Kinzinger Blasts Election Denier Blake Masters’ Senate Campaign: ‘He’s Not Running on Anything That Matters’
Outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) ripped fellow Republican and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters for cynically adopting Donald Trump’s stance that the 2020 election was rigged against the former president.
In a new documentary, Kinzinger is seen speaking via speakerphone with Trump, who lightly chided Masters over a response he gave in a debate against Sen. Mark Kelly. Masters referred to Joe Biden as the “legitimate president.”
“I heard you did great on the debate, but a bad election answer,” Trump tells him. “You got a lot of support, you got to stay with those people.”
Trump tells Masters to emulate Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
“Look at Kari, Kari is winning with very little money, and if they say, ‘How is your family?’ She says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft, you gonna lose that base.”
Kinzinger addressed the moment with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night.
“What do you make of Blake Masters changing [his] position on the 2020 election seemingly after that call with the former president?” Cooper asked.
“It’s basically now saying, ‘Look, nothing matters,'” the congressman replied. “That’s what he is running as. Nothing matters. It’s just, ‘I’ll tell the audience when I’m at the debate the election wasn’t stolen, assuming that when I’m speaking to the base, they won’t have heard that because they won’t have watched the debate or they’ll understand what I was doing.”
He added, “Ultimately, he’s just running on a personality. He’s not running on anything that matters, anything that means anything in his mind.”
Cooper asked noted some Republicans who previously distanced themselves from Trump’s false election claims are now campaigning for election deniers.
“How do you reconcile that?” the host asked.
“You can’t,” Kinzinger replied. “You see somebody like Mike Pence that does a good thing on Jan. 6., but since then – with few exceptions – has said he has been so proud to serve with Donald Trump, is working for people like Blake Masters. It’s all about this now-shadow campaign for president in 2024 if Donald Trump doesn’t run.”
Watch above via CNN.
