After tours of duty as an Air Force pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan, Adam Kinzinger returned home never expecting to see battle again. Then, on January 6, 2021, he watched as fellow Americans broke windows, ransacked the US Capitol and attacked police officers. All the Illinois Republican congressman could do was barricade his office door, pull out his gun just in case . . . and hope.
Then he voted to impeach Donald Trump — and the conservative media heaped scorn on him. When he joined the House Select Committee to investigate the Capitol riot, the venom turned to terrifying threats: calls and letters vowing to execute his wife and newborn son.
The question of how America hit such a dangerous juncture haunted him until Kinzinger finally concluded that enough was enough . . . to unchecked extremism, partisan misinformation campaigns, and the perversion of the conservative values he’d long held dear.
In his new book, Renegade, Kinzinger explores that question, documenting the spiraling of hatred, the unraveling of the party he long served and the inner workings and surprising findings of the January 6 committee.
He joins us for a deep dive into the committee discussions, his decision to break from the Republican Party and why we should be alarmed by the cultural and political rupture that endangers our democracy.
Adam D. Kinzinger represented Illinois’ 16th Congressional District from 2011 to 2023, serving on the House Committees on Energy and Commerce and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is currently a CNN senior political commentator.
Kinzinger will be in conversation with Amy Davidson Sorkin, staff writer and Comment contributor at The New Yorker.