Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) summoned members of his own party and President Donald Trump on Sunday for refusing to acknowledge that Trump lost the election, warning of potential violence if Republicans continue their “screaming coup” to challenge the results.
With a series of allies of the president in the House and Senate signaling that they will interrupt the certification of the Congress of the Electoral College on January 6 in a last effort to steal the election, Kinzinger took to Twitter at the weekend to punish Trump and the “con artists Congress ”.
“My God. Trying to burn the place down because you can’t handle the loss. No evidence, nothing but your tantrum and crazy conspiracies. Embarrassing,” the Illinois congressman tweeted in response for Trump cheering for the effort.
Interviewing Kinzinger on CNN state of the Union on Sunday, guest host Dana Bash mentioned the planned attempt to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s decisive victory, noting that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence recently met with some of the Republicans behind the effort.
“I hope there is a bit of chaos,” replied Kinzinger. “But this is a scam.”
Pointing out that the Trump team’s lawsuits alleging that the “election was stolen” had no basis, Kinzinger added that “there is no impetus to overturn the election, even if you wanted to” in Congress.
“All that is being done is that certain members of Congress, the president and ‘thought leaders’ on Twitter are receiving retweets, followers and raising money from this scam,” said Kinzinger. “It is a scam and it will disappoint people who believe that this election has been stolen, who think this is an opportunity to change it.
The Illinois congressman went on to say that “instead of being disappointed with the people who led them to this terrible coup”, Trump supporters will end up blaming “RINOs in Congress” for preventing Trump from remaining in office instead of “the Constitution that prevents it from happening in the first place. ”
Bringing up Trump’s recent pardons to his corrupt associates and friends like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, Bash added that “we’ve heard and seen a lot of crazy things” from the president in recent weeks.
“We saw and heard about the declaration of martial law, unfounded allegations of a stolen election as you were talking about, contradictory signs about military funding and relief from COVID,” she continued. “But the president still has more time in office. Are you really concerned with what he and the people who support him can still do? “
Although Kinzinger said he was not sure he was “concerned”, he was at least “concerned” about how the January 6 move would be the most unbalanced part of the Trump base that believes in the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory.
“If you convince people that, you know, Congress can change a legitimate election and everything has been stolen, there is a profound state / QAnon theory that drives Satanist pedophiles to rule the government,” he said. “You can see people being driven to violence, so I’m concerned about that.”
Kinzinger, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the National Air Guard, said he was still confident that the Pentagon would not implement martial law to redo the election, as former national security adviser Michael Flynn suggested.
“The concern I have now, and why I have been so outspoken, is that I grew up as a Republican because I believe in a smaller government and a strong national defense and that is being destroyed by conspiracies now. And anger, ”he concluded. “And I really care about the future of my party.”