Kinzinger Blasts ‘Feckless, Weak’ Kevin McCarthy, Predicts RNC Censure Will Backfire

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) joined Charlie Sykes Tuesday on the Bulwark podcast and absolutely lit into Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the leader of the House Republican Conference of which he is still a member.

Sykes kicked off the conversation by asking Kinzinger about the recent birth of his son. Kinzinger reiterated a taking point he had previously used on CNN, explaining what he will tell his son about former President Donald Trump:

I’m going to tell him he was the worst president the United States ever had. He was a liar and a charlatan. And he was a man with a more fragile ego than anybody I ever met which the irony of it is he walks around like the tough guy, but he’s the one who gets more wounded and sad than anybody I know.

Kinzinger used similar language in describing McCarthy and his decision to go ahead with a vote to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from the Republican leadership in the House.

“And I remember at that moment just thinking, ‘Kevin McCarthy has just empowered his greatest enemy,'” Kinzinger said of the vote which replaced Cheney with Rep. Elise Stefanik as the number three ranking House Republican.

“Because he thought she would go away. And I gotta tell you, she ain’t going away,” added Kinzinger. “And instead, he looks like a feckless, weak, tired man, who is doing the bidding of whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks is going to raise her money that day.”

“I’ve been clear about my thoughts on Kevin McCarthy,” Kinzinger explained, detailing the position McCarthy will be in if the GOP flips the House in 2022 and he becomes speaker:

Even if he does somehow become speaker, he’s going to have to have a good cell phone plan because he will be calling Marjorie Taylor Greene every day asking her what he can and can’t do. I mean, my goodness, having the title of speaker but being subservient to a sophomore in Congress who’s crazy…why would you even do that?

The conversation then turned to last week’s vote by the Republican National Committee to censure Cheney and Kinzinger for serving on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Sykes noted that the move is already starting to backfire on the RNC as multiple Republican Senators have condemned the vote and the language in the resolution to censure has sparked controversy.

The RNC called the events leading up to Jan. 6 “legitimate political discourse,” language that Kinzinger says will now help Republicans like him to beat back the wave of “authoritarianism” gripping the GOP.

Kinzinger explained how he thinks the censure could be a “massive backfire” for the RNC:

Every member of Congress, every member of the Senate, every member of the statehouse, all the way up and down that calls themselves a Republican should be forced to answer no other question than this one: Do you think the RNC censuring Kinzinger and Cheney was right or wrong?

“It’s time to take sides,” he concluded.

Listen to the full interview below