Adam Kinzinger: Jan. 6 was GOP's Titanic with Donald Trump trying to 'get on the first lifeboat'

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) on Sunday likened the Republican Party to the Titanic over the refusal to believe that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

While speaking to CBS host John Dickerson on Face the Nation, Kinzinger weighed in on an effort to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from leadership because she has insisted that the 2020 election was not stolen.

"Liz Cheney is saying exactly what [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy said the day of the insurrection," Kinzinger pointed out. "She's just consistently been saying it. And a few weeks later, Kevin McCarthy changed to attacking other people."

"And so I think what the reality is is as a party we have to have an internal look and a full accounting as to what lead to January 6th," he continued. "Right now, it's basically the Titanic. We're like in the middle of this slow sink, we have a band playing on the deck, telling everybody it's fine. And meanwhile, as I've said, Donald Trump's running around trying to find women's clothing to get on the first lifeboat."

Kinzinger argued that refusing to acknowledge the truth of the Jan. 6 insurrection is "not good" for the future of the Republican Party.

"We're four months after Jan. 6, an insurrection, something that was unthinkable in this country," he observed. "And the message from the people that want to get rid of Liz Cheney is to say it's just time to focus on the future and move on, like this was 10 years ago and we've been obsessed about it since. It's been four months and we have so many people including our leadership in the party that has not admitted that this is what it is, which was an insurrection led by the president of the United States, well deserving of a full accounting from Republicans."

According to Kinzinger, 70 percent of Republicans "believe the election was stolen because they've been told it was."

"They've been told in many cases by Republican leaders," he remarked. "At least Republican leaders have not countered it. On something so vast and crazy as the election was stolen."

"That's why you have this real battle right now in the party," Kinzinger added. "This idea of let's just put our differences aside and be unified. You cannot unify truth with lies. The lie is that the election was stolen. The truth is Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. And I'm sorry that 74 million people voted for Donald Trump. They weren't disenfranchised. They were simply outnumbered."

Watch the video below from CBS.