CHICAGO It was a dreary Friday morning and Adam Kinzinger was hanging out in a conference room with huge windows overlooking a college campus. And he was tired. Not just because it was the end of the week and it was raining. He was tired in his bones.

Its like youre taking on the world all the time, he said. I wouldnt mind having a break.

Kinzinger offered this in response to the very introspective question Hows it going? which most people answer with great or fine or maybe even meh on an especially bad day. That Kinzinger responded this way, barely a minute into our conversation at the University of Chicago in early April, was revealing about the current predicament of Adam Kinzinger, no longer just a rank-and-file GOP moderate from the nations second-largest corn-producing state.

This shift happened last year during the second impeachment of President Donald Trump . Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with 10 Republicans , voted to advance articles of impeachment against Trump for spurring the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Kinzinger was one of them.

The move uncorked the white-hot fury of the Trump base and instantly turned Kinzingers career upside down. Kinzinger and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) compounded the injury by voting to create , and then joining, the Democratic-majority select committee investigating the attack. In February, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution censuring Kinzinger and Cheney for serving on the Jan. 6 panel, whose mission it bizarrely characterized as the persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.

As this all unfolded over the past year, many have looked at Kinzinger, a star member of the Houses 2010 freshman class and one of the most visible of the pro-impeachment Republicans, and wondered: Is he totally screwed? Or was this vote a deliberate way of teeing up the next chapter of his political career as a Trump antagonist? Can this GOP tolerate a Trump-basher anywhere in its midst?

Most importantly, what does Kinzinger actually want?

I wasnt the only one trying to figure this out. The bro-y and charismatic Air Force pilot has been intensely sought after in the media. Case in point: the documentary crew that was also following Kinzingers every move that morning at the university, where he was speaking on a panel at a conference dissecting the toxic rise of disinformation on the right.