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Republican Congressman On Retiring Early: All I Do Is Answer Questions About Trump

“No matter what I say or do, I feel all I do is answer questions about Donald Trump rather than health insurance or tax policy.”
Jenna Amatulli
By 

Reporter, HuffPost

Tom Williams via Getty Images

Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) isn’t running for Congress again next year because he’s fed up ... particularly with talking about Trump.

“No matter what I say or do, I feel all I do is answer questions about Donald Trump rather than health insurance or tax policy,” said Costello in a report by CNN that interviewed three of the many Republicans leaving the House at the end of this year.

Costello revealed that he’s not seeking re-election because it’s been extremely trying to juggle work and family while working in a state that’s been rapidly shifting its dominant political party.

On the current state of Congress, the 41-year-old said, “I feel, increasingly, that if you’re a member of Congress, they assume that you’re not good. They assume that you’re not telling the truth. No matter what you do, someone’s out there locked and loaded to say something disparaging, false, mean, in an attempt to have other people not like you.”

The congressman elaborated by saying that since the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court redrew the district, it’s far more Democratic-leaning. For him to not run again was a no-brainer.

“I have an 8-month-old. I have a 4-year-old. I just lost half my congressional district. The state Supreme Court decided that they were going to try and take me out,” he told the publication.

But despite everything he’ll miss, including the “occasional pinch-me moment” (“That is something that I’ll certainly miss”), working in the Trump administration has proved too much of a challenge.

“I think it’s a very challenging political environment, and when you add on top of that just the demands from a work-family balance, I just felt it was best for me to take stock in my life and have eight months to decide what I’m going to do next rather than, potentially, six weeks.”

Before You Go

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