Rep. Adam Kinzinger made his comments during an appearance on CNN’s “The Axe Files with David Axelrod” podcast.
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Adam Kinzinger said a GOP-majority Congress might try to impeach the president every week.Kinzinger singled out Marjorie Taylor Greene as someone who might lead that effort.He also predicted that Rep. Kevin McCarthy would have trouble controlling the GOP’s far-right wing.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger believes that a GOP-led House could end up voting to impeach President Joe Biden “every week” if the party were to win the midterms and wrest control of Congress.
Kinzinger made this statement on a Monday episode of CNN’s podcast, “The Axe Files with David Axelrod.”
“Back before we had all the crazies here — just some crazies — you know, every vote we took, we had to somehow defund ObamaCare in it,” he said.
In 2017, Kinzinger voted for the conservative-backed American Health Care Act over ObamaCare, saying the latter had “a damaging effect on patient care.”
“That’s going to look like child’s play in terms of what Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to demand of Kevin McCarthy,” Kinzinger said, referring to the House Minority leader.
“They’re going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week,” he quipped.
Kinzinger appeared to be referring to how Greene, a right-wing lawmaker from Georgia, has made impeaching Biden part of her official platform.
Greene has introduced resolutions in the House to impeach the president on multiple occasions.
On January 21, 2021 — a day Biden took office — Greene filed a resolution to impeach the president, calling him a “threat to national security.” In August 2021, she also accused Biden of “dereliction of duty” over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Greene submitted another resolution on Monday to try to get Biden impeached, accusing him of “endangering, compromising, and undermining the energy security of the United States” by selling oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to foreign nations.
However, the US selling oil to other countries is nothing new. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the US was a total petroleum net exporter in 2020 and 2021.
During Monday’s podcast, Kinzinger speculated that McCarthy was “not going to be able to do much” even if he did get nominated for Speaker.
There has been a push from the GOP’s far-right to replace McCarthy, with figures like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz angling to unseat McCarthy in favor of Rep. Jim Jordan.
Kinzinger said that in the event of a narrow GOP majority, it would take just five or six Republicans to come together to deny McCarthy the post of Speaker.
“Any of them can do that. And I know these Freedom Caucus members fairly well, and I know that they have no problem turning their back on (McCarthy), and they will,” he added.
“I think it’ll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them,” said Kinzinger, referring to his far-right GOP colleagues.
“In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I don’t know,” he added.