Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) joined “The Late Show” on Tuesday in the wake of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Host Stephen Colbert asked his guest what he’s looking for in Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday.
“Everyone is talking, understandably, about lowering the temperature,” Colbert said. “What would be a sign for you that he’s taking that advice himself?”
“It would be a sign for me if he said, ‘I’m not going to run,’ right?” Kinzinger, a vocal Trump critic, quipped. “That would be a good one, but that’s probably not going to happen.”
On a more serious note, he continued, “Look, I think if he stands up and he talks about policy, he talks about issues, and talks about, you know, like, basically gives a speech he’s never given before, then that will be, to me, a sign that he wants to lower the temperature.”
“I truly hope he does,” he added, though he noted that just hours earlier, Trump had embraced his usual antics on Truth Social in a post that called the criminal cases against him “witch hunts” orchestrated by the “Democrat Justice Department.”
Trump also referred to the federal election interference case against him as the “January 6th Hoax.”
“That’s the thing to keep in mind, is they are still defending that,” said Kinzinger, who served on the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. “You will see that this week. An insurrection against our Capitol that was violent, that attacked police officers, that attacked innocent people and pretending like it never happened.”
“We cannot have an attempted insurrection during a peaceful transfer of power and then act like it’s the other side that’s created an environment where there is violence in our discussion,” he added.
Trump was formally nominated Monday at the RNC to be the party’s presidential nominee. He sustained an injury to his ear on Saturday when a shooter fired on his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and wounding two others.
Many politicians have since called on Americans to unify and turn down the political rhetoric, though any lowering of the temperature didn’t seem to last through the first day of the RNC.
Some Republicans have accused Democrats of fomenting the attack by calling Trump a threat to democracy and highlighting his authoritarian tendencies.
But authorities have not yet disclosed any information on the motivations of the shooter, a registered Republican who once donated $15 to a liberal group.
Watch the interview excerpt below.
