Adam Kinzinger and Pat Ryan: Bring It On

Sleep is the foundation of your best life. It sharpens focus, boosts energy, and even lifts your mood.
That's why we're thrilled to introduce Beam's Dream Powder. This healthy nighttime blend is packed with science-based ingredients to enhance sleep.
Dream is crafted with ingredients like reishi, magnesium, L-theanine, apigenin, and melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling amazing. Unlike other sleep aids, there's no next day grogginess, just restful, refreshing sleep.
Beam has already transformed over 17.5 million nights of sleep, empowering people to start their day energized and ready for anything. Don't wait.
Try their best-selling Dream Powder now and get up to 40% off for a limited time. Go to shopbeam.com and use code NEWSTALK at checkout.
That's shopbeam.com. Use code NEWSTALK for up to 40% off.
Shopbeam.com and use that code NEWSTALK at checkout. Sweet dreams start here.
Discover the value of precision and quality with Anderson Brass Company. Made in the USA since 1931.
From ball valves to backflow preventers, we offer a wide range of products tailored to meet your needs. Serving the food and beverage, healthcare, transportation, and HVAC industries, our commitment to performance ensures you get the best.
Specializing in custom OEM design. Ready to enhance your projects? Visit madeintheusa.solutions for more information.
Anderson Brass Company, where quality meets innovation. Hello and welcome to the Bulldog Podcast.
I'm your host, Tim Miller. 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 lam and he is with us today.
What is up, renegade Kinzinger? 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. Bring the dogs? that's your message to donald trump on this yeah like what are you gonna do you're gonna make up a charge against me that's fine i'll just i'll be double a pain in your butt double it when i'm doing it from prison because people will pay attention to that so all right just i have some more news that is added uh for you on this front it's not just donald trump that want to see you in jail.
My colleague, Andrew Egger, was over on the Hill yesterday and was talking to House Republicans about Trump's claims that January 6th committee members should be in prison. Here are a couple of them.
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. 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.
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.
Not every House Republican agreed with them, but none were willing to publicly criticize it. Mike Lawler just mumbled.
Nancy May smirked and ignored the question. So there you go.
What do you think about that? It's sad because, okay, first off, the question about, yeah, anybody that imprisons somebody, well, first off, let's just be clear. The January 6th committee threw nobody in prison.
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.
And Donald Trump keeps repeating this. One of the things that really ticked me off about the Welker interview is, you know, 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. 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.
And one of the things he keeps saying is that the January 6th committee deleted all the evidence. This is completely false.
There was no evidence deleted. And in fact, if you go on, if you just type in January 6th committee evidence evidence the govinfo.gov has all of the evidence that we collected all of the has the report all the supporting evidence 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 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. 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. 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, like happy at what they heard. So on this point, as you rightly point out, none of you did anything wrong.
The laws were broken. And so, you know, this is kind of this pardon discussion is out there.
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. But on the other hand, you know, I think there's some people that are that are worried about looking to protect folks.
I'm just wondering kind of from your vantage point 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? 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 know, some folks are wondering, well, why not just go ahead and do it?

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 this in this law, in these lies, you know, and make it as kind of broad as he made the Hunter pardon.
On the other hand, there's a lot of people that feel like, listen, if I accept a pardon, then that is, in essence, saying I'm guilty of something. 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 actually tend to think he probably was leaning towards the pardon thing, but probably not now.
But you know, who knows? I was surprised at the timing on the Hunter pardon, to be honest with you, too. Yeah.
So a poll out today that had two in 10 Americans, 22% supported that pardon. You wouldn't know that on Blue Sky.
Just one other con on the pardons that can just convince me from my perspective is 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 and like crazy people.
Like I'm, if he pardons, you know, a list of 12 people, like that puts a target on our back kind of among, among vigilante types. 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. Yeah.
Well, look, and I, and I understand that like, cause I mean, the number of, you know, what is it? The swattings that happen now? Yeah. That's just like, although they did take down.
Those persons have been swatted. 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. And they basically send a swatting target to these people in Eastern Europe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was taken down about a month and a half ago.
Former FBI deputy director sent that to me, and it's a pretty big deal. And so, yeah, that was interesting.
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 Kash Patel. Stop.
This is like my recommendation, people.

Stop showing your fear in public.

Like 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.

It's just they have you fearful of it.

And we talk about that anticipatory obedience where you're scared of what's going to happen. So you start obeying.
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.
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.
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. And I just think, look, so many people have done heroic things to this point.
Just keep it up. Keep it up.
We're going to get through this. 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. 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. But before we get to kind of the incoming, the appointees, we haven't spoken since the election, you and I, besides in text.
And so I'm just, I'm curious if you have any, any kind of broad thoughts now a month on. I'm having, I'm, 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? I mean, and I say that probably every day.

So there is, you know, like it's.

It does feel like we're in a video game.

Like, how is this real?

It does.

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?

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 hummata, hummata, what just happened? We got our bell rung. 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.
Now we've got to recognize it. Look, you know, World War II is seen as this great victory by the Allies.
But at Dunkirk, it looked like everything was lost. 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? 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. So, yeah, look, I'm not sitting here going, I'm great.
I'm excited, all this kind of stuff. But I also have taken a posture of, okay, the battle is just going to be a little longer than we thought it was, but that just makes the victory all that more stunning and heroic when it comes through.
Cause look, I don't think the Trump thing is going to end. 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. 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, let's be in a posture of winning.
But every day I'm still blown away that we're here. I just can't believe it.
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.
And to that point, I want to get to his cabinet picks with you. But I think we have to start with the biggest news of the day.
I honestly can't believe it took us 10 minutes to get to this, which is the former cabinet pick. Matt Gaetz, your former colleague, I know decently well, teased this huge announcement.
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.
That plan has been revealed. He is going to be a host on One American News, the fourth rated MAGA TV network behind Fox and Newsmax and Real America's Voice.
And I'm just curious your reaction to Matt Gaetz's huge announcement about being an OAN anchor, and I guess one of my competitors now. Enjoy it, buddy.
Enjoy it, Matt. You know what? You're going to go there and literally have tens of viewers every night that are watching you.
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? 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 kinds of like, that's right. 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, he'll say crazy stuff and make his news every night or whatever.
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. If he'd have actually been committed to the rule of law.
Take somebody like even Mike Lee, Josh Hawley, or Ted Cruz and say, had they actually been committed to truth and doing the right thing, they could be like these transformational politicians. And honestly, Matt Gaetz could be one of those, but he's incapable of thinking about anything but himself, his own fame.
Here's a funny story. The day he gets to Congress for kind of like the first month, I'm sitting back in the cloak room, which is behind the, you know, the big floor on the house where we can hang out.
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.
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. Now this is keep in mind, the almost attorney general of the united states of america tweets the only thing i keep hearing about luigi whatever his last name is from my girlfriends is is he single like this is the guy that was almost attorney general that's basically like feeding into this you know hot guy assassin crap 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 i mean maybe he does based on based on the ethics report i don't know that's true so sure about that that's true that's true but it just goes to show tim and you know this like this is a 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? America voted for it. And I'm like, fine, take it.
Let's embrace this. I don't think we need any super historians to analyze whether or not there have been a less serious cabinet appointments than the weekend talk show host, Peyton Hague stuff.
I guess maybe the reports of sexual assaults were not quite as rampant in like

the 1800s, for example. So, you know,

who knows exactly like what Andrew Johnson's cabinet was doing in their free

time with women. But certainly in the modern era,

it is the rapiest cabinet that we've had. I think that's pretty clear.

Yeah. The Gates thing, it just is remarkable.
I'm sorry.

I just put a finer point on it.

Like the two doors available to him were Attorney General of the United States of America and OAN hosts. You know what I mean? In other times, like when Chuck Hagel was going to be department of defense and people were trying to push against him in the Obama times, had he not gone in? I think the alternate choice would have been, I don't know, the Brookings Institute or something serious.
It's just crazy that those are the two doors for the people. Yeah, and any other failed attorney general candidate would probably go start their own law firm and charge $1,200 an hour.
And instead like no i 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 we've won america's news real america's voice hardest hit i just i wonder how they didn't come up with a scratch for that all right i want to spend sort of the like kind of back into this on syria because i know you've been a long-time advocate for it. But let's just really quick bang through the nominees.
To me, I think Kash Patel is the most dangerous for a couple of reasons. But I'm curious on your case for that.
Which nominee are you most concerned about, and which do you think might be the most dangerous? Yeah, I mean, it's tough. It's tough to think like, which am I most concerned about? they're all pretty equal look Pete Hegsath

my concern with him is just ineptitude it's less about like malice now I do have concern about malice with Hegsath but like I don't necessarily think he's really anti-american or on the side of our enemies right it's ineptitude which is a huge problem in and of itself I'm not denying that the two things I do worry about

Kash 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. I mean, J.
Edgar Hoover would be nothing compared to what Kash Patel will be seen in history as, in terms of being an arm of the president to go after his political enemies so i think cash patel concerns me more than anything and what you undergrade in hoover a little bit but yeah maybe maybe not nothing but uh cash might be too stupid to outpace hoover but his aspirations are certainly hoover plus anyway yeah that's right that's right but i mean you even see if it's 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 and uh so he's a big concern on that front tulsi is actually let's just actually let's sit on patel for a second because i want to get to tulsi in this area context because and you're just you know having been in there i think more familiar with this than some folks like to me the FBI threat to Patel and why I put him in Tulsi

and you know having been in there i think more familiar with this than some folks like to me the fbi threat to patel and why i put him and tulsi in a separate category from heck seth i'm very concerned about heck seth don't get me wrong but there are checks within the defense department and i was concerned about gates but there are checks within the department of justice right that they're going to to undermine, they're going to try to get good people

to leave and eliminate those checks. So there's plenty to be concerned about.
The FBI can do a ton of damage before it reaches any resistance, right? Like they can just come and ruin people's lives before a grand jury has to get involved, before a career official has to get involved, as long as he has enough henchmen in there.

And certainly despite the claims of, of the MAGA world, that the FBI is a deep state op helping the elites. There's certainly some MAGA people in the, in the FBI.
But to me, that is the most alarming thing. Just that he, like the amount of free reign he would be able to have 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 you and i are old enough to remember when the republican party used to be for tort reform used to be against frivolous lawsuits well here's what's actually happened and this is a hundred percent because of Donald Trump, because this is what he always did.
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. Look at Brad Raffensperger.
Brad Raffensperger has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own personal money, by the way, defending against frivolous lawsuits. You know, Brad Raffensperger, 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. This is the threat that Kash 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, 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. And I mean, you know, the legal bills were approaching 50 to $100,000 just to be well represented to testify to a grand jury once.
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. 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, 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.
We're shipping Mother's Day gifts with a rapid fire round of questions. Ready? Yes.
My gift. Can you pack it? Yep.
Ship it? Yes. Guarantee it? Of course.
Oh, send gift baskets? For sure. Protect electronics? Dog proof it? Return it if they hate it? Yes.
No, and yeah. Are you the UPS Store? Hey, we have a winner! Visit the upsstore.com slash guarantee for full details.
Most locations are independently owned. Products, services, prices, and hours of operation may vary.
See center for details. The UPS Store.
Visit a store today. Going to Tulsi.
I mean, I talked about this with Michael Weiss earlier this week. Let's table the thing into that next but just the intel gathering side of it you've had these briefings right like I just talk to people a little bit about what kind of broad remit she would have in this position yeah so she's basically the coordinator of all these different intel agencies so you have like CIA FBI D 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.
She ensures that everything's working together. 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.
This comes through signals intelligence or human intelligence. We have light, medium, or whatever, heavy confidence, whatever it is, you know, 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. 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, 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 definitive. And what you realize is we probably had officers and politicians in the Russian government that were telling us this information.
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. 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.
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. Robert, I can't think of his last name, but the 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. And, you know, Tulsi has she and I were friends up until she went and visited Bashar al-Assad.
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.
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 that RT calls her like basically Russia's darling.
She's their mouthpiece. 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'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

shuttle their nomination through.

And they know damn well these are totally

ill-qualified people. You mentioned that you were friends.
I was watching a clip that Katie had grabbed, producer Katie had grabbed from 2017, where she's interviewed by Tapper, where you had tweeted, I hope you didn't meet with Assad the butcher. And she was talking about your friend.
It was framed like, this is your friend, Adam Kinzinger, somebody dealt with. So, so kind of talk about that sort of period.
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? Yeah.
So look, again, we were friends, like, you know, we, 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.
But to me, that was a defensible position. You don't think we should get involved, whatever.
Non-intervention and pro-Assad are quite different. Right.
Very different. Very different.
And so there's starting 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. 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.
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 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.
And, you know, look, she just literally went there, legitimized him 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.
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. 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.
She also is defending the dictator of Russia, who is indiscriminately bombing civilians for a simple land grab, and now you want to put her in charge of all of our intelligence. It's just really sad, and I think the thing that makes me more sad is not that Donald Trump did it it 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 yeah i mean just having been i don't i think like one of the times we met was was at a syria function with se cup like in the early days when you're very first when I was first getting to know you.
And so having just sort of been a long time agitating for this, nobody saw it coming. So I guess you didn't see it coming.
What was your kind of reaction to everything in Syria? 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.

And I just remember thinking like how many times have we had the football

taken away from us? And, and then to watch this happen in such record time.

I mean, it's, it's quite honestly amazing. Yes.

We don't know what the aftermath is going to be, right.

Let's just put that out there.

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. 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.
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 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 to go over there frankly and and be able to go over and meet with some of those folks did you go over during that time yeah I went right to the border, actually, as close as we could get. I did basically what McCain did.
On the Kurdish area? Like on the Turkey side? Yeah, on the Turkey side. And we actually, I'd gone over with actually Evan McMullin, who was a staffer on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
He was former CIA. 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.
But, you know, obviously that initial push kind of failed and it was heartbreaking and it's amazing to watch it now. 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 it's really heartbreaking to see the the human impact of it yeah though i mean 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 um which is something okay my final thing for you then i'll let you go because this is my hobby horse and maybe'm wrong about this, because nobody seems to be validating my claim.
But it's my hobby horse, because I think it's America playing a role in the world is good. 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. We're not omniscient.
We don't control everything. 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.
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.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
Russia is now leaving Syria with their tail tucked in. Iran is hanging on the edge.
Obviously, Bashar al-Assad is gone. And a lot of this is because we supplied Israel who took the fight to Iran, basically crushed him.
I can even take this all the way back to the killing of Soleimani, by the way. And this is one thing where, let's be bipartisan here, the Democrats claim that World War III was going to start because we killed Soleimani under Donald Trump.
And it didn't. It was actually a really good thing.
And that's a good thing for the opposition is give Trump credit where he deserves it this next four years, because then people listen to you stronger 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, we'll see what happens when, you know, old Donald Trump gets

in there and changes everything. Adam Kinzinger, the renegade, free man,

walking freely through the streets. Thank you for coming back on the Bulwark podcast.

We'll be talking to you soon up next congressman pat ryan all right 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.
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.
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, so we're fired up to beat Navy in football this weekend. So I got my competitive juices flowing.
Oh, yeah. It's a good season for Army.
Let's do a quick little speed dating for people who don't know you. 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.
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. 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.
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 this is a super competitive feat, the 18th congressional district.
Last time in 2022, which is my first election, we won the seat by 1.3 percent so we worked really hard to win by a little bit more uh this time and we did really well we actually won by over 13 percent so i take great optimism and hope from that 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 you can actually win trust to people back and i think that's obviously the currency of this whole thing yeah and this is gross i want to do some looking back and we'll get into the trump administration look you win by a point and a half and then the national environment shifts four points the other way four or five points points the other direction, that should be an L. 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? Is it because your opponent was terrible? Was it all just your charm? How do you assess what was happening in your race and how it bucked the national trend? Certainly not my, my charm. My wife would, uh, assess to that, but a few things, probably the main drivers.
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. She ran a good campaign.
They spent a lot of money against me. So it was a competitive campaign.
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. And 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 get 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.
So I think we really won because 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 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. 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 what? She actually won the district by about a point. And then we won by about like 13, 13 and a half.
13. Okay, got it.
So you outperformed her by not 12. So, I mean, listening to that answer to that answer though like that gap it seems to me that there's all this kind of discussion about the tactics of of the campaign but that the core thing that you did that she was unable or unwilling to do was distance from biden right and to me it seems like that sometimes gets a little bit washed away and all these conversations.
Everybody has their ideological, you know, kind of agenda that they want to fill. But just being anti-incumbent, right? Like being anti whatever it is that people don't like about the, you know, existing establishment, like seemed like a critical element to the Democratic nominee.
And because of the situation she was in or whatever, she just wasn't, wasn't able to make that case. I think that's right.
It's both separation or independence from Biden individually, but like, it also is from the democratic brand. Like imagine you're in what ways.
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.
I certainly have nothing figured out here. I'm just trying to think out loud.
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 country right now. 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.

It's more about what we choose. 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.

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.

And to me, like the macro thing that happened in this election, in a lot of house races, even local races, and certainly the certainly the presidential is like 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 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 hugely problematic and disconnected, but then we're also talking about other things that weren't that. 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.
And so separating to your point, the ideological piece of that, it's just good representation and like actually listening to people and sort of showing rather than telling, which I think is something important stylistically for us to improve on. Was that the handcuffs of incumbency? That Joe was just like, yeah, I didn't know what to do because the economy was getting better in macro.
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.
Do you think it was that? Or do you think that there is something more fundamental? like affordability is a problem everywhere 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 i see it and see that it's a problem and we're going to change it might have been a better better option yeah i mean i think like 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 a lot of curse on this, like isn't working for everybody. And like, that's incredibly frustrating to me.
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 your permission.

Yeah, whatever.

I'll just be me.

The defenders of the status quo you're saying.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, how do we become that?

And I think that was the box that it's easy to get yourself wrapped up in.

I believe in the power of government to be a force for good and the power of institutions.

And so there's this, I think a lot of us grew up in that mindset and I and I still believe it but then you have to recognize believing in those things is different from recognizing they're not working if you actually believe in something you have to fix it to make it work so people see that 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. And so I think it's, that was the tension he was wrestling with.
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. Like if 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.
And we did not offer a competing explanation or story with heroes and villains. And to me, that's the opportunity space is like, if Trump's story is, like, we know who his villains are.
That's kind of the usual cast. And he is the hero.
It's him. He's the only one who can fix it.
It's sort of this autocratic, I will fix all your problems. To me, the story we need to tell is the villains are, whether it's like two powerful corporations, which we can debate, I believe that's a big part of it, corrupt public officials, and a set of, not broadly defined, but specific bad actors.
And the heroes are the American people. Whether that's working people, whether that's a scrappy entrepreneur, I started two startups, I get what that's about.
That's foundational to our DNA. So telling that story, I think is the opportunity and the need for us.
The heroes are not very active social media posters and academics. I don't know if that's true.
I don't know if that's right. I think we should all agree on that.
Okay, I'm glad you took us to here. It was the next thing on my outline.
So you have a future in podcasting if it doesn't work out. Because 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 UnitedHealthcare 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 for your chemo what do you think about that that frame i mean my wife and i've actually been talking a lot about this i mean i think we just have to be very clear in saying i know you've said this like it is absolutely 100 000 unacceptable to use violence political violence to obviously commit murder regardless of 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. 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, you know, functioning democracy is the venue you go to if you are frustrated with something and you want to change it.
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 failing people so deeply that they have such anger and resentment and pain, and that's, I think, authentic for many, many, many people in my district and across the country, 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.
We don't have all the details yet, but you get to a lot of these incidents of political violence. And 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.
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. 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, you know, how does it look for, right? And there's some that'll 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. Or, you know, that's one way to do this, to talk about policy.
I'm kind of skeptical that that breaks through. 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 and that's something that they deserve and we should do anyway.
There's a million different ways to do it. What does it look like? 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.
If he says the system is rigged, I don't agree with that because that characterizes the entire system as, in my view, wrong and failing and corrupt. What I actually think is happening is most of our systems and institutions have lasted us a long time.
We've gotten us this far. They're not perfect, but they're largely functioning.
Most people are good actors trying to do the right things. What we have to focus on is the people exploiting and 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 so the local example of this in my district was we have this utility company and in New York State in a lot of places it's essentially a monopolistic system.
You have one choice for your utility. And when you have corporate failure and malpractice and corruption, which we had this whole incident where they screwed up a billing system, people were getting their savings accounts wiped out tens of or hundreds of thousands of dollars, like years-long debacle, where right at the time of COVID when people are getting crushed, they're just getting another pounding on them.
And this wasn't like, this is different than what their profit was or is that the right level of profit? This was like, no, they just failed to do the things they need to do, like just straight up corporate failure. We hammered them and are frankly continuing to hammer them and hold them accountable.
Got a huge $60 million settlement to pay back people that were harmed. 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.
And you have to make an example of those people,

like in other walks of life.

And then that helps sort of correct

and get the system back to a more,

you know, reasonable, effective

for the greater good mode.

All right.

You're selling me.

That's a populism I could get behind.

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, the big banks after the foreclosure crisis and i don't even really to be honest remember exactly the details of what she did um which which sort of i think explains the problem given that i'm i'm paid to follow this you got a show not tell if you're saying it and no one's like i remember. 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 it in speeches, talked about it in ads, and like positioned herself as a fighter against that.
That's the kind of populism you could sell me on. All right.
Here's my problem with all this stuff, is the Donald Trump side, is that Donald Trumpald trump is full of shit he doesn't actually care about people he doesn't care about anybody but himself he screwed regular people over his whole life he's almost comically kind of self-centered 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? 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. All right.
Because it's not like he was credit, you know, it's not like he's Bill Clinton out there with with the i hear your pain stuff i was talking about this yesterday with somebody there's sort of like two aspects in a perfect world if it's like a a matrix like one is showing the fight like a willingness to fight be a fighter be tough be strong 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. 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. Trump obviously shows the fight, but I think people are smart enough to know he is a greedy, corrupt, self-centered person, and he's never tried to hide that.
What we failed to do is as a party, and even you could say at a many candidate level, I think people know we're coming, I think, from a place of 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. 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.
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 like to build around my working title, which again, like you said, that's like a populism you could maybe see like to me, it's patrioticism it's a constructive not destructive unifying sense of getting back to the values like of why we formed the country in the first place like we were under the thumb of of a dictator and didn't have representation and we fought from a sense of fairness and and sort of empathy for a greater collective good So it's this sort of like more 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. 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.
Thinking about the tariffs on Mexico, we can kind of have a Boston tequila party. I'm not a tequila guy.
I'm more a whiskey guy. Whiskey rebellion.
Okay, whiskey rebellion. Yeah, there might be something there once the tariffs start hitting our Casamigos.
Let's get practical then on this. Because we might have found another area of disagreement.
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.
And so I kind of am not hopeful that'll actually happen. But, 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. They are going to try to jam through a border funding bill.
And they are going to try to extend the Trump tax cuts. So those three things, 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. No, I agree with you.
I think, no, I think we need to show the fight to be clear. Like if we're doing a brand rehab.
I'm just saying, you could hear the fighting for the right reasons as 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 you know what i mean versus no actually let them do it so anyway i'm sorry continue yeah well so i think this is the difference it's easy i won't be doing this a few years but like i think it's easy to be like the fight is against another party 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. 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, when we're talking about like the, 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. 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? So I think we have to pick very strategic fights that are rooted in what people, where people are and what they want us to fight for. So I do think really fighting on fairness around the tax bill is going to be incredibly important.
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.
But whatever they put forward, my guess, is going to be extreme.

But I think that's just on them to carry and put forth their view of it.

And the same with funding the government.

I was very frustrated these two years when we bailed them out multiple times.

And then I didn't, but many of my colleagues voted to make Johnson the speaker again,

who's a traitor and election denier. I don't understand what 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 I think there I guess it was maybe less about me and you than me and what I project to be the likely uh the likely house democrat position on some of this stuff so I'm finding the government you concur that they make them do it themselves the 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 i know this this goes totally contrary to the devout there'll be some democrats who just on a values level are like i can't do this but i don't know like is there not maybe that is the place to deal with them and say let's do this let's go let's fund the fentanyl stuff let's go let's bring the langford bill back and you know what i mean and like but i guess the problem with that is the place to deal with them and say, let's do this.
Let's fund the fentanyl stuff. Let's bring the Langford bill back.
You know what I mean? 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. I don't know.
Well, and they'll exclude stuff that's really important too. This is where I plan to, I'm guessing and telegraphing what I think they're going to do.
they're going to like i have a huge agricultural economy most of what they're going to do would be devastating to i have mostly apple farms like we're second behind washington state's apples and hudson valley nationally yeah 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. If there's not an economic component to understanding the economic and labor market impacts of cutting off what has been the engine of American dynamism since our country's founding, we have to make that case.
That's grounded in where people are. Whether you farmer who's seeing your, 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. Like those are the fights to me that are where kind of where popular and populist because that's just where most people are.

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.

I have been very focused on Hague Sef because I'm on the Armed Services Committee.

I'm a veteran. The fact that he could be Secretary of Defense is 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 and and i mean i just the military is far from perfect but it's something very like personally important to me and and at a dangerous serious time in the world important i think should be to everybody and the fact that this is the guy like we have to fight this fight and and and push the republican senators who are now getting cowered into the corner by the maga attack mob that they that they launch on people because this is 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 sit would you meet with pete have you heard from him 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 yeah i would definitely i i mean i actually have a lot of personal friends who who know him and and by many accounts like his time in uniform, he was

a good

platoon leader and a reasonable

fan. friends who know him.
And by many accounts, his time in uniform, he was a good platoon leader and 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's part of it. That's part of it.
I think I fought in these wars too. These are our country's longest wars.
People, there are people that came out of there affected in a lot of ways. And I think...
For sure. Some of them are healthy and important skepticism about the use of military force and the disconnect between civilian military leadership, political and appointed, and troops on the ground and the American people.
Those are all healthy, important debates to have, but he is a toxic force.

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. I have two fun ones to end with for you.
That wasn't fun. No, these have all been fun actually.
Uh, but I keep fun ones at the end for, 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,

you know, 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? I think, I mean, no, I think we have a lot of younger, newer house members that are like just real people, real, you know, real guys, real men, whatever, like who could go talk sports, talk culture, talk, you know, like for me, army football, talk about wrestling with my boys, like just be a normal human. I think my really good buddy who i think would do a great job is kind of chris deluzio he's a naval academy graduate 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 pro-union real person who could go on and talk about you know whatever like his big legislative push was actually a rail safety bill after

the train derailment in East Palestine

because his district borders that.

Like, he's focused on real

stuff that's going to help people.

I think he'd be good. I mean, there's a lot

of people. 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 november crystal loose yeah all right i was zagging i was like i think that uh the move is to put uh mgp on there marie glues and camp perez you know she's great she hanging jared golden having some uh having you know kind of a woman who's probably actually more capable than to at like fixing cars and doing shit so angie craig i don't know if you know angie 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 we just gotta gotta be out there talking and 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.
And that is a problem. It's a big part of the problem.
Yes. All right.
I only added this question halfway through since you seem so nervous about cussing, but I figured I'd ask what your favorite curse is. I mean, I'm just a good old-fashioned fuck guy.
Like, when you're deployed, it's just every other word. and my, when I get going, my wife is like, Jesus, man, what's wrong with you? So yeah, chill out, 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 know some, these are important discussions.
You've given me some nominees of other colleagues that I should have on. I actually didn't know that Charisse was a mma fighter so that's she's great she's a badass so we should reach out to her and um we'll uh 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 all right everybody else we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of bullard podcast we'll see y'all then peace this garden that i built for you They're just sitting now and here Peace.
And find it all untended With the trees all bended low This garden is our home, dear And I got nowhere else to go So bring it on Bring it on Every metal tear Bring it on Every useless tear Bring it on

All your shattered dreams

And I'll scatter them into the sea

The Bullwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.