Exclusive — PA Republican Jim Bognet: November’s Election ‘Comes Down to Freedom vs. Total Government Control’

Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump appointee, Jim Bognet, told SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday on March 26 that November’s election “comes down to freedom versus total government control of every aspect of our day-to day-life.”

Bognet, who was recently endorsed by House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Republicans Conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), told Breitbart News’s Washington Bureau chief, Matthew Boyle, that his opponent, Rep. Matthew Cartwright (D-PA), and Democrats had been a “rubber stamp” for the “BS” policies that President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and the squad want to enact.

This is why the Republican explained that November’s midterm election will “come down to freedom versus total government control of every aspect of our day-to-day life.”

He mentioned the stark difference in having a Republican majority and a Democrat Majority in Congress. Having a Democrat-led Congress means having the radical Build Back Better agenda, “whereas if you get a Republican Congress … we’re going to get rid of mask mandates. We’re going to get rid of crackdowns on medical freedom. We’re going to pass legislation that allows us to exploit and produce more American energy. And we’re going to take on the inflation. We’re going to stop this crazy, crazy spending, where Nancy Pelosi said we’re going to spend trillions to stop inflation, maybe this single stupidest statement ever delivered by a speaker of the House in our nation’s history.”

Bognet claimed that his race, in Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District, is the number one race in the country because, he said, “It’s our chance to repudiate Joe Biden, in his so-called … ‘hometown’ of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the rest of Northeast PA.” He explained that flipping the seat to Republican will “send a message to the country that we’re sick and tired of liberal rule and overreach and lockdowns and all the other craziness, and we’re going to take back our freedom and take back our country.”

When speaking about the district he has been campaigning in, he said, “The two things I hear about constantly, Matt, are illegals and inflation.” He noted that the border wall needs to be finished to stop border crossers from coming into the country and to stop the cartels from bringing in drugs. When the Republicans are in the House majority next year, he explained, Congress will “pull the funding for the ‘ghost flights’ that are making ‘Pennsylvania into a Wild West border district.'”

“We’re going to stop that. I’ve been calling for months for the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas,” he explained. “I believe the DHS Secretary has failed his duty to ‘We the People’ to the Constitution by letting hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants across our border and by refusing to crack down on it.”

Discussing inflation, he indicated that something has to be done about that, as well. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts the working people of Northeast Pennsylvania when it’s $4.50, $5 a gallon for gas, and they fill up their pickup truck to drive an hour to a construction site like my family works on or to an oil rig or a gas rig, and it costs $117 to fill up their tank,” he said.

“It is killing people,” he added about inflation. “We have senior citizens, and we’ll experience Grant and Hazleton paying $4.75 for home heating oil at times. So you’re talking about a $1,000 bill to heat their house. They’re on a fixed income. They’re on Social Security. And my opponent, Matt Cartwright, has done nothing about it. And Joe Biden has done nothing about it. If anything, they’ve made it worse with the $5 trillion deficit spending, which is driving inflation.”

Bognet, who was also one of the first Republican candidates in 2020 to call for banning travel from China during the start of the coronavirus pandemic, added that in addition to trying to stop drug trafficking, China needs to pay for its part. He said, “We need to step up China and say if you allow this fentanyl to keep coming in our country, we are going to take trade measures like you’ve never seen before.” Boyle added that China, like what it did with the coronavirus, is letting the drugs leave the country and infect the rest of the world.

Bognet explained again that when the Republicans are in the House majority next year, he wants to use their oversight function on China. With an understanding of how to take a stance on China after working in the Trump administration, he acknowledged that there are agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) across the country who continue to create economic, political, and geopolitical espionage every day.

Bognet said to detour this, “Let’s call in people like the congressman from out there in San Francisco that was having a liaison with a member of the Chinese intelligence service. Let’s investigate these organizations that have given aid and succor to the Chinese Communist Party and their agents. I want to haul them up in front of Congress and make them answer under oath and then prosecute them when they lie, as they inevitably will.”

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.