunter pardon, to be honest with you, too.

Speaker 21 Yeah. Saw a poll out today that had two in ten Americans, 22% supported that pardon.
You wouldn't know that on Blue Sky. Just one other con on the pardons that just convinced me from my perspective.

Speaker 21 I was talking to one of the people that is maybe less high-profile than you that would be on that list. And their concern was like getting back in the news, you know, and like crazy people.

Speaker 21 Like, I'm more concerned about crazy. You know, if he pardons, you know, a list of 12 people, like that puts a target on our back, kind of among among vigilante types.

Speaker 21 And I'm, and this person is as concerned about that as they are about the Justice Department. So anyway, I thought that was an interesting.

Speaker 22 Yeah. Well, look, and I understand that.
Because, I mean, the number of, you know, what is it, the swattings that happen now, that's just like, although they did take down.

Speaker 22 Yeah, I have too. And they did take down, by the way, a big swatting network in Eastern Europe that was actually working with people that were doing this for political reasons.

Speaker 22 And they'd basically send a

Speaker 22 swatting target to these people in Eastern Europe.

Speaker 21 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 22 That was taken down about a month and a half ago.

Speaker 22 Former FBI deputy director sent that to me, and it was, it's a pretty big deal. And so, yeah, that was interesting.

Speaker 22 But look, here's the thing that I would send to anybody in kind of the situation I am where it's like, yes, conceivably the president could come after you or Cash Patel.

Speaker 22 Stop. This is like my recommendation to people.
Stop showing your fear in public.

Speaker 22 What you do is you are giving that side exactly what they want. They want you to be intimidated.
This is how authoritarians work. They don't work by actually usually turning the law against you.

Speaker 22 It's just they have you fearful of it. And we talked about that anticipatory obedience where you're scared of what's going to happen, so you start obeying.

Speaker 22 Every time somebody publicly says, gosh, I'm worried that I'm going to be thrown in jail or I'm worried or whatever, you're giving the other side exactly what they want and you're encouraging them to keep using it.

Speaker 22 I think the approach to take for any of these targets is, look, bring it on. Like, honestly, just come at me, right? Because America is not going to stand for this.

Speaker 22 I mean, that's one of the things I was concerned during the election about this, but I've come to recognize like America is not going to stand for an abuse of the legal system like that.

Speaker 22 And I just think, look, so many people have done heroic things to this point.

Speaker 22 Just keep it up. Keep it up.
We're going to get through this.

Speaker 21 Hell yeah. I love this.
There is a little bit of fear behind the scenes. And stop showing the fear is a great message.
Hell yeah, Adam. I've got Pat Ryan coming up in the next segment.

Speaker 21 So we're going to do most, you know, some of the Democratic Party stuff with him. He's great.
He's in a swing district and, you know, really overperformed. So I'm interested in his take.

Speaker 21 But before we get to kind of the incoming, the appointees, we haven't spoken since the election, you and I, besides on text.

Speaker 21 And so I'm just, I'm curious if you have any, any kind of broad thoughts now, a month on.

Speaker 22 I'm having, you know, I'm watching TV last night with my wife after dinner, and I just, I still look at her and I go, can you actually believe that Donald Trump is going to be president again?

Speaker 22 I mean, and I say that probably every day. So there is, you know, like, it's.

Speaker 21 It does feel like we're in a video game. Like, how is this?

Speaker 22 It's crazy. So, like, that'll happen.
And so it's like, okay, I can't really believe we did this. How did we do this?

Speaker 22 But on the other hand, so the day after the election, you know, I was obviously feeling like everybody, kind of in disbelief, kind of hummada, hummada, what just happened? We got our bell rung.

Speaker 22 And, you know, that lasted for maybe 72 hours. And then I finally made a decision.
I'm like, you know what? Okay, this happened.

Speaker 22 Now we've got to recognize that, look, you know, World War II was seen as this great victory by the Allies. But at Dunkirk, it looked like everything was lost.

Speaker 22 I mean, the British Army was going to be slaughtered. They barely made it back to the UK.
And then at that time, they're like, how do we ever take this land again?

Speaker 22 I kind of see this last election as Dunkirk. It kind of feels like we got our clock clean, but I really do think there's a huge story to be painted ahead.

Speaker 22 So yeah, look, I'm not sitting here going, I'm great, I'm excited, all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 22 But I also have taken a posture of, okay, the battle is just going to be a little longer than we thought it was.

Speaker 22 But that just makes the victory all that more stunning and heroic when it comes through. Because, look, I don't think the Trump thing is going to end.

Speaker 22 And I even said this, I probably said it on the podcast too. Like, if Donald Trump wins, four years is the terminal end of Trumpism.

Speaker 22 We know that then, because there is no way that Trumpism survives through a second Donald Trump term. I really believe that.
So let's just, let's be in a posture of winning.

Speaker 22 But every day, I'm still blown away that we're here. I just can't believe it.

Speaker 21 Yeah, that's based on believing, which I do deep down, that fundamentally we are right about this person and that he will be a disaster again.

Speaker 21 And to that point, we should, I want to get to his cabinet picks with you, but I think we have to start with the biggest news of the day.

Speaker 21 I honestly can't believe it took us 10 minutes to get to this, which is the former cabinet pick. Matt Gates, your former colleague, I know decently well, sees this huge announcement.

Speaker 21 You know, he withdrew from the nomination to be the Attorney General of the United States of America. He said he has a big plan that he's going to reveal as an alternative in due time.

Speaker 21 That plan has been revealed. He is going to be a host on One America News, the fourth-rated MAGA TV network behind Fox and Newsmax and Real America's Voice.

Speaker 21 And I'm just curious your reaction to Matt Gates's huge announcement about being an OAN anchor, and I guess one of my competitors now.

Speaker 22 Enjoy it, buddy. Enjoy it, Matt.
You know what? Like, you're going to go there and literally have tens of viewers every night that are watching you.

Speaker 22 Look, as somebody that came out of Congress and has had to, you know, you have to deal with your own, okay, what is life now?

Speaker 22 And, you know, what's my relevance and that kind of stuff, which you have to go through because anytime anybody leaves Congress, they have to go through these kind of like batch rates.

Speaker 22 He's going to be struggling to sit there and go, okay, now I'm a host on like where nobody's watching me, but at least, you know, look, he'll say crazy stuff and make his news every night or whatever.

Speaker 22 It's sad to see how far, honestly, and I mean this, somebody with his talent could have been a generational kind of politician if he'd have done this the right way. Yes.

Speaker 22 If he'd have actually been committed to the rule of law.

Speaker 22 It's like take somebody like even Mike Lee, Josh Holly, or Ted Cruz and say, had they actually been committed to truth and doing the right thing, they could be like these transformational politicians.

Speaker 22 And honestly, Matt Gates could be one of those, but he's incapable of thinking about anything but himself, his own fame. Here's a funny story.

Speaker 22 The day he gets to Congress, for kind of like the first month, I'm sitting back in the cloakroom, which is behind the, you know, the big floor on the house where we can hang out.

Speaker 22 And he comes up to me and he's like, you're Adam Kinzinger. I'm like, yeah.
And he said, you know, you're on Fox News a lot. How do I get on Fox? I really want to get on Fox News.

Speaker 22 And I remember thinking at that moment, like, this guy is going to be a problem. And I was right.
And by the way, two days ago, he tweets.

Speaker 22 Now, this, keep in mind, the almost Attorney General of the United States of America tweets.

Speaker 22 The only thing I keep hearing about Luigi, whatever his last name is, from my girlfriends, is, is he single?

Speaker 22 Like, this is the guy that was almost attorney general that's basically like feeding into this, you know, hot guy assassin crap.

Speaker 22 And it's like, dude, first off, I don't think he has any single girlfriends, but whatever. Secondly, like, he's just feeding into this.

Speaker 21 I mean, maybe he does

Speaker 21 based on the ethics report. I don't know.
That's true. I'm want to be so sure about that.
That's true.

Speaker 22 That's true. But it just goes to show, Tim, and you know this, like this is a

Speaker 22 I think at no point in American history, and maybe some super historians can correct me, have we had such a not serious administration? And I just don't think this ends well. And, you know what?

Speaker 22 America voted for it. And I'm like, fine, take it.
Let's embrace this.

Speaker 21 I don't think we need any super historians to analyze whether or not there have been less serious cabinet appointments than the weekend talk show host and Pete Hag stuff.

Speaker 21 I guess maybe the reports of sexual assault were not quite as rampant in like the 1800s, for example.

Speaker 21 So, you know, who knows exactly like what Andrew Johnson's cabinet was doing in their free time with women, but uh, certainly in the modern era, it is the rapiest cabinet that we've had.

Speaker 21 I think that's pretty clear. Yeah, the Gates thing, it just is remarkable.

Speaker 21 I'm sorry, just to put a finer point on it, that like the two doors available to him were Attorney General of the United States of America and OAN host. You know what I mean?

Speaker 21 Like in other in other times, like when Chuck Hagel

Speaker 21 was going to be Department of Defense and they decided not, you know, and people were trying to push against him in the Obama times, like, had he not gone in, like, I think the alternate choice would have been, I don't know, the Brookings Institute or something.

Speaker 21 Something serious. It's like,

Speaker 21 it's just crazy that

Speaker 21 those are the two doors for the well, yeah.

Speaker 22 And any other failed attorney general candidate would probably go start their own law firm and charge $1,200 an hour.

Speaker 22 And instead, Gates is like, no, I just can't handle not being famous. And CNN won't take him and Fox won't take him.
So he's like, I'll go to the next best thing, One America News.

Speaker 21 One America's News. Real America's voice hardest hit.
I just, I wonder how they didn't come up with a scratch for that.

Speaker 21 All right. I want to spend sort of the like kind of back into this on Syria because I know you've been a longtime advocate for it.
But let's just really quick bang through the nominees.

Speaker 21 To me, I think Cash Patel is the most dangerous for a couple of reasons, but I'm curious on your case for that.

Speaker 21 Like, Like, which Domini are you most concerned about, and which do you think might be the most dangerous?

Speaker 22 Yeah, I mean, it's tough. It's tough to think like, which am I most concerned about because they're all pretty equal.
Look, Pete Hegseth, my concern with him is just ineptitude.

Speaker 22 It's less about like malice. Now, I do have concern about malice with Hegseth, but like, I don't necessarily think he's really anti-American or on the side of our enemies, right?

Speaker 22 It's ineptitude, which is a huge problem in and of itself. I'm not denying that.

Speaker 22 The two things I do worry about, Cash Patel, who could literally destroy this sort of bipartisan feeling we have about the Department of Justice and particularly the FBI, that could do irreparable damage way into the future.

Speaker 22 I mean, J. Edgar Hoover would be nothing compared to what Cash Patel will be seen in history as in terms of being an arm of the president to go after his political enemies.

Speaker 22 So I think Cash Patel concerns me more than anything.

Speaker 21 And what could be undergrading Hoover a little bit, but yeah, maybe.

Speaker 21 Maybe not nothing, but Cash might be too stupid to outpace Hoover, but his aspirations are certainly Hoover plus. Anyway, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 22 That's right. But I mean, you even see if it's anything near J.
Edgar Hoover. Look at the impact he's had on history.
Nobody should know his name, by the way, and they do.

Speaker 22 And so he's a big concern on that front. Tulsi is actually.

Speaker 21 Let's just actually sit on Patel for a second because I want to get to Tulsi in this area context.

Speaker 21 Because, and you're just, you know, having been in there, I think more familiar with this than some folks.

Speaker 21 Like, to me, the FBI threat to Patel and why I put him in Tulsi in a separate category from Heckseth.

Speaker 21 I'm very concerned about Heckseth, don't get me wrong, but there are checks within the Defense Department.

Speaker 21 And I was concerned about Gates, but there are checks within the Department of Justice, right? That they're going to try to undermine.

Speaker 21 They're going to try to get good people to leave and eliminate those checks. So, like, there's plenty to be concerned about.
The FBI

Speaker 21 can do a ton of damage before it reaches any resistance, right? Like, they can just come and ruin people's lives

Speaker 21 before a grand jury has to get involved, before a career official have to get involved, as long as he has enough henchmen in there.

Speaker 21 And certainly, despite the claims of the MAGA world, that the FBI is a deep state op helping the elites, there's certainly some MA people in the FBI.

Speaker 21 To me, that is the most alarming thing, just that the amount of free reign he would be able to have.

Speaker 22 You had a great discussion on this a week or so ago, where it was talking about how the investigation is actually the punishment. Look, here's the crazy thing, Tim.

Speaker 22 You and I are old enough to remember when the Republican Party used to be for tort reform,

Speaker 22 used to be against frivolous lawsuits. Well, here's what's actually happened, and this is 100% because of Donald Trump, because this is what he always did.

Speaker 22 So, this is what others have learned: is they just file frivolous lawsuits on the civil side and scare people, either get them to concede something or get them to blow a ton of money.

Speaker 22 Look at Brad Raffensperger. Brad Raffensberger has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own personal money, by the way, defending against frivolous lawsuits.

Speaker 22 You know, Brad Raffensberger, the Secretary of State of Georgia, that claimed that he basically stole the 2020 election. He's had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars against frivolous lawsuits.

Speaker 22 This is the threat that Cash Patel pushed to Olivia Troy, which is, if you lie about me more, I'm going to sue you, even though that's obviously not a lie and it's fact.

Speaker 22 All they need to do is to sick the FBI on somebody. Look, I've had to testify to a grand jury on a case totally unrelated to me.

Speaker 22 And I mean, you know, the legal bills were approaching $50,000 to $100,000 just to be well represented to testify to a grand jury at once.

Speaker 22 So you think about if you want well representation, and even if it's a completely BS attack on you, it could actually bankrupt you. And so, yeah, that's very dangerous.
It's very intimidating.

Speaker 22 And again, like we said at the beginning, this is what authoritarians do. They don't actually need to break the law to come after you.

Speaker 22 They just need to convince you they will, or they need to inconvenience you so bad and destroy your family that you're willing to just comply with them. And this is absolutely the concern with Patel.

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Speaker 21 Going to Tulsi, and I talked about this with Michael Weiss earlier this week. Let's table the Syria thing and get to that next, but just the Intel gathering side of it.

Speaker 21 You've had these briefings, right? Like just talk to people a little bit about what kind of broad remit she would have in this position.

Speaker 22 Yeah, so she's basically the coordinator of all these different intel agencies.

Speaker 22 So you have like CIA, FBI, DIA, which is the Defense Intelligence Agency, all these different agencies, Homeland Security, all that. And she's the coordinator.
So she has access to all of this stuff.

Speaker 22 She ensures that everything's working together.

Speaker 22 Now, if you've never had a classified briefing, like a real one, not like a perfunctory one, what you'll see is they'll give you like, it'll say like, here is the determination of the CIA.

Speaker 22 This comes through signals intelligence or human intelligence. We have light, medium, or whatever, heavy confidence, whatever it is, you know.

Speaker 22 And they'll tell you, they won't even go into, unless you're super duper top secret, how they actually got that. They'll just say it's like signals or human intelligence because it is so dangerous.

Speaker 22 You think about, for instance, Russia. When Russia was ready to attack Ukraine, we were basically saying, I got that briefing.
I was still in Congress.

Speaker 22 And it's like, Russia is absolutely going to attack Ukraine. We have no doubt about it.
And I'll tell you, I've never heard an intel agency be that serious or be that like definitive.

Speaker 22 And what you realize is we probably had officers and politicians in the Russian government that were telling us this information.

Speaker 22 So you think about it, Tulsi Gabbard, for instance, now has access to who are these people, right? And let's say she does have affinities towards Russia, or she certainly did to Bashar al-Assad.

Speaker 22 Now she's going to know who the high-ranking officers or who the government officials are in the Russian government giving us this information.

Speaker 22 And if you don't think that'll happen, look, I'll just point you to all of the people in the past that we thought were good Americans that would never turn their back on this country that did, that were some of the biggest spies ever.

Speaker 22 Robert, I can't think of his last name, but in 2002, basically the big spy that had been a spy for Russia for 20 years or whatever. And so, yeah, it's a very serious problem.

Speaker 22 And, you know, Tulsi has, she and I were friends up until she went and visited Bashar al-Assad.

Speaker 22 And she basically said that it was the rebels that used chemical weapons and not Bashar al-Assad, which is insane. That was a talking point directly from the Kremlin, by the way.

Speaker 22 She also has accused Ukraine of these bio labs, which is another direct Kremlin talking point, which is completely untrue. And you just look, what is it?

Speaker 22 The Russia RT calls her like basically, you know, Russia's darling.

Speaker 21 She's their mouthpiece.

Speaker 22 Yeah, our girlfriend and now she's going to be in charge of the intelligence agency and the worst thing about this tim is not even so much she was nominated is that i see good people like i i'll say generally good people like lindsey graham or tom tillis or joni ernst getting their picture with them and saying had a great conversation excited to not to shuttle their nomination through and they know damn well these are totally ill-qualified people you mentioned that uh you were friends sorry i was watching a clip that uh katie had grabbed grabbed, producer Katie have grabbed from 2017, where she's interviewed by Tapper, where you had like tweeted, I hope you didn't meet with Assad the Butcher.

Speaker 21 And she was talking about like you were friendly. It was framed as like, this is your friend, Adam Kinzinger, somebody you dealt with.
So kind of talk about that sort of period.

Speaker 21 You were, I guess, chair of the Free Syria Caucus and been an advocate for Free Syria. And then she goes and does this.
Like, what's the backstory there?

Speaker 22 Yeah, so look, again, we were friends. Like, you know,

Speaker 22 we had a good friendship. And she, you know, she was always a little more, when I would talk to her about Syria, she was a little less pro-intervention, I guess.

Speaker 22 But to me, that was a, you know, it's a defensible position. Like, you don't think we should get involved, whatever.

Speaker 21 Non-intervention and... pro-Assad are quite different.

Speaker 21 Very different.

Speaker 22 Very different.

Speaker 22 And so there started to be some things where she was like, I don't know, would express some affection to Assad or like, you know, at least he's keeping a lid on chaos, whatever that is.

Speaker 22 And then all of a sudden we had heard that she had gone to Syria. And I mean, literally to that point, we were great friends.
And I was at the Republican retreat. So this is right after Trump won.

Speaker 22 And I was kind of standing in front of the sticks. And they asked me, I may have had a little to drink the night before, you know, who knows? But they asked me, you know, Tulsi went to Syria.

Speaker 22 And I just basically unloaded on her. And then that led to Tapper asking her about me.
And from that point on, we'd never talked again, really.

Speaker 22 And, you know, look, she just literally went there, legitimized him.

Speaker 22 Because to that point, there had been no American officials that would even talk to him, that would acknowledge that he was a legitimately elected leader. And she changed a lot of that.

Speaker 22 Look, now we're seeing these people being broken out of prisons, people that had been, in essence, buried in this prison to where the rebels are having to actually dig them out.

Speaker 22 They had been buried there for years, had never seen the sun, deprivation of all sensory. And you see how evil Assad is.
And that's the person she defended.

Speaker 22 She also is defending the dictator of Russia who is indiscriminately bombing civilians, you know, for a simple land grab. And now you want to put her in charge of all of our intelligence.

Speaker 22 It's just really sad. And I think the thing that makes me more sad is not that Donald Trump did it.

Speaker 22 It's that there's good people, again, quote-unquote, good people that are allowing this to happen because, gosh, they don't want to lose an election in friggin four or six years, which most of these senators are up in.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I mean, just having been,

Speaker 21 I think one of the times we met was at a Syria function with SE Cup, like in early days

Speaker 21 when I was first getting to know you. And so like having just sort of been a long time agitating for this, nobody saw it coming.
So I guess you didn't see it coming.

Speaker 21 What was your kind of reaction to everything in Syria?

Speaker 22 Look, I had heard rumors over the summer of people saying, and Michael Weiss was one of them, like, hey, you know, the... the opposition could kick up again or whatever.

Speaker 22 And I just remember thinking, like, how many times have we had the football taken away from us? And then to watch this happen in such record time. I mean, it's quite honestly amazing.

Speaker 22 Yes, we don't know what the aftermath is going to be, right? Let's just put that out there.

Speaker 22 But I always also believe it probably cannot, sure, it can get worse, but it probably can't get all that much worse than what it was under Assad.

Speaker 22 Because what Assad did, he was brutally oppressing his people, but also creating an environment. where you had these rebel groups anyway, where you had ISIS, where you had extremism.

Speaker 22 So it's not like Assad had control of all of Syria. He didn't.
He created a situation where we have what we have now. So to me, it was amazing to watch it happen.

Speaker 22 You know, the only sad thing about it is I wish I was in Congress when it did happen because, you know, that would be nice to take a, to go over there, frankly, and be able to go over and meet with some of those folks.

Speaker 21 Did you go over during that time?

Speaker 22 Yeah, I went right to the border, actually, as close as we could get. I did basically what McCain did.

Speaker 21 On the Turkey, like on the Kurdish area, like on the Turkey side?

Speaker 22 Yeah, and on the Turkey side. And we actually, I'd gone over with actually Evan McMullen, who was a staffer on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
He was former CIA.

Speaker 22 And we actually went over and finalized a negotiation between two groups under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. CNN covered it.
It was a pretty cool thing.

Speaker 22 But, you know, obviously that initial push kind of failed, and it was heartbreaking. And it's amazing to watch it now.

Speaker 22 But, you know, look, some of my friends that were heavily involved in this that are now tweeting pictures of people that were found dead, that were, you know, folks that they were working with to free Syria.

Speaker 22 It's really heartbreaking to see the human impact of it.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 21 Though, and to your point on how, I don't know, who knows if it could get worse or we'll see, but like the stream of people coming back into the country at least shows that among Syrians, there's some optimism, which is something.

Speaker 21 Okay, my final thing for you, and then I'll let you go, because this is my hobby horse. And maybe I'm wrong about this because nobody seems to be validating my claim.

Speaker 21 But it's my hobby horse because I think that America playing a role in the world is good.

Speaker 21 And I think it's good to praise America when there are things that we do that have a positive impact because sometimes we fuck up. Sometimes our things are out of our control.

Speaker 21 We're not omniscient. We don't control everything.

Speaker 21 But the material and intelligence support that we have provided to Israel and that we've provided to Ukraine over the last two years clearly had some impact in weakening Iran and weakening Russia.

Speaker 21 And the weakening of Iran and Russia prevented them from being able to help Assad. So, I mean, it's a little bit of a bank shot here, but like it did have an impact.

Speaker 21 And I don't feel like there's anybody out there saying, woo, America, hey, this is a win for America. Nobody's doing that.

Speaker 22 Yeah, we have a crisis of confidence in this country where we now think that anytime America gets involved, we screw stuff up. And it's just basically PTSD from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Speaker 22 But America, usually when we get involved, we do make things better. And this is an example of that.
Look, October 7th, Hamas way overstepped with the backing of Iran.

Speaker 22 That led to the destruction of Hamas, the destruction of Hezbollah, the pushing back of Iran, basically getting rid of their secure area around Israel.

Speaker 22 It led to, you know, Ukraine, by the way, find out today, had some pretty significant involvement in the opposition in Syria against Russia as a way to push back against Russia.

Speaker 22 Russia is now leaving Syria with their tail tucked in. Iran is hanging on the edge.
Obviously, Bashar al-Assad is gone.

Speaker 22 And a lot of this is because we supplied Israel, who took the fight to Iran, basically crushed him. I could even take this all the way back to the killing of Soleimani, by the way.

Speaker 22 And this is one thing where, let's be bipartisan here. The Democrats claimed that World War III was going to start because we killed Soleimani under Donald Trump, and it didn't.

Speaker 22 It was actually a really good thing. And that's a good thing for the opposition: give Trump credit where he deserves it this next four years because then people listen to you stronger.

Speaker 22 When, trust me, 99% of things he does, he doesn't deserve it. But yeah, America has stood up.
We made a big difference here. And unfortunately, we'll see what happens when

Speaker 22 we'll see what happens when, you know, old Donald Trump gets in there and changes everything.

Speaker 21 Adam Kinziger, the renegade, free man, walking freely through the streets. Thank you for coming back on the Bulwark podcast.

Speaker 21 We'll be talking to you soon. Up next, Congressman Pat Ryan.

Speaker 21 Ah,

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Speaker 21 Here you are. We are back.
He won decisively in November in New York's 18th congressional district. There's a big swing district representing the Hudson Valley.

Speaker 21 He's a graduate of West Point, a former Army intelligence officer, served two tours in Iraq. It's Congressman Pat Ryan.
How are you doing, man? I'm good. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 21 I'm a big fan, so it's cool to be on. All right.
Appreciate it. Appreciate it.
We'll see if you're a big fan at the end. I'm feeling punchy today.
Oh, I love it. Me too.
Army-Navy week.

Speaker 21 So we're fired up to beat Navy in football this weekend. So I got my competitive juices from.
Oh, yeah. It's a good season for Army.

Speaker 21 Let's do a quick little speed dating for people who don't know you.

Speaker 21 Kind of just quick on your background, the district, and your results this time, which kind of outpaced the top of the ticket pretty significantly.

Speaker 21 Yeah, so I represent the Hudson Valley, which is about an hour and a half north of New York City. It's like outer suburbs and exurbs.
It's where I grew up. It's where I went to college at West Point.

Speaker 21 So I get to represent my alma mater in Congress here, which is pretty cool. And one of the fun parts of this job.
And obviously, it's now where I'm living.

Speaker 21 My wife, Rebecca, and I have two young boys that are both the joy and the exhaustion in our lives, five and almost three. And

Speaker 21 this is a super competitive, the 18th congressional district. Last time in 2022, which is my first election, we won the seat by 1.3%.

Speaker 21 So we worked really hard to win by a little bit more this time, and we did really well. We actually won by over 13%.

Speaker 21 So, I take great optimism and hope from that.

Speaker 21 That if you work hard, are responsive, sort of show up everywhere, and try to just be less partisan and more a patriot, which has sort of been my ethos in this job, then you can

Speaker 21 actually win trust of people back. And I think that's obviously the currency of this whole thing.
Yeah, and this is Chris.

Speaker 21 I want to do some looking back, and then we'll get into the Trump administration.

Speaker 21 Look, you win by a point and a half, and then the national environment shifts four points the other way, four or five points the other direction. That should be an L.

Speaker 21 Like, you should have been swept up in that wave. And so instead, you are countervailing.
Talk about why that happened. Is it part demographics of the district?

Speaker 21 Is it because your opponent was terrible? Was it all just your charm? Like, how do you assess what was happening in your race and how it bucked the national trend? Certainly, not my charm.

Speaker 21 My wife would attest to that, but a few things, probably the main drivers.

Speaker 21 My opponent was actually really a great opponent, both on paper and she ran a strong campaign, retired NYPD officer in an area where you got a lot of cops and firefighters from New York City.

Speaker 21 She ran a good campaign. They spent a lot of money against me.
So it was a competitive campaign.

Speaker 21 This gets the heart of what you've been talking about and what we're all, I think, working on, which is like, I basically won by running against the core brand of my own party, of the Democratic Party.

Speaker 21 And like,

Speaker 21 not something I necessarily set out to do but in listening to my constituents which we do a lot of like i have this mobile constituent services van where we go to all 82 towns over and over and over tons of town halls actually telephone town halls i love we got like thousands of people on those and just like being in real engagement with my voters like the positions i took listening to them were increasingly just disconnected from what the national brand is and what a lot of the national priorities are.

Speaker 21 So I think we really won because I, I mean, in our campaign ads in particular, talked about being a different kind of Democrat, calling out Biden on the border, calling for him to step aside, challenging our own state party leaders on some bad transportation policy, which I won't bore you with the wonky details of, but just being like true independent voice for my constituents and against

Speaker 21 anybody doing them harm, whether that's like a big corporation, a local power utility monopoly that we battled against, or, you know, a president in either party.

Speaker 21 And I'll do the same thing with Trump, and I did it, you know, in the past as well. So just listen to that answer.
And the vice president, she lost the district by, by what?

Speaker 21 She actually won the district by about a point. And then we won by about like 13.
She won a half. 13.
Okay. Got it.
So you outperformed her by about 12.

Speaker 21 So, I mean, listening to that answer, though, like that gap, it seems to me that there's all this kind of discussion about the tactics of the campaign, but that the the

Speaker 21 core thing that you did that she was unable or unwilling to do was distance from Biden, right?

Speaker 21 And to me, it seems like that sometimes gets a little bit washed away in all these conversations because everybody has their ideological, you know, kind of agenda that they want to fill, but just being...

Speaker 21 anti-incumbent, right? Like being anti-whatever it is that people don't like about the, you know, existing establishment, like seems like a critical element to the Democratic nominee.

Speaker 21 And because of the situation she was in or whatever, she just wasn't able to make that case. I think that's right.

Speaker 21 It's both separation or independence from Biden individually, but like it also is from the Democratic brand. Imagine you're in what ways?

Speaker 21 I think it's less on policy, frankly, and more on style and almost culture. And this is something I'm like, I'm figuring, trying to figure out all this.
So I certainly have nothing figured out here.

Speaker 21 I'm just trying to think out loud.

Speaker 21 Normally I think in my head, but given how badly we lost, like I've been trying to think out loud more because I think that's what we are a country right now.

Speaker 21 And this is a space for thinking out loud. You know, it's a podcast.
Yeah, dangerous, but you know, normally in my profession. Yeah, I think it's less about any individual policy issue.

Speaker 21 It's more about what we choose to focus on and what we don't focus on. And sort of this, like, if you try to be everything to everyone, you're sort of nothing to everyone.

Speaker 21 And to me, like the macro thing that happened in this election in a lot of house races, even local races and certainly the presidential is like

Speaker 21 number one clear pain point and challenge for almost everybody, like 95% of Americans, is affordability, economic pain, both immediate and I would argue, like systemic inequality, but certainly immediate affordability crunch.

Speaker 21 So like that's what's on people's mind. And so for many Democrats, not only were we not speaking to that, which in and of itself is

Speaker 21 hugely problematic and disconnected, but then we're we also talking about other things that weren't that.

Speaker 21 So it's like a double whammy of not only are you not hearing me and working on the thing I want, but you're also like focusing on these other things that I might have a thought on or an opinion on, but are not like central to my life.

Speaker 21 And so separating, to your point, the ideological piece of that, it's just good representation and like actually listening to people.

Speaker 21 and sort of showing rather than telling, which I think is something important stylistically for us to improve on.

Speaker 21 Was that the handcuffs of incumbency that like Joe was just like, yeah, I didn't know what to do because the economy was getting better in macro.

Speaker 21 And so we don't know whether to brag about the economy or to talk about the way that people are suffering in it. And so we sort of felt handcuffed and weren't able to say anything.

Speaker 21 Like, do you think it was that? Or do you think that there is something more fundamental? I mean, like. Affordability is a problem everywhere.

Speaker 21 It's particularly a problem in blue states and blue-run cities, you know, and that and that maybe having a Democrat that was saying, I'm going to go fix this and I see it and see that it's a problem and we're going to change it might have been a better

Speaker 21 option. Yeah, I mean, I think like

Speaker 21 what happened is we became, as a party nationally, defenders of the status quo when the status quo is, it's in fucking, sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to curse on this. Like

Speaker 21 it isn't working for everybody. And like, that's incredibly frustrating to me.

Speaker 21 You're not that big of a fan of the podcast if you don't know whether or not you can cuss, unless you're asking somebody off camera for their permit, for your permission. Yeah,

Speaker 21 whatever. I'll just be me.
But

Speaker 21 the defenders of the status quo, you're saying, I'm sorry. Yeah.
I mean, it's like, how do we become that?

Speaker 21 You know, and I think that was the box that it's easy to get yourself wrapped up in.

Speaker 21 Like, I believe in like the power of government to be a force for good and the power of institutions. And so there's this, like, I think a lot of us grew up in that mindset.
And I still believe it.

Speaker 21 But then you have to recognize believing in those things is different from recognizing they're not working. And if you actually believe in something, you have to fix it to make it work.

Speaker 21 So people see that.

Speaker 21 And instead of just like defending a failing thing, you say, no, I love this thing so much that I want to fix it, which is also to me, like how I feel about our country right now at a macro level, why I want to do this job.

Speaker 21 And so I think it's, that was the tension he was wrestling with.

Speaker 21 And the other piece of it, which I know you might not agree with based on some of the things you've said and even written recently, I do think we have to more clearly call out the villains and the heroes.

Speaker 21 Like, if you don't give people an explanation for why they're feeling pain that is clear and credible and authentic, then it's like a vacuum and it gets filled with the MAGA conspiracy theory, crazy, destructive populist stuff.

Speaker 21 And we did not offer a competing explanation or story with heroes and villains. And to me, that's the opportunity space is like.

Speaker 21 If Trump's story is

Speaker 21 like, we know who his villains are, that's kind of the usual cast. And he is the hero.
Like it's him. He's the only one who can fix it.
He starts this autocratic, I will fix all your problems.

Speaker 21 To me, the story we need to tell is the villains are, whether it's like

Speaker 21 two powerful corporations, which we can debate. I believe that's a big part of it.
Corrupt public officials and a set of like not broadly defined, but specific bad actors.

Speaker 21 And the heroes are the American people. Like whether that's working people, whether that's a scrappy entrepreneur, like I started two startups.
I get what that's about. That's foundational to our DNA.

Speaker 21 So telling that story, I think, is the opportunity and the need for us. The heroes are not very active social media posters

Speaker 21 and academics. I don't know if that's true.
I don't know if that's right. I think we should all.
Okay, I'm glad you took us to here.

Speaker 21 It was the next thing on my outline. So you have a future in podcasting if it doesn't work out.
Because

Speaker 21 this is what you're hearing from some people on social media right now, that the way that the Democrats do not become the defenders of the status quo is to go after executives, go after CEOs, and that because of the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, this is an opportunity for Democrats to talk about how they are going to go after the health insurance industry with the same vigor as Luigi, and that it's the Republicans that are defenders of these corporate, whatever, raiders and bullies that don't want to give you coverage for your chemo.

Speaker 21 What do you think about that frame?

Speaker 21 I mean, my wife and I have actually been talking a lot about this.

Speaker 21 I mean, I think we just have to be very clear and saying, and I know you've said this, like it is absolutely 100,000% unacceptable to use violence, political violence, to obviously commit murder regardless of.

Speaker 21 anything. And it's kind of unclear that this is even political.
This might be a psychotic break. But yeah.
Right. But we've seen this whole rise in political violence.

Speaker 21 And so the way I've been thinking about this, and again, thinking it through in real time is like, if our political system, which in a functioning democracy is the venue you go to if you are frustrated with something and you want to change it, if our political system is so

Speaker 21 failing people so deeply that they have such anger and resentment and pain.

Speaker 21 And that's, I think, authentic for many, many, many people in my district and across the country.

Speaker 21 And they feel they can't use the sort of like legitimate means to change that, then I'm not certainly sanctioning or justifying this, but that's, I think, how you get to maybe not this situation.

Speaker 21 We don't have all the details yet, but you get to a lot of these incidents of political violence. And

Speaker 21 like to me, the bigger zoom out is people are so frustrated and the system's failing to meet those frustrations and they feel like they're powerless.

Speaker 21 And so whether they turn to physical horrific violence like this or they turn to Donald Trump. Like, if we don't give a better functional alternative, you get horrific, violent outcomes.

Speaker 21 I was being a little cheeky with the way I phrased the question about whether Democrats should, you know, get Luigi tattoos or whatever. But,

Speaker 21 you know, how does it look for, right? And there's some that will say, well, it's got to be like Bernie, you know, or you can run on Medicare for all who want it, which I would be fine with.

Speaker 21 Or, you know, that's one way to do this, to talk about policy. I'm kind of skeptical that that breaks through.

Speaker 21 The other way to do it is to talk about how these health insurance CEOs are killing people and that they should be brought before Congress and upbraided and they should be demagogued against, and that that actually would have greater effect.

Speaker 21 And that's something that they deserve and we should do anyway. Like, there's a million different ways to do it.
Like, what does it look like?

Speaker 21 How do you run against the system in a way that you think is efficacious? So, this is where I disagree with the Bernie rhetoric and policy.

Speaker 21 If he says a system is rigged, I don't agree with that because that characterizes the entire system as, in my view, like wrong and failing and corrupt.

Speaker 21 What I actually think is happening is most of our systems and institutions are,

Speaker 21 you know, have lasted us a long time and gotten us this far. They're not perfect, but they're largely functioning, and most people are good actors trying to do the right things.

Speaker 21 What we have to focus on is the people exploiting and like being essentially corrupt, bad actors within a system that I don't think is largely broken or certainly not like rigged in the way that it's, I think, received by a lot of people.

Speaker 21 So the local example of this in my district was we have this utility company and in New York State and a lot of places, it's essentially a monopolistic system. You have one choice for your utility.

Speaker 21 And when you have like corporate failure and malpractice and corruption, which we had this whole whole incident where they screwed up a billing system. People were getting

Speaker 21 like their savings accounts wiped out tens of or hundreds of thousands of dollars, like

Speaker 21 years-long debacle where right at the time of COVID when people are getting crushed, like they're just getting another pounding on them.

Speaker 21 And this wasn't like, this is different than what their profit was or, you know, is that the right level of profit. This was like, no, they just failed to do

Speaker 21 the things they need to do, like just straight up corporate failure.

Speaker 21 We hammered them and frankly continuing to hammer them and hold them accountable, got a huge $60 million settlement to pay back people that were harmed.

Speaker 21 So I think it's us being willing to say, like, we still believe in a lot of these systems, the fundamentals of our economy, but there are bad actors who are getting either greedy or corrupt or both.

Speaker 21 And you have to make an example of those people, like in other

Speaker 21 walks of life. And then that helps sort of correct and get the system back to a more,

Speaker 21 you know, reasonable, effective for the greater good mode. All right.
You're selling me. That's a popular mic to get behind.

Speaker 21 What you say that makes me think of is when the vice president first started the campaign, there was kind of in the bio ads this, you know, I went after the big banks after the foreclosure crisis.

Speaker 21 And I don't even really, to be honest, remember exactly the details of what she did, which

Speaker 21 sort of, I think, explains the problem.

Speaker 21 So given that I'm paid to follow this. You got to show, not tell.

Speaker 21 If you're saying it and no one's like, I remember that, then you, you, you, yeah, I mean, but like, had she done that and had there been an example, you know, and like really, you know, talked about every time, talked about in speeches, talked about in ads, and like positioned herself as a fighter against that.

Speaker 21 That's the kind of kind of populism you could, you could sell me on.

Speaker 21 All right, I, I got, here's my problem with all this, though, is that is the Donald Trump side, is that Donald Trump is full of shit.

Speaker 21 He doesn't actually care about people, he doesn't care about anybody but himself, he screwed regular people over his whole whole life.

Speaker 21 He's almost comically kind of self-centered.

Speaker 21 And so, like, this, if the thesis is that the Democrats didn't show that they care enough about regular people, and Trump did, how does that square with like the reality of Trump?

Speaker 21 Like, just, it seems to me that then, like, the lesson here is, well, we should just fake, you know, Democrats should just have a fake gone man of their own who pretends to care about people.

Speaker 21 All right.

Speaker 21 Because it's not like he was credible, you know, it's not like he's Bill Clinton out there with the I hear your pain stuff. I was talking about this yesterday with somebody.

Speaker 21 There's sort of like two aspects in a perfect world if it's like a matrix. Like one is showing the fight, like a willingness to fight, be a fighter, be tough, be strong.

Speaker 21 The other, though, is like the care and the empathy, meaning that you're fighting from a place of giving a shit and being a compassionate person and core, you know, human and I think American values.

Speaker 21 And it's sort of like in a perfect world, you have the balance of those both. People know you're willing to fight, but they know you're doing it because it's coming from a good place.

Speaker 21 Trump obviously shows the fight, but like I think people are smart enough to know he is a greedy, corrupt, self-centered person, and he's never tried to hide that.

Speaker 21 What we failed to do is like, as a party, and even you could say at a many candidate level, like, I think people know, you know, like we're coming, I think, from a place of like caring about people and almost this more soft version of that, but we don't show the willingness to then marshal that to a fight to fight for them.

Speaker 21 And the opportunity space in the next two years, midterm, four years presidential is like Trump's going to continue to show who he is and remind people that, and I think be incredibly damaging, both in the immediate term and from a constitutional perspective as well.

Speaker 21 We have to be able to show them that fight, but that we're doing it like for the right reasons. And that's where I think there's an opportunity space to build around my working title, which again,

Speaker 21 you said that's a populism you could maybe see. Like to me, it's patriotic populism.

Speaker 21 It's a constructive, not destructive, unifying sense of getting back to the values of why we formed the country in the first place.

Speaker 21 Like we were under the thumb of a dictator and didn't have representation. And we fought from a sense of fairness and sort of empathy for a greater collective good.
So it's this sort of like more

Speaker 21 American collective populism. And you've saw, you know, at times you saw this from like a Teddy Roosevelt, certainly from an FDR, even like a Lincoln in some ways.

Speaker 21 And I think that is the right direction. I don't, you know, I'm still sort of thinking that stuff through.
I don't mind patriotic populism.

Speaker 21 Thinking about the tariffs on Mexico, we can kind of have a Boston tequila party, you know, instead of a Boston Tequila. I'm not a tequila guy.
I'm more a whiskey guy. Let's go.
Whiskey rebellion.

Speaker 21 Whiskey rebellion? Yeah, there might be something there once the tariffs start hitting our Casamigos.

Speaker 21 No fees, no interest.

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Speaker 21 Save the offer in the app.

Speaker 29 N1231, see PayPal.com slash promo terms, points keep your redeeming for cash and more paying for subjects terms and approval.

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Speaker 21 Let's get practical then on how on this because we might have found another area of disagreement.

Speaker 21 I think maybe the Democrats should just do the fighting part for two years and worry about the empathy part in 2027. And I think that that goes against the nature of progressives and Democrats.

Speaker 21 And so I kind of am not hopeful that'll actually happen. But,

Speaker 21 you know, we've got a couple of inflection points coming up in the next two months. There's going to be a fund the government effort that the House is going to have to do.

Speaker 21 They are going to try to jam through a border funding bill.

Speaker 21 And they are going to try to extend the Trump tax cuts. So those three things.

Speaker 21 I look at those three things and I think at least two of them, I don't think the Democrats should lift one fucking finger to help them do. I'm intrigued by your point of view on that.

Speaker 21 No, I agree with you. I think,

Speaker 21 no, I think we we need to show the fight, to be clear.

Speaker 21 Like, if we're doing a brand rehab or I'm just saying, as you could hear the fighting for the right reasons, is we got to fight, but we also, you know, if the Trump administration is going to do something good, we got to work with them on that to do constituent service.

Speaker 21 You know what I mean? Versus, no, actually let them do it. So anyways, I'm sorry.
Continue. Yeah.
Well, so I think this is the difference. It's easy.

Speaker 21 I've only been doing this a few years, but like, I think it's easy to be like, the fight is against another party or another politician and not talk about like the fight is for fucking constituents and for the American people and it's against whoever is hurting them.

Speaker 21 Like again, it could be a political person. It could be a corporation.
It could be a foreign country. Like it could be a cartel bringing in fentanyl.
Like what

Speaker 21 when we're talking about like the

Speaker 21 I'm going to fight them or I'm going to resist that party agenda, like you lose 90% of people who are like, oh, you're just another. politician.

Speaker 21 Like you're thinking about it, not the way I think about it, which is like, what are you doing for me? Are you fighting for me? Do you understand what I care about?

Speaker 21 So I think we have to pick very strategic fights

Speaker 21 that are rooted in what people, where people are and what they want us to fight for. So I do think like really fighting on fairness around the tax bill is going to be incredibly important.

Speaker 21 I think that's by far the most important fight. I called out Biden on the border stuff.
because he just, I think, failed to do it in a way that shouldn't be seen as political, but certainly was.

Speaker 21 But like whatever they put forward, my guess is going to be extreme. But I think that that's just on them to carry and put forth their

Speaker 21 view of it. And same with funding the government.
I was very frustrated these two years when we bailed them out multiple times.

Speaker 21 And then we like, I didn't, but many of my colleagues voted to make Johnson the speaker again, who's like a traitor and election denier. Like I don't understand what.

Speaker 21 the fuck we're doing if that's the approach. So we might be pretty close.
So on the funding the government. We might agree more than you think.
Yeah.

Speaker 21 I think they're, I guess it was maybe less about me and you than me and what I project to be the likely, the likely House Democrat position on some of this stuff.

Speaker 21 So I'm funding the government, you concur that they make them do it themselves.

Speaker 21 The tax cuts, that's the big fight. We concur on that.
The immigration thing is tougher. Because part of me is like, I don't know, maybe that is the one that

Speaker 21 this goes totally contrary to the value. There'll be some Democrats who just on a values level are like, I can't do this.
But I don't know.

Speaker 21 Maybe that is the place to deal with them and say, let's do this.

Speaker 21 Let's fund the fentanyl fentanyl stuff. Let's go.
Let's bring the Langford bill back. And, you know what I mean?

Speaker 21 And like, but I guess the problem with that is eventually when it's like they'll include some stuff and that's just so noxious that you can't get behind. Right.
I don't know.

Speaker 21 Well, and they'll exclude stuff that's really important too.

Speaker 21 Like, this is where I plan to, I'm guessing in telegraphing, what I think they're going to do, like, they're going to, like, I have a huge agricultural economy.

Speaker 21 Most of what they're going to do is be devastating to, I have mostly apple farms. Like, we're second behind Washington State's apples and the hudson valley nationally yeah

Speaker 21 the labor markets are going to be hammered by this military recruiting is going to be harmed as we lose more and more young people like

Speaker 21 if there's not a economic component to address understanding the sort of economic and labor market impacts of cutting off what has been the engine of American dynamism since our country's founding, like we have to make that case.

Speaker 21 I think that, and that's grounded in where people are.

Speaker 21 Like whether whether you're a farmer who's seeing you're the same family that's been farming for you for 40, 50 years now can't come, whether you're an entrepreneur who can't get that talented engineer because they cut down on H1 visas.

Speaker 21 Like those are the fights to me that are where kind of we're popular and populist because that's just where most people are.

Speaker 21 Is there anything else upcoming that you're seeing in Congress that's going to be a priority for you? I mean, I'm weighing the same sort of how much do you fight on some of the nominees.

Speaker 21 I have been very focused on Hagsef because I'm on the Armed Services Committee. I'm a veteran.
The fact that he could be Secretary of Defense is

Speaker 21 incredibly dangerous and I think unfair to our men and women in uniform who deserve so much better on almost every dimension of his experience, his personal hot mess of a life, his warped worldview.

Speaker 21 And I mean, I just, the military is far from perfect, but it's something very like personally important to me and at a dangerous, serious time in the world, important, I think, should be to everybody.

Speaker 21 And the fact that this is the guy, like we have to fight this fight and push the Republican senators who are now getting cowered into the corner by the MAGA attack

Speaker 21 mob that they launch on people. Because this is,

Speaker 21 if they fold there, then I think they're just going to fold for the next two to four years. I think that's exactly right.
Would you say, would you meet with Pete? Have you heard from him?

Speaker 21 Has he tried to meet with any Democrats on armed services? I know you're in the house, but. Yeah, I mean, he's not meeting with house people.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I would definitely, I mean, I actually have a lot of personal friends who, who know him. And

Speaker 21 by many accounts, like his time in uniform, he was a,

Speaker 21 you know, a good platoon leader and a, like a reasonable, thoughtful guy. And I don't really, I mean, there's a lot of, I think.
Well, he was sober then. So that was part of it.
That's part of it.

Speaker 21 I think I fought in these wars too. These are our country's longest wars.
People, there are people that came out of there like affected in a lot of ways. And I think

Speaker 21 some of them are healthy and important.

Speaker 21 Skepticism about the use of military force and, you know, the disconnect between civilian military leadership, political and appointed, and like troops on the ground and the American people.

Speaker 21 Like, those are all healthy, important debates to have, but he is like a toxic force.

Speaker 21 And there are so many other good qualified folks, like Republicans, that could do it that I wouldn't agree with maybe on some policy, but are like serious, qualified adults, you know, who could, who, who could be in this job.

Speaker 21 I have two fun ones to end with for you. That wasn't fun.
No, these weren't fun, actually.

Speaker 21 But I keep fun ones at the end for the politicians who aren't fun, which is some of them, many, which leads me to this question. A lot of discussion about the Democrats

Speaker 21 lack of communicating with young men. I would like you to nominate a colleague to go on a bro podcast, to go on Theo Vaughn or the Nelk Boys.
Who do you think could do that and be a good communicator?

Speaker 21 I think, I mean, no, I think we have a lot of younger, newer house members that are like just

Speaker 21 real people, real, you know, real guys, real men, whatever, like who could go talk sports, talk culture, talk,

Speaker 21 you know, like for me, Army football, talk about wrestling with my boys, like just be a normal human. I think

Speaker 21 my really good buddy, who I think would do a great job, is a guy nrist DeLuzzio. He's a Naval Academy graduate.

Speaker 21 That's the one part I don't, you know, like about him, but he's a, you know, veteran, like a very working class blue-collar, you pro-union, real person who could go on and talk about

Speaker 21 whatever. Like his big legislative push was actually a rail safety bill after the train derailment in East Palestine because his district borders that.

Speaker 21 He's focused on real, real stuff that's going to help people. I think he'd be good.
I mean, there's a lot of people.

Speaker 21 This is, I think, an opportunity too for like, we got to put other faces and people forward to broaden the view of our brand as a party. Obviously, a takeaway from November.
Crystal Luz, yeah.

Speaker 21 All right. I was zagging.
I was like, I think that the move is to put MGP on there, Marie Gluzen Camp Perez. You know,

Speaker 21 she hanging out. Jared Golden.

Speaker 21 Marie Glenn. Having some, having, you know, kind of a woman who's probably actually more capable than T.O.
at like fixing cars and doing shit. So Angie Craig.
I don't know if you know Angie.

Speaker 21 Angie Craig, I do. She would kick ass on any of those shows.
Like, she's tough as hell. Sharice Davids was an MMA fighter.
Like, we've got, you know, we've got good people.

Speaker 21 We just got to be out there talking and connecting. We can just admit, it's a little tougher at the highest level.
It's a little tougher at the highest level to find somebody that'd be good.

Speaker 21 And that is a problem. It's a big part of the problem.
Yes. All right.

Speaker 21 I only added this question halfway through since you seem so nervous about cussing, but I figured I'd ask what your favorite, what your favorite curse is.

Speaker 21 I mean, I'm just a good old-fashioned fuck guy. Like, just

Speaker 21 when you're deployed, it's just every other word.

Speaker 21 When I get going, my wife is like, Jesus, man,

Speaker 21 what's wrong with you? So, chill out, Pat.

Speaker 21 Calm down, Pat. We've got a five-year-old and a three-year-old.
All right, man. That's been wonderful.
Thank you for coming on the podcast. I think these are important discussions.

Speaker 21 You've given me some nominees of other colleagues that I should have on. I actually didn't know that Sharice was a former MMA fighter.

Speaker 21 She's great. She's a badass.
So we should reach out to her, and we'll keep these combos going in 2025. All right, brother.
Thank you for having me. Thanks for the work you're doing.
I appreciate you.

Speaker 21 All right, everybody else, we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of Bullword Podcast. We'll see you all then.
Peace.

Speaker 21 with the trees all bended low.

Speaker 21 This garden is our home, dear. I got nowhere else to go.

Speaker 21 So pray it all

Speaker 21 every

Speaker 21 letter.

Speaker 21 useless deal

Speaker 21 Bring it on all your shattered dreams

Speaker 21 And I'll scatter them into the sea

Speaker 21 The Bullwork Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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