Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said that he plans to vote to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from her assigned committees unless she offers a public apology.
“I didn’t hear an apology personally,” Kinzinger said of Greene’s remarks during a closed-door House GOP conference meeting on Wednesday night.
.@RepKinzinger says he intends to vote in favor of removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee posts during a House vote.
"The only thing that could change is if today she comes out and publicly shows, you know, that she has moved on."https://t.co/tp91hSWco3 pic.twitter.com/OuxYDFfERs— New Day (@NewDay) February 4, 2021
Kinzinger, who voted to impeach President Donald Trump during House proceedings last month, has come forward as an outspoken critic of the QAnon-promoting Georgia congresswoman.
During a Thursday morning CNN interview, the prominent Greene critic said that he did not anticipate the GOP freshman to publicly apologize for her past comments because it would likely “hurt her fundraising base.”
“I honestly think a lot of this kind of boisterousness on her end is to get a bunch of Twitter followers and to raise a bunch of money,” Kinzinger said when weighing the possibility that Greene could come forward and disavow remarks that endorsed violence and advanced falsehoods.
“If she came out again today publicly and was very contrite and remorseful, that’s very different than doing it just in front of, you know, your colleagues but then going out and tweeting whatever you want because your base shouldn’t know what you really said in there,” the Illinois lawmaker said.
Kinzinger previously suggested he was prepared to lose his political career over a decision to break with his party and become one of ten Republicans to vote for former President Trump’s impeachment after the now ex-president incited an insurrection on the Capitol last month.
On Thursday, Kinzinger said that he was disappointed during the GOP conference meeting when he witnessed some of his colleagues go “all in on Marjorie Taylor Greene,” and rush to applaud her.
The comments come hours before the House votes on whether or not to remove Greene from her assigned Budget and Education committees. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has so far declined to discipline Greene after meeting with her privately on Tuesday.
McCarthy feigned ignorance about QAnon on Wednesday, after seeking to distance the party from many of Greene’s past comments earlier in the day — falling short on both occasions of formally condemning her or removing her from any committees.
“Are we really that broken as a party that we can’t even take a stand on something like that? I don’t know,” Kinzinger said.
