Speaker 1: Adam Kinchinger is the author of a book called Renegade.
Speaker 1: It is his autobiography. Welcome Congressman, kid tigger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, good to be with you, and good to
Speaker 2: be with all these handsome faces I'm seeing around.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the aircraft behind you. The picture on
Speaker 1: your right, you're in the cockpit. There an open air cockpit.
Speaker 1: And then I think that is a your balance aircraft
Speaker 1: that you might have flown during your reserve duty. Tell
Speaker 1: us about those planes.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so actually the military plane. Let me see
Speaker 2: if I have it here that I flew. It's basically
Speaker 2: a big version of this. This is a Merlin three
Speaker 2: hundred and that is actually I own that. Well, I
Speaker 2: own this model, of course because I'm holding it, but
Speaker 2: I own the actual real aircraft that this is based on.
Speaker 2: It's a I just bought it about a year ago,
Speaker 2: and it's fast. It's like a three hundred not airplane,
Speaker 2: and it's awesome. You know, It's expensive to fly, so
Speaker 2: I don't get to fly it as much as I did,
Speaker 2: like when I had a small Mooney, but it's awesome
Speaker 2: because if I need to get somewhere, I can get
Speaker 2: there quickly and take the entire family. And then over
Speaker 2: here this by the way, this picture is me and
Speaker 2: Jamie Herrera Butler. We're high fiving each other on our
Speaker 2: way to actually vote to impeach Trump. And there was
Speaker 2: an AP reporter or one of those reporters that take
Speaker 2: pictures all the time, that took a picture of us,
Speaker 2: and we didn't know they were there. So that was
Speaker 2: like an organic HI five. And so that's a great picture.
Speaker 2: And then over here is me and it's Congressman Steve Graves.
Speaker 2: He or not Steve Grave, Sam Graves. He always does
Speaker 2: an air show. He basically lives on an airport, and
Speaker 2: he's probably the only guy that loves flying more than
Speaker 2: me and in Congress, and so I'd go to his
Speaker 2: air show every year, and we went up and flew
Speaker 2: and that's his T six. So that was like a
Speaker 2: train and World War two. If you start flying like
Speaker 2: World War two vintage aircraft, you basically have to get
Speaker 2: a bunch of hours in that and become an expert
Speaker 2: in in formation and everything to then go on to
Speaker 2: maybe fly like the P fifty one or anything else.
Speaker 2: So I haven't gotten into that yet. I hope someday
Speaker 2: to do that. It's through the Commemorative Air Force. But
Speaker 2: I got to get more time, and I gotta get
Speaker 2: more tailwheel experience, even though I've got like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: six thousand hours flying or something like that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the military version is just that plane, just a little
Speaker 2: bit longer and bigger wings, and it's got a bunch
Speaker 2: of cool equipment on it that spies on people, but
Speaker 2: not Americans, just bad guys.
Speaker 1: And you also flew refueling tankers, which are the planes
Speaker 1: that service a fighter jet in air. It lowers the
Speaker 1: boom the plane flies up, connects to it, and fills
Speaker 1: up the gas tanks while in flight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh. And by the way, high to some
Speaker 2: of the Illinois folks, I'm seeing pop up. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: I flew the KC one thirty five. I did that
Speaker 2: for about including training, about two years, and that was
Speaker 2: a fantastic plane. I actually I remember I was over
Speaker 2: Iraq at one point, out of Qatar, and uh, and
Speaker 2: I just looked down because you know, those refuelers you're
Speaker 2: flying at like twenty five thousand feet, you're out of
Speaker 2: weapons range of you know, if you're fighting against the
Speaker 2: country that's not like Russia or China. And I just
Speaker 2: remember looking down and being like, I want to do
Speaker 2: something like more in the dirt. So I flew that
Speaker 2: with you know, for a couple of years. It's great,
Speaker 2: great aircraft, great mission. But I wanted a different mission.
Speaker 2: So in O seven I actually became dual qualified, which
Speaker 2: is very rare in the Air Force. So I got
Speaker 2: the dual qualified in the RC twenty six, which is
Speaker 2: what I finished out my career in, and then also
Speaker 2: the Casey one thirty five, so I actually flew both
Speaker 2: for a year and then I went full time on
Speaker 2: the on the RC twenty six. With that, I went
Speaker 2: to Iraq, Afghanistan. Hey, normal Illinois, I went to Iraq, Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: all over the world. I mean in both those planes
Speaker 2: it was great, and the RC twenty six as well.
Speaker 2: We would do domestic missions, so I said, we don't
Speaker 2: spy on you. We didn't unless you were a bad
Speaker 2: guy running from the police or dealing drugs. We would
Speaker 2: have an agent on board to make it. Since we
Speaker 2: were National Guard, it complies with posse comittatis and we
Speaker 2: would actually help local law enforcement track down drug dealers.
Speaker 2: We worked the border a bunch, which is actually why
Speaker 2: I'm pretty aggressive on the border. Because I saw it firsthand.
Speaker 2: It's a mess, and so it's been great and I
Speaker 2: miss it. I'm sad that I had to retire, you know,
Speaker 2: I got twenty two years in or whatever. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it was it goes by in a flash, as everybody knows,
Speaker 2: twenty years goes by pretty quick.
Speaker 1: You have been outspoken and critical of Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: I think share my view that it'd be a catastrophe
Speaker 1: were he to return to the presidency. We were talking
Speaker 1: about the military. You spent twenty two years in, you
Speaker 1: flew the entire time. You retired with the rank of
Speaker 1: lieutenant colonel. There is military news tonight. A captain in
Speaker 1: the United States Navy who's the commander of a ballistic
Speaker 1: missile submarine was relieved of duty. The Navy simply makes
Speaker 1: the announcement, says that they didn't meet the standard. Comes
Speaker 1: out that forty eight hours prior, he was arrested, charged
Speaker 1: with a DWI offense and driving without insurance outside the gates.
Speaker 1: Fifty three years old. This is one of the Navy's
Speaker 1: most highly trained officers commander of a ballistic missile submarine.
Speaker 1: He makes a character mistake and there is no second
Speaker 1: chance at that level. He pays the full price. What
Speaker 1: is it that has gone off the rails in American politics,
Speaker 1: in your estimation where the character defects are celebrated while
Speaker 1: punishment is imposed. It seems to me, more often than
Speaker 1: not bottom up. And I'm not trying to victimize or
Speaker 1: to allow a Navy captain who did that, who commanded
Speaker 1: a ship like that, to claim victimization. But what has
Speaker 1: gone wrong and off the rails in the society. You know,
Speaker 1: one thing we share is we're both gen xers, and
Speaker 1: I just find it constantly and perpetually bewildering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a great point, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's I mean, I remember, you know, in pilot training,
Speaker 2: well my entire time is a pilot, not just pilot training,
Speaker 2: but particularly then it gets hammered into us. Look, you know,
Speaker 2: you get a DUI, you're gonna you're done flying. And
Speaker 2: if you're lucky, you can stay in the military, if
Speaker 2: you're a young officer and they've got a place for you,
Speaker 2: but you'll you'll never make it past major you may
Speaker 2: security forces or something like that. And uh, but you know,
Speaker 2: and we accepted it. I mean, you know, I can
Speaker 2: tell stories where people kind of got the shaft a
Speaker 2: few times that they shouldn't have. But you know, we
Speaker 2: accepted that. You know, when you when you take an oath,
Speaker 2: particularly to protect America, and you know, not just fly
Speaker 2: a weapon, but employee weapons against human beings, that you
Speaker 2: have to put yourself at a different standard. I mean,
Speaker 2: look at it. Even just airline pilots, right they they're
Speaker 2: allowed to drink alcohol, but they have to stop at
Speaker 2: a certain point, and if they show up to the
Speaker 2: gate with I think it's above point five or something
Speaker 2: like that in their system, they're going to lose their
Speaker 2: job for United American or whatever else. There's there's a
Speaker 2: standard we put on everybody, and I think the founding
Speaker 2: fathers intended a standard on politicians. I think they assumed,
Speaker 2: and they assumed rightly for two hundred and fifty years
Speaker 2: that politicians, you know, what would shift out, what would
Speaker 2: sift out the bad ones, the ones without character, is
Speaker 2: the election system, right, I mean, if somebody has no
Speaker 2: character and it's found out, typically they lose an election.
Speaker 2: Typically they're they're shamed. Whatever. That was the system. So well,
Speaker 2: if you're an elected official, you don't really have a boss.
Speaker 2: The boss is the people and the people are the
Speaker 2: ones that can execute that punishment. What's happened, Steve, And
Speaker 2: I know you know this well. By the way, I've
Speaker 2: got to say to you, just because I'm thinking of it,
Speaker 2: and I don't forget you're the You're the purveyor of
Speaker 2: Country First, the idea of it, and the message I
Speaker 2: know with McCain and my organization is called a Country First.
Speaker 2: So you own that and I want to thank you
Speaker 2: for bringing that the word and message forward from the inception.
Speaker 2: So I want to give you credit for that supportant
Speaker 2: but on the on the on the the character side
Speaker 2: with leader. So what Donald Trump has done well, Okay,
Speaker 2: what he's done well is he's convinced people that he
Speaker 2: is a big billy badass, right that he is. He's
Speaker 2: standing in this gap for you. When he says crazy
Speaker 2: things on Twitter, it's not because he's crazy, it's because
Speaker 2: he's outraged for you. And that's what people think. That's
Speaker 2: what people have been convinced. They've been convinced that he
Speaker 2: is tough. The truth of the matter is he's the whiniest,
Speaker 2: littlest self absorbist, self absorbed ist, whatever that word is.
Speaker 2: He's the most biggest, like sissy whiner. It's exhausting and
Speaker 2: it's annoying. But he has convinced people through his anger
Speaker 2: and his whatever, that he's this tough guy. So they
Speaker 2: will take his character flaws and say he's got that
Speaker 2: flawed character. Yes, but what we love about him is
Speaker 2: he's not gonna let the left bully him into shame.
Speaker 2: I mean, his what is it? We always says great
Speaker 2: superpower as shamelessness, and so that's what's happened. That's what
Speaker 2: I've been saying lately, particularly, and I put this on
Speaker 2: substack I think today, which is look, Joe Biden. One
Speaker 2: of the things I think he can do to take
Speaker 2: out Donald Trump is instead of saying I'm scared to
Speaker 2: death of him, you know, or I'm worried about democracy,
Speaker 2: which I think we have to say, I'm not saying,
Speaker 2: don't say that because that matters to a certain segment
Speaker 2: of people, I think we have to start belittling him
Speaker 2: for the narcissistic again, just weak man he really is,
Speaker 2: because that is his superpower in the base, and I
Speaker 2: think we have to begin to expose that. So I
Speaker 2: think the lack of character thing just came from, you know,
Speaker 2: people like him, People like Santos just having no shame
Speaker 2: and saying that they have no shame in essence on
Speaker 2: behalf of people. I mean, what do you what do
Speaker 2: you think on it? Because that's that's what I've been
Speaker 2: like kind of playing around with. Is this idea that
Speaker 2: when you play him up to be this threat, that's
Speaker 2: actually working in his favor in a certain segment.
Speaker 1: Well, fear is a concagion and it's something that I
Speaker 1: write about. You can go back and really, I think
Speaker 1: look at Pope John Paul the second as a guide
Speaker 1: in a model on his inaugural visit to Poland, which
Speaker 1: is a visit that geopolitically sets in motion events that
Speaker 1: within a decade contribute mightily to the fall of the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall. And so what does John Paul say to
Speaker 1: confront communism in Polish to his native Poles who have
Speaker 1: been subjugated at that point since nineteen thirty nine. What
Speaker 1: he says to them is being not afraid in the
Speaker 1: tradition of fearlessness. Franklin Roosevelt talked about this freedom from fear,
Speaker 1: freedom from want, the contagion of fear, its capacity to
Speaker 1: spread panic. So when the country he is vice president
Speaker 1: go on the view and deliver a message that says,
Speaker 1: I'm scared as heck. It's worrying because the moment calls
Speaker 1: for defiance against the real threat. And so there are
Speaker 1: two things in my view that you just hit Bingo on.
Speaker 1: And the first one is how you fight Trump, which
Speaker 1: is through mockery and sarcasm and belittlement and everything that
Speaker 1: you can think of that diminishes him. But I want
Speaker 1: to put that aside for a minute and we'll come
Speaker 1: back to the We'll come back to the politics. But
Speaker 1: when you look at the country, and I think you
Speaker 1: rightly diagnose right this character change. I mean, he has
Speaker 1: more than any male that exists in the culture. He's
Speaker 1: the antithesist of the iconic mail of the black and
Speaker 1: white movies we grew up with, John Wayne, Charles Bronson,
Speaker 1: Clint Eastwood right, silent, tough, Jimmy Stewart right. I mean,
Speaker 1: he is an appalling figure, needy, whiny, complaining, soft, evasive, dishonest, right,
Speaker 1: every conceivable character flaw. But what does it say about
Speaker 1: the country that they're susceptible to it? Two? What does
Speaker 1: it say about the Democratic Party that if the election
Speaker 1: were tomorrow, even money is Joe Biden loses the election
Speaker 1: in him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's it's a great question. I look,
Speaker 2: so we have to be honest about how we got
Speaker 2: to this place, which is and I can I can
Speaker 2: say because there's there's moments when I and I think
Speaker 2: every man out there has felt this at some point,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, when we talk about the value
Speaker 2: of feminine traits, the value of women, and we have
Speaker 2: in the last number of years pushed aside men and
Speaker 2: said masculinity is toxic. And I'm not saying like masculine
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not it's a whole messy debate. But
Speaker 2: what happens is if you're a white male living in
Speaker 2: the Midwest and you get hit with these constant messages
Speaker 2: of toxic masculinity. I mean, what was it a one
Speaker 2: of the shaving companies Gillette put out like some one
Speaker 2: minute ad about you know, is this the best we are?
Speaker 2: You know, that kind of stuff. Some of that makes
Speaker 2: sense because there is there's such thing as toxic masculinity.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear. You see this particularly in the MAGA movement,
Speaker 2: but there's also healthy masculinity. And I think what's happened
Speaker 2: is over time that's been kind of pushed aside. Men
Speaker 2: particularly have been pushed aside in people in men's mind.
Speaker 2: It's true or not, I don't know, but they've been
Speaker 2: pushed aside. And then somebody came along and spoke to
Speaker 2: that fear and reflected that fear back to them. So
Speaker 2: this is the thing about fear. Like politicians harness fear,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's in good ways. You know, fear of communism,
Speaker 2: fear of unemployment, fear of you know, uh, racial and
Speaker 2: social inequity. Those are those are true fears, and I
Speaker 2: think a politician has to harness that. And politicians in
Speaker 2: the past, by and large also knew that there that
Speaker 2: power that they were harnessing came with great As Spider
Speaker 2: Man said, great power comes great responsibility, and so I
Speaker 2: guess it was his uncle that said that. But anyway,
Speaker 2: you know, they understood that they had a responsibility to
Speaker 2: use fear but then bring back optimism. When Donald Trump
Speaker 2: came along in his toxic MAGA base, and they simply
Speaker 2: reflect the fear that you already have in your heart
Speaker 2: back to you, or the anger you have and say
Speaker 2: you should be angry. Like that's how you pull people in.
Speaker 2: That's how cults work. That's how dictatorships get built. They
Speaker 2: create that fear. If you think about fear, everybody has fear.
Speaker 2: There's nobody on here that doesn't have fear. We all
Speaker 2: have fear, okay, And what we do is we try
Speaker 2: to confront that we also have darkness in our heart,
Speaker 2: every one of us. And every day we have a
Speaker 2: battle in our heart between the light and the dark.
Speaker 2: And when a leader comes along like Trump, okay, president
Speaker 2: of High States, for God's sakes for four years, when
Speaker 2: he comes along and he speaks back to you the
Speaker 2: darkness in your heart, and he says, you know, your
Speaker 2: fear of immigrants, it's real, your fear of minorities, it's real,
Speaker 2: your fear of being excluded, it's real. When somebody with
Speaker 2: power speaks the dark parts of your heart, it gives
Speaker 2: you permission to let that overtake you. And as we
Speaker 2: all know, letting the darkness overtake you is much easier
Speaker 2: than fighting. It kills you, but it's much easier in
Speaker 2: the moment. So I is that am I getting deep
Speaker 2: in the weeds? Yes? Does it make sense to some
Speaker 2: of you? Maybe not? And I'm sorry about that, but
Speaker 2: that's the best way I can describe is there's this
Speaker 2: there's been this like harvesting of people's fears going on
Speaker 2: and people's darkness going on, and there's been nothing to
Speaker 2: then root that fear into positive action. You know, we
Speaker 2: always said this was said early on by Arthur Brooks,
Speaker 2: who I know, you know well and I do too,
Speaker 2: great guy, he would always say, until it was disproven
Speaker 2: by Trump. He's like leaders, leaders do well by fighting,
Speaker 2: but fighting up and punching on behalf of people. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump came along and he punches down and he punches
Speaker 2: against people. He doesn't fight for Americans. He fights Americans,
Speaker 2: and some people like that, unfortunately, and that's grown. And
Speaker 2: there the other big problem, Steve, is that nobody in
Speaker 2: the Republican Party with rare exception, stands up to him.
Speaker 2: So when he gets invited and everybody says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's a victim, of course, then everybody that trusts these
Speaker 2: people are going to say he's a victim. And Nikki
Speaker 2: Haley is saying he's a victim. He's a victim, right,
Speaker 2: And because somebody like me, Liz Cheney or you goes
Speaker 2: out on a limb and says the truth, you can
Speaker 2: get ostracized because that's what cults do, and it's a cult.
Speaker 1: One of the things I wanted to ask you, and
Speaker 1: I think this is and I want to preface this
Speaker 1: by bussing this question. There's no judgmentalism whatsoever on my
Speaker 1: part about it. You voted for Trump in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: right when you looked at Trump in twenty twenty, were
Speaker 1: you driven by a party loyalty, by a gravitational pull?
Speaker 2: You just.
Speaker 1: Can't do it on the d side. Do you look
Speaker 1: at Biden and just say in that moment, like I
Speaker 1: there's no difference between the two. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I said in September of that year, I said,
Speaker 1: I predicted what happened happened two months before the election,
Speaker 1: and I said when I predicted it, that we're going
Speaker 1: to find out who will cross the rubicon with him.
Speaker 1: It's the place from which there's no return. The denial
Speaker 1: of an election result will spark violence. And so we
Speaker 1: all have a moment in time. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think that when you talked about the confrontation of darkness
Speaker 1: and light, the way that I've talked about it in
Speaker 1: my political career is that you're at the highest levels
Speaker 1: of politics. You find yourself in this constant contest between
Speaker 1: kind of cynicism and idealism. Right, the these two forces
Speaker 1: will meet, right, You'll grapple with them. And what you
Speaker 1: may rationalize is idealistic in a in a moment or
Speaker 1: or not not not so transactionally bad? Right you can
Speaker 1: you can look back on with some perspective you know,
Speaker 1: later on and say and say wow, because all of this,
Speaker 1: as you're involved in it is very is very, very cloistering.
Speaker 1: But take us inside the room where you're with your
Speaker 1: colleagues after January sixth, and it's clear and you're a
Speaker 1: person who is in good standing in the sense that
Speaker 1: you stayed with the party. You were critical of him transactionally,
Speaker 1: but you say this was a coup attempt.
Speaker 2: Mm hm, Well.
Speaker 1: What what what happens in when when when you when
Speaker 1: you say that inside the room to your to your
Speaker 1: to your colleagues, what is the response to that?
Speaker 2: So it's interesting I'll answer that, and then I want
Speaker 2: to get back to the twenty twenty vote because I
Speaker 2: think it's important when I say it. When I say that, look,
Speaker 2: at the time, I'll be honest, I didn't think there
Speaker 2: was any chance that we wouldn't wake up from that
Speaker 2: moment any I mean, like I you know, I started
Speaker 2: country first right after that, my my country first, not yours,
Speaker 2: but same thing, because I was like, okay, we have
Speaker 2: to fight to restore the GOP and and I thought,
Speaker 2: I mean, if I had to put my money on it,
Speaker 2: it would be this will be a winning argument because
Speaker 2: we just had an insurrection. Right there's dead cops. And
Speaker 2: but in hindsight, I look at it and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know what I saw in those eyes when I
Speaker 2: would say to people, I'd stand up at the conference,
Speaker 2: which is when we're all together, and I'd say, this
Speaker 2: is BS, this was a coup attempt, this was x
Speaker 2: y Z. We've got to move on this. We have
Speaker 2: to impeach him, we have to do the twenty fifth Amendment.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't see disagreement in people's eyes. In fact, you'd
Speaker 2: kind of see agreement. But I saw fear, and it
Speaker 2: was fear and silence. The silence was okay, Adam, I
Speaker 2: may agree with you, but I want to see where
Speaker 2: this is going because we've been down this path before
Speaker 2: where we took on Trump and lost. And my job
Speaker 2: that pays one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 2: and I still have to pay for my place to
Speaker 2: live in DC. For some reason, is worth it to
Speaker 2: these people. You know, you're on the road half your life,
Speaker 2: don't get to see your family, But for some reason,
Speaker 2: that title, that identity is so worth it to people.
Speaker 2: So I saw fear, but I still thought we had
Speaker 2: a chance until three weeks later when Kevin McCarthy went
Speaker 2: to mar A Lago and that man, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what on a dime, that shifted everybody. They knew it.
Speaker 2: It's like, yep, you're right, he's gonna win. And he
Speaker 2: won because it was predetermined. They predetermined that he was
Speaker 2: gonna win. So he won. So that's why he's in
Speaker 2: charge of the party. So on the twenty On the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty vote, it's the one thing. Well, there's a
Speaker 2: couple of things, particularly in the book I talk about
Speaker 2: that that you know, I wish I could go back
Speaker 2: and take back. Of course my vote in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: is one of them, but I think it's important to
Speaker 2: talk about why So I didn't vote for him in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. I'm the only guy in America that didn't
Speaker 2: vote for him in sixteen and did in twenty. But
Speaker 2: that sixteen not voting for him vote, I think is
Speaker 2: why I did in twenty because the pressure that came
Speaker 2: on me for four years from my party for not
Speaker 2: voting for him and being public about it was tough
Speaker 2: to bear. I mean, every time I would be in
Speaker 2: a Republican circle in my constituents, it's like they'd remind
Speaker 2: me you didn't vote for him, You're not faithful, you're
Speaker 2: not loyal. And I convinced myself that since I lived
Speaker 2: in Illinois and Biden was gonna win Illinois anyway, I
Speaker 2: didn't want to lie about who I voted for. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'll just vote for him. He's gonna lose Illinois,
Speaker 2: and I can put away this like thing about I'm
Speaker 2: not supportive enough. But that night is when everything changed.
Speaker 2: When he I think his first thing was a tweet
Speaker 2: that said, like stop counting the votes or it's being
Speaker 2: stolen or whatever it was. And that's when I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm off And why did I say that? Because I
Speaker 2: have been and you know, you know foreign policy as
Speaker 2: well as I do. I've been to many places of
Speaker 2: struggling democracies, and I know that once you break the
Speaker 2: faith in the system. Okay, nobody has to agree on anything.
Speaker 2: You don't have to agree on You don't have to
Speaker 2: agree on I mean anything. Literally, that's what actually politics
Speaker 2: is because of we don't agree on stuff. But you
Speaker 2: do have to agree to play by the rules in
Speaker 2: the election. The rules are, you can vote if you're eligible.
Speaker 2: Personally gets the most vote wins, and they get have
Speaker 2: a certain amount of power for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2: That's the rules. That's it. Donald Trump convinced half of
Speaker 2: the country, almost half of the country, that that system
Speaker 2: was broken. And when he did that, I don't see
Speaker 2: democracy surviving if a considerable number of Americans truly believe
Speaker 2: the system doesn't work, because all of a sudden, now
Speaker 2: you're voiceless in your mind in the government, and voiceless
Speaker 2: governments get have revolutions, they have civil wars. And I
Speaker 2: knew that this was the moment where I would have
Speaker 2: to look at myself in the mirror. I had a
Speaker 2: kid coming. I knew soon and I you know, look,
Speaker 2: I mean, we asked nineteen twenty year olds to die
Speaker 2: for their country, right, and we have to have that.
Speaker 2: It's a sad reality in a fallen world, but we
Speaker 2: have to have that. How effing dare I but my
Speaker 2: political career above the country. If I'm asking a young
Speaker 2: person to die for their country, and the people that
Speaker 2: do that daily should be ashamed of themselves. And they are,
Speaker 2: in my mind, disqualified from serving in office. And they
Speaker 2: will someday, I hope, on their deathbed, and I hope
Speaker 2: before that realized what traitorous garbage they are to this
Speaker 2: country when we ask eighteen year olds to die, and
Speaker 2: they'll go to these funerals and salute the flag, get
Speaker 2: their picture taken. The congressman came to the funeral. Great
Speaker 2: and then we need you to vote this way because
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is a clear and president danger of democracy.
Speaker 2: I can't do that. I'll lose my primary. Screw you, now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you pointed out, I saw
Speaker 1: it on CNN and I think you should get a
Speaker 1: medal for this. You criticized the Democrat National Committee for
Speaker 1: attacking Governor Asa Hutchinson, who meets the standards that we
Speaker 1: think about when we reflect on John Kennedy and profiles
Speaker 1: encourage knew he was not going to be the Republican
Speaker 1: but a two term governor Deputy Homeland Secretary headed a
Speaker 1: dea serious person, accomplished person, trudged it out for the
Speaker 1: sake of telling the truth and putting it and putting
Speaker 1: it into the record. And he's mocked, disparaged by what
Speaker 1: should be the hub of a political opposition, right that
Speaker 1: nobody dispute should be anchored by the Democratic Party. We
Speaker 1: live in a two party system. One of them is
Speaker 1: gone but needs more people than its base in order
Speaker 1: to defeat Trump. And so when you look at the
Speaker 1: situation electorally, as someone who's politically homeless, do you feel
Speaker 1: disdain from the from the from the left, A we
Speaker 1: don't want you as part of the coalition. Does that
Speaker 1: worry you? Does it worry you in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: how they talk about you know, other parts of the country,
Speaker 1: people in it, you know. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I was saying to someone, you know the other day
Speaker 1: about some of the issues you know, around the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's in capacities to reach you know,
Speaker 1: certain elements of the of the electorate.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I started getting a lecture on what other people's economic
Speaker 1: interests were, and I just said to them, how many
Speaker 1: welders and plumbers and pipe fitters. Do you think work
Speaker 1: at the Democratic National Committee, right versus versus woke ivy
Speaker 1: league millennials who may be a bit out of touch
Speaker 1: with that working person in in Ohio.
Speaker 2: Dare I say?
Speaker 1: But when you look at the when you look at
Speaker 1: the political field right now and you contemplate catastrophe, you know,
Speaker 1: with ten months to go, what is it that you see?
Speaker 1: And specifically, I want to ask, is there anybody off
Speaker 1: camera at CNN that you talk to who's bullish on
Speaker 1: binding Biden winning this election?
Speaker 2: Great question? I mean, first off, there are those that
Speaker 2: are bullish on Biden and they can make a good point,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, once Trump's the nominee, people will
Speaker 2: be reminded about how insane he is. Like maybe there's
Speaker 2: something to it. I don't know. On your bigger question, look,
Speaker 2: I'll say this, I have noticed the Democrats are far
Speaker 2: better at controlling their crazies. And by the way, there
Speaker 2: are crazies like all you have to look at it
Speaker 2: is like Hamas sympathizers and that I mean that to
Speaker 2: me is unbelievable. But the Republican Party has Russian sympathizers
Speaker 2: right now. I mean, for God's sakes, And there's almost
Speaker 2: Hamas sympathy.
Speaker 1: There too, because they were running who are running the party?
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Yes, And that's the difference.
Speaker 1: How many and how many nuts do you think are
Speaker 1: in how many people do you put into Democratic Party?
Speaker 2: Not basket?
Speaker 1: What's the count? Right?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it? Is it?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: Twelve people? Yeah, I'd say that's yeah. In the in Congress, yeah,
Speaker 2: well it's say it's it's your it's your, Elano Omar's
Speaker 2: and you know, Rashida to Leibs and you talk to
Speaker 2: Democrats and they don't like them either, and uh, they
Speaker 2: don't necessarily condemned them publicly. Right, let's be clear. They
Speaker 2: kind of do the what the Republicans did with Trump.
Speaker 2: Now here's my warning, since we're doing the warning here.
Speaker 2: My warning is this, so like what the DNC put out,
Speaker 2: it was a staff hit job. And it's leadership that
Speaker 2: the chief of staff to Joe Biden called as to
Speaker 2: apologize Trump would never do that. That's leadership. My concern
Speaker 2: is that there's this tempt to say, Okay, the Republicans
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump do this, we have to match that
Speaker 2: with this over here in the Democratic version of it. Look,
Speaker 2: and I understand it, because that's the temptation they're getting
Speaker 2: away with this. Screw them, We're going to do this. Now,
Speaker 2: let me give you fair warning. It's not how you
Speaker 2: win a winning coalition. But it also we need to
Speaker 2: have one party that's mature. We need to have one
Speaker 2: party that still can fight tooth and nail, but can
Speaker 2: stay above the fray on some of this garbage. Now
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you don't attack Trump like he attacks you.
Speaker 2: You do, but like a guy who got a half
Speaker 2: a percent in the primary, you're gonna celebrate him exiting
Speaker 2: by making fun of him. That's dumb. And again, to
Speaker 2: Biden's credit, they reached out. So in terms of how
Speaker 2: do I feel in the party, Look, I just did
Speaker 2: a book tour and I'll tell you my biggest fans
Speaker 2: are on the left, and I appreciate it. And I've
Speaker 2: realized I'm probably closer now to the Democrats on foreign
Speaker 2: policy because my party's so far gone. I've rethought a
Speaker 2: number of issues because you can kind of come out
Speaker 2: of that tribe. But it is going to be important
Speaker 2: to understand that this year is going to have to
Speaker 2: be uneasy and a gross feeling coalition of people that
Speaker 2: don't agree on policy. I'm talking big stuff like abortion
Speaker 2: or whatever. You know, how many people have you heard
Speaker 2: Steve that say, yeah, you know, if you're pro life,
Speaker 2: you're as big of a threat to this country as
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Okay, I've heard people say that that's not true.
Speaker 2: Significant part of the country is pro life. I get it.
Speaker 2: We're all passionate about abortion issues. It's not an issue
Speaker 2: that really tunes me up, but whatever. But Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is an existential threat, and that's why we have to
Speaker 2: have this coalition. So fight Trump tooth and nail, but
Speaker 2: welcome people like politically homeless, disaffected Republicans because that's how
Speaker 2: you're gonna win Otherwise. I'm going to tell you the
Speaker 2: concern at the you know, behind in the room at
Speaker 2: CNN about people that think Joe Biden's you know, in
Speaker 2: trouble is he's just not showing the fight, the vigor.
Speaker 2: And you know, a lot of these Republicans are still saying,
Speaker 2: like Governor Sanunu just said, for God's sakes, like I'm
Speaker 2: gonna vote for Trump if he's a nominee. O great,
Speaker 2: that's cool. Gritzger my governor said the other day, you know,
Speaker 2: there's no difference between Trump, Nicky Haley, and Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 2: It's just if you want, you know, lifts in your
Speaker 2: boots or you want high heels. Ha ha, funny. He's
Speaker 2: running for president in twenty eight he's playing to the base.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna tell you, a Nicky Haley Republican is
Speaker 2: not a threat to the country. A Trump Republican is.
Speaker 2: And we need to get that straight.
Speaker 1: And it is a threat to the country, no, no doubt,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: people say, and I saw it be the last question
Speaker 1: before turnover to Lisa bring the audience in, is that
Speaker 1: there's this talk that if Trump went that democracy goes
Speaker 1: away like the lights go off sometime right an instant
Speaker 1: afternoon on January twentieth, twenty twenty five, and that that's
Speaker 1: not what's going to happen. We have ninety four thousand
Speaker 1: elected governments in the United States. They all have lawyers.
Speaker 1: This is the most sophisticated society that has ever existed
Speaker 1: in all of all of recorded history. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it's killable, but I but I also don't have a
Speaker 1: lack of imagination about the danger. But my question is
Speaker 1: if he invokes the Insurrection Act, does the military regard
Speaker 1: that as a lawful order to send armor out of
Speaker 1: gates at basis into American cities? And what happens? Because
Speaker 1: I'll be there when there's five thousand Americans in front
Speaker 1: of the gates where the tanks roll out.
Speaker 2: Man, what you're asking is a serious question, and it's
Speaker 2: a serious concern. Now, how would I see that playing out?
Speaker 2: Trump invokes the Insurrection Act? Inevitably, he's not just going
Speaker 2: to invoke it. To invoke it, He'll have some false
Speaker 2: flag or you know something, some riot and some city
Speaker 2: that'll allow him to do it. He could do it
Speaker 2: for any reason. Really, I mean, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: unique power the president has. I don't think the military
Speaker 2: would disobey that order because you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about, you know, the military swears and allegiance
Speaker 2: to the Constitution, not to the president, which is true,
Speaker 2: and for two hundred some years that's actually been a
Speaker 2: huge point of and I think it's a good thing,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. But the problem is commitment to
Speaker 2: the Constitution is up for debate, Like what is that?
Speaker 2: So imagine Trump gives an order and imagine you have
Speaker 2: a commander that disobeys that order, and then what does
Speaker 2: Trump do. He can relieve the commander and find somebody
Speaker 2: that believes that they are following the constitution. And then
Speaker 2: every you know, private or specialist will have to make
Speaker 2: a decision. Do they want to go a wall and
Speaker 2: they won't. Now would they fire on American citizens? I
Speaker 2: don't think so, you know. I mean the Chinese military
Speaker 2: struggled to fire at Teneman Square, So I don't think
Speaker 2: you'll see that. But in terms of deployment, show a
Speaker 2: force things like that. You know what happens if what's
Speaker 2: this completely false scenario. But hopefully Let's say Donald Trump
Speaker 2: loses the election and somehow then declares himself the winner.
Speaker 2: Let's say he'd have done this in twenty twenty, because
Speaker 2: he would have had the power of the presidency. The
Speaker 2: Supreme Court could shoot him down and say, no, you're
Speaker 2: not the president. He refuses to leave the White House,
Speaker 2: say Donald Trump could go on the air and say
Speaker 2: to every member of serving in the military, you know
Speaker 2: you need to disobey your commanders if they're stopping you.
Speaker 2: You made a commitment to the constitution. The Constitution declares
Speaker 2: that I'm legally elected, you are on my side. Or conversely,
Speaker 2: if Donald Trump is running and loses and claims it
Speaker 2: was a false election, I could see him getting on
Speaker 2: TV and telling the military the elections being stolen from me.
Speaker 2: You need to disobey orders, you need to defect, you
Speaker 2: need to come over to our side. Is it crazy?
Speaker 2: Kind of is it realistic? It is, sadly, and that's
Speaker 2: a concern I have. The military is only as good
Speaker 2: as the people in it, and people are being convinced
Speaker 2: that the Constitution is something that it's not or it's
Speaker 2: not something that it is, and so yeah, take it seriously,
Speaker 2: and you know, I worry about that.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think that JP Pritzker or
Speaker 1: Gavin Newso have the spine and wherewithal to operate in
Speaker 1: a situation like that, For example, the president federalized is
Speaker 1: Illinois National Guard troops, the governor of the state says,
Speaker 1: belay that to his adjucent in general, it's an illegal
Speaker 1: and unconstitutional order. And in fact, if federal troops come
Speaker 1: into Illinois, arrest them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you could see something like that happening
Speaker 2: in that kind of a scenario, and in theory, you know,
Speaker 2: in theory the National Guard once it's federalized, if they
Speaker 2: disobey the order to be federalized, and now they're they're
Speaker 2: technically in violation of the Constitution or the commander in
Speaker 2: chief and you're now in an essence open rebellion at
Speaker 2: that point. So I don't know how that goes, but
Speaker 2: it's unique. I mean, keep in mind the entire name
Speaker 2: and I'm a National guardsman. The entire Guard is funded
Speaker 2: by the federal government. So it's a militia, yes, but
Speaker 2: it's a militia that was never built to disobey the
Speaker 2: federal government. It was it was built to be under control,
Speaker 2: and I think rightly. But I could also see the president,
Speaker 2: for instance, federalizing blue or red states, depending on what
Speaker 2: that president is about. I mean, you saw this in
Speaker 2: the border when you know Gnome, Christy Nome, who's a
Speaker 2: huge disappointment, you know, sent her guard to the border
Speaker 2: because she's a red state and literally only red states
Speaker 2: were going to the border, and to their discredit, blue states,
Speaker 2: we're choosing not to go to the border, which is
Speaker 2: also annoying. But yeah, you can start seeing the Guard
Speaker 2: playing in the politics role. I just saw some tag
Speaker 2: or some leader of the National Guard in Alabama resigned
Speaker 2: because of the vaccine stuff. It's like, I really think
Speaker 2: he probably got a job at United Airlines and wanted
Speaker 2: to go out this way because he'll still get his pension.
Speaker 2: But that's the kind of crap we're going to start seeing.
Speaker 1: And with that turn it over to you, Lisa.
Speaker 3: Thank you. So first question for you, Congressman, how do
Speaker 3: you convince people close to you who are still Trump
Speaker 3: supporters about the dangers of him being re elected?
Speaker 2: You know, it's a great question, and look, I'll say this,
Speaker 2: you probably can't. I mean, ultimately, they're going to have
Speaker 2: to convince themselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, they're they're stupid.
Speaker 2: I just I mean I saw yesterday Jamie Diamond, CEO
Speaker 2: of Visit JP Morgan or City Bank whatever, one of
Speaker 2: the big bank guys, JP Morgan. He came out and said, basically,
Speaker 2: Trump's right about NATO. Trump this Trump like praising Trump.
Speaker 2: And I'm like sitting here shocked, and I'm realizing probably
Speaker 2: he's trying to cover himself too, because he's It's it's
Speaker 2: like a dictator when when the dictator takes control of
Speaker 2: everybody's trying to kiss his butt. So they don't get
Speaker 2: you know, hit. But I think with famly in friends,
Speaker 2: it's like, look, there is real benefit in just showing
Speaker 2: love to people and trying to do it outside of
Speaker 2: the politics thing. They're misled. They have to come to
Speaker 2: that realization on their own. If you look up stuff
Speaker 2: about how to deprogram cult members, I think it's actually
Speaker 2: very applicable here, and so that would be my advice
Speaker 2: is just try to love them, try to stay away
Speaker 2: from the politics. Stay out of it. By the way,
Speaker 2: stay out of a toxic relationship. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: toxicity in this. You don't need that, so you don't
Speaker 2: have to make up with somebody like that. I had
Speaker 2: half my family on my dad's side disown me, and
Speaker 2: I have no desire to make up with them. I've
Speaker 2: forgiven them for myself, but I have no desire to
Speaker 2: make up with them. So I think that's it. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: if you do get into an argument, try to be respectful,
Speaker 2: listen to them, because when people feel heard, they'll listen
Speaker 2: to you. That would be my suggestion.
Speaker 3: And you know, recognizing that it's probably unrealistic to change
Speaker 3: maga Republicans' views, what about those Republicans who are only
Speaker 3: supporting him because he's a Republican, right.
Speaker 2: And this is there's a lot of people like this.
Speaker 2: Here's the interesting thing politics. You know, twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: actually nobody really gave a crap what your politics was.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had neighbors that were Democrats, and I
Speaker 2: never even we'd make fun of each other jokingly because
Speaker 2: they'd put out like a Clinton sign and we'd have
Speaker 2: a Bush sign out or whatever, you know, but it
Speaker 2: didn't lead to any broken relationships. It was just kind
Speaker 2: of a fun rivalry. What's happened is we've made our
Speaker 2: politics a tribal identity. It's an identity. It used to be.
Speaker 2: Our identity used to be I'm an American. You know,
Speaker 2: we're fighting the Russians, or we're fighting al Qaeda or whatever.
Speaker 2: But we don't have that right now. And our identity
Speaker 2: is I'm a Republican, or I'm a Democrat, or for
Speaker 2: half of the country right now, including myself, I'm politically homeless,
Speaker 2: I'm independent. And so Republicans have to feel free to
Speaker 2: break from that identity. You know. It's I think part
Speaker 2: of it is understanding that democrats or independence are not evil, right,
Speaker 2: That's one thing I learned even on my trip. I
Speaker 2: never thought Democrats were evil. I want to be clear
Speaker 2: about that. But like when I was doing my book tour,
Speaker 2: Democrats were so nice to me, and I realized they
Speaker 2: love the Constitution. I realized they do want a strong
Speaker 2: American military, which I was always convinced that Democrats just
Speaker 2: wanted to surrender everywhere, everywhere in the world. And that's
Speaker 2: a big driving force for me as American stream. So
Speaker 2: I think this is a good advice to fellow Democrats
Speaker 2: on here is if you have a Republican that fits
Speaker 2: that category, welcome them, you know, let them know they'll
Speaker 2: welcome into a different identity or try to get people
Speaker 2: healthy and not you know, find their identity in politics.
Speaker 2: For God's sakes, making a friend based on what they
Speaker 2: believe politically is actually the stupidest way to make a friend.
Speaker 2: I like drinking beer with people. I don't give a
Speaker 2: rats backside of what your politics is unless you're a
Speaker 2: hardcore Trumper, and then I really don't want to be
Speaker 2: around you. But that's this person.
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask both of you this question, but Steve,
Speaker 3: i'll get you to answer first. Do you think that
Speaker 3: the former Republican Party can and will be resurrected once again.
Speaker 1: I go back and forth on this question. Right at
Speaker 1: some level, it's too big to fail. It's the third
Speaker 1: oldest political party in the world. Democratic Party is the oldest.
Speaker 1: I think that the party that is in more grave
Speaker 1: danger of not surviving is the Democratic Party. I don't
Speaker 1: think that there's enough conversation that contemplates what happens if
Speaker 1: Donald Trump becomes the forty seventh president of the United States.
Speaker 1: For sure, it will break up the two party system
Speaker 1: because no one who claims to be an authority in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, there will be no authority. No one
Speaker 1: will have any moral authority whatsoever, because they will have
Speaker 1: all defended really the acclamation of an eighty two year
Speaker 1: old candidate who goes on to lose the Trump despite
Speaker 1: all the warnings. And what it will do is it
Speaker 1: will create a third party movement. I mean, there will
Speaker 1: be a third party candidate on the ballot in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight, like full on from the beginning. I'll be
Speaker 1: part of that effort if it if it came to that,
Speaker 1: you know. But the Republican Party right right now is
Speaker 1: the home to a malevolence that has always existed in
Speaker 1: American life. It has transited back and forth between the parties.
Speaker 1: Manifested itself in something called the Confederacy, in something called
Speaker 1: the Booned, and something called the ku Klux Klan, and
Speaker 1: something called white nationalism. And I think that force will
Speaker 1: never be extinguished. Our great grandchildren will be dealing with it.
Speaker 1: The big mistake of my career politically was a belief,
Speaker 1: I think, born in the era that I came of
Speaker 1: agent born in nineteen seventy thirty years old at the millennia,
Speaker 1: and it was this notion that history was over, the
Speaker 1: contest had ended, liberal democracies had prevailed, and we were
Speaker 1: at the edge. We were at the edge of the
Speaker 1: just society, really unlimited progress, a technological utopianism, an optimism
Speaker 1: around technology, and it's all turned to dust. And so
Speaker 1: I think that there is a constant battle that is
Speaker 1: always being fought, always has been fought, and always will
Speaker 1: be fought. And we're in a cycle right now where
Speaker 1: we're very very close to losing something fundamental and important
Speaker 1: because of apathy and for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not sure either of these parties survive.
Speaker 1: Maybe both survive, Maybe we're at the moment of breakage.
Speaker 1: I just but but my instinct tells me that it
Speaker 1: that it is all dependent on the outcome of this election.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I agree with literally everything you said.
Speaker 2: There's there and it's not just because we're the mutual
Speaker 2: admiration society here. I just I truly believe everything you said.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I'll also say, while you were talking,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at some of the people on this and
Speaker 2: just like it is heartening to me and I'm move
Speaker 2: that almost emotionally, just to see so many of you
Speaker 2: interested in this and sharing our concerns. Because I'll tell you,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure Steve's felt this before, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: many of you have. Sometimes you feel isolated and alone,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you wonder am I getting it wrong? Because
Speaker 2: so many people are crazy, And just seeing many of
Speaker 2: your faces has been encouraging because I'm sure you share
Speaker 2: a lot of the same feelings. I just want to
Speaker 2: thank you for that. But without repeating what you said,
Speaker 2: I'll just add a couple of points. Number One, inherent structure,
Speaker 2: so that the structure that's built into the election system
Speaker 2: that advantages Republicans and Democrats in the two party system
Speaker 2: is massive. To get on the ballot as a Republican
Speaker 2: in Illinois, I needed eight hundred petition signatures if I
Speaker 2: would have won, and I'd consider this. At one point,
Speaker 2: I didn't really want to stay in Congress. I did
Speaker 2: twelve years. I was done anyway, even without January sixth,
Speaker 2: But I was dealing with do I want to run
Speaker 2: again just to prove it? And you know, you deal
Speaker 2: with those issues, and one of the things I looked
Speaker 2: at is do I want to run as an independent?
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll just I'll quit the Republican Party and run
Speaker 2: as an independent. Eight hundred petition signatures to get on
Speaker 2: the ballot as a Republican, something like ten thousand to
Speaker 2: get on as an independent. And by the way, everybody
Speaker 2: that signed as the ten thousand, which is impossible, by
Speaker 2: the way, but they could have none of them could
Speaker 2: have ever voted in a Republican or Democratic primary. So
Speaker 2: now you have to get lower propensity voters that have
Speaker 2: never voted in a primary. You need ten thousand of them.
Speaker 2: You actually need twenty thousand because they're going to challenge
Speaker 2: your petition signatures. The point is the structure is so
Speaker 2: inherently unfair that I think the idea of a third
Speaker 2: party movement is possible because there's going to be enough
Speaker 2: people that feel politically unrepresented in twenty twenty eight that
Speaker 2: they will come together and break that kind of monopoly
Speaker 2: that's going on. But that said, the only point, the
Speaker 2: point of optimism I'm going to throw out there that
Speaker 2: there's a possibility is that twenty twenty eight could be
Speaker 2: and I doubt I do think it depends on twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. To an extent, twenty twenty eight could be
Speaker 2: actually the beginning of a new American century because there's
Speaker 2: going to be a lot of new energy. And if
Speaker 2: there is energy in the GOP that is not Nazi,
Speaker 2: and they can somehow win, and they can you know,
Speaker 2: like political movements come in waves and you don't know
Speaker 2: they happen until they're over. Like it's like why we
Speaker 2: were all shocked the day after the election in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: I think there's a real hunger in America for optimism,
Speaker 2: let's say Ronald Reagan or in Obama in terms of
Speaker 2: how they speak, and if somebody can come along and
Speaker 2: grasp that, that may change the trajectory. But otherwise I
Speaker 2: agree with Steve it's going to be dangerous. I believe
Speaker 2: that this. I now understand the what role the brown
Speaker 2: Shirts played in the Nazi Party, for instance, which I
Speaker 2: never understood until about eight years ago. I understand how
Speaker 2: that worked now because it's happening in our system in
Speaker 2: the GOP.
Speaker 3: So I love the optimism around twenty eight. You both
Speaker 3: referenced the possibility of third party in twenty eight. Let's
Speaker 3: go talk about twenty four and no Labels. Do you believe, Congressman,
Speaker 3: that no Labels helps or hinders Trump?
Speaker 2: We know. I struggle with this because, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: I generally believe that everybody should have a candidate that
Speaker 2: they want to vote for. But I also know, Look,
Speaker 2: here's the reality. No Labels cannot become president because all
Speaker 2: you have to know is how our system works. Let's
Speaker 2: it's Joe Manchin. Let's say he wins ten states, which
Speaker 2: is almost unthinkable. But let's say he wins ten states.
Speaker 2: What does that do? Only thing that does is deny
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy votes to anybody in the electoral College,
Speaker 2: which then sends it to the House to vote on
Speaker 2: who the president is. I don't see any way any
Speaker 2: candidate gets two hundred and seventy vote electoral votes with
Speaker 2: no labels right now, I actually think third party movements
Speaker 2: need to start in Congress. They actually need to start
Speaker 2: on the elections that nobody pays attention to, which is
Speaker 2: part of the reason that haven't ever really gotten taken off,
Speaker 2: because you need to have members in Congress that can
Speaker 2: cut deals then or actually effect an electoral college outcome
Speaker 2: if you have a third party running. But again, I'm
Speaker 2: sympathetic to the fact that everybody should have somebody they
Speaker 2: want to vote for, and it feels like this year
Speaker 2: is not going to be that, So I'm I would
Speaker 2: I think it's going to hurt Biden more than it
Speaker 2: hurts Trump. But I also have heard a good case
Speaker 2: that it hurts Trump too, because you know, all these
Speaker 2: Republicans that are kind of defaulting back to Trump because
Speaker 2: they have nowhere else to go. Maybe this will pull them,
Speaker 2: But I just don't know if that breaks that identity.
Speaker 3: Longressman, last question for you, and then I'm going to
Speaker 3: turn it over to Steve to wrap up. You talked
Speaker 3: about the fact that you had already decided before January
Speaker 3: sixth not to run for reelection, So what do you
Speaker 3: see as your future. Would you ever consider re entering politics.
Speaker 2: So if you'd have asked me a year ago, would
Speaker 2: you ever get back into politics, I would have told
Speaker 2: you no, because I mean, look at the last two
Speaker 2: years of my time in Congress was really brutal. And
Speaker 2: I mean imagine, imagine really like even your friends in
Speaker 2: the house that are they don't want to be seen
Speaker 2: talking to you on the floor because they're afraid that's
Speaker 2: going to get out. Right. And I didn't realize the
Speaker 2: toilet took until about summer of this year. I was
Speaker 2: it really had hit me what damage it did, and
Speaker 2: that I had to recover from that. I needed to
Speaker 2: work through that, and I think I'm in a good
Speaker 2: spot now. But I you know, I live in Texas now,
Speaker 2: and you know my brain Republican is not very good here,
Speaker 2: not very strong. But I would be open to running
Speaker 2: again now. I mean that that energy's coming back, but
Speaker 2: it's not an It's weird because it's it's for the
Speaker 2: first time. It's not really an energy because I want
Speaker 2: to be somebody. You know, when I ran for Congress,
Speaker 2: like I did it for the right reason, but I
Speaker 2: I might you know, ego is a huge part of
Speaker 2: that I wanted to be a congressman. This is like,
Speaker 2: it's more. The thing that excites me is this idea
Speaker 2: of like being on if I ran for president in
Speaker 2: twenty eight, for instance, like being on the stage and
Speaker 2: just being free to say whatever I want and not
Speaker 2: have to be nicky Hayley, trying to be all things
Speaker 2: to all people, and just representing a section of people
Speaker 2: that just feel like there's nobody speaking for them, and
Speaker 2: a generation of people that feel like there is nobody
Speaker 2: that's coming up with new ideas. We talk about income inequality.
Speaker 2: We've raised taxes, and we've cut taxes, we still have
Speaker 2: income and equality. Something else will work. I don't know
Speaker 2: what it is, but somebody has the answer. We need
Speaker 2: all of that new energy to come forward, and I
Speaker 2: think if we can get if if it takes me
Speaker 2: to help harness that energy, I could see myself running
Speaker 2: again in that case. But I don't have a grand plan.
Speaker 2: I'm not sitting around plotting and planning. But I am
Speaker 2: really excited about like this idea, I just without being
Speaker 2: able to explain due to the very like I just
Speaker 2: feel like we need to break the entire political system
Speaker 2: and remake it. I feel like we need to break,
Speaker 2: not remake it into something we need a democracy in
Speaker 2: a republic, but break how we think about things like abortion,
Speaker 2: which I'm going to bring up. It's not pro life
Speaker 2: against pro choice. There's actually one hundred different viewpoints on abortion.
Speaker 2: It's actually one hundred different viewpoints on guns. We've been
Speaker 2: programmed by the man, by the matrix to believe everything
Speaker 2: has two sides. It doesn't like everything has one hundred sides.
Speaker 2: How do we harness that and not just have to
Speaker 2: belong to a party that we have to fit into
Speaker 2: this box and anymore, we just be independent and we
Speaker 2: do what we want to do, and we let politics
Speaker 2: work how it should. That's my answer.
Speaker 3: So I feel like there needs to be a second
Speaker 3: edition of this conversation, yeah, about breaking the system and
Speaker 3: how to rebuild. So Steve, I will turn things over
Speaker 3: to you. Right.
Speaker 1: Let me thank you Lisa, and thank you everybody for
Speaker 1: getting on tonight and for participating, and thank you to Adam.
Speaker 1: And let me just say in closing that it's just
Speaker 1: not true that there are no exceptional public servants. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of them, and you've got to spend
Speaker 1: an hour with one of them through his military service,
Speaker 1: his congressional service, and you know what will be more
Speaker 1: chapters of public service ahead. What I would say to
Speaker 1: everybody tonight about this moment and to remember, is that
Speaker 1: we live in a very resilient country that has been
Speaker 1: tested many, many times and has survived many hours of
Speaker 1: doubt and faithlessness and dark knights, and the dawn has
Speaker 1: always broken in the United States, And that courage and
Speaker 1: honor and valor and all of the worthy virtues, though unreported,
Speaker 1: are still very much present in our country and therefore
Speaker 1: adjacent to our politics. So it's going to be a
Speaker 1: wild ten months. I encourage everybody to go read Adam's autobiography, Renegade,
Speaker 1: to follow Adam Kinzigger on substack, and you can catch
Speaker 1: him on CNN where he is one of the ablest
Speaker 1: political commentators out there on the circuit today. But until
Speaker 1: next time, every buddy, thank you very much, Thank you guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you