Trump 2.0: “Beyond What I Even Expected” with Adam Kinzinger

Trump’s first 100 days? Worse than former congressman and “proud RINO” Adam Kinzinger ever imagined. He joins Katie for a bracing conversation about authoritarian creep, advice on Democratic Party messaging, why the next few years could be rougher than anyone’s ready for–and why blind optimism is useless, but keeping hope alive can galvanize the American people.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
How frightening is this to you?

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Pretty frightening? And look, I'm going to steal this from
Charlie Sykes, but I think it's well said. He said,
I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful. And that's
how I feel, which is I look back at history
and I know every time we faced like dark moments,
we've come through them. I mean, one took a civil war,
but we've come through those moments and actually come out stronger.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hi. Everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, and this is next question.
Donald Trump has been president now for one hundred days,
and if you listen to the polls, a lot of
Americans are very unhappy with his performance so far. One
of those Americans is Adam Kinsinger, former congressman and current

(00:48):
critic of the Trump administration. Adam, thanks so much for
joining us. It's great to see you, and we have
a lot to talk about.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah. I good to be with you. Yeah, we really did.
It's been crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Now that Donald Trump has been in office for one
hundred days. How would you describe the first few months
of the Trump administration?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, okay, so I'll give you two different things, my
opinion versus just like objectively, how is he done. My opinion,
this is way worse than anything I imagined. I was
trying to warn the Democrats basically between Trump's victory and
inauguration day, like you guys need to get your ducks
in a row because this thing could go fast. Right.
One of my biggest frustrations, and I think this is why, frankly,

(01:32):
so many Democrats are upset, is because you know, Donald
Trump gets inaugurated. Doge, this fake agency Doge gets created
out of thin air, and then for about two weeks
Congress is out of session and Democrats went home and
so like all this that was going on was happening
with no opposition in place, and I think that created
a lot of fury. And for me, it bothered me

(01:53):
because I'm like, look, guys, we were warning you this
was going to happen. It is Project twenty twenty five.
They had the playbook out there. So his rapid advancement
in terms of kind of illiberalism authoritarianism has been beyond
what I even expected objectively. So taking my opinion out
and saying how is he done tactically, Well, if your

(02:14):
goal is illiberalism, if your goal is you know, authoritarianism,
he's done a great job getting there, right. That's that
if your goal is as strong America with strong alliances
that's respected in the world, he gets a terrible job.
If your goal is if your interest is the economy,
the US economy, he's done a terrible job. So I'll

(02:35):
just say this, it is really bad for the United
States of America right now. I think we can get
out of this, but I think we're in for a
few years where it's going to be rough, and frankly,
we have to have these conversations about what is lawful,
right and actually effective resistance to this.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Well, let's talk about the role of the Democrats and
their failure to provide a bulwark against many of these actions.
If you could go back in time, and of course
hindsight is twenty twenty, what should the Democrats have done
in terms of organizing to create some cohesive resistance.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, I think it's first important to say, look, the election.
There's this idea that it was a blowout by Trump.
It wasn't. I mean, you know, butterfly effect. If two
weeks prior a bird would have sneezed a different direction, right,
you know, Trump could have lost. It was one percent
in every one of the swing states, and one percent
can change on a dime. So it was a close election.
What could they have done between that election and inauguration

(03:36):
day is I think be ready for what was coming
and have a plan, plan to not go home. Look,
when you're in the minority, really this is in the House. Now,
keep in mind, actually the majority is so close that
the minority. In this case, the Democrats actually have a
little more power because they only need to peel off
a couple of Republicans. But generally speaking, you know, the
first time I was in the minority in the House,

(03:58):
one thing we learned is you're weapon is messaging and
that's it. You know, yes, you can vote no on everything,
and you will vote no on everything, but your ability
to message is what's important. So that message should have
been put together. They should have determined that when session
went out after frankly January sixth, and then after inauguration,
they should have stayed in DC. And then let me

(04:19):
give you an example. All of a sudden, doge is
running wild in these different agencies. Right, they should have
been there on day one. They eventually did it. On
day one. They should have gone to every one of
these agencies demanded entrance. If by then Doge would have
had their ducks together and prevented them entry, they should
have then turned around, made a big deal about it,

(04:41):
turned around, gone to the DC courts, and gotten a
court order for entry. There is no legal merit or
legal reason for a member of Congress to be denied
entry into an organization or into agency. Yeah, a federal
agency that they oversee that the courts would take their side.
You do those battles. You're messaging repeatedly on the floor.

(05:02):
You're messaging repeatedly to every media outlet you can, whether
it's mainstream media, even whether it's some of these podcasts.
You put your best messengers out there. And the other
thing I'll say this is just kind of generally speaking,
Democrats have to win the working class back again. And
I know within the Democratic Party I've paid attention to it,
there's this kind of battle between well, the problem is

(05:22):
we didn't turn out the left enough, you know, and
we shouldn't have gone after Republicans versus. I don't believe that, right.
I think the reality is a lot of Republicans voted
Democratic this time, but you're losing. The Democrats are losing
the working class and that was their bread and butter.
That's what they've got to get back and men, working
class and men.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
And I'd love to dig into that a little bit more.
But first, don't you think the Democrats need a cohesive,
coherent message? In other words, media is so fragmented, as
you know, and it seems that not only did they
not do enough in the early days of the administration
some of the things that you've suggested, but the messaging

(06:04):
seems to be all over the place. And that is
one thing that Republicans and MAGA specifically has done well,
very general, easy to understand messaging and cohesive messaging across
all their messengers and all their platforms.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
You know. The funny thing is, when I was in Congress,
we always thought the Democrats were better at this than us,
and honestly they were until recently. So for Democrats, again,
my advice is go back to what you used to
think on this stuff, right, you would have pretty strict messages.
Let me give you an example of a message that
I think can work that works for the Republicans. How
many times have we heard the term Biden crime family. Okay,

(06:45):
now you can look and say well, what are Biden's crimes. Well,
they never proved any crimes, but the moniker of Biden
crime family stuck and that made it out of just
the Fox News realm, that made it everywhere. The reality
is Trump has a crime family. I mean, you look
at the stuff that's going on with crypto, the dinner
he's throwing for his own meme coin, the fact that
a Chinese billionaire or millionaire who had a crypto investigation

(07:09):
against him had that dropped after buying some Trump crypto,
and you look through Don Junior is on the board
of Calshe, which is a political betting website. I could
go on and on.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Well, what about Dave McCormick having a huge investment in
being the member of the Senate who's overseeing crypto regulation.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Absolutely that, Absolutely that. And you think of Elon Musk, right,
who's willing to go in, take a chainsaw, tell you
everything that you can live without in the federal government,
while ensuring that his SpaceX and even Tesla contracts are protected,
if not even more robust. We're continuing this mission to Mars,
which look, I'm all for trying to go to Mars,

(07:47):
but we're continuing this mission while we're cutting food stamps
and everything else. And so I think the issue of
corruption is not just a talking point, it's a reality.
And I honestly think if we go forward ten years
and look back on this administration, the theme that will
be a thread throughout it is corruption. It's like when
you think Nixon, you think of corruption. That's I think

(08:07):
that what the Democrats have got to focus on.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
So how do they do that in a pithy, short
sentence or in the kind of earworm that Donald Trump
is so good at creating, for example, fake news that
became this earworm that every time there was something that
was critical of him or his administration, everyone who supported

(08:31):
him would accuse the media of fake news. So how
do you do one of those clever, short, catchy phrases.
Would you say, Trump crime family, give us some ideas.
I know you're not in marketing, but that's what they need,
isn't it?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
It is? And so let's take the issue of fake news.
Now fake news when you think of it, now, what
you think about is Donald Trump calling the news media fake?
Do you actually know where fake news came from? It
was the idea of misinformation. It actually was fake news.
So it's when we were talking about Russian misinformation for instance.
Or you know, if somebody created a fake news website

(09:10):
and they wrote a fake story and then that gets
picked up by you know, the media or whatever. That's
what fake news was. It was legitimately fake news. He
took that and turned it into his thing, because he
does that just by shamelessness and repeatedly repeating things and
so to his people. And by the way, it doesn't
happen in a month. It happens in like three or
four years. That's the other thing. You've got to have

(09:31):
patience for the long game here. So I think one
example is Biden crime family is stuck. Why don't we
do Trump crime family or something related to that that
can stick Trump criminals, the criminal Trump family, the Trump
crime family, whatever it is, and stick to that message.
And understand that's going to take two to four years
to stick, but we've got to stick with it. It's

(09:53):
just like, look the whole idea of you know, we're
one hundred days in. Donald Trump has terrible poll numbers,
people are still upset. Forty percent of America still likes him. Okay,
let's look at what we've gained, which is he's historically unpopular.
A lot of runway in front of us. Just understand,
this stuff takes time, but you've got to be disciplined
about it, and they're very disciplined. The other side is, well.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Let's talk about these polls. The ABC Washington Post IPSOS
poll shows his approval rating is thirty nine percent. Now,
that's the lowest rating of any newly elected president at
the one hundred day mark since Dwight D. Eisenhower. And
the CNN poll just twenty two percent say they strongly
approve of his handling and the job. Forty five percent

(10:38):
they strongly disapprove. So when you read these polls, and
there have been a number of them that have come
out at this one hundred day mark, tell us what
you extrapolate from them.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
So there's really two big issues within that that I
think should be warning science for the Republicans. Number one
is Trump always won on the issue of the economy.
He's now well, actually very significantly underwater on the issue
of the economy. Now, again, keep in mind when you
say economy, that means different things to different people. But
what it shows is Americans right now feel very anxious

(11:11):
about where the economy's at They did not feel this
way at the very beginning of January. So that's one thing.
The other thing is the issue of immigration. Donald Trump
was always winning on the issue of immigration. Now again immigration.
If you just say that to somebody, it may mean
a different thing to me than it means to you know,
even my wife. But he was always above He's now

(11:33):
underwater on the issue of immigration. What does that mean. Well,
people still probably want border security. I think that's pretty
universally desired. I also think the vast majority of Americans
want a pathway to legalization for folks that are here illegally,
not necessarily citizenship in the first ten years, but legalization
and then eventually citizenship. And so people are kind of
looking at this going okay, this like heartless deportation that's

(11:56):
going on. And look, it's one thing to say we
think people that are herely should be deported. Okay, that's
a defendable position. What I think is indefensible is the
White House putting out ASMR videos where they're dragging a
chain and they're like, isn't this amazing? Or Christy Nomes
going to the JLNL Salvador and standing in front of it,

(12:16):
so we all feel good about how terribly people are
being treated. And look, the MAGA hardcore base may love that.
Unfortunately they do, the vast majority of Americans don't. Those
are two warning signs. And if you go even deeper
within that, where Donald Trump is taking big hits are
with the youth, which he never should have won, but
he came pretty close to winning. And then specifically among Hispanics.

(12:38):
And it's not necessarily because of immigration that he's lost
ground with Hispanics. I think a lot of that is
economy related, but those are some of his biggest areas.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Let's dig into immigration for a moment, Adam, because it's
not only heartless but in many cases illegal. Can you
talk about due process and I know that many Americans
probably a theoretical term when they hear those two words,
but talk about how important it is to convey that

(13:10):
this is being done illegally and unconstitutionally.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Well, let me put it this way. If you're driving
in a fifty five mile an hour zone and you're
going seventy five and you get pulled over, and let's
say the penalty over nineteen miles an hour is arrest
in jail Okay, let's say you get arrested, you go
to jail. The one thing you know, even as a
law abiding citizen, is you'll have an opportunity to go
to court. You'll have an opportunity to maybe negotiate that down,

(13:35):
pay some kind of penalty or whatever. Imagine if we
lived in a country that said, if the police officer
says that you did twenty miles an hour over the
speed limit, you don't get a trial, you don't get
an opportunity to defend yourself. You're automatically guilty in one
year in jail. What does that do. Well, if that's
the penalty and you get pulled over for doing twenty over,
you're going to serve the time. But let's say an

(13:56):
officer just says you did twenty over and you weren't
doing it, you have no ability to defend yourself. That's
the situation when it comes to immigration. You know, look
what they do is they're taking the people that are
in generally you know, may have connections to organized crime,
maybe broke the law here besides just coming illegally, and
they're breaking due process. They're not giving due processes people

(14:18):
and they're saying, wait, what you want due process for
this guy who is a member of a gang. What
about you know, this person who was killed by a
gang member. This person didn't have due process. All of
that's true, But what they're doing is trying to get
you to focus on the badness of a person and
not the fact that everybody in the United States of

(14:39):
America gets a chance to plea their case. Now, very well,
if you're a member of MS thirteen, for instance, and
the government can prove it, you're going to probably be deported,
as you should be, but you should still have a
right to make your case. And look, the Constitution does
not delineate between US citizens in the United States of
America or any people in the United States of America.

(15:01):
And so when you break due process for the least
of these, like the Bible says, whatever you do for
the least of these, you do under me. Here's the
other thing, all of these little things we're doing little
steps towards authoritarianism or towards illiberalism, whatever you want to
call it. Each step in and of itself is not
enough to be outraged to the point of take to

(15:24):
the streets in general, strike right, But in cumulation they
are and when you say to somebody, we're gonna not
do due process for this bad person. Well, next thing,
it's okay, we're not gonna do due process because we
already did it for the bags, for the people that
are here illegally. And then well, there are enemies of
the state, and I get it, they're American citizens, but

(15:45):
you know they were Palestinian rallies or whatever. And then
next it's Adam Kinsinger. He's a Rhino and he went
against the president. And the next thing it's you. That's
how these little steps, each of which is not enough
to spark massive outrage, but in cumulation is as as
they said, you know, and again I don't want to
make comparisons to Nazi Germany, but in this case it's
a good example, which is, if in nineteen thirty five

(16:07):
they'd have opened concentration camps, the German public would have rebelled.
But if you just boil the frog to the point
where you open it in and of itself, you get
yourself to a point where it's not outrageous enough.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
How frightening is this to you?

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Uh? Pretty frightening. And look, I'm going to steal this
from Charlie Sykes, But I think it's well said, he said.
I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful. And that's
how I feel, which is I look back at history,
and I know every time we've faced like dark moments,
we've come through them. I mean, one took a civil war,
but we've come through those moments and actually come out stronger.

(16:43):
So I have no reason to believe that the American
people have fundamentally their DNA has changed, that we're not
going to come back out of this stronger. Three and
a half years seems like forever when you're on this
side of it, but once it's past, you look back
and it goes by in an instant. And I mean,
by the way, we're one hundred days in and already
millions of Americans have taken to the streets in almost

(17:03):
every organized town and city in this country. Those are
good science, but our defensive democracy is not automatic. And
that's where I'm very concerned, is, you know, we have
to step up. A judge in Wisconsin is arrested, Like
some of this stuff is outrageous and we've grown numb
to it.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Let's talk about the arrest of that Wisconsin judge, Hannah
Dugan who was arrested by the FBI on suspicion that
she had steered an undocumented immigrant through a side door
to evade federal agents. Why is that such an outrage
in your view?

Speaker 2 (17:39):
So it's two things. First Off, I didn't know it
was illegal to, you know, kind of hide somebody that
has not been convicted necessarily by the Feds they wanted
to deport them. I don't know all the details, but
is this saying that if you know somebody who's illegal
and they're at your house and the police come, that
it's illegal to say they're not there. That's kind of chilling,

(18:01):
to be honest with you, if it's like that. But secondarily,
simply the fact that ICE in general has always kind
of had an unspoken rule or maybe spoken rule with
local jurisdictions that they won't enforce there. Because what you
want to do is first off, tell anybody that's in
the country illegally that they can still use the judicial system.
Maybe they're a victim of a crime. Right if you
have a rape victim, for instance, who's an illegal immigrant,

(18:25):
are they going to go to the law enforcement if
they know that ICE is camped out right there and
ready to deport them. And then the other thing is
just look, I'll say this is an old school former
Republican is like, we actually used to believe in sovereignty
of states. We actually used to believe that states had
a certain power that the federal government didn't. And so
the idea that the Feds are going to come in

(18:45):
and say we're going to arrest a duly elected, by
the way, not appointed, a duly elected judge in Milwaukee
is very chilling. And Plus, I think Carol Levitt or
somebody today or yesterday said that they wouldn't hesitate to
arrest a Supreme Court justice that they said would violate
the law. And again, the question isn't yeah, okay, if
John Roberts murdered somebody, you can arrest John Roberts. They're

(19:09):
not talking about that. They are defining what is breaking
the law and what isn't. Look, I'm called a lawbreaker
why because I was on a committee that investigated January sixth.
In Donald Trump's mind, I am a criminal for investigating him.
So do we really want to leave them with the
power to determine what a crime is and what's arrestable.

(19:29):
That's why it's extremely chilling.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
What if we told you it was possible to prevent, manage,
your cure all disease by the end of the century.
The chan Zuckerberg Initiative is advancing biomedical research and leveraging
AI to change medicine for decades to come. By bringing
together science, tech researchers, and engineers, they're building a better
future for everyone. Learn more at CZI dot com, that's

(20:04):
CZI dot com, or follow them on social media. I
have to ask you about the removal of three children
who are US citizens by Ice, as well as their

(20:25):
mothers from this country last Friday. One, a four year
old with stage four cancer, was sent without medication or
the ability to contact their doctors. According to their lawyer,
this is yet another major story about people lawfully living
in this country being forced to leave, another chilling example of,

(20:48):
to say the least, overreach by the administration.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's complete overreach. And again, the other bigger point on
this is it's complete heartlessness. I mean, look, if when
you look at in essence, all the periods of American history,
even when we did pretty evil things, like the people
that did evil things in many cases thought they were
I don't know, maybe they thought they were doing the
right thing whatever. But like for us to now say,

(21:16):
you know what, we sent a kid who's an American
citizen and has stage four cancers, Oh well, their parents
shouldn't have been illegal. I mean, what does that say
about the heart of America? Like, that's what concerns me.
You know, the one thing that the United States had
over it that I think is better than what you
have over generic country A or B, whatever it is,
is that in everything we did, even when we got

(21:36):
it wrong. You know, when we intervened in areas we
probably shouldn't have created a war or whatever. Each time,
though we did it under the belief that we were
doing the right thing, or at least the American people
thought we were doing the right thing. We've shed now
this belief that we are a moral country, and we've
now allowed our base instincts to take over. Okay, I've
always said, like humanity has a battle in their heart

(21:59):
every year day, each one of us. Do you have
a battle of light and darkness? Right? You know you
have to kind of fight the divisive thoughts that the
negative thoughts and try to have light overcome it. But
darkness is so much easier to embrace. If you embrace darkness.
It's easy. You can let somebody else do it. You
can let all those really base instincts of hate, of division,

(22:20):
of fear take over and rule your life. The problem
is it's really destructive to you, to your family and
to the community. And that's where we're at as a
nation now, is letting those destructive tendencies take over and
that complete heartlessness. And so do they have a legal
right to deport a kid with an illegal mother that
maybe wants our kid to go with her? You know,

(22:40):
I don't. There's nuances. I don't know, but I know
that we were a country in the past that if
there was a legal US citizen, we certainly wouldn't deport
them and can't. And that's a big concern to me,
is because again you go into these like little steps
and what do they ultimately end up. Well, let's start
deporting enemies of the state, which Donald Trump's already said
he wants to do.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
He does have the lowest approval rating for any president
in his first one hundred days since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
What do you think, Adam, it will take for his
hardcore magabase to flip.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
If the hardcore magabase flips. It will be because of
a devastating economy, a devastating economy that you can absolutely
pin on him, right, So, all of a sudden, this
is quite possible. We have real shortages of things like
toilet paper. It reminds us of COVID and the supply
chain issues there. I mean, we're finding out that, you know,
shipments that are supposed to be arriving on the West

(23:39):
Coast are already either significantly gone or have much less
inventory coming in. That trickle down effect to the railroads,
to the truckers, to the grocery store, and to the
Walgreens or Cbs is pretty devastating. You know, in rural America,
for instance, what did they do with the farm economy?
What happens there? Do we end up in a nineteen
ninety five farmedy. I mean, I was raised in the Midwest.

(24:02):
Mid nineties were awful for the farm economy, and it's
when a lot of the family businesses went out and
you saw the big corporations come in and take them over.
I also think though the hardcore Magas may stick with him,
you know, through thick and thin, but of the people
that voted for him, a significant part is the MAGA base,
But there's a part here that is just kind of
I've talked to a lot of them that are like,

(24:23):
I don't like him, but I didn't like Joe Biden,
and the economy was better under Trump.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
And I didn't like Kamala Harris.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Right, And I didn't like Kamala Harris. And it's like, okay, well,
I mean you have a right to vote for Trump.
Those are the first that are going to go. And
I think you're already seeing them start to peel off,
which is like, yeah, maybe they didn't like some of
the social policies of Kamala or Biden or whatever it is,
but you automatically made this assumption that the economy was
going to be good. So it's like Maslow's hierarchy, Right,

(24:53):
the economy is here. If you assume that's gonna be good,
then you can start voting on these little self actualization
things that bother you. Right, Well, all of a sudden,
if the economy collapses and crumbles, you're going back into
the base instinctom I got to protect my family, and
I think that does a lot of damage to him.
He may not personally care about his approval ratings because look,
he's not going to run again. He may want to,

(25:15):
and he may try to.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
There's certainly a lot of noise about that, Adam.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
There is. I still believe in this case the Constitution
and the Supreme Court is actually strong enough to deny him.
I think where the battle could be is what happens
in different states when they have to make the decision.
So we can talk about that, but I think the
bottom line is he may not care about his polling,
but the people that will are the Republicans in Congress
that now, all of a sudden, this is why things

(25:39):
like town halls and protests are so important, because we
have to send a message to these members of Congress
that they should fear politically, not physically, should fear their
constituents more than they fear Donald Trump. Katie, I hated
doing town hall meetings. I hated them. Why because I
had to stand in front of people and just fi

(26:00):
what I did. I would do them, but I hated them.
That's why you have to do it. That's why your
member of Congress has to come in front of you,
because they work for you and they deserve to give
you answers. And by the way, if that whole crowd
is a bunch of people that don't like that congressman, okay,
you know what, he or she could turn out people
that support them, but those people aren't as motivated. And
if they're not doing town halls, force them to. And

(26:22):
if they say they're going to do a telephone town
hall instead, that's not a real town hall. You can
totally control a telephone town hall. That's an old trick.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
By the way, I was going to ask you why
you hated doing town halls, because ostensibly you thought you
were doing the right thing and defending what you did
in Congress should not have been that difficult, was it.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
So keep in mind the majority of the town halls
I had to do. The people that would turn out
to yell at me were kind of the far right, okay,
because at that time the Democrats in the left, they
may have liked me as a Republican, but they weren't
going to really support me. I always had battles with
the right. So I would have to stand in front
and justify why to raise the debt limit, for instance,

(27:02):
and they would go apoplectic and I would have to
explain to them how you have to raise a debt
limit that's just a requirement, or how you can't solve
the federal budget in one year. So it's not fun
to do. I mean, like standing in front and doing
it is not fun to do. But I recognized that
I got paid to do that. I got paid to
be accountable to the people that sent me to Washington, DC.

(27:23):
And if I didn't want to do it anymore, and
eventually I didn't want to do it anymore, and I
didn't run again of a district of seven hundred thousand people,
there's somebody that can replace me.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'm just curious. You say that members of Congress have
to fear their constituents more than Donald Trump, and Lisa
Murkowski talked about that at a town hall meeting, how
fearful she was about retribution from the White House. Are
you starting to see Republican members of Congress Adam stand

(27:52):
up and fight against Trump and are you hopeful more
will do so in the near future.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
It's a tough question to answer. I can't say. You know,
Lisa Murkowski is one of the shining stars I think
of Republicans that's willing to tell the truth and willing
to vote her conscience when I think of the House.
I mean, look, there's a few in there. You think
of people like Don Bacon or Brian Fitzpatrick specifically on
the issue of Ukraine, for instance, that are out there

(28:19):
being very aggressive on Ukraine, and so I give credit
to that. But at the same time, look and I go,
many of these people lived through and sat through January
sixth and sat through the investigation, put out statements about
how the investigation was somehow partisan or whatever. And so
I'll be honest, I don't really see indications that people

(28:41):
are willing to step up yet. I think they're so
frozen in fear. And I think the thing we have
to remember is Donald Trump still feels like a new
phenomenon to us, but he's been in the system for
about ten years now, and over those ten years, they've
been able to shake out anybody with any independent thought,
anybody with any courage, anybody that's willing to tell the truth,
and they've basically formed a party like a cult in

(29:04):
its own image. So am I hopeful that people wake up?
I guess, like, yeah, I want to remain hopeful, but
I guess I haven't seen many indications of that yet.
With Lisa Markowski being a rare exception. I just want
to say this too. If you're scared in the job,
get a different job. Like the thing is, it doesn't
pay that well. Like it pays okay, one hundred and

(29:24):
seventy four thousand dollars a year, which by the way,
has been the same salary since two thousand and six,
so with inflation, it's been about a thirty five percent
pay cut. Okay. Why do the job if you're scared?
Why do the job if you think you know death
threats are going to come to you and you're going
to vote a different way because of that. I mean,
I hear people say they voted against impeachment because of
the death threats. Like I had death threats too, Okay,

(29:47):
but I also recognize that my job wasn't to be
scared of death threats. It was to do the right thing.
I don't know, it just goes beyond anything I can
even understand.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
I guess what do you think it is? Why are
they so afraid? You're right? Find out new job or
grow a pair? And the question is are they just
that addicted to power? Do they not know what else
to do with their lives? What's wrong?

Speaker 2 (30:09):
With these people, I think you're onto it. I think
it's Look, you imagine most of these people. I was
young when I got into politics. I was thirty two
thirty one when I was elected, and most of these
people get elected at fifty sixty years old. Okay, So
think about that. They spent their entire life probably with
the desire to go to the House of Representatives, and

(30:29):
then they made it, right, I mean, it's a big
achievement to make it again. One out of seven hundred
thousand people serve in that body. And so now all
of a sudden, the idea of taking a stand. Maybe
that feels heroic, but you've looked at everybody that has
taken a stand, and they all have lost or gotten
kicked out right, And so you make the decision and
you justify it to yourself. You justified because you have

(30:52):
sunken costs, Like why did we stay in Vietnam? Because
we already lost ten thousand men. We can't leave now
right now, we've so you've already justified the the moral
decisions you've made, and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna stay
because if I leave, somebody worse is going to replace me.
The other thing is this, look, I think people fear
more than they fear death. They fear being kicked out
of their tribe and their social circle. And I got

(31:14):
to tell you, as a guy that's been kind of
kicked out of a tribe, there, it sucks. It hurts.
You lose friends, friends that you think are real, friends
that you recognize, aren't. You lose some family members over it.
And I mean there were points at which probably death
would have been easier than some of the things that
I had to go through, and these people would have
to go through that's a big fear too. But let
me just say this. I went into Congress with this
idea that someday, you know, if I had to go

(31:37):
out in a blaze of glory standing for truth, I
would do it. And I actually got an opportunity to
do it. And I got to tell you, most people,
I've learned, most people, very rarely, even in Congress, get
an opportunity to kind of, you know, stand against the pressure.
And those that get the opportunity, even very few are
willing to do it. I have no regrets about it,

(31:58):
and I'm happy to be out now. And the only
regret I have is I wish I would have done
it louder and twice as hard.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Let me ask you about the Pentagon has a former
Air Force pilot. You must know lots of people Adam
in the military still, and lots of people of the
Department of Defense. It sounds as if it is a
real pardon my French shit show there right now. Tell
us what you're hearing and how people feel about Pete

(32:25):
hegsas leadership.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, I mean, look, and I know some of the
people that are in the news stories right now, and
it's I think it's for your average probably soldier that
they probably don't really care too much because to them
it's like, well, what's my mission today? Whatever. A lot
of my friends are kind of higher ranking officers, and yeah,
they're a little concerned about it, you know, they're bothered

(32:49):
by it.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
What are they saying to you, Adam, I.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Think just chaos, Like what's this chaos? You know? And
by the way, I'm talking to some of my friends
that are like hardcore Trumpers actually that are now like
they haven't necessarily turned on Trump, So I don't want
to get people that impression, but they've kind of turned
on Heg Sath and been like this is just chaos
for the sake of chaos, right. They also recognize, here's
a big point, if any of my friends that are

(33:13):
still in the military had done on a signal chat
what heg Sath and all those people did, they'd be
in Leavenworth right now, or at least facing the possibility
of a jail sentence for that. And they recognize the
disparity and the unfairness of that. The interesting dynamic about
the military, though, is it's probably just as divided as
regular society is. When I was in typically the officer

(33:34):
corps was more Republican, about eighty percent of military officers
voted Republican. The enlisted was about split fifty to fifty.
You're actually seeing the opposite of that now, you're seeing
the enlisted core tends to be more kind of Maga
and Trump right now, and the officer court is about
fifty to fifty, maybe even slightly leaning Democratic. What's the reason, Well,

(33:55):
because broader what you've seen as Democrats are winning college
educated and Republican aren't, and officers are you know, have
to have college degrees. The concern I have is, look,
the military, they've always told us our job is to
defend the Constitution not to follow the unconstitutional orders. But
what the early moves of the Trump administration in the
Pentagon has been to put loyalists in place and make

(34:17):
it very clear that you work for Donald Trump, not
for the Constitution. And of course, one man's constitutional defense
is another man's constitutional traitorism. Like what is defending the Constitution?
It's different with every person. So I worry about kind
of that moral morass that the Pentagon could find itself in.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Given these two signal chat incidents, what do you think
should happen to Pete heg Seth And do you think
anything will?

Speaker 2 (34:42):
I mean, HEGs I should be out on us. But
the reality is this guy. You know, I feel like
I could be Secretary of Defense, but I also feel
like I would have a steep learning curve. I outranked
heg Seth in the military. I've been in more operations
than him, and I served, you know, twelve years in Congress.
I understand in government, this guy was a major, great

(35:04):
cool and a weekend talk show host, and all of
a sudden is now taking the largest, most legal organization
in the world, totally in over his head. He knows it.
That's what you can read it in the signal chats.
He knows he's over his head because he's doing his
damnedest to try to prove to everybody that he's totally capable.
He's got like this imposture syndrome, except it would be

(35:25):
called syndrome, except it's just he's actually an imposture. So
I think he needs to be fired and removed. And
I think eventually, if we fast forward to July, I
think he's gone. I think he'll probably stick around for
a little bit, so it doesn't appear that he was
pushed out by the Libs or whatever. But I don't
think he's going to last a whole lot longer. That's
just my prediction.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
I want to ask you about your recent substack about
the impacts tariffs and DOGE cuts are having on your
home state of Illinois, Adams, specifically among farmers in the Midwest.
I spoke with the farmer from Iowa not too long
ago that Tom Harkin connected me with, and there was
a lot of concern about the DOGE cuts, about USDA cuts,

(36:08):
about programs for needy school children, about subsidies, about training programs,
about all kinds of things that were impacting farmers seventy
seven percent of whom voted for Donald Trump. What are
you hearing from your home state.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, I mean the same thing. Look, it's just the
twelve second budget primer. Like, you could eliminate the Department
of Defense and every federal agency and we would still
be running a budget deficit right now, which is humbling
to think about. One of the largest expenditures now is
simply interest on the debt. We're spending more in interest
on the debt than we are on all of defense,

(36:44):
and we are on Medicare. So the problems with the
debt and deficit have got to be structural reforms. Those
structural reforms are not going into programs like USAID, which
is less than half a percent of the budget and
has exponential results in terms of helping out to avoid
war and to basically have power outreach. And then on
the local, on the farm community, you know things like

(37:07):
you know, if you have a child with autism, for instance,
and you know you want them to have a little
extra help in their school district, that help comes from
the federal government, even though it's done by the school district.
You start taking programs like that away, and all of
a sudden you're going to see RFK Junior's little thing
about how you know autism is somehow makes you less
of a person come true, because they're not going to

(37:28):
have access to the resources they need. And for farmers,
you know, during the first Trump administration, when there were tariffs,
you know, moderately on China and a few other places,
and then they still gave bailouts to the farmers. Every
farmer I talked to said two things. Number One, the
bailouts are not enough to take into account you know,
how much they would have sold otherwise. And they don't

(37:48):
want to bail out. Who wants a bailout When you're
a farmer, you're obviously you want to work hard, you
want to see the results of your production, and you
want to know that what you're doing is feeding people.
You don't need to check from the government to make
sure that you just stay. I mean, you'll take it,
but that's not what your goal in life is. And
so I'm hearing the same thing, which is they're worried
about what the cuts are. They're worried about, you know,

(38:10):
obviously the tariffs China or somebody just said they canceled
one hundred and fifty tons of beef for one hundred
and fifty million tons of whatever it was, and that's
going to have real devastating impacts. Does that mean they've
turned against Trump? Not necessarily, because I think a lot
of them. I think a lot of them still believe
he's playing some six dimensional chess game, and it may

(38:31):
take them to actually see a little more that he
really doesn't know what he's doing for them to be like, Okay,
it's time to move on.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
What happens if after a period of pain for farmers
and small businesses, somehow this tariff thing turns around and
works in his favor. I mean, that's what he's trying
to convince voters of that there is going to be
a period of pain until things get better. Is there
any evidence that that could happen in your view?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Well, let me just say, if magically it did happen,
of course it would reflect well on him. But I
can confidently say it ain't gonna happen. Why because look,
here's here's a quick example. We've put tariffs on coffee imports.
The United States is basically physically incapable of even growing coffee.
We can grow a little bit in California, a little

(39:21):
bit in Hawaii. It's like one percent of what we
can what we drink in coffee. So we're tariffing an
industry that we can't even compete against. That that's pointless
all of a sudden. You know, this idea that Donald
Trump wants to bring iPhone manufacturing here is insane because
how many people are gonna want to do a job,
you know, screwing little screws into an iPhone. We don't

(39:43):
have the people to do it because we do a
pretty low unemployment in this country, and now we're deporting
every immigrant that could possibly work at that place. Think
of it. Remember the whole eating the dogs and cats
in Columbus, Ohio thing. Why were there so many Haitians
in Columbus, Ohio because they were needed for work in
manufacturing because they needed the employees there. So it's even

(40:04):
if banning manufacturing makes the idea to come back here,
they're not going to have the people to hire. Here's
the amazing thing is after COVID, the supply chains were
massively realigning in the United States. Favor I actually ran
a bill through that said, like, we will incentivize certain
industries to either onshore or near shore Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras,

(40:26):
right among an allied nation that we know, for instance, penicillin,
we have access to penicillin. We don't have to rely
on China for that. But now we've tariffed Mexico, so
we're now saying you can't even relocate to a near
ally to defend the supply chain. So we've basically reversed
any game that naturally happened after COVID. And so I'm
very convinced that unless everything I know about economics is wrong,

(40:50):
this will not play out in his favor. Sure, the
government's going to raise a little more money in the meantime,
and then we're going to lose a lot in tax revenue,
which is something that he's not thinking.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. It

(41:28):
seems between tariffs and cozying up to Vladimir Putin, Donald
Trump is doing everything in his power to alienate our
allies and to reshuffle the world order. Can you figure
out why and can you talk about the consequences of this.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
When you think like a narcissist. And I think narcissistic
is kind of a kind word for Trump. It's megalomania
or whatever. You cannot separate the view of the country
and the view of yourself when you're president. So there
is no interest in the country. It's all what is
in Trump's interest. He looks at somebody like Vladimir Putin,
like Kim Jong und who is living like he wants

(42:08):
to be, and he admires that. I think that's part
of it. I mean, there could be more to the
Russia stuff, because I can't understand why he can't even
once utter a bad word about Russia. But let me
make the case for why this is so important. So,
the United States of America has been for the last
century basically the leader of the world. We also have
the largest economy in the world. I remember twenty years

(42:31):
ago saying that by the year twenty ten or twenty fifteen,
China would surpass the US economy. Well, they haven't done that, okay,
and they're not actually anywhere near doing that unless we
continue to go on the path we're going on. And
why is that because the trade deals that we've created,
the economic thing of like high level manufacturing, they'll be

(42:52):
done here. But things like socks. You know, yes, we
used to make socks, but right now it doesn't make
sense to so we'll import those. And we've got this
thing that works really well with some challenges that we
can actually fix, and we should go after unfair trade
practices with China. But let's keep this in mind. After
World War Two, the United States, after the destruction of
the industrial capacity of all of Europe and basically Japan,

(43:15):
the United States built back that industry here in the
United States, which is why we had a massive explosion
of industry in the forties and fifties. It was no
reason besides it was destroyed everywhere else in the world,
and we took advantage of that. That benefited the United
States of America. We also basically wrote the international institutions.
We wrote the rules of trade, we wrote the rules

(43:37):
of war. We made the determination that we were going
to protect all of the seas and the transition of
the seas and the transportation on the seas, which makes
the whole signal chat insane. When they're complaining about Europe
by the way the UK and France was helping us
in the Red Sea. But when you complain about Europe,
but yet we told Europe, don't worry. The United States

(43:58):
Navy will protect freedom of navigation of the seas. Why,
kindness of our heart, not really, because it's to our benefit.
So the post World War Two order, as great as
it is, and it is great for humanity, was also
written to advantage the United States. You throw that out
and all of a sudden, we're no different than Russia
or China, and we're going to pay a price for that.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
What is the endgame with Ukraine? It's hard to keep
up with the negotiations trying to convince Vladimir Putin. I
guess he just ordered a three day ceasefire. That was
the last thing I saw. But the Trump administration trying
to get Zelensky to accept that the Russians should have
Crimea and other territories that they have gotten during the

(44:42):
course of this war. Can you help us understand what
the hell is going on and what the endgame is?

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Well, first off, let's say it. Where is the war
right now? And here's the thing I think we have
to always remember. Freight attacking country to win, the attacking
country has to force the defending country to capitulate in
the attacking country has to achieve its goals. For a
defending country to win the war, all they have to
do is keep defending themselves. They don't have to invade
the Ukraine doesn't have to take over Moscow. It just

(45:11):
has to keep defending. Ukraine is winning this war. The
Russians are losing at the rate of one thousand men
a day, so in a week and a half, the
Russians lose as many as we lost in twenty years
in Afghanistan. Every week and a half. They're out of
offensive combat power. All their tanks are destroyed, they're pulling
stuff out of storage from World War Two. They're attacking

(45:32):
with donkeys, and they're making no gains on the ground.
But Vladimir Putin wants to put out the impression that
his victory is an inevitability here and that he doesn't
want to negotiate because he's gonna win anyway. And unfortunately
the Trump administration and a lot of people watching have
bought into that theory, and they feel this panic that
Ukraine has to surrender now or they're gonna lose everything.

(45:54):
That's not the case. Now, It's also true that they're
like two boxers in the tenth round that are kind
of throwing punts at each other, but they're both exhausted.
So it is time to negotiate an endto this war.
But how do you negotiate it. Into the war, you
basically respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and to allow Ukraine to
have money to rebuild, because that's going to be the

(46:14):
big key. You have to give Ukraine security guarantees because
if you're a corporation and you want to invest in Ukraine,
you're not going to invest a single dollar unless you
know that war is not going to start again, and
then you're happy to invest billions into the country. In
terms of like you know, the East and Crimea. I
think it's realistic to say that at no point soon
are the Ukrainians going to, for instance, attack and take

(46:36):
back Crimea. That is called a de facto recognition, So
you're basically recognizing the fact that Russia is in Crimea,
let's end this war. We're not going to force them out.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
And has been there since twenty fourteen.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Correct. The difference is the Trump administration has talked about
djure recognition, which means it is the force of US
law that we recognize that CRIMEA now below belongs to Russia.
That will be one of the first times in history
we've ever done that. We never did that for any
countries occupied by the Soviet Union. So Ukraine has rightly
said this is unacceptable. And so I think we could

(47:11):
see a peace settlement where the lines where they are
actually become the lines. But to do that, Ukraine needs
a guarantee of security and not djure recognition, de facto recognition.
So hopefully that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
And do you think that's going to happen. Do you
think progress will be made?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I think progress will only be made if two things happen.
If Donald Trump actually demanded anything of Russia. I mean,
what did he say. He demanded of Russia the other day,
that they don't take over all of Ukraine. They've been
trying for three years, trust me, they can't take over
all of Ukraine. And if Europe this is key, if
Europe makes a decision that despite the United States, they

(47:49):
will stand with Ukraine, then I think you can see
that because look, Vladimir Putin's a smart guy. Let's be clear,
He's smart, he knows he can't win, he knows he's
sending his youthful generation of men to die, and ultimately
he just needs to know that he's hit a brick
wall in his mind. Right now, he can still get
more from the Trump administration, so he's going to keep
trying to do it.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Even Chuck Grassley spoke in opposition of this new relationship
with Russia. He wrote on social media he'd seen enough
killing of innocent Ukrainian women and children and said President
Putin was playing America as a patsey.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Are we starting to see that sentiment grow among Republicans
in your view? And will we start to see it?

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, let's be clear, we saw it shrink rapidly. Now
the question is is it kind of gaining legs again
a little bit? You know, you're starting to see people
Tom Tillis Grassy, a few others speak out. The big
question will be what do they do with their votes?
Anybody can put out a generic tweet saying I generically
support Ukraine and oppose Russia. Are you going to call

(48:52):
it the president by name? Are you going to actually
vote against maybe some of his priorities that maybe you
agree with, but you want to use that vote is
a way to compel further aid to Ukraine. That's the
real question. Anybody can tweet anything supporting Ukraine. I'm glad
they do. Look, I don't want to discourage that. But
the question will be what do they do with the
power they do have.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Do you think the president we talked about this earlier
could run again in twenty twenty eight? Obviously can't. Steve
Bannon has talked about ways he thinks that they will
be allowed to do that within the framework of the constitution.
There's talk that he could run his vice president and
then the president could then seed power to him. I mean,

(49:34):
what do you think.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Look, I'll be honest, this is not a scenario I
worry about. Maybe I'm naive, but I do believe that
the constitution is very clear he can't run again. He's
it's very clear. And I think if you look at
how the Supreme Court, even though I disagree with a
lot of the recent Supreme Court decisions like the immunity
and all that kind of stuff, the Supreme Court has

(49:56):
kind of started to get a little pissed off. You know,
seven to two, the first time I've ever known of this,
even happening. The Supreme Court stopped the deportation flights, you know,
by a vote of seven to two. Usually the Supreme
Court's obviously takes a while to make a decision. Roberts
or whatever put out a preemptive statement about the respect
of the judiciary. What this says to me is that

(50:17):
the Supreme Court is now starting to get a little
jealous of their power. And so I think, look, the
one area I guess I would be concerned about him
running again, and keep in mind he'll be eighty two also,
But the one area might get a little concerned is
if somehow he convinces these hardcore red states to just
simply allow him on the ballot, then what happens, right,

(50:41):
That's what I don't know. So if you have let's
just take a super red state like Indiana and say,
let's say Trump is ineligible to run again, but Indiana
just says, well, he's going to be the candidate and
we put him on the ballot. Now you have a
tension between states and the federal government. So that would
be an area I'm concerned about. But in all honesty,
that's not the one I'm losing sleep on. I worry
about what damage is going to be done to that point.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
You have renewed faith, I guess in the Supreme Court.
But it seems as if right now the administration is
ignoring the judiciary branch of the government.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah. I don't want to say renewed faith is Supreme Court,
but I guess, well.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
You were heartened.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Let's say, yeah, there are a couple of things that
have been a little heartening. Yes. Look, I think the
real constitutional crisis will be the administration has already ignored
a few court rulings. The real lynchmin will be when,
and I think it will happen they ignore a Supreme
Court ruling. And I don't know what happens with that.

(51:35):
I mean, obviously the Supreme Court, I don't think is
going to sit quietly and say, Okay, well we made
our decision. If the president, you know, obviously they don't
have a police force, so they can't send anything to
enforce it, but they could be pretty loud. That's when
you get into the question of where do people's loyalties lie.
Where does the military's loyalties lie. Do the people are
they willing to take to the streets and shut down

(51:57):
commerce if we have to and you know, whatever it is,
we need to be thinking through. As they escalate, we
have to escalate and match. What are those different steps?
You know? Obviously short of war, nobody's calling for violence,
but like a protest every now and again, Eventually do
we get to where we have to protest permanently? Eventually?
Is it a general strike? Whatever those things are, I

(52:20):
think we need to be thinking through. And again, the
other message I'll say is this is not about please
hear me, everybody. This is not right against left. This
is do you support democracy or don't you? Because the
one thing when we look at Venezuela, for instance, why
is it that Maduro is still in power? It's very simple.

(52:41):
The opposition fought among itself and continues to because they
fight among themselves for power. This is a time when
you have to find alliance with people whose views you
may find abhorrent. But guess what we need to get
back to where we can have the luxury to disagree
on views again, because even that is a threat. This
is not right against left. This is democracy against authoritarianism. Period.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I have to ask you about AOC just while we're
on that topic, because we're also seeing a lot of
division within the Democratic Party. Nate Silver said he thought
that she would be the twenty twenty eight presidential candidate.
I'm curious if you could advise a Democratic Party about
a candidate for twenty twenty eight, what would you say?

Speaker 2 (53:28):
It's a great question. First off, let me say this,
I don't remember a single and you've been covering this
for a while too. Do you ever remember at this
point in a presidential term, anybody that was ever talked
about to be the candidate in three and a half
years never was ever right, or they certainly never became
the nominee. There's some reason. It's usually the people that
pop up late. Here's what I would say to the

(53:50):
Democrats if I was giving advice when the middle when
the middle Joe Biden, you know, he kind of won
the middle. His problem was age. Let's think back to
the last Democratic candidate who kind of did it as
a centrist won the working class, Barack Obama. Yes, Bill
Clinton win the working class. My opinion, it'll take some

(54:12):
people off. I don't think you win the working class
by going further left. The working class turned against the
Democrats because of identity politics. I think it wasn't that
they necessarily disagreed with some of the views they have
on government spending or government programs, but they felt like
they were being talked down to. And if you're, for instance,
a middle class white male in the Midwest, and you've

(54:33):
been told, you know, constantly that you're the problem and everything.
I mean, we can have debates about where this country's
gone off the cliff and we should and our difficulties,
but everybody in this country has a right to equal
access to government and to being American. So my advice
to Democrats would be, what is it going to take
to win the middle class and to win the middle
That'll be your ticket, and I think you'll never lose

(54:56):
again if you do that. If you go further left,
may maybe you'll win. But the only way to win
is to turn out more and more activists. In the process,
you might actually alienate some of the folks in the.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Middle I don't think this has happened before, Adam, and
this is my last question, but every single member of
our audience asked the same question, and that was about
a potential presidential run. I'm sure this is not the
first time you've been asked this, but is it something
that you would consider for twenty twenty eight or beyond.

(55:29):
And my husband's follow up was, if so, what party?

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, look, it's a great question, and honestly I don't know.
Have I thought about it. I would be lying if
I said I hadn't. Where I kind of look at
it is like I don't want to run just because
I want to be president or whatever it would be.
Do I think I could bring something unique that other
candidates are missing. I kind of think in a way

(55:54):
I could, And honestly, what would I run as? I
don't think i'd run as a Republican. I think that
party is gone, and even though I was proud of
being a Republican back when Republicans used to be what
we remember them, that party's the thing in the past.
Independent you can't win. My question would be can a
centrist Democrat win? And so I think if I did run,

(56:15):
that would be certainly an area I'd explore. But honestly,
haven't taken any steps, haven't made any decisions. I really
enjoy life right now. On the other side of everything, have.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
You made any steps to change your party affiliation?

Speaker 2 (56:28):
Not yet. I haven't voted Republican in four years, or
I guess. The last two elections, I've voted straight Democratic,
so you could look at that and that can say
what it is. But at some point I think I may.
But right now it takes them off a lot more
for me to still call myself a Republican, so I'm
going to keep doing it.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Well, I know you call yourself a what do you say,
A proud rhino.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yeah, proud rhino, and that's.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
That's what you're sticking with so far. But if you
make a decision to change, I hope you'll let me
talk to you, then.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
I will, absolutely, absolutely, maybe we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Okay, well that's quite a tease, Adam Kinzinger. Great to
talk with you, and let's stay in touch. Thank you
so much for your time.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
You butt anytime, Take care.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,

(57:38):
Katie Kuric, and Courtney ltz Our. Supervising producer is Ryan Martz,
and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit

(57:59):
us at kcorrect dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What if we
told you it was possible to prevent, manage, your cure
all disease by the end of the century. The chan

(58:22):
Zuckerberg Initiative is advancing biomedical research and leveraging AI to
change medicine for decades to come. By bringing together science,
tech researchers, and engineers, they're building a better future for everyone.
Learn more at CZI dot com, That's CZI dot com,

(58:42):
or follow them on social media.