Adam Kinzinger: The United States of Dystopia

**Tim Miller** (0:15)
I'm in DC, delighted to do this in person with my buddy. He's a former congressman from Illinois.
He was in the Air Force and the Air National Guard. He's got a substack. It's Adam Kinzinger's substack. He's doing the Adam Kinzinger report on there. It's Adam Kinzinger.

**Adam Kinzinger** (0:30)
Hey, I was listening to yesterday and you were promising people this great guest today. It's not me. Who was promising?

**Tim Miller** (0:38)
Yeah, we flipped. We did a little switcheroo. Okay. So you sent some mailbag questions. I made kind of a mistake, which is I asked for mailbag questions at the beginning of the podcast. And you know how podcasts are. People listen at the beginning, then they oftentimes start to dose off for them to errands. And so if you give a prompt like that at the end of the podcast, you get a manageable amount of responses. I gave it at the beginning, so my inbox is just overflowing. I appreciated everybody's notes. We'll do the mailbag on tomorrow's show with Sarah. So if you have a really, really, really, really good question for Sarah, email me. But otherwise, I've already got a lot of questions.

**Adam Kinzinger** (1:13)
It's good to see you, by the way.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:14)
And we see each other.

**Tim Miller** (1:16)
I have one of the two we might do for you at the end, we'll see.

**Adam Kinzinger** (1:18)
Okay, cool. We see each other every now and again, but I don't know if people know that you and I kind of work together on the Jeb Bush campaign. That's where we really met.

**Tim Miller** (1:26)
You are on the road.
I guess maybe we can do a little Lindsey Graham death talk, which wasn't on my plan. I say to people, the Jeb campaign was a slog, and me and Jeb got along really well, personally. And so I initially was going to be the guy at the office running the response because the polls were so bad, and we wanted good vibes on the road, I ended up going on the road with him a lot because we just would drink scotch and have decent vibes. And I was always like, give me Kinzinger and give me Graham. Because sometimes they would have other people like Eric Cantor.
I just remember one time I was in the car with Eric Cantor announcing a poll to us from elsewhere in the SUVs. Guys, you see Sienna? You're at 4% right now, Jab. And I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Shut up. Why are you in the car? Yeah.

**Adam Kinzinger** (2:16)
What are you doing here? Why are you talking business in the car?

**Tim Miller** (2:19)
Yeah, but you're always fun. And we did.

**Adam Kinzinger** (2:22)
I have a funny memory. And I think the people, I think it was you that said this or it was Jeb that said it and you responded. But anyway, we were having a glass of Scotch at the hotel. And I remember you, Jeb may have said like, I think we're going to get maybe 10, 15 percent in Iowa. And I would think that as a good staffer, you'd be like, well, maybe, you know, whatever. And you just go like, really?
No, we're not getting anything. It was something like that. And I'm like, oh man. And I can tell you had a good relationship with them because he wasn't like hurt by it.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:52)
No, people call me rain cloud.

**Tim Miller** (2:55)
People call me rain cloud. But I was like, we're in last place. I'm reality cloud. I was like, this is I'm the weatherman telling you it's raining. I'm not like bringing the bat. Anyway, we had a good time. It's good to see you.
We're going to start with Dystopia Watch. So this is the chapter here, the start of the show. Maybe I'm overreacting because I don't know. It's like not a non-military guy as like a libertarian, you know, somebody who has just a visceral version to fascist theater. Like the dudes in the fatigues and the military trucks around town are freaking me out.
And in my hotel, there's a lot of dudes staying there. And it's like, okay, I'm not staying at the Four Seasons or anything, but I'm not at the Embassy Suites either. I'm like, this is expensive. I'm like, I'm paying for this. Like, are you getting room service on my tab right now? So, there's the fiscal conservative side of me, but also it's just like, this feels crazy. We were in DuPont yesterday, and it's like the guys are circling DuPont, marching around DuPont circle. And I was like, this is where I smoked pot and did hacky sack in college. I'm like, what the fuck is this? You were in the National Guard. What's your view on seeing it?