From: Lee Shipman
Columbus
If you haven’t had the chance to watch Brad Davis’s interview with our senior Sen. Todd Young, I highly recommend it. Davis conducted an excellent interview, but more importantly, the discussion sheds light on the increasingly performative nature of Sen. Young.
The video covers several topics, and while I believe Brad did a commendable job. I would have liked to see him ask the senator about his thoughts on the pardoning of J6 convicted violent protesters or whether the senator recognizes that more people voted for someone not named Donald Trump than voted for him in 2016, 2020, and yes, 2024. I asked his interns these questions along with many others during two of my over 60 calls to him since Jan. 20, and I have yet to receive an answer.
Regarding the discussion of tariffs, I would have liked to hear Sen. Young directly respond to the question: “Do you think the U.S. is in the midst of an economic emergency?”
When the topic shifted to redistricting, Young claimed that he almost never avoids tough issues, yet he failed to directly answer a redistricting question and sidestepped the topic. Instead of providing the senator’s perspective, he defaulted to discussing the views of others.
What disturbed me most was Young’s desire to present himself as tough and independent. He suggested that the president’s success would be achieved through the senator’s lens.
Young labeled himself as an independent conservative, yet his voting record raises serious questions. How can he justify supporting unqualified individuals like Hegseth, Gabbard, Bove, and Patel, whose confirmation could have been prevented by his votes as independent?
With respect to his claims of independence, I can only identify senators Collins and Murkowski as consistently independent, with senators McConnell, Paul, and Tillis occasionally stepping up.
He calls himself a conservative but voted for a bill that added over $3 trillion to the national debt while simultaneously raising the debt limit by $5 trillion dollars. That hardly aligns with conservative principles.
Young appeared more independent before Jan. 20. However his recent voting record and silence on many of the president’s actions strongly contradict that claim. Young might as well have displayed the Gulf of America hat that Indiana’s junior Sen. Jim Banks so proudly displayed.
