'This is beyond repugnant': GOP congressman blasts Trump for quoting evangelical pastor's civil war threat

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, Robert Jeffress — one of President Donald Trump’s far-right white evangelical sycophants — asserted that Trump’s impeachment could cause “a Civil War-like fracture” in the United States. Trump repeated Jeffress’ assertion on Twitter — and got an angry response from a fellow Republican: Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

Jeffress, pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, is a prominent figure on the Christian Right. And during his Sunday appearance on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” Jeffress insisted to co-hosts Pete Hegseth and Jedediah Bila that Trump has done nothing to deserve impeachment and attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for supporting an impeachment inquiry — stressing, “I do want to make this prediction this morning: if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, I’m afraid it will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which this country will never heal.”

On Twitter, Trump quoted Jeffress and zeroed right in on the Civil War part:

Upon seeing Trump’s post, Kinzinger angrily tweeted in response, “I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. @realDonaldTrump I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant.”

A 41-year-old military veteran who served in the U.S. Air Force during the Iraq War, Kinzinger was first elected to the House as a Republican in 2010.

Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives because of a July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A rough transcript/summary of that conversation shows that Trump tried to pressure Zelensky into digging up dirt on a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden — which Pelosi, formerly the Democratic Party’s most prominent opponent of impeaching Trump, considers an impeachable offense.