Kinzinger: a lot of 'cowardice' among GOP

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said there is a “lot of cowardice” amongst fellow GOP members in their refusal to go against former President Trump during comments Wednesday.

“I think there's a lot of cowardice, and I guess I don't mean that as just a pejorative attack for no reason just to be mean, it's like it's truly people I think fear– more than they fear death, they fear being kicked out of a tribe and they fear losing an identity,” Kinzinger, a frequent critic of Trump, said in an interview on PBS NewsHour Wednesday. 

“And if you stand up against somebody like Donald Trump and you violate this, like intense feeling of a party, you're gonna— you're gonna lose both,” Kinzinger continued. “You're gonna lose your identity as a member of Congress, some people just love carrying that around, and you're gonna be kicked out of a Republican tribe.”

Just the day before, Kinzinger said he was disowned by his family in the wake of him leaving Congress and losing “the trust” of Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“So, I had family that sent a certified letter disowning me,” Kinzinger said in a CNN interview Monday. “They said I’ve lost the trust of great men like Sean Hannity, which is funny, but they believe that. They said I was a member of the devil’s army.”

He said his decision to leave Congress, which he served in until earlier this year, and his disagreements with the GOP resulted in death threats against him and his family.

“You know, we had people that would call and threaten to kill my, at the time, 5-month-old child, or say they wish he would die,” Kinzinger said.