Adam Kinzinger on the Government Shutdown and more

Speaker 1 Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Find Out podcast. We have a big show for you today.

Speaker 1 We're going to obviously be talking about the shutdown deal that appears imminent in the Senate, but we also have a very special guest today, and it's former Congressman Adam Kinzinger has joined us.

Speaker 1 And I guess should I refer to you as Substack Superstar now? Is that your

Speaker 2 Substack Superstar, Your Honor, whatever. It doesn't matter.
Your Honor.

Speaker 1 The Honor. Oh, I did say you're number.

Speaker 1 You're in the top 20. So that's really impressive.
Really? I didn't know that. That's great.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So everybody subscribe. You're also the star.
of a new documentary called The Last Republican, which is on Apple TV, which we all watched.

Speaker 1 And we'll get into that in a second, but I think we have to start with the shutdown.

Speaker 1 So you've obviously been through a couple of these when you were in Congress. I think it was at least the one in 2019 and the one in 2013.

Speaker 2 Yeah, whatever from 2010 on. I think there was one in 11 or 12, maybe?

Speaker 1 I don't remember. Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's kind of ridiculous that we can't remember all of them because they should never happen. But anyways,

Speaker 1 so your initial, you know, I saw your Substack piece, which everybody should go check out. But what are your thoughts on what the Dems just did with this

Speaker 1 quote-unquote deal they got?

Speaker 2 Well, look, I want to look at the good side first, okay? Because everybody's looking for any version of optimism.

Speaker 2 Look, the pressure, having been through these, the pressure to like kind of, I'll call it cave, I guess, or find a solution is intense, right?

Speaker 2 Because you're hearing from all the people that aren't getting paid. Members of the House and Senate are getting paid.
By the way, this is an important point.

Speaker 2 Mike Johnson did not bring anybody in for like two months, and they've been paid twice. House is paid every month.

Speaker 2 They've been paid $30,000 gross during the time they have not been in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 But anyway, so the pressure is really intense, right? I think the Democrats have moved the needle some in this process. People are talking about, you know, the cost of health care.

Speaker 2 They've blamed that on Republicans. Republicans took a hit during this that they're not going to necessarily recover from.
At the same time, I do think they should have held out longer.

Speaker 2 I mean, the pressure was quite intense on the GOP. You know, the GOP is really good at, and Mike Johnson in not bringing everybody in was really good at kind of saying like, oh, we've done our job.

Speaker 2 You know, and so Democrats felt this pressure to negotiate with themselves when in reality, look, the Republicans own all of government. And all year they have said, we don't need Democrats.

Speaker 2 We don't need to negotiate. We have full control of government.
We don't need to talk to them.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden, Democrats have a little bit of power power simply in this idea of cloture, and they have to utilize that.

Speaker 2 And then it's on the Republicans who control all of government to find a way through that. It's not on the Democrats, right? And so, yeah,

Speaker 2 I think the Democratic base is right to be a little upset today.

Speaker 2 I don't think people should be lighting their hair on fire and saying it's the end of the world, because I do think the ball was moved a little bit. So there's good and bad here in all this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I am probably the one that is closest to your position on this, and I am getting quite roasted online.

Speaker 1 In fact, somebody just Luke just pointed out, someone just wrote and they called me a flip-flopper and glad that the four other ones are holding the line. So I'm getting tossed a little bit here, too.

Speaker 2 You'll be a dino soon, like I'm a rhino.

Speaker 1 Right? Yeah. Well, it's funny because I feel as I've gotten older, I've moved more to the left, but on anytime you slip up here, especially on threads, it's like the bob comes at you.

Speaker 1 But I, I,

Speaker 1 I, so my, my problem,

Speaker 1 look, I don't like the deal. The deal is bad.
And I agree with you. And I think they should have held out longer.

Speaker 1 But it is true that I do think, you know, while this was a cave, there is a victory here because as you said, like healthcare is now strung along around their necks.

Speaker 1 Like there's not much that they could do about that. Also, we saw them basically being willing to let snap recipients starve in order to keep this going,

Speaker 1 which I don't think people fully understood.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think we know because we pay attention, but haven't really paid attention, you know, really know how far these guys are willing to go, in particular, Donald Trump, because he doesn't give a shit about anybody.

Speaker 1 Motherfucker went to court for the right to let people starve. He's right pissed that he had to pay assistance.
Several times he went to court. Yep, several times.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 I agree with you. I think like we should have gone a little bit longer, and it kind of seems like some of this was an end around on Schumer.

Speaker 1 But I don't think it's as bad as everyone's making it out to be, but it is really interesting to see the anger on the left.

Speaker 2 Can I make the Schumer point real quick, though? Like,

Speaker 2 because I know how this stuff works, having been in it. So, Schumer probably wanted this to pass and found the people that would do it, right?

Speaker 2 So, who are the people that kind of joined the John Fettermans who have always been voting to open? It was people that either just won in a safe district or are not running again.

Speaker 1 Dick Durbin, right?

Speaker 2 Right. And so, I do think this was kind of planned, but yeah, I mean, like I said, like, yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 2 You Democrats should have held out for more, more, but you also shouldn't be like, we just got completely run over by the Republicans because you didn't.

Speaker 1 Kind of just laid down.

Speaker 1 That's really just the way. Just laid down.
Yep. Let them walk

Speaker 1 getting ready to get run over.

Speaker 1 Correct.

Speaker 1 Run over me, daddy.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think the fact that the subsidies are still not resolved,

Speaker 1 it's not going to go away. And so

Speaker 1 whether this is a win or a loss is really more around messaging and political framing because the pain is still going to hit. I mean, it is hitting people now.

Speaker 1 They are shopping for healthcare and going, holy fuck, it's going to be like I was looking at a chart.

Speaker 1 There are some states where the average person is going to go from $11,000 to $40,000 a year for healthcare because these subsidies are expiring.

Speaker 1 You can't just hide from that. And it was still because of Republican policy.
They passed the bill. They kept voting to reopen government in spite of Democratic opposition.

Speaker 1 So, all that's going to happen, channeling my inner Zach here, is real consequences are going to land. And as a parent, I'm like, natural consequences are the best teacher, honestly.

Speaker 1 Like, you can tell your kid to stop touching the burner, but if they touch the burner once, they don't ever fucking touch the burner again.

Speaker 1 Electing Republicans is

Speaker 1 the touching the hot burner. And unless unless they act, unless voters actually feel enough pain so they never do it again, we'll keep just sort of doing this harm reduction.

Speaker 1 Democrats are protecting us from the worst of it thing, and they'll keep being in power because it never seems like it's as bad as Democrats say it's going to be. So, maybe it needs to get that bad.

Speaker 1 I don't want it to.

Speaker 1 Dude, but my problem with that is that I do not trust for a single solitary fucking second that Democrats are capable of messaging it effectively to say this is their fucking fault. They did this.

Speaker 1 There's not a goddamn chance. And that's like up there on my list of problems with the deal.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and look, I think all of that is correct. And I struggle a lot with this idea of, okay, you know, as a leader, we have to try to protect people from bad things.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, when they keep making the same choice over and over, right?

Speaker 2 And it's more than just like, okay, they're making a choice because they want a different tax rate than we do or whatever.

Speaker 2 They're making a choice that basically undermines the rule of law, that, you know,

Speaker 2 basically turns people against each other, that doesn't believe in democracy.

Speaker 2 And so the question is, what's, you know, at some point they have to realize that. And that's where if we're going to protect people from consequences, they have to get much better at the message.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 wasn't there something I think I saw you say

Speaker 1 either on an interview or in Substack that basically when you were negotiating with the Democrats, when you guys knew they would not be willing to go as far as you guys to win the shutdown, correct?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, I think I commented on somebody's point.

Speaker 2 Joe Walsh had made the point, which is like, we always knew they'd capitulate. And, and that's true.

Speaker 2 You know, you could always, the person, you know, it's like, if we all are in a room with a grenade and we each have a grenade, who's the most powerful person in that room?

Speaker 2 Well, the one that's actually willing to pull the pin, right? And that's, you have to think of that in a political level, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, what do you think if they had held out longer, which would have meant snap benefits would have would have slowly been drawn down because there was only a two or three week

Speaker 1 emergency fund at the USDA. If Democrats had gone beyond that, would Republicans have potentially proposed more

Speaker 1 things to get them back to the table? Or were they just

Speaker 2 yeah, I mean, I guess we would never know until we know, but I think here's the thing is like this pressure was ratcheting up pretty hard on Republicans, right?

Speaker 2 I don't think, especially because they have, in this case, a very bad messenger in the president who's actually sometimes good at culture war issues and everything else but in the case of this when he's having a great gatsby party in mar-a-lago when he's building his ballroom and when he's actually

Speaker 2 as mentioned proactively trying to stop snap benefits this is putting that weight around the neck of republicans and i think the pressure would have just ratcheted up on them in the long run um you know again we never know right we don't know until we know but i just know how these things play out and uh this this was a time where Democrats, I think, could have won the message war.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you just look at like, what, what is Gavin Newsom doing? You know, he's, he sees through the fight to the end.

Speaker 1 He doesn't step out as the, as the blows are being exchanged and then saying, oh, this got a little too scary

Speaker 1 and then give up. And then everybody watching is like, well, that was.
kind of embarrassing.

Speaker 2 Well, and it's a lesson from Trump. We need to take as many lessons from him as we can without becoming him.

Speaker 2 And that lesson is, look, he's done things that people are like, holy shit, there's no way he'll ever be successful in that. And he has been.
He's played culture war issues very successfully.

Speaker 2 He's like, you know, been willing to say things no other president would say, and it's worked out for him.

Speaker 2 Now, I don't want the Democrats to become the Republican Party of the left because like, then we'll never have a democracy. We still have to be grownups.
But.

Speaker 2 There is a lesson from that, which is at the time when it feels tough and your kind of like old instincts to revert to talking points come in.

Speaker 2 You know, this is one thing I've learned, and I learned this on the January 6th committee. Democrats are much more scripted than Republicans.
And in the past, that worked well, right?

Speaker 2 You know, but now, you guys know this, you're involved in social media. People are looking for genuineness.
People can breathe.

Speaker 2 They can sense

Speaker 2 fake.

Speaker 2 And so Democrats could use a little more genuineness, even if you say something stupid, even if you accidentally say the wrong word, that's what people are looking for

Speaker 1 i think the biggest problem that democrats have right now is that they did not prepare any of their messengers at all for for this supposed deal right i'm i'm in a bunch of group chats with a bunch of creators and for the last five weeks we've all been talking about like holy shit the democrats are actually doing it right they're actually communicating with us they're actually telling us like what their fucking plan is and like first of all i don't consider myself a Democrat first and I'm not talking to any staff or anything like that, right?

Speaker 1 But the message was fucking clear and it was making it to me. So I understood that we weren't on a kamikaze mission.

Speaker 1 As of 12 hours ago, from the time that we're recording this, so all of these creators out here who

Speaker 1 have been all on the same page with the Democratic Party leadership, and there's a clear divide between us. We're not the same thing, right? We're not carrying the the Democrats' message.

Speaker 1 We all feel betrayed because we've been talking to our audiences about why Democrats are doing this and reducing healthcare costs is worth a little bit of pain.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, you know, it seems like a handful of Democrats decided.

Speaker 1 Everything

Speaker 1 you've put out there, it's just sunk cost, like your reputation, like your credibility to all of these folks who've been out here talking about why it's so important to do to engage in this fight.

Speaker 1 It's all burnt. It's all gone.
Like that is spent.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I understand that. And I think they should have done a better job of preparing the off-ramp, right?

Speaker 3 For whatever that looks like. The problem here, though, is.

Speaker 3 You know, you may have some members. You had a few members that were already going rogue anyway, that weren't part of the game, that were always voting to reopen government.

Speaker 3 And then the pain comes on. And you have a few members that come out and say, I forget who said it, but like, well, I voted for it because it was clear the Republicans weren't going to capitulate.

Speaker 3 Well, if you're saying it's clear they're not going to capitulate, they're never going to capitulate because then you capitulate.

Speaker 1 The first one to give up, but only if they push harder and they're like,

Speaker 1 guys,

Speaker 1 the first one was, it is clear that sticking up to Trump does nothing. Yeah.
Oh, that was

Speaker 1 the thing that came this morning.

Speaker 1 Dude, I fucking blew a gasket.

Speaker 1 Eat a bag of shit. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 And he said it gave him more power. I'm like, it didn't.
Oh, Lord.

Speaker 3 No, that's what he's going to understand, man. You're not going to be in the club.
You're not going to be walking in the club until you're on your knees in front of Donald. And you have to stay there.

Speaker 3 You can never stand up either. So, and I think a lot of this anger, rightfully, that has been building in the Democratic Party came from the beginning of the year.

Speaker 3 What happened at the very beginning of the year? Well, they get sworn in, and then all of a sudden they're off for three weeks, and then they're off for three weeks.

Speaker 3 And then Doge comes in, this fake agency that starts coming in and cleaning up everything, destroying USA and D, which killed 600,000 people.

Speaker 3 Elon Musk, who's running around with a chainsaw on stage, who's not worth a trillion dollars. And the whole time, Democrats stayed home.

Speaker 3 They should have been at every agency demanding entry because they're on the board of directors for that agency.

Speaker 3 And then when they didn't get entry, they should have been sent to the gone to the courts for entry at that point. You know, but that's, that's a fight they didn't have

Speaker 1 no they like their little signs though this isn't normal yeah they like their little signs

Speaker 1 dude i think it's like it's it's the most this harm reduction like it's the most academic liberal approach to solving problems and it's like it's been the thing that has been the norm i think since bill clinton he was the last sort of like guy that if you were going to fight with him he was going to fight with you back like he would hit you back and he knew how to do that he knew how to win political fights you know i like Obama with a guns and religion comment.

Speaker 1 I was like, dude, you're not wrong. Don't, so stand up for yourself.
Like, it's okay to just be an authentic person. You went into a room and said something that was correct and you got busted for it.

Speaker 1 And then he, he did like this apology to her thing. And it made me so frustrated because.
It's like, no, it's okay to just stand up for yourself if there's something you believe.

Speaker 1 Like, you don't have to be perfect. And when you start talking in circles around it and saying, well, what I meant was, what I meant was like, it's just fucking weak.
And it's, it's really,

Speaker 1 people don't follow weak. Gavin Newsom just said something on a video, or I think he was a guest on a podcast.
And he said, the American people, when given a choice,

Speaker 1 will always choose strong and wrong over weak and right.

Speaker 1 And it like, it broke my soul hearing it framed that way

Speaker 1 because it's just so brutally true. We've been like trained by TV to just love these like quote unquote strong leaders.
And that's what Donald Trump does the best as a TV show host.

Speaker 1 And then you get Angus King. We tried to fight, but it was hard.
And so we stopped. And

Speaker 1 nobody follows that.

Speaker 3 Nobody wants to. Can I do my quick diatribe about how much of a sissy Donald Trump really is?

Speaker 3 I mean, this is the guy, listen, this is a guy that on Veterans Day last year or something like that, one of those days, they put out a picture of him in his fucking military academy uniform.

Speaker 3 Like that was anything.

Speaker 3 Dude, he was sent to the military academy because he sucked at life, right? And so he wore this fake uniform.

Speaker 3 And then he runs around, gets out of Vietnam, fine, whatever, then tries to act like he's this tough guy, empowers Pete Hegseff, who pretends to be some kind of a leader at the Pentagon.

Speaker 3 But let me tell you, as a military guy, and Chris knows this, and everybody knows this, is like, if you have a commander that comes in that all of a sudden is obsessed about your beards and uniforms and what patches you're wearing, that's a commander that knows he's in over his head.

Speaker 3 And the only thing he's trying to do is do whatever he can to feel like he's in control.

Speaker 3 So he throws out terms like lethal, and I'm all for a lethal military, but he throws out terms like you're too fat or whatever his things he's saying because it makes him feel in control.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who's the victim of literally everything, this is the most powerful man in the world. And congratulations, Donald, against all odds, you got re-elected.

Speaker 3 Now, how about going and actually doing something? But instead, he sits around and whines like a whiny bitch victim. And it is so exhausting.

Speaker 3 And every republican man that thinks that's tough is someday gonna have to like be so embarrassed when their kids and grandkids look at them that's my thought

Speaker 1 100 thank you well i gotta i've got a question for you so i know they won't say it publicly but how many of these members of congress privately would do you think believe what you just said or are they all true believers or have drank the Kool-Aid so much that they don't even know what's what's real and what's not anymore.

Speaker 3 Listen, so here's the thing. It's tough to to realize: is like Donald Trump has been in our lives for 10 years now, right?

Speaker 3 So, at the beginning, I mean, look,

Speaker 3 I was looking back at the first Trump term on something I was watching yesterday, and it's like, wow, that looks totally normal in comparison to the second Trump term, right?

Speaker 3 And it was crazy in the first Trump term.

Speaker 3 But, like, so you had in the first Trump term people that were still kind of resisting within the administration, members of Congress, you know, like me that would speak out.

Speaker 3 But over 10 years, we have either been kicked out of the party, left the party voluntarily, or whatever, and it's become a full cult.

Speaker 3 I mean, I know we use the term cult loosely, but it's an accurate description.

Speaker 3 And here's a lesson I always like to pass on to my Democratic friends, which is, okay, you're going to have people over the next few years that say, yeah, I voted for Trump, but I don't like him anymore.

Speaker 3 And unfortunately, online, it's filled with people that are like, told you so, screw you, you You did this. You caused this.
And it's like, fine, do that.

Speaker 3 But then expect those people to go back to the team that welcomes them. And Donald Trump welcomes anybody back once, by the way.
That's his superpower.

Speaker 3 Instead, what we need to do is welcome everybody who sees the light, right? Everybody gets there at a different pace. What we need to do is beat these assholes.
And you do that by welcoming people in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's totally right.

Speaker 1 And I mean, that's part of the reason that we started this podcast in this company because Democrats, you know, we started as the white dudes for Harris group last year.

Speaker 1 And then obviously we saw what happened

Speaker 1 in November where we not only lost white men, but we also lost with black and Latino men as well. And

Speaker 1 we are trying to do our small part, one, just by existing and showing people that there are men on our side. But I also agree with you.

Speaker 1 Like, look, like these, some people, in our opinion, have supported some truly awful things in our perspective.

Speaker 1 But if people are willing to say, I was wrong and I want to be with you, we have to let them in because they're just other, well, first of all, it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 1 Second of all, we just, there are not enough Democrats in this country without that. They're still going to vote.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And by the way, the best messengers, it's why I think us kind of never Trumper or former Republicans are good messengers because we understand how they think, right? We can

Speaker 3 get in the mindset. But also, if somebody's left Trump now,

Speaker 3 then they obviously left Trump for a solid reason. And those are the exact, you know, kind of messages we need to get out there.
So it doesn't mean you have to like ignore anybody's past behavior.

Speaker 3 Like you said, I think they have to admit, like, yeah, it was wrong. I did wrong, blah, blah, blah.
But then we welcome them.

Speaker 1 Well, let me ask you, this is, this is one that's obviously been in the news a lot.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts on the Graham Plattner situation?

Speaker 1 With Graham Plattner as a progressive candidate, I'm from Maine, so I care about this a lot, but who is running ahead of, or at least tied with Janet Mills, the governor there, but was way ahead until it turned out it looked he had a, I can't forget, Chris, what is the name?

Speaker 1 Totencomp,

Speaker 1 which SS officers, a lot of them, wore in the 40s. And he has renounced that.

Speaker 1 Should we, is that an acceptable answer? Or I'm just curious on your perspective on this one in particular.

Speaker 3 Well, first off, it makes me laugh only because I remember the BBC skit where they're like, are we the baddies?

Speaker 1 We have skulls on our heads, on our helmets, right?

Speaker 3 Look, honestly, to like, I don't care.

Speaker 3 Here's the question. Do we think Graham Plattner is a Nazi? The answer is probably no, or he probably would not be running for the Democratic nomination, right?

Speaker 3 Particularly even to the left of kind of many Democrats of the populace. Now,

Speaker 3 did he know that that was a Nazi tattoo?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 3 But I also know as a military guy, when you're drunk and you go get a tattoo, you're going to pick the tattoo that looks cool, right?

Speaker 3 And maybe that was the case. Like a skull tattoo would look cool.

Speaker 1 I mean, you may not know Croatia.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's like Croatian stuff.

Speaker 1 They cut it off the wall.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So maybe, okay, fine.
Maybe go get the tattoo masked over or covered up. I just personally look at people's current behavior and I'm like, is Graham, is Graham a Nazi? No.

Speaker 3 Okay, then I think he gets a pass on this one. I think we have to, this is the thing.
We have to kind of be forgiving.

Speaker 3 We're going to start having Gen Z people running for office that have pictures out there, that have texts out there, that have tattoos. Like, give people grace.
That's what I think.

Speaker 1 The only thing I have to say on the Grand Platinum thing is the only question I've yet to hear him answer.

Speaker 1 When did you know? That's

Speaker 1 the only thing I want to know. Yeah.
When did you know? That's a good point.

Speaker 1 I just, I need everyone in the world to understand: like, we're not electing our moms and our dads and our best friends. Like, we're not, this isn't a.

Speaker 1 I just want to know, are you a piece of shit? And really, more specifically, is your piece of shitness going to turn into votes for things that fuck over everybody or fix things for everybody?

Speaker 1 It's just, this is a transactional relationship based on outcomes. And if we remember that, I'm like, Grant Plattner, he could have been a super piece of shit, whatever, 10 years ago.

Speaker 1 I love a redemption arc. Sure.

Speaker 1 He's still not going to be my best friend. I don't, I don't, I don't want to like, I don't admire him now.
I feel like this whole thing was a fucking fucking disaster.

Speaker 1 But more specifically, if he gets into office, is he going to help more people than the than the other people on the ballot or is he going to not?

Speaker 1 And if you just frame it that way, I'm like, okay, I give a lot less of a shit about all the rest of the stuff that people are talking about when you just think about the outcomes.

Speaker 1 At the end of the day, you know, he is he is going up against someone who is 77 years old and would be the oldest senator ever elected. And

Speaker 1 having been a Democrat when Ruth Better, Ruth Bader,

Speaker 1 Ginsburg held on too long and died,

Speaker 1 watching Joe Biden, who I have a ton of respect for, but like he is not the man that he was during Obama's term, right? Like

Speaker 1 watching all of these Democrats hold on to power and not allow Gen X

Speaker 1 millennials, Gen Z to step into these positions is

Speaker 1 creating a massive fucking vulnerability all across the entire fucking country. And, you know, we're soon going to have Janet Mills on this podcast if she doesn't get mad at me for saying this.

Speaker 1 But like the bottom line is, is like, you have failed as a leader if you are the Democrat governor of a state and there is not a single Democrat in the entire state who's capable of being a senator that you, that you have not fucking mentored.

Speaker 1 That is a giant fucking failure. And she's not the only one.
Like, it's the entire Democratic establishment has failed to mentor young people. Do something.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And you see that, by the way, you see it in like the Venezuelan opposition, right?

Speaker 3 They were too busy competing with each other and wanting to hold power for themselves than they were uniting against Maduro. And that's why that failed twice, right?

Speaker 3 And so that's the same situation in the Democratic Party. And I've seen it firsthand, which is like, when you have power, it's comfortable and you want to keep it.
I mean,

Speaker 3 being a senator is no joke. It's a cool gig, right? And, but when you're faced with, do I make this decision for the good of the party or for the country?

Speaker 3 Unfortunately, too many people don't make that.

Speaker 3 And that's one thing I learned through all the January 6th stuff is speaking, you know, specifically about Republicans, but I think some of this would confront Democrats as well, which is like, you always think people have a red line and they're always in it for a greater good.

Speaker 3 And you eventually realize that's not really the case. So you need to elect a few people that are, and the rest of them just understand what you're dealing with.

Speaker 1 All right, I got a question for you.

Speaker 1 I think you're going to be willing to answer this because you mentioned the some people are in it for the right reasons and some people are not. Who's the craziest member of the Republican caucus?

Speaker 3 Oh, dude, there's so many of them, honestly.

Speaker 3 I actually think, so there's some smart people that act crazy. So like Ted Cruz and like Josh Holly, right? Raphael.
And there's actually real, real, yeah, Raphael, Theodore Cruz.

Speaker 3 And there's actually real dumbasses. Okay.
So I think of like a

Speaker 3 southern Texas sheriff guy, trying to think of his name.

Speaker 1 And then anyway. Oh, we're not Louie.
You're not talking about Louis Gohmert, are you?

Speaker 3 No, but Louis Gohmert's one of those.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's the one.

Speaker 3 Louis Gohmert's one of the ones.

Speaker 3 If you remember during the whole like Jade Helm conspiracy where the federal government was going to take over Texas, he was down giving speeches on the floor about it.

Speaker 3 Marjorie Taylor Green, I get it. And can everybody quit falling for the Marjorie Taylor Greene has found Jesus thing? Okay, she hasn't.

Speaker 3 Either she's lying, was lying the whole time, or she's lying now. She didn't find Jesus.
She's manipulating you. It could be a big troll, or she's running for president.
Who knows?

Speaker 3 But Marjorie Taylor Greene has not found Jesus, everybody.

Speaker 1 Every time she smiles, somebody's off-screen with a fucking sugar cube.

Speaker 3 Totally.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 Welcome to meeting Luke.

Speaker 3 There are some real actual miserable human beings.

Speaker 1 Oh, she's a miserable human being. Yeah, the one that bothers me the most, because I think she's faking it.
And you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, is Nancy Mace. Like, I think she is garbage.

Speaker 1 It's just a total, it's total act. Like, she was supportive of trans rights like three years ago.

Speaker 1 And now all of a sudden, she's like reporting actual women going to the bathroom and all this bullshit.

Speaker 3 She's what I thought was going to vote to impeach Trump until literally the moment we took the the vote uh i thought she was really going oh yeah she was so right before the vote i thought it was 25.

Speaker 3 and then basically as the vote was happening i realized you know we were going to lose a number and i'm like and so 10 i was impressed with but nancy mason's one of the ones i thought would stick with it she didn't obviously and then whatever she's become i think she has some real mental health issues right now yeah but

Speaker 3 something's going on and she's faking a lot no it doesn't look great lauren both

Speaker 1 that halloween costume Have fun in hell. You're an awful human.
I didn't see it. What is it? Oh, fuck.
Do you want to explain it, Luke?

Speaker 1 Yeah, she was dressed as an immigrant, and it was like a, she was holding up a Mexican immigrant, holding up a sign that was, what, fuck, what was it? Uh,

Speaker 1 well, it doesn't matter. Her

Speaker 1 boyfriend, I guess, because she's not buried anymore, as we know, but uh, I think he was an ice agent. Oh, she's a good shot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he was, but the sign, the sign mattered because it was making fun of the way that uh Spanish folks pronounce a word. Oh, yeah, it was very racist.
What can I say?

Speaker 3 Here's the other thing: is like you can be for border control, you could be for like, yeah, we have to deport if somebody's here illegally, but I think you have to do that with a heavy heart, right?

Speaker 3 Recognizing that people are in desperate situations. They don't come here because they want to leave their home, right? They're desperate.

Speaker 3 And what you've seen in this administration, like the celebration, the dragging chains that they're doing, it's depraved. It's punching down.

Speaker 3 Christy Noam, who's if you'd have told me eight years ago Christy Noam would be how she is, I wouldn't have believed you because she's when she got elected, I got elected with her.

Speaker 3 She quit doing national TV because she and her husband agreed that she was being objectified on national TV. Now look at her, right? How quickly people fall.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, yeah, standing in front of the uh El Salvadorian prison with the $40,000 watch or whatever it was she had on. Yep.

Speaker 1 In comparison to the Jets.

Speaker 1 I found

Speaker 1 that I found the sign.

Speaker 1 So she has a sombrero on

Speaker 1 and she was holding a sign that said Mexican word of the day, Juicy. Tell me if Juicy ICE coming.
And then her boyfriend was

Speaker 1 dressed up as an ice.

Speaker 1 The boyfriend that she was given the handy to at fucking

Speaker 1 in the play where there's actual video footage. Yeah.
Oh, Jesus. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The family values person.

Speaker 1 So guys, we got to wrap.

Speaker 1 I just want to bring it back to the documentary real quick since we we all watched it over the weekend. The last Republican, you know, thank you for opening yourself up to the director of

Speaker 1 Hot Tub Time Machine. That was

Speaker 1 very fun.

Speaker 1 At least that part was fun. But as I watched it and as everyone that I've talked to has watched it, like it really brought us back.

Speaker 1 And I think that as someone who, you know, I'm a New Yorker, 9-11 was very fucking close to me. It, I didn't personally lose anybody, but it felt like everyone in my life lost somebody.

Speaker 1 There is nothing closer to 9-11 than the experience of January 6th. I was watching it from the perspective of the insurrectionists.

Speaker 1 I had infiltrated the 3% Security Force and a bunch of other unlawful militias and fascist gangs, and they live streamed the attack.

Speaker 1 And never have I, the big difference between 9-11 and Jan 6 for me was 9-11, I had no idea what was going to happen. Jan 6, I was writing reports to the FBI and shit just wasn't happening.

Speaker 1 Like, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Speaker 3 So, well, listen, on January 1st, I told Kevin McCarthy in front of every Republican, I go, There's going to be violence. You've convinced half the country that the election was stolen.

Speaker 3 Like, we were founded on revolution. Like, if I really believed an election was stolen, I would have been there.
And he's like, and I'm not the next color.

Speaker 3 So McCarthy owns this, by the way.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was the like, go ahead. The wrap-up question for me is like, are you taking care of yourself, dude? Like, you've been through a lot

Speaker 1 through,

Speaker 1 you know, not just January 6th, the day itself, actually physically being under threat, but all of the threats that have come after, all of the threats that have hit your family.

Speaker 1 You know, I've experienced it myself. I know what it feels like to have your parents, your sister, your brother being threatened for the work that you do.
Like, how are you doing, man?

Speaker 3 Yeah, thanks for that.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I tell you what, what also hits is like, I had my, you know, a year ago, my co-pilot in Iraq that I fought with sent me a text saying he was ashamed to know me, right?

Speaker 3 So you, and you have those kinds of texts and stuff that come constantly. And look, I don't think I've taken a full inventory of the impact it's had.
I've tried and I've started to.

Speaker 3 And I talk about this in the film, which is like, I feel like a tank that was in a battle in World War II and kind of survived, right? And you could be like, wow, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 That tank survived, but it doesn't mean you're ready to fight and it doesn't mean you're not scarred.

Speaker 3 And yeah, I mean, look, I live in, kind of live in this idea of I'm going to walk outside and who knows who's going to be there. But you guys want to hear something kind of crazy?

Speaker 3 Not once in my life in politics has anybody ever publicly confronted me. I'm not asking them for to, but they haven't.
It's crazy. And people just come up and say nice things.

Speaker 3 So am I taking care of myself? I'm trying, but there's a lot of work to do. And I have to be more conscious.

Speaker 3 And this is for anybody in kind of a similar situation, be more conscious of the impact it has on your family. It took me a while to really appreciate and understand that.
I was too self-absorbed.

Speaker 3 And now I understand like this had an impact on my wife. And, you know, by definition, my kid who's four, but you know, that it has an impact in a roundabout way.
But thanks for that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I'll just, in closing, it was, it was, it was really, you know, powerful to see that, you know, your wife was in the, in the documentary as well, and seeing her go through this as well, and seeing your family and stuff.

Speaker 1 And you can see that some of the stress on each of your faces because I mean, I can't imagine me, like, if I had to leave the Democratic Party over something like this, I, I could imagine how difficult that was.

Speaker 3 So, uh, it's your whole social circle, right? It becomes your identity, it becomes your social circle.

Speaker 3 And I've, I'm convinced that people are more willing to put their life on the line than their identity. I think nine out of 10 of us would step in front of a train to save a toddler.

Speaker 3 I don't know if that many people would be willing to walk away from the party. And so it's a lesson to all of us.
Like, hopefully the Democratic Party never gets there.

Speaker 3 And hopefully the Republican Party someday comes back.

Speaker 1 Well, Adam, thank you very much. Thank you.
Not only for being here, but everything that you have done. I know how difficult that is to stand.

Speaker 1 Well, I can only assume I've never done it, but to stand almost alone in standing up for what's right. And I know that, you know, we all greatly respect you for doing that.

Speaker 1 We're really appreciative that you took that stand and joined us today. So hopefully, we'll have you back again soon.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We're going to keep hoping to make sure the Democrats don't screw up their chances in 2026.

Speaker 3 I'm here for advice anytime. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 1 Thanks. Have a good one.

Speaker 3 You bet.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, that was great having Adam.

Speaker 1 I think we're going to keep going here and dive a little bit more into the shutdown because obviously this is the one thing that everybody is talking about.

Speaker 1 And obviously, Democrats are livid about this.

Speaker 1 So let's dive into whether they should be livid or not.

Speaker 1 I'll start because I think I probably have the minority opinion here.

Speaker 1 I think the thing that was striking in this is that it's very clear that Republicans were willing to let Americans starve in order to get a deal. And

Speaker 1 Where I come down on I understand why they took the deal is knowing that if they if they kept going, Republicans were going to be willing to go for a very long time, which likely would have meant that that two to three week emergency fund would have run out, which is the thing that basically the courts were going to force them to use.

Speaker 1 I think that Republicans were going to let Americans starve to death. And I think that that was something that some of these Democrats just could not stomach.

Speaker 1 I understand that people are angry about it because on the flip side, not extending the ACA tax credits will affect people's lives.

Speaker 1 And in some instances, people may pass away because they don't have the health insurance. So it's a really difficult situation.

Speaker 1 And I think I wish there was more anger directed towards the Republicans for doing this, but I also understand why Democrats are really upset about it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, there are so many layers of the conversation, right? There's the internal sort of Democratic

Speaker 1 political angle where we're looking for somebody to go up and fight.

Speaker 1 We need leaders who fight for us, who are willing to counter punch, willing to take a punch and stay in there and see it through to a political victory because we need to. I've heard enough.

Speaker 1 Put in Chuck Schumer. Put him in.
I've heard enough. He's obviously the man for the job.

Speaker 1 If we are going to ultimately lead to a midterm win and a 2028 win, but along like you, when you were in a fight, like you get... You get broken bones.
You get teeth knocked out.

Speaker 1 Like you could, your nose could get broken. You're bleeding.
Like it gets fucking messy. And this fight is the result of the choice of Americans.

Speaker 1 Like, I hate to say that, but there are consequences to elections. And

Speaker 1 they cleaned house. They threw out every single Democrat after Biden fixed the whole last fucking Republican disaster.

Speaker 1 It's almost like enough millions of people have never learned this lesson for real. And only if we let it get really bad

Speaker 1 will they learn because we keep protecting ourselves.

Speaker 1 We keep protecting the country, like looking to this tiny minority party of sort of like weak old people in the leadership leadership positions to to protect us from from what we're doing to ourselves and i say we as a country and and that's just not it's not it's not what we can i i don't know we we can't keep doing this i've seen this movie play too many times and it's what allows us to keep coming back and electing republicans because we say well it was never as bad as they said it was going to be i would have played it right down to the fucking wire i'd have run the emergency funds down to fucking zero and said, all right, this is it.

Speaker 1 We've waited as long as we possibly can. This is it.
That would have been a message you could.

Speaker 1 That's a message you could have spread. But this fucking backdoor, fucking skirt around bullshit that nobody sees coming, fuck that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Actually, I agree with that.

Speaker 1 Some cowardly shit right there. I think we're letting it run down and then say we were not willing to let Americans starve.
I think that that was probably a good idea.

Speaker 1 I think one of the problems that's starting to sort of percolate

Speaker 1 as I talk to people in DC and we see more things is that it does seem like there may have been more than eight Democrats who wanted to end this.

Speaker 1 And these were the eight Democrats that didn't have reelections in the next four years or are retiring. Like Gene Chapel is retiring.
Dick Durbin is retiring. Angus King is 80.

Speaker 1 He just won re-election, I think, at 24. So he probably will not be running again.

Speaker 1 But it's really interesting to see the anger. And I think the rage.
And I think it was pointed out when we were talking to Adam Kinsinger. We've also been building this creator,

Speaker 1 I guess, group or space to relay democratic messages.

Speaker 1 And the creators that I've spoken to do feel like they were sold out because they were told, trust the Democrats, hold the line, we're going to get there. And then we didn't.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I made a whole ass video where I advocated for shutting the government down because I thought, you know, at the end of the day, you can hold something here.

Speaker 1 Fuck, I could have not made that video because no, no change. Bunch of people got real scared and got their money withheld, but nothing really changed.
So, yeah, we're in the same position that

Speaker 1 we all thought we were going to be in, right? When this shutdown was like about to happen, I think we

Speaker 1 had this whole conversation where we, I remember sitting down with you guys and we talked about like this is a bad idea because there's no way we won't fuck this up in terms of a political strategy.

Speaker 1 We found our way all the way to fucking it up. At least

Speaker 1 a small handful of people found their way to potentially fucking it up. They haven't officially voted on the final thing.

Speaker 1 I think I was the one who was like, yes, it's a we were on opposite side. I think it was me and Zach versus the rest.

Speaker 1 But I don't know. We can go back and check.
I was in favor of it.

Speaker 1 I think I was in favor of it shutting it down because this is the first time I've ever been in favor of them shutting it down because it's generally a really stupid idea.

Speaker 1 There is a bit of a trap in this, and it's not going to be clear until later in the year, but this deal,

Speaker 1 the snap benefits have been extended through September 30th of 2026, which means

Speaker 1 which means I have a calendar.

Speaker 1 Rich knows where this is going.

Speaker 1 They're going to have to vote on this right before the election. And Republicans are going to have to vote yay or nay on SNAP benefits for poor people.

Speaker 1 So they're either going to piss off their base, who thinks that quote-unquote poor people should just work harder, even though most of them all have jobs,

Speaker 1 or they're going to vote against SNAP benefits and piss off the independents and everybody else.

Speaker 1 Also, a big portion of their own base who are on SNAP, by the way. Yeah, right.
Some of these programs are, I don't have the numbers on SNAP, but I know on

Speaker 1 the Affordable Care Act plans, I think it's 57% are from registered Republican households.

Speaker 1 I know, right? Isn't it crazy? You look at Medicaid use, you look at SNAP use, you look at ACA plans that are very heavily subsidized right now.

Speaker 1 Rightfully so, because that's how you take care of people. They are, I think, in every case, being used

Speaker 1 by a majority or the majority of the people using them are

Speaker 1 registered Republican families and very heavily Republican states.

Speaker 1 This kind of reminds me of 2020, where going into the election, Donald Trump's people were all like, COVID isn't real.

Speaker 1 And tens of thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them, perhaps, were dying because they were like, no, it's not real.

Speaker 1 I think that the election

Speaker 1 could have had different results if Trump's people didn't actively seek to get themselves a deadly disease. Like, I think there's a chance maybe 12,000 Trump voters might have died in Georgia.
Maybe.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't have the evidence. I mean, I've heard way crazier conspiracy theories than that.
Well, so

Speaker 1 I see this happening again where Trump voters are going to, you know, cut off their nose to spite their face and be like, fuck those people with snap benefits, fully aware that they are collecting snap benefits and just they're going to literally starve themselves for

Speaker 1 a golden throne room that Trump is building.

Speaker 1 One thing I always find funny is that there's a lot of these pricks that will talk out the side of their fucking head about how anybody that's on Snap is, you know, they're robbing the government, but they're fucking eligible for it.

Speaker 1 They're working 80 hours a week so they can put food on the table the whole goddamn time. They're eligible for SNAP because of their income.
But no, can't touch that money, that government money.

Speaker 1 It's fucking absurd. You are in the same spot as these people.

Speaker 1 You are selling your soul and your body just to say you're better than the person that takes the money.

Speaker 1 The myth of the lazy

Speaker 1 abled-bodied person has persisted since the 80s, since, frankly, Ronald Reagan went after

Speaker 1 welfare queen. It all comes back to

Speaker 1 super racist. Yeah.
So like all these people with the patriots say, like, honestly, a lot of our problems, most of of the problems economically in this country started when he was president.

Speaker 1 You could see the economic inequality just start to branch out right after all of the things that he implemented. And to be honest,

Speaker 1 with some democratic support. I mean, Tip O'Neill was the speaker of the house.
They got, they kept, you know, all these people are like, oh, it's when people got together and made deals.

Speaker 1 I'm like, yeah, and it completely fucked us for the next 40 years. So I'm not sure that's the right message on bipartisanship.
But anyways,

Speaker 1 yeah, it's there are

Speaker 1 very few people scamming welfare or snap or however assistance you want to it because frankly, like there just aren't that many people. And it's just not a thing.
Most Americans want to work.

Speaker 1 They want to feel valued. They don't want government assistance forever.
And, but like the Republicans have convinced their base that that is a real thing.

Speaker 1 And so they are perfectly fine with taking this away. I even saw some people.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if they're bots or whatever in some posts where people were like, I'm on SNAP benefits, but I'm willing to go. I'm I'm willing to go without if we kill the ACA tax credits.

Speaker 1 And I'm like,

Speaker 1 I don't believe it.

Speaker 1 There is one group that loves snap benefits, and it's Walmart and other mega corporations. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because we are subsidizing when we, when we are paying taxes and a tiny fragment of that goes towards snap benefits, it's not to subsidize people eating.

Speaker 1 It's to subsidize Walmart and all of these mega corporations who come into small rural areas all around the country, destroy all of the mom and pop shops, and then pay everybody minimum wage, cut their hours to make sure that they're not eligible for benefits so that we, the taxpayer, have to keep those people alive because Walmart does not want to give people a living wage.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I think between

Speaker 1 between now and next year, if this deal ends up getting signed, who the fuck knows between the time we're recording and the time this episode goes live, what could happen.

Speaker 1 But if this deal does end up happening the way that we think it is going to happen, I think Democrats need to really fucking focus their next 12 months of messaging on who really does benefit from Snap and it's fucking Walmart.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a good point.

Speaker 1 I think that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 That's part of the reason why we should be raising the minimum wage.

Speaker 1 Not enough people realize that what the minimum wage actually means is we would pay you less if we could. That's what it means.

Speaker 1 And in some states, they have the federal minimum, which I think the federal minimum is $7.75 an hour. You can't live on that.

Speaker 1 You can't do anything with that. In most of those jobs, they won't give you full-time because they don't want to pay you benefits.
And so you're getting like.

Speaker 1 You're not even making a full-time

Speaker 1 income at that incredibly pathetic level, level, not to mention not getting any benefits. I think there was one thing I wanted to mention.
There's one scenario that I've been thinking of that

Speaker 1 could play out with the shutdown strategy, if we want to call it that,

Speaker 1 by the Democrats that doesn't end up in just like this pathetic failure harm reduction, like we laid down and gave up

Speaker 1 thing that we're used to seeing. And that's

Speaker 1 if we actually get a standalone vote on the on the on the ACA subsidies

Speaker 1 and it is just a clean vote, obviously the House will not pass it. The Senate might not pass it.

Speaker 1 But it will be a vote on that one issue and nothing else.

Speaker 1 There's no noise around it. We're just going to draw a line in the sand and say, okay, so just so we're all very clear.

Speaker 1 when given the opportunity to keep healthcare affordable for millions of low-income working families, you guys won't. And they're going to vote against it.
And then that'll be that.

Speaker 1 And everybody's actual healthcare costs are going to fucking go through the roof, like 10 floors up through the roof. And Republicans will have no one to point to but themselves.

Speaker 1 And that one single vote on that one single issue. So there is a scenario where this becomes a very crystallized point that Democrats can rail against.
It doesn't.

Speaker 1 It still results in everybody getting hurt.

Speaker 1 I would rather them hold out on this shutdown and force the issue so that it it actually gets extended because I would rather lose a political fight that could be really valuable if it means that people are going to, you know, be helped.

Speaker 1 But that's the curse of being a fucking soft-ass library.

Speaker 1 Well, I,

Speaker 1 the report, the thing with the Republicans, though, is they were never, they were never going to give on the tax on the tax thing. They just were not because

Speaker 1 well, they have demonized Obamacare for 15 years now, 15 years.

Speaker 1 And this has been one of their sole priorities is to gut the black president's signature achievement. And I really do believe that that is a lot of what is driving this.

Speaker 1 Like, if we had just called this Romney care, which is essentially it is the Republican, or it's Mitt Romney's plan. Because this was the alternative to universal health care.

Speaker 1 Right, because people like Joe Lieberman wouldn't go along with

Speaker 1 the public option because he had tons of money, donors from the insurance industry. Shocker.

Speaker 1 And actually, the Heritage Foundation, before they went full-on racist, they were part of the crafting of that plan.

Speaker 1 And now they're just going around because it was named after, well, they named it after the black president. And I keep saying that because that's what they think is why they don't like him.

Speaker 1 And now they're going to gut something that they pushed for years. So, because I think if they didn't and they caved, I think their base, they have, they have.

Speaker 1 told their base this is the one of the main things that will quote unquote save the economy. So they either depress their turnout by caving to us

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 they roll the dice with their base in 26 and hold the line. And I think that's what they did.
And I think that's why some of these senators were like,

Speaker 1 we're not going to get what we want. Do we want to hurt people in the process?

Speaker 1 But I do think, I agree with Luke, I think we should have forced the snap thing, made the Supreme Court say that they had to pay it, and then say we ran it as far as we could and back out.

Speaker 1 slight correction there though we aren't hurting people we are trying to stop republicans from hurting people did i say we were hurting people you said do we want to hurt people in the process but i oh i know i know exactly what you meant but but it is so important to me that we keep keep your eye on

Speaker 1 the fact is that nothing we wouldn't be having any of these conversations right now and we wouldn't have the government shut down if republicans weren't in office passing policies that over people so right we're trying to keep people from getting hurt.

Speaker 1 And it's a matter of how hard can we fight to keep people from getting hurt because of Republicans. Yep.
Yep. Yep.

Speaker 1 Well, I think we're going to leave it there, but I do want to end on a piece of good news.

Speaker 1 And that is actually from the Supreme Court today, if you can believe it, they turned down the case from, I believe,

Speaker 1 thrice divorced, three-time divorced. Kim Davis

Speaker 1 from Kansas, who has been waging a war against same-sex marriage, says she had to suffer the horrendous

Speaker 1 incident where a gay couple asked her to sign their license, their marriage license, and then she's made an entire career out of this.

Speaker 1 Again, three-time divorced. You know, she was protecting the sanctity of marriage.

Speaker 1 And the Supreme Court, which I'm a little surprised, just basically said, Fuck off. Nope.

Speaker 1 Nope.

Speaker 1 I'd like to give her a little different spin on that.

Speaker 1 Is this

Speaker 1 fucked? There we go. Maladapted Spider.
Jesus Christ. Imagine spending your entire life so angry that people would choose to live their life just a little bit, a little different than you.

Speaker 1 I cannot fucking imagine it. Right.
In a loving couple. What a shock.

Speaker 1 I think she's actually protecting the sanctity of marriage by getting divorced.

Speaker 1 I think that doesn't happen very often.

Speaker 1 You know what else?

Speaker 1 She's such a terrible person, but

Speaker 1 I almost feel bad picking on her because she's just such a fucking loser that anything I say is

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 feel like we're, I don't know, shitting on a piece of shit. Like it can't get any worse.

Speaker 1 What's the opposite of gilding the lily?

Speaker 1 I don't know, but that's the opposite. Shitting on a piece of shit? I guess that makes sense.
You know, you know what's on

Speaker 1 I don't know. But you know, do you know what's not shit, guys? Our merch.
Our merch. Also, real quick, you know what else isn't shit?

Speaker 1 The video quality on Tim and my and Chris's new camera is not rich because he doesn't set his up.

Speaker 1 But if you want to see it, you should check it out on Spotify or YouTube where you can see the videos. Oh, look at this.
Look at this little pitch. Fucking huge brain.
It's growing up. I love it.

Speaker 1 I love it. Galaxy brain.
Yes.

Speaker 1 But back to merch. Yeah.
Back to merch. Everybody buy our merch because it's awesome.
It helps support the show. This is the most popular one, I believe.
The five faces. Five faces.

Speaker 1 It's comfortable. Against all odds.
Against all odds. Someone did ask us.
Someone wrote to me and said, I kid you not.

Speaker 1 And they were like, it's getting cold up in the, I think it was in the Midwest somewhere. And they're like, we really need some long-sleeve t-shirts.
So we got another request for that.

Speaker 1 So we're going to have to

Speaker 1 look into that.

Speaker 1 we just added hoodies with the five faces so if people don't have those yet they can order them

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 but we're also doing some more we've got some like exciting like charity work that we're going to do with the store that's that's not ready yet but it's coming get get your your uh your trigger fingers ready because uh there's gonna be a get fucked t-shirt coming to an online store not near you quite near you near your keyboard Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Or your mobile phone or whatever.

Speaker 1 So, all right.

Speaker 1 Well, you can go to findoutpodcast.com to get that merchandise, and you can subscribe to our sub stack at findoutpodcast.substack.com. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 Also, let us know what you think about this episode.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, you all agree with me and nobody else so that I don't feel so lonely anymore. But everyone's looking at me like I'm crazy.
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have one last thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, so we are potentially, likely,

Speaker 1 almost certainly or definitely moving our Thursday night lives from TikTok.

Speaker 1 We are moving it to YouTube.

Speaker 1 That has been decided. We want to know what is the best time for our audience

Speaker 1 to listen to us go live.

Speaker 1 We would love your feedback. We've been trying to pick what night, what time is best,

Speaker 1 but it would be a lot easier for us to figure this out if you just told us. So please do that.
That would be very helpful for us.

Speaker 1 And subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is also that. Yes.
Definitely that. Yes.
At the Find Out podcast. All right.
Well, thank you to Adam Kinzinger for joining us today.

Speaker 1 Thank you all for listening. And we will be back on Thursday.
Have a great day, folks.