Exclusive — Rep. Darrell Issa Lays Out GOP Strategy for Taking Back Congress, White House from 'Dying' Democrat Party

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) laid out GOP plans on Breitbart News Saturday for taking Congress back from the “dying” Democrat Party and making President Joe Biden a “one-term president.”

After Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s surprising blue-state win, followed by House Democrats’ speedy push to pass President Joe Biden’s infrastructure agenda, Republicans are narrowing down their strategy to boot leftists from power in 2022 and 2024. Issa referred to the bill’s passing — which was aided by 13 Republicans — as a “desperate act of a dying party.” He noted that Democrats, after seeing Republicans win in Virginia and nearly win in deep blue New Jersey, view the spending bills as their chance to have “some accomplishment” before voters potentially cast them out of power in the coming months and years.

“They were able to convince the left to let this go forward so that they would have some accomplishment because quite frankly, AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)] thinks they didn’t do enough and that’s why they got defeated,” Issa told host Matthew Boyle, Breitbart News’s Washington bureau chief. “You and I and your listeners know that, in fact, what happened was there was a rejection by the true swing voters — suburban white women, and a host of others, even minorities. [They] said, ‘Oh wait a second, this part of socialism we don’t want. We want to control our kids. We want to control our lives.”‘

Issa emphasized that “returning Republicans” are planning to unite against Democrats’ next $4 trillion spending bill, notwithstanding the the actions of politicians former President Donald Trump called “RINOs” [Republican in name only], who “gave Biden and Democrats a victory on the ‘Non-Infrastructure’ Bill, where only 11% of the money being wasted goes to real infrastructure.” Issa also said Republicans who plan on staying, unlike the Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) types, are looking to Youngkin’s governor campaign as a model of how to fight Democrats and win moving forward.

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Boyle noted during the interview that Youngkin’s strategy exemplified how the Republican Party is not a “cult of personality,” but instead a “movement of ideas,” and more specifically pointed to how Youngkin did not disavow Trump and led with an America First agenda while being his own brand.

“If you run away from Trump, you will fail. … In fact, embrace that which the American people now strongly support from the Trump years, including engaging against the growth of China and fairness of trade, engaging against their expansion militarily, which peace through strength if I’ve ever seen it, and you reject the closing of Bagram and the abandonment of 37 million people, and you realize that we have to re-engage in the way that President Trump did, which is pushing NATO and other allies to do their fair share, but not walking away from America’s role in the world,” Issa replied. “And at the same time, reinvest in the economy. The Trump economy wasn’t just a stock market economy, it was all the way down to working people at restaurants who had good jobs and growing paychecks.”

Issa emphasized choosing now-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who ” just wanted to be liked,” to challenge Barack Obama’s presidency in 2012 was a mistake not to be repeated. Issa said that if Trump himself does not run in 2024, then whoever Republicans nominate for president in the next election will closely mirror his style and substance.

“That whole process is where somebody is going to be our nominee, but it’s not going to be a milquetoast nominee and it’s not going to be someone who just wants to be liked. It’s going to be somebody who embraces, if not Trump, certainly the Trump agenda and more, because there are evolving needs by the American people,” he said.

One thing the GOP will takeaway from the experience, however, is drawing attention to Biden’s “extremism” just as they did during Obama’s presidency when the GOP heavily by emphasized several scandals, including “Fast and Furious,” Benghazi, and the IRS targeting conservatives.

“I believe we will define what’s wrong with the Obama 2.0 administration with Biden. We are going to define it very much like we did in 2010 and 2012. Then we have to make sure we have …a presidential candidate who really matches the aspirations of the the Republican Party from the bottom up. The kinds of things that your listeners are listening to. That’s what you need to hear and see,” he said.

Among those potential weaknesses is Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the immigration crisis, the inflation crisis, the supply chain crisis, the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, and the left’s continued insistence on prioritizing race and gender while America’s enemies construct hypersonic missiles. Polls across the board show the president flailing in all of the above mentioned areas, his overall approval rating plummeting to 38 percent, while Republicans take a commanding 8-Point lead on the generic midterm ballot.”

“We’re the party of free and fair elections. We’re the party of free and fair trade, and we’re the party that believes in individual liberties,” Issa said in comparison, noting that Trump succeeded because he met the moment in 2016. “And so as you look at governor’s and a few senators and a number of other candidates, you see a lot of people who, in fact, do match the aspirations of the party. And of course President Trump is also in the fray, and that will be his decision. But, I don’t think we have any problem at all — we have, if you will, multiple candidates.”

Issa specifically mentioned Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by name when talking about strong potential 2024 candidates.

“So who’s going to be the next president? Ron DeSantis was on my committee, and he was a young upstart when he came to the committee. And you know what? He was somebody who said ‘I will take charge. I will take responsibility.’ It’s why he’s a great governor,” he said. “We’re going to see a lot of candidates like that, but I guarantee they’re going to be ground-up people. They’re not going to be ‘go-along, get-along,’ ‘I want to be liked’ people. And that’s the future two years from now and four years from now.”

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.

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