Next Question with Katie CouricTrump 2.0: “Beyond What I Even Expected” with Adam Kinzinger
Trump’s first 100 days? Worse than former congressman and “proud RINO” Adam Kinzinger ever imagined. He joins Katie for a bracing conversation about authoritarian creep, advice on Democratic Party messaging, why the next few years could be rougher than anyone’s ready for–and why blind optimism is useless, but keeping hope alive can galvanize the American people.
How frightening is this to you?
Pretty frightening? And look, I'm going to steal this from Charlie Sykes, but I think it's well said. He said, I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful. And that's how I feel, which is I look back at history and I know every time we faced like dark moments, we've come through them. I mean, one took a civil war, but we've come through those moments and actually come out stronger.
Hi. Everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, and this is next question. Donald Trump has been president now for one hundred days, and if you listen to the polls, a lot of Americans are very unhappy with his performance so far. One of those Americans is Adam Kinsinger, former congressman and current critic of the Trump administration. Adam, thanks so much for joining us. It's great to see you, and we have a lot to talk about.
Yeah. I good to be with you. Yeah, we really did. It's been crazy.
Now that Donald Trump has been in office for one hundred days. How would you describe the first few months of the Trump administration?
Well, okay, so I'll give you two different things, my opinion versus just like objectively, how is he done. My opinion, this is way worse than anything I imagined. I was trying to warn the Democrats basically between Trump's victory and inauguration day, like you guys need to get your ducks in a row because this thing could go fast. Right. One of my biggest frustrations, and I think this is why, frankly, so many Democrats are upset, is because you know, Donald Trump gets inaugurated. Doge, this fake agency Doge gets created out of thin air, and then for about two weeks Congress is out of session and Democrats went home and so like all this that was going on was happening with no opposition in place, and I think that created a lot of fury. And for me, it bothered me because I'm like, look, guys, we were warning you this was going to happen. It is Project twenty twenty five. They had the playbook out there. So his rapid advancement in terms of kind of illiberalism authoritarianism has been beyond what I even expected objectively. So taking my opinion out and saying how is he done tactically, Well, if your goal is illiberalism, if your goal is you know, authoritarianism, he's done a great job getting there, right. That's that if your goal is as strong America with strong alliances that's respected in the world, he gets a terrible job. If your goal is if your interest is the economy, the US economy, he's done a terrible job. So I'll just say this, it is really bad for the United States of America right now. I think we can get out of this, but I think we're in for a few years where it's going to be rough, and frankly, we have to have these conversations about what is lawful, right and actually effective resistance to this.
Well, let's talk about the role of the Democrats and their failure to provide a bulwark against many of these actions. If you could go back in time, and of course hindsight is twenty twenty, what should the Democrats have done in terms of organizing to create some cohesive resistance.
Well, I think it's first important to say, look, the election. There's this idea that it was a blowout by Trump. It wasn't. I mean, you know, butterfly effect. If two weeks prior a bird would have sneezed a different direction, right, you know, Trump could have lost. It was one percent in every one of the swing states, and one percent can change on a dime. So it was a close election. What could they have done between that election and inauguration day is I think be ready for what was coming and have a plan, plan to not go home. Look, when you're in the minority, really this is in the House. Now, keep in mind, actually the majority is so close that the minority. In this case, the Democrats actually have a little more power because they only need to peel off a couple of Republicans. But generally speaking, you know, the first time I was in the minority in the House, one thing we learned is you're weapon is messaging and that's it. You know, yes, you can vote no on everything, and you will vote no on everything, but your ability to message is what's important. So that message should have been put together. They should have determined that when session went out after frankly January sixth, and then after inauguration, they should have stayed in DC. And then let me give you an example. All of a sudden, doge is running wild in these different agencies. Right, they should have been there on day one. They eventually did it. On day one. They should have gone to every one of these agencies demanded entrance. If by then Doge would have had their ducks together and prevented them entry, they should have then turned around, made a big deal about it, turned around, gone to the DC courts, and gotten a court order for entry. There is no legal merit or legal reason for a member of Congress to be denied entry into an organization or into agency. Yeah, a federal agency that they oversee that the courts would take their side. You do those battles. You're messaging repeatedly on the floor. You're messaging repeatedly to every media outlet you can, whether it's mainstream media, even whether it's some of these podcasts. You put your best messengers out there. And the other thing I'll say this is just kind of generally speaking, Democrats have to win the working class back again. And I know within the Democratic Party I've paid attention to it, there's this kind of battle between well, the problem is we didn't turn out the left enough, you know, and we shouldn't have gone after Republicans versus. I don't believe that, right. I think the reality is a lot of Republicans voted Democratic this time, but you're losing. The Democrats are losing the working class and that was their bread and butter. That's what they've got to get back and men, working class and men.
And I'd love to dig into that a little bit more. But first, don't you think the Democrats need a cohesive, coherent message? In other words, media is so fragmented, as you know, and it seems that not only did they not do enough in the early days of the administration some of the things that you've suggested, but the messaging seems to be all over the place. And that is one thing that Republicans and MAGA specifically has done well, very general, easy to understand messaging and cohesive messaging across all their messengers and all their platforms.
You know. The funny thing is, when I was in Congress, we always thought the Democrats were better at this than us, and honestly they were until recently. So for Democrats, again, my advice is go back to what you used to think on this stuff, right, you would have pretty strict messages. Let me give you an example of a message that I think can work that works for the Republicans. How many times have we heard the term Biden crime family. Okay, now you can look and say well, what are Biden's crimes. Well, they never proved any crimes, but the moniker of Biden crime family stuck and that made it out of just the Fox News realm, that made it everywhere. The reality is Trump has a crime family. I mean, you look at the stuff that's going on with crypto, the dinner he's throwing for his own meme coin, the fact that a Chinese billionaire or millionaire who had a crypto investigation against him had that dropped after buying some Trump crypto, and you look through Don Junior is on the board of Calshe, which is a political betting website. I could go on and on.
Well, what about Dave McCormick having a huge investment in being the member of the Senate who's overseeing crypto regulation.
Absolutely that, Absolutely that. And you think of Elon Musk, right, who's willing to go in, take a chainsaw, tell you everything that you can live without in the federal government, while ensuring that his SpaceX and even Tesla contracts are protected, if not even more robust. We're continuing this mission to Mars, which look, I'm all for trying to go to Mars, but we're continuing this mission while we're cutting food stamps and everything else. And so I think the issue of corruption is not just a talking point, it's a reality. And I honestly think if we go forward ten years and look back on this administration, the theme that will be a thread throughout it is corruption. It's like when you think Nixon, you think of corruption. That's I think that what the Democrats have got to focus on.
So how do they do that in a pithy, short sentence or in the kind of earworm that Donald Trump is so good at creating, for example, fake news that became this earworm that every time there was something that was critical of him or his administration, everyone who supported him would accuse the media of fake news. So how do you do one of those clever, short, catchy phrases. Would you say, Trump crime family, give us some ideas. I know you're not in marketing, but that's what they need, isn't it?
It is? And so let's take the issue of fake news. Now fake news when you think of it, now, what you think about is Donald Trump calling the news media fake? Do you actually know where fake news came from? It was the idea of misinformation. It actually was fake news. So it's when we were talking about Russian misinformation for instance. Or you know, if somebody created a fake news website and they wrote a fake story and then that gets picked up by you know, the media or whatever. That's what fake news was. It was legitimately fake news. He took that and turned it into his thing, because he does that just by shamelessness and repeatedly repeating things and so to his people. And by the way, it doesn't happen in a month. It happens in like three or four years. That's the other thing. You've got to have patience for the long game here. So I think one example is Biden crime family is stuck. Why don't we do Trump crime family or something related to that that can stick Trump criminals, the criminal Trump family, the Trump crime family, whatever it is, and stick to that message. And understand that's going to take two to four years to stick, but we've got to stick with it. It's just like, look the whole idea of you know, we're one hundred days in. Donald Trump has terrible poll numbers, people are still upset. Forty percent of America still likes him. Okay, let's look at what we've gained, which is he's historically unpopular. A lot of runway in front of us. Just understand, this stuff takes time, but you've got to be disciplined about it, and they're very disciplined. The other side is, well.
Let's talk about these polls. The ABC Washington Post IPSOS poll shows his approval rating is thirty nine percent. Now, that's the lowest rating of any newly elected president at the one hundred day mark since Dwight D. Eisenhower. And the CNN poll just twenty two percent say they strongly approve of his handling and the job. Forty five percent they strongly disapprove. So when you read these polls, and there have been a number of them that have come out at this one hundred day mark, tell us what you extrapolate from them.
So there's really two big issues within that that I think should be warning science for the Republicans. Number one is Trump always won on the issue of the economy. He's now well, actually very significantly underwater on the issue of the economy. Now, again, keep in mind when you say economy, that means different things to different people. But what it shows is Americans right now feel very anxious about where the economy's at They did not feel this way at the very beginning of January. So that's one thing. The other thing is the issue of immigration. Donald Trump was always winning on the issue of immigration. Now again immigration. If you just say that to somebody, it may mean a different thing to me than it means to you know, even my wife. But he was always above He's now underwater on the issue of immigration. What does that mean. Well, people still probably want border security. I think that's pretty universally desired. I also think the vast majority of Americans want a pathway to legalization for folks that are here illegally, not necessarily citizenship in the first ten years, but legalization and then eventually citizenship. And so people are kind of looking at this going okay, this like heartless deportation that's going on. And look, it's one thing to say we think people that are herely should be deported. Okay, that's a defendable position. What I think is indefensible is the White House putting out ASMR videos where they're dragging a chain and they're like, isn't this amazing? Or Christy Nomes going to the JLNL Salvador and standing in front of it, so we all feel good about how terribly people are being treated. And look, the MAGA hardcore base may love that. Unfortunately they do, the vast majority of Americans don't. Those are two warning signs. And if you go even deeper within that, where Donald Trump is taking big hits are with the youth, which he never should have won, but he came pretty close to winning. And then specifically among Hispanics. And it's not necessarily because of immigration that he's lost ground with Hispanics. I think a lot of that is economy related, but those are some of his biggest areas.
Let's dig into immigration for a moment, Adam, because it's not only heartless but in many cases illegal. Can you talk about due process and I know that many Americans probably a theoretical term when they hear those two words, but talk about how important it is to convey that this is being done illegally and unconstitutionally.
Well, let me put it this way. If you're driving in a fifty five mile an hour zone and you're going seventy five and you get pulled over, and let's say the penalty over nineteen miles an hour is arrest in jail Okay, let's say you get arrested, you go to jail. The one thing you know, even as a law abiding citizen, is you'll have an opportunity to go to court. You'll have an opportunity to maybe negotiate that down, pay some kind of penalty or whatever. Imagine if we lived in a country that said, if the police officer says that you did twenty miles an hour over the speed limit, you don't get a trial, you don't get an opportunity to defend yourself. You're automatically guilty in one year in jail. What does that do. Well, if that's the penalty and you get pulled over for doing twenty over, you're going to serve the time. But let's say an officer just says you did twenty over and you weren't doing it, you have no ability to defend yourself. That's the situation when it comes to immigration. You know, look what they do is they're taking the people that are in generally you know, may have connections to organized crime, maybe broke the law here besides just coming illegally, and they're breaking due process. They're not giving due processes people and they're saying, wait, what you want due process for this guy who is a member of a gang. What about you know, this person who was killed by a gang member. This person didn't have due process. All of that's true, But what they're doing is trying to get you to focus on the badness of a person and not the fact that everybody in the United States of America gets a chance to plea their case. Now, very well, if you're a member of MS thirteen, for instance, and the government can prove it, you're going to probably be deported, as you should be, but you should still have a right to make your case. And look, the Constitution does not delineate between US citizens in the United States of America or any people in the United States of America. And so when you break due process for the least of these, like the Bible says, whatever you do for the least of these, you do under me. Here's the other thing, all of these little things we're doing little steps towards authoritarianism or towards illiberalism, whatever you want to call it. Each step in and of itself is not enough to be outraged to the point of take to the streets in general, strike right, But in cumulation they are and when you say to somebody, we're gonna not do due process for this bad person. Well, next thing, it's okay, we're not gonna do due process because we already did it for the bags, for the people that are here illegally. And then well, there are enemies of the state, and I get it, they're American citizens, but you know they were Palestinian rallies or whatever. And then next it's Adam Kinsinger. He's a Rhino and he went against the president. And the next thing it's you. That's how these little steps, each of which is not enough to spark massive outrage, but in cumulation is as as they said, you know, and again I don't want to make comparisons to Nazi Germany, but in this case it's a good example, which is, if in nineteen thirty five they'd have opened concentration camps, the German public would have rebelled. But if you just boil the frog to the point where you open it in and of itself, you get yourself to a point where it's not outrageous enough.
How frightening is this to you?
Uh? Pretty frightening. And look, I'm going to steal this from Charlie Sykes, But I think it's well said, he said. I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful. And that's how I feel, which is I look back at history, and I know every time we've faced like dark moments, we've come through them. I mean, one took a civil war, but we've come through those moments and actually come out stronger. So I have no reason to believe that the American people have fundamentally their DNA has changed, that we're not going to come back out of this stronger. Three and a half years seems like forever when you're on this side of it, but once it's past, you look back and it goes by in an instant. And I mean, by the way, we're one hundred days in and already millions of Americans have taken to the streets in almost every organized town and city in this country. Those are good science, but our defensive democracy is not automatic. And that's where I'm very concerned, is, you know, we have to step up. A judge in Wisconsin is arrested, Like some of this stuff is outrageous and we've grown numb to it.
Let's talk about the arrest of that Wisconsin judge, Hannah Dugan who was arrested by the FBI on suspicion that she had steered an undocumented immigrant through a side door to evade federal agents. Why is that such an outrage in your view?
So it's two things. First Off, I didn't know it was illegal to, you know, kind of hide somebody that has not been convicted necessarily by the Feds they wanted to deport them. I don't know all the details, but is this saying that if you know somebody who's illegal and they're at your house and the police come, that it's illegal to say they're not there. That's kind of chilling, to be honest with you, if it's like that. But secondarily, simply the fact that ICE in general has always kind of had an unspoken rule or maybe spoken rule with local jurisdictions that they won't enforce there. Because what you want to do is first off, tell anybody that's in the country illegally that they can still use the judicial system. Maybe they're a victim of a crime. Right if you have a rape victim, for instance, who's an illegal immigrant, are they going to go to the law enforcement if they know that ICE is camped out right there and ready to deport them. And then the other thing is just look, I'll say this is an old school former Republican is like, we actually used to believe in sovereignty of states. We actually used to believe that states had a certain power that the federal government didn't. And so the idea that the Feds are going to come in and say we're going to arrest a duly elected, by the way, not appointed, a duly elected judge in Milwaukee is very chilling. And Plus, I think Carol Levitt or somebody today or yesterday said that they wouldn't hesitate to arrest a Supreme Court justice that they said would violate the law. And again, the question isn't yeah, okay, if John Roberts murdered somebody, you can arrest John Roberts. They're not talking about that. They are defining what is breaking the law and what isn't. Look, I'm called a lawbreaker why because I was on a committee that investigated January sixth. In Donald Trump's mind, I am a criminal for investigating him. So do we really want to leave them with the power to determine what a crime is and what's arrestable. That's why it's extremely chilling.
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It's complete overreach. And again, the other bigger point on this is it's complete heartlessness. I mean, look, if when you look at in essence, all the periods of American history, even when we did pretty evil things, like the people that did evil things in many cases thought they were I don't know, maybe they thought they were doing the right thing whatever. But like for us to now say, you know what, we sent a kid who's an American citizen and has stage four cancers, Oh well, their parents shouldn't have been illegal. I mean, what does that say about the heart of America? Like, that's what concerns me. You know, the one thing that the United States had over it that I think is better than what you have over generic country A or B, whatever it is, is that in everything we did, even when we got it wrong. You know, when we intervened in areas we probably shouldn't have created a war or whatever. Each time, though we did it under the belief that we were doing the right thing, or at least the American people thought we were doing the right thing. We've shed now this belief that we are a moral country, and we've now allowed our base instincts to take over. Okay, I've always said, like humanity has a battle in their heart every year day, each one of us. Do you have a battle of light and darkness? Right? You know you have to kind of fight the divisive thoughts that the negative thoughts and try to have light overcome it. But darkness is so much easier to embrace. If you embrace darkness. It's easy. You can let somebody else do it. You can let all those really base instincts of hate, of division, of fear take over and rule your life. The problem is it's really destructive to you, to your family and to the community. And that's where we're at as a nation now, is letting those destructive tendencies take over and that complete heartlessness. And so do they have a legal right to deport a kid with an illegal mother that maybe wants our kid to go with her? You know, I don't. There's nuances. I don't know, but I know that we were a country in the past that if there was a legal US citizen, we certainly wouldn't deport them and can't. And that's a big concern to me, is because again you go into these like little steps and what do they ultimately end up. Well, let's start deporting enemies of the state, which Donald Trump's already said he wants to do.
He does have the lowest approval rating for any president in his first one hundred days since Dwight D. Eisenhower. What do you think, Adam, it will take for his hardcore magabase to flip.
If the hardcore magabase flips. It will be because of a devastating economy, a devastating economy that you can absolutely pin on him, right, So, all of a sudden, this is quite possible. We have real shortages of things like toilet paper. It reminds us of COVID and the supply chain issues there. I mean, we're finding out that, you know, shipments that are supposed to be arriving on the West Coast are already either significantly gone or have much less inventory coming in. That trickle down effect to the railroads, to the truckers, to the grocery store, and to the Walgreens or Cbs is pretty devastating. You know, in rural America, for instance, what did they do with the farm economy? What happens there? Do we end up in a nineteen ninety five farmedy. I mean, I was raised in the Midwest. Mid nineties were awful for the farm economy, and it's when a lot of the family businesses went out and you saw the big corporations come in and take them over. I also think though the hardcore Magas may stick with him, you know, through thick and thin, but of the people that voted for him, a significant part is the MAGA base, But there's a part here that is just kind of I've talked to a lot of them that are like, I don't like him, but I didn't like Joe Biden, and the economy was better under Trump.
And I didn't like Kamala Harris.
Right, And I didn't like Kamala Harris. And it's like, okay, well, I mean you have a right to vote for Trump. Those are the first that are going to go. And I think you're already seeing them start to peel off, which is like, yeah, maybe they didn't like some of the social policies of Kamala or Biden or whatever it is, but you automatically made this assumption that the economy was going to be good. So it's like Maslow's hierarchy, Right, the economy is here. If you assume that's gonna be good, then you can start voting on these little self actualization things that bother you. Right, Well, all of a sudden, if the economy collapses and crumbles, you're going back into the base instinctom I got to protect my family, and I think that does a lot of damage to him. He may not personally care about his approval ratings because look, he's not going to run again. He may want to, and he may try to.
There's certainly a lot of noise about that, Adam.
There is. I still believe in this case the Constitution and the Supreme Court is actually strong enough to deny him. I think where the battle could be is what happens in different states when they have to make the decision. So we can talk about that, but I think the bottom line is he may not care about his polling, but the people that will are the Republicans in Congress that now, all of a sudden, this is why things like town halls and protests are so important, because we have to send a message to these members of Congress that they should fear politically, not physically, should fear their constituents more than they fear Donald Trump. Katie, I hated doing town hall meetings. I hated them. Why because I had to stand in front of people and just fi what I did. I would do them, but I hated them. That's why you have to do it. That's why your member of Congress has to come in front of you, because they work for you and they deserve to give you answers. And by the way, if that whole crowd is a bunch of people that don't like that congressman, okay, you know what, he or she could turn out people that support them, but those people aren't as motivated. And if they're not doing town halls, force them to. And if they say they're going to do a telephone town hall instead, that's not a real town hall. You can totally control a telephone town hall. That's an old trick.
By the way, I was going to ask you why you hated doing town halls, because ostensibly you thought you were doing the right thing and defending what you did in Congress should not have been that difficult, was it.
So keep in mind the majority of the town halls I had to do. The people that would turn out to yell at me were kind of the far right, okay, because at that time the Democrats in the left, they may have liked me as a Republican, but they weren't going to really support me. I always had battles with the right. So I would have to stand in front and justify why to raise the debt limit, for instance, and they would go apoplectic and I would have to explain to them how you have to raise a debt limit that's just a requirement, or how you can't solve the federal budget in one year. So it's not fun to do. I mean, like standing in front and doing it is not fun to do. But I recognized that I got paid to do that. I got paid to be accountable to the people that sent me to Washington, DC. And if I didn't want to do it anymore, and eventually I didn't want to do it anymore, and I didn't run again of a district of seven hundred thousand people, there's somebody that can replace me.
I'm just curious. You say that members of Congress have to fear their constituents more than Donald Trump, and Lisa Murkowski talked about that at a town hall meeting, how fearful she was about retribution from the White House. Are you starting to see Republican members of Congress Adam stand up and fight against Trump and are you hopeful more will do so in the near future.
It's a tough question to answer. I can't say. You know, Lisa Murkowski is one of the shining stars I think of Republicans that's willing to tell the truth and willing to vote her conscience when I think of the House. I mean, look, there's a few in there. You think of people like Don Bacon or Brian Fitzpatrick specifically on the issue of Ukraine, for instance, that are out there being very aggressive on Ukraine, and so I give credit to that. But at the same time, look and I go, many of these people lived through and sat through January sixth and sat through the investigation, put out statements about how the investigation was somehow partisan or whatever. And so I'll be honest, I don't really see indications that people are willing to step up yet. I think they're so frozen in fear. And I think the thing we have to remember is Donald Trump still feels like a new phenomenon to us, but he's been in the system for about ten years now, and over those ten years, they've been able to shake out anybody with any independent thought, anybody with any courage, anybody that's willing to tell the truth, and they've basically formed a party like a cult in its own image. So am I hopeful that people wake up? I guess, like, yeah, I want to remain hopeful, but I guess I haven't seen many indications of that yet. With Lisa Markowski being a rare exception. I just want to say this too. If you're scared in the job, get a different job. Like the thing is, it doesn't pay that well. Like it pays okay, one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a year, which by the way, has been the same salary since two thousand and six, so with inflation, it's been about a thirty five percent pay cut. Okay. Why do the job if you're scared? Why do the job if you think you know death threats are going to come to you and you're going to vote a different way because of that. I mean, I hear people say they voted against impeachment because of the death threats. Like I had death threats too, Okay, but I also recognize that my job wasn't to be scared of death threats. It was to do the right thing. I don't know, it just goes beyond anything I can even understand.
I guess what do you think it is? Why are they so afraid? You're right? Find out new job or grow a pair? And the question is are they just that addicted to power? Do they not know what else to do with their lives? What's wrong?
With these people, I think you're onto it. I think it's Look, you imagine most of these people. I was young when I got into politics. I was thirty two thirty one when I was elected, and most of these people get elected at fifty sixty years old. Okay, So think about that. They spent their entire life probably with the desire to go to the House of Representatives, and then they made it, right, I mean, it's a big achievement to make it again. One out of seven hundred thousand people serve in that body. And so now all of a sudden, the idea of taking a stand. Maybe that feels heroic, but you've looked at everybody that has taken a stand, and they all have lost or gotten kicked out right, And so you make the decision and you justify it to yourself. You justified because you have sunken costs, Like why did we stay in Vietnam? Because we already lost ten thousand men. We can't leave now right now, we've so you've already justified the the moral decisions you've made, and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna stay because if I leave, somebody worse is going to replace me. The other thing is this, look, I think people fear more than they fear death. They fear being kicked out of their tribe and their social circle. And I got to tell you, as a guy that's been kind of kicked out of a tribe, there, it sucks. It hurts. You lose friends, friends that you think are real, friends that you recognize, aren't. You lose some family members over it. And I mean there were points at which probably death would have been easier than some of the things that I had to go through, and these people would have to go through that's a big fear too. But let me just say this. I went into Congress with this idea that someday, you know, if I had to go out in a blaze of glory standing for truth, I would do it. And I actually got an opportunity to do it. And I got to tell you, most people, I've learned, most people, very rarely, even in Congress, get an opportunity to kind of, you know, stand against the pressure. And those that get the opportunity, even very few are willing to do it. I have no regrets about it, and I'm happy to be out now. And the only regret I have is I wish I would have done it louder and twice as hard.
Let me ask you about the Pentagon has a former Air Force pilot. You must know lots of people Adam in the military still, and lots of people of the Department of Defense. It sounds as if it is a real pardon my French shit show there right now. Tell us what you're hearing and how people feel about Pete hegsas leadership.
Yeah, I mean, look, and I know some of the people that are in the news stories right now, and it's I think it's for your average probably soldier that they probably don't really care too much because to them it's like, well, what's my mission today? Whatever. A lot of my friends are kind of higher ranking officers, and yeah, they're a little concerned about it, you know, they're bothered by it.
What are they saying to you, Adam, I.
Think just chaos, Like what's this chaos? You know? And by the way, I'm talking to some of my friends that are like hardcore Trumpers actually that are now like they haven't necessarily turned on Trump, So I don't want to get people that impression, but they've kind of turned on Heg Sath and been like this is just chaos for the sake of chaos, right. They also recognize, here's a big point, if any of my friends that are still in the military had done on a signal chat what heg Sath and all those people did, they'd be in Leavenworth right now, or at least facing the possibility of a jail sentence for that. And they recognize the disparity and the unfairness of that. The interesting dynamic about the military, though, is it's probably just as divided as regular society is. When I was in typically the officer corps was more Republican, about eighty percent of military officers voted Republican. The enlisted was about split fifty to fifty. You're actually seeing the opposite of that now, you're seeing the enlisted core tends to be more kind of Maga and Trump right now, and the officer court is about fifty to fifty, maybe even slightly leaning Democratic. What's the reason, Well, because broader what you've seen as Democrats are winning college educated and Republican aren't, and officers are you know, have to have college degrees. The concern I have is, look, the military, they've always told us our job is to defend the Constitution not to follow the unconstitutional orders. But what the early moves of the Trump administration in the Pentagon has been to put loyalists in place and make it very clear that you work for Donald Trump, not for the Constitution. And of course, one man's constitutional defense is another man's constitutional traitorism. Like what is defending the Constitution? It's different with every person. So I worry about kind of that moral morass that the Pentagon could find itself in.
Given these two signal chat incidents, what do you think should happen to Pete heg Seth And do you think anything will?
I mean, HEGs I should be out on us. But the reality is this guy. You know, I feel like I could be Secretary of Defense, but I also feel like I would have a steep learning curve. I outranked heg Seth in the military. I've been in more operations than him, and I served, you know, twelve years in Congress. I understand in government, this guy was a major, great cool and a weekend talk show host, and all of a sudden is now taking the largest, most legal organization in the world, totally in over his head. He knows it. That's what you can read it in the signal chats. He knows he's over his head because he's doing his damnedest to try to prove to everybody that he's totally capable. He's got like this imposture syndrome, except it would be called syndrome, except it's just he's actually an imposture. So I think he needs to be fired and removed. And I think eventually, if we fast forward to July, I think he's gone. I think he'll probably stick around for a little bit, so it doesn't appear that he was pushed out by the Libs or whatever. But I don't think he's going to last a whole lot longer. That's just my prediction.
I want to ask you about your recent substack about the impacts tariffs and DOGE cuts are having on your home state of Illinois, Adams, specifically among farmers in the Midwest. I spoke with the farmer from Iowa not too long ago that Tom Harkin connected me with, and there was a lot of concern about the DOGE cuts, about USDA cuts, about programs for needy school children, about subsidies, about training programs, about all kinds of things that were impacting farmers seventy seven percent of whom voted for Donald Trump. What are you hearing from your home state.
Yeah, I mean the same thing. Look, it's just the twelve second budget primer. Like, you could eliminate the Department of Defense and every federal agency and we would still be running a budget deficit right now, which is humbling to think about. One of the largest expenditures now is simply interest on the debt. We're spending more in interest on the debt than we are on all of defense, and we are on Medicare. So the problems with the debt and deficit have got to be structural reforms. Those structural reforms are not going into programs like USAID, which is less than half a percent of the budget and has exponential results in terms of helping out to avoid war and to basically have power outreach. And then on the local, on the farm community, you know things like you know, if you have a child with autism, for instance, and you know you want them to have a little extra help in their school district, that help comes from the federal government, even though it's done by the school district. You start taking programs like that away, and all of a sudden you're going to see RFK Junior's little thing about how you know autism is somehow makes you less of a person come true, because they're not going to have access to the resources they need. And for farmers, you know, during the first Trump administration, when there were tariffs, you know, moderately on China and a few other places, and then they still gave bailouts to the farmers. Every farmer I talked to said two things. Number One, the bailouts are not enough to take into account you know, how much they would have sold otherwise. And they don't want to bail out. Who wants a bailout When you're a farmer, you're obviously you want to work hard, you want to see the results of your production, and you want to know that what you're doing is feeding people. You don't need to check from the government to make sure that you just stay. I mean, you'll take it, but that's not what your goal in life is. And so I'm hearing the same thing, which is they're worried about what the cuts are. They're worried about, you know, obviously the tariffs China or somebody just said they canceled one hundred and fifty tons of beef for one hundred and fifty million tons of whatever it was, and that's going to have real devastating impacts. Does that mean they've turned against Trump? Not necessarily, because I think a lot of them. I think a lot of them still believe he's playing some six dimensional chess game, and it may take them to actually see a little more that he really doesn't know what he's doing for them to be like, Okay, it's time to move on.
What happens if after a period of pain for farmers and small businesses, somehow this tariff thing turns around and works in his favor. I mean, that's what he's trying to convince voters of that there is going to be a period of pain until things get better. Is there any evidence that that could happen in your view?
Well, let me just say, if magically it did happen, of course it would reflect well on him. But I can confidently say it ain't gonna happen. Why because look, here's here's a quick example. We've put tariffs on coffee imports. The United States is basically physically incapable of even growing coffee. We can grow a little bit in California, a little bit in Hawaii. It's like one percent of what we can what we drink in coffee. So we're tariffing an industry that we can't even compete against. That that's pointless all of a sudden. You know, this idea that Donald Trump wants to bring iPhone manufacturing here is insane because how many people are gonna want to do a job, you know, screwing little screws into an iPhone. We don't have the people to do it because we do a pretty low unemployment in this country, and now we're deporting every immigrant that could possibly work at that place. Think of it. Remember the whole eating the dogs and cats in Columbus, Ohio thing. Why were there so many Haitians in Columbus, Ohio because they were needed for work in manufacturing because they needed the employees there. So it's even if banning manufacturing makes the idea to come back here, they're not going to have the people to hire. Here's the amazing thing is after COVID, the supply chains were massively realigning in the United States. Favor I actually ran a bill through that said, like, we will incentivize certain industries to either onshore or near shore Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, right among an allied nation that we know, for instance, penicillin, we have access to penicillin. We don't have to rely on China for that. But now we've tariffed Mexico, so we're now saying you can't even relocate to a near ally to defend the supply chain. So we've basically reversed any game that naturally happened after COVID. And so I'm very convinced that unless everything I know about economics is wrong, this will not play out in his favor. Sure, the government's going to raise a little more money in the meantime, and then we're going to lose a lot in tax revenue, which is something that he's not thinking.
If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. It seems between tariffs and cozying up to Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to alienate our allies and to reshuffle the world order. Can you figure out why and can you talk about the consequences of this.
When you think like a narcissist. And I think narcissistic is kind of a kind word for Trump. It's megalomania or whatever. You cannot separate the view of the country and the view of yourself when you're president. So there is no interest in the country. It's all what is in Trump's interest. He looks at somebody like Vladimir Putin, like Kim Jong und who is living like he wants to be, and he admires that. I think that's part of it. I mean, there could be more to the Russia stuff, because I can't understand why he can't even once utter a bad word about Russia. But let me make the case for why this is so important. So, the United States of America has been for the last century basically the leader of the world. We also have the largest economy in the world. I remember twenty years ago saying that by the year twenty ten or twenty fifteen, China would surpass the US economy. Well, they haven't done that, okay, and they're not actually anywhere near doing that unless we continue to go on the path we're going on. And why is that because the trade deals that we've created, the economic thing of like high level manufacturing, they'll be done here. But things like socks. You know, yes, we used to make socks, but right now it doesn't make sense to so we'll import those. And we've got this thing that works really well with some challenges that we can actually fix, and we should go after unfair trade practices with China. But let's keep this in mind. After World War Two, the United States, after the destruction of the industrial capacity of all of Europe and basically Japan, the United States built back that industry here in the United States, which is why we had a massive explosion of industry in the forties and fifties. It was no reason besides it was destroyed everywhere else in the world, and we took advantage of that. That benefited the United States of America. We also basically wrote the international institutions. We wrote the rules of trade, we wrote the rules of war. We made the determination that we were going to protect all of the seas and the transition of the seas and the transportation on the seas, which makes the whole signal chat insane. When they're complaining about Europe by the way the UK and France was helping us in the Red Sea. But when you complain about Europe, but yet we told Europe, don't worry. The United States Navy will protect freedom of navigation of the seas. Why, kindness of our heart, not really, because it's to our benefit. So the post World War Two order, as great as it is, and it is great for humanity, was also written to advantage the United States. You throw that out and all of a sudden, we're no different than Russia or China, and we're going to pay a price for that.
What is the endgame with Ukraine? It's hard to keep up with the negotiations trying to convince Vladimir Putin. I guess he just ordered a three day ceasefire. That was the last thing I saw. But the Trump administration trying to get Zelensky to accept that the Russians should have Crimea and other territories that they have gotten during the course of this war. Can you help us understand what the hell is going on and what the endgame is?
Well, first off, let's say it. Where is the war right now? And here's the thing I think we have to always remember. Freight attacking country to win, the attacking country has to force the defending country to capitulate in the attacking country has to achieve its goals. For a defending country to win the war, all they have to do is keep defending themselves. They don't have to invade the Ukraine doesn't have to take over Moscow. It just has to keep defending. Ukraine is winning this war. The Russians are losing at the rate of one thousand men a day, so in a week and a half, the Russians lose as many as we lost in twenty years in Afghanistan. Every week and a half. They're out of offensive combat power. All their tanks are destroyed, they're pulling stuff out of storage from World War Two. They're attacking with donkeys, and they're making no gains on the ground. But Vladimir Putin wants to put out the impression that his victory is an inevitability here and that he doesn't want to negotiate because he's gonna win anyway. And unfortunately the Trump administration and a lot of people watching have bought into that theory, and they feel this panic that Ukraine has to surrender now or they're gonna lose everything. That's not the case. Now, It's also true that they're like two boxers in the tenth round that are kind of throwing punts at each other, but they're both exhausted. So it is time to negotiate an endto this war. But how do you negotiate it. Into the war, you basically respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and to allow Ukraine to have money to rebuild, because that's going to be the big key. You have to give Ukraine security guarantees because if you're a corporation and you want to invest in Ukraine, you're not going to invest a single dollar unless you know that war is not going to start again, and then you're happy to invest billions into the country. In terms of like you know, the East and Crimea. I think it's realistic to say that at no point soon are the Ukrainians going to, for instance, attack and take back Crimea. That is called a de facto recognition, So you're basically recognizing the fact that Russia is in Crimea, let's end this war. We're not going to force them out.
And has been there since twenty fourteen.
Correct. The difference is the Trump administration has talked about djure recognition, which means it is the force of US law that we recognize that CRIMEA now below belongs to Russia. That will be one of the first times in history we've ever done that. We never did that for any countries occupied by the Soviet Union. So Ukraine has rightly said this is unacceptable. And so I think we could see a peace settlement where the lines where they are actually become the lines. But to do that, Ukraine needs a guarantee of security and not djure recognition, de facto recognition. So hopefully that makes sense.
And do you think that's going to happen. Do you think progress will be made?
I think progress will only be made if two things happen. If Donald Trump actually demanded anything of Russia. I mean, what did he say. He demanded of Russia the other day, that they don't take over all of Ukraine. They've been trying for three years, trust me, they can't take over all of Ukraine. And if Europe this is key, if Europe makes a decision that despite the United States, they will stand with Ukraine, then I think you can see that because look, Vladimir Putin's a smart guy. Let's be clear, He's smart, he knows he can't win, he knows he's sending his youthful generation of men to die, and ultimately he just needs to know that he's hit a brick wall in his mind. Right now, he can still get more from the Trump administration, so he's going to keep trying to do it.
Even Chuck Grassley spoke in opposition of this new relationship with Russia. He wrote on social media he'd seen enough killing of innocent Ukrainian women and children and said President Putin was playing America as a patsey.
Yeah.
Are we starting to see that sentiment grow among Republicans in your view? And will we start to see it?
Well, let's be clear, we saw it shrink rapidly. Now the question is is it kind of gaining legs again a little bit? You know, you're starting to see people Tom Tillis Grassy, a few others speak out. The big question will be what do they do with their votes? Anybody can put out a generic tweet saying I generically support Ukraine and oppose Russia. Are you going to call it the president by name? Are you going to actually vote against maybe some of his priorities that maybe you agree with, but you want to use that vote is a way to compel further aid to Ukraine. That's the real question. Anybody can tweet anything supporting Ukraine. I'm glad they do. Look, I don't want to discourage that. But the question will be what do they do with the power they do have.
Do you think the president we talked about this earlier could run again in twenty twenty eight? Obviously can't. Steve Bannon has talked about ways he thinks that they will be allowed to do that within the framework of the constitution. There's talk that he could run his vice president and then the president could then seed power to him. I mean, what do you think.
Look, I'll be honest, this is not a scenario I worry about. Maybe I'm naive, but I do believe that the constitution is very clear he can't run again. He's it's very clear. And I think if you look at how the Supreme Court, even though I disagree with a lot of the recent Supreme Court decisions like the immunity and all that kind of stuff, the Supreme Court has kind of started to get a little pissed off. You know, seven to two, the first time I've ever known of this, even happening. The Supreme Court stopped the deportation flights, you know, by a vote of seven to two. Usually the Supreme Court's obviously takes a while to make a decision. Roberts or whatever put out a preemptive statement about the respect of the judiciary. What this says to me is that the Supreme Court is now starting to get a little jealous of their power. And so I think, look, the one area I guess I would be concerned about him running again, and keep in mind he'll be eighty two also, But the one area might get a little concerned is if somehow he convinces these hardcore red states to just simply allow him on the ballot, then what happens, right, That's what I don't know. So if you have let's just take a super red state like Indiana and say, let's say Trump is ineligible to run again, but Indiana just says, well, he's going to be the candidate and we put him on the ballot. Now you have a tension between states and the federal government. So that would be an area I'm concerned about. But in all honesty, that's not the one I'm losing sleep on. I worry about what damage is going to be done to that point.
You have renewed faith, I guess in the Supreme Court. But it seems as if right now the administration is ignoring the judiciary branch of the government.
Yeah. I don't want to say renewed faith is Supreme Court, but I guess, well.
You were heartened.
Let's say, yeah, there are a couple of things that have been a little heartening. Yes. Look, I think the real constitutional crisis will be the administration has already ignored a few court rulings. The real lynchmin will be when, and I think it will happen they ignore a Supreme Court ruling. And I don't know what happens with that. I mean, obviously the Supreme Court, I don't think is going to sit quietly and say, Okay, well we made our decision. If the president, you know, obviously they don't have a police force, so they can't send anything to enforce it, but they could be pretty loud. That's when you get into the question of where do people's loyalties lie. Where does the military's loyalties lie. Do the people are they willing to take to the streets and shut down commerce if we have to and you know, whatever it is, we need to be thinking through. As they escalate, we have to escalate and match. What are those different steps? You know? Obviously short of war, nobody's calling for violence, but like a protest every now and again, Eventually do we get to where we have to protest permanently? Eventually? Is it a general strike? Whatever those things are, I think we need to be thinking through. And again, the other message I'll say is this is not about please hear me, everybody. This is not right against left. This is do you support democracy or don't you? Because the one thing when we look at Venezuela, for instance, why is it that Maduro is still in power? It's very simple. The opposition fought among itself and continues to because they fight among themselves for power. This is a time when you have to find alliance with people whose views you may find abhorrent. But guess what we need to get back to where we can have the luxury to disagree on views again, because even that is a threat. This is not right against left. This is democracy against authoritarianism. Period.
I have to ask you about AOC just while we're on that topic, because we're also seeing a lot of division within the Democratic Party. Nate Silver said he thought that she would be the twenty twenty eight presidential candidate. I'm curious if you could advise a Democratic Party about a candidate for twenty twenty eight, what would you say?
It's a great question. First off, let me say this, I don't remember a single and you've been covering this for a while too. Do you ever remember at this point in a presidential term, anybody that was ever talked about to be the candidate in three and a half years never was ever right, or they certainly never became the nominee. There's some reason. It's usually the people that pop up late. Here's what I would say to the Democrats if I was giving advice when the middle when the middle Joe Biden, you know, he kind of won the middle. His problem was age. Let's think back to the last Democratic candidate who kind of did it as a centrist won the working class, Barack Obama. Yes, Bill Clinton win the working class. My opinion, it'll take some people off. I don't think you win the working class by going further left. The working class turned against the Democrats because of identity politics. I think it wasn't that they necessarily disagreed with some of the views they have on government spending or government programs, but they felt like they were being talked down to. And if you're, for instance, a middle class white male in the Midwest, and you've been told, you know, constantly that you're the problem and everything. I mean, we can have debates about where this country's gone off the cliff and we should and our difficulties, but everybody in this country has a right to equal access to government and to being American. So my advice to Democrats would be, what is it going to take to win the middle class and to win the middle That'll be your ticket, and I think you'll never lose again if you do that. If you go further left, may maybe you'll win. But the only way to win is to turn out more and more activists. In the process, you might actually alienate some of the folks in the.
Middle I don't think this has happened before, Adam, and this is my last question, but every single member of our audience asked the same question, and that was about a potential presidential run. I'm sure this is not the first time you've been asked this, but is it something that you would consider for twenty twenty eight or beyond. And my husband's follow up was, if so, what party?
Yeah, look, it's a great question, and honestly I don't know. Have I thought about it. I would be lying if I said I hadn't. Where I kind of look at it is like I don't want to run just because I want to be president or whatever it would be. Do I think I could bring something unique that other candidates are missing. I kind of think in a way I could, And honestly, what would I run as? I don't think i'd run as a Republican. I think that party is gone, and even though I was proud of being a Republican back when Republicans used to be what we remember them, that party's the thing in the past. Independent you can't win. My question would be can a centrist Democrat win? And so I think if I did run, that would be certainly an area I'd explore. But honestly, haven't taken any steps, haven't made any decisions. I really enjoy life right now. On the other side of everything, have.
You made any steps to change your party affiliation?
Not yet. I haven't voted Republican in four years, or I guess. The last two elections, I've voted straight Democratic, so you could look at that and that can say what it is. But at some point I think I may. But right now it takes them off a lot more for me to still call myself a Republican, so I'm going to keep doing it.
Well, I know you call yourself a what do you say, A proud rhino.
Yeah, proud rhino, and that's.
That's what you're sticking with so far. But if you make a decision to change, I hope you'll let me talk to you, then.
I will, absolutely, absolutely, maybe we'll talk soon.
Okay, well that's quite a tease, Adam Kinzinger. Great to talk with you, and let's stay in touch. Thank you so much for your time.
You butt anytime, Take care.
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney ltz Our. Supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at kcorrect dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What if we told you it was possible to prevent, manage, your cure all disease by the end of the century. The chan Zuckerberg Initiative is advancing biomedical research and leveraging AI to change medicine for decades to come. By bringing together science, tech researchers, and engineers, they're building a better future for everyone. Learn more at CZI dot com, That's CZI dot com, or follow them on social media.
