By Eric Stock
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon, has been one of presidential candidate Donald Trump’s toughest critics in the Republican Party.
Trump’s recent criticism of the family of a fallen soldier appears to be the last straw for Kinzinger.
“Donald Trump for me is beginning to cross a lot of red lines of the unforgivable in politics,” Kinzinger said on CNN. “I’m not going to support Hillary, but in America we have the right to write somebody in or skip the vote and vote for Mark Kirk (for U.S. Senate) in Illinois for instance. That’s what it’s looking like for me today. I just don’t see how I get to Donald Trump anymore.”
Kinzinger, a pilot in the Air National Guard, said he was hoping to build party unity at the GOP convention, but was turned off by Trump’s comments suggesting that the U.S. may not help NATO allies if he became president, them became more troubled by Trump’s comments critical of the family Capt. Humayun Khan, whose father, Khizr Khan, had slammed Trump in a speech at the Democratic National Convention.
“This unbelievable spat with a family of a fallen soldier, a fallen soldier who swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, wouldn’t even initially say we honor the family for their service,” Kinzinger said. “(Trump) immediately took it as what it was to him, an affront to him.”
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].