Kinzinger launching PAC to challenge GOP’s embrace of Trump

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday announced the formation of a new PAC aimed at challenging the Republican Party’s acceptance of former President Trump.

“This is no time for silence, not after the last month, not after the past few years. Someone needs to tell the truth. Someone needs to say what history needs to hear. So here I am. The Republican Party has lost its way,” Kinzinger said in a video posted on country1st.com, the website for his new PAC.

“Today’s Republican Party, it’s not the one I joined. The GOP I signed up for was built on a foundation of principle, and it was filled with hope. We believed a brighter future was just around the bend, and we fought tirelessly to get there,” Kinzinger continued.

Kinzinger was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol breach and has become an outspoken critic of the former president. He has since said his vote has led to him being isolated among his party and has said his decision may be “terminal” to his political career.

“My goal in launching country1st.com with the number one is just to say, look, let’s take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way, how backwards looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division. And that’s not the party I ever signed up for. And I think most Republicans didn’t sign up for that,” Kinzinger told Chuck Todd while appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Kinzinger said the website would serve as a “landing place” for fellow conservatives who feel like him regarding the state of the GOP. He characterized his new PAC as a return to “conservative principles” and opined that his party had “lost its moral authority in a lot of areas.”