GOP lawmaker drops the mic on Lindsey Graham's Trump fealty: 'He just needs a strongman'

On Thursday, The Atlantic released an interview between Jeffrey Goldberg and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who made it clear he no longer feels at home in the Republican Party and has lost respect for its leadership.

"I don't have a tribe," Kinzinger told Goldberg. "The good thing is, I don't really care. The only reason this hurts me is that it reminds me of how frigging crazy the Republican Party has become. It's not my tribe anymore."

"I think it's just power," he said in the interview. "[Mike] Pompeo convinced himself that he would help temper some of the more isolationist tendencies of Trump, and then he bought into the idea that he could one day be president. And Lindsey [Graham] — well, Lindsey just needs somebody to tell him where to go, a strongman. [John] McCain was that guy. Now it's Trump. It's sad."

"You always think that everyone has a red line," added Kinzinger. "No matter how much politics a person can play, there's a red line that people can't cross. I was naive. There are some people who only care about access to power. I'm still coming to terms with this."

Kinzinger has increasingly been on the outs with GOP leadership. He was a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, voted to impeach him after the January 6 attack on the Capitol fomented by his conspiracy theories, and is currently working on the Congressional committee investigating the attack.