During an appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation over the weekend, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — one of just ten House Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Donald Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection — condemned Trump’s “vastly crazy” lies about the integrity of the 2020 election, adding that “truth matters.” He also again insisted that Trump bears direct and personal responsibility for the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Trump has spent months lying that fraud was responsible for Joe Biden’s victory, and a mob of his supporters used this claim as a pretense for storming the Capitol and trying to forcibly stop the formal Congressional certification of Biden’s election victory. Many Republican leaders, Kinzinger noted, have gone right along with the lies, refusing to conclusively acknowledge the fact that there is no meaningful evidence for Trump’s election fraud claims. In reality, election fraud claims amount to poisonous extremism.
As Kinzinger put it, when asked about the current state of the Republican Party:
‘Truth matters… 70 percent of the base believes that the election was stolen because they’ve been told it was. They’ve been told by the President of the United States, they’ve been told in many cases by Republican leaders or at least Republican leaders have not countered it on something so vastly crazy as — the election is stolen.’
Discussing the push for so-called unity in place of accountability, Kinzinger poignantly added that “you can not unify truth with lies.” A recent survey found that 70 percent of Republican respondents insisted that Biden was not the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election,” troublingly symbolizing the breadth of delusion in the GOP.
Prior to those remarks, Kinzinger also condemned Republican leaders for their criticism of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over her continued insistence that Trump’s election lies directly incited the January 6 insurrection. Cheney appears to be getting set up to soon be replaced as House GOP conference chair by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a Trump ally.
As Kinzinger put it:
‘It’s incredible. Liz Cheney is saying exactly what Kevin McCarthy said the day of the insurrection. She’s just been consistently been saying it. And a few weeks later, Kevin McCarthy changed to attacking other people, and so I think what the reality is, is as a party we have to have an internal look and a full accounting as to what led to January 6… We’re four months after January 6, an insurrection, something that was unthinkable in this country, and the message from the people that want to get rid of Liz Cheney is to say it’s just time to focus on the future and move on.’
Kinzinger subsequently described the January 6 violence as “an insurrection led by the president of the United States.” Watch Kinzinger below:
Kinzinger: "Truth matters … 70 percent of the base believes that the election was stolen, because they've been told it was. They've been told by the President of the United States, they've been told in many cases by Republican leaders … you cannot unify truth with lies." pic.twitter.com/hw3nUPM7vo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 9, 2021
