Jim Jordan pitches Trump as 2024 candidate at Mariannette Miller-Meeks rally

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio was not shy about who he is supporting as the 2024 Republican candidate to take on President Joe Biden as he spoke at a fundraiser in University Heights Saturday for one of his congressional colleagues.

Jordan, while stumping for second-term Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks at the Courtyard Marriott sixth-floor ballroom overlooking Kinnick Stadium, told a crowd that while he knows people may be supporting different Republicans in 2024, he wanted to thank them for supporting former President Donald Trump in the past. He said he thinks Trump did more as president than any other president in his lifetime.

"(Trump) did more of what he said he would do than any other president I've ever seen and he did it with everyone against him," Jordan said.

Jordan's visit comes just after former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced she would run for the Republican nomination for president against Trump and will soon visit Iowa to campaign. Several other potential candidates like former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Senator Tim Scott are hinting at runs while crisscrossing the state as the 2024 cycle begins in Iowa.

Miller-Meeks said she's asked Jordan herself whether he has presidential ambitions and he said he is not interested in running for president at this time, but didn't rule out him doing so in the future. While Jordan and Miller-Meeks did field questions from the audience, Jordan did not stick around to elaborate on some of his statements.

"(Jordan has) a lane that he really likes right now and he's chairman of the (House Judiciary Committee) and on the Oversight Committee. It's very important to him and it's what he likes to do" she said.

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Miller-Meeks said she is not ready to endorse a candidate at this point in time but will be appearing at future events for candidates who come to Iowa, as she has already done several times. Miller-Meeks has campaigned alongside Haley in Davenport and Cedar Rapids and also invited U.S. Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Tom Cotton of Arkansas to her annual tailgate fundraiser in Johnson County.

"First-in-the-nation caucus is something that we consider to be very valuable. Iowa does a great job of vetting candidates, letting candidates from any walk of life and regardless of how much money they have in the bank to be able to come up," she said.

Jordan, widely considered one of the most conservative members of Congress, is a close ally of Trump and is among the members of Congress facing scrutiny because of the Jan. 6 insurrection. He touted Trump's response to the investigations he faces, including new ones both Trump and Biden face due to classified documents recovered at their private residences.

Jordan told an anecdote about how he called Trump after his home, Mar-a-Lago, was raided by the FBI as the agency sought to recover more than 100 classified documents the former president refused to turn over. He said Trump answered the phone and said, "Jim, this is the best thing that has ever happened," because he viewed the raid as a political win.

"I like his toughness. (Trump) is so American. He hates losing," Jordan said.

Jordan went on the attack against "the Left," Democrats in Congress and Biden, and made a number of claims about them wanting to attack and curb the freedoms of U.S. citizens. He and Miller-Meeks spoke about pursuing more oversight over the FBI and other federal agencies now that Republicans control Congress.

"Today's Left is so darn mean. You gotta have someone with (Trump's) attitude... in this crazy business that we're in," he said.

Jordan and Miller-Meeks are now members of a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and both hold influential committee positions. Miller-Meeks got her top choice to sit on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and sits on the influential House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which the Republicans are using to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Miller-Meeks bested her historically close 2020 victory of six votes in 2022, winning by more than 6% against Iowa City Democrat Christina Bohannan. Jordan japed at Miller-Meeks, calling her "landslide," a nickname given to her by congressional colleagues because of that six-vote victory and suggested she will double that margin in 2024 if she runs for reelection.

The two also spoke on current events like the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States and the train derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, and criticized the Biden Administration's response to both. Miller-Meeks misspoke three times during the afternoon and said that the derailment happened in Pennsylvania, but Jordan did not correct her.

Miller-Meeks acknowledged to the Press-Citizen that the derailment was in Ohio and acknowledged the concerns that people have about the chemicals released into the air by the explosion and that went into rivers. She said officials should consider doing long-term medical screenings for residents and think about testing the riverbed of the Ohio River to make sure it is safe.

"(The pollutants) will dilute over time but I think it was a big enough incident that I think the secretary of transportation or a higher level official, not just the EPA, should have been there as well," she said.

When asked by an audience member for an update about the derailment, Jordan said he spoke with U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson who represents the district where the derailment happened and said Johnson is "staying on top of it" and people will have to wait and see for more information.

On Wednesday, Miller-Meeks' district representative Rachael Anderson appeared before the Johnson County Board of Supervisors at a work session to give an update to the board. Anderson asked the board to reach out with concerns or anything happening in the county that they wish to share with the congresswoman and told the board that the congresswoman will be opening a second office in Indianola in addition to her office in Davenport.

Supervisor Rod Sullivan asked Anderson to get Miller-Meeks to consider opening another office in Johnson County and said he was disappointed she chose not to in her first term and now. In his pitch, Sullivan pointed out that it is the second most populous county in the 1st Congressional District and the amount of constituent services located in Johnson County like the VA Hospital and the University of Iowa that her office could help people get connected to.

This fundraiser is the second Miller-Meeks has held in the Iowa City area in six months. Both were closed to the public but offered entry to people with paid tickets, this one being $75.

Sullivan also pointed out that her predecessors since the 1950s have chosen to locate an office here, including two Republicans and two Democrats.

"I hope you will take this message back to the boss," Sullivan said.

The amount of district offices vary from representative to representative. While Jordan has two offices in his own district in Northeast Ohio, both Iowa U.S. reps. Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra have three district offices.

Miller-Meeks on Saturday pointed out that the 21-county district in southeast is very large and having two office, one on each side of the district, allows her team to have flexibility while staying in the budget she has as a congresswoman to have district offices. She said she wants to look at holding more mobile office hours by sending her staff to other areas of the district where an office isn't located.

"It really depends on what happens with our budget and our funding mechanisms that all comes out of our congressional budget and then what makes sense to be able to serve the people of our district," she said.

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George Shillcock is the Press-Citizen's local government and development reporter covering Iowa City and Johnson County. He can be reached at (319) 214-5039, GShillcock@press-citizen.com and on Twitter @ShillcockGeorge

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Jim Jordan fundraises with Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa City