During an appearance on Fox News Sunday over the weekend, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — who was one of the ten House Republicans who backed impeaching then-President Donald Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection in January — went after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for having “failed to tell the truth.” Initially, as Kinzinger noted, McCarthy accurately observed that Trump bore responsibility for inspiring the January Capitol riot, but McCarthy has since jumped right onboard with glossing over the reality of what unfolded and simultaneously allowing space for Trump’s continued lie that last year’s election was rigged.
Kinzinger criticized McCarthy in the context of a discussion of a proposal for an independent investigative commission to look into the Trump-inspired riot at the Capitol. Nearly three dozen House Republicans recently voted in favor of establishing that commission, but McCarthy opposes it. Kinzinger commented as follows:
‘The American people deserve the truth. And my party to this point has said things like it was hugs and kisses. It was Antifa and BLM. It was anything but what it was, which it was a Trump-inspired insurrection on the Capitol, and people deserve to hear the truth.’
Trump himself is the one who used the “hugs and kisses” phrase to describe what happened. Other Republicans like Rep. Andrew Clyde (Ga.) have employed other notable forms of deception. Clyde, for instance, compared what took place to a “normal tourist visit.”
Kinzinger directly blamed McCarthy and his allies in Republican leadership for fostering inaccurate beliefs among Republicans about the Capitol insurrection and the integrity of last year’s election. As Kinzinger pointedly put it:
‘I do think Kevin has failed to tell the truth to the Republicans and to the American people. And it pains me to say it. It’s not like I enjoy standing up and saying this. But the 74 million voters that voted for Donald Trump that believe, a number of them that believe the election was stolen believe it because their leaders have not told them otherwise. The people they trust have either been silent or not told them the truth. That’s where Kevin has failed, because he told the truth on January 13, something around then, and then he went to Mar-a-Lago and said, Donald Trump’s the leader of the party… We need to tell people the truth.’
Watch Kinzinger below (if there is an issue with displaying the video, please refresh the page and/ or wait a moment):
