Friends,
Before my service in Congress, I am a husband, father, grateful American citizen, and voter. I could not have been more thankful for President Trump’s reelection, and I was thrilled to finally have a candidate worth being excited to vote for.
As many of you know, my faith is what motivates everything I do, including my service in Congress and my deep love for this country. Because of that, I truly believe God sparred President Trump’s life as an act of grace, giving us the opportunity to save America.
In President Trump, we finally have a Republican leader with a sense of strategy, leverage, and a vision for reforming the swamp. This, combined with the clear mandate of the election, should afford him broad latitude on policy and strategy.
However, the corrupt DC swamp continues to fight against the MAGA agenda, and Congress is structured in a way that inherently undermines it. That’s why we must have fighters in Congress who are willing to restructure the institution and challenge DC’s addiction to reckless spending so that President Trump’s agenda has lasting permanence.
When President Trump made it clear that he wanted to address the debt ceiling now—rather than waiting for the January/February reconciliation package many of us were working on—the answer for myself and many others who consistently oppose debt ceiling increases was, if the President wants it, then yes. We understood and respected President Trump’s strategic leverage play. The only remaining question was: How?
As I made clear to the Speaker in his office, I trust President Trump and his team. But I do not trust Congress—a body that has long been willing to raise the debt ceiling without delivering reforms. I, along with others, sought a commitment from fellow Republicans to ensure we would follow through on Trump’s much-needed spending reforms when the time came.
While we made significant progress, ultimately, we were unable to secure this commitment in the few hours we had to work before the vote.
Adding to the problem was the fact that we had an agreement from Speaker Johnson to pass the CR as single-subject bills which he retracted on after meeting with Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries behind closed doors. This led to more House Democrats voting for the CR than Republicans.
The chaos of this past week was both predictable and avoidable. Weeks ago, I and others warned of these pinch points and urged leadership to involve members in crafting solutions. Unfortunately, we were ignored and locked out of the process. It wasn’t the rank-and-file members who failed this week—it was a failure of leadership that brought us here.
Come January, we will need to revisit how Congress operates to ensure it is structured to deliver President Trump’s MAGA agenda. Whether that requires personnel changes, process reforms, or both will be a critical discussion we must have.
May God bless you and your family this Christmas season. I look forward to January 20th and the beginning of a renewed American Renaissance.
