Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed former Republican Ohio congressman Jim Renacci about his new position leading the American Greatness Fund. Renacci said he was joining the fund so that he could help revive the MAGA movement and create scorecards to hold politicians accountable to the voters.
TRANSCRIPT
McCabe: Conservative voters across the country all have the same complaint: candidates who campaign as conservatives and then, once in office, spend their time blocking the conservative agenda. Former Republican Ohio Congressman Jim Renacci told The Ohio Star and The Star News Network how the American Greatness Fund is going to fix that.
Renacci: There is plenty of frustration with conservative voters. We elect somebody who can be a Republican, we believe a conservative, and then they go down the path and they vote for a gun bill.
McCabe: Renacci, whose 300,000 votes in the Ohio Republican gubernatorial primary nearly outpolled the total of the winner of the primary on the Democratic side set.
The fund has already started its Texas scorecard, and the scorecards will be posted for all the states and Congress to hold candidates accountable.
Renacci: So we’re going to build a scorecard that’s going to be one of the first goals in Ohio is to build out a scorecard just like Texas. We’re learning what Texas has done, and it’s going to basically score elected officials as [to] how they vote when it comes to conservative principles, but also MAGA principles.
McCabe: As the new chairman of the American Greatness Fund, the former congressman said he is mobilizing the fund to fuel a MAGA revival.
Renacci: I just think it’s important that the MAGA movement continues. I mean, look, in 2016 to 2020, we had a nation that was energy independent and was building a wall. We were moving in the right direction.
McCabe: Now it is obvious President Joe Biden is taking the country down the wrong path, he said.
Renacci: The current president has clearly reversed course on that vision, and what I want to do, what I’ve been asked to do, as chairman of this organization is make sure that we restore that MAGA vision and that MAGA movement.
McCabe: Renacci, who is one of candidate Donald J. Trump’s earliest supporters, said if and when the president announces he is running for the White House again, the American Greatness Fund will be at his side.
Renacci: If President Trump jumps back into the presidential race, he’s going to bring that movement back as well, and we’re going to be right beside him.
McCabe: Reporting for The Ohio Star and The Star News Network, Neil W. McCabe, Washington.
