Former Pennsylvania congressman seeks to steer GOP away from MAGA

Originally published on WHTM ABC27

Some people have called the Republican Party the Donald Trump Party, but a former Pennsylvania congressman wants to change that.

Charlie Dent, who represented PA’s 15th Congressional District for 13 years, insists the Grand Old Party has lost its grandeur and its way.

Now, he wants to make the Republican Party great again “to provide an alternative to a lot of dispirited Republicans who wanted something better than we have currently.”

Dent serves as the national chair for Our Republican Legacy, an initiative launched by former lawmakers to counter the party’s current populist agenda. He said he hopes to steer the GOP away from MAGA back to core principles like the Constitution and rule of law.

“We think what happened on January 6 was a disgrace and abomination,” Dent said.

Also disgraceful, in Dent’s view, are President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the silence from his former congressional GOP colleagues.

“These are taxes,” Dent said. “This is a massive tax increase that’s being proposed by a Republican president right now, and there are a lot of Republicans in Congress who are very uncomfortable with this. Now, many of them haven’t found their voice on this. Some have but many have not, but they know this is bad for the economy.”

He added, “Ronald Reagan, I mean, I’m sure is turning in his grave over these ideas of putting tariffs on virtually everything.”