Boos at a Republican town hall in Fulton County, and boos at the White House: We're beginning to see signs of people refusing to be ruled by unelected billionaires, oligarchs and CEOs. This may be the time for Democrats with some heterodox views to run for office. Meanwhile, the supposedly free speech president and his shadow are trying to intimidate people from criticizing them—including a member of Congress and one of Elon's baby mamas. Plus, Trump's advisers seem more worried about Zelensky saying mean things about him than the fact that he wants to hand the spoils to the losing side of the war. Rep. Adam Kinzinger joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes Tim's interview with CA Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia Sam's interview with FEMA chief who was fired and has now been rehired Evidence of Elon shadow-banning Grimes Kinzinger's substack Tim's playlist
Chapter 1: Who is Adam Kinzinger and what is his perspective on current politics?
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Congratulations to our friends in Canada for their overtime hockey victory against the U.S. in the Four Nations face-off last night. And I'm pumped to be here today with a great American patriot, one of our faves, formerly a Republican congressman from Illinois. He served in the Air Force. He's the founder of Country First.
He writes a Substack newsletter, and I guess he does Substack videos now. Substack multi-platform content producer. It's Adam Kinzinger. How you doing, bro?
Good, buddy. You know, and it's weird because I've never rooted against America. But last night, I mean, I'll be honest, there was part of me that's like, it'd be nice to see Trump have to eat his words a little bit.
Yeah, the guy in the MAGA hat right behind the bench that kept showing was impacting my rooting interest. I'm not going to say who I was rooting for, Canada. But, you know, it definitely was nice for the Canadians. The guy...
And no offense to our friends up north, but I don't give a rat's backside about hockey. So it's not like, if this was American football and we were against Canada, but you know.
Yeah, no, me neither. They didn't change the Canadian national anthem to take a dig at Trump about how this is their country, which I liked. So anyway, I like the digs. I like the digs. It's good. All right. We've got much, much to discuss. Too much, probably. But you did a sub stack yesterday, an emergency sub stack. I want to start there. The message of it was basically, Let's get loud.
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Chapter 2: What is Adam Kinzinger's call for a new political movement?
Let's start to do something. This is a moment for a Democratic Tea Party of sorts. We can quibble over the particulars. But as somebody who was in the Tea Party wave of Congress people, what do you call it for?
Yeah, look, I mean, and this is I got to give you credit because you were talking about this yesterday and just like, you know, hey, we've got to do something. And then you were talking about how the tea party came about. And that got me thinking. And it's like, you know, it's exactly what is happening now.
And here's the key that I want to say on the outset, though, is I don't want this to be, hey, this is a left wing movement. You know, the Tea Party came in and they were trying to pull the country right. This is actually a pro-democracy version of the Tea Party. So you're going to have people from all over the political spectrum here.
But basically what happened in the Tea Party, Republicans felt defeated. And I remember I went, you know, exploring, running for Congress, talking to the Republican congressman like in January after Obama won. And they were just beat down. They were just sad, tired, like, yeah, I guess you can run. I don't know what it's going to look like.
And it was this grassroots energy then that started showing up at town hall meetings. And then they show I think it started with Chuck Grassley and it had to do with the health care bill. They started basically, you know, yelling, protesting, whatever. Then members of Congress quit doing town halls. And that obviously looked like they were hiding, which they were.
and you just had this gasoline on a fire that ended up really overtaking the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2010. I think that's what needs to happen now. Everybody is kind of waiting, including me, I mean, we're all in the same boat, for like some action plan. Here's the one, two, three step that's gonna guarantee that we can stop X, Y, and Z. That's not gonna happen.
Like that doesn't happen. What is going to happen is there's going to be grassroots energy that rises up that begins to build whatever this movement is that it looks like. But that's how, when you have historical things that change a country, it never comes from one person giving somebody a blueprint. It always comes from like just this outrage or this anger and this demand for change.
And I think we started to see that yesterday at this Georgia town hall. And, uh, I, I, I don't know. I just feel like we're at a moment where this is going to and can grow into something. And again, I do want to stress, don't make this a left-wing thing because it'll flame out. Trust me, they always do. Make this about pro-democracy and defending our government.
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Chapter 3: How are grassroots movements impacting political town halls?
We can always debate the particulars later when we have power.
Let's just talk about the Georgia thing for a second. This guy, Rich McCormick, and this is quite a red district. This is not particularly a swing district. It didn't seem like he knew what he was signing up for. He won 64-35 in the last election. So again, not a close district. And just a ton of energy, a ton of people speaking out, folks pouring out of you know, the town hall.
And I do wonder, as somebody who's been in this position, both as kind of the insurgent Tea Party candidate, but then as a congressman who's getting yelled at at town halls, like, this stuff does have an impact on these guys, right?
Oh, gosh. Huge. Huge. Listen, I mean... You know, there's always this feeling we talk about how, you know, the voices on the far right, like the anti-Ukraine voices, they're outrepresented on Twitter, for instance, and it seems like they're everywhere. This is the same kind of dynamic where all of a sudden you're in a red district, 75% red district.
You show up to do your town hall that you've done every couple months or whatever, and now all of a sudden outrage is showing up. That is intimidating.
There is not a single person out there, unless you're a psychopath that just loves that, and there are a few people like that, but there's not a real person out there that's gonna stand in front of that, get yelled at, get screamed at, make national news for not having an answer like Rich McCormick didn't, and then say, you know what, we gotta go do that again.
Let's do that again next month, right? No, what happens is you quit doing town halls. Now people continue to be outraged more because you're hiding from them. And this is what builds over a one to two year period. And look, I've been protesting at town halls. I'm going to tell you, it sucks. I also know, and for me, it was like, why are we doing these town halls then? Right.
And when I ran in 2010, you know, with respect to the lady I beat in 2010, we had a lot of people showing up at her town halls and she quit doing them. And in fact, at one town hall had her chief of staff answer questions. And what happens is they end up going into defense mode. They end up reacting poorly. And also...
they now may end up finding the courage to stand up to Donald Trump, truly, because now they're like, gosh, I may lose my election. Maybe not in a 75% red district, but there are a lot of districts that Donald Trump over a 10-year period turned that are actually gettable here.
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Chapter 4: Why is Elon Musk criticized for his influence on government actions?
The fact that, I think you said this yesterday, the richest guy and the most powerful guy are best friends and now in control of government. And they're out there trying to determine what the government looks like that we live under. Not Congress. Not the people that we elect to go figure this out for us. I mean, look, if Congress wanted to shut down every agency, honestly, I'd oppose it.
But fine. That's what Congress's job is. And so I think when you tell the American people, look, the founding fathers never intended. For Elon Musk to have more power than you. Yes, they intended for Donald Trump to have more power than you. There's nothing we can do about that. But Elon Musk, no. Jeff Bezos, no. They never intended that. So what are we going to do? We're going to stop it.
We're going to rise up and say we're not going to be controlled by billionaires. I do think that is a brilliant rallying cry. And frankly, it's not just the anti-Trump stuff, right, which kind of ran its course, still has some legs. But this is real. This is like Americans don't feel good about this.
One particular example, and I don't know that Scott Curtis himself is going to be the person people's picture they put on flags. I doubt that he wants it, but I appreciate that he was willing to talk to us yesterday. He did an interview with Sam Stein. If you people want to listen to that, that's in our board takes podcast feed. But Scott was a retired Navy captain. 32 years in the Navy.
He came back, went into FEMA. He was the Section 7, which is kind of the Midwest chief of staff. But 55 years old, got that fork in the road email from Elon Musk, figured, okay, this might be a good time to retire from public service, look for a job in the private sector. He didn't have a lead or whatever, but I'll take it. We've got eight months. I'll figure it out. Accepts the offer to resign.
13 days later, gets canned. OK, because he's one of these probationary employees. And this is just one example. Right. But it's like this guy served the country 32 years in the Navy, in war zones, real, real service to this country. And he was made an offer, a good faith offer by the government. And they just fucking pulled the plug on him like it's like some evil thing.
you know, movie CEO, you know, I mean, the joke is like the George Jetson, like Mr. Spacely, you know, this just like somebody that's just like a dick. It's like, I made you a deal. I have billions of dollars, billions and billions and billions of dollars. I'm a South African immigrant. You serve the country. I'm going to fuck you over.
And I don't, I just think that like that is going to like those kinds of stories I do think are going to build up and resonate with people. And Elon is a very easy bad cop in a story like that.
I agree. I agree. Look, I think, you know, when all this is said and done and Doge fake agency, Doge actually ends up saving, they're going to say a gajillion dollars. Let's say it's 10 billion, 20 billion, even 30 billion, which it's not going to be real money on that. But let's say it is. Elon Musk makes that in a day, by the way. So he takes what he makes in a day.
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Chapter 5: What role do veterans and public service employees play in political discourse?
Elon is a veteran of the Doge Wars, of the online, of the meme wars. He's a veteran of the meme wars. You saw it with his big fat belly on stage at CPAC yesterday. Anyway, one other thing people can do before we start. I have more Elon rants coming and rants about several of the people we've mentioned already. But before we get into all these guys bad.
one other thing i think people can do and i want to have and sometime in the next couple weeks my friend amanda lipman on she runs a group called run for something that like encourages people to run for office and i know that this is something that you and i are aligned on but i i haven't actually explicitly said it on the podcast i don't think we'll see how everything goes but i think that 2026 will be the best time
in the foreseeable future for somebody to run as a Democrat who maybe doesn't have full, like all the traditional Democratic views, to your point. Somebody who has some heterodox views, somebody who has an interesting background, somebody who's a little different. You saw this in 2010 with Republicans like you running. We saw this in, God, I got to go back to the year. What was it?
The Mark Foley year, 2006, where a bunch of weird Democrats, like people that never would have won, like won. You get these wave years where people are pissed. And, and there's a backlash. And I think this is going to be one of those years. And people always are asking me, what can you do? What can you do? And obviously not everybody's going to run for office, but I don't know.
I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to like encourage people who are thinking about it, because this guy, Scott Curtis, that I mentioned, this retired Navy captain who just got fired. He just kind of said that as an aside in his conversation with Sam on YouTube where he was like, I don't know, maybe I'll run.
And I just want to encourage people that are out there that have a kind of background like his that are thinking maybe I'll run, that this is the time to do it. So you did it in 2010. I'm wondering what you think about that.
Yeah, look, you're exactly right. And I just did the quick math. I'm like, every massive wave election is about 12 to 15 years apart. And if you think about the last one, 2010, I mean, we're there now. It's weird. So yeah, I mean, it's 100% true. So I decided to run in 2010 against a Democratic incumbent that had won by 25%. And when I decided to run, people were like, hey, we'll back you.
And that goes to show how much times have changed. I was the establishment guy, and I got 75%.
in a five-way primary you know they're like we're back you but man this is tough you know your your opponent her name's debbie halverson she's freshman you know younger lady and i ended up beating her by it was the largest swing actually an incumbent had won to what they lost by the next election without a scandal i think in the country in like 50 years so but the point is i knew i could win but nobody else did and and there were people look i had a
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Chapter 6: Why is now a good time for non-traditional Democrats to run for office?
It is. It is. It is. I think we're all in disbelief because... I guess we're not surprised, we're not shocked by this, but it's the pace at which Trump pivoted is shocking. And the fact that, by the way, there are all of his advisors walking around saying, I mean, Walt said this, you got to quit being mean to him. Hey, Zelensky, you're being mean to him. What do you expect? What is this?
This is a toddler. I mean, honest to God, I've got a three-year-old, and I'm careful at what I say around him because I don't want him to go off. But I recognize that he's a not-developed toddler. And that's exactly what they're saying. So this guy, President Trump, is so advanced in 5-D chess and all that, that you have to be careful that you say some mean words to him?
You had said this yesterday. It's like whoever came out and said, well, he likes people. Crenshaw, he likes people. Oh, yeah.
No, we got the audio. We got the audio. I said this yesterday and we had so many comments about it. People couldn't believe that it was actually true. So to be fair to Dan Crenshaw, let's listen to him explain Trump's behavior. Let's listen.
Trump has responded by calling Zelensky a dictator without elections and says he better move fast or he's not going to have a country left, saying he's very unpopular, his country's in ruins, etc.
Trump tends to talk that way to his friends. Yeah. He tends to talk nicer to his enemies. So if he's talking to you that way, it still means you're his friend. I might... And I would always, of course, warn people like Zelensky, just don't get into it with Donald Trump. Don't get into it. What's the point? What's the point? We've been backing you this whole time. We will continue to back you.
But there must be a paradigm shift. And that's what President Trump brings to the table here is a paradigm shift. That's what they're attempting to do.
You expect us to believe that shit? I mean, like what? I guess you, Adam, and Trump must be best pals. Crying Adam Kinzinger. When are you going to get your invite down to Mar-a-Lago? You guys are just buddies. Maybe you can go golfing together because he's mean to his friends, so he must love you.
Look, I've been trying to unfriend this guy for years, and he just keeps tweeting at me like I'm his buddy. I can't, I don't get it. I mean, look, this is in a way I feel sorry for Dan only because I know he knows better and he's like sitting there going, gosh, how do I, but I don't feel bad because he could just say the truth. He's like Mike Waltz, right? They know better.
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Chapter 7: What are the concerns regarding Kash Patel's appointment as FBI director?
I know, I know. Well, look, evidently you have to have Twitter and speak real now anyway. That's true. That's a good point. That's a good point. I said something about how freaking beta it is to follow a man and literally be sitting around going, everything Trump says is right. And this is a guy that is fat, that golfs all the time, that literally is the biggest whiner.
He's never done manual labor in his life. This is exactly the kind of person that folks would be like. He's the opposite of a man. The only thing he does is he yells, he's petulant, and he tweets in all caps. If that's manly, great, cool. But what this reminds me of...
It's like those cartoons where it's the little mouse and he's got like a big elephant as a sidekick and the little mouse is the bully and the big elephant's like, what do you want, sir? Right? That's the whole GOP male establishment that could be like, they could schwack Donald Trump down and be like, listen, man, you're nothing but a whiny little bitch. But they don't.
They sit there and they follow him because he's scary. Because he can bring people to tweet against me and I might lose my job. Ooh.
Zelensky should just act like me. Zelensky should just lick Trump's balls like I did. That's how he'd be a real man.
Could you imagine? And that's where I'm like with Ukraine. And I hope Europe, by the way, Europe has got to step up in this moment. The only bad thing about that is the magas will say this was Donald Trump's plan all along. He really wanted Ukraine to win. He just wanted Europe to step up. Don't fall for that. It's not true. He wants Ukraine to lose, by the way.
But hopefully this is a moment where Europe can step up and be like, you know what, America, we'd love to have you. You're very important. We don't need you. Rheinmetall, NAMO, all of our other European defense agencies, they're going to make enough stuff for Ukraine. And we'll stop the Russians. And you can basically take your tariffs and leave Europe.
Let's game this out for a second, that outcome, because that seems decently likely at this point. It puts us in a big bind. If Marco, if our possibly Cuban agent, I don't know, possibly communist Cuban agent, I'm just throwing it out there, might be possible, but we don't know.
If he cuts a deal with his Russian counterparty and, you know, whatever the contours of that, something like what I laid out at the beginning, and Zelensky says no, and there are enough European countries that say no, we'll keep backing you. where does that put us in that situation? Like, what do you do? You know, it was going to leave them in a very tough, you know, situation to game out.
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