'Drives me crazy!' Ex-GOP rep in disbelief watching Mike Johnson 'lie' on national TV

A former Republican congressman bashed Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Wednesday night over the House speaker's latest "lies."

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) joined "Anderson Cooper 360" to discuss the Justice Department's bid to unseal files in the Jeffrey Epstein case.

"You know, Congressman Kinzinger, it's interesting. You heard JD Vance in are open to say that the president wants transparency. House Speaker Mike Johnson, talking to Jake Tapper today, was saying he wants full disclosure," said stand-in host John Berman, as he and Kinzinger chuckled.

"Yet House Speaker Mike Johnson is the one who sent Congress home early, so they didn’t take any kind of a vote on requiring the Justice Department to release the information! So how transparent is that?" Berman asked.

Kinzinger, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, laid into his party and its leadership.

"No, they're not transparent at all. Here's what drives me crazy: we now, as a country, have just accepted that these people lie all the time. Mike Johnson will say, 'Yeah, we're trying to be transparent,' and we know he sent Congress home early. Interesting they had time for town halls. They didn’t do those, though. But he did that. And we know that's not true!" he exclaimed.

Kinzinger said while the Trump administration's communications team is generally strong, they're currently taking massive defeats.

"This is one of the very rare losses — big Ls — for the Trump administration in communications," he said. "Usually, they're pretty good. They're pretty good at obfuscating, at least, you know, getting their base off of this. But the thing is, the Epstein issue to the base, particularly a certain part of the base, this is like a religion for them."

MAGA allies have long accused opponents of being pedophiles, Kinzinger noted, calling it a Russian tactic. Now, Donald Trump has to answer.

"And honestly, I think had they just put out their statement and ignored it after that, it would have died down. But instead, right now they’re basically sitting around feeding this, particularly with his big Truth Socials," said Kinzinger.

He concluded with another shot at Trump.

"And the last thing I want to say is this: you know, narcissists at least can pretend to have empathy. In this case, I have no clue why Donald Trump cannot just say once that he feels for the victims. It's always about him," the ex-congressman concluded.

Watch the clip below or at this link.