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Jim Pfaff Says Republicans in Congress Are the Weak Part of the Trump Agenda: Jim Pfaff on The Tom Roten Show | Oct 9, 2026

Published: October 9, 2026
Network: The Tom Roten Show
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

Tom Roten opened The Tom Roten Show on October 9, 2026 by telling listeners the balance of power in Congress will be decided on November 3. After plugs for the show, Dutch Miller Auto, and Holy Moly Health Food Store, he brought on Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff, who served as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, for the Ohio races people in the region are watching.

Pfaff started with Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown. The hour ended on a harder claim: Republicans in Congress are the weak part of the Trump agenda, and a Republican win would come a bit in spite of themselves.

Topics Covered

• Sherrod Brown Can Campaign. Jon Husted Is Not Exciting.
• Data Centers, Thin Infrastructure, and Leaders Not Reading the Room
• A Gas-Tax Cut, DeWine, and the Close Vivek Should Run
• Ed Galraine and Northern Kentucky
• The Weak Part of the Trump Agenda
• Iran Will Not Decide It. Congress Might.

Sherrod Brown Can Campaign. Jon Husted Is Not Exciting.

<p>Roten asked whether Sherrod Brown can beat Jon Husted for a full Senate term. Pfaff said he can. Brown works hard and can raise money, which Pfaff said is not to his credit, because he thinks Brown is one of the worst members of Congress the country has had. He is still leaning toward Husted on the general inertia in Ohio, and he called Husted a little better candidate than Vivek Ramaswamy right now. Brown already lost, and Pfaff said red parts of the country worry about radical leftist policy.</p>

<p>Brown can communicate invalid ideas well enough to have a chance, he said, and the polls show it. Husted will vote the way leadership and Trump want, but “he’s not real exciting. He’s not real energetic.” Democrats shut down Husted’s data-center effort and are working Ohio and Texas so they can crow. Pfaff said both states stay solid red, and Husted will not be the hero conservatives want.</p>

<p>Then he widened the point. “Listen, Democrats are hated in the United States. Let’s just be honest about this. They are hated.” The numbers prove it, he said. “What is happening in this election cycle is Republicans are suffering under their own weight.” Leadership in Washington refuses to address what Americans care about. “this really is a lesser of two evils race.” Republicans lack the clue or the will. Democrats, he said, are far worse and are trying to overthrow the American Republic. Republican leadership does that by laziness and cowardice. Democrats do it on purpose.</p>

Data Centers, Thin Infrastructure, and Leaders Not Reading the Room

<p>Roten turned to data centers arriving in southeastern Ohio, eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia, including what he called the world’s largest in Piketon and projects near Ashland and north of Point Pleasant. He said Trump voters who raise concerns have been told they want to be backwards and poor.</p>

<p>Pfaff said he is positive on the technology and uses it every day. Leading on data centers is a real challenge in many places, including up and down the Ohio River between Kentucky, Illinois, and West Virginia. He called the bill Husted put out a good approach. He thinks Tom Tiffany, who he expects to win the Wisconsin governor’s race, put the onus on the data centers. Local governments have to adjust the power grid and water reclamation. Cooling is getting more self-contained. Pikeville, Ashland, eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and southern Ohio lack the infrastructure. Cincinnati and Columbus can handle it better than Ashland or Huntington. He pointed to the old metal plant and the Marathon site in Ashland as reasons the region needs the right kind of opportunity.</p>

<p>Roten said Republican leaders, even at the state level, are on the wrong side of dividing local fights. Pfaff agreed they are not reading the room. He is positive on the technology, but legislators and members of Congress “have no freaking clue” about the details. Growth in the markets is largely in this area, he said, and an elected official who has not looked into what that means is “really stupid.”</p>

<p>Pfaff said he spent 8 years on Capitol Hill, not only with Thomas Massie but also with Tim Huelskamp of Kansas. “it scares me to death, the people that we elect to Congress.” Some members love the $174,000 a year paycheck and being treated differently for the lapel pin or necklace. Data centers, he said, are one place that shows up badly.</p>

A Gas-Tax Cut, DeWine, and the Close Vivek Should Run

<p>Roten said the Ohio legislature approved a 90-day suspension of the gas tax, that Ramaswamy favored it, and that Mike DeWine signed it. Kentucky and West Virginia have not done the same. He said the money never goes to the roads.</p>

<p>Pfaff said federal highway money gets pulled from other places, and that Ohio’s move was smart. “I am surprised DeWine signed it because he’s a jackwad.” He called DeWine one of the worst governors in America and grouped him with Eric Holcomb on COVID lockdowns. Pfaff said he was sitting in Bloomington, Indiana. Gas prices are a real problem, and not only the Iran war. He described a post-climate-alarmism problem that blocks new refineries. Indiana has not cut the tax either, and he said Governor Braun should. The cut is so large, he said, because it is a 90-cent cut: gas taxes are so high because government is not run properly.</p>

<p>On the governor’s race, Pfaff said neither Ramaswamy nor Amy Acton is getting going, with the election just a few days away, and he has been concerned the whole time about whether Vivek wins. He likes much about Ramaswamy but says he philosophizes too much and is not connecting. Acton’s bad record, her rabid COVID approach, and her lies may get him over the line in a red state. That record, he said, also shows why DeWine is useless. He hopes Vivek wins after 8 years of DeWine and Republican predecessors who gave no thought to free-market principles. If Acton becomes governor, “it’s a 4-year nightmare.”</p>

<p>Roten said Ramaswamy is trying to step back from data centers and talk about local control. Pfaff said Vivek should do well in Cincinnati strongholds. Columbus has become much more blue. Cleveland and the stretch from Akron to Cleveland rule statewide races. Doomerism has made 80% of Americans worry about data centers. In the closing days, he said, Vivek should focus on the economy, hope for Ohioans, a contrast with Acton, reforming the gas tax and the property-tax system, and education. Property taxes fleece owners for foolish education spending. People are paying $15, $20 more a fill-up than a few months ago, and they remember it. Data centers hurt him only if he makes them the whole message.</p>

Ed Galraine and Northern Kentucky

<p>Roten was not worried about Shelley Moore Capito, Carol Miller, or Riley Moore in West Virginia, or about Andy Barr for Mitch McConnell’s seat. He asked about Kentucky’s 4th District. Ed Galraine beat Thomas Massie in the May primary, with help from Donald Trump, and Roten said he has barely been seen since.</p>

<p>Pfaff said Galraine will go to Washington and join the system. He thinks Galraine wins, but an absence in a first race shows the kind of representative he will be: attention for people who write very large checks, and for people in Washington who can help him, not for northern Kentucky. The three-county area around Cincinnati is a mix Massie worked. Pfaff doubts Galraine understands the Ohio River economy. A leadership checkmark on Transportation and Infrastructure will not help the businesses along the river.</p>

The Weak Part of the Trump Agenda

<p>Roten said Republicans who voted for the party are frustrated, and he described Speaker Mike Johnson sending the House home early. What people see, Pfaff said, is a Congress that is not working in the final days before an election to move the Trump agenda and the America First agenda, which largely has not been put forward. Trump could have done some things better. The real problem with the agenda Americans wanted in 2024 is Congress.</p>

As I’ve said over and over again, the weak part of the Trump agenda is Republicans in Congress.

<p>There is no focus and no direction, he said, and no doing of the obvious things Americans want. Republicans will not fight even for the Save America Act, which had 80% support. John Thune saying they already voted, then closing the Senate, shows how out of touch they are. Pfaff had criticisms of the one big beautiful bill. Massie voted no. Pfaff would have voted yes for the spending reductions, getting illegals off Medicaid, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, and immediate expensing, even though the bill kept bad spending. They should have come back and cut that spending in 2026. They did not.</p>

<p>They refused policies people want because they sit at the Capitol Hill Club with lobbyists and enjoy 15 to 17 member staff they can push around. Be critical of Trump if you want, he said. He is less critical than Massie, and more positive. The test on spending is whether Trump vetoes a bill Congress sends that massively cuts spending. “They refuse to cut what obviously ought to be cut.”</p>

<p>“We had a $4.5 trillion roughly federal budget in 2019.” It jumped in 2020, and Massie was right to call out Republicans and Trump for the $2.5 trillion CARES Act, which still passed. After Biden, spending is well over $7 trillion, beyond Biden’s inflation increase, and Republicans will not take the obvious cut.</p>

<p>Roten asked whether the same standard applies when Trump signs continuing resolutions that carry the last Biden budget and then gets mad at members who vote no. Pfaff said Trump had no reason to be upset with Massie for voting against that bill. The vote was rational. He would have voted differently only to get immediate expensing and a few things that worked, on a promise to come back. Trump should have vetoed many bad spending bills and should never have been for the CARES Act.</p>

<p>Democrats have no idea of cutting and would explode spending further, as they did under Biden. Republicans, he said, are cowards and feckless idiots who want the office without the sacrifices the Constitution lays out. After the 2010 Tea Party wave, he and Tim Huelskamp walked in with 63 new members. Most who called themselves Tea Party went to the dark side. About 25, including Huelskamp, stayed the course and became the core of the House Freedom Caucus.</p>

Iran Will Not Decide It. Congress Might.

<p>Roten closed on Trump’s 2024 promise of no new wars, and on an Iran war he said has run for months while Trump keeps saying it is over. Pfaff called the messaging a critical problem. He hears the arguments for the steps but is not convinced it was the best time or the best approach. Trump saying over and over that it is over shows it did not go as planned. No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy. He hopes it turns out well, and he does not want a worse response. He called the missteps unforced errors, then forced errors.</p>

<p>This election will not rise or fall on Iran, he said. Gas prices matter. The economic factors are more about not having refineries than about the war, though the war is a big part. What would hand this to Democrats is Republicans in Congress being incapable of arguing the economic message, because they have not advocated it and most do not believe in changing spending or what Washington does.</p>

<p>Trump has done fantastic things where he can in the executive branch. Russ Vought at OMB cut personnel, changed spending patterns, and got rid of USAID. The president is limited. That congressional failure, Pfaff said, is what could lose the House and the Senate.</p>

<p>He is a bit more positive because people hate Democrats and Democrats have no inspiring message. “And if Republicans win, it’s going to be a bit in spite of themselves.”</p>

Key Takeaways

• The weak part: Pfaff said the weak part of the Trump agenda is Republicans in Congress.
• A lesser of two evils: Democrats are hated, and Republicans are suffering under their own weight.
• Husted and Brown: Brown can campaign his way into a race. Pfaff leans toward Husted on Ohio inertia and still calls him dull.
• Vivek’s close: Ramaswamy should finish on the economy, the gas tax, property taxes, and education, not on data centers.
• The spending jump: Pfaff put the federal budget at roughly $4.5 trillion in 2019 and well over $7 trillion after Biden, and said Congress refuses to cut what ought to be cut.
• In spite of themselves: If Republicans win, he said, it will be a bit in spite of themselves.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Oct 9, 2026 on The Tom Roten Show with Tom Roten.