Republican lawmaker says the GOP under Trump is 'advocating for crap' he never could've predicted
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger said the GOP under Trump has "advocated for crap" he never would've dreamed of, according to The Hill.
The Air Force veteran was referring to Trump's recent decision to yank US troops out of Afghanistan before he leaves office in January and the GOP's relative silence on the matter.
Kinzinger also said that the tone of the Republican party needs to change moving forward.
"I think ultimately people are going to recognize the tone has to change," the Illinois lawmaker told The Hill.
In addition to being among the few Republicans willing to openly criticize Trump, Kinzinger is on the short list of GOP lawmakers who've recognized Joe Biden as president-elect.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois is among the few congressional Republicans who have been openly critical of President Donald Trump.
In an interview with The Hill, Kinzinger said the Republican party in the Trump era is "advocating for crap" he never would've dreamed of. Kinzinger was speaking of Trump's recent, abrupt move to pull US troops out of Afghanistan before he leaves office and the relative silence of his GOP colleagues in response.
"I mean we're advocating for crap now that I never would have imagined ... When Trump says he's going to in essence recklessly pull out of Afghanistan, there's only a handful of us that even say anything about that," said Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran.
"If [former President Barack] Obama would have done the exact same thing, we'd be outraged," the Illinois Republican added.
Kinzinger has criticized Trump amid his refusal to concede to President-elect Joe Biden and baseless claims of mass voter fraud. He's on the short list of Republicans who've publicly recognized Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
The GOP lawmaker told the Hill that he's not afraid of Trump, who tends to lash out at critics and has the capacity to turn his supporters against Republican politicians perceived as hostile to the president. Kinzinger said his time in the military has influenced his tendency to challenge rhetoric he views as wrong.
"I understand how politics works, and I understand that you have to be political and I'm political ... but at the same point, if you're not willing to put your career on the line for a cause, how can you ask 18-year-olds to do it for the country?" Kinzinger said.
But Kinzinger also said he likes Trump "personally" and says the president is "hilarious."
He said he voted for Trump in 2020, and agreed with much of the president's agenda but would like the GOP to take a less divisive tone moving forward.
"I think his policy on Russia was great, but his words weren't. To this day I don't understand why he can't say a bad word about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but his policies were really aggressive," Kinzinger said of Trump. "There's a lot of good, some bad, but the biggest thing to me isn't the issues, it's the tongue. And it's that we've become unable to talk."
"I think ultimately people are going to recognize the tone has to change," Kinzinger went on to say. "I think a president sets a cultural tone and not just the issues, but just how people treat each other."
Read the original article on Business Insider
