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March 23, 2025 18:44-18:52 - CSPAN
07:57
New Members of 119th Congress
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Speaker Time Text
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C-SPAN spoke with freshman members of the U.S. House about their life experiences and why they decided to run for Congress.
We bring you interviews with Virginia Republican John McGuire, New Hampshire Democrat Maggie Goodlander, South Carolina Republican Sherry Biggs, and California Democrat Dave Minn.
And then coming up later, interviews with Kansas Republican Derek Schmidt, California Democrat Letita Simon, and Arizona Republican Abraham Hamaday.
One of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is John McGuire.
The Virginia Republican has served as a U.S. Navy SEAL, has experience in business, and has been a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and Virginia Senate.
He talks here about his career and his path to Congress.
Wow, well, we've come a long ways to get here to Congress.
What an honor.
I've been here five weeks and I've met some amazing people.
Well, I guess if you go back to the beginning, you know, I was abandoned when I was five years old.
My mother and father had alcohol issues.
So my sister and I were left on the side of the road when we were five.
The police found us.
We ended up in foster homes and I attended nine different elementary schools.
Now, my sister and I were together for the first foster home and then we got separated.
And my wife doesn't like it when I say it, but it's debatable.
That turned out okay.
But my grandfather fought in World War II, one of the toughest men I've ever met.
He had already raised his children.
Him and my grandmother rescued me and my sister, brought us together, and raised us until my father got sober.
And, you know, on November 5th, when we got President Trump in the White House, we got a majority in the U.S. Senate and we got a majority in the House of Representatives.
And that week, it was a week of redemption for my family because my father celebrated 41 years of sobriety.
And my younger brother got promoted to brigadier general and I got elected to Congress.
Now, everybody thinks my brother's older than me, but I say that's because he's more mature.
But my brother and I went to my father, 83 years old, and we said, Dad, if you hadn't fought so hard to get sober, he wouldn't be a brigadier general, and I wouldn't be in Congress.
But you know, I think God gives us obstacles to chisel us into the men and women we're supposed to be.
Life is tough, but it's still amazing.
So, high school, high school, wrestle, cross-country soccer, took karate.
And I watched this guy, Ronald Reagan, on the TV.
You know how many young people pay attention to politicians?
But even to this day, I remember him talking about American exceptionalism.
He talked about being part of something bigger than yourself.
He talked about a 600-ship Navy, and I was like, I want to be part of that.
You know, my grandfather served in the Navy in World War II, and we read a lot of books on Guadalfinal Diary, the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Battle of the Bulge.
And so it kind of shaped my world view as a man of service and love of country.
And of course, strengthened my Christian faith.
And so listening to Ronald Reagan, I was like, I want to be in the Navy.
So you remember that movie, Top Gun?
So Top Gun was out there.
My grades weren't great, but I took celestial air navigation.
I took aerodynamics.
And I was going to be a pilot.
But I took karate and my karate sensei was a Green Beret in Vietnam, just an incredible patriot warrior.
And he said, why would you want to be a pilot?
If they take your plane away, you're no good.
But if you become a Green Beret, you are a weapon.
I said, no, I want to fly.
But one day, someone gave me a magazine called Gung Ho, and it said toughest men alive.
It said scuba diving, sniper rifles, service to others behind enemy lines.
I took that magazine to my Green Beret Sensei.
I said, what about these guys?
And he said, they're a bunch of crazy blank blank.
And by the way, you're too small and you can never do it.
And maybe that was the psychology I needed.
But typically in Navy SEAL training, 200 men per class, usually 20 graduate.
One class graduated zero out of 200.
So it's not for the faint of heart.
It's nothing personal.
We have a set of standards.
If you meet the standards, you're a SEAL.
If you don't meet the standards, you're not.
Because behind enemy lines in combat, you cannot afford the luxury of a quitter.
It's a meritocracy.
You have to.
You have to have the right people for the job.
And the principles of teamwork and leadership and communication are extremely important.
Or we don't come home to our family.
And that's a message for all veterans at every level.
You have been in business as well.
Tell us what you've done.
Well, I got out of the Navy and I had this idea.
I was going to go to the FBI and be one of their snipers.
I was a sniper instructor in SEAL team.
And I had trained with several SWAT teams in the country.
And they said, if you ever get out of the Navy, we'd love to hire you.
And so, but I needed some college credits.
So I'm like, how do you pay for college?
So I started a business.
And the business was an outdoor fitness class.
It had a teamwork, leadership, communication spent to it.
Seems to be a theme here.
And one day, a high school football coach said, will you teach our team leadership?
And I'm a small part of what they do, but they won the state championship.
So the team that got second place, they hired me the next year.
And by luck, they won a state championship.
So then Penn State hired me, Texas hired me, USC, MIT, and universities all over the country.
I've been a small part of 18 Division I championships.
One of those Division I teams is right here in Washington, D.C.
The coach called me up and said, we haven't won a championship in 40 years.
So I figured they were fifth place, sixth place.
They were last place.
And I asked the young men, I said, how are y'all going to do this year?
And they laughed and said, we're going to be last place.
So what my mentors taught me about being selfless, not selfish, and about respect.
You know, if you saved my life on the battlefield, I don't care if you're male or female, pink or blue, you call yourself a Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
We're all people, we're all Americans.
And I truly believe it is amazing what we can achieve.
When we put our differences aside, treat people with respect, and work together.
We can sometimes turn a no into a yes, or an impossible to a possible.
And these experiences are the experience I'm going to bring to Congress.
When did the idea of elective office come to your mind?
You know, I never really cared about politics until Trump came down the escalator.
You know, I was listening to him.
I mean, he sounded like, to me, a man who meant what he said and said what he meant.
And if you remember, he executed or he did in his first term what he said he was going to do.
And when you do that, you build trust.
And he also talked about fairness.
I think a big thing that's been lacking in our country these days are two things, is trust in government and fairness.
And so that's very important.
I think that's why the elections went the way they went in November.
And so if you tell everybody you're going to run for office and you're going to do ABCDE, and then you get elected and you do ABCD and E, you build trust.
And we need to do that.
We have a great country.
And you know, just because you call yourself this party or that party does not mean you have a monopoly on good ideas.
I've supported ideas on both sides of the aisle if they are a good idea.
And as we wrap up, tell us about your family and what they think about all of this.
Oh, we have.
My wife is my best friend.
I couldn't do this without her.
We had five children, and she says I'm number six.
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