Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., has spent the better part of the last decade in Indiana, running various businesses and coaching his sons\u2019 baseball team. <\/p>\n
Before that, he had a front-row seat for most of the Obama administration, followed by the meteoric and unprecedented rise of now-President Donald Trump. Stutzman was a part of political history himself, having been one of the original members of the House Freedom Caucus \u2014 a group that has grown to be known as a bastion of ideological conservatism and, at times, a thorn in the side of House GOP leaders.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s back as one of several first-term House Republicans, succeeding Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., as a member of a perilously thin House GOP majority.<\/p>\n
But according to Stutzman, who previously served in Congress from 2010 to 2017, he sees Republicans as more aligned with each other than before.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
‘I feel like it’s different. I don’t think the GOP conference is as far apart \u2014 you know, moderates to conservatives \u2014 as it was back in 2010,’ he told Fox News Digital in an interview.<\/p>\n
‘I was looking at the membership in 2010, and there were true moderates. I think we’re actually much closer together now than what we were back then. And, of course, we had large majorities. So that creates other challenges. So having a tight majority is not a bad thing at all. It actually makes you unify.’<\/p>\n
He credited that re-alignment in large part to Trump, pointing out that he and other Republicans were first elected in 2010 as a backlash against former President Barack Obama rather than in support of the leading party\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
‘We won the 2010 election because it was a reaction to Obama. And in 2020 \u2014 I mean, you could say every election is a reaction to the incumbent party, but I think in this case, after the Biden years, the American people elected Trump because they believed he could move the country forward,’ Stutzman said.<\/p>\n
‘And so we have a leader that is casting a vision and is clear in his messaging, and it gives us the chance to, you know, coalesce behind his leadership. So that’s a huge help, compared to 2010.’<\/p>\n
He also disputed the notion that the Freedom Caucus was founded to be ‘obstructionist’ to House GOP leaders, despite members of the group leading well-known coups against senior Republicans in the past.<\/p>\n
‘There’s a lot of smart people that wanted to just be part of a group that looked at things from every angle and was really being productive. And so that’s why I wanted to join it, because I wanted to be at a place that I could learn, I could really dive deep and learn from other people and staff that were part of the caucus to really understand the policy, but also talk through the strategy,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘It was never designed to be an obstructionist caucus. There have been times that it’s definitely been labeled that and accused of that . . . any obstruction was to stop bad things from happening. Not to obstruct the good things from moving forward.’<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Stutzman said that being a private citizen running businesses for eight years gave him perspective on the value of consensus-building, allowing him to return to Congress with an emphasis on the ‘big picture.’<\/p>\n
‘You’re never going to get everything you want. You know, find a way to support the team and find a way to support us to a yes,’ Stutzman reflected. <\/p>\n
‘Now, look, there’s going to be times when you just say no, And that’s just part of negotiating. But I think the main thing is just fight hard, offer everything you have. But then at the end of the day, let’s take a win and then move on to the next fight.’<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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