Trump directed an RNC member to tell GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger a 'vulgar message about what he should do with himself' in 2016, report says
- Donald Trump and Rep. Adam Kinzinger clashed as early as 2016, The New York Times reports.
- In 2016, Trump apparently directed an Illinois Republican to give Kinzinger "a vulgar message."
- When he heard it, Kinzinger reportedly laughed and turned the insult back at Trump.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the most vocal Republican critics of former President Donald Trump, clashed with Trump as far back as 2016, The New York Times reports.
The Times said that before the 2016 US presidential election, Trump queried an Illinois Republican National Committee member about Kinzinger's reelection chances.
The RNC member, Richard Porter, reportedly told Trump that Kinzinger was running unchallenged. According to The Times, which usually avoids printing profanities, Trump then "poked his finger in his chest and told him to deliver to Mr. Kinzinger a vulgar message about what he should do with himself."
The Times reported that when Porter told Kinzinger of that conversation, Kinzinger "laughed and invited Mr. Trump to do the same."
Kinzinger was one of only a few sitting Republican politicians who remained critical of Trump throughout Trump's four years in office.
"I don't see how I get to Donald Trump any more," Kinzinger told CNN in an August 2016 interview, The Guardian reported at the time. "Donald Trump for me is beginning to cross a lot of red lines of the unforgivable in politics."
Kinzinger was moved to publicly denounce Trump after the then-candidate insulted the Khans, a Gold Star family who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in support of Hillary Clinton.
"I won't be silent," Kinzinger told CNN in 2016. "He can tweet all he wants. I have to do this for my country and for my party."
Kinzinger, who represents the safely conservative 16th District in Illinois, was one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection and one of 11 who voted to strip his GOP colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments on February 4.
Trump was acquitted by the Senate in a trial that ended Saturday, with seven GOP senators joining all 50 Senate Democrats in voting to convict. The vote, 57-43, fell short of the two-thirds majority that was required to convict Trump.
Kinzinger was also the first House Republican to call for Trump to be removed from office either by the 25th Amendment or the impeachment process the day after the January 6 insurrection.
Kinzinger recently told Insider's Anthony Fisher that while he realized his actions had put him at risk for a primary challenge when he's up for reelection in 2022, he was committed to leading the GOP in a new direction.
"So we have to fight like hell to restore the soul of [the Republican Party], and I'm willing to go down doing that because I think when history looks back at this moment, it's not going to be the people that voted to not certify the election that'll be written about in history books," he said.
He has also started a new political action committee, Country First, that aims to support fellow anti-Trump Republicans.