Swing-district Republican sounds alarm over GOP’s affordability agenda: ‘Doing nothing is not an option’
By Alison Main, CNN
(CNN) — Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, one of a handful of House Republicans who won in a district that then-Vice President Kamala Harris carried last fall, has a stark message for his party as the deadline to extend expiring health care subsidies and the midterm elections approach.
“If you don’t have a better plan, then get on board with ours,” Fitzpatrick said. “But doing nothing is not an option.”
In a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Manu Raju for “Inside Politics Sunday,” Fitzpatrick leaned into areas where he broke sharply with his party’s leaders, including his desire to find a health care compromise, staunch commitment to defending Ukraine and past votes against advancing major pieces of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker is among the few House Republicans putting forward legislation to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies due to expire at the end of the year.
Though he doesn’t agree with every part of former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, Fitzpatrick made clear that a short-term plan to shield Americans from skyrocketing insurance premiums is better than anything he’s seen from his party.
Fitzpatrick voted against the GOP push to repeal Obamacare in 2017 because he found the replacement “insufficient.”
Now, eight years later, he says Republicans “still have not been able to put together an articulable plan that’s going to work for everyday Americans.”
Fitzpatrick suspects House Speaker Mike Johnson believes he’s representing the majority of his conference by vowing to advance a new GOP health care package instead of holding a vote to extend ACA tax credits.
But the swing-district Republican said even some of his more conservative colleagues have expressed an interest in his effort to reach a compromise on the ACA subsidies.
“Affordability is such a crisis in this country right now,” he said, explaining that for low- and middle-income constituents, “a significant increase in their premiums is not an option.”
Combating rising costs will be “the issue” of the 2026 elections, Fitzpatrick predicts. He highlighted Trump’s election to a second term and Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s recent victory in the New York City mayoral race as examples of what happens when voters are motivated by cost-of-living concerns.
Though the president called affordability a “hoax” last week, as Democrats begin to zero in on the message, Fitzpatrick disagrees: “Believe me. I hear it every day back home. It’s real.”
Pressed on whether the GOP has been focusing enough on this issue, Fitzpatrick responded, “I don’t think they have.”
“Every bill we bring to the floor should be focused on lowering the cost of living for people who need it most,” he said, criticizing recent legislative efforts related to condemning socialism and regulating compensation for college athletes.
“Why are we focusing on that? That’s not what our constituents care about,” Fitzpatrick continued.
Frustration among Republicans has increasingly been directed at Johnson, as he fights to hold together his razor-thin majority and retain the support of the president.
Asked whether he thinks Johnson can win the gavel again next term if Republicans hold on to control of the House, Fitzpatrick answered, “I am not sure Mike wants the job next Congress, but that’s a question for him.”
Fitzpatrick and Johnson entered Congress as classmates in 2017, when Fitzpatrick recalls his colleague “led the bipartisan charge for civility.”
“I personally like him. Do I agree with every decision he makes? Absolutely not. I never agree with every decision every speaker’s made,” he said, elaborating that his “personal frustration” with leadership comes from his desire to empower rank-and-file members to better serve their constituents.
“I think the best way to run the floor is allow every member to identify one district priority that’s paramount in their district, and give them a full floor vote on it,” he explained.
Call for action against Russia
One bill Fitzpatrick wants to see on the House floor expeditiously is a measure imposing steep sanctions on Russia.
Fitzpatrick, who is the co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, has introduced legislation mirroring Sens. Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal’s broadly popular bipartisan bill to enact crippling tariffs on countries that buy oil and gas from Russia.
While Fitzpatrick acknowledges there are barriers to forcing a vote on his bill in the House, including concerns from otherwise empathetic Democrats about Congress granting the president further tariff authorities, Fitzpatrick warns, “I don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
“What I think we need to do is to make sure that we send a signal to Russia, to Ukraine, and to the world, that Congress cares about Ukraine,” he said, pointing to an outpouring of support in both parties for previous bills supporting the war-torn country.
Fitzpatrick aligns himself with other Russia hawks in the conference who want “a lot more moral clarity out of the administration,” training a critical eye on Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I don’t care how brilliant of a businessperson you are, the Russians are masters of propaganda,” he said. Pressed on if Trump is being played by Putin, Fitzpatrick responded, “he’s been too deferential to him,” adding, “to say someone’s ‘played’ is sort of insulting their negotiating tactics.”
As the Trump administration continues on the rocky road to a peace deal in Ukraine, Fitzpatrick urges an aggressive approach to Putin, whom Trump last met with in a high-stakes summit in Alaska in August.
“We just need to take a much stronger tact to him, because dictators understand one thing and one thing only,” he said. “Look at what brought him to the table. It was the threat of sanctions, and it was the threat of Tomahawk missiles.”
Eyes on the midterms
Fitzpatrick said unequivocally that he will run for reelection, despite the steep uphill climb Republicans will undertake to retain control of all levers of power in Washington.
He’s just one of only three House Republicans who won in a district where Trump lost the 2024 election. Another one of those lawmakers, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, has already announced he won’t seek reelection next year.
“I’ve been through these environments before, but I’m very close with my district,” Fitzpatrick said.
The fifth-term congressman recalled 2018, when he was elected to a second term by less than 3 percentage points amid backlash to Trump’s first two years in the White House and after a blow to Pennsylvania Republicans’ attempts to draw more favorable maps.
“It’s natural that the pendulum always swings back and forth in politics,” he contended. “Angry people vote; happy people don’t.”
Still, Fitzpatrick brushed off the potential drag that Trump might have on his race.
“I’m a pretty independent-minded person,” he said, underscoring his willingness to break with his party on major votes, like Republican leadership’s push to pass Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda ahead of the president’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.
“I got a lot of heat for it, both back home and from the White House and from some of my colleagues here, but I politely reminded them that I don’t answer to any person or any party in Washington, DC. My bosses are back home,” he said.
Fitzpatrick believes Trump’s megabill, which the House passed earlier this year with all but two Republican votes, is out of step with what Americans want “on multiple fronts,” including cuts to Medicaid.
As for whether those cuts may cost Republicans the majority, Fitzpatrick said, “everyone’s going to answer for their votes,” noting the more popular tax cuts that came alongside the tightening of access to Medicaid and other government programs.
“You’ve got to have a tough spine and thick skin, and the easiest way to navigate times like that is to never lose focus on who your bosses are,” he said.
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