Adam Kinzinger’s actions in the wake of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection turned him from a rising star in the Republican Party to a pariah. He was censured by his own party even as he was praised as a hero for standing up against President Donald Trump’s baseless accusations of a stolen election.
A congressman from Illinois from 2011 to 2023, his place as one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump and his role on the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 cost him friends and even family.
But he didn’t agonize over those decisions, Kinzinger told a crowd of over 1,000 people Thursday in Normal.
“It was not even a debate in my mind,” he said. “This was so basic. Whether it was voting to impeach, whether it was the committee — I didn't want to be on the committee, but when asked, I knew I had to — because that is like the bare minimum requirement to fulfill your oath. Period.”
Kinzinger’s comments came at a screening of The Last Republican, a documentary around his opposition to President Donald Trump’s actions around the 2020 election, at Illinois State University's Braden Auditorium. The event, sponsored by WGLT and the Dirksen Congressional Center, drew a big crowd for the movie and a conversation with Kinzinger and WGLT's Ryan Denham.
The notion that Kinzinger's actions could cost him his job was something he’d made peace with before he ran for office. His military service in Afghanistan and Iraq had made him keenly aware that a role in Congress would involve sending people to war.
“If I'm going to ask a 19-year-old to die for this country — like, the end of the movie — and I am unwilling to give up my career for this country, then I am unworthy of the job in which I am voting to send people to their death," he said.
That moral clarity was lacking, he said, in many of his Republican counterparts.
“What bothers me is that so many people agreed with everything I said, but then they would say things like, ‘Well, I can’t do that and win my re-election,’ or ‘I can’t say what you’re saying,’ and then, ‘you know, I’m worried about what’s going to happen to me,’” he told reporters before the event.
Alternately funny and gravely serious, The Last Republican was directed by Steve Pink, with credits including Hot Tub Time Machine.
An avowed Liberal, Pink and Kinzinger trade jabs throughout the film — something he laments is gone from current politics.
“Steve is to this day one of my better friends, and we have a genuine relationship where we can kind of rip on each other and have fun. It used to be that way, guys. Don't you remember that? You used to be able to go to dinner with a friend that thought a little differently than you, and you could rip each other, you could talk about it, but you didn't hate each other.” he said, drawing applause.
“This president that we have right now has infected this country with hate. I'm telling you.” Kinzinger added.
The coming elections
Kinzinger still calls himself a Republican, though he votes Democrat now, and thinks Republicans are going to face a “blowout of epic proportions” in the midterms next month. Asked about potential presidential candidates, he called Gov. JB Pritzker a “dark horse contender," and said that Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia also had his attention.
He didn’t see any contenders in the current GOP roster, calling Marco Rubio someone who “puts a normy cover on a very wrong party.”
Still, he noted that any speculation this far ahead of the election was dubious.
“Typically, whoever we're talking about right now never ends up being that candidate,” he said.
The crowd was friendly, frequently cheering Kinzinger’s jabs at Republicans. Kinzinger pulled no punches, taking Republicans to task for supporting Russia over Ukraine, alienating longtime allies such as Canada and trading conservatism for blindly doing Trump's bidding.
The interview also covered topics ranging from actions Democrats should take if they prevail in the midterms to advice for McLean County Board members. (Kinzinger won a seat on the county board as a 20-year-old ISU student.)
Among his observations:
- If Democrats capture both the House and Senate, there’s a constitutional mandate to investigate corruption and abuse of power. Kinzinger also thinks they should press for the release of all the Epstein files.
- He thinks Democratic opposition to Trump has been poor, suggesting Democratic leaders should have pushed harder around the government shutdown and challenged the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] efforts directly, literally observing them as they worked. “I think it took them too long to come up and fight,” he said.
- Kinzinger said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s purge of generals makes him worry whether the military would actually refuse an illegal order.
Once Trump leaves office, Kinzinger said the new president could continue to divide, or try to unite the nation. To heal, he said that president would have to voluntarily limit their power, while Congress would have to reassert itself.
“The founding fathers always knew there'd be a guy like Trump. What they never expected was a Congress that would roll over and allow him to exist.”
WGLT will broadcast a recording of the Q&A with Kinzinger at 7 p.m. Friday. You can listen on 89.1 FM or stream on WGLT.org or the NPR App.
