Like many GOP influencers, Republican political operative James Braid, now serving as President Donald Trump‘s Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, didn’t always speak pure MAGA.
The current “congress whisperer” — charged essentially with communicating Trump’s agenda to legislators so they can enact it — previously served in senior positions on the staffs of former Colorado Congressman Ken Buck and, when he was in Congress, former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.
[More traditional conservative types, Buck resigned from congress last year, saying life in the new MAGA-dominated Republican House contained too much “arguing about nothing and telling lies.” And Sanford’s 2021 book featured text like “I am an unabashed conservative in the Jeffersonian sense and right now, if you believe in those ideals, you certainly don’t find it in the Republican party.”]
Trump picked James Braid, who was an instructor in the Project 2025 training video on “Congressional Relations,” to serve as White House Director of Legislative Affairs.
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 18, 2024
Trump claims he knows nothing about Project 2025 and it does not represent his policy views. pic.twitter.com/Qs3yTrefwp
But Braid’s most recent job in Congress was as Deputy Chief of Staff for Sen. JD Vance, the Ohio legislator who is now Vice President, and Braid has — like Vance, who criticized Trump viciously early on — made a full MAGA turn and embraced the movement.
A recent profile in the independent journalism outlet NOTUS described the “hulking” Braid, who stands 6’6″, as being assigned “to deliver results where Trump largely failed during his first term.”
(The Trump White House zoomed through four legislative affairs directors in his first term, a legacy of the alleged “adults in the room” approach that purportedly saw numerous first-term Trump team members work to contain, rather than enable, the president — as his new team sees it.)
As we reported a while back, James braid will be trumps top hill liaison. pic.twitter.com/Ta4EhPdLjP
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 25, 2024
Braid has the job this time around in part because, like his former boss Vance, he is about removing friction, not providing it, when it comes to making Trump’s agenda the new law of the land.
Braid was explicit about his mission in a NOTUS interview, saying “I view my fundamental mandate from the president as translating his ideology and his views into legislation. So, there’s no desire to contain him.“
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