Donald Trump's campaign is about the tone and tapping into voters' anger, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Monday, but he believes it's better to inspire, not infuriate the electorate.
"There's really two ways to come to power," the Illinois Republican, who said he supports former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's push for the GOP nomination, told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "One is through negativity, you know, reinforcing to Americans, 'hey, the economy stinks. Leaders stink.' It's kind of stirring that anger part of people."
But the other, he said, is more like the way Ronald Reagan won the presidency, by inspiring people.
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"That's what I think the job of a president is to do is to lay out a road map for people to say, 'look, it's not necessarily me but here's where we need to go,'" said Kinzinger.
Kinzinger denied a statement by show host Joe Scarborough that Bush looks "dull and joyless," saying he's got the substance to take the nomination.
"Donald Trump is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room," said Kinzinger. "Any candidate running for president has to be frustrated because everything is Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump."
But Trump isn't really saying anything, said Kinzinger.
"It really makes no sense when I listen to what he says," said Kinzinger. "'I'm going to make Mexico pay for the wall. How? I'm going to make them.' Military or what?"
The lawmaker, a veteran of the Air Force who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, also discussed the ongoing struggle against the Islamic State, saying that the United States is still "bombing ISIS with no success."
There have been some gains, said Kinzinger, as "any time you kill bad people, you're gaining," but still the situation with ISIS and in Syria is just getting worse.
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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