Chicago Tribune: Kinzinger starts PAC aimed at returning Republicans to pre-Trump era

Over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Kinzinger announced he formed a PAC via a slick video that is somewhere between an infomercial and a campaign ad. In his story, the Tribune’s Rick Pearson writes that Kinzinger’s “‘country first’ movement seeks like-minded supporters to ‘take back our party’ and to ‘unplug the outrage machine, reject the politics of personality and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage.’” Read Pearson’s full story here.

Today, Kinzinger told MSNBC’s Katy Tur that the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, egged on by Trump over his false claims that the election was stolen from him, prompted him to act.

He told her “the response has been pretty incredible” to the video, ranging from those Republicans who’ve felt disaffected to concerned “Democrats who say ‘we need a healthy Republican Party’” to “a lot of people that are sitting there on the edge going, ‘man, I’m thinking about leaving’” the party because “‘I don’t have a home to go to.’

“It’s presenting that alternative to say, ‘we’re a GOP that’s not about Trump first, it’s about country first.” Kinzinger told Tur.

The original article and video coverage can be found on the Chicago Tribune website here.