Adam Kinzinger muses: ‘I would love to run against Ted Cruz' 48:00

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Does Texas seem like a good place to run for office? Actually, it'd be kind of fun to run against Ted Cruz, to be honest with you. I'm not doing that, let's be clear, but it would be fun, right? Wait, wait, wait, you're going to step on my news peg as soon as you say it? Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. After January 6th, 10 House Republicans voted to impeach then-President Trump for incitement of insurrection. Of those 10, six sought re-election and only two won.

Other GOP lawmakers spoke out against Trump's behavior, but have largely ceased to criticize him in the time since. Nearly three years later, it seems clear that Trump won any rift there was in the party. 57% of Republicans nationally support him in the 2024 presidential primary, and he remains broadly popular with the party's voters. His favorability rating is at nearly 80%.

Many of the Republicans who did buck Trump are in the wilderness, whether they're themselves former politicians or former Republican voters. So what do the people who broke with the party over Trump do now?

Here with me to answer that question is former representative from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger. He was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. He did not seek reelection, and he's just written the new book, Renegade, Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks. It's great to be here. I appreciate it. It's so great to have you in person. This is always more fun like this. It is. It is, for sure. So I want to begin with some current events. Representative Mike Johnson is the new House Speaker after Kevin McCarthy was vacated.

What's your impression of Mike Johnson? So I knew Mike...

Vaguely. We weren't like bros broing out or anything like that. But I got to know him some. Look, one of my – the most defining interactions I had with him was him – I remember this walking up to me with his little clipboard and he's talking to me about the Texas lawsuit that he was leading. This was really the first time like in the court system he was trying to put Congress on the map I guess to overthrow the results in certain elections. So he came up and asked me to sign that. It was an amicus brief.

for the Supreme Court. And I just looked at him. I'm like, do you know you're like, it's me, man. Like, there's no way I'm signing that. And so, you know, I look at him and say he's a

I guess a presentable version of Jim Jordan basically, but how somebody can knowingly continue to lie to people because he's a smart dude. That to me is – it's just beyond me honestly. So this actually gets at a real tension within the Republican Party today because you're pretty critical of McCarthy in –

your book for basically appeasing the far right flank of the Republican Party. Big disappointment to me, yeah. But here's the thing. I mean, he ultimately stood up to the hard right in pursuing a continuing resolution and ultimately was vacated as a result of that

And now House Republicans have a further to the right House speaker and somebody who played a leading role in conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, or at least a leading role in rallying Republicans to support a lawsuit that pursued that.

So what do you make of that? I mean McCarthy ultimately did what you said he should do, stand up to the hard right and loses his job and is replaced with somebody further to the right. Yeah, it's a great question. And so here's the deal that we're in right now, which is when nobody stands up, right, and nobody does the right thing, when then people do it ones and twos, they always get basically crucified in that process. Now, you can look and say, well, Kevin McCarthy was replaced by somebody worse.

Maybe, but Kevin was cutting the same deals that ultimately Mike Johnson is going to be cutting because he can't shut down the government. He'll have to figure this out. The problem is I can look at Kevin McCarthy and say I truly believe that without Kevin going down to Mar-a-Lago –

Right. And getting that picture with Donald Trump and bringing him back from the political debt without Kevin McCarthy agreeing to sign on to this amicus brief the next day, you know, that I was talking about with Johnson because he got excoriated for not and without Kevin McCarthy voting against certification. I think this party would be in a very different place. So, yes, is he gone? Yes. Is he replaced by somebody worse? Possibly. But at some point you have to stand up because otherwise it's just going to continue the cycle.

Yeah, I think that's a question that's hard to answer with hard evidence, which is, are politicians beholden to the voters or do politicians have a lot of control over what voters ultimately believe is?

and do. It sounds like you think that Kevin McCarthy could have himself sort of swayed public opinion to the extent that Republicans would no longer support former President Trump. Do you really believe that? And what sort of evidence do you have other than a sense that that's the case? So my evidence is after January 6th for about...

whatever that intervening period was between the 6th and when he went to Mar-a-Lago. You show up at these Republican conferences where it's all the members of Congress that are GOP and every – it was like crickets, man. It was quiet. Everybody – they don't know where we're going to go. They're like, we don't know what's going to happen with Trump. What's the future of this party? What are we supposed to do?

And there was – I mean at that point, I had actually considered organizing a vote against Kevin, a vote of no confidence. And I actually thought there was a chance I could win that. So that gives you a sense of how different that moment was.

And the second he went to Mar-a-Lago, you could audibly feel – not really audibly, but you could feel the collective gasp in the party of like, OK, I guess we're doing this again. That was a moment to take him down. Now, would it have been completely successful and not harmed him? I don't know. I mean didn't he go to Mar-a-Lago because he was afraid of the voters?

He went – yeah, partially because he had to make a decision like I want to be speaker. I'm investing in the long term and could he have fought and become speaker? Maybe not. Could he have made a significant difference in the party? I absolutely without a doubt think so.

He may not have been the salvation of the party had he done the right thing, but he could have put us on a much better path. Ultimately here what we're talking about is who controls what happens next in the Republican Party. And it seems like when Republicans have tried to break with Trump, it's worked out pretty poorly for them. I mean you're no longer in Congress, for example, and that ultimately Trump has won. But

But it sounds like you're blaming individual Republican lawmakers themselves as opposed to maybe just this is appealing to Republican voters. I mean do you think this is appealing to Republican voters? Oh, I do. I think it's all of it. So – but here's the problem is leaders have got to lead. I mean I know that sounds like an overused analogy but there's a reason it's called leadership, right? Because you have to influence. So let's take Donald Trump being indicted on all these different charges.

He gets indicted. Everybody watches a few days later the first GOP debate. So Donald Trump is the tier one influencer for opinion, GOP opinion. Who are the tier two influencers? People also going to look at all those people on that debate stage.

Every one of those people, those people on the debate stage with the exception of a couple, Asa and Chris Christie said, this is a witch hunt against Donald Trump. There's a two-tiered system of justice. Even Mike Pence said this, by the way. So now if you're a Republican voter and you're a little on the fence about what Trump's going through and you watch that debate and everybody up there that you also trust says there's a two-tiered justice system, you're going to believe it.

So could they – I mean obviously it's like multiverse, right? Like Family Guy. You can't prove that the universe would be different. But I can prove it couldn't be much worse had we actually stood up, had people stood up. How do you maintain a criticism of Trump without getting coded as a Democrat? Because frankly, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson and even Mike Pence get coded in Republicans' minds. You can see this in the polling as basically Democrats.

Yeah.

And so I imagine that's part of the reason that happened. But how do you have it any other way? Because, for example, you know, you can tell me if you disagree with me, but I think it would be easier for you to win a Democratic primary today than a Republican primary. Yeah, for sure. Uh-huh. So—

What do you do? I mean, how do you do it from the inside of the party without literally getting coded as a Democrat by Republican voters? I think the coding as a Democrat is probably just par for the course in the moment we're at right now because the Republican Party, I would argue, really is not based on anything in principles anymore.

There's really not a concern for spending when we were in charge. They like Russia all of a sudden now. Well, that wasn't the Republican Party I remember. Now they want to support Israel but only if they cut the IRS by the same amount of money. And so if you go against the only organizing principle sadly in the GOP generally right now,

It's Donald Trump. Whatever he says goes. It's like a commitment to him. And so of course if you oppose him, regardless of what your views are – I mean look how conservative Liz Cheney is, right? But you get coded as the other side because you're outside of the tribe. You're outside of the cult. How do you change that?

You're not going to do it in the next month or two. The Republican Party is probably going to continue to lose. I think they have to, to continue to lose, to wake up. Donald Trump's got to go away in whatever form that is. And then there has to be a new inspirational person that comes along and changes the tenure, a Ronald Reagan for the Republicans or a Barack Obama for the Democrats.

that can initially go on that stage and debate and everybody is like, I hate him. He's a democrat. And then all of a sudden, maybe he's making some sense. Maybe he's driving us to a vision that's bigger. It doesn't happen organically. It happens with leadership.

Do you consider yourself a Democrat? No, I don't. I consider myself a Republican still. I call myself a homeless Republican because I certainly don't feel like I belong to this Republican Party. The second I give up the title Republican, obviously, I lose the ability to, I think, very rightly criticize this party. My hope is it returns to what my vision of Republicanism is. But like,

I think there's one issue on the ballot in 2024, just one issue, and that is democracy. Does it survive or do we continue this slide to authoritarianism? So I'll probably vote for a Democrat. It doesn't make me a Democrat. I've heard you already say on your book tour that you would vote for Biden over Trump. I could see you. That's where you were leading to. Would you vote for Biden over Haley? I don't know. And that's – it depends on – I like Nikki Haley a lot. I like Chris Christie a lot.

If she actually could pull off winning in the primary, I'd probably vote for Nikki Haley. What are the things I dislike about Nikki Haley? Well, not a ton except that she's not standing and I get the politics of it. And this is that whole like – Getting coated as the other side. Yeah, you've got to – boy, you've got to defend Donald Trump. But at the same time, it's the continuing defense of him which makes him almost invulnerable. So yeah, I would certainly consider her. But I want to hear what she has to say about that because again –

that justice, that defense of democracy is the most important thing. So it doesn't seem like she's going to win the primary. Yeah. So it seems quite likely that it will be Trump at this point, although we never want to be too certain about these things. You know you're going to vote for a Democrat. Are you going to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot? Probably, yeah.

And that doesn't say no. I don't know I'm going to because, again, anything can change. But if you're giving me the given of it is Donald Trump and it is Joe Biden, yeah, I mean I don't even think I have to think much about that. Will you be campaigning for Democrats? It depends. I mean I think – look, I've got my organization Country First too, which is focused on both Republicans and Democrats that put country over party. That's how I'm going to be voting.

If it's a party though that – there's a candidate that's going along with the platform of overthrowing – of denying the election. Think of the split screen by the way of –

A race for speaker where the base cost of entry is you have to say the election was stolen to even be considered. At the same time, Jenna Ellis is on national TV reading outright in tears how she lied to people about the very thing that these candidates running for are continuing to deny. So for me, do I agree with everything the Democrats believe? Absolutely not. I actually think I'm a little closer to the Democrats now on foreign policy and I haven't changed at all. I just don't know where the GOP sits.

So what prevents you from just being – I mean I got to say you sound like a democrat. Yeah. I mean look, it's – I think part of it is I don't see a very healthy –

conservative democratic movement anymore, right? They all end up getting beat. But I – look, if I – to me, I have no like personal attachment to an elephant. I've always called myself a republican. So it would be kind of weird to say something different. But I believe what I believe. If the democratic party starts welcoming people like me, you know, I think they could be a very healthy and vibrant party. But look, I'm – you

I'm moderate on abortion but I consider myself pro-life. Is there a spot for that in the Democratic Party today? I don't know. Aaron Ross Powell: What issues are republicans right on? Trevor Burrus: I think if you look at – well, again, this is republicans as I think of republicans because today I don't know where they're at on much of this stuff. Generally the idea of spending less I guess.

The track record of us was not that good on those issues. I think I know what you're trying to get to. You're trying to get me to say like, oh, I guess I'm a Democrat. But there's a lot I look at. What I'm trying to do is be clear about all of this, right? Like because I guess I don't understand what your position is to a certain extent, right? Like, I mean, you could be an independent maybe, but you don't sound like a Republican.

Well, my position is pretty basic, which is if I was talking to you five years ago and we had this exact same conversation minus the January 6th stuff, you'd be like, he sounds like a moderate Republican, right? Mm-hmm.

They changed. I didn't change and I'm not at a point where I'm willing to drop the title simply because they've gone astray. There were some really crazy people that turned the Republican Party crazy, but they didn't sound like Republicans. But they eventually pulled the party to sounding like them. We have to be able to fight for that and do it on the other side. But that doesn't mean I'm restricted. I can vote for Democrats if I want to, if I think they're better. Well, here are some policy positions maybe worth talking about.

immigration cracking down on illegal immigration potentially reducing legal immigration spending much more on border security and ultimately building a wall along the southern border

Those are positions that are Republican positions that the vast, vast, vast majority of Republicans agree with. Even people who say the election wasn't stolen. Do you agree with that position? You mean on the immigration side of things specifically? No. I mean, look, I would say I am for serious border security, not building a wall because building a wall was just like –

You know, it's necessary in some areas, but generally there's areas where it's not. And it was a dumb line. But I think we need stricter border control. We also need more liberal small L immigration. We need more people to come here to the United States, do it legally, get out of the shadows, be able to be on the books. And I want a guest worker program right in this country. I want to make sure we're a we're a moderate immigration country that has security. And why do I say the security is so important? I've worked it as a National Guard member.

It is human trafficking down there. We talk about this as if this is nothing but just people that are seeking a better way of life and they are. But they are being human trafficked by the cartels who are making more money on people than they are on drugs right now. I would consider my position on immigration to be moderate. I don't think democrats necessarily would all agree with me and republicans wouldn't agree with me. I'm like a whole – I'm going to start a new party. You want in?

Well, I mean I think Andrew Yang already tried that. I don't know how well the forward party is doing right now. But I mean what do you think the solution is then? I think the answer is eventually the party that learns to try to draw the center back in I think will build a governing majority for at least the next decade.

And this is the battle – I'll speak frankly to the battle the democrats have right now. There is a strain under the age of 30 of democrats. They're expressing, for instance, anti-Israeli pro-Hamas sentiment. Now …

Five years ago, Dana Rohrabacher was the only pro-Russian in the Republican Party and everybody is like – he's – like don't pay attention to Dana. That's Dana Rohrabacher. Well, I'm hearing that from my democratic friends right now about some of these issues and it's like listen to me.

That can grow if you're not careful. And so I think the democrats have done a better job of pushing back against the extremism. But again, let me ask you. What if somebody who is pro-life decides to run as a democrat? It hasn't worked very well in the democratic party and so that's the question. But whoever gets the moderates and gets the center …

I think we'll be in the majority for a long time. I mean lately, republicans have stopped running as pro-life too. Yeah, that's true. I know. I know. I mean – and I don't even think – for me like abortion isn't the driving issue but I think it's the most controversial that comes out as a good example. Well, you've had – you have some that are almost running as extreme pro-life now because the new thing to being a conservative is can you be angrier than the other person? And if you're angrier than the other person and more extreme, you're more conservative. Yeah.

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Who are the politicians in office today who you most admire that you think are doing a good job on the things that you're describing? This is a tough moment because there's not a lot of people I super admire because we're in this quagmire we're in. I look at like a friend of mine, Mike McCall, who's a leader of – he's the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We see eye to eye on foreign affairs.

I'm still a little disappointed in him. He voted for Jim Jordan. He knows better than to vote for Jim Jordan. He hasn't extracted from Mike Johnson for instance. They had an opportunity to say, yeah, Mike, I'll vote for you. That's great. You have to commit to me to putting Ukraine funding on the floor. Not support it. Just put it on the floor.

But people like that I admire. Honestly, I admire people like Adam Schiff who I worked with on the committee. I dubbed him immediately Adam Sr. so that I could be Adam Jr. It was an age joke and it was awesome and it lasted the entire time the committee existed. But we got along well and I respected him as being legitimately concerned about where this country is at. That was a –

The whole January 6th thing was a game-changing view for me because I realized that Democrats – and I always got along with them. But like they actually care about democracy. It's not a facade.

So you were one of two Republicans on the January 6th committee, and I want to read a quote from Monmouth on a write-up of one of their polls after the committee concluded its hearings. The House January 6th committee has tried to make the case that former President Donald Trump bears direct responsibility for what happened at the U.S. Capitol last year.

The latest Monmouth University poll, though, suggests it hasn't moved the needle with the American public. In general, public opinion stands pretty much the same as it was before recent headline-grabbing testimony of former presidential aides during the last three public hearings. This is true of both Trump's culpability in the attack on the Capitol and claims of election fraud in general.

In fact, Trump's favorability rating is nearly identical to where it stood immediately after the 2020 election. And four in 10 Americans would lean toward backing a comeback bid in 2024. And that's not just Monmouth. It was repeated across different polls. What do you think when you hear that?

Well, look, I think it's obviously we were hoping to be able to change within – particularly within the GOP that thing. The country was already so polarized that the idea of – you're not going to convince any more democrats for instance and independents were fairly convinced already.

But yeah, I mean I wish we could have made a better inroad into Republicans. But I've come to believe you could actually have God, Lord Jesus himself come down and sit at that thing and say, I know Donald Trump launched January 6th and all of a sudden Jesus would be a rhino on Fox News for instance. And what's happening there is just it's become a tribal identity. So did we break through to Republicans? No. No.

Do I think we broke through to the American people? Yeah, I do. And I think one of the concerns I had as my kid when he's learning about this in history, is he going to hear any conspiracy theories as part of the narrative? I don't think so now because I think we got to the bottom of a lot of it.

And I also think the Department of Justice would not be where they are right now without us. I think I'm actually 100 percent convinced that they wouldn't be where they are now without the work of the January 6th committee. So I'm proud of what we did. Yeah, I wish we could have turned to more Republican voters, but I have no regrets about doing it.

You said it's a tribal identity now, which kind of gets at maybe your broader point, which is there are two views of what should happen next for people who view the world the way that you did. One, we need two healthy parties. We need to reinvigorate the Republican Party in a way that makes it strong and healthy and so that it's not sort of a question of whether democracy is on the line when you have –

an election, or you say the Republican Party needs to be vanquished, the Democratic Party needs to be emboldened, empowered, everyone needs to get behind the Democrats, and that's the only way the Republican Party will cease to exist and something new will be born. Are you in that latter camp? No, because I don't think...

First off, I think there are ways the GOP can come out without that. Right now, if I'm looking at it and say what is the most likely option to fix the Republican Party, it is defeat. But I also don't think it's going to be defeat into the ashes and then something new is reborn. I believe it's going to be defeat to the point where somebody can come along and present to the base voter a message that's actually compelling again. Imagine like –

Again, let's take for Republicans a Ronald Reagan-type person that can come along and give people inspiration. So I don't think it necessarily needs to burn to death, but I certainly think it needs to take a few more punches to the face.

Very illustrative. You have plenty of experience with the Republican Party, especially with the Christian right. In particular, you talk about the environment in which you were raised in your book, which was very religious. You know, no secular music, no dancing, no shorts. Oh, yeah. Women are subservient to their husbands, etc.,

You also, of course, had the experience of family members writing you a letter saying that you would join the devil's army in flouting Trump after January 6th.

This is not something that's foreign to you. When you look at polling, what you see when it comes to the why, you know, why might Republicans support Trump in this way? You see there's one Ashland Insights poll in particular, which is a polling firm. We've talked to the pollsters from that firm plenty on this podcast. They're Republican aligned. They asked the question, you know, what is the goal of politics? Is it to enact good policy or is it to ensure the survival of the country as we know it?

Now, Republicans say 46 to 25, that it's to ensure the survival of the country as we know it. Democrats say it's to enact good policy. Can anyone like a Reagan type who's going to talk about small government and mourning in America appeal to voters who believe that their way of life is on the line?

I think possibly that's not going to be an overnight thing and it's not going to be super easy. But look, we have trafficked – I say we collectively as republicans have trafficked in fear to raise money, right? Each politician can play with the fire of fear a little bit. But you've got to know when to kind of douse that and when to bring a dose of optimism. We haven't done the dose of optimism in quite a while. And so it's not like overnight people are going to go from –

Okay, you know, our way of life is threatened. Now we just want to enact good policies. But I think over time they can. Why do they feel their way of life? Because that's what everybody's telling them. Do you think there's any truth to it? No. No, I don't. I think, look—

I think even the furthest left – well, I don't want to go to the extremes because the extremes are crazy. But I think a typical conservative, a typical liberal, they both actually kind of generally agree on a lot more than they disagree on. But those differences have just been inflamed because it raises money. It keeps eyeballs on television sets and that's why.

So basically you think Republicans are going to be convinced to not believe this through leadership that doesn't deliver those messages and media that doesn't deliver those messages. Yeah, I hope. I hope. You went through the experience of riding a Tea Party wave into office. You won in 2010 with the endorsement of Sarah Palin. By the way, I didn't ask for it. By the way, you didn't ask for it. But of course, you know. She foisted it upon me. But I took it because it was great. It raised money. And of course being on that side of a wave is –

fantastic, right? I mean, you vanquished your opponent by double digits. It was a Democrat, I should say, in suburban Illinois. You win in 2010. You take office in 2011. There's

There's a quote in your book, though, where you say, referring to the 2012 election, So that was one year after you were sworn in. Yeah. I mean—

Did you feel like you were working with a bunch of liars most of the time that you were in Congress? No, because the battle – so this – what we saw for instance with the last speaker battle, this dynamic has always existed. OK? There's always been the same factions in the party. Just like the good guy faction, which I think – we'll call it the moderates. It's just moderates in tone, not necessarily policy. We were able usually to win –

And we'd see the rise of these kind of extremists, but they may move policy in a bad way or whatever. But we were able to win generally. So, yeah, I mean that was always a big fight. But I didn't necessarily think of everybody as a bunch of liars at the time. But I saw a dynamic that was frightening, which was that –

You put a bunch of people in a room and give them all hand grenades, right? You're all equally powerful. If somebody is willing to pull the pin, they become more powerful. And that's what you have in that dynamic in the GOP where somebody is willing to vacate the speaker, right? Somebody is willing to put frigging Jim Jordan up for speaker. And all of a sudden you do this stuff and it's like people are like, OK, OK. I get it. Let's get along because they're not willing to pull the grenades either.

We all have to pull the pin on the grenade, I guess. What was the pin pulling moment for you? For when I pulled the pin? I mean there were a number of them. Like I've always kind of been – I've spoken out against Trump when he would say crazy stuff like he retweeted something about civil war or whatever it was, the asshole countries thing. The real pin pulling moment, the specific moment is the night of the election in 2020.

But you voted for him in 2020. I didn't vote for him in 2016. I'm the only person in America that did that, by the way. That's not true. I have been out on the trail and talked to folks who voted for Trump. They like the economy. Yeah, yeah. Mine was a cowardice. I voted for Mattapierre cowardice because I didn't want to deal with that last four years not voting for him. I had dealt with everything I dealt with.

Let's be honest. Biden was going to win Illinois anyway and I'm like, "I'll just vote for him so I don't have to lie about it." Yeah, it was a cowardice move. But that night is when I pulled the pin because the second he said stop the vote – a few months before, he was saying this was going to be stolen. By the way, I should have seen this. Trevor Burrus: Well, he said it was going to be stolen starting back in 2016. Aaron Ross Powell: Yeah, yeah. I mean that's – he always thinks it's going to be stolen.

But when I saw that, it's like, OK, the thing I do know really well, I know foreign policy well and I know that democracies can survive as long as you have a basic level of trust and that's trust in the election system. Because countries where we try to help that don't have trust in their elections, like it never works. You got to fix that first.

He had convinced at that moment half of the country almost that the elections were broken. You don't come back from that. And that was my red line. Look, you had implied something about is a congressman supposed to do what their constituents want or what they want. It's both. But I have never once sworn an oath against.

To represent my district. I never swore an oath to do what my district wants. I swore an oath to represent and defend the constitution. That was – and when this crossed that line, which I believe it did even the night of the election, that's when I pulled the pin.

You described your vote for Trump in 2020 as a point of cowardice. Yeah. So that you wouldn't have to lie later on and say, oh, I did vote for Trump. My assumption is that has something to do with your future political career. Yeah. So that you could win a Republican primary going forward. Yeah.

At that moment in time, what was the higher office that you wanted? So at that time, I was actually starting to look at, you know, do I, I was fairly convinced I didn't want to run for the House again, because I had 12 years, a long time, and I

I started to look at, you know, the governor's race or potentially the Senate race in Illinois. And I know there was a lot of concern, frankly, from Pritzker that I would run against him and I think Duckworth as well. So during that about November, December timeframe, I think we had done a poll. As far as I know, I was starting to talk to some of the big donors and see if this was going to be possible.

But the second the sixth happened, I knew that was gone. I couldn't – I either had to choose at that point to go along to get through a primary or actually take a stand. And my – I don't want to sound too, you know, like patriotic in this, but my honor would not have allowed me to be able to ever tell my kid who's two years old now to do the right thing even when it's hard if I was unwilling to do that.

So what's next for you now? Right now, I don't know. I mean I'm going through this kind of one year of taking a look at everything we went through the last couple of years had an impact. And I use the equivalent of when you're in war, nobody has PTSD in combat, right? It's afterwards. And I don't have PTSD, but I feel the impact of that last couple of years.

I would have told you five months ago that I probably never intended to get back in politics again personally. That's changed. I'm kind of like finding that energy again. It's not going to be anytime soon, but we'll see where it goes from here. Which party will it be in? Who the hell knows, man? Okay. So I read in your book that you were writing the book from Houston. Yeah.

Right. Would you consider changing states and running elsewhere? I imagine yes. Honestly, I haven't really— Does Texas seem like a good place to run for office? Actually, it would be kind of fun to run against Ted Cruz, to be honest with you. I'm not doing that, let's be clear, but it would be fun. Wait, wait, wait. You're going to step on my news peg as soon as you say it? I would love to run against Ted Cruz because that to me would just be—it would just be like the most—

The most complete con artist in politics, like one of them, to be able to run against his face in public would be amazing. But it sounds like you would like to. I would like to, but like right now, I'm not in a position to. I've got a young kid. I've got to kind of come down from the last couple of years. But if there's a moment that comes along and the timing is right, yeah, absolutely. In six years? Potentially, yeah. Wow.

Do you think you'll stay in Texas? I don't know. I don't know. We made a decision kind of accidentally to stay in Texas. So I had sold my house in Illinois when the threats were coming in and my address was out there. My in-laws have a place they're not in in Texas. So we stayed there as we tried to figure out what's next and didn't feel like moving too far. So we ended up buying a house in Texas. So for now, we're there. But anything can happen.

For somebody with your politics, how might they run for a statewide office in Texas? Well, I think if somebody was going to do it like me, I think what you want to look at is first off, if you're a smart Democratic Party, you'd put somebody like me as your candidate, right? You'd put them through the primary because I'm sorry, Beto is not going to win Texas. If you get a conservative Democrat, you could win Texas. If you're a Republican running in that, you're

It's tough. It's a pretty crazy party in Texas right now. But I think you just have to run honestly and put it out there and try to turn out as many not Republicans into Republican primaries as you can. But I think it would be pretty hard.

But I have not made a decision and I haven't made a decision based on a future political move in like 10 months, including whether I'm living in Texas or not. OK, but I can sort of piece together, you know, have you stayed up at night ever thinking like, oh, what would it be like to run? No, not really. As a Democrat in Texas against Ted Cruz? I mean, no, but I will tonight now because you like have it in my head. I'm like, huh, what would it be like to run as a Democrat against Ted Cruz? The question is, would the Democrats ever elect Ted Cruz?

You run against a liberal democrat and then you're an Adam Kinzinger type. Would they elect – I don't know. I think democrats are more pragmatic on that decision-making than republicans are. But I don't know.

Whatever. What does that mean? What's whatever mean? Whatever means I'm just not in a place right now where I have the energy, the desire, the spirit to get involved. But if that ever comes along, it's probably not going to happen from me having this 10-year plan because I've been through 10-year plans before. It would be just like this is a good moment. And by the way, maybe I should do this.

Do you read the New York Times review of your book? No, I haven't read it. They described it as a campaign book in search of a campaign. I was going to ask you to respond. It's probably a pretty good argument. It's a campaign book and there's no campaign for me, right? I was going to ask you to respond to that, but it sounds like maybe you have responded. I don't know. Look, I just say...

Again, and it's funny because everybody is used to a politician that gives like the scripted answer that has their plan and I was one of those for a long time. I'm not one of those right now. If I run – do you guys remember the – what was it? Bullworth or whatever, that movie? The dude that's just like basically like, boop, deuces. Here, I'm going to tell everybody the truth. That's what I would want to be.

Okay, like a Donald Trump style kind of... Yeah, but not like evil and actually appealing to people's worst angels. Like an inspirational Donald Trump that's like actually honest and not a con artist. Do you think that's possible in politics to just really say whatever you think? Oh, I do. You do? I really do. I think it is a art form...

that if more people actually practiced it, they'd be just telling people what you feel. I think it would be really successful. But you get surrounded by consultants that just tell you, be careful if you say this, be careful if you say that. What's something that you've wanted to say but felt like you couldn't say because you've had to pull back and

be a politician? Well, I think guns is an important – that's a good example of – I've moderated on guns personally in the last like – the last couple of years. I voted for like universal background checks which made me a complete sinner by the way in the Republican Party. But I think for me, yeah, the day after the bump stock, the shooting with the bump stocks in Vegas, I called for banning bump stocks and that was a liberating moment for me because

The NRA then started to give me a D minus on everything, even though Donald Trump, by the way, banned bump stocks and got an A plus from the NRA. The NRA, by the way, has lost a lot of power. But I think the ability to be able to now talk about that openly and just say like, yeah, we should look at when it comes to assault rifles, by the way, is there a way to ensure you maybe have to have an extra license to own one and go through extra background checks? Or do we have to ban them outright? Because this is getting insane what we're seeing. Anything else? And I'm a gun owner.

Anything else you've always wanted to say but felt like you couldn't until this very moment? Until right now. Until right now. Anything controversial? No. Yeah, no. I think I'm pretty open anyway. So I probably have shot that everywhere. Okay. So I think we're having fun here. The interview portion has wrapped up. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to make it through the interview. But I want to ask if you're willing to play a game with me. Let's do this. Okay. So it's called Guess What Americans Think. We've played it on the podcast.

the podcast plenty before, although you might be the first politician, former politician we've ever played. Okay. So this is like, do you know America or are you a politician? I mean, yeah, exactly. We'll see. Okay. So here is the first question.

According to Gallup, what percentage of Americans reported that they follow national politics? You're going to have three options. Is it A, 55%, B, 30%, or C, 70%? 30. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Wait, did you just know that already? No. Why did you say the lowest? Because we always think...

We always assume that everybody – we call it the DC bubble, right? We always assume that everything we're debating and doing, everybody pays attention to. And it's only when you get off Twitter and you walk around in real world, you realize most people don't care. So I don't have the data on this. I don't know if I could get the data on this. What percentage of Americans do you think know who you are?

We did do a – like a couple of years ago, I had to – I pulled something and I don't know. It was maybe 25 to 40 percent that knew my name. I would say it's there or lower. OK. Yeah. Those politicians think their name recognition is 100 percent.

And I would say I'm now, you know, I'm now recognized more than I've ever been. So it could be slightly higher. But I also know that there's a huge number of people that probably didn't even know there was a January 6th committee. OK, we're one for one. Next, according to a CNN poll, what percentage of Republicans and Republican leaners say Biden's win was not legitimate? Is it A, 83 percent, B, 31 percent, or C, 69 percent? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

You said that quickly. Was that one that you knew? No, I don't know any of these. You don't know any of these? Okay, okay. Did one of the producers here share this with you in advance? No. I'll have to blow the next one on purpose. But no, this...

I just – I know it's not 31 and because a significant amount of them still believe that. 83 I thought felt a bit high. OK. So you're speaking to the 31 percent. Well, I just think it's – I'm like – I think – yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be speaking to 31 percent and growing that to 32 hopefully. All right. Next question. According to Pew Research, what percentage of American adults said the US is the single greatest nation?

A, 24%, B, 56%, or C, 13%? I'd say 56%. See, at least you know I didn't get it. It is A, 24% of Americans say the U.S. is the single greatest nation. How does that make you feel?

A little disappointed I guess because I don't think we need to be a country that believes we're faultless, but I still actually truly believe we are the single greatest nation. I mean it's – and I think it does reflect that people have been – that politicians have been feeding on denigrating this country. I mean how many times you watch somebody on TV like this country sucks because we got this and this and this, right? Well, eventually that takes an impact and it's sad.

And we have this impression like our military that we can't win anything. And now granted, Iraq and Afghanistan were a mess. But in terms of the actual fight, we won that and we won them pretty quick. But I think there's just this lack of like faith. All right. Two for three. According to the AP, what percentage of Americans say they have hardly any confidence at all in the people running Congress? Is it –

You can just – if you want to just guess. Oh, I'd say 94. Okay. Here are your actual options. Is it A, 76%, B, 36%, or C, 53%? It's 76 for sure. It's 53%. No way. This is a lie. That's any confidence at all. It could be some confidence. Okay. Does that make you feel good that it's better than you thought it was? Or do you think –

Yo, Americans, you shouldn't have any confidence in these people. No, I don't think they should. I don't think it's that. Yeah, I guess it makes me feel a little better. I always thought like Congress always has like what, a 2 percent approval rating or whatever it always is. And I'm like that's just like – that comes with the institution. It's always been like that because Congress is just a faceless word. Yeah.

All right. Two for four. We got two more questions. Okay. So I have to get at least – I have to get two or else it's 50 percent. I fail. Yeah. Well, but you'll still be the highest scoring former politician to ever play this game. And lowest. Okay. I have faith that you can get the next one. All right. In both parties, adults younger than 50 have more –

blank views of the possible impact of having more political parties. Is it A, positive, B, negative, or C? There you go. Okay, so under 50 have more positive views of more political parties. Do you think that means...

that in the future America has more political parties or that young people just don't understand how American politics work? No, I think it's possible that we do. I just don't think we're at that moment now. I think people have to – the problem right now is we've been so ingrained into thinking every issue has two sides and one party represents one side of that issue. Again, let's

Take abortion. There's not two positions on abortion. There's actually like 100 different positions on abortion. And if somebody runs as a different party, you're going to have to break people out of that mindset of –

Oh, well, if he's this on – then I don't agree with that. So I have to go to this other party. That's a – I think it's a broader kind of way of thinking than just like I like this guy. Oh, that's cool. Oh, he's pro-life. Oh, I'm out. I'm not pro-life, right? And that's what happens inevitably with all these things. Well, but for a long time, didn't America just have tolerance for a diversity of views within the parties? Yeah, but we also were – we had four parties really. I mean we had moderate republicans, conservative republicans, moderate Dems, conservative Dems or liberal Dems.

And they made coalitions. So I think by nature they had to, but the parties have self-selected themselves to the point where there's – every issue is a litmus test now. Do you think it would be easier to have a multi-party democracy in America or just reinvigorate the diversity of opinion within the two parties? I think it would be easier to just reinvigorate that diversity and that takes a conscious decision by parties to not self-select, which is hard to do in a primary system. But –

I don't have a lot of faith that's going to happen anytime soon. Okay. Here's the next one. All right. It's close to home. Okay. You should get this right. All right. This is not really a poll. It's provable. According to Pew Research Center, what percentage of the U.S. House of Representatives has served in the military at some level? Is it A, 18%?

B, 25%, or C, 33%. 18. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It is 18%. Did you know that? No. But I knew – I mean I knew that it was probably less than a quarter. I knew that and I was like I think it's somewhere around 15 to 8 to 20. And it's about the same in the Senate as well. Another data point here –

the decade ranging from 1965 to 1975, 70% or more of both chambers of Congress had military experience. So that's fallen significantly. I mean, in part, it's due to the fact that fewer people are deployed. But I think that, I mean, compared to World War II, obviously, but I think in part, it's also selecting for the kinds of people who serve in the Congress today, which tend to be

significantly wealthier, more educated, et cetera, than the population at large.

What do you think of that? I mean, do you think, you know, having served and having served in Congress, do you think that your military experience is a perspective that needs to be better represented in Congress? Or do you think like, hey, 18 percent is good and we need a diversity of views? Look, I think 18 percent is actually it's over representative probably of veterans in the country. I think it's like one or two percent of people maybe that are veterans.

But I think that's good. I think you can't – yeah, there are veterans that don't – that are as partisan as you can get, right? Even in my party, particularly in my party. But I think it still gives you a different perspective. I don't – I'm not one of these that believes like to be president – you hear people sometimes on Twitter. You should have to have served in the military to be president. No, because I don't want people that want to be president going into the military for that reason, right? Yeah.

But I think there's certainly real benefits to people that have served. I think it's a different perspective. But I also have to say I want people that would never want to serve in the military. I want people on the far left and the far right because you need those diversity of opinions in Congress. You just don't need to have those diversity, those minority opinions that are extreme run the agenda of Congress. And this is where I wish if I could fix one thing in Congress –

It would be to actually make the speaker a nonpartisan position whose sole job is to ensure that the floor runs. And you would actually get to a position where the majority of the people on the floor vote for the bills they want to, and that passes and goes on to the Senate. That doesn't happen now. All right. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

My name is Galen Droop. Tony Chow is in the control room. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Tretavian, and our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or wherever you listen to your podcasts or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon. Bye.