Voters in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District gave six-term incumbent Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., the boot final month in favor of a younger, energetic and profitable businessman who says he is able to defend their pursuits within the nation’s capital.
Republican Rep.-elect Rob Bresnahan, 34, tells Fox News Digital in an interview that “kitchen desk points” helped him join with northeastern Pennsylvanians and oust Cartwright, a progressive who had served in Congress for greater than a decade.
“When we had been knocking on doorways and speaking to individuals each single day over a interval of 13 months, the very first thing anybody needed to say was, ‘I can’t afford my payments. I am unable to afford hire. I am unable to afford my mortgage. I am unable to afford faculty property taxes. I am unable to afford groceries,'” Bresnahan stated.
Rising costs for meals and fuel have made residing prices unaffordable for Pennsylvanians, he defined. And as voters have watched unlawful immigrants overrun the southern border and be supplied free meals, housing and advantages, whereas billions in overseas support flows out from the U.S. to different international locations, they felt that foreigners had been being handled higher than Americans by their authorities, stated Bersnahan.
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Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright and Republican Pennsylvania House candidate Rob Bresnahan. (Getty Images/Rob for PA)
“We’re trying round at our neighbors saying, ‘hey, what about us right here?’ And they could not assist however really feel that they’ve been put second for a very long time.”
Bresnahan, 34, was a hit story earlier than he received election to the House of Representatives. A fifth-generation native of Luzerne County, at simply 19 years outdated he was entrusted to be CFO of his grandfather’s development firm, which builds electrical infrastructure for municipalities and highways all through Pennsylvania.
He spent his school years on the University of Scranton dashing backwards and forwards between the workplace and sophistication as he labored to assist the enterprise get better from the worldwide monetary disaster. His onerous work paid off, the enterprise grew and Bresnahan turned CEO after graduating in 2013.
“I used to be nonetheless residing at house with my dad and mom and I used to be out and in of a dorm room and working an organization with 58 workers though I couldn’t legally drink a Coors Light but,” he advised the Citizen’s Voice in 2021. “The mixture was a heavy workload but it surely was a sacrifice that I’d make once more in a second.”
But because the years handed, Bresnahan, like many Americans, felt the nation was headed on the fallacious monitor. The selections coming from Washington, D.C., had been dangerous for his enterprise, his workers and the individuals they serve. And so, he determined to enter politics to make a distinction.
“I felt that the nation was not heading in the correct trajectory with what is occurring on our southern border. We had life primarily unaffordable for the typical individual. And I’ve at all times been an individual to roll up my sleeves and throw myself into fireplace,” Bresnahan stated.
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Rob Bresnahan, Republican nominee for Pennsylvania’s eighth Congressional District, takes the stage throughout a Trump marketing campaign rally at Riverfront Sports on Oct. 9, 2024 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. (Getty Images)
His profitable congressional marketing campaign targeted on securing the border, reducing taxes and trimming authorities spending, creating “family-sustaining jobs” within the Keystone State and supporting regulation enforcement. In April, Bresnahan obtained an endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump.
“A profitable Businessman, Rob has labored onerous to Create Jobs and Grow the Economy, in contrast to his opponent, Matt Cartwright, who is totally beholden to Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
With the marketing campaign behind him, Bresnahan says he and the opposite members of the incoming Republican majority in Congress are able to hit the bottom working with a pro-growth agenda in January.
“Securing the border. That must be carried out day one, Jan. 3 at 12:01 p.m., the day after we’re all sworn in,” he advised Fox News Digital. “I feel there’s going to be a giant playbook, however that may be a tangible win proper off the bat.”
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A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4, 2024, forward of the 2024 presidential election. (Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto through Getty Images)
On inflation, Bresnahan says Congress and the Trump administration can sort out unaffordable costs by reducing vitality prices. “Talking about simply Pennsylvania alone, 52% of houses are heated from pure fuel. $45 billion a 12 months are generated from the pure fuel business, and $76 billion in GDP comes out of the fracking and pure fuel business,” he stated, insisting that policymakers should cease “vilifying pure assets.”
The rising nationwide debt, at $36 trillion, is one other burden on the financial system Bresnahan says Congress should handle. “We’re spending extra on debt servicing – simply our nationwide debt and the curiosity – than we’re on our nationwide protection finances.”
The younger lawmaker stated there shall be “robust votes” on discretionary spending when Congress convenes in January. But two of the biggest contributors to the federal debt and deficit will stay untouched.
“Obviously, we will not reduce Medicare. We cannot reduce Social Security. We need to protect that for our present technology, and we have now to search out methods to protect it for our technology and the following technology. But I do not consider that there is a one-size-fits-all coverage on any circumstance, not to mention the nationwide debt and the expenditures of the federal authorities,” Bresnahan stated.
However, he added that unlawful immigrants mustn’t profit from packages that Americans have paid in to, together with Social Security and Medicare.
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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., is predicted to maintain his job after Republicans held on to their House majority. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc through Getty Images)
Republicans are anticipated to increase the 2017 tax cuts that turned regulation throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace. Bresnahan says he helps these tax cuts and insists that financial progress spurred by deregulation and investments in infrastructure and American jobs could make up for any potential income losses.
“We need to get individuals again to work,” he stated. “We need to create financial climates which might be conducive to the American individuals to incentivize them to go to work.”
Part of that’s to assist jobs that do not require a university diploma, akin to carpenters, plumbers or electricians. “These are nice, family-sustaining careers with annuities beginning on day one, with medical health insurance for your loved ones, and also you’re incomes whilst you be taught.”
Turning to overseas coverage, Bresnahan stated the United States should stay a worldwide superpower and pursue “peace via energy.”
“But we have now to be sturdy because the United States,” he added. Asked about rising GOP opposition to overseas support, together with to Ukraine, Bresnahan emphasised that he helps efforts to push again towards Russian aggression – however he needs to take action responsibly.
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“Putin is a struggle legal and must be stopped,” he stated. “I’m all supportive of offering weapons, missiles, rockets – truly, there is a massive manufacturing facility inside my district. But the place I do need accountability is the uncooked, onerous {dollars} which were despatched. I would like audits carried out on these to make sure they’ll the correct causes.”
Echoing Trump’s beliefs about placing America first, Bresnahan stated there’s a level the place “sufficient is sufficient” and that Europe has to match U.S. contributions to overseas support.
“Again, I’m , you realize, 25% of my bridges are structurally poor. We have ageing infrastructure levees that shield over $1 trillion of property right here within the United States. You’re speaking about energy distribution grids that have not been re-invested in because the Nineteen Fifties with 50 years of usable life. And, you realize, we had been with out energy for a number of days now, happening which might probably be per week (Editor’s word: A blizzard in Breshanan’s district had postponed this interview). Europe did not come and ship over vehicles to assist us rebuild our grids.”
“Ukraine clearly has quite a bit happening, however we have to handle our personal individuals. We need to handle our personal Americans. And I consider Donald Trump had that narrative and that is why he simply received an election in a landslide, as a result of it is about us,” he added.
Bresnahan hopes to carry “widespread sense” options to the advanced issues dealing with Americans. He has pledged to work with whomever has a good suggestion, Republican or Democrat, and has earned endorsements from each No Labels and the average Problem Solvers Caucus. Though he calls himself a “fiscal conservative,” he rejects political labels as a result of “I do not suppose affirmation bias is the correct technique to clear up any subject.”
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“I consider most challenges will be overcome via wholesome and strong debate,” he added.
And what about these points that inflame passions on each side? Before this interview, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., made nationwide headlines after she put ahead a decision that may bar Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., a transgender lawmaker who’s biologically male, from utilizing the ladies’s bogs within the capitol.
Bresnahan stated that whereas he believes organic males mustn’t play in girls’s sports activities or use their amenities, the flare up between Mace and McBride distracts from different essential points dealing with Americans – like crumbling infrastructure and costly residing prices.
“I do not need the 119th Congress to be hijacked by what bogs we needs to be utilizing when we have now been elected to offer actual options for the actual American individuals. And that is what I’m happening to Washington, D.C. to do.”
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.
