Adam Kinzinger: The Freak Prom

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Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is June fourteenth two thousand twenty three. And Donald Trump has now been arrested more times than he has been elected. So let’s just review where we’re at here.

I mean, Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned yesterday. Came face to face with special counsel Jack Smith, and for some reason avoided eye contact with a man he’s been calling a thug and a fascist. Didn’t say anything during his court hearing yesterday afterwards, of course, doubled down on his threats to retaliate against Biden. And was, I would say, rather aggressively unsubtle in rolling out his strategy to influence the trial including going to a Cuban restaurant and at least claiming that he was gonna buy dinner for everybody. Meanwhile, another judge granted e Jean Carroll’s request to amend the ten million dollar complaint against Trump after Trump redefined her during that CNN town hall.

So much, by the way, for the party of law and order. JD Vance is saying, he’s gonna block Biden’s Department of Justice nominees in retaliation of the Trump indictment. And the Democrats are responding by self deterring themselves. According to politico, Joe Biden has ordered the DNC and his reelection campaign to remain silent about Trump’s indictment. Meanwhile, we get a kind of a low energy scene from Bedminster.

I just wanna read you this New York Times account. The surreal scene that awaited him at his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey was a blend somewhere between the summer garden party. And a political victory party. There was an era of an almost post arraignment celebration as women arrived in their finery, Fuchsia. And canary yellow dresses embroidered Trump wears and heels.

Men sported suits and red manga hats. Then Trump arrived. Visibly deflated after pleading not guilty for the second time in three months. His dry and low energy resuscitation of his legal defense even inflected with the usual references to Marxist’s communist and fascists pleased his advisors but drew a relatively muted response from a crowd that had minutes earlier craned their phones for a shot of his motorcade, so who would have imagined that Donald Trump would be a buzz kill at his own party. So joining me to talk about this just incredible news cycle to win right now is our good friend, Adam Kinzinger.

Adam, how are you?

Oh, I’m wonderful Charlie. I mean, you know, the world is insane. So on the one hand, we have some accountability that’s good. But just the madness is maddening. So I’m okay.

You know, it’s summer. How are you?

Pretty much the same. I mean, I thought it was interesting. You know, sitting watching some of the television coverage, that endless aerial slow moving bronco TV coverage of Donald Trump’s arrest and arraignment. And then, of course, the street circus, you know, complete with the Trump flag and a pig’s head on a pike. You step back and you realize, Okay, guys.

Can we just take a deep breath here and and recognize that this is kind of momentous. The former president of the United States is arrested. And he is charged with serious crimes. And yet some of the reaction is extraordinary. Let me just read you I wanna I wanna bounce this off of you because if you spend so much time you know, dealing with Donald Trump and raising the question about whether he would ever be held accountable.

I thought it was interesting, John Kelly, his former chief of staff. Tells the Washington Post, he’s scared shitless. This is the way he compensates for that. He gives people the appearance he doesn’t care by doing this. For the first time in his life, it looks like he’s being held accountable.

Up until this point in life, it’s like, I’m not going to pay you. Take me to court. He’s never been held accountable before. So that’s interesting that John Kelly thinks that he’s scared shitless. What do you think?

Well, yeah. I think so too. And I think the struggle is he is really good at putting up a front and that front is, you know, I’ve never been held accountable, which he hasn’t. He puts up the front of you know, I am invincible. I have this massive army of people behind me.

And so I think, you know, when I see my former colleagues out there defending him, I mean, my natural tendency is to be like, oh, you know, he’s gonna escape justice again. But I mean, we still have a strong justice system and I think he recognizes and if he has any lawyers worth their salt around him, they’re telling him, you know, you’re not gonna escape from this and, you know, I would advise any other client to plea bargain. I think there’s some accuracy there. I I think You can see the deflatedness. I think he wears his emotions on his sleeve.

You certainly know how he’s feeling. But I’m gonna tell you Charlie Sykes thing that still, I just I don’t know. I don’t even know how to describe it. I can’t put English words to it, which is just this weird cultism around you know, you talked about the scene at Bedminster and you know that these these people that have never I don’t know if they just weren’t cool in high school or what and they show up

And

it’s like Hollywood, too. They think they’re celebrities. You know, they’re all getting their picture with Kimberly Guilfoyle. And it’s like this whole weird culture.

It’s like prom for the insane.

It’s Right?

I mean, it’s like it’s like prom for the weird.

It is. It’s definitely prom for the weird. And it’s like, you see that. And you see this like I don’t know. This worship.

This hero worship. I guess, you know, you’re the writer. You’re the journalist. You’re the one that could probably put better words to that phenomenon than I can?

I’m right now.

I just feel that and I can’t do it. I can’t feel I feel what that is emotionally. I can’t put words to it.

I think a lot of other people have had the same experience. I mean, that that prompt for the weird I mean, it’s one thing to to have the Bernie Caricks and the My Pillow guy and the Kimberly Gilfoyle Foyle show up. Mike Flynn apparently was there. I mean, we’re talking about everybody from the original freak show freak show, you know, one point out, fine. That’s one thing.

What’s also mind blowing is the reaction of of elected officials, including some of your former colleagues. I mean, at least Stefanic. Who has been be clowning herself for some time, posts a picture of herself, you know, standing next to Donald Trump with a thumbs up. I mean, she must really, really wanna be vice president or something. Yeah.

And then, of course, there’s your old friend, Kevin McCarthy, who is reduced to defending Trump’s behavior saying, well, I don’t see anything problem, you know, problem with putting classified documents in a bathroom? I mean, what’s going on in their heads? In their heads? When they turn off the light or when they look in the mirror? Are they going, how long am I gonna have to do this forever?

So it’s interesting. You know, two years ago, if we’d have talked about the Well, we did talk about this two years ago. I was very much of the belief that none of them believe what they’re saying. You know, it is all just it’s an act that they have to do to get elected. I’m sure there’s still some of that.

But I’m now coming around to Not that I was wrong two years ago, but within the last couple years, I think many of these folks have their internal monologue has convinced them that maybe not what Trump did is right, but that they have to stay with this team. You look at any rise of and I’m not doing the comparison. But you know, you look at the rise of the Nazi party for instance in Germany, and there were a lot of people that probably weren’t Nazis, but eventually, had to convince themselves of like, oh, well, you know, here’s how I make myself feel okay. And I think there’s an extent of that now, which is like I just gotta fight for the team. Because Joe Biden is gonna create transgender surgeries for everybody.

So, therefore, there is no level of anything I’m not willing to accept. That’s what’s happening. And I I don’t understand it because I used to have respect for a lot of these people.

I guess I do understand what the point you’re making here, which is that and I’ve described it as sometimes the fight is just about a fight. You get in the fight. You’re in the trenches, and it’s us versus them. And it really doesn’t matter what the issue is. It doesn’t matter what it’s about.

It doesn’t matter what facts are. It doesn’t matter what the evidence is. You’re in the fight, and you need to beat the other guy.

Yeah.

And so they’re stuck in there, you know, and they’re not gonna pull out. I thought it was very interesting. I was on Morning Joe this morning. They played this clip from John Thune, who’s the number two Republican in the Senate. I think you’ve probably heard it.

And he very with a very clear eyed way is just sort of walking through the fact that if Republicans wanna win elections, they need to move away from, you know, the chaos and the drama. Of Donald Trump. Otherwise, you’re gonna be alienating the voters who are gonna make a decision. And as long as this chaos and drama dominate, you know, public and politics, they’re gonna continue alienating those voters. But the reality is that Republicans just can’t quit this guy.

No. And they appear to they have made the decision that they’re gonna go through twenty twenty four as the party of Donald Trump. I think we’re way past that point of thinking, you know, when are they gonna take the off ramp? Because they’ve had one off ramp after another, So you have to conclude that they don’t wanna take an off ramp at this point. Even though they know it’s terrible.

Yeah. Absolutely. And and so, like, Chris Christie, it’s I Maybe we’ll talk more about him. I I didn’t wanna like Chris Christie because in twenty twelve, you know, Obama was real liked and largely because Chris Christie, you know, with the hurricane Sandy. In twenty sixteen, Trump was elected because of Chris Charlie Sykes.

So I have, you know, a natural kind of I don’t like Chris Christiness, but I gotta tell you, you know watching him the last week or so. I’m quickly becoming a Christy fan. I’m sorry, but One of the things he said, which just really stood out to me that it really nobody else is even saying is just like, how do you expect to run against Donald Trump without running against Donald Trump. These guys, they’re just standing around praying to the Lord that Donald Trump collapses and they’ll get all his scraps just like twenty sixteen, but not a single one of them. You know, Pencil try to approach it a little bit like, oh, this is slightly concerning, but there’s a double standard.

I mean, it’s it’s like, you know, a compliment sandwich like if I if I tell you you’re fat Charlie Sykes, I be like, you have nice hair, you have fat, you know, good shoes. It’s like they have to do a compliment sandwich anytime they go after Trump. It’s like Donald Trump is the greatest president ever. This is a little concerning, but there’s a double standard with the DOJ. And Chris Christie is the only one that’s out there.

I mean, Aisal Hutchinson, too. But Christie’s out there. Basically calling this out, and it’s beautiful to watch.

It is. And he’s very very effective, and I share your view with — No.

—

my disillusionment with Chris Christie. I think been well documented, but he is doing something that nobody else is doing, and he’s doing it very, very effectively. And whether that will have an effect, I don’t know. But let’s just go back to this whole notion of of Republicans of what they’re about to do because I don’t know whether you had a chance to see it yet, but the Wall Street Journal had an editorial this morning. Which sounded very different than the earlier one they had on the indictment where they were kind of, you know, like, doesn’t the Department of Justice know what forces they’re releasing and blah blah blah.

Well, today, They have a piece called the self destructive Donald Trump. And let me just read you a little bit of it. GOP primary voters can benefit from reading the latest Trump indictment. And asking what it means for a second Trump term. The facts alleged show that mister Trump has again played into the hands of his enemies.

His actions were reckless, elegant and remarkably self destructive, you think? This is the same Donald Trump they will get if they nominate him for a third time. And then it concludes If Trump is the GOP nominee, he is unlikely to defeat Joe Biden, but if he did win, the document fiasco is what a second term would be like he wouldn’t be able to deliver the conservative policy victories the Republicans want or claim they want because he can’t control himself. He’d be preoccupied with grievance and what he calls retribution. The best people won’t work for him because they see how he mistreated so many loyalists in the first term.

If Republicans really wanted to defeat Democrats, the press and a hostile bureaucracy, they’ll nominate a candidate who won’t shrink from a fight but will also be smart enough not to blunder into obvious traps. If Republicans nominate mister Trump again, they won’t own the lids as the fattish saying goes. The lives will own them. Right? So you think, Adam?

Yeah. It’s a very powerful thing, and and not to keep, you know, lavishing Chris Christie, but he had made the point of like, there’s this thing where and you’ve heard all these people there like, you know, Donald Trump is such great American that he has given up his wonderful paycheck to serve this country. You know, his family has sacrificed so much to serve America And gosh, if we were only so lucky, you know, to have somebody like him again. The point is, this isn’t about service to the country. This is about Donald Trump taking his little grievances actually failing the conservative movement.

As a conservative, my self. I want somebody who’s going to not turn off half the country and is gonna make a compelling argument for conservative policies. Donald Trump Even if he gets elected and forces through something, you know, like another supreme court justice or whatever, he is killing the conservative movement for the next generation because when we used to look like in our minds at least, we used to look at compassionate people that actually cared about the future of this country and big government takes opportunity away from people. We’re actually turning the next generation to think that the conservative movement is a bunch of a holes that frankly don’t care about people that are minorities and don’t care about people with any kind of issues. And that’s what Donald Trump is.

It’s grievance politics and it makes all those people that you know, have sat around and been angry for the last thirty years listening to Russia Limbaugh. It makes them feel good for a moment. Charlie, it’s literally like doing drugs. You know, I’m sure doing drugs feels really good, but you’re destroying your body. And eventually, you have to take that dopamine rush away.

To make yourself healthier. And the party is unwilling to do it because there are members of congress that are unwilling to lead. And they’re expecting somehow that the, you know, the people out there that you represent in your district are gonna turn before you’re willing to lead them away, and it’s just not gonna happen.

Well, you know, this whole narrative that somehow, you know, he is the conservative champion. Think about what conservatism used to be, and all of the things that have been thrown by the wayside in the era of Trump. I mean, the first thing, of course, was I don’t know with with the first thing. And where do you actually start? I mean, one of the first things was that, you know, character counts.

Then, of course, it was American exceptionalism. Then it was free trade. Zen it was our support for NATO. A robust foreign policy as leaders of the free world. But now and, you know, particularly in the wake of of January says, what happened to the party of law and order?

What happened to the party that actually claimed to take national security seriously? Because a lot of what’s going on right now you know, it has real consequences. Let’s leave aside the electoral consequences. Real danger that are talking about defunding the FBI. They’re talking about retaliating against the Department of Justice.

Donald Trump is pledging to dismantle the nation’s intelligence system. You have leading Republicans who are basically saying it doesn’t matter if some of the nation’s most sensitive military secrets are mishandled. This from a party that four years dined out as taking all of those things not just seriously but deadly seriously.

It is utter and complete anarchy. I mean, it’s almost the party of anarchy, you know, which is like there’s no rules. And, you know, on a conservative side, let’s just take the issue of abortion. Right? I mean by the way, I spent twelve years in my congressional career, not talking much about abortion.

And then of course, I get out the big issue. But let’s just take that issue. Row versus Wade was overturned. If you went back to what you call Earth one or ten years ago and you told every pro life conservative. Hey.

Row versus weight is gonna be overturned. What should you do after that? I think every one of them would say, well, we need to create a culture of life. We need to create a a walk immune environment for women that are struggling with unwanted pregnancies. We need to have exceptions for Ron DeSantis life of the mother, and we need to have a recent cut updates.

Yeah. What has happened instead is instead of celebrating that victory and trying to create a culture where you know women that are in tough positions can can be successful. It’s turned into cruelness. It’s turned into Let’s make it a six week abortion ban. It’s turned into some weirdos that are trying to ban friggin birth control and that’s just what it is, you know, the cruelness is the point now.

And I think even the hypocrisy is a point of pride for some of these people. And the thing is like in all of this, it’s a lot of doom and gloom. But it’s not going to work in the long run. Donald Trump may get the nomination, probably likely will. He’s not gonna win the general election.

I don’t think we can take that for granted. And to all my democratic friends, the fact that now I’m a pro lifer, you know, there’s probably a significant number of people listening like, oh, I thought he was different. Like, no. I’m a conservative. We have to have this unnatural and uncomfortable alliance to support democracy, which means we’re gonna have some differences among us if you truly believe Donald Trump is a threat.

We can take him out and we can restore the Republican Party. But it’s gonna be restored. Frankly, I think with fire at some point, I think they have to lose to come back.

At some point, you know, in an off election year, I hope that we’re able just to step back and say, maybe these things actually win. Maybe at least Stefanik and Kevin McCarthy, actually have a winning strategy, but it’s still just fundamentally wrong. And it’s fundamentally American. And it’s fundamentally undermining the rule of law. I mean, the damage that’s being done right now I think is going to linger for decades.

The delegitimizing of the justice system, of the rule of law, it feels like something from the, you know, before times to suggest that responsible officials elected officials do not engage in violent rhetoric, do not encourage people to not have respect for the criminal justice system or the jury system. I mean, this whole notion, I mean, Josh colleague saying, you know, Joe Biden is trying to throw Donald Trump in jail. Well okay. First of all, it’s not Joe Biden. And secondly, the only way that Donald Trump goes to jail is if after a trial by a jury of his peers with all of the protections of the constitution and due process that he is convicted And yet, rather than saying, let’s let the process work out.

Let’s trust the system. You have, you know, quote unquote, responsible people who are just throwing the kerosene on the fire, and you’ve commented on this. I mean, at the really extreme level, you have the carry lakes of the world talking about, you know, gun owners, you’re gonna have to come through us You have, you know, various congressmen talking about, you know, defending the bridges. I mean, I may interrupt myself here because you have talked about this. I mean, some of this violent rhetoric is so over the top.

And it’s not coming from four chan. It’s not coming from some extreme nudge up. It’s coming from members of congress. And you would think that you would have this moment of sobriety where people would realize, okay. This is a momentous moment.

It’s also a dangerous moment. Maybe the grown ups in the room ought to encourage people to be responsible because this is a volatile situation. Nothing happened in Miami today. That does not mean that something’s not gonna happen going forward.

Well and that’s right. So here’s the problem is, you know, when you were in school, you knew that if you punch somebody or if you got punched by somebody, there was an ultimate authority that could step in and rectify that situation. Frankly in life because the police can come no matter what. The problem is, in politics, everything that happens in politics is for the most part, everything is, you know, protected first amendment speech. And so typically, the thing that could create some kind of discipline or you know, stop things from happening is a public shame or b, you know, leadership leadership with a big l like somebody like McCarthy coming in.

And saying, hey, we don’t talk about the one to thirty k maps, you know, and holding our bridges because that’s violence. The problem is The right wing media ecosystem is either not willing to call it out because, frankly, these people actually create a lot of traffic to websites. They create a lot of, you know, eyeballs for viewers. So there’s no accountability in the media that Matt CNN can go after. And MSNBC can go after these guys all day long, but none of their voters watch that.

And so there’s that. And then Kevin McCarthy, which If you’d have put this on my Bingo card five or ten years ago, like you would have members of congress threatening war and leadership would say nothing. I wouldn’t have believed you, but that’s where we’re at too. So there is no leadership accountability. There’s no media system accountability.

And the problem is Clay Higgins may believe he’s speaking metaphorically. By the way, I think he doesn’t believe he’s speaking metaphorically. I think he really means it. That guy’s nuts, honestly. I know him.

But beyond that, he may think he’s speaking metaphorically, but there are of the hundred million people out there that are Trump supporters Some of them are gonna take him very seriously. And we’re gonna have real big problems. And by the way, it only takes a few dozen people teaming up to create a really, really messy situation.

Hey, folks. This is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day, we remind you, folks. You are not the crazy ones.

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For Donald Trump, this has really become a binary future. That either becomes president or perhaps he goes to jail. And that would also suggest that he’s going to be desperate. And so what would he be willing to do? What would Donald Trump be willing to do if he thought he was going to go down?

I think the one thing we’ve learned about Donald Trump is that he is prepared to burn everything Yeah. From a political point of view, he’s prepared to burn the Republican Party down, but I mean something far worse than that. It’s like, what would he be willing to do? You know, what do you call upon, you know, the the darkest forces in the country to take some violent action? We’ve lived through January six.

It’s naive in in the wake of January six. So let’s talk about January six a little bit. I mean, you spent much of your professional life recently doing all of this. So Your thoughts right now, you’ve watched him now make two purple walks and yet you still has not been held accountable for what he did On January six, his attempts to overturn the election to lie about the election and to incite a rebellion against Congress. Tell me what you’re thinking right now.

What you’re watching, what you’re waiting for, what you hope for.

It’s very disappointing because, like, the documents case is serious and I’m not in any way pushing that aside and I think that should be charged. It’s very serious. But January six to me is a much bigger threat and I don’t know if it was a fake quote or if it was real, but recently Fannie Willis down in Georgia said she’s like holding off on her case until the feds are done. I don’t know if that means she’s still gonna show an indictment or just gonna wait. Mhmm.

You know, that was some version of election fraud accountability. I was talking to a few folks I know that are CNN contributors that, you know, don’t think now Jack Smith and the DOJ brings anything forward on January six. Like, this is kind of their out to be able to bring this case forward.

Really?

That’s their theory. I hope they’re wrong.

That would be so disappointing.

It would be very See

if you would have seen me here because I slumped noticeably.

Well, I felt the same way. Because it’s like the documents case is serious and I’m not minimizing that, but the threat to our democracy was January sixth. And you know, these folks theories, these legal experts theories were, look, you know, DOJ is gonna have a hard time taking sedition or conspiracy or whatever up to the president. This is a, you know, a version of accountability. They can use this as an excuse like we can’t try I don’t know.

And we may be surprised. I like you, Charlie, if they don’t go after Donald Trump for January six or even the steer under him. Even if we go after like the tier under him, I’ll be very disappointed now. If Mark Meadows is cooperating, you know, he’s probably not doing much cooperation on the documents case. It’s probably January six, so we still may be surprised.

But I was as disciplined as you were to hear these people’s theories?

Well, they are just theories. And we don’t know. What we do know is that it would be a mistake to underestimate Jack Smith. I mean, I think that Jack Smith He was very, very aggressive. He also laid it out in a very, very effective way.

I was impressed with him. Now the question is, can you handle two massive pieces of litigation at the same time? My one concern is at some point, how much bandwidth does the special counsel have? Because this Mar a Lago case is huge. The January sixth case is even more momentous and even larger.

Would they be able to handle both of them? Also knowing what the blowback is is you’re willing to do that. One of the things that Donald Trump just in terms of strategy, I think, you know, is and then again, there’s nothing subtle about Donald Trump’s strategy. He wants create as much chaos as much a blowback. He wants to raise the the opportunity cost for the Department of Justice backed as high as possible to to intimidate them, to push them back.

But I agree with you, I think that it would be, from the point of view of history, the failure to follow-up on your work on the January sixth committee by acting on the criminal referrals, I think Will Saletan as a huge dereliction of duty, a huge misopportunity.

Yeah. I really do too. And, you know, again, even if they don’t And I personally think, you know, Donald Trump should be held accountable for January six. But let’s say, they, you know, make the decision that we can’t go after Trump. There is a tier two that certainly, you know, the Eastmans or whatever that you need to go after to make it clear to people that, you know because what we’re basically saying right now is an attempted coup is okay.

As long as it doesn’t succeed, By the way, if it succeeds, you’re in Charlie Sykes you have no negative reason to attempt a coup. Because either it fails or it succeeds and you’re in charge and And I just think if we think the president is not gonna be repeated again or we think Donald Trump, you know, he’s capable of doing so many things you were talking about, you know, going back to Will He incite violence. If the question Well, Donald Trump is capable of some really bad things we’ve seen, but not that. Like, repeat that in your mind because there’s not been a single thing that Donald Trump has actually stopped short of out of decency or out of concern for the country. And that’s why it’s so essential for Republicans and Democrats and independents, and it’s not gonna be through the no labels third party thing.

But for all of us to just for a little bit, put aside our differences and I know that there are some people that gee, they could just never sit at the same dinner table as somebody that’s a conservative or somebody that’s a moderate or somebody that’s a liberal. Like I get it, you know. But the question is, do you want to keep being outraged over issues? Or do you wanna fight for survival? And at this moment, we have to fight to survive in this country for democracy to survive, and then we can get back to having our differences again.

That’s that’s what I’m trying to passionately say to people is just, you know, if you’re sitting around outraged about somebody’s political belief and unwilling to, you know, kinda join forces with that person, I would have to argue that maybe you don’t recognize the real threat to democracy.

Okay. So obviously, I know what you’re talking about here, which is there are people who will talk about Donald Trumping an existential threat and, you know, the democracy is on the line or liberal constitutional democracy is on the line. And then proceed to behave politically as if it’s not.

Right.

You know, like, okay. Yes. This is an existential threat. But if you disagree with me on the forgiveness of student loans or if you disagree with me on would you think marginal tax rates will be or educational policy or on transgender policy, then we can’t trust you. We can’t work with you.

And there’s a whole chorus out there that essentially says, no. In order for you to be aligned with us on this, you need to be aligned with us on everything. So Donald Trump is either an existential threat. That is unique or he’s not. And I think people have to decide.

And this is also one of the reasons why I am willing to swallow a lot of baggage in the past with people like, for example, Chris Christie and say, if you’re willing to be an ally right now, you know, more power to you, I am willing to make this alliance with you At least for now, it’s it is this difference between a heart attack and cancer. They are both going to kill you, but the heart attack might kill you today And so let’s deal with this. Let’s not pretend there’s not a cancer out there. We will deal with that in the future, but the heart attack is the immediate problem And I don’t care who the paramedic is or who the paramedic voted for two years ago or four years ago or what he said or what bumper stickers on his car. If he or she is, is there with the paddles, let’s go.

You know what I’m saying? I mean

It’s true. And it’s funny because it’s you know, none of us are sinless. Besides maybe, like, you and Tim Miller that saw the light before any of us. But, you know, I look at it this way like, okay, I have a lot of grudge against Chris Christie, but then I’m like, wait, look. But I was I was never really a Trump supporter, but I kind of went along with it because I didn’t wanna fight it, you know, early on.

So I’m I’ve got in there and, you know, Chris Christie did. And that’s where we all have to kind of come together and, you know, it’s what I’m trying to say to people is, look you’re not gonna solve the abortion issue. You’re not gonna solve the issue of transgender. You’re not gonna solve this stuff in the next couple years. But in the next couple years, what will be determined is does democracy have a place in this country or is this gonna turn into not necessarily a dictatorship but just a constant thing of power politics struggle in which truth only matters based on what your opinion is, or do we gonna get back to having like a basic standard of decency?

And that’s what I want. And I think that’s what probably the vast majority of people that listen to this by the way, growing in ratings podcast, you’re in the very top almost now. But that’s what people wanna hear. And I think they’re the people that understand the alliance of that and it’s a big battle.

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I wanna get to Kevin McCarthy and his problems in the house with your former colleagues in in just one one more question though on the Trump case. It does seem that it’s possible that Pardening Donald Trump will now become a litmus test in the Republican primary? I mean, and this has happened pretty quickly. You have Vivek Ramaswamy who is out, you know, basically, demanding that all All candidates pledged that if they were elected president to pardon him, and there’s Nikki Haley who has never met a waffle to did not wanna outwaffle. He’s now saying, yes, he was he was reckless and irresponsible and it was dangerous.

But if she’s elected president, it would be good for the country to pardon Donald Trump. So are we looking at that now as a litmus test that you’re gonna ask? You know, the the Republican party either going to nominate Donald Trump or somebody who is going to pardon Donald Trump?

Of course. And the funny thing is, it’s either gonna be this. It’s like, So the Rama Schwami, this guy’s not by the way. Obviously, I don’t even know who he is. We just came out of nowhere but, you know, there’s gonna be the we need to pardon Donald Trump because he’s in and he’s amazing.

And then there’s gonna be the Mike Pence’s that are like, we need to pardon Donald Trump to heal the country. Mhmm. It’s kind of that compliment sandwich thing where it’s like, I’m not approving it, but we need to heal the cut. Yes, Charlie. This is except for Chris Christie and and Hutchinson.

This is going to be the new litmus test. A hundred percent. And by the way, I think by the end of this primary, everybody’s gonna be begging to just hoist Donald Trump upon their shoulders into the debate stage to show how loyal they are to him.

We should note though that there are Some Republicans willing to break ranks. We talked about Chris Christie, Mike Pompeo, said yesterday. If the allegations are true, president Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them, And then when given the opportunity to return them, he chose not to do that for whatever reason. That is inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers, sailors, airman and marines. And if the allegations are true, some of these were pretty serious important documents.

Okay. That’s pretty strong from Mike Pompeo.

That’s great. I hadn’t heard that. Great. It’s good to see him kinda coming back on.

Mike Pence, kinda hedging. Having read the indictment, these are very serious allegations, and I cannot defend what is alleged he tells the Wall Street Journal, but the president is entitled to his day in court. Okay. So that’s a hedge. Then I want you to talk to me about this one.

Ken Buck, who is a flaming guy from, you know, Colorado Republican congressman from Colorado. Former prosecutor, House Freedom Caucas, member says that if Trump is convicted, I certainly won’t support a convicted felon for the White House.

Fifty fifty?

Don Bacon, Republican from Nebraska. I think it’s obvious what the president did was wrong. I just think the emperor has no clothes. We need to have Republicans stand up and say that. Okay?

Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. At least some of them. Okay.

So let’s talk for a moment about what’s going on with Kevin McCarthy and this revolt of the Taliban twenty who brought the House of Representatives to a grinding halt when they voted against the rules. I think there was that brief moment everybody was going, well, Kevin McCarthy survived all this. Kevin McCarthy stronger than we thought. Kevin McCarthy was more successful. And where is Kevin McCarthy right now?

What’s going on?

Wow. I mean so I know when you talk about a rule, it’s inside baseball, but let me just explain that. I voted maybe a couple times for something called like a motion to recommit when we were in the majority and that’s you like kind of violate all things with your party. It’s a big deal. But even that is not a rule.

A rule is basically saying, hey, we own the floor. We’re in the majority vote for this thing. So this was a huge deal for them to do this and by the way to do it on their own bill which is the stupidest thing.

Mhmm.

The thing that the Taliban twenty, the Freedom Club. I call them the Freedom Club. The thing they know is that there is no downside to doing what they’re gonna do because the moderates are unwilling to use the same tactics. The moderates are unwilling to say fine. We’re gonna tank every freedom club bill that comes to the floor in the same way.

Because, you know, moderates, which I was one there, we just want this stuff to work. We want to work together as a team and go along, get along. So these people know the Matt Gates, etcetera, know, the more they whine, the more attention they can get, and the more people are gonna have to come smile at them. So Kevin is in a really bad place and the thing I have started to recognize which I didn’t really see is that this is really a proxy fight between Kevin and scalise. So I think scalise Really?

Yes. So scalise is if you look at his statements, he’s kind of like you know, I don’t know. This surprised us. McCarthy is saying things like well, this went to the floor and we should have known what was gonna happen on the floor which is going after the majority leader who brings this stuff to the floor. It’s slightly reminiscent of the boehner canter thing from back in twenty ten just a lot more childish.

So I think there is a bit of a proxy fight there and Kevin has no ability to do anything. And so what he does, I’m gonna play the scene for you. He calls in the twenty, the Taliban money into his office. And instead of sitting him down like Bainer would do and taking a drag of his cigarette and saying you know quit being assholes He instead looks at them and smiles and asks how their kids are doing and boy, those cubs are great. You know, how do we get you on board here?

And there’s no downside for these people to not be terrorists.

They’re not afraid of him. No fear.

Yeah. There’s no fear. And he really has nothing to make them afraid of, but that’s because he’s built a reputation as a smiley mcgee. And not like a boehner.

So what do they want? They’re using this very, really used weapon to bring Kevin McCarthy to his knees because they want what and they will do what with it.

I think it’s two things. There’s probably been a lot of stuff promised in that speaker vote that Kevin is unable to follow through on, but nobody’s gonna talk about publicly what that is. So I think that’s one of the things. I also think it’s like if you’re walking your dog and all of a sudden you give that the dog a yank the chain just to remind the dog who’s in charge. That’s what’s happening.

It’s yanking the chain. So Kevin McCarthy heels and quits trying to play little games with them when he wants to, you know, prevent complete disaster.

What is it they want? More investigations What are they would they want bigger spending cuts, more tax cuts, they want to defund the Department of Justice. I mean, there’s gotta be some ask. Right?

I think it’s all different for all of them. Yeah. I think it’s it’s look, think of them in terms of it’s almost confederacy and not with the slaves and the racism, but in this idea that the federal government is actually the enemy. And that’s what a lot of these folks think. The federal government is in and of itself a bad entity.

And so everything they want is either less spending or they want less authority or they want to define this. It is their way whether they consciously realize it or not. It’s their way of in essence, denigrating or tearing apart the federal government. Honestly, I think that’s what it is. And I think there’s half of them are in this simply for the performance art to go raise money and to be famous.

Look at you know, look at Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert. All they wanna do is raise money and be famous. And if if being like a super moderate would have done that for him, they’d be the most super moderate, it’s ever.

You reminded me of something when you conjured up that scene of of John Bainer, the former speaker, you know, sitting in his office, you know, smoking his cigarette, and talking to the the junior members of his caucus because he tells the story when he realized that the power structure of the republican party had changed. It was when Michelle Bachman, who was, you know, one of the early sort of wounds, you know, came in and demanded some key committee assignment, which of course was absurd. And she said, well, I’m gonna go and I’m gonna, you know, complain about you to the the host on Fox News. And then he realized, okay, the entertainment wing of the Republican Party now has more clout than even the speaker of the house of representatives. And that is the reality.

And so what I’ve been waiting for is after that deal to not tank the US economy? What would the entertainment wing? What would the grassroots of the Republican party do? Because there’s really nothing in the DNA. Of that ecosystem that likes the idea that Republicans voted with Democrats that Kevin McCarthy cut a deal with Joe Biden.

That there was this big compromise. You have an entire infrastructure that’s built on stoking out Right? And saying, you’ve been betrayed. These people are not pure enough. And so even though the Taliban twenty May, there may be a small number of them, They know that from the grassroots point of view, from getting the clicks and the contributions, that time is on their side, And that Kevin McCarthy might be able to pull this off once, but will he ever be able to do it twice, Adam?

The next time it happens, what’s going to happen?

Yeah. It’s a great question and that’s something I don’t know. Because honestly, I’ll give him credit. I really thought we were gonna actually see what a debt default looked like.

I did too. Okay.

Yeah. I was I was pleasantly surprised and I actually give Kevin McCarthy a lot of props for, you know, for taking that risk even though that’s a risk every other speaker would have taken up until, you know, two point o. But So I give him credit for that. But, yeah, in terms of the future Look, I lived through this where there’s always a comp, you know, I voted for the infrastructure sure. I was fairly modern on those things.

I voted for a lot of the compromises and, you know, I’d always get about two weeks of everybody saying you’re dead, you’re not gonna survive your primary, and I kick their butts every friggin primary. So I don’t know if this is one of those or what, but you know, at some point, I fear that there’s gonna be something that burns hard enough that the American people are gonna be like, oh, wait. Okay. That’s too much. And I I fear that.

But the GOP is playing with a lot of fire right now. And for me, for such a party that has such an amazing history, Ronald Rhee. I mean, I was a six year old walking around putting in signs for Republican candidates. What a nerd, but I actually believed in it at six years old. It’s so disheartening to see what it’s become.

And that’s why we have to fight so hard for it.

Adam Kinsey, of course, former congressman from Illinois and member of the select committee on January six. He’s a cofounder of Country First, which is backing pro democracy candidates. And he is also a senior political commentator for CNN, and we’re gonna have to talk about this. Has a new book coming out this fall renegade, My Life and Faith, The Military and Defending America from Trump’s attack on democracy. Is that coming out in September, Adam?

It’s coming out in October. Yeah. So

Coming out in October, I cannot wait. Thanks for coming back on the podcast. We have to get you on more often.

Anytime, man. Take care.

And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast on Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, an engineered and edited by Jason Brown.