Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Friday condemned his party’s downplaying of the violence that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, comparing the remarks of various lawmakers to something “out of North Korea.”
Kinzinger made his comments during an interview with “The View” host Sunny Hostin.
“The GOP is attempting now to rewrite history when it comes to the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Hostin said to Kinzinger, noting that Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) recently said that calling what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 an insurrection “is a boldfaced lie.”
She then asked the Republican lawmaker how he reacted to seeing the bodycam footage of Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone being attacked by rioters and his colleagues’ comments.
“When I saw my colleagues speak, you know, it feels like it’s in a ‘1984’ — something you see out of North Korea, where it’s like, ‘We’re just going to state whatever we want the reality to be,'” Kinzinger responded. “I was there on Jan. 6. This was a real insurrection. This was an insurrection of people that thought they were doing Trump’s bidding at the behest of Trump. Not just on that day but in the days leading up to that, with the narrative of a stolen election.”
Kinzinger continued, stating that he has become good friends with Fanone and that the officer has been disheartened by the GOP’s failure to acknowledge what happened on Jan. 6.
“As far as I know, [Fanone has] asked [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy to come in and talk to him and show him his bodycam video. Kevin has yet to respond to that. Why? What are you afraid of?” he told Hostin.
He also called on members of his party to take ownership of the insurrection, suggesting that they can only move on once they do so.
“Jan. 6 was real and as a party, we have to take ownership of that, recognize what led to that, so that we don’t do that again. This isn’t 10 years ago, this was four months ago. So the idea of ‘oh let’s just move on,’ I agree let’s move on after we take a full accounting of how we got here and how never to get to this position again,” Kinzinger said.