White House Communications Director Steven Cheung sparked controversy Thursday after suggesting that former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger may be secretly using a gay dating app.
Cheung made the allegation during a heated exchange on X with Kinzinger, 47, a married father of one and longtime critic of President Donald Trump. Kinzinger, who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 following the January 6 Capitol riot, has remained one of the former president’s most vocal opponents.
Cheung, known for his aggressive defense of the administration and frequent online clashes with journalists and political adversaries, engaged Kinzinger after the former congressman criticized Trump’s decision to demolish the White House East Wing to construct a new ballroom.
The exchange quickly escalated, with Cheung’s comments drawing sharp reactions across social media and renewed debate over the tone of political discourse in Washington.
“Will not a single elected Republican speak up,” Kinzinger wrote on the X platform in a post featuring a video of the East Wing being demolished.
“The ballroom is going to look so spectacular. Even your simple and dumb ass will want to go,” Cheung fired back.
Kinzinger then responded with a zoomed-in photo of Cheung’s face with the post, “literally you.”
Cheung later escalated the exchange by posting a photo of Kinzinger with his wife alongside several images depicting a partially nude man.
The post appeared to imply that Kinzinger had uploaded explicit photos of himself to a gay dating platform, a suggestion that quickly drew widespread attention and criticism online.
https://twitter.com/StevenCheung47/status/1981370653245640906
Alex Bruesewitz, a former Trump campaign operative and current informal adviser to the president, amplified Cheung’s allegations against Kinzinger, further fueling the controversy online.
“Why has no reporter ever asked @AdamKinzinger about his Snapchat scandal? Is there more to it?” Bruesewitz noted in response to Cheung’s posts. “Did the Democrats find something out about Adam’s private life and use it as leverage to get him to become a far-left lunatic? We need answers!”
Rumors alleging that Kinzinger created a profile on a gay dating website have circulated in pro-Trump online circles since 2021, shortly after the former congressman voted to impeach the president.
Kinzinger has not publicly addressed the speculation, and the unverified photos circulating online provide no evidence that he ever created such a profile. He did not respond to a Daily Mail request for comment.
Kinzinger, along with now-former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), who also voted to impeach Trump, were the only two Republicans to sit on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s partisan Jan. 6 Committee. The Republican National Committee censured both of them in 2022, before they left the House.
“The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy,” Cheney said on social media ahead of the RNC vote.
“I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what,” she added.
“I’ve been a member of the Republican Party long before Donald Trump entered the field,” Kinzinger noted at the time.
“Rather than focus their efforts on how to help the American people, my fellow Republicans have chosen to censure to lifelong Members of their party for simply upholding their oaths of office,” he said. “They’ve allowed conspiracies and toxic tribalism hinder their ability to see clear-eyed.’
“My efforts will continue to be focused on standing up for truth and working to fight the political matrix that’s led us to this point,” he said.