Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Wednesday that the vast majority of his Republican colleagues don’t believe ex-President Donald Trump’s election lies, even though they may continue to peddle them in public.
“Save one or two maybe out here, nobody ― and I think it’s very important to repeat ― nobody actually believes the election was stolen from Donald Trump, but a lot of them are happy to go out and say it was,” Kinzinger told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Blitzer asked Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the nine-member House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot, if any of his fellow GOP lawmakers had “actually privately said to you, ‘Good work, I support you.’”
“Yes, oh yeah, yeah,” responded Kinzinger, who has become one of his party’s fiercest critics of its twice-impeached former president.
“Is it just one or two? Is it a handful? Give me a ballpark number,” the CNN anchor pressed.
“There’s a lot of people, you know. And they come up and say it,” replied Kinzinger. “It’s not any of the ones that go on TV and spout the big lie and then say it. It’s the ones that are staying more quiet that I think appreciate the stand. But it’s a lot.”
Blitzer asked Kinzinger if he’d thought of switching parties.
“No. Look, I’m a Republican at heart, right?” he replied. “I was a Republican way before Donald Trump, since I was 6 years old. I believe in the values I’m fighting for and I believe that a party of such a great rich history deserves to have people, even if it’s only a couple of us at the moment, in there fighting to restore the soul of it. So I’m gonna fight hard for that.”
Watch the full interview here: