Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sees a parallel in the strength showcased by Donald Trump in the aftermath of being shot with the boldness of young conservatives standing up to left-wing indoctrination, he told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview at the Young America’s Foundation National Student Conference.
Jordan spoke with Breitbart News moments after addressing a packed ballroom of eager young conservative students attending the conference.
“It’s good to see young conservative students who are willing to take the risk of being a conservative on a college campus today,” he told Breitbart News. “God bless them for their for their courage, and let’s hope it’s contagious, which typically courage is.”
He commended and encouraged the students, promising their perseverance would pay off.
“I learned a long time ago, good things in life don’t just happen,” Jordan said. “If you want to accomplish something that matters, it takes time, it takes effort, it takes work, it takes sacrifice, but most importantly, it takes a willingness to assume risk.”
He added, “there’s a risk you might fail, and maybe more importantly, today in politics, there’s the risk that you’re going to get attacked. You don’t have to even have your name on the ballot and be in office. Just being a conservative, you can get attacked.”
Jordan told Breitbart that Democrats are in trouble in November despite whomever they appoint to tout their failed agenda, and he gave his analysis on where Republicans should train their fire.
“When you boil it all down, we can recover from all the stupid things that Biden administration has done,” he said. “You know, we went from a secure border to no border, safe streets to record crime, $2 dollar gas to $4 gas, stable prices to record inflation. We can deal with all that. We can get back on track in these key policy areas. But if they if they take away our liberty, the government? That’s what’s at stake in this election — your first amendment rights, your second amendment rights, your privacy rights, all those things. So I tried to stress that’s what’s really important and what I think when you boil it all down is what’s on the ballot this November.”
FILE – Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surround by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Jordan provided his insights on Kamala Harris, whom Democrats elevated to the top of the ticket after forcing President Joe Biden to abandon his flailing reelection campaign.
“I don’t think it matters who they run because the facts don’t change,” he told Breitbart. “You know, they just kicked the President of the United States to the curb and they bring in Kamala Harris as their nominee. We went from a secure border to no border and they made the border czar their nominee. Okay, I just I think the American people are sharp, they get common sense. And they’re gonna see this.”
He contrasted the threats posed by the Biden-Harris administration policies to Trump’s agenda — as well as the candidates themselves.
“You look at the policies, you look at the attack on liberty, and then you look at the leadership and the character that we saw, in the poise we saw — leadership literally under fire — from President Trump on July 13.”
He continued:
I actually, when I talked to the president, said, “the poise you displayed in that brief few minutes was just amazing.” And so I think that that is something that will stick with the American people. I said this to the students. President Trump’s response was an American response. Americans aren’t wimpy sissy, timid people. Americans are tough. And they saw that in a leader, a true leader. Leadership under fire, character, poise, confidence. I mean, that was an American reaction. And it was it was so powerful.
So you had that, plus the policies that have been so bad, and then people remember how good it was when President Trump was there. So I think all that is the choice that exists in this election, and the Americans are going to make President Trump our president, JD Vance our vice president. I think we’re going to win the Senate, and I think we’re going to keep the House.
Jordan, chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, described his role in congressional efforts to investigate the Secret Service failures leading to the attempt on Trump’s life:
We had the hearing with the Secret Service Director. [Kimberly Cheatle] subsequently resigned and then the Homeland Security Committee had a hearing with local law enforcement who were there, part of that on the 13th. Yesterday, we had [FBI] Director [Chris] Wray in front of our committee, the Judiciary Committee. He gave us some more information about the drone, about the number of times that the shooter, the bad guy, had been to the site — some valuable information. And then we we passed [a bill] to just create a task force that is going to look into this and then issue a report down the road. So I think we will get the facts.
Jordan also wants to prioritize investigations into the Secret Service’s response to the shooting.
“Frankly, the thing that concerns me the most is that they lied to us after it was over, on the 14th or 15th,” he said. “The Secret Service spokesperson said it’s absolutely — direct quote — ‘absolutely false’ that we rebuffed any requests from President Trump’s security detail for additional resources. Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas said it’s unequivocally false that we did not give them the additional resources they asked for and then five days later, they said, ‘well, there were in fact some instances where we turned down the request that came from President Trump’s security detail.”
Jordan continued, “well, it can’t be both, it’s 180-degree change. So you guys lied to us in the in the, literally, hours after, the next day, after the attack on President Trump. You lied to us. And the fact that they didn’t give additional resources to President Trump’s security detail after they knew Iran had said they’re gonna try to kill President Trump, oh my goodness. So, to me, that’s the biggest problem.”
“There’s just stuff that happened during the rally that we’ve all got to look at,” he said in closing. “But they lied to us, and this is our government, you’re not supposed to do that.”
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
