Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) shared some unvarnished thoughts Monday on the people President-elect Donald Trump has announced he plans to nominate to key positions in his upcoming administration — and said one of them in particular is most concerning for U.S. democracy.
Trump’s picks include MAGA loyalist Kash Patel to run the FBI, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defense and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) — a former Democrat who joined the Republican Party in 2024 — as leader of national intelligence.
When asked on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” whom he has the strongest opinion on, Kinzinger stated bluntly: “I mean, for the country, Kash Patel, because I think once you weaponize Justice or the FBI, that’s a huge problem. … There’s really no oversight.”
Patel served in the first Trump administration and, in his 2023 book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” ominously ranked Trump’s “deep state” enemies — and vowed at the time to “come after” them.
Kinzinger told Colbert that Hegseth is the second-most-troubling pick, as the Defense Department “is the largest corporation in the world.” Hegseth, a military veteran turned television pundit, defended the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Fox News at the time.
“There’s people that put their lives on the line,” Kinzinger said Monday about the Defense Department, “and Pete served honorably in the military, but by the way, anywhere in D.C. there’s probably 50,000 people as or better qualified than Pete Hegseth to run the DOD.”
Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic and one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over his role in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, shared similar thoughts on Gabbard — who previously criticized Trump as “corrupt” but has since joined the fold.
“I knew her,” Kinzinger told Colbert. “And I was friends with her up until the day she visited [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad who, thank God, is out of power now, and did his dirty work.”
Forces for the recently deposed president were accused of using sarin gas to kill 1,400 people in 2013. Gabbard — who shared “Russian talking points” in support of Assad, Kinzinger noted — previously urged Congress not to endorse potential U.S. regime change operations in the country, alleging the U.S. was covertly “supporting” as much.
The Countdown To Trump Is On
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
Kinzinger had only one word to share about former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whom Trump had announced as his attorney general pick despite a federal investigation and a congressional ethics probe into allegations he had sexual relations with a minor. Gaetz immediately resigned from his congressional seat in anticipation of the role but later withdrew himself from consideration for the position when it appeared he would not have the support needed for confirmation.
When Colbert noted there was applause in the House chamber Friday as the acting House clerk announced Gaetz wouldn’t be taking his seat in the new Congress, Kinzinger said simply: “Fantastic.”