Adam Kinzinger: MAGA Hates America

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Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 4 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 4 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 4 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 4 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 5 We're going to close out here

Speaker 5 with

Speaker 5 a nice old patriotic song that's been rolling around my head these last months. And I love this melody.
I love y'all. Appreciate you.

Speaker 5 And we're here for the right reasons, and we all know what we're here for. So we're going to do our thing, make this music, and make way for the people that we need to hear from.

Speaker 5 Yes, we'll rally round the flag,

Speaker 5 rally

Speaker 5 once again,

Speaker 5 shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Speaker 5 We will rally

Speaker 5 from the hillside,

Speaker 5 rally from the plain,

Speaker 5 shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Speaker 5 Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Speaker 5 That was Bonnie Ver singing the pro-union abolitionist Civil War hymn Battle Cry of Freedom in his hometown, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before the Harris Walls rally there yesterday.

Speaker 5 And today, I'm pumped to be with somebody who loves himself some freedom, Adam Kinzinger, contributor to the Bulwark, former Republican congressman, veteran, founder of Country First, which backs pro-democracy candidates.

Speaker 5 What's up, brother?

Speaker 6 Hey, so I'm not just a fan of freedom, I'm also a fan of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. So I used to go do touch-and-goes up there with the military because you know my military unit's Madison, Wisconsin.

Speaker 6 So Eau Claire, it's a cool little place to go, except when it's like zero, negative zero thousand D degrees. But other than that, it's great.

Speaker 5 It was packed yesterday in Eau Claire. That's a good sign.
You know, that's not

Speaker 5 Madison, right? I mean, you could get there from Madison, but it's not, you know, it's a different crowd.

Speaker 6 You can't get there very easily from Madison.

Speaker 6 That's a drive. Yeah, it's a good sign.
I mean, they probably pulled a lot over from Minnesota, too.

Speaker 5 It's like, that's a rural community, right?

Speaker 6 You're going to, you know, fill a stadium with rural Democrats, you got to have a lot of them.

Speaker 5 All right. I've got a couple of things about the rollout that's been piquing my interest, but I'm just curious your big picture thoughts.
You've endorsed, obviously, the Harris Walls ticket.

Speaker 5 What's your, you know, biggest feeling about the state of play here 90 days out?

Speaker 6 You know, looking back, like, you and I both talked about this, which is...

Speaker 6 Like, I always thought if Biden got out, it would actually be, there would be a lot of energy behind the new candidate because I think a lot of what people were just so upset about was like it was going to be another Biden Trump, right?

Speaker 6 That's where there was no excitement.

Speaker 6 So, she's come in and she's, I mean, a ton of energy, and again, knock on wood, but I guess we don't have to knock on wood because I'm just talking about what has been, not what necessarily will be.

Speaker 6 This has been a flawless rollout.

Speaker 5 We're unburdened. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 6 this has been a flawless rollout. And, you know, I think the one area she's going to have to make a difference on here very soon is she's going to have to sit down for some interviews.

Speaker 6 This is starting to gain a little steam, and it's got a point. But, I mean, so far, it's been great.

Speaker 6 And the other thing is, there hasn't been this feeling, at least to me, like I know that I'm going to disagree with her on probably most issues, but I haven't had this feeling that she's some, you know, left-wing lib that's going to thumb her nose at me and my way of life.

Speaker 6 It's been more of a unifying theme, and I think Tim Walls brings a lot to that, too.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I was going to do this last because, you know, I didn't mean to pick on him first, but you brought it up. So let's just get it out of the way.
I agree. She's got to do some interviews soon.

Speaker 5 This has been a,

Speaker 5 you know, honeymoon of all honeymoons. I mean, you know, not to get too, too tawdry with it, but, you know, they're just, they've just been getting down during the honeymoon period.

Speaker 5 You know, it's been going great. It's been the honeymoon of their dreams.
And I get why you didn't want to do an interview during that period and, you know, risk. momentum stopping.

Speaker 5 But Trump's got a press conference later today. JD's been doing press conferences.

Speaker 5 To me, it's like just do a couple of easy ones. You know what I mean? Like they have this hanging over them.
and I don't, I think at this point, I don't know why.

Speaker 5 And I think it's time to just check the box.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I agree. I think they will.

Speaker 6 I mean, I guess, look, if I was running the campaign and I never ran, you know, but a Congress campaign, so I guess I'm not going to say I'm the smartest, but I would say, like, look, let's get as much, you know.

Speaker 6 Juice out of this turnip as we can right now.

Speaker 6 And then at the point when the calls are super, super loud, then we'll knock out, and it would probably be good before the convention, knock out a few big interviews, say you did it, do a press conference and move on.

Speaker 6 Your honeymoon analogy is right, man. This is like the kind of honeymoon where you're like, oh, they're going to be divorced because this thing, this honeymoon's just too hot and heavy.

Speaker 5 So they're going to be going so good. They can't get off each other.

Speaker 6 There's no way that's going to work.

Speaker 5 I think the longer you wait, just the more pressure there is on her. Like, let's take the air out of the balloon.
I had Dan Pfeiffer on last week. Pod, Save America, I'll have you.
I'll have you.

Speaker 5 You can do some training. You can do some T-ball first.
You don't have to go straight into the toughest interview. All right.
Some friendly advice.

Speaker 6 And just look at how

Speaker 6 stupid Donald Trump's interviews are. I mean, he doesn't answer anything.
We all know his, I hate the term gish galloping. I hate it so much.

Speaker 6 I've hated it ever since the whole Biden debate, and people use that.

Speaker 5 Just so you know, if you reply to me on Twitter with the word Gish Gallop, you're getting muted. I'm sorry.
It might be well-intended. It just annoys me.
I hated his mind.

Speaker 6 You're probably the reason I hate it because you were the one like bad-mouthing it. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? I hate Gish galloping too.
But anyway, so you've rubbed off on me. Dang it.

Speaker 6 But that's what Donald Trump does. I mean, he just word vomits all over an answer.
And look, if Harris just goes and does what she needs to do, she doesn't have to be perfect.

Speaker 6 She doesn't have to be amazing. She'll be fine, right? But it'll take that out of the balloon.

Speaker 5 Exactly. Friendly advice on that one.
Okay. Where I wanted to start with the battle cry of freedom.
I got to tell you, man.

Speaker 5 Harris and Walls together have really co-opted, obviously, freedom with the theme song, but a lot of these themes that were very popular at Republican conventions in days of yore, the patriotism and the freedom and the opportunity of America.

Speaker 5 And it's not as if Democrats didn't use those in the past, but usually on the kind of issue qualities when you use words and ask them like, which party do you associate it with?

Speaker 5 Those were the words that people generally associated with Republicans in the 80s, 90s, and they're taking them back. And I love that.

Speaker 5 And I got to tell you, I thought the most moving part of the initial rollout speech in Philly was them talking about kind of how unique this ticket is and how unique it is to America.

Speaker 5 I just want to play one clip for for you.

Speaker 7 And after all,

Speaker 7 you know, the promise of America

Speaker 7 is what makes it possible

Speaker 7 for two middle-class kids,

Speaker 7 one a daughter of Oakland, California

Speaker 7 who was raised by a working mother,

Speaker 7 the other

Speaker 7 a son of the Nebraska Plains who grew up working on a farm.

Speaker 7 It's the promise of America because only in America, only in America

Speaker 7 is it possible for them together to make it all the way to the White House.

Speaker 7 Only an American.

Speaker 7 Only an American.

Speaker 7 Only an American.

Speaker 5 That's pretty good, man. That's pretty good.

Speaker 6 Dude, I love this because for two things, I mean, I get a number of reasons. I love love this because,

Speaker 6 first off, this is going to drive the MAGA crazy because they somehow believe they own this chant, right? It's going to drive them crazy.

Speaker 6 But secondly, the thing I've been trying, and I wish I could articulate it better because I would be articulating it more often, is the Trump folks actually hate America.

Speaker 6 Let's be very clear. It's not when you think of America in the 1950s, America and farms, they don't hate that America.
They do hate America that exists today.

Speaker 6 And what we don't get a choice of is to determine what kind of America exists today. Now, you can get involved in politics and say, I want America to look like this tomorrow.
That's fine.

Speaker 6 But America as it exists today, they've been very clear. The right has been very clear.
They don't like this. They hate it, right? This is why they down-talk everything.

Speaker 6 This is why they excitedly say the Russian military, which has lost 500,000 people in Ukraine, is better than the American military.

Speaker 5 The woke American military.

Speaker 6 The woke American military. And we don't do things like we used to, right? Like that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 I mean, yeah, we can now strike somebody and kill them with a bomb that's made out of razor blades from a hundred miles away. That's pretty, pretty good stuff.

Speaker 5 Thanks to our ingenuity. Thanks to American ingenuity.
The free market says to the Department of Defense, you know, what's more American?

Speaker 6 And we named it the ninja bomb, for God's sakes. That's cool.
So, but anyway, the whole point is, I've always said Democrats should be the ones trying to take back this narrative of we love America.

Speaker 6 We love America as it exists. We're America that gives people opportunity.
And Tim, I got to tell you what, I'm sensing this. I'm curious your thoughts on it, if you're sensing it too.

Speaker 6 I feel like people are starting to turn the corner of just exhaustion with the constant negativity and outrage out of MAGA.

Speaker 6 I feel like it's just running thin, not among MAGA, but against the rest of the country. What do you think?

Speaker 5 I think so too.

Speaker 5 The Olympics was a good example of this, you know, where it's just like they want people to be mad that there was a drag queen last supper or something during the opening ceremonies.

Speaker 6 And it was a Greek fest, right?

Speaker 5 It wasn't even Olympic. And it's like, but they can't accept it.
And it was like, can't be happy with someone biles because she was a quitter before.

Speaker 5 I don't have this quote, but one of my favorite quotes from yesterday was J.D. Vance, and they asked him, like, what makes him smile?

Speaker 5 Somebody asked him this at the press conference, and he's like, fake news questions like that make me smile. And I am angry, actually.

Speaker 5 And it's like, stop being, people don't want to be fucking angry about everything.

Speaker 5 Like, they just want to be able to watch the Olympics, put on, you know, their little red, white, and blue clothes, have a beer, glass of rosé, depending on which part of the country you're in.

Speaker 5 Root for Simone Viles, root for LeBron James, root for, you know, like the Sprinters. That's it.
Like, that's what they're looking for.

Speaker 6 And yeah, they're like, they're your grumpy grandpa, right? Or like your grandpa's neighbor that would just sit on his porch and tell everybody get out of his lawn.

Speaker 6 Like, that's what the GOP has personified. That.

Speaker 6 And if the Democrats can be this party of like opportunity, opportunity optimism the party that chants usa i mean one of the biggest things that blew me away coming into kind of the left movement as a righty you know that that like is these people actually don't hate america like i used to think they did right right they actually and i never really thought they hated america but like they down-talked it they down talked it a lot yeah they down talked and they certainly i mean no everybody has to admit back in the 80s you know the the left was obviously had a real issue with it but i always thought that was them And then now I see truly in a party that's like, okay, they love America.

Speaker 6 They may love it for different reasons, but they love America. And by the way, they also believe dearly in the Constitution.
And that's the one thing I've come to realize.

Speaker 6 The Republican Party really doesn't believe in that, despite everything they would pretend to say.

Speaker 5 I had a brain fart there. I tape these in the morning.
Shikari Richardson. I got to shout out my LSU girl.
We just want to cheer for Shikari. We just want to be happy.

Speaker 5 We just want to love our country and cheer for our athletes. The other thing about that exchange, Kamala really embraced it.
And I have this, so this is a self-criticism as well.

Speaker 5 This is not just criticism of Kamala. She's not that great of a faker.
I'm not that great of a faker. You know what I mean? Like when I'm faking something, you can kind of tell.

Speaker 5 You know, some people are good at that, some people are not.

Speaker 5 When she's spinning you, you can kind of tell she's spinning you. She really looked overcome with emotion in that part of the speech that we were talking about.

Speaker 5 And just kind of thinking about the majesty of this and the enormity of it. That's another contrast.
Like Donald Trump just doesn't. He doesn't actually feel anything special about leading America.

Speaker 5 He's like, I could just as easily lead Belarus and it might actually be better because I'd have more power.

Speaker 6 And by the way, like, what president, I can't think of a single president.

Speaker 6 Maybe I'm sure he's existed somewhere in the past, but that would say to the American people, I did you a favor by becoming president. Right.

Speaker 5 I could have had a better life. Yeah.

Speaker 6 This is literally Donald Trump's like election theme.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Is I gave up a lot to come do this job. You're welcome, America.
His sons, I mean, they'll go on Twitter and they'll say, my father could have blah, blah, blah, but my father.

Speaker 6 By the way, I would never repeatedly call my dad my father. He's like, my dad.
Sometimes he'd be my father, but they're just like, father. Anyway, whatever.

Speaker 6 Maybe that's a, maybe that's a northeast thing. But like, if you think of every president, in history, they've all said, thank you for this opportunity.

Speaker 6 What an honor it is to sit in the Oval Office, right? Every one of them, even those that probably didn't feel like it was an honor.

Speaker 6 Donald Trump is just everything around him is darkness, and he's doing you a favor.

Speaker 6 And this is where I think the Democrats have a real opportunity this year is to be the party of hope, to be the party of vision.

Speaker 6 Even if you don't agree with that vision, it's like at least somebody's talking about the future and not past grievances.

Speaker 5 Your first instinct when I played that clip for you was to say it's going to trigger the MAGAs and make them upset. And so I got a a treat for you.
It did. Let's listen to Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 8 If you go back far enough, he was a high school football coach. And don't you know, he's a teacher and a high school football.
He's basically Mr. Feeney, but more athletic.

Speaker 9 He's like Ed Asner, a vuncular, moderate, just one of the boys, you know, a guy who can crack a beer and can shoot a rifle, but is also really, really in favor of gun control and transing the kids.

Speaker 9 That's basically the pitch in favor of Tim Walls. So she does this routine.
These rallies are incredibly well choreographed. I will say that.
They are very well choreographed.

Speaker 9 She calls for a chant, and a chant goes up. First Democratic rally I've seen for a while, where people start actually cheering USA.
And why are they cheering USA?

Speaker 9 Because she says, What an amazing country this is.

Speaker 9 What an incredible country where a person like me, middle-class person, or Tim Walls, middle-class person, can become the president and vice president of the United States.

Speaker 9 Now, I agree with that, but she doesn't agree with that. She believes that America is systemically racist.
So does Tim Walls.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God. Oh, what a

Speaker 5 cope and cry, baby. Oh, poor little squeaky ben.
It's sad that they've taken over the USA chant from the guy that tried to terminate the Constitution and try to coup.

Speaker 6 Poor little Ben. I saw two things in there.

Speaker 5 First off, what a dork he is.

Speaker 6 Can I just say, I mean, like, I know I'm reverting to high school jerk here, but what a complete dork, right?

Speaker 6 Even yesterday, he tweeted something about how Waltz has no net income or like no net worth.

Speaker 5 No stocks.

Speaker 6 Okay, so he's obviously not corrupt, okay? Maybe he's he's not the best money manager, but he's not corrupt. So maybe we can at least admit that, because if he was corrupt, he'd have something.

Speaker 6 Like he'd have some stocks. But the other thing is like at the beginning, and you just hear this, and this is what you hear in MAGA now.

Speaker 6 You saw that Ben is ridiculing this idea that, oh, he's just a regular guy who you want to sit down and have a beer with, whatever.

Speaker 6 Because Ben, and I mean this like both gently and seriously, Ben has never been somebody you would feel comfortable sitting down and having a beer with.

Speaker 6 And that is a chip he's carried on his shoulder. And I'm truly am sorry for that for him because I think he's got social anxiety or awkwardness or whatever.

Speaker 6 But you can see that anger and jealousy coming out, and you see that, frankly, in the MAGA movement when they do really weird stuff, it's called out as weird.

Speaker 6 And you were, by the way, the OG on weird. Let me just say.

Speaker 5 George W is the OG. I thought I took it from W.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 6 Jim Wall's got it. You're a nearby OG.

Speaker 5 Charge it up to the game, you know.

Speaker 6 But that's why that insult bothers them so much is because they've been called weird in their life before. And they thought they found a community that they can feel comfortable in.

Speaker 6 And again, I really don't say this meanly because this to me actually is sad.

Speaker 6 But we have to address this clearly because their little psychological problems that they've all come together for comfort on is affecting the larger country in this moment.

Speaker 5 Ben over the past week has compared Tim Walls to Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World and to Chris Farley as his man down by the river character from SNL.

Speaker 6 Dude, I would vote for Farley.

Speaker 5 Both of those are beloved characters. What the heck? That's what you got? Okay.

Speaker 6 Whatever. Dude, Vice President Farley, Van Down by the River, I'd be in.

Speaker 5 I would be in.

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall. David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 4 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 4 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 4 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 4 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 5 Speaking of weird and grumpy people, assholes that weren't loved, it's all high school cafeteria. I know you made the high school cafeteria joke, but it all comes back to that.

Speaker 5 J.D. Bowman or Haml or whatever his name was when he was in high school wasn't popular.
All right. He's a little tubby kid.
And I feel bad for him as well.

Speaker 5 You know, his step parents weren't good to him.

Speaker 5 And that fucking sucks, but you shouldn't take it out on other people. Therapy is the right solution to this.
We're not going to say what you do when you're in therapy.

Speaker 5 We're not not going to talk about that on this podcast. The walls attacks the JD has engaged in starting yesterday.
He's attacked Tim Walls over stolen valor.

Speaker 5 He said that he, quote, abandoned his unit before he went to Iraq. You wrote about this in your sub stack and said the swift boating of walls is sick, inaccurate, and will fail.
Talk about that.

Speaker 6 Can I just say how angry I have tried to not become angry during this cycle? Because, I mean, I mean that. Like, I want to be a professional, like, angry, not really angry.

Speaker 6 I am furious about this attack. Now, let me take it from the broad perspective and cut me off if I'm spinning too long because I'm going to rant about this.

Speaker 5 Go, roll, baby, roll.

Speaker 6 On the 50,000-foot overview, if you ever served in the United States military, why in God's name would you run for office?

Speaker 6 Because what you have done is, yes, you have done what 99% of the country won't do.

Speaker 6 But now it has become acceptable to parse through military records, look for any time time you said something in a public comment that might have been a little bit inaccurate, or take a completely normal thing that happens in a military career, explain it as something differently to people that don't understand how, for instance, military retirement works, and make it look like you abandoned your unit.

Speaker 6 Now, let me go into the details of this. So Walls retires at 24, I think, years, 24 years in the military.
Let me be clear about one thing. He could have retired at 20 with a pension.

Speaker 6 He stayed for 24. That was four years after 9-11 and two years after the start of the Iraq war.
Eventually, so I retired from the guard as well. I retired at 20 years.
He stayed four more years.

Speaker 6 Eventually, he makes the decision to retire. Now, it just so happens that a month later, his unit gets called to say, you're going to deploy.
But he had made the decision to retire prior to that.

Speaker 6 Now, let's say, Tim, that he had not made that decision prior. His unit gets the order to deploy, and then Tim throws in his retirement paperwork.
Let's say that happens, and that's not what happened.

Speaker 6 Well, first off, thousands of people in that timeframe did exactly that.

Speaker 6 They did 20-some years in the military, and then they had kids, and they were facing an 18-month deployment to Iraq, and they put in their retirement paperwork.

Speaker 6 I know five guys particularly that did that before going on another deployment.

Speaker 6 There's nothing wrong with that, because by the way, if the military decides that you can't go because you're going to not fill some billet that you fill, they can stop loss you.

Speaker 6 They can prevent you from getting out of the military. So, Walls never was prevented from getting out of the military.
He retired before his unit deployed. By the way, J.D.

Speaker 6 Vance did not re-enlist in the Marine Corps, and I could argue, and it would be inaccurate, but I could argue using the same logic that since he didn't re-enlist, and he could have, he could have stayed in longer, he actually abandoned his unit that eventually went back to Afghanistan or Iraq.

Speaker 6 But that would be an unfair attack. The other thing I'll say is this.
When they said that he is claiming to have worn a rank that he didn't wear is complete bullshit. Okay.

Speaker 6 So how military retirement works is in 20 years, after 20 years, you're eligible to retire. You retire at the rank you last held for three years.

Speaker 6 So when I became a lieutenant colonel, the year I hit my, I finished my third year as a lieutenant colonel, I was then eligible when I retired to retain the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Speaker 6 Had I gotten out at two years, I would have reverted to major. That happens in about 20% of retirements.
That's what Walls did. He reverted to senior master sergeant.

Speaker 5 What was his highest rank reached?

Speaker 6 Chief Master Sergeant, which is like the highest enlisted rank in the Army.

Speaker 6 And then since he didn't finish his education requirements for that, which happens all the time, and since he wasn't in that rank for three years, he reverted to senior master sergeant.

Speaker 6 That's not like a disciplinary

Speaker 6 demotion like Captain Ronnie Ronnie Jackson got, and he still has Admiral on his Twitter bio. He says he's a rear admiral.
He was demoted for disciplinary reasons, the captain.

Speaker 6 So I could go on and on, and I'm happy to answer any questions. But what makes me furious is not even so much the attack on walls, as unfair as that is.

Speaker 6 And I'd be this furious if people were attacking J.D. Vance, by the way.

Speaker 6 It's the fact that if you served in the military now and you think about running for office, you're like, God, did I ever say anything that somebody happened to get that maybe wasn't entirely 100% true?

Speaker 6 And if so, I'm never running for office, and it's bullshit. Yeah.
When the people that are throwing these arrows, one of them avoided the draft by claiming he had bone spurs.

Speaker 6 The rest of them, you know, our friend Eric Erickson in Georgia down there sitting jiggling in front of his microphone with his anger, who's never served a day in his life in the military talking about Walls' service like he has any effing clue.

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 a lot of that going on.

Speaker 5 We had Fred Trump on the podcast last week, and I had read his book, and I don't think I got into this with him in the interview, but like the Bones Furs thing is actually even way worse than I realized.

Speaker 5 The degree to which they

Speaker 5 went and like called in favors from friends, doctors, and, you know, during this period where people were going to get drafted, and it was a, it was not kind of like a, oh, they're exaggerating thing.

Speaker 5 Like, it was a concerted effort to dodge the draft, which, again, I've never served, so whatever.

Speaker 5 But like, if you're going to start like making these attacks on somebody that was in the military for 24 years, you know, maybe look in your house first. Just a couple of the facts here.

Speaker 5 I just want to drill in on. Alexander Vinman, friend of the show, tweeted this.
You're a damn liar to J.D. Vance.
And he goes through the timeline.

Speaker 5 May 2005 is when Walls retires from the National Guard. And during that time, he retires saying he's planning to run for Congress.

Speaker 5 And I think actually, Vinman didn't put this on, but I think in March, he actually said he was planning, he was like looking into running for Congress. So it was even earlier.

Speaker 5 July 2005, his unit receives orders for deployment. September 25, unit prepares for deployment.
March 2006, it's like a full year later is when the unit deploys.

Speaker 5 So I mean, you got into this in your answer, but just like talk about that.

Speaker 5 If we're being ungenerous to Walls, is this the kind of thing where

Speaker 5 you know, he knew it was coming, right? Like all that, you know, all that sort of stuff. Like, is there any validity here with that timeline?

Speaker 6 I don't think so in in this case. And let me first off say, as a chief master sergeant, this idea that he's, you know, leaving somebody else to take up bullets for him is insane.

Speaker 6 A chief master sergeant would be sitting at some, you know, headquarters tent somewhere in Iraq, like or Afghanistan. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, he's not going to be on the ground shooting with the guys. Like, he's going to be back at headquarters.
That's what high-ranking officers do and high-ranking enlisted people do.

Speaker 5 Right. Because I guess this is 19 years ago, so he would have been 41.
Yeah. 42.

Speaker 6 And so the other thing is, so let's go through that timeline.

Speaker 6 So with the National Guard, and I'm Air National Guard, and we're a little different because the Air National Guard, we actually do federal missions all the time anyway.

Speaker 6 And whereas the Army National Guard goes back, I don't want to get too complicated, but.

Speaker 5 No, no, no. Give us more.
I know. This is like where I feel the stupidest of this and car repair and military.
Yeah, okay. So talk to me like I'm a child.
Perfect. Get detailed.

Speaker 6 So as a National Guard officer for me, I have both a federal commission and a state commission. Okay.

Speaker 6 And then depending on what mission I'm doing is who is my commander. But I was obviously trained federally.
I went to U.S. Air Force training, et cetera.

Speaker 6 That's how the Army National Guard works as well. Except with them, they only do one week and a month.
As pilots in the Air Force, we do much more. We stay current constantly.

Speaker 6 So we could actually deploy to war the next day. But when the Army gets an order, the Army National Guard gets an order to war, they usually have to go through that personnel spin-up process.

Speaker 6 Then they go to a fort somewhere, Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, and that's probably where his unit went and they do training for two or three months to get spun up and then they deploy first off if you think he got out simply because there was an impending deployment coming let me point out that for four years he had been in the military after 9-11 so was literally sitting on the edge of a deployment for four years and the last two years of that he could have been deployed to a rack and were were national guards getting deployed back then like in 03 04

Speaker 6 and actually the national guard little known fact was actually both air and army had a higher per capita deployment rate than the active duty forces did because they're typically in the air guard.

Speaker 6 We're actually better.

Speaker 6 Air Force guys are gonna hate this, but we're actually better than the Air Force when it comes to like air-to-air fighting and stuff because we typically are older.

Speaker 6 You have older, more experienced pilots. But anyway, so you have to believe that he, for four years, was within basically the threat of being deployed and just somehow magically knew he wouldn't.

Speaker 6 And then you have to believe he made the decision to run for Congress to get out of being deployed, even though he had no idea he was going to be deployed.

Speaker 6 And then you have to believe that he magically knew in May that they were going to get the order to deploy in two months. And he would have known none of that.

Speaker 6 He wasn't some general that knew what the order was coming down. It is a completely unfair attack.
And again, Tim, this bears repeating.

Speaker 6 If he had known they were deploying

Speaker 6 and then made the decision to retire, there is still nothing cowardice or unethical about that. Once you pass 20 years of service, you have every right to retire at the moment you decide to retire.

Speaker 6 And if it happens to be a bad moment and the military is like, sorry, you will leave this unit unmanned if you retire, they do what's called a stop loss, which thousands of people got, which says you cannot retire until this mission is complete.

Speaker 6 So it is an unhinged and wrong and sick attack against a man that did 24 years of service.

Speaker 5 Even among like the boys, like you guys are chatting about that. You said you knew people who retired like in that in that environment.
Like is there like a little bit, is there snickering?

Speaker 5 Is there any, you know, I don't, again, like this is just not my world. I'm just curious, like how you would.

Speaker 6 Here's how I would put it. So if we had people that would avoid deployments that would stay in the military.

Speaker 6 So they'd come up with some reason that they couldn't deploy or they'd like go, you know, be a pilot training instructor, right, to get out of deployment.

Speaker 6 Those people we could make fun of, but we didn't lack respect for them.

Speaker 6 But we would be like, this guy's a, we called him, uh, what do we call them, like seagulls, because you'd have to throw rocks at them to get them to fly, right?

Speaker 6 So that's that. But if a guy's like, hey, I'm getting ready to get deployed, but I'm retirement eligible and I'm retiring.

Speaker 6 Not once were we ever like that guy's a sissy. We're like, good, get out of here, man.
You did your 20 years. Good job, right? Somebody else can come do this mission just like you can.

Speaker 6 And so even if Tim Walls had made the decision to retire when they got that deployment, I got to tell you, sitting here today, if I got an 18-month deployment order and I was still active guardsman and I could retire, I'd probably consider retiring instead of going on that 18-month deployment.

Speaker 6 I have a two and a half-year-old.

Speaker 5 Exactly. Yeah, you have young kids, right? Okay, that was very helpful and I felt out of my element.

Speaker 5 I was where you were instinctively, but I wanted to hear from somebody who's actually like been in the shit, who knows about this stuff.

Speaker 6 And here's what's working to their advantage, Tim, is like very few people know to the Republicans' advantage. Very few people know how the reserves or guard work.
Okay.

Speaker 6 Very few people even know how the military works, but particularly the reserves or guard because it's a specific thing. And then retirement, how that works in the military.

Speaker 6 And then the culture of the military, which the culture of the military is not, you've been in 24 years. You have to give us another year or you're going to be deserting your men.

Speaker 6 The culture of the military is you're eligible to retire. Good.
Get out of here. You don't need to deploy.

Speaker 6 You can throw out any attack, call it cowardice, and it works because to explain the opposite takes 10 minutes. It takes 10 minutes to do.

Speaker 5 The one thing that we, that I knew for sure in this whole situation is that JD Vance is a fucked hard asshole. And a part of the evidence on that was I want to go back to 2022.

Speaker 5 It's not the first time that JD is thrown this stuff around. Actually, before we get to JD's 2022 tweet, look, can we just talk just for one second again?

Speaker 5 All respect for everybody that chooses to go into the military, all respect for their service.

Speaker 5 That JD gets on his soapbox and starts talking about how he went, you know, to actually serve in Iraq where Tim Walls didn't.

Speaker 5 Can you just talk a little bit about what JD's, you know, service was like?

Speaker 6 Yes. Okay.
So this is a great point.

Speaker 6 If Democrats wanted to play the same game Republicans are playing, JD Vance, and again, I'm going to say this as an example, not as an attack, because I respect anybody's military services.

Speaker 6 We all should.

Speaker 5 This is what a bad faith attack on JD would look like. How about that?

Speaker 6 A bad faith attack on JD Vance would say, okay, first off, JD, your unit deployed back to Iraq in 2000, whatever, after you were out. You didn't re-enlist, therefore, you left your unit out to drive.

Speaker 6 The second thing is, JD Vance was a public affairs officer, not even an officer, he was a public affairs soldier, Marine. So, what he did is

Speaker 6 he went into Iraq, sat in a headquarters building, and wrote stories either for like Stars and Stripes, for the Marine newsletter, put out press releases, maybe work with an officer about a certain village they're stabilizing.

Speaker 6 I think he was in Afghanistan or Iraq. I don't remember which, but regardless, Iraq.
So he put out, you know, those statements.

Speaker 5 There's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 6 Again, that's honorable service. And like me at an air base in Iraq, you know, we were not in direct combat with guns facing another enemy, but we got attacked with mortars, you know, etc.

Speaker 6 But you could attack him if you wanted to play bad faith game and say, dude, you were a public affairs Marine. Quit pretending like you were a door kicker.

Speaker 6 And that's what a bad faith attack would look like. That is what they're doing to Tim Walls.

Speaker 6 And I think it's amazing that Democrats, and I think it says a lot, that Democrats aren't doing the same back to J.D. Vance.
And it's smart. Just respect his service.
He served his country.

Speaker 6 He did more than most people did. There you go.

Speaker 5 Here's

Speaker 5 the kind of character JD has on this sort of stuff, though. Here's J.D.
Vance 2022 going after Barry McCaffrey. Barry McCaffrey reached the rank of general.
He commanded the U.S.

Speaker 5 Southern Command, 24th Infantry Division.

Speaker 5 He was talking about why he's posting publicly about why we should support our allies in Ukraine, which J.D. Vance does not support.

Speaker 5 And JD quote tweets him with this, your entire time in military leadership, we won zero wars.

Speaker 5 You drank fine wine at bullshit security conferences while thousands of working-class kids died on the battlefield.

Speaker 5 Oh, by the way, how much do you stand to gain financially from a war with Russia, Barry? What a twerp. Barry replies to that with,

Speaker 5 well, two of those kids who served were my children. Two more are now serving my grandsons, and I don't drink wine.

Speaker 5 So that's a mic drop.

Speaker 6 Let me just say, and I've got to go find that tweet and retweet it.

Speaker 6 Like, what a terrible thing. I get hit with this all the time because obviously I support Ukraine, God forbid, where people are like, how much are you gaining from this war?

Speaker 6 What is your financial interest in this war? Like, actually, nothing, obviously. And I don't even need to reply to that because it's stupid.

Speaker 6 But it's like, actually, some people still believe in things like freedom and the ability to defend yourself against a country that's attacked you. And JD Vance is like part of this.

Speaker 6 terminally online right that sees those comments, thinks he can tweet and attack McCaffrey for it. And guess what?

Speaker 6 He'll get a ton of accolades by the 10% of crazy, batshit, crazy people on far-right Twitter. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And 2100 retweets for that.

Speaker 6 I mean, and it's just, we have melted into this like this like echo chamber insanity. And this is why I am more every day more convinced that the only way to stop this is to make sure that J.D.

Speaker 6 Vance and Donald Trump are crushed in November.

Speaker 6 And I don't care, frankly, if the new administration doesn't believe anything I believe because I know that the Trump administration would be the same and would destroy a democracy I love.

Speaker 6 That's what I know.

Speaker 5 All this ties back to the not liking America part of it, too, right? Like, just like these childish attacks on people that served their entire career, 80-year-old generals.

Speaker 5 Like, you know, you can criticize military leadership for their actions. It's America.
It's a free country.

Speaker 5 But just like the condescending, you know, shit posting bullshit about people that dedicated their life to service. It's like, what's your problem?

Speaker 6 This is what we used to attack the left for doing. Like, J.D.
Vance is code pink in a suit, right? He's sitting here attacking everything the U.S. has ever done.
It's about blood. It's about money.

Speaker 6 It's about oil. It's like whatever.
J.D. Vance is code pink.
And that's like

Speaker 6 the madness of how we've made this switch, but it's good. The point here to my Democratic friends is the country hasn't become this.
Okay. The Republicans have.

Speaker 6 This is your opportunity to take the mantle, you know, call back from earlier in the show, take your mantle of USA, USA, be the party that has pride in this country.

Speaker 6 And I think you'll never lose an election again if you can take that mantle from the GOP.

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Speaker 5 All right, one more example of these guys stepping in it over the last few years. I got to tell you, one thing I was worried about, we've been talking about on the show about the Walls check, was

Speaker 5 just reanimating this conversation about the protests after COVID and how, you know, Walls was governor of Minnesota.

Speaker 5 And we've already seen some ads about this from MAGA folks when Minneapolis, quote-unquote, burned.

Speaker 5 And it also, kind of an unfortunate coincidence, ties to like one of i think harris's weaknesses which is that she tweeted out that bail fund for rioters in minnesota right so you could kind of put together a 30-second package that i think looks pretty bad um using the two of them but uh you know Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, as always.

Speaker 5 A little piece of audio that I have a feeling that the Harris vetting team had in their back pocket dropped yesterday on ABC News. Let's listen to it together.

Speaker 11 I know Governor Waltz is on the phone and we spoke.

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 11 I fully agreed with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that, and the whole world was laughing.

Speaker 11 Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor. The governor, I think, on the quality, he's an excellent guy.

Speaker 11 You've got a big National Guard out there that's ready to come in and fight like hell. I tell you, the best and what they did in Minneapolis was incredible.
They went in and dominated.

Speaker 11 And it happened immediately. Tim is on the phone now.
Tim Walls, again, I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim.

Speaker 11 You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins. Yeah, our city is grieving.

Speaker 5 Incredible. Dominated.
Immediately. He did it immediately.

Speaker 5 That's good stuff.

Speaker 6 By the way, I was one of those National Guardsmen that went into Minneapolis, and we actually went in and we were flying reconnaissance overhead. And I was the first of the air guard to be there.

Speaker 6 And the second we got there, you realized like the situation was under control. So obviously, for a couple of days, Minneapolis burned.
It was a disaster. And you could see that from the sky.

Speaker 6 But when the guard did finally roll in, and I think it's as much the mayor of Minneapolis that takes the blame for not having the guard because I don't think they requested it.

Speaker 6 Remember, they abandoned the whole police station and just created this environment.

Speaker 6 But yeah, when the guard did roll in, it stopped and it was completely peaceful. And, you know, Donald Trump recognized that.

Speaker 6 I need to let Tim Walls know and remind him that I was actually there as a guardsman that.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I did not know that.

Speaker 5 Look at you, Adam. You're everywhere.

Speaker 6 I'm the everything guy. I'm like the Forrest Gump man of political issues.

Speaker 5 Obviously, this was not perfectly handled in Minnesota, in Minneapolis. And I think it's a fair vulnerability.
It's a fair thing to criticize him on.

Speaker 5 As just a political practitioner, though, it certainly takes the oomph out of it when Donald Trump is on there talking about how much they dominate us immediately.

Speaker 5 I think that's a pretty good

Speaker 5 clapback, as a kid says. Speaking of clapbacks, last thing, Josh Komlin, Detroit last night?

Speaker 6 No, I didn't see it.

Speaker 5 Okay. It's pretty good.
You kind of need the whole visual of it. So

Speaker 5 we'll put the link in the show notes for people

Speaker 5 to play the audio as much.

Speaker 5 What was it called? What's the undeclared movement? The Gaza protesters were interrupting her speech several times.

Speaker 5 And reports show that she actually met with some representatives from the undeclared movement before the speech.

Speaker 5 So it's like she's heard their feedback, she's heard their complaints, she spoke out about this when BB came to Washington, and yet even still they tried to just derail the speech, shouting, Kamala, Kamala, you can't hide something, something genocide.

Speaker 6 I hate those things. Oh my god, I hate those things.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and it's just like, and Kamala just like looks at them and says, You've been heard. It's my turn to speak now.
If you want Donald Trump to win, keep going, or something to that effect.

Speaker 5 And the crowd just goes insane. I mean, like a huge, overwhelming cheer, which I think also speaks to like the Republicans are like, these protesters are the base.

Speaker 5 And it's like, no, the bass are the people in the audience shouting at them to shut up. That's actually the base.

Speaker 6 And that's going to be important because I got to tell you, like, for me, I have a visceral reaction against these people too.

Speaker 6 Like, when, especially their stupid rhymes, like, I hate the rhymes, right? And this, this interrupt. And they tried to do it to me.

Speaker 6 I was speaking on my book tour in a synagogue, and they did this in a synagogue, and it was so disrespectful. I just kept talking, and that made them even worse, even angrier.

Speaker 6 But when she can push back on that, the people that are that are the undeclared, they have a choice. They can vote for Donald Trump or her, right? Or they can stay home, fine, whatever.

Speaker 6 But if she pushes back on them like she did yesterday and keeps doing that, I think again, this goes into that whole, I'm not ashamed of America, right? I'm tough. I stand up.

Speaker 6 I think they can win this thing big, but don't succumb to it.

Speaker 5 I thought she looked really strong. Like, it was a very, it was a badass moment for her last night.

Speaker 5 And, you know, my only note was that just after the first round of cheers died down, if she would have just then added, I mean, what the hell? These people just fall out of a coconut tree? No.

Speaker 5 I think then, I think then it would have been a 50-state blowout, just like people throwing panties at the stage. But, you know, okay, you can't, you can't, you can't do it perfectly.

Speaker 5 Can't give me exact everything I want immediately. You know, there's got to be anticipation for the customer that buying, Adam, is there anything else? Anything I forgot? Anything else?

Speaker 5 It was good.

Speaker 6 It was good being with you. It's just going to be three months, and it'll probably feel like two weeks and also a year.

Speaker 5 So we'll see how this goes. It's unbelievable.
It's been such a fucking whirlwind. Thank you so much to Adam Kinzinger, Bulwark contributor, my friend, veteran, lover of freedom, lover of America.

Speaker 5 We'll be back here tomorrow for a weekend edition of the Bulwark Podcast. See y'all then.
Peace.

Speaker 5 Break away,

Speaker 5 can't, can't, can.

Speaker 5 Can't control your sister, I can't control you.

Speaker 5 Can't control your love.

Speaker 5 The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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