Although the Senate is up for grabs this November, no one doubts that Rep. Jim Banks will successfully take Indiana’s open seat. Banks spoke with the Washington Reporter about the 2024 election, his former colleague Tim Walz, combatting China, and how to punish colleges that are hotbeds of antisemitism.
In an extended interview, Banks showcased just how eager the GOP is to attack Walz over a variety of veterans-related issues that go well beyond accusations that the Minnesota governor inflated his resume from the start of his political career.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign inaccurately claimed that Walz “chaired Veterans Affairs,” while Banks noted that Walz’s voting record in Congress showed that he “is more interested in playing politics with our veterans than in serving them in a bipartisan way” (last week, Banks, who said Walz “lied about” his military service, also wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “demanding that [Austin] make Governor Walz’s military record transparent and available to the public”). While in Congress, Walz also opposed the bipartisan VA MISSION Act, which Banks hailed as a “top two or three achievement of President Trump.”
“What it did,” Banks said, was streamline “bureaucratic processes so veterans could access the best available healthcare options for them. Sometimes that might be at the VA, but a lot of times, your local hospital or private health care provider is better.” Even Harris, Banks noted, voted for the bipartisan bill.
Walz “was the ranking member of the committee and opposed a lot of important pro-veteran initiatives under President Trump, just because they were wins for President Trump,” Banks noted. “But they were wins for our veterans, and that’s what matters most.”
A veteran, Banks has prioritized modernizing America’s military to be better poised to tackle threats posed by China, which he sees as “the biggest threat to America today.” Rather than focus on the “woke political crap” that the Biden-Harris Department of Defense prioritizes, Banks wants America “developing sophisticated new technologies”; that’s work he hopes to continue in the Senate, where he aims to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Threats posed by the CCP are so self-evident that “it’s not an area where I need to educate my constituents or Hoosiers about China being a threat. They already get it. They know it. They’re shaking their heads and wondering why Washington doesn’t get it.”
Banks also cautioned that America will have to “find out” the level to which illegal pro-Hamas encampments will return on college campuses as the school season starts up again. However, “there was a wake up call last year,” Banks said, and the Committee on the Education and the Workforce, on which he serves, will “tie up [university] funding and hold them accountable if they if they continue to promote a lot of this crap on our campus and allow it to allow it to go on, rather than crack down on it.”
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Jim Banks, lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
What do you want to do in the U.S. Senate if you win this November? And how do you differentiate that from your work in the House?
Rep. Jim Banks:
First of all, Hoosiers want to go back to what we saw work on Donald Trump’s watch that’s been completely undone by the disastrous Biden-Harris administration. Topics including energy policy, economic policy, foreign policy, securing the border are going to be my main areas of focus in the Senate, as well as being Donald Trump’s top advocate in the United States Senate to help pass his agenda and go back to the Trump policies of work.
Just the nature of the difference between the House and the Senate, there’s a bigger platform to do that. But at the end of the day, I’m running for the Senate because there aren’t enough fighters in the Senate. The House has become more of a fight club over the last eight years in the mold of Donald Trump, but the wheel turns more slowly in the Senate. I want to be a part of that new generation of fighters in the Senate. There are a lot of new ones like Senators Eric Schmidt and Katie Britt — and Tom Cotton has been there for a little bit longer — but there’s a new generation of leadership in the Senate that I want to be a part of. JD Vance, of course, is leading the way on a lot of fronts, so it’s a big opportunity to step up to the plate and serve in a bigger role and to make a bigger difference in the Senate, to help us get back to the Trump policies that we know work.
Washington Reporter:
Let’s really drill down in Indiana and on the other Senate seat. In 2016, Democrats nominated former Congressman Baron Hill before swapping him out with former Senator Evan Bayh for Senate. That didn’t work out for them then, but one of the biggest advocates for this candidate swap was Senator Jon Tester, who was running the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee that cycle. Now, he’s ducking on endorsing Kamala Harris after the Democrats did to Joe Biden more or less what they did to Hill in your state. Does that seem genuine to you?
Rep. Jim Banks:
Jon Tester is a complete and total fraud. He plays one part in Montana, but in Washington, D.C., he’s a total swamp creature. And just like the rest of the Democrats, when they’re losing, when they find themselves behind, they lie, steal, and cheat to get ahead. Jon Tester is the poster child of that and he’s going to lose in November to an exceptional candidate and my friend Tim Sheehy. Indiana is as red as it’s ever been in my lifetime. It’s Trump country. Donald Trump made Indiana more Republican than it has ever been in my lifetime. The working class, blue collar voters like my dad, who is a long time union Democrat, are now full blown Trump Republicans. My dad was for Trump from the moment he came down the escalator, and I thought my dad was crazy at the time. I told him that. I should have listened to him. He was right about Donald Trump and a lot of other Hoosiers are a lot like my dad and come from that mold. I’m not taking anything for granted, but we feel pretty good about winning in November, and Indiana is tired of go along to get along Republicans in the Senate. They want Republican senators who are fighting back against the radicals. And that’s the type of House member I’ve been, and that’s the type of Senator I’m going to be.
Washington Reporter:
You talked about lying. You’ve been at the forefront in criticizing Tim Walz for the allegations against him of Stolen Valor. You yourself are a veteran. Do you think it is appropriate on the House side for Speaker Mike Johnson to subpoena any of the records about Tim Walz’s military service?
Rep. Jim Banks:
First of all, Tim Walz is a veteran. He wore the uniform. He served our country. And there’s nothing that Hoosiers appreciate more than military service. And in Indiana, we support our veterans. We’re a patriotic state, but Tim Walz lied about it. And there’s nothing that Hoosiers dislike more than politicians who lie about something as important as their military record. He portrayed himself as a combat veteran. He never went anywhere near combat. And as someone who served in Afghanistan myself and experienced that, it’s disgusting to me that he has thought that he could get away with that for so long. It also disgusted me that Kamala Harris would, obviously in her vetting process, know that he lied about his military record, and she still picked him. These were stories that were out there even when he ran for governor. So what does that say about Kamala Harris, that she thinks that that’s no big deal when it really is a big deal?
Last week, I sent, as the chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee on the Armed Services Committee, a letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding that they make Governor Walz’s military record transparent and available to the public. Because if he did lie about it, and we know that he’s been very untruthful about his record, and this guy, God forbid, somehow becomes second in line to being Commander in Chief, the public deserves to know the truth about his military record. Yes, Speaker Mike Johnson should get involved. But there’s a larger role here for the House Republican majority to provide oversight about something as important as that.
Washington Reporter:
Do you have a sense of what that would look like?
Rep. Jim Banks:
I sent the letter last week to Secretary Austin. I’m chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, but House Republican leadership could bring the weight of their position to calling for that type of transparency too from the Pentagon, and I hope that they will.
Washington Reporter:
What was it like to overlap with Tim Walz on the Veterans Affairs Committee? Are you surprised to have seen his radical transformation?
Rep. Jim Banks:
Well, I recall him being a hothead, and there have been a few clips already circulating where he loses his temper, so I imagine there’ll be more of that. So watch for that. The MISSION Act, President Trump doesn’t get enough credit for it, is definitely a top two or three achievements of President Trump in his first term as president. What it did was it streamlined bureaucratic processes so veterans could access the best available healthcare options for them.
Sometimes that might be at the VA, but a lot of times, your local hospital or private health care provider is better. The MISSION Act was transformational. What President Trump did, from modernizing the VA, having more accountability at the VA, and the MISSION Act, which expands healthcare options for veterans, is fundamental and important.
Ranking Member Walz opposed President Trump every step of the way. When it comes to the MISSION Act, even Kamala Harris voted for the MISSION Act. That’s been lost in this story. But even she understood that, in spite of it being a major achievement for President Trump, it was important to veterans, and even she voted for it. Ranking Member Walz voted against it merely because it was a priority for President Trump. And to me, that’s disgusting and a betrayal of our veterans, and shows to me that Tim Walz is more interested in playing politics with our veterans than in serving them in a bipartisan way. That bill was bipartisan. I was at the White House when President Trump signed it into law. A lot of Democrats voted for it. Republicans carried it, and Tim Walz voted against it as the lead Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee of the House. To me, that says a lot about him, and we’re learning a lot more about him. The Harris campaign lied about him being chairman. He was never chairman of the committee. He was the ranking member of the committee and opposed a lot of important pro-veteran initiatives under President Trump, just because they were wins for President Trump. But they were wins for our veterans, and that’s what matters most.
Washington Reporter:
Can you contrast that with another veteran, JD Vance? How has that been on the campaign trail?
Rep. Jim Banks:
JD Vance is off to a great start on the campaign trail, he’s connecting with voters and donors all over the country, and I’m very proud of him, and I think he was a strong pick by President Trump, not just as a running mate and a future vice president, but he represents the next generation of conservative, American First leadership, and that’s the contrast for me. Kamala Harris picked an old guy from Minnesota who has a radical left-wing record, and Donald Trump picked a 40 year old Iraq War veteran who is the future. Donald Trump is focused on the future of our country, and saving our country for a future generation, but also elevating leaders like JD Vance and like me. I wouldn’t be in the position that I am in today were it not for Donald Trump backing me from the very beginning and supporting me. I just think Donald Trump, for a long time, but especially this election cycle, is really focused on the future and JD Vance is the future, and that’s a big difference between him and Tim Walz. And we’re going to see that more in the vice president debate. You are going to see the past and the future, and JD Vance is the future.
Washington Reporter:
In your work on the Armed Services Committee, you’re a leading voice in advanced weapons development, particularly in the Air Force. Why is this important to you?
Rep. Jim Banks:
The biggest threat to America today is China, and Donald Trump’s the first president in my lifetime, Republican or Democrat, who named China as a threat to America economically and militarily. The leaders of our country, on both sides, have had their heads stuck in the sand, not focusing on modernizing our military so that we can beat China in a war, and more important than that, deter China. That means developing sophisticated new technologies, and that’s been my focus on the Armed Services Committee. I co-chaired the Future Defense Task Force. I co-chair the Hypersonics Caucus. But at the end of the day, I’m most focused on making sure that our defense priorities reflect the threats coming from China, not head in the sand, antiquated threats of the past. I’ve served on the House Armed Services Committee, my hope is to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee and to be a leader in that space and to do what we have to do to make sure that our pivot and our focus is toward China and not the threats of the past.
Washington Reporter:
There are reports we’re covering about the Biden-Harris defense department prioritizing DEI spending over plans for a sixth generation fighter jet. How seriously do you think this administration is taking defense policy?
Rep. Jim Banks:
If you go back to the very beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, they were more focused on woke causes at the same time that they were gearing toward the disastrous pullout in Afghanistan. What happened to Afghanistan could have been entirely different if the Biden-Harris team was more focused on national security instead of all of the woke crap that they were focused on. Whether it’s emerging technologies, next generation equipment or platforms, none of that has ever been a priority of this administration. President Trump in thenext term is going to have to completely, completely overhaul the Pentagon to focus on modernizing the Pentagon, but also getting the Department of Defense back to what it should be focused on, which is training for and preparing to win wars and fight wars and deter wars, most importantly, than all of the woke political crap that Biden-Harris has been focused on.
Washington Reporter:
You’re also on the China Select Committee. What in particular has surprised you about China’s role in this world?
Rep. Jim Banks:
I think most Americans get it. My dad worked in a factory all of his life. He didn’t go to college, and while he’s not educated in a formal sense, he’s a very wise man, and he understands that China’s our biggest threat because China’s been stealing jobs, like his job, and China has been wrecking our economy. This is intuitive for working class Americans. They understand that China is our threat. So you have to ask the question: why is the ruling class in this country not recognizing or accepting that? It’s because they’re on the hook from Wall Street and elite interests in this country that are selling us out to China. It’s not an area where I need to educate my constituents or Hoosiers about China being a threat. They already get it. They know it. They’re shaking their heads and wondering why Washington doesn’t get it. And I think it all goes back to the multinational corporate Wall Street interests that sell us out. And on the Select Committee on China, which, frankly, I’ll say, has been somewhat of a disappointing endeavor, which I think has more to do with the lack of jurisdiction of the Select Committee and the way that it’s made up, than anything else.
There was a lot of interest in it at the beginning. It is bipartisan. The committee hearings have been interesting, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of action that’s come out of it, because all the jurisdiction belongs to the committees themselves. This is why we need a president back in the White House who gets it, who understands the threat from trade policy to economic policy to getting pro-Chinese Communist Party and anti-American interests off of our college campuses. This is the area that we have to have President Trump back in the White House to get to get done what we have to get done to to disentangle our economy from the economy of the biggest threat, the country that wants to dominate us and put us under their thumb.
Washington Reporter:
You’re also on the Education and Workforce Committee. What do you think colleges need to do heading into the upcoming school year to prevent the anti-Israel encampment takeovers from happening again?
Rep. Jim Banks:
Well, we’re about to find out. Students are going back to school on college campuses all over America, we’re about to find out. I think there was a wake up call last year.
Almost more than any specific policy, the embarrassment for a lot of these schools, and what Elise Stefanik and a lot of others like myself are doing to try to shake up these schools and put them on notice that we’re going to do something about it has been critical. But I still hope that we do it. I hope we crack down on funding to a lot of these schools that are promoting anti-Americanism and antisemitism on college campuses. I think last year was a wake up call for them. But at the end of the day, there’s a growing divide between colleges that are teaching kids to hate America and colleges, and all schools across the board, that are teaching kids that America’s the greatest country in the history of the world. To me, that’s what it comes down to: putting schools on notice that we’re going to tie up their funding and hold them accountable if they continue to promote a lot of this crap on our campus and allow it to go on, rather than crack down on it.
Washington Reporter:
Congressman Banks, thanks so much for your time.