Can Trump’s Grip on the GOP Be Loosened?: Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger Says Yes

Inside the Hive

Vanity Fair

News

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, joins Inside the Hive to talk about his campaign to steer the GOP away from Donald Trump, the QAnon conspiracy cult, and the insurrection of January 6. In advance of an impeachment trial in the Senate, Kinzinger has allied himself with Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney and voted to remove Trump ally and QAnon adherent Marjorie Taylor Greene from her congressional committees. But he acknowledges a tough battle ahead, not least the struggle to bring Trump’s base out of the “fog” of disinformation, comparing the current crossroads to the morning after a Friday-night “bender”: “The easy answer is to drink a Bloody Mary and just feel a little better and start up again,” he says. “Or you can take a look at what you did and…bear the pain a little bit.” The congressman recently started a PAC to support “country first” Republicans and predicts that sanity will prevail and Trump’s support will deteriorate within six months. “[Trump] doesn't have Twitter, he's not blinding people,” he observes. “And I think folks are gonna wake up … and say, ‘The party of Trump is not the party that's going to be in the majority of the future.’” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Inside the Hive.
0:05.2	We have returned your co-host Joe Hagen and Emily Jane Fox.
0:09.3	Hello, Emily.
0:10.3	Hello.
0:11.3	We're back again.
0:12.3	And a lot has happened this week.
0:13.8	A lot's about to happen next week.
0:16.8	You know, late last year we kept promising we were going to stop talking about Trump.
0:21.0	We kind of have.
0:22.4	And we did for a while.
0:23.5	We did really, we did so good for a while there.
0:26.2	But you know what?
0:27.2	The truth is, I've had a change of thinking about this.
0:31.2	I'm realizing that we're not thinking about Trump in the same way.
0:35.4	We're not thinking about it as if we're beholden to his horror show.
0:39.2	We are now doing the good hard work trying to achieve some kind of justice, but also
0:49.7	metabolize and deal with the fallout of what he did and what he meant.
0:58.2	And interestingly enough, it's all in the court of the Republicans now.
1:03.2	They are now suffering the slings and heroes of their own calculations that they made
1:08.6	by following Trump to begin with.
1:10.4	Well, that's what your, your interview today is all about.
1:13.6	I want, I want to hear all about it, but before we get there, you know, I really feel like
	...

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