Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday blamed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the “crazy elements” in Congress and for allowing former President Trump to still have so much control and be a “factor” in politics.
Kinzinger said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that if he got the chance to sit down and talk with McCarthy he would tell him that he had been “disappointed” in his leadership. He added that McCarthy had the chance to tell the “truth” to the American public, but instead of doing that, he chose to visit Mar-a-Lago only a few weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and bring Trump back into relevance.
Kinzinger maintains that he is the reason that Donald Trump has managed to maintain his position in politics and that McCarthy is also at fault for letting “some of the crazy elements of the House still exist.”
According to reports McCarthy had called Trump to ask him to call off the rioters. In the audio recording of the call, McCarthy is heard criticizing Trump following the Capitol insurrection. However, he quickly reestablished his ties to the former President in the same way that the rest of the Republican Party had done. Kinzinger added that he believed that if McCarthy had not visited Mar-a-Lago, then Trump would have been pushed to the side by the GOP. He added that if Congress had removed Trump from office following the impeachment, then his removal would have been a big deal. But Trump was not removed as Senate Republicans were not successful in convicting Trump.
