Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced a new political action committee on Sunday to push back on the Republican Party embrace of Donald Trump.
In a six minute video posted to the new ‘Country 1st’ website, Kinzinger said: “This is no time for silence, not after the last month, not after the past few years. Someone needs to tell the truth. Someone needs to say what history needs to hear. So here I am, the Republican Party has lost its way. If we are to lead again, we need to muster the courage to remember who we are.”
“Today’s Republican Party, it’s not the one I joined. The GOP I signed up for was built on a foundation of principle and it was filled with hope. We believed a brighter future was just around the bend and we fought tirelessly to get there,” Kinzinger added.
Kinzinger was one of 10 Republicans who joined all House Democrats in voting to impeach Trump earlier this month for “incitement of insurrection” after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, a decision he believes will likely ends his political career.
“I did it knowing full well it could very well be terminal to my career,” Kinzinger said. “But I also knew that I couldn’t live with myself having, you know, try to just protect it and just felt like the one time I was called to do a really tough duty, I didn’t do it.”
The Illinois congressman said on ‘Meet The Press’ Sunday that the goal of the PAC is to say, “Let’s take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way. How backward-looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division. And that’s not the party I ever signed up for. And I think most Republicans didn’t sign up for that.”
“Republicans must say enough is enough,” Kinzinger says in the PAC video. “It’s time to unplug the outrage machine, reject the politics of personality, and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage.”
