Former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger is on a book tour with his release of Renegade today, and is expounding on his dissent of the Republican Party and a broken political system.
In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Kinzinger says he will vote for Joe Biden in 2024 if Trump is the nominee, siding with democracy over authoritarianism.
Kinzinger warns against the potential of a second insurrection by the current Republican Party.
“Because in Jan. 6, we saw the guardrails of democracy held,” Kinzinger said. “The car hit the rails. It kept you on the road. That rail can’t take two hits. And now they know what they’re doing. Now they know where the tricks are in the system.”
Kinzinger also says he wants to keep the title of “Republican,” and doesn’t want to give up on that.
In the book Kinzinger also talks about his family disowning him because he lost the Trust of Sean Hannity.
If you’re interested in the five-minute clip of the entire interview, see below.
Other comments on the book from Kinzinger:
People are getting elected as a way to become famous. This is the new Hollywood, so to speak. But the problem isn’t that they’re not there to govern. The problem is the ones that are there to govern are not fighting back.
The Guardian
Regarding the defection from the party by himself and Liz Cheney, and dealing with Kevin McCarthy:
After Liz spoke out…
“…McCarthy immediately told everyone who was listening, ‘I just want to be clear: Liz doesn’t speak for the conference. She speaks for herself.’”
The Guardian
Kinzinger accuses McCarthy, from California, of behaving less like a party leader than “an attention-seeking high school senior who readily picked on anyone who didn’t fall in line”. And while characterising McCarthy’s dismissal of Cheney’s warning about January 6 as “a little dig”, Kinzinger also details two physical digs he says he took from McCarthy himself.
“I went from being one of the boys he treated with big smiles and pats on the back to outcast as soon as I started speaking the truth about the president who would be king,” Kinzinger writes.
McCarthy “responded by trying to intimidate me physically. Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.
“If we had been in high school, I would have dropped my books, papers would have been scattered and I would have had to endure the snickers of passersby. I was startled but took it as the kind of thing Kevin did when he liked you.
“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”