{"id":724,"date":"2026-07-28T16:40:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=724"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:40:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:40:26","slug":"how-trumps-political-director-came-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=724","title":{"rendered":"How Trump\u2019s political director came to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Brian Jack wanted to snag Newt Gingrich\u2019s old House office during the 119th Congress\u2019 freshman room lottery. But as the 28th pick, he lost his first choice and pivoted to another historic room: President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s office in Longworth, which the Democrat occupied from 1939 to 1942.<\/p>\n

Read more At the Races: Like father, like daughter?<\/a><\/p>\n

A Republican from Georgia, Jack served as President Donald Trump\u2019s White House political director and led former Speaker Kevin McCarthy\u2019s political operation before running for office himself. He keeps a framed photo of Johnson in his desk drawer and uses it as a point of reference for where things are today.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people forget he was a House member before a senator,\u201d Jack says. \u201cI love congressional history, and frankly, it\u2019s a subject that is not nearly as covered as you would think.\u201d<\/p>\n

His own history with Congress began in 2008, when he interned for then-Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia\u2019s 3rd District \u2014 the same seat he now holds. It gave him a glimpse of things to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis wife was coming to Washington, D.C., with some friends from the district, and because the congressman had heard I did a good job with tours, he suggested that I lead an informal tour of the White House, just to add a little more color commentary,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first time I ever set foot in the White House was with the family of Congressman Westmoreland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s been there more times than he can count, after working through Trump\u2019s first term. On the Hill, he\u2019s brought that experience with him into places often closed to freshmen. He landed a spot on the high-power Rules Committee and serves as deputy chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, taking the lead on recruiting candidates.<\/p>\n

Jack sat down with Roll Call this summer to talk about his path through politics and what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have at least 40 new Republican members of the House next year,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I\u2019m very excited about that, and I\u2019m also very determined to ensure we reelect our incumbents.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s an early memory of politics for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: My first year at Pepperdine University, I had an entry-level political science class, and my roommates in my dorm watched the returns of that midterm election in 2006.<\/p>\n

Looking back, that\u2019s definitely a moment I recall spurring an interest \u2014 seeing those House races flashing across the screen, and just being interested in the names, the personalities, the voting records, the backgrounds of all the folks who were either winning or losing that night. After that, I applied for an internship in my hometown, and my first job in politics was to be an intern for the city planner of Peachtree City, Georgia.<\/p>\n

Q: Next you interned for Westmoreland on the Hill. What was it like coming back as a member?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I remember arriving via the Metro last January, and I walked up the Capitol South steps just like I did when I was an intern, and I walked through the exact doors in the Longworth House Office Building that I walked through as a bright-eyed intern 17 years before \u2014 and that was very surreal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still close with Lynn Westmoreland, and I just had barbecue with him a few weeks ago at a place called the Oink Joint in Newnan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Q: How did you get involved in the 2016 presidential campaign? You started out with Ben Carson.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more Bipartisan headwinds buffet $1B \u2018anomaly\u2019 for Trump battleship<\/a><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 I reached out to one of his senior strategists, Ed Brookover, who is a legend in Republican politics. I cold emailed him, \u201cHey, I\u2019d love to talk about something I think I could offer the campaign,\u201d and it was a true blessing he replied.<\/p>\n

I explained to Ed that I had a deep knowledge of ballot access. If you recall, in 2012, some of the presidential candidates had failed to qualify for the Virginia ballot, which was a big stumbling point for them. So I got hired under the Carson campaign and really defined a specialty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I spent New Year\u2019s Eve in 2015 in like three layers and an overcoat, working train stations out in suburban Chicago, trying to get signatures on a clipboard to put Ben Carson on the ballot. It reminded me of \u201cWhat It Takes,\u201d an amazing book about presidential campaigns and what a grueling march they are from inception to finish, but it\u2019s a good reminder that no job is too small in politics. That\u2019s as grassroots as you can get, gathering signatures.<\/p>\n

We qualified for every ballot, and we spent the least amount of money across all the campaigns to do it \u2014 a reputation that gave me an opportunity to then quickly join the Trump campaign within a week after Dr. Carson\u2019s ended.<\/p>\n

Ballot access is the first step, but it\u2019s interrelated with delegate strategy. And in 2016, the No. 1 topic of conversation that summer was: Were we going to have a contested convention in Cleveland, and would Ted Cruz and his delegates upend the nomination? My job as the national delegate director was to ensure that the nomination went to President Trump.<\/p>\n

Q: You were still in your 20s at the time. From there you worked for the Trump team in the transition and all the way through his first term.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any other president in the 44 presidents before him that would have appointed me political director at the age I was able to earn that job. He has been so unbelievable at kind of rewriting those political journeys for people, and I hope to see more of that going forward, and I try to do my part, too.<\/p>\n

Q: Now you\u2019re deputy chairman of the NRCC.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I have a very specific niche within the president\u2019s orbit, which is congressional politics. Earlier this month, Speaker [Mike] Johnson, Chairman [Richard] Hudson and I met with the president to walk through congressional races \u2014 and it\u2019s largely the same format of meetings I participated in when I was a staffer at the White House nearly 10 years ago. We sat down, and then a flurry of endorsements came out in some of the congressional races. So I\u2019ve enjoyed working with my colleagues to help them on the political side and will continue to do so, because I will tell you, this iteration, the 2026 Republican Party apparatus, is the most organized I\u2019ve ever seen in my career.<\/p>\n

Q: A lot of freshmen in Congress come in cold, but you had already worked for Trump and McCarthy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I was able to develop a lot of relationships with my colleagues before I came to Congress by virtue of my service with the president, and that helped me push legislation within my second month in Congress. Gary Palmer, the sponsor, and I have been close for almost a decade, and he very kindly offered to me an opportunity to be a leader on it and work the floor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

To rewind, back in 2017, President Trump used the Congressional Review Act to repeal many Obama-era regulations, so having that understanding helped me target a very specific regulation affecting water heaters manufactured in my district. It was the sixth law Trump signed in his second term, saving jobs for workers in my district.<\/p>\n

Q: What are some other highlights so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 I\u2019m very close with my grandmother, who is 102. I\u2019m her only grandchild, so starting for her 95th birthday, I\u2019ve really tried to generate wonderful experiences for her, ranging from a letter from the president to a call from the speaker of the House. But for her 101st birthday, I flew her and my aunt up to Washington and brought them to the Capitol, and I presided as the speaker pro tem for a pro forma session that she got to watch. She\u2019s probably one of the healthiest 102-year-olds in the country \u2014 and she\u2019s batting 1,000 getting her grandchildren elected to Congress.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Trump-Thune tensions boil, but GOP leader seen as safe \u2014 for now<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Jack wanted to snag Newt Gingrich\u2019s old House office during the 119th Congress\u2019 freshman room lottery. But as the 28th pick, he lost his first choice and pivoted to another historic room: President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s office in Longworth, which the Democrat occupied from 1939 to 1942. A Republican from Georgia, Jack served as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heard-on-the-hill"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Trump\u2019s political director came to Congress - American Industry Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=724\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Trump\u2019s political director came to Congress - American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brian Jack wanted to snag Newt Gingrich\u2019s old House office during the 119th Congress\u2019 freshman room lottery. 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