Jim Jordan argues today’s left has abandoned progressive roots like Dennis Kucinich, now weaponizing free speech suppression—from red flag laws to church restrictions—while Biden’s early executive orders deepened polarization. The Freedom Caucus resists unconstitutional policies, pushing oversight on COVID origins and border chaos despite GOP failures like Obamacare repeal. Jordan credits Trump’s promise-keeping record, dismissing his 2024 critics as establishment tools, and frames the 2018 Farm Bill standoff as proof conservative leverage works. His message: Republicans must stay principled, even if blocked, to define the election’s conservative future. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, I'm delighted to be here talking to Congressman Jim Jordan.
He is the founder of the Freedom Caucus and the author of the new book, Do What You Said You Would Do, Fighting for Freedom in the Swamp.
And he must be a right-wing lunatic because I almost always agree with him.
It's frightening we let people like that into government.
Congressman, it's great to meet you.
Good to be with you.
And I think it's the other way around.
I almost always agree with you.
I appreciate what you do.
That's just frightening.
People like me shouldn't have any power.
You know, I'm watching everything that's happening in Congress.
And you have been fighting.
The Freedom Caucus really has been a solid right-wing voice for, I don't know, it's been a long time now, at least 10 years, something like that.
Yeah.
What I see in Congress is almost a circus.
I mean, before we went on the air, we were talking about the fact that I was at some of Trump's prayer breakfasts, and there was a sign at the prayer breakfast of people getting along.
See people saying we pray together.
I'm a Democrat.
He's a Republican.
We pray together so we don't stab each other in the back.
Is it still like that?
No, I think it's very divided.
You know, remember on Inauguration Day, Joe Biden says he wants to unify the country.
And then about an hour and a half after his speech, he goes to the Oval Office and signs like 20, 21 different executive orders that divide the country.
So it's very, very divided.
I think a lot of it is today's left is different than the left of 10, maybe even five years ago.
Today's left doesn't believe in, they don't believe in the First Amendment.
I mean, they don't believe in free speech.
Today's left says, if you don't agree with them, you're not allowed to talk.
And if you try, they're going to call you a racist and they're going to try to cancel you.
And the left of five, 10 years ago, I think we were talking before that Dennis Kucinich is a friend of mine.
And Dennis is a left.
I mean, he's like way over here and he thinks I'm a crazy conservative over here.
But we're friends, literally.
And we used to be on the committee together, oversight committee.
And we could agree on privacy issues and First Amendment issues and liberty interests.
But today's left is not that way.
And that's problematic.
And frankly, you mentioned the Freedom Caucus.
I tell folks all the time, there's a reason we called it the Freedom Caucus.
We could have said the Conservative Caucus.
We could have come up with some other catchy name.
But we said, no, let's focus in on what matters, what makes America this special place where if you have a goal, you have a dream, you're willing to work hard, you can accomplish that.
And you can accomplish that because we have freedom.
And that's what's under attack by today's left.
And that's why it's so important that we fight them every step of the way.
Whenever they try to cancel one of us, whenever to cancel a constituent who shows up at a school board meeting, you've got to defend them.
You've got to defend the truth.
You've got to defend freedom because that's what really is at the heart of it all.
Does this affect your, you were talking about being friends with Dennis Kucinich, which is a hard image to get in my head, but still.
But no, that is the America I remember, actually.
So does this affect your personal relations in the, because being a congressman, you have to be able to negotiate and talk and hang out.
Well, it's been tough of late because, and I don't think it's, you know, again, we all have biases, I guess, but I don't think it's coming from the Republican side so much.
But you have Democrats who they, like, particularly during COVID.
I think COVID exacerbated all this that was happening.
But, you know, people wouldn't get on the elevator with you if you didn't have a mask on or something.
People would yell at me.
It's like it's a different, it just seems different than, like I said, five, ten years ago.
So you try to.
I try to be polite to people.
I mean, that's what we're supposed to be as good manners, good people.
But yeah, they get, now in committee, that's a different animal.
When we're fighting about policy or it's an investigation, we're trying to get to the truth.
I'm going to be as tough as I can be within the rules, within the Constitution, make the arguments, do the cross-examinations that need, you know, in the way they need to be done.
But outside of committee, sometimes they won't, maybe this is the best one.
This was a year and a half ago.
So it was after the 2020 election, about a week before Christmas.
I was in the Capitol.
We were finishing up the business before we went home for the holidays.
And I was up at the Conservative Partnership Institute.
I had to meet Jim DeMin up there for something.
And they're right on Independence Avenue, up down about three blocks from the Capitol.
And so I had, and I step out and they're right on this, the corner of the street, and I step out.
And it's a sunny day.
There's the Capitol.
The sun's hitting the Capitol dome.
It's a week before Christmas in America.
And as I step out, coming down the sidewalk is this guy pushing a double stroller with two little kids in the stroller.
And I'm like, this is his apple pies again.
This is a week before Christmas, the sun on the Capitol.
Nice day.
Two kids in a stroller.
The dad pushed.
And I did what any American, I smiled at the guy who's pushing the stroller.
And he was like, just like, gave me this look like, Jim Jordan, that no-good conservative.
And I'm like, dude, lighten up.
It's America.
You're still bad at Trump voters or whatever, but come on.
And that's not healthy.
And I think it mostly comes from the left because I was willing to smile at him, but he had a mask on outside.
I figured he's probably a liberal.
But that doesn't change that it's a week before Christmas in America in the Capitol Dome with the sun on it.
So I don't get him.
I don't get him, but let's hope it's not.
I feel the same.
And I've lost friends and relatives, and I don't even believe it can happen.
When you look at Congress, as we're sitting here right now, what's the most dangerous thing you see going on?
Why Smiling Matters00:10:28
The attack on your liberties.
First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth Amendment due process.
This red flag law, crazy.
Someone doesn't like you.
They go to the law enforcement, they go to a judge, say, Andrew's crazy, take his guns away from him.
There's a hearing within 24 hours.
You can't be at it.
Your lawyer can't be present.
You've not been charged with the crime, but they can take your property in America.
And then you have to petition the government.
The initiative then goes, the burden then goes to you to go get your Second Amendment rights back and get your firearm back, for goodness sake, or firearms.
Who knows?
So somehow that's America.
Like, you got to be kidding me.
And then not to mention what's happened to your right.
I mean, think about it.
I said this in speeches.
Every right we enjoy under the First Amendment has been assaulted over the last year and a half by the left, by government.
Right to practice your faith, right to assemble, right to petition, freedom, press, freedom of speech, everyone.
So until a few months ago, there were still some states where their Democrat leaders wouldn't let a full congregation meet on a Sunday morning in church, like in America?
About a year and a half ago, I spoke to the New Mexico Republican Party in Amarillo, Texas, because they had to go to Texas to get the freedom to assemble in the size crowd they wanted to.
Until a couple months ago, you couldn't go to your Capitol to petition your member of Congress to redress your grievances because Pelosi wouldn't let you in your capital that you pay for.
It's your capital.
It's American people's capital.
And you just go to, we know what's happened to speech, the disinformation governance board that they tried.
I'm like, you got to be kidding me.
Here's the best one.
Jin Saki stood in the White House press room, the White House press room.
So think about it.
The White House is the center of freedom, considered the center of freedom on the planet.
In the press room, the press secretary at the podium says these two sentences.
Most Americans now get their news from social media platforms.
We, the Biden administration, are working with those platforms to limit the disinformation American, like, and I'm like looking around, like, the press person just talked about limiting the press from the press room in the White House in America.
And they don't object.
No, it's like they're cheering it.
That's the most dangerous thing happening.
So your book is called Do What You Said You Would Do.
One of the complaints that Republicans and especially conservative Republicans have is that the Republicans were always saying, well, if we had the House, we could do something.
I mean, they have the House.
They say, well, if we have the Senate, we could do something.
And then they get the presidency, too, and nothing happens.
I mean, they can't overturn Obamacare.
They can't build a wall.
They can't do the things that you would think they would be able to do.
Fronting the government.
You take the House.
What will we get from that?
We in the House will pass what important legislation that the country needs now.
Will it get through the Senate?
Probably not.
Well, if it does get to the Senate, will Joe Biden sign it?
Almost definitely not.
But it's still, we still need to pass it.
Something on the censorship kind of concept that's happening with big tech limiting and going after conservatives.
It's definitely something on the border, too.
We no longer have a border.
We need to, I think, things we can do on the regulatory environment, on the tax policy.
There's lots of things we can pass that are consistent with Republican principles, what we campaigned on.
But what we can also do, part of our constitutional responsibility as members of the legislative branch is to do oversight, to do the investigations that should be done so the nation, so the people, so we the people, have the facts and the truth.
The country needs to fully understand where this virus started, as an example.
The country needs to understand why there's such a mess on our border.
We think that's intentionally done by the Biden administration.
The country needs to understand about the political nature of the Justice Department, specifically the targeting of moms and dads who are showing up at school board meetings.
The country needs to know how in the world did thousands of Americans' tax returns get public?
It's not supposed to happen in this country.
So do those investigate.
I ask on the virus issue.
I asked Dr. Burks, I'm on this select committee on coronavirus, this committee.
She was the witness.
And I asked her, I said, Dr. Burks, when the government, the Biden administration, when the government told the American people that the vaccinated couldn't get the virus, were they guessing or lying?
And her response was, I don't know.
I mean, think about that.
Like, you're the big shot on the task force, and not during the Biden administration, where Walinsky told us, CDC director told us this, and Joe Biden told us this, for goodness sake, and you don't know.
And so I followed up.
I said, so our government was lying to us?
She goes, I like to think not.
I like to think they were hoping, but that's scary.
So the country needs to, it's frankly why there's this, I think, this uneasiness and this lack of confidence so many Americans now have in our government, because how many times have they told us things that weren't true?
They always talk about misinformation that you and I would convey.
No, the misinformation comes from, most of it comes from the government.
Yeah.
You know, going back a minute to talking about laws you would pass in the House that wouldn't make it through the Senate.
I mean, obviously the left is doing that now and they're passing laws about marriage and about contraception, things that I don't think are really under threat.
They're kind of, I guess they're pretending.
Aside from political theater, what is the point of passing those laws?
It's political theater.
They think it's going to help them somehow.
I don't think it's going to.
And frankly, what else are they going to talk about?
But when you said that if the Republicans took back the House, you would also pass laws that the Senate wouldn't pass.
Well, I do think what you campaign on, this gets back to the do what you said to you, that's why I made the title of the book.
And frankly, I would argue no one has done that better, did more of what they said they would do than President Trump.
And I think it also underscores this.
To really get things done, you need the executive branch.
And in modern American government and politics, to effect real change, you almost have to have the executive branch.
And we saw this when President Trump was in there, when we were able to reduce regulations, cut taxes, build the wall, do things that Republicans campaigned on.
President Trump, like I said, I think he kept more of his promises, did more of what he said he would do than any president we've ever had.
Early in the administration, I remember going to the West Wing there.
It was with Congressman Meadows.
This was earlier, so before he was chief of staff, and we were there in one of the offices in the West Wing.
And literally in the office, they had a big whiteboard.
And they had written every single promise President Trump had made to the country in the 2016 campaign, everyone.
And they were just checking him off.
Yeah.
As they were like.
Reduce regulation, cut taxes, build the wall, get out of the Iran deal, get out of the Paris Climate Embassy in Jerusalem, conservatives on the court.
I mean, just like, and it was a just, that's how you're supposed to govern.
And we need to do that.
We promised the American people we're concerned about the border.
We're concerned about energy policy, the inflation.
We need to pass an energy package.
But Joe Biden's not going to sign it.
And frankly, even if he wanted to, and knowing that would help the country, the left that controls his party won't let it.
But you frame up, by doing that, you help frame up the 2024 race, and you have a presidential contest, and whoever the American people decide, if they put in President Trump, then we can really get those things done.
But you have to help frame it up.
I mean, that's just how American politics works.
Do you think that President Trump has been damaged by the January 6th committee?
I really don't.
Because I do think the American people have common sense and they have seen from day one the left has been out to get this guy.
They started investigating before he was in office, the whole Russia, Comey, McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page effort.
They impeached him twice while he was in office.
And they're trying to impeach him now and go after him that he's out of office because they don't want him to run again.
And they don't want him to run again because he proved you can actually go in and disrupt the swamp and put America first.
And they can't stand it.
They cannot stay.
And here's the interesting thing.
It's not just Democrats who can't stand it.
Some Republicans.
And it's most, maybe the scariest of all, it's all the bureaucracy.
And I always tell people, he got more done than any other president we've ever seen.
And everyone was against him.
Everyone in the media, everyone in the Democrat Party, a bunch of Republicans, and all the bureaucracy.
And still got more done than any president, certainly in our lifetimes.
So that's why they don't want him to run.
But all that, that's why I do want him to run and I want him to be president again.
And what would you think he should do differently if he gets back in?
I mean, it was a chaotic presidency.
I mean, he was a guy who, I love the fact that he went after the press.
I think the press deserves everything he gave him.
Every single word he said I thought was true about the press.
But it did create this kind of atmosphere of chaos around him that I do think it alienated a lot of people.
Well, I think it's his style to be aggressive.
The one thing I love about the guys is he, and you've spent some time around him too, I know, but I feel fortunate.
I've got to spend a lot of time around him.
You can't help but like him.
He's like if he was here right now, he'd make everyone feel at home.
He just, he's just, our family's been around him.
He makes everyone feel special.
He's just that kind of, he's got this charisma and energy about him that's special.
He loves the country.
He loves our law enforcement.
Maybe you see law enforcement guys, they'll come up to me all the time, like, keep fighting for the president.
So he loves our veterans, our military.
He loves the country.
And the other thing that's so special about him is he hates to lose.
He hates.
He's made that apparent.
Yeah.
It's like winning.
But that's an American.
That's an American.
We're Americans.
We like winning because Americans are winners.
We came here because we want to have a goal and a dream.
And they told us in Europe, oh, you can't do that.
Well, we'll show you, right?
That's the American attitude.
So he's got just that sort of fundamental basic American attitude that I do think, you know, make America great again is one of the greatest political slogans in history.
And it's truly what he, it's not fake.
It is as genuine as it gets.
And that's what the country, I don't think, gets to see because the press is always attacking him so much.
But if he sat right here, he'd be saying that it's the same kind of things, and you would love the guy.
Going back to the border for a minute, when they were discussing the border, and when you did, in fact, have most of the government, you were a voice that was, I don't want to say necessarily negatively, but you were making it difficult to get reached to a compromise.
Passing the Immigration Bill00:02:37
You guys in the Freedom Caucus in general were very intransigent on this.
On passing an immigration bill?
Yeah.
Well, I'll give you a quick story.
It's actually I write about in the book.
There were two bills that we had a chance to pass in 2018.
One was the one that was consistent with the election of 2016, that was the kind of Trump message type of bill, built the wall, did what we need to do on asylum, on border security, on border petrol, did the right things.
The other one was the Chamber of Commerce bill that Paul Ryan wanted.
And we had this struggle within our conference, and we kept saying, bring up the Trump-focused bill, not the one you guys, not the one the Chamber wants.
And we could never get off the dime.
And finally, we said, if you don't bring up the immigration bill, this is the games that get played.
And I thought the smart game that we played as a Freedom Caucus, we said, if you don't bring it up, we're not going to pass the Farm Bill.
And Farm Bill is a big piece of legislation, particularly for Freedom Caucus, guys.
We all represent, many of us represent rural agriculture districts.
And we said, we'll hold up that.
And I remember Paul Ryan looking at Meadows and me, and they said, you're going to vote against the farm bill?
Like, you know, you're crazy?
And I said, well, we don't really want to, because there was actually some welfare reform in the farm bill and the food stamps program bill.
And we said, well, we don't really want to, but we will if you don't bring up the immigration bill.
He didn't believe it.
So I'm like, all right.
So he brings up the farm bill.
Farm bill went down.
And they were so mad at us.
And we said, bring up the immigration bill.
And then what they did is they brought up both of them.
The chamber bill got 123 votes.
The bill we wanted got 193 votes.
And they didn't whip it.
And we went to Paul afterwards and we said, Paul, we got 193 votes.
We told you all along that was the right bill.
Not enough to get over the finish line, but close.
Your bill, no one wants your bill.
And I said, and you guys didn't even whip the one.
Like, you know, you put the whip effort behind it and the leadership effort behind it.
That's how you get votes.
And I said, go whip that vote.
Let's pass that and do what we're supposed to do.
Wouldn't do it.
But we kept our word.
About a week after the vote on those two immigration bills, they brought the farm bill up and it passed by one vote.
And we provided the votes for it.
So we tried.
That's sort of what the Freedom Caucus kind of effort is supposed to do.
But we were actually for doing what was consistent with the message of the 2016 election.
Our leadership wanted what the chamber wanted, which is not what President Trump campaigned on and not what the American people elected us to do.
You know, I could talk politics with you a long time, but I got to stop.
It was really great talking to you.
I hope you will come back and talk about that.
Thanks for having me.
It's really interesting hearing.
Thanks a lot.
Congressman Jim Jordan, the book is Do What You Said You Would Do, Fighting for Freedom in the Swamp.