Adam Kinzinger: The Rhetoric Is Getting More Dangerous

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is August fourth two thousand twenty three. And as I wrote in my newsletter this morning, morning shots, let’s just take a pause from the doom loop of nothing matters upon the trade to note how much this week mattered. The former president of the United States, was arrested for the third time, booked, arraigned, warned against committing crimes or bribing witnesses, And then released on his own recognizance, Donald Trump now faces seventy eight felony Charlie Sykes.

And potential prison sentences that you have to measure in centuries rather than decades. I had to look this up. This is literally true. The maximum sentences on all the charges if he’s convicted would put him behind bars for wait for this. Six hundred and forty one years.

Okay. I understand that. That’s unlikely, but six hundred and forty one years. And that does not count the civil lawsuits for fraud defamation and sexual assault or what is coming from Georgia And yet, of course, he is the front running candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Lot to dive into today.

And we are fortunate to be joined by one of the key players in this whole saga, Adam Kinzinger, former congressman from Illinois, cofounder of Country First, and of course, member of the January sixth committee, Adam. How are you?

Hey. Just great. How are you? What a what a week? It’s like if by the way, if The devil had been president.

I don’t think he would be guilty of his many crimes and probably would be facing less than six hundred years in prison.

Six hundred years in prison. I mean, that’s that’s a chunk. That sounds serious. So let’s start with the obvious question. It seems obvious to me.

That were it not for the work of your committee, the January sixth committee, we would not be having this conversation today, Donald Trump would not have been arraigned in Washington DC yesterday. Your thoughts about that?

Yeah. I think that’s a hundred percent true. You know, and it’s disappointing to be honest with you. I mean, this investigation should have started on January seven, you know, to include the president. And I get that, you know, the DOJ has been going after the the people that broke the law directly.

Great. But, yeah, I think, you know, what we felt, you felt it both, like, kind of from the media sphere and from the DOJ sphere is that when we came out with some of those first hearings where people’s eyes kinda popped open and it’s like, oh my gosh. This really was. You know, coordinated the president knew this is deeper than just like some accidental violence on January six. That’s when you started to see DOJ move.

And, you know, they kind of this is a bad on them because they tried to, like, kind of toss it onto us for a little bit. They’re like, well, look, we wanna investigate, but the January sixth committee won’t give us their transcripts. And, you know, at the time, I had to answer for a month, the questions of how come DOJ doesn’t have the transcripts, and There’s a whole bunch of legal reasons, like, then it opens up discovery. And then, you know, but it’s like DOJ should have their own transcripts. They do now.

But they, you know, they should have been on this far before us. But, yes, it’s it does feel good to know that the work we did isn’t just about setting history straight, but actually set justice on the right that.

So how did you feel yesterday as you are watching slash listening to the arraignment of of Donald Trump after all of this time? What was going through your mind? I mean, I were you wishing that you were in the courthouse? Were you wishing you were in the courtroom?

Yeah. Kinda. Yeah. I mean, I would’ve loved a bit in the courtroom, you know, just to see it. But I don’t think there was any sense of closure at all because, you know, we’re still looking at this year long trial could be longer.

It’s a close race for some reason still. And so for me, it’s more of just like nervousness that Somehow, this actually doesn’t end up going to court, or he’s gonna be let off because of some, you know, trump around the jury, and it could actually do more damage. So while I don’t feel closure, there is a nice sense of knowing at least that the justice department, this will be adjudicated before the American people one way or another because You know, look, we never wanna be a country that just locks up former presidents. That’s that’s a very dangerous path, but we also and I think greater so can’t be a country that lets what Donald Trump did. Go unpunished because then there’s no incentive to not do that in future administration.

Because if you fail, you can’t be prosecuted because you’re a former president. If you succeed, well, you succeed it, so you’re not gonna be prosecuted anyway. So we have to hold that standard, but I don’t think I’m gonna feel real, like, peace until that guilty verdict comes down from the jury.

You’re suggesting this, the divergent futures out there and the range. One scenario, the one that I think that we’re hoping for is that the rule of law is vindicated that Donald Trump is held accountable, but there are other scenarios as well, including hung jury or even an acquittal, things that could actually slingshot him back into the presidency. At that point, we would look at this as a catastrophic failure of the system. Wouldn’t we?

Yeah. I mean, truly. And, you know, that’s it’s a risk it’s not a a risk that we should be adverse to because again, he should be held accountable, but that’s like the worst case scenario, by the way. But I’m also concerned that this thing you know, there’s some people that have some optimism that this gets done before the election, and I know that the judge has quite a bit of leverage in a court. I just actually learned this yesterday.

Quite a bit of leverage in the courtroom to be able to set the timeline and only give a certain amount of time for motions. And so know, potentially, Trump can only delay so much, but here’s what they’re gonna do. They’re going to try to adjudicate at I’ve been using adjudicate a lot, and that’s also a new word. But they’re gonna take on, you know, the election in Georgia, the election in Pennsylvania. They’re gonna try to pretend like they wanna prove that there was election fraud.

And that’s gonna buy time. And if the judge which the judge ought to, in essence, shuts that down and says, that’s been litigated already sixty times, And that just gives a talking point to Kevin McCarthy and his ill to go out and say, see they’re trying to silence us. So in a perfect world, You would give them all the time they need to prove that quote unquote prove that Michigan was stolen, and then of course it wouldn’t be. And you could put that out in front of the American people. But that would delay us to pass the election.

And, of course, look, Charlie Sykes is a better than nothing, and I think frankly better than there has been chance. That Donald Trump could win the presidency again. And the second he does is not gonna be put in jail. He’ll be either pardoned himself, but the trial will be shut down. Or help us have DOJ drop the charges.

So, you know, there’s a lot out there that could go wrong. There’s some that could go right still.

And they’re not making much of a secret about that. I mean, Maggie Haberman actually wrote that yesterday that in Trump world, there’s a full expectation that, you know, if Trump wins the election, all of this goes away, and maybe that is their great hope. That they are actually pursuing that particular line. So among the darker scenarios, and I wanna go back to a more positive scenario in a moment, But among the darker scenarios, of course, is all of this rhetoric attack and legitimacy of the system, you had Lindsey Graham, saying the judge in the case hates Trump. You can convict trump of kidnapping Lindburgs, baby in DC.

You have to have a change of venue. We need a new judge. He doesn’t trust the jury system. So you have this all out attack from a lot of the even the alleged former grown ups in the Republican Party not just on the FBI, but also on the department of justice, on the judges, on the jury system. All of this And I think it was Ann Applebaum who said, you know, if the right wing succeeds in delegitimizing the rule of law, all of these constitutional institutions, it’s hard to see how we come back from that.

And it does seem as if the rhetoric is getting more reckless is escalating all the time.

Oh, a hundred percent. And it’s one of the sad lessons that I took away from Washington, which is when you violate a norm, You know, we always wanted to do the NDA, the National Defense Authorization Act. We could shut down the government, but we always did the NDA on time until we didn’t. A few years ago. And now we never do the NDA on time again.

You know, we never showed naked pictures in a committee until Marjorie Taylor Green does, and now others are going to. You know, you never question the rule of law. You never attack the judge, and now it’s like commonplace to do it. I don’t know how there becomes then an agreement sometime in the future where everybody gets together and says, we’re we’re now gonna go back to the old way of doing things. Helping government institutions.

Maybe, you know, some literally miraculous intervention can happen, which can change that. But I don’t see how we ever go back when enormous related, and Donald Trump has so this is the thing I was struggling with even yesterday while I was on CNN is, like, Donald Trump has thrown so much garbage at America and done so much that our outrage glands can’t be juiced anymore. We’re empty of outrage because he could do anything now. Right. He’s we’ve already basically spent our capacity to be outraged and you see somebody like Lindsey Graham, and I used to be friends with Lindsey.

By the way, the Will Saletan both kind of like small book and his podcast are incredible. And I will stay as a member of Congress when he talks about the emotional reasons and and kind of how people progressed from, like, barely accepting, to fully accepting, to actually leading. He is a hundred percent right. And I have, like, almost flashes of PTS listening. To it because I can sense that.

I can feel it. But you see these people that have given an ounce of their soul and now I have to get five ounces and now a pound, and it just continues because at any point when you stop, I mean, look, I’m about as anti trump as you can get now. And I still have people that are like, well, you voted for him once, and you voted against the first impeachment.

The

point is You have to come to reckon with what you did, and it’s much easier in the sunken cost fallacy. You know, you lost ten thousand soldiers in Vietnam. You can’t come home now. And, it is very, very frightening. And that’s why I think the only way out of this is a conviction for Donald Trump because I think as that stuff is exposed, which is why I’m not all for cameras in the courtroom, but in this case, I think there has to be.

I think when people see that, when he’s actually putting an orange jumpsuit, that can help. And then when frankly, the Republicans and especially Donald Trump get they have to get their backside handed to them this next election. Otherwise, this is just gonna continue.

Well, and I do think that it’s worth pointing out that this is really, really dangerous. I talked with your colleague at CNN Oliver Darcy about this yesterday, and I made the same point on morning, Joe, that this morning, and all of this rhetoric that you’re getting from people like Lindsey Graham that basically says the system is not legitimate, the kinds of rhetoric that you’re hearing about the FBI. This is dangerous because if something is not legitimate, then then there’s no reason to respect it. There’s no reason to obey it. Oliver Darcy wrote, you know, talk of imprisoning democratic politicians, and even their families in acts of revenge is now par for the course, even floating the outright execution of Joe Biden as Charlie Kirk recently did, is accepted in the warped world of Maga Media where the audience has been programmed through years conditioning to welcome such vile rhetoric into their homes.

And again, we can’t get numb to buy all of this. And he writes none of this is an exaggeration. It’s the reality of what is being broadcast in millions of home across the country. And then, you know, he asked me what I thought. And I said, I think it’s hard to overstate the dangers here because the language moves beyond you know, your routine political demonization, because it does suggest the need for violent resistance.

I mean, if you don’t believe in the integrity of the democratic institutions. If you actually believe they are all illegitimate, but the elections have been stolen, then how do you expect people to react? There’s this constant escalation without any concern about where this leads or who might act on the idea that your opponent isn’t just wrong, that they’re evil, dangerous, and illegitimate, and and I pointed out. You know, all this talk about, you know, the FBI being the Gestapo, well, one doesn’t argue debate or disagree with the Gestapo, you go to war against them. You know, I feel like you and I have had this conversation now for some time, but it’s like people do you understand what is being said and what consequences are of this kind of rhetoric.

And it’s coming from people like Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy and other people who really ought to know better. Tim Scott.

Oh, Tim. You know, I’m friends with him and my goodness. It’s just so disappointing. And, like, yeah, I’ve been talking about this for a while. You have too, and we have to keep talking about it because I think there’s a sense among people that, like, if we say that there’s real danger in the whole system in essence collapsing and this leading to violence, it’s like, It was being a little hysterical.

You know? Well, maybe I hope so, but I don’t think so because, you know, let’s take Charlie Kirk floating, assassinating Joe Biden. I mean, five years ago, if I’d have even said, let’s take Charlie Kirk talking about assassinating Joe Biden. I get a little nervous that, like, me even saying the word assassinating Joe Biden is a lead to, like, a visit from the Secret Service. Well, Charlie Cook now says this.

Let’s say the Secret Service decides to go visit Charlie Kirk. What is the right say? Do they say, well, he never should have implied the assassination of Galiden? Or did they say they’re violating this first amendment? Right?

There’s a two tiered system of justice And now people float this around all the time. Yeah. That’s right. The reporter on a right side broadcasting has a whole tens of people that watch that in a given moment. But, you know, he starts floating.

I agree with you to somebody. It says we wanna kill them all. And this is just par for the course today. And this is dangerous. This is my message then to say the left or the center or anybody that’s not on the right is I think they believe their only option is to gain power and maintain it through any means necessary.

Because as Barbara Walter who wrote the book, how Civil Wars Start mentions, you know, when kind of groups in the majority become groups in the minority, that’s when Civil Wars have the highest risk. And so the key is never to give up power. And I am concerned with what that leads to, which is an authoritarian message, an understanding that We have to gain and maintain power at all costs because I tell you if the left does it, they will have every right to match the rhetoric of the right. I hope they don’t. But they’ll have every right to do it.

And so then my message to the left is this is like, look, you guys have a right to be very angry. You have a right to match the rhetoric. I hope you don’t because the only way to get out of this moment is to create these unnatural alliances between the left the center. And some you don’t like their policies on the right, but therefore, democracy. That’s the only way historically, and I think in this moment, that we can defeat this authoritarian movement.

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Since we’re on the subject of of the danger of violence, Let’s talk about the decision that Jack Smith made not charge Trump directly for inciting the violence that took place on January sixth. And, you know, by the way, every time we mentioned January six, we gotta mention that people died as a result of this. This is not theoretical. Yeah. You have expressed some disappointment.

That there were not more charges directly linking Donald Trump to the mob attack on the capital. And of course, this was one of the referrals from your committee to the justice department. So why do you think he did it? And why do you disagree with it?

Well, what I disagree with, and what I hope to see is more people charged. I would love to see the president charge with the actual attack on that day. Mhmm. I wanna see that second and third tier insurrectionist, the Jeffrey Clark types charge as well, which I think could have happened. As I have ponder as I’ve kind of sat on, you know, this indictment for the last forty eight hours.

I’ve come to see Jack Smith’s point a little bit, which is I think charging Trump with attacking the capital and the violence may be a much harder thing to prove. I don’t know. That’s up to lawyers to decide, but it may be a little harder to prove. And not charging other people at the moment simplifies the case to just Donald Trump, just a few charges, And I think it makes it more likely that this actually gets done before the election. Whereas if you start stacking people and stacking Charlie Sykes probably have a legitimate way then that the defense can push this to pass the election.

And that doesn’t mean. I mean, we’ve seen what he’s done in the documents case. He could still come out with further Charlie Sykes, bring a separate case that’s different than Donald Trump. But I’ll make a bigger point too, which is The thing that my time on the January sixth committee showed me that was probably one of the biggest surprises or I guess things. I guess that I didn’t realize going into it, which is January sixth was a symptom.

That was a terrible day. I’m not trying to minimize it. I was there, but that was a symptom of a whole bunch of illegal things and a whole bunch of crap that preceded it. It was a symptom of the president saying the election was stolen. It was a symptom of the president sitting with members of the Justice Department and saying, just say the election was corrupt.

Let’s parse this for a second Charlie. The president of the United States said, look, all I need from you All I need from you is to say to the acting attorney general, just saying it was corrupt. That’s it. That’s your only part of the deal. And then leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman because if you sow a bit of a seed of doubt, we can use that to destroy the legitimacy of the election.

All of this was stuff he was doing. And on January sixth, for hundred and eighty seven minutes, he actively resisted for the first time in his life pressure from everybody to make a statement to stop the violence. Only when he saw that the law enforcement turned the tide of the fight. Did he begrudgingly make a statement? And so why I wanna see him Charlie Sykes that actual day I think it is important for Americans to see that that day was simply a symptom of much bigger things that happened prior.

In the indictment, of course, that is the culmination. And they chose that rather than charging it with incitement, they say that he was exploiting the violence, And I think that probably blunts some of the first amendment arguments that you’d expect. There are Supreme Court decisions that make it very, I would say, you know, difficult as a high bar to get around free speech questions when you’re talking about incitement. Let me just sort of parenthetically, is it digression just I was listening to the way you were describing Donald Trump. The one thing about Donald Trump that we just need to recognize is that he never learns his lesson.

He never backs away. You think about the lies that he told about the election, and everything that’s happened since The twenty twenty four campaign is gonna be about the same thing. He is going to make his campaign about the big lie. Everything laid out in the indictment will be central to his campaign. No backing off, no, no hedging, no apologies whatsoever.

Same thing with the attempted extortion of Vladimir Zalin in in Ukraine. What is he doing now? He is continuing to push dirt about the Biden family from Ukraine. He’s getting the house committee to do what Zelensky would not do that resulted in the first impeachment. He learns nothing.

But I on this question of free speech, I did think it was interesting how that became the talking point that that he was being attacked for his speech. Smith made it very clear that he absolutely had the right to say anything about the election that he wanted, but that that did not mean that speech that was in furtherance of a conspiracy to violate the law was protected because all conspiracies involve speech. All acts of fraud involve speech. This notion that simply because you are using words that somehow that creates this bubble zone for you to break the law is absurd. It’s amazing to me how many Republicans seem to be taking that seriously.

Or pretending to take it seriously?

Well, I think that’s the key is pretending to take it seriously because, again, pulling the curtain back a little of what it’s like to be a Republican member when The president, let’s just take something basic when he says shit, all countries, for instance. And, you know, it’s gonna be a center against him, and you wanna vote no because it’s better for your district. All you’re waiting for is a talking point that you get from leadership that you can actually convince yourself. Maybe a good enough reason or you can convince your constituents. There are a number of people, by the way.

Including a member of Congress from your home state. His name that rhymes with Blaliger, who, you know, was very close to voting to impeach Donald Trump. In the second impeachment, and then found some nuance in the impeachment article. Oh, you can’t really prove incitement or whatever that is. To now convince yourself to be able to do that and to buy that argument.

And so that’s what you’re seeing in this speech thing. Is first off, about half of the people that believe the speech argument or don’t believe it and don’t care. But I think the other thing is it just gives you an answer when you’re asked by the media. You can say free speech and move on, and that’s how you buy your time. By the way, as your point, if I hired you to kill somebody for me, and I told you, Charlie, I will give you money.

If you kill somebody for me, That’s not a free speech issue. And that’s in essence what they’re arguing Donald Trump did. Oh, he only hired somebody and paid money. Like, no. That’s Yeah.

Everything involves speech.

Yeah. That’s why it is so hollow. Then, of course, you get, and this is no surprise to anyone who’s been paying any attention over the last seven years. This flood of what about ism and got that from Tom Cotton and, Kevin McCarthy. Tom Cotton says, Well, every time a Republican won the presidency this century, was it beat twice, Democrats tried to stop the certification, yet none of them face criminal charges over what is obviously a first amendment protected activity.

And then, of course, Mike Kevin says he does the same thing. The same thing that Hillary Clinton said about her election that she lost. I can say the same thing about the DNC who said it about the twenty sixteen race. I can say the same thing about those in the Democratic Party, the leadership on down about George Bush not winning that Al Gore did, but were any of them Keter, were any of them put in jail? No.

Deep breathe here. I mean, as I kind of remember Al Gore, In a very, very tough, very hard contested race, very questionable, very close, conceding. The two thousand election, presiding at the joint session of Congress where he counted the electoral votes that certified his defeat I remember Barack Obama actually inviting Donald Trump into the White House. Right? And sitting with him, what I don’t remember was any of leading Democrats summoning the mob to attack the capital?

Yeah. You had a few outliers who voted against certification. But this attempt to make an equivalency, what is Kevin McCarthy doing?

I would encourage Germany to go watch his state because he gets progressively angrier as he’s talking. And, you know, I know Kevin well enough to know that

he’s — Theatrically. —

theatrically. He is a man that is very much has always kind of tried to be a smiling magee. That’s what I call, like, fake politicians. But

I

think he is just burning inside of having to continue to lie, to continue to make up these stories, to continue to come up with things. But again, he he knows that he only has to convince his base and get past that question in the media. But to say, I mean, I I saw Marco Rubio for tweeted something about how there were some Hollywood people that did a video, trying to convince the electors in twenty sixteen to be faithless and vote for Hillary Clinton it’s like, well, that’s totally legal to do.

But nobody paid any attention to. So

Right. Nobody paid the attention to. And, by the way, it is completely legal. If you’re an elector in most states, to become faithless and switch your vote. But it’s not legal to send fake electors and incite the mob.

And so, yes, like, you know, Van Jones said yesterday on the panel we were on. He goes, yes. The left did try to delegitimize Donald Trump presidency. I condemned them for that. And to Vance’s credit, you actually did when that was happening.

Yes. Also, Republicans, the whole time claimed obama was illegitimate because he never produced the birth certificate, so to speak. And so, yes, there’s this history of that, and it’s wrong. But there has never been anything. Like what happened in twenty twenty?

Everybody knows that that is out saying differently. But they’re trying to both put Saab on their own conscience and they’re trying to buy time for their own career for the man on the white horse that’s gonna come and save all of us. Except they’re all on white horses. They’re all the people that are supposed to do it. And instead, they’re busy covering their own backside.

And it’s sad You know, all you can do, Charlie, is have a commitment to truth and go out there and speak from whatever platform you can, and I will do it from whatever platform I can. And hope that there is some twinge of consciousness in some of these people and hope that people stand up and say we are sick and tired of being lied to. But I have lost faith that any smart person that is currently elected in the GOP is going to have kind of a stroke of consciousness and come out and tell the truth.

Well, I I agree with you. But, you know, to your point about sunken cost, you know, once you’ve gone this far, you might as well go the whole way. I certainly understand that, and I think that explains a lot what’s going on here. But also, there’s the normal human and certainly political instinct to cut your losses. Stop digging.

And this is the extraordinary thing because they have had so many chances to move on to take the off ramps you don’t need to rush to the cameras every single time. And here you have someone who is credibly accused I’m talking about Donald Trump, credibly accused of fraud, of rape, of violating the espionage act of attempting to overthrow the election. And you would think that on the agenda of, you know, politicians would be, you know what? Maybe I’ll just let that go. I’m I’m not gonna defend it.

I may not attack him for it, but I’m not gonna I feel like we’ve asked this question a hundred times, but there is a certain irrationality of just sticking by him going into an election that I think Republicans ought to have some optimism about, you know, for a variety of reasons, and yet they’re going to go into a campaign in which their candidate for president is gonna spend much of the campaign actually sitting in a courtroom where he faces felony charges. And no other Republicans can seem to figure out how to use the fact the rape, the espionage charges, the fraud charges, all of this in order to get traction against them. I mean, you would think that the rest of the field would go, okay. Here are things that we really ought to be using. If I wanna be elected president, I should really run against Donald Trump by pointing out x y and z.

Yes. Well, I like, there is no excuse in my mind for anybody that’s running for president to be as sick of fanicle as they are. Right. I am shocked every day with the exception of Chris Christie, Ace, will hurt. Everybody is just out profusely defending him.

Yeah.

Like, what This is the guy that’s beating you in the polls, but here’s the thing with, again, let’s take the rank and file number of of the house. So imagine a scenario where you’re sitting, you know, you see, like, the old Vietnam prison camps. Right? And all the GIs are sitting around, and there’s, like, four guards that are armed. You know that at any time, if everybody at the same time rushes the guards, they’ll be able to in essence kill them and be free.

The problem is if just one guy stands up and rushes the guards, he’s down. And if one guy starts trying to talk to people about rushing the guards, somebody’s gonna dine It’s the same thing in the GOP. I mean, you saw what happened to Liz and I and some of the others, Jeff Blake, that have stood up and said the truth. They get basically politically killed. And so now everybody’s worried.

Mhmm.

There’s no way to organize a big group without Donald Trump finding out about it. And so you look in your side and say, look, Okay. Do I wanna stay in Congress? Yes. I do.

Then I have to suck it up because there’s no other way. Or if you hit a point where it’s I can’t do this anymore. My conscience won’t allow. You’re not gonna go on TV and say that. You’re simply not gonna run again.

Because by the way, when you’re out of Congress, you probably need to go lobby to make a living, and you have to lobby a lot of these people that are still huge trumpers, and you’re gonna have to work with some of them and you don’t wanna alienate them. I’m not I wouldn’t be a successful lobby right now because I go back and talk to some of my former Republican colleagues, they’d be like, I don’t wanna listen to you. You’ve been throwing us under the bus.

I don’t wanna be seen with you. Right.

I don’t wanna be anywhere near you.

This is a quasi lightning round. It doesn’t have to be really fast, but I wanted to just get your sense of the various actors and players right now, what do you make of Mike Pence? The much tougher Mike Pence, and you know that Mike Pence is turning a corner because he’s actually putting out merch. I I find this really extraordinary that they’re actually gave people have missed this. They’re actually truly marketing hats and t shirts saying too honest.

Now, because according to the special counsel’s indictment, Trump called Pence up on, you know, New Year’s day and berated him You know, and and Penn says, I don’t have the authority to throw out the election. Trump says, you’re too honest. So now they’re actually marketing that merch What do you make on Mike Pence? What took so long?

Okay. So I I’m a little bitter at Mike Pence because

— Yeah. —

you know, he could have, like, basically, on January seventh, Ben, the Chris Christie. And, actually, I think he’d be, like, the Ron de San not Ron DeSantis, but he’d be, like, the number two guy right now. And would have made a huge impact. He still won’t say if what Donald Trump did was criminal. He’s like, I’m not a lawyer, which is a little bit of nuance.

It drives me nuts. But I will embrace him with open arms. If this is a new mic, pants, and he’s gonna go out and tell the truth. We need him. We need his voice.

To go out and say, look, you know, I was all in on the trump agenda, but this is too much. And I don’t think there’s anybody even a hardcoreist Trump fan that doesn’t doubt that Mike Pence to a to an extent pretty honest. And so I walk him his voice. He still drives me a little nuts because he’s lukewarm always. He’ll say something to please trumpers a little bit or qualify what he’s about to say that’s anti trump, and he does that in like a a sandwich.

So he does that then he goes after Trump, and then he comes back with a positive Trump comment. If he can stay out there and stay strong, I’ll be excited to see it. I won’t support him for president. But, you know, that his voice is very important.

I I thought it was interesting. I think it was, was Olivia Knox writing in the Washington Post that really he has become Mike Pence has become kind of the, the symbol the avatar of the kind of conservative that Republican electorate has now reject I mean, you you go down in just in terms of issues, checking the boxes, and he represents everything that conservatives said they were before, say, two thousand fifteen, and yet they’re being rejected. And it’s worth noting that he has not yet qualified to be on the debate stage, which is amazing. Okay. So, Mike Pence, number one, Bill Barr, number two.

So if I could only think of Bill Barr kinda post January sex be like, man, he is a he is a hero of the, you know, the truth telling movement. I I don’t have as much bitterness to Bill Barr as a lot of people do. I, you know, I think there’s a lot he did that that I still am a little upset about. But, to me, he’s been I wish he wouldn’t have held on for his book and all that kind of stuff. But I’m glad he’s out there speaking, and he can speak with some authority.

That’s my view on him. And I’m not as bitter against him as some, but I can see why so far.

Okay. I’m I’m pretty bitter, but it is extraordinary. And and let’s let’s take Penson Barr, you know, and and put them together at least in this category. I mean, it would have been great had they been, you know, earlier and stronger. But this is just another reminder that almost all of the crucial evidence in this case comes from Republicans.

Yeah. It comes from people who were trump appointees. These are the voices from within the room. And you think about that, and this is a point that I think needs to be made know, strongly, this is not the resistance. This is not Democrats who are coming forward with this evidence.

These are people who were literally in the room who dealt with Donald Trump. And, you know, your committee, the testimony of in your committee, I would say that what more than ninety percent of the witnesses were Republicans, were people who were part of the Trump administration, and many of the key players were not just part of the Trump administration. They were the dead enders. They were the ones that hung on to the bitter end after the election, the, you know, and who when they said no to Donald Trump, were also ending their career in government. I mean, Mike Pence, for all of my criticism of him.

Remember, when he said, no, I’m not gonna use my power, to overturn the election, he was defeating himself. He was the vice president. He he basically gave up his job. Some of those officials of the Department of Justice would have been in ongoing positions of real authority and power, and they were destroying their own futures. By doing all of this.

So I don’t know whether this makes a difference so far. It doesn’t seem to have made that much of a difference. For Republican voters, but it is striking how many members of this cabinet members of this administration whatever their opinion is on the criminal charges are saying that this whole scenario is another indication of why Donald Trump should never be allowed near power again. At all.

And by the way,

when this trial comes and we see who’s actually gonna be called the witness stand, I mean, my principal probably be a witness or, you know, a witness against Donald Trump. That’s insane. You know, Mark Meadows. I’d always drove the the myga folks nuts when I would say, like, because it always sometimes would be like, yeah. You’re right.

The January sixth committee was. Very, very partisan. We only had Republicans come in and testify. Well, that’s not to say, you know, they’d get all upset. But I think it’s important to note too And I kind of just thought of this as we were having this discussion, which is if we actually do want to start seeing the Maga movement or Donald Trump, start collapsing, we’re going to have to be embracing a lot of people that were once all in that are now out because they’re the only ones left.

They’re the ones who we have a win over this thinking.

Okay. So since we’re we’re writing down the list of people, let’s talk about Ron DeSantis. Rhonda Santas who unlike say Chris Christie. And by the way, can we just mention about Chris Christie? Chris Christie.

When to Ukraine is meeting with Zelensky today?

Good on him. That’s awesome. And that is it’s courageous and tensed it to. It is courageous. It’s important for people to see that.

And I love Chris Christie’s. I don’t a d g a f attitude right now, which is just fantastic.

He really is a magnificent beast, and I I was extremely skeptical considering his role. And, you know, like, I have a lot of respect for Ace Hutchinson and Will Hurd, but right now, it is Chris Christie. One of the reasons why there’s no chance that Donald Trump is ever gonna get on a debate stage is he’s not gonna get on a debate stage with Chris Christie ever. It will never happen. Do you agree with me on that?

Yes. I do. Now Chris’s view is that maybe not the first debate, but then he won’t be able to resist. I think Chris Christie’s gonna slice him and dice him so much. He’ll just tweet from afar.

What it bleat. He’ll bleat from afar.

Bleach. Yeah.

And that’s about it. And it’s funny because I actually was pretty aggressive against Chris Christie as of a few months ago. And, he and I actually exchanged some kind of barbs on Twitter. And now I would consider him friend because the second I saw him out there on I think it was the CNN town hall or maybe his announcement. I’m like, You know what?

Yeah. I’m pissed that he was the first guy that endorsed Donald Trump in twenty sixteen, but he is serious. He means it. And he is better than anybody I’ve seen at exploiting Donald Trump’s weakness in front of the people that need exploited in And I think he’s just legitimately now having a good time doing it. So I I love watching him.

I love it.

And there there’s no restraint. I mean, he is all out of leaps to give. And you can tell that he’s not making the calculation. He is having fun. I I look at him and I go, well, what should he be saying?

He’s saying everything that he should be saying? He’s also going everywhere.

Right.

I mean, he goes on liberal shows. He goes on right wing shows. He goes on maca shows. I mean, this guy is utterly fearless. I mean, it’s one thing to go to Ukraine.

It’s another thing to go on Newsemax. You know what I mean? He’s going anywhere. Doing all this stuff laying it out. And I I gotta say it it is rather extraordinary.

So here’s the contrast with Ron DeSantis who just cannot figure out how to run against Donald Trump. Has done this campaign reset that is apparently going nowhere except one of the elements seems to be that he’s making the rhetoric even cruder and more brutal. It’s up in New Hampshire yesterday saying that on day one, he’s gonna start this is his term, slitting throats. I mean, so I’m sorry. What what is wrong with this guy?

I mean, everything he says is, like, it’s like the inauthenticity is, like, your faking it, and it’s just come you’re just trying too hard. It’s just too ridiculous.

It is like the kid that I got the invite to the party to hang out with the cool kids, you know, drinking in high school. Right. And he’s like, yeah, I I pounded a beer too last night. And that I had eighty beers. And it kinda goes over because you don’t know.

And that’s like so people said to DeSantis, look, you need to go again the deep state and the bureaucracy. And so it goes out and emotionally says we’re gonna start slitting throats. First off, I laugh because it’s just so insane. That’s also like I mean, there’s somebody out there that’s gonna listen to that and be like, I’m gonna lit some throats because there are some crazy people out there. Ron DeSantis.

Look, I knew him in the house. The funny story I have about Ron

is, like, and everybody’ll

tell you a same story like this. He never would talk to anybody, but there was one time in the cloakroom. We’re sitting back there, and I actually had a bit of a conversation with him. And if I’m sitting, you know, across from you face to face, we’re talking. And if I get a phone call I have to take, I’ll pick up my phone, look at it and be like, hey, Charlie, would you excuse me for a second?

I gotta take this call.

Yeah.

We’re talking in the middle of something. He picks up his phone and literally walks away. It doesn’t even say anything. And I’m like, alright. Well, f u two, man.

See you. And that’s just him. He doesn’t know how to react to people. His campaign view, and it’s probably not a terrible thing if he would do it right is at some point Donald Trump will collapse and I will be the trumpiest guy, so I’ll be there to pick up the pieces. Right.

But he’s just done it so awkwardly and stupidly that he’s not gonna be that guy.

That scenario was plausible, say six months ago. Right? That Yeah. That something something something unicorn magic, I become the nominee. Right?

You you don’t actually have to run against Donald Trump that somebody else will take him out. Of course, every time somebody tries to take him out, Rhonda Sanders runs to his defense, I mean That’s right.

It’s nuts.

It is nuts. By the way, I was reminded yesterday. I’d actually forgotten about this. Donald Trump actually, you know, surrenders in Washington DC goes there, goes to the arraignment. And one of the commentators was saying, you know, this was not necessarily a certainty because you remember when the first indictment came down, Ron DeSantis popped out of the governor’s mansion and said, you know, the state of Florida will not help extradite Donald Trump.

Right. He was he

was prepared to turn Florida into a, you know, an orange caligula sanctuary he stayed. And so, yeah, six months ago, it was perhaps plausible that Donald Trump was gonna go away and he would be the logical next candidate, but that’s obviously not gonna happen. And I don’t know what this reset is because I’m not seeing any kind of of a reset. He’s just as awkward as ever. He’s incapable of talking for more than thirty seconds without using the word woke.

He keeps digging himself deeper Yep. No. This debate about slavery, which I don’t wanna get into. I mean, you can make the case that some of the criticism was unfair, that it’s one sentence out of two hundred pages and everything. But Ron DeSantis won’t let go of his own shitty issue.

I mean, he just keeps going and going.

He’s trying to play the trump thing, but only trump can do that. I mean, I’ll give Trump credit. Like, he can do things that nobody else can. One of those is you know, double down on unpopular things to look tough. And I think that’s what Ron’s trying to do on the slavery thing, and he can’t do it.

He doesn’t have the ability to do that. He just looks dumber and jupiter, a dumber. Okay.

So what do you think is going to happen? You know, we started off by, you know, talking about the the doom loop of nothing ever matters upon the tree. Let’s let’s go back to all of that because the conventional wisdom is that despite these indictments, that Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to get the Republican nominee, do you see anything that changes the dynamics to this.

So now I don’t think it’s super likely, but if this court case gets done prior to the election. Now let’s let’s take a couple of factors. First off, again, you can read an indictment But then when you see people testify, we’ll see that evidence laid out. And if he is convicted, I just saw a poll today that fifty percent of Republicans would turn, in essence, turn against or consider turning against Trump if in fact he was actually convicted of these crimes. Now that’s gonna lower a little bit as people rally around the flag.

But I do think that this trial, if it’s done in a more public way and he’s convicted actually does have the opportunity to turn it. Now I’m not sitting here, you know, betting all my money on that, but I think could be because, you know, it’s one thing to stand around and this guy’s been indicted and we’re gonna defend him. It’s another thing when he truly is a convicted felon. And you all of a sudden realize there’s not a chance in blazes he can win the presidency. I think that’s the only case.

But that won’t happen before the primaries are over. And the nominating convention is held here in Milwaukee.

Yeah. It’s possible because I think they’re talking in theory in May, but you’re right. And that would maybe have to be a case where he’s replaced at the convention. Again, I give it very little chance, but I think that’s the only thing that exists that’s gonna I think the reality is we’re gonna have to defeat Donald Trump in the general election. That’s what I think the reality is.

Well, the poll you mentioned, and we we had a at least know, pause on that for a moment. This is the new, Reuters Ipsos poll. About half of US Republicans would spurn Trump if he is convicted. Let me read you from the article. The two day, Reuters Ipsos poll asked respondents if they would vote for Trump for president next year if he were convicted of a felony crime by a jury.

Among Republicans, forty five percent said they would not vote for him. More than the thirty five percent who said they would. The rest said they did not know. So only thirty five percent of Republicans say they would vote for Donald Trump if he was convicted of a felony by a jury. Asked if they would vote for Trump if he were, quote, currently serving time in prison.

Fifty two percent of Republicans said they would not, which is in the basically remember when you think about it. I mean, it’s like, hello. But compared to twenty eight percent who said they would. Okay. So it is shocking that there are twenty eight percent of Republicans who say, yes, I would vote for him to president, even if he is actually in a joint jumpsuit in prison, but those numbers would suggest that it is impossible for him to win in a general election.

I guess question is, when that begins to be felt in the Republican world. Okay. One last question, do you think there’s time and room and opportunity for someone else to get into this race to play the role Ron DeSantis is clearly not going to, play by which I’m obviously referring to a Glen Youngkin or somebody like that coming in being the consensus candidate, we have to stop Trump, we have to have some alternative. Can that happen?

Well, so putting aside my personal feelings on me on Youngkin, I do think that is a possibility because if you think about it, it was part of the thing I was always against Santas from the beginning is, which is and we’ve talked about on this show, you’ve said it a hundred times, you know, you think of president Walker, president, Deb Bush, You know, the people that are in the lead early on are never in the lead later. And right now, you have this massive baggage on DeSantis If you could hit a reset button with somebody like Glenn Youngin, and he can come in and be kind of trump y, but a little more polished at it. Then I do think there is a possibility as we get more and more into this Buck and Meyer that he could take that position. I’m not a huge Gwen Youngin fan for any number of reasons. But just speaking from an analytical point of view, I do think that is a possibility.

And, somebody like him or like him. They can come forward and has a track record to show. They can win on the issues that Maga cares about, which is only woke issues. You know, it’s possible.

Adam Kinzinger, who I think needs no introduction for our audience, former congressman from Illinois crucial member of the January six committee, a senior political commentator for CNN and has a new book coming out this fall renegade my life and faith, the military, and defending America from Trump’s back on democracy. It is always great to talk with you, Adam.

You too. Thanks a lot.

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

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