INTERVIEW: “Hold my beer:” Rep. Troy Downing’s journey from businessman, veteran, and son of a single mom to lawmaker
THE LOWDOWN:
The Washington Reporter spoke with Rep. Troy Downing (R., Mont.), one of the newest lawmakers in the House, about his life before Congress, his legislative priorities, and more.
Downing, the result of an “unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage mom,” went from teaching at NYU to the tech startup world before joining the Air Force at 34 years old following the September 11th attacks.
Downing, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, told the Reporter he is working on “a lot of things” in his new role in Congress. One of the big pushes he is making is to cut the federal red tape to “make it easier for community banks to lend to community businesses.”
As the second Trump administration hit its 100-day mark on Tuesday, Downing said he thinks the current administration is “going great.”
There are incredible stories in every new class of congressional lawmakers. Americans from all walks of life are elected to our Republic’s great legislature, including, but not limited to, veterans, astute businessmen, and sons and daughters of single moms and dads.
These stories carry with them a breadth of professional and life experience — and freshman Rep. Troy Downing’s (R., Mont.) own tale carries a torch as grand as the American Dream.
Downing joined Congress in 2025 after leading a life that embodies the hope of success and prosperity that America brings. The product of an “unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage mom,” Downing began his career as a research scientist and teacher at New York University’s Institute of Mathematical Sciences as well as the computer science department.
“And I left there to do a startup in the 90s that I successfully merged with a nascent Yahoo, Inc.,” Downing said. “So that was a life changer in the first dot-com boom.”
“And I did a bunch of tech venture after that, basically angel financing other tech companies, and did a lot of those,” Downing continued.
The Montana Republican told the Washington Reporter that the September 11th attacks were “a moment of truth” and “introspection” for him, and the attacks spurred him to join the Air Force in a combat search and rescue squadron at 34 years old.
“Did about eight years, mostly Air National Guard in a combat search and rescue squadron. And during that time I started building other businesses,” Downing said. “I mean, God bless America.”
“I had a broker-dealer and investment banking group, did medical device companies and commercial real estate, and started developing that around the country. And then built an insurance company around the real estate business,” he continued.
Downing’s first role in government came after now-former Rep. Matt Rosendale (R., Mont.), left his position as Montana’s State Auditor to join the House. Downing took over the role after realizing his experience in securities and insurance would make him a stellar fit for the position.
“It’s a misnamed office,” Downing joked, noting that his role as Montana’s Auditor carried with it three jobs, “but none of them are auditing.” Downing’s experience in the role included regulating the insurance and securities industries as well as acting as land commissioner in Montana.
“And so now I’m a lawmaker,” Downing continued. “So hold my beer.”
Downing, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, told the Reporter he is working on “a lot of things” in his new role in Congress. One of the big pushes he is making is to cut the federal red tape to “make it easier for community banks to lend to community businesses.”
“A lot of the stuff I’m trying to do, both on [the House] Small Business and on [the House] Financial Services [Committees] is to remove some of that regulation that slows down the flow of capital and make it less daunting for somebody to get a small business loan to have access to capital from a lender,” he said.
“Because, at the end of the day, the more you can do with debt and the less you have to do with equity, the better off you’re going to be as a company,” Downing added.
When it came to America’s energy dominance, Downing — whose state contains the largest coal deposit in the nation — said one of “the biggest limiting factors there is, is the time it takes to permit.”
“I think we need to bring [Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)] regulations to a point that’s reasonable,” Downing said. “We all want clean air, clean water, green horizons, but we have to be reasonable about whether that is making it either economically infeasible or impossible to run traditional fossil fuel energy.”
Downing said his relationships with key Cabinet members as well as an “open dialogue” with the EPA and Trump administration is an effective avenue to achieving American energy dominance once again. The Montana Republican told the Reporter that he met with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum earlier this week and that he is friends with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, whom he has known for over twenty years.
The Montana Republican is also a co-sponsor of the STABLE Act, a bill that would regulate payment stablecoins and unleash America’s crypto dominance. The bill passed out of the House Financial Services Committee a few weeks ago, and Downing is “really excited” about the bill’s movement.
“And it’s dollar-backed, which I think is great because as this gets adopted around the world, the reserve currency is the dollar, and I think one of the biggest threats we have out there is if the rest of the world stops using the dollar as their reserve currency.”
“I think that’s something that takes that American Dream right out of everybody’s hands, and that’ll be a multi-generational fix,” he added.
And, as the second Trump administration hit its 100-day mark on Tuesday, Downing said he thinks the current administration is “going great.”
“I think this nation was at the precipice and we needed bold, quick action,” Downing said. “And what the president has done in his first 100 days I think is just phenomenal.”
“Even the investment that he has sparked in the U.S., obviously there’s been press around trade policy and tariffs and everything, but I look at the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been reinvested in the United States,” he continued.
“I think that one of the biggest concerns that I had in my district and that I have personally was that invasion of the southern border,” Downing said. “And Trump has brought that to a drip.”
“And it was basically Niagara Falls in the Biden administration,” he added.