WASHINGTON — The headlines kept rolling in for Guy Reschenthaler: a Breitbart News Network exclusive; spots at 6 a.m. and 5:40 p.m. on Fox Business; two segments on Newsmax TV’s “National Report”; a Zoom-facilitated interview with Rose Tennent, a conservative political commentator who regularly hosts top Trump surrogates and Cabinet officials.
The first-term Republican congressman from Peters blasted out the sound bites and quotes — all from the last week or so — on Twitter and shared the full interviews shared on his YouTube channel.
It is rare to see any member of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation, let alone a freshman lawmaker, so regularly and prominently featured in national media networks. Yet Mr. Reschenthaler’s recent surge in guest spots on conservative media networks comes as Republicans seek to align behind President Donald Trump as he ramps up his re-election campaign amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has roiled the country.
Lately, that has meant moving in lockstep with the White House as the Trump administration accuses China of downplaying and mishandling the COVID-19 outbreak — and blames the World Health Organization for covering up Chinese misdeeds.
Mr. Reschenthaler’s media blitz gained some broader clarity on Thursday, when he was among 15 House Republicans named to the China Task Force.
The House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced the panel would investigate “a wide range of China-related issues,” including operations to influence U.S. universities, think tanks and media outlets, and threaten the U.S. economy.
“We have learned more about COVID, and one thing has become very clear: China's cover-up directly led to this crisis," Mr. McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol. “The Communist Party of China hid the seriousness of this disease, led a propaganda campaign blaming the U.S., used their supplies to exert influence and continue to refuse international experts to investigate what happened.”
The task force included another first-term Pennsylvania congressman: Rep. John Joyce, R-Blair. Mr. Joyce, a medical doctor and member of the the House Committee on Homeland Security, was nominated for his “deep knowledge of our medical system” and the U.S. dependency on China for medical equipment, Mr. McCarthy said in a press release.
Mr. Reschenthaler almost certainly got a heads up on the panel. He holds the freshman seat on the Elected Leadership Committee of the House Republican Conference, where he represents 43 other Republican newcomers in weekly strategy meetings with the party’s most senior lawmakers, including Mr. McCarthy.
Mr. Reschenthaler’s star rose during Mr. Trump’s impeachment inquiry last fall, jumping on TV and radio interviews to defend the president and once showing up at the House Republicans’ weekly press conference.
Last month, Mr. Reschenthaler was the one who signaled the GOP’s coming focus on China. He sponsored a resolution to withhold U.S. funding to the WHO until an international commission investigated the global health body — hours later, Mr. Trump announced at the White House he would do just that.
In an interview with the Post-Gazette last week, Mr. Reschenthaler said China “lied about the virus” and that the WHO leader needed to resign.
“That needs to be examined,” he said. “We need to look at how China is manipulating the World Health Organization.”
In response to follow-up questions, Mr. Reschenthaler denied that the inspiration to take on the WHO and China came from anywhere other than his deep desire to push back on what he sees as Chinese Communist Party’s influence on global institutions. “I present my own views and opinions in interviews,” he said.
From his dining room, he sets up an iPad using a $38 tripod he bought on Amazon. He usually stands in front of a world map that he uses to track everywhere he has traveled, complete with a Winston Churchill quote in the bottom-left: “As long as you are generous and true and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world.”
The congressman then opined on a wide range of topics.
He called out Democrats for their defense of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is facing sexual assault allegations.
He said the FBI had politically targeted Gen. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser who was charged with lying to investigators. (The Justice Department dropped charges Thursday.)
He called on the House Intelligence Committee to release transcripts related to Mr. Trump’s impeachment inquiry.
He hit on some pandemic-related concerns as well, criticizing Gov. Tom Wolf for his handling of the crisis. “Gov. Wolf used a plan that fit best for Philadelphia across the entire state,” he wrote, tweeting out a Newsmax TV appearance on May 1.
But he kept coming back to China.
"The bottom line of the Democrats’ behavior is this: They hate this president so badly that they would rather side with the Chinese Communist Party than defend Americans,” he told Breitbart News, earning him an “exclusive” headline.
Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, Twitter @PGdanielmoore
First Published: May 7, 2020, 11:30 p.m.
