Kinzinger talks Trump and his own future in Chicago speech

CHICAGO (WGN) — Adam Kinzinger has been out of Congress for two years now, but his final term continues to define him and his mission.  

“This is not normal,” Kinzinger said of President Donald Trump’s first four months back in the White House. “Regardless of your opinion of him, people can obviously look at this and say: This isn’t how politics used to be. This kind of anger, this division is not sustainable.”

Kinzinger spoke with WGN ahead of a speech Wednesday evening in Chicago. Since leaving office, he has traveled the nation for his “Country First” political action committee, telling the story of being one of only two republicans to serve on the Jan. 6 Committee. Despite having a conservative voting record, Trump supporters branded him a “RINO,” which stands for “Republican In Name Only.”

“Democracy is still worth preserving,” Kinzinger said. 

Kinzinger encouraged Republicans and Democrats not to tune out the daily drumbeat of headlines. 

“You have the daily clown show or the daily controversies. Some of it is so outrageous, you have to pay attention. Some of it is corruption,” Kinzinger said. “In the meantime, the stuff that really matters – did DOGE save $160 billion? It did not. By the way, they promised $2 trillion. The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’  will actually cut Medicare and Medicaid and explode the debt. So people are talking about that, and then we hear about the Qatar jet. So, how do you kind of juggle all those balls and stay engaged? That’s the big key.”

Kinzinger doesn’t sound like a man content to stay on the sidelines of government, but he has yet to announce his next move. In the meantime, he’ll continue to try to reach new audiences through social media, a regular column on Substack, YouTube videos, and commentary on CNN. 

“I want the younger generation to recognize: This doesn’t have to be this way,” Kinzinger said.

In 2022, WGN profiled Kinzinger as a politician without a party.

In 2024, Republican Kinzinger accepted a prime-time speaking role at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

“I look at the Democrats and say, sure, there’s a lot I disagree with, but there’s actually a lot I agree with that my party has abandoned, like foreign policy. I mean, standing with Ukraine in a fight against Russia, if you had told me 10 years ago that my party would’ve abandoned that fight, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Kinzinger told WGN at the time. “When they call me a RINO, there’s not much about me that’s changed from what I used to be. The whole Republican party has changed.”