Cnn senior political commentator and former Republican congressman of Illinois, Adam Kinzinger. Great to have you here with us, congressman. Thanks for making time. First, I just want to get your reaction to the verdict and the way that Trump handled himself afterwards, showing absolutely no remorse and forging ahead with much of the same that we've heard.

Well, the verdict was right.

I think it's a fair argument to say if somebody wants to argue that the case shouldn't have been brought because, again, prosecutors make subjective decisions every day. I think that's a fair argument to make. I disagree with it, but it's a fair argument.

But the bottom line is, okay, the case was brought. As happens every day all around America, cases are brought, the question is, was there a crime committed? And if somebody... The Republicans have to answer that. If they say, no, there was no crime committed, then they are denigrating the jury system because the jury said, yes, there was a crime committed. It was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to jury members, some of which probably supported Donald Trump.

And if they say, yes, there was a crime committed, then okay, well, then there's a crime committed, and we have to face justice.

What's been interesting in all of this is the mass psychosis you see now among Republican elected officials, Republican think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, flying the American flag upside down, which Colin Kaepernick probably would love to see this, to see now the Republicans are okay with signs like this. This mass psychosis is from a political perspective, just the raw politics, is very damaging, probably to Donald Trump in November, because I don't think most Americans are saying, Yeah, this mass psychosis is warranted. But secondarily, the damage it's doing to the justice system, the faith in the justice system, is absolutely incredible.

Right, because there's the political piece of it, which you're getting at, and we can put that aside into one bucket. But then to At your point, there is the damage it's doing to the judicial system, and more broadly, his attacks on democracy, on our elections. It all runs... It's all branches of the same tree undermining the establishment in America, in American democracy. Yeah, that's right.

Think about this.

As a congressman, I represented 700,000 people.

Senators represent anywhere from, I guess, a million to whatever the biggest, whatever California is.

And so You are vested with really an amazing responsibility. You can play the art of politics.

You can compromise a little bit to benefit the party.

All this is stuff that goes on. But the bottom line, when it comes to constitutional questions, when it comes to the sanctity of the system that our founding father has put in place, you have a unique responsibility to defend that. When I took an oath, I did not take an oath to the 16th Congressional district in The oath I took had nothing to do with the people I represent. It's controversial to say that, but it's true. My oath was to the Constitution and the Constitution alone. And the demand of me was, even if your district wants you to do something that violates the Constitution, the oath you took prevents you from doing that. And every one of these elected officials, whether it's a Township Supervisor, all the way up to the main candidate for President or a US Senator, need to remember that their oath is to the sanctity of the Constitution. And in self-governance, when you violate people's trust in those basic institutions, it is hard to see how self-governance can survive in the long run.

What do you say to those people who say this was the right verdict, wrong case. We wanted the other cases to be brought forward, but it's likely that this will likely be the only trial that Trump faces before the election.

Look, I agree with that. I would have liked to have seen the January sixth case or the classified documents case go first, but we don't have that choice.

The fact that doesn't say, just because if you want those cases to go first, doesn't say that this case is not important. It is. It was not brought against Donald Trump when he was President because he was President. When he got out of the presidency, that's when the investigation commenced. They found a crime. They took it through the legal process in a jury of Donald Trump's peers. Again, it's really important to note, probably a handful of these jurors voted for Donald Trump, but they couldn't deny the evidence. And this, more than anything, Republicans may be trying to destroy the faith in the jury system. This actually, to me, reconfirms that a jury, no matter what their political bias, can sit Look at the evidence, and make a decision based on the evidence and not based on tribal identity.

And Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson thinks this guilty verdict is going to lead to ultimately a second Trump presidency. I want to play a clip of what he told reporters in Ohio yesterday.

We're outraged by it. I think the American people are. What happened to President Trump is lawful. There's no other way to describe it. They went after the Democrat Party, and they used the system of justice to go after a political opponent. I think that this will probably guarantee that President Trump is reelected President, and I think their strategy is going to backfire on them.

So aside from the completely false claims that this trial was led by Democrats to prosecute Trump, the speaker also said that the Supreme Court should intervene. Congressman, what do you think of the speaker's comments?

Well, look, as a person of faith myself, I'm very disappointed to see a person of faith lie to the American Especially in such a powerful position, lie about this. I don't think you can just take it right to the US Supreme Court.

But from the raw political perspective, I don't think there is a single person, despite the Twitter chatter you see, which is what the narrative they're trying to get out. I don't think there is a single person that was committed to Joe Biden that because of these felonies has now said, I'm going to vote for Donald Trump, particularly when you pair that with, again, the mass psychosis you're seeing, not a responsible reaction, the psychosis. It may please 30 % of the most hard core Trump base, but the rest of America is going, wow, this is weird. So I don't think you're going to see massive shifts in the polls as a result of this, but this is an election that's going to be decided on the margins in a few states. And I think there are people, Republicans, particularly, not a ton of them, but some that are uncomfortable with voting for a convicted felon that can't purchase a weapon, that if he was in the US military would be dishonorably discharged and is now ineligible had he gone through a security clearance process to get even a basic security clearance because of this felony conviction.

Now you want him to be commander in chief. I think that will have an impact, and I don't I think it's going to be on Donald Trump's benefit.

And so I hear what you're saying on all of that, and you talk a little bit about his base, the hold he has on those people who are never going to abandon him. And to that end, the Trump campaign said there were 53 million dollars, 53 million dollars in donations following his guilty verdict. What does that number tell you?

Well, it says that the leaders of whether it's Donald Trump or his surrogates or people under him, have convinced these folks that there is a conspiracy out against them. I mean, all you have to do is look at what you see on Twitter or Truth Social, and you see that there is a conspiracy mentality in the GOP.

Everything from there out to get us the deep state. Donald Trump feeds on being a victim. This small man feeds on his victimness and is convinced his base that they're victims, too. He said, a sound bite you played, If they can come after me, they can come after you. True. If you run for President and you pay off a porn and use that in furtherance of a crime to hide that a couple of weeks before an election where it could have made a difference, yes, they will come after you. That's a good lesson. And so it says to me that, yeah, they're committed to this. I don't think money has much of an impact in politics as much as it used to because people's minds are made up. But it actually saddens me as a Republican to see the base, many of them on a fixed income, continue to feed this guy as grift at the cost of their own to buy medicine and food. It makes me sad, actually.

Do you think that the former President should face jail time?

Look, that's a tough one. I'll leave that one up to how they sentence.

He certainly hasn't shown any remorse, which you would expect when somebody's going up for sentencing to show some version of remorse or to at least be quiet in the press.

He's not doing that. He's continuing to attack.

So I'll leave that to the judge.

Obviously, Donald Trump in jail would have a serious implication for this country, but we can't do justice on the basis of somebody just announced they're running for President or a special class of people that are somehow exempt from justice.

That's everything that we should be fighting against. Equal justice under the law is what we're for, and not some being accepted from justice because they either decided to run for President or they're rich.

And I just want to ask you before I let you go, we are now nearing the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Of course, that led to the defeat of the Nazis. It's coming up next week. Now, Now, 80 years later, the leading Republican candidate for President is declaring the USA a, quote, fascist state. There has been Hitler propaganda that he's put out there. How do you think history judges this moment? And what does it say that 80 years later, this is what's going on?

Look, I think 100 years ago, about, was the 1930s. This is a real similar time to the 1930s. You have open Nazis operating. There was some massive division. But this just goes to show me that Donald Trump is not a true leader.

He doesn't inspire people to inspiration. He creates division. It's sad to see this happening to our nation at this time, but I truly believe we're going to come back stronger from this moment, because in 10 years, and I'd almost put my hand on the Bible, except I can't truly predict the future. In 10 years, there's not going to be a single person in this country that will ever admit they supported Donald Trump, I believe, because we are going to reject this. And Donald Trump can call this a fascist country. He's very good at projecting on other people his own intentions. He's the most fascist person to run for President that we've had in a very long time or ever in this country, and America needs to reject.