Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, during a Wednesday appearance on
Newsmax's
"On the Record With Greta Van Susteren," urged Republican leaders to keep advancing legislation through November's midterm elections, warning that inaction could fuel voter frustration.
"My encouragement to Speaker [Mike] Johnson and Leader [John] Thune would be continue to legislate, continue to show what you're doing for the American people," Meadows said, pushing back on the conventional wisdom that the party in power is destined to lose seats.
While "there's a broad dissatisfaction with Washington, D.C." and a tendency in nonpresidential years "to just throw the bums out," he argued "it's not a foregone conclusion."
Meadows said policy momentum, particularly on taxes and cost-of-living issues, could blunt midterm losses.
"There's stuff that we can still do to reduce the burden on seniors," he said, calling for efforts such as lowering capital gains taxes on home sales and ending taxes on Social Security benefits.
He also took aim at the complexity of the federal tax code, which Van Susteren noted spans roughly "70,000 pages."
"We can do so much better," Meadows said, arguing that special interests on "K Street on the left" and "on the right" have helped create carveouts that benefit corporations.
"The American people on Main Street are tired of big corporations winning," he said.
Simplification, he argued, would reduce confusion and improve compliance.
"Even your paid professionals are scratching their head," he said, adding that a streamlined system could "get more money into the Treasury" while letting taxpayers "file on a postcard" and avoid dreading April 15.
Meadows also linked voter frustration over issues like tax complexity and lobbying influence to broader midterm dynamics.
"We've been talking about a simplified tax code for decades, and yet it's not done," he said. "The American people pull their hair out. Why is it so hard? And it shouldn't be."
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