A Texas Republican new to Congress, Brandon Gill has a knack for getting noticed

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WASHINGTON — Rep. Brandon Gill knows how to get attention.

Now a 31-year-old Republican freshman in Congress, Gill has been courting President Donald Trump’s favor since he founded the DC Enquirer, a conservative outlet in 2022. He calls liberals "deranged," says Biden unleashed "chaos" across the country, and considers Dinesh D'Souza, his father-in-law who was federally convicted of making illegal campaign contributions, a political mentor.

Gill, of Flower Mound, appears regularly on conservative platforms including Fox News, OAN and high-profile podcasts — and clips of his House hearing questions have racked up more than a million views on YouTube.

After moving back to Texas, and winning in his first campaign for office, his main focus, Gill said in an interview with The Texas Tribune, is to codify Trump’s executive orders.

“What we want to do is make sure that all of the great work that the president is doing remains permanent,” Gill said. “So that a future Democrat doesn't unleash the same kind of chaos on our country that Joe Biden did.”

In his first five months in Congress, Gill has introduced bills to impeach a federal judge who attempted to stop some deportation flights, codify Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy, and put Trump’s face on the $100 bill.

His bills have not yet made it to the House floor, and most – except his Remain in Mexico bill – have failed to garner significant support. Gill’s intertwined legislative and media strategy, however, has burnished his reputation among MAGA supporters and earned him praise from other Republicans in the Texas delegation.

In many ways, Gills’ early political career is modeled after the path of other political figures who have made unfettered statements and disruptive moves as they made their way into the spotlight. Each in his own way tests how and if attention can translate into influence, and Gill says he draws lessons from D'Souza, a longtime conservative agitator.

Such a group would also include former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Trump’s first pick to be Attorney General, as well as Representatives Dan Crenshaw, Keith Self and Chip Roy, all Texas Republicans.

Gill himself made a political debut as a Dartmouth student leading a conservative student publication – The Dartmouth Review.

After a few years working as an investment banker and a hedge fund analyst in New York, he founded and led a conservative publication, the DC Enquirer, known for right-wing framed articles, conspiracy theories and commentary pieces.

Trump posted DC Enquirer stories or reposted links to the outlet more than 100 times on his social media accounts.

Gill said his role there taught him how to handle the media, which he says “sets the parameters of debate” in Washington.

“You learn how to communicate in a way that resonates with a broader audience outside of the DC bubble,” Gill said.

He stepped down from his editorial role with DC Enquirer when he began his congressional campaign and the outlet has not posted any articles since Gill was sworn into Congress in January.

Gill married conservative author Danielle D'Souza in 2017. Dinesh D'Souza is known for his books and films that emphasize false conspiracies about Democrats and the accuracy of the 2020 election. He was pardoned in 2018 by Trump after he pled guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in other people’s names.

Gill said his father-in-law has taught him how to be precise while speaking about politics and how to “push the bounds of discussion.”

“I learned a ton from him,” Gill said about his father-in-law. “He's sort of a political mentor of mine.”

He worked with his father-in-law on the film promoting the false idea that 2020 election was stolen, “2000 Mules,” and was a producer on Dinesh D'Souza’s 2023 film, “Police State”.

Gill announced his candidacy for Congress in November 2023 and received Trump’s endorsement within two weeks. Trump posted on Truth that Gill is an “America first,” candidate, “as loyal and tough as they come,” while also highlighting Gill’s connection to his father-in-law. The endorsement in the race, left open by Rep. Michael Burgess’s retirement, cleared the way for Gill to sweep the Republican primary.

Others who supported Gill’s campaign included Gaetz, then a Florida Representative; Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, and Sen. Ted Cruz. Later on, Gaetz would post that Gill once told a SuperPAC that Gaetz was the member of Congress he most wanted to emulate.

In the November election, Gill won 62% of the vote against Democratic candidate Ernest Lineberger.

Throughout the election, Lineberger said, Gill would be personable at candidate forums – talking about family or saying that it was nice to see him. But, when Gill spoke to the audience, he would – as Lineberger put it – quickly flip into “demonizing the Democrats.”

“He is a professional disinformation spreader, and that is what he has continued to do,” Lineburger said in an interview.

In his second month on Capitol Hill, Gill sent out a fundraising email that included a petition to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota. Omar was born in Somalia and has been a U.S. citizen since 2000, when she was 17 years old.

“We should have never let Ilhan Omar into our country,” the email said. “And frankly, America would be a much better place if she were to be sent back to Somalia.”

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, told the Tribune that he has had conversations with Gill related to this incident, including about how members of Congress should take their jobs seriously and that disagreements will happen, but that there is a line.

“He can stand out based on his opinions, if he wants to, but he shouldn't stand out by saying things that put the life at risk of people that he works with,” Casar said.

Gill has continued to set off sparks at House committee hearings – leading to clips that have gone viral in conservative circles – with pointed lines of questions directed at the CEO of NPR, the mayor of Chicago and the head of USA Fencing.

Cruz praised Gill on his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” calling the freshman representative a “rising star in the House,” and Gaetz, in a social media post, called Gill the better version of himself following the NPR hearing.

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, who serves with Gill on the oversight committee, praised the freshman.

“He's making very big waves,” Hunt said in April. “He's doing a very good job. He's speaking our language.”

In committee hearings Gill says his job is “to highlight and to call out some of the crazy things that these deranged leftists have been promoting for so long.”

Gill wrote on X in March that “multiculturalism will tear our country apart.” The post has more than 23 million views on the platform.

The congressman elaborated to the Tribune adding that immigrants need to “assimilate to our culture and adopt our customs and adhere to our traditions,” to preserve the American identity.

Gill posted on X last month that he was against House Republican social media pages posting in Spanish. He has also supported bills that would bar Chinese nationals from attending U.S. universities and from purchasing farmland in the country.

Gill represents the Republican stronghold of District 26, which covers the north Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs and extends to the Texas-Oklahoma border

That includes Cooke County, a rural area where the Republican chair is Chris McNamara. He told the Tribune that while Gill’s method of rising politically is not how he would do things, the Republican base in his county does get excited about Gill’s strategy.

“Within the district, he gets a lot of support from that,” McNamara said. “He's probably, I would think, trying to get some national attention, some leverage attention.”

Trump’s endorsement during the primary was “big,” for Gill’s local support, McNamara said, adding that “it can't hurt to be on the President's good side”.

While Gill has introduced a bill to add more zip codes in the district, which has areas that experienced a population boom, and claims to have the “best case-worker team in the country,” some local political figures told the Tribune they would like Gill to focus more on issues impacting the area – such as rural hospitals and passenger train route cancellations.

On Capitol Hill, Gill has more of a position than the average freshman. He was voted by his colleagues to be the Republican freshman class president, acting as a representative for the members.

Fellow freshman House Republican Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, said Gill has used this ceremonial role as an “action position,” bringing the class together.

Gill has also positioned himself on key committees, including the committees on the judiciary, budget and oversight – where he also serves on the Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee.

Roy and Self are members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and have recently served as crucial holdouts to win policy promises from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and Trump before joining the majority on key votes.

Gill was endorsed by the Freedom Caucus’s PAC in his House primary and said that he would join the caucus on his first day. He told Politico that the member he most wanted to be like was Jordan, of Ohio, the first chair of the caucus, also known for provocative statements.

The freshman representative has not yet been a holdout against key Republican legislation, but he went further than Johnson and party leadership in March regarding the federal judge, James Boasberg, who was attempting to stop deportation flights. Gill advocated for impeachment, while party leadership looked for other options, such as ending national injunctions.

He also told the Tribune that the Freedom Caucus holdouts on the budget reconciliation package had “excellent points,” and that the holdouts were fighting to include Trump’s agenda into the final tax and spending bill.

Gill had returned to Washington early, a week after his son was born in May, in an attempt to move the Republican megabill out of the House Budget Committee. The legislation was temporarily blocked by Roy and other holdouts in the committee as they pushed for more reforms.

Gill has plans to continue focusing on his push to permanently defund NPR and PBS, lower border crossings, codify cuts to the federal workforce, and eliminate some of the Biden administration’s climate policies.

“We should be doing … all the things that we told voters we were going to do,” Gill said. “The things that voters saw us talking about and said, ‘We need to give these people a majority in Washington.’ ”

Disclosure: Politico has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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