JUST IN: Victoria Spartz Gives Blunt Take On Republican Wipeout In The Midterm Elections

0:03Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me once again is Congresswoman Victoria Spartz. Congresswoman, thanks so much for coming back on.

0:12Victoria Spartz: Well, thank you, Brittany, for having me back on. I am interested in this conversation because we are just about a week and a half away from the midterms and Republicans suffer defeats down the ballot across the country in last week's election. The results have been characterized as not only a blue tsunami, but a referendum on President Trump and Republican lawmakers who supported him. I want to talk specifically about your race, because in 2024, President Trump won your district by 17 points. You won by over 18 points. But last week, your Democratic opponent defeated you by over three points.

0:45It's been over a week, like I said, since Election Day. So to start off the conversation, what are your thoughts on the race?

0:51Victoria Spartz: Well, listen, I think, you know, it's a combination of things. And you cannot really compare midterm election to presidential cycle. But I think what the combinations of things is several things, you know. First of all, definitely, you know, Democrats have very well organized machine that Obama created. And now since 2008, where they have data, they have, you know, strategy, they have communication machine with a lot of control of media and they be able to target specifically voters. I think that is, you know, big advantage and Republicans do not have that machine. You know, they also, you know, there are plenty of people that very, you know, deranged with the president.

1:32Victoria Spartz: You know, unfortunately, media also doesn't help with that. And they blame him for a lot of things. But, you know, there are a lot of things, you know, we need to blame Congress. And that's some of the things is actually unfair to president. But it is what it is. They have an ability to get out these voters, you know, and also they'd be able to have much more money. You know, we've been out spending millions of dollars. several super PACs were helping, you know, spreading lies and you can fabricate and say whatever you want anymore. And when you've been outspent like that in a tough environment, and you know, they were able to get out, you know, they were able to move some swing voters, but in reality, they were able to get out more 2024 voters than we did.

2:17Victoria Spartz: So we still did more, had more voters than in 22, you know, but just the way that we didn't have enough money, enough time, enough resources to get out the vote but I think the biggest thing is really Republicans didn't deliver on promises and I think a lot of people who upset because we have control of you know House Senate and they felt that Republicans should have delivered and as you know I fought a lot on this issues but you know people who upset and you know we have too much money in the sea that you know that prevented us from the I'll be honest with you prevented us from doing the right thing, you know, and that's a combination of that.

2:58Victoria Spartz: But I think if we would have delivered some big policies, we could have overcome that. So that's why, you know, it's going to be a big fight now. Republicans did spend hundreds of millions of dollars in races across the country, too. But I do want to talk about where you think Republicans in Congress specifically could have done better, because I've had conversations in 2024, and a lot of them were the same as the conversations I had in 2026. The parties just flipped, right? Because Democrats in 2024 were saying the economy's not that bad. I know people are feeling the squeeze, but really the numbers are good.

3:31The economy's not that bad. And they weren't really hearing, it seemed like voters' real concerns about affordability. Now it seemed like running up to the election that that messaging has flipped and Democrats did a better job, I mean, according to the election results on running on affordability. Where do you think Republicans could have done more when it comes to addressing high prices and affordability in the last two years?

3:56Victoria Spartz: You're probably not right. Different races are different, but my particular world has been significantly with three or four super PACs fighting. Unfortunately, if you're a little lobby for the people, you don't have super PACs coming and trying to spend money to help you. So that matters because you can spend a lot of money with lies and by elections. And that's really was a big part of it. But I agree with you. You know, there is a big policies that Republicans should have delivered. Look at health care. You know, we have health care is getting less and less affordable. A lot of Americans cannot afford it.

4:28Victoria Spartz: And we try to move the needle. I fought on this issues a lot. Honestly, this is the biggest issues that we're facing in the country fixing health care. I personally challenged my party, but there is so much money that insurance, PBM, pharma, hospitals are buying in DC, spending in DC pretty much, you know, putting in super PACs and PACs to buy the votes that is almost become impossible to move. And people are fed up. Look at our energy policy. Our energy policy is schizophrenic. You know, we now have huge prices. We destroyed domestic production, domestic refineries. Everyone will be, sounds like flying on the broomsticks, you know, and now, you know, we have on top of Iran war that doesn't help but when you have crises like that you know then no domestic production that drives the prices and fuel prices it drive oil prices you know we over regulated real estate markets now we don't have affordable housing so there are a lot of things that democrats you know you know legislated and put it in the code and unfortunately republicans didn't and you know presidents tried to do a lot of the things including like healthcare price transparency through executive orders but we couldn't pass it we still it's everything or most of the stuff is still stuck in the senate so most of the things were not legislated and executive orders on the last one presidency you know that's not a way to govern so i will blame congress and republican congress for being afraid to challenge the money machine and not be able to legislate on big issues and honestly with all of the challenges that we had in the house we were able to move a lot of legislation and the Senate did nothing with most of it or took out some good provisions, some of them bipartisan provisions that we did in the Farm Bill that would help small farmers, will help consumers reduce cost of food and they took it out.

6:19Victoria Spartz: So I think we need to start thinking and now they lost the Senate and have a very radical group of people. They didn't run on policies, you know, as Democrats. They were just being effective to use weaknesses of Republicans, but we gave them opportunities because we didn't deliver some big issues. I was looking at the last time you and I spoke, which was the summer of 2025, and a lot of our conversation revolved around health care. And obviously that's not an issue that has been fixed since it was a top concern for voters last week and beyond. And a lot of voters blame Republicans for high health care costs because this year, millions of Americans are paying hundreds of dollars more for health insurance than they were last year.

7:05There doesn't seem to be much relief in sight. Those premiums are set to even be higher in 2027. And, you know, you have been criticized for not voting to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies that expired last year. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act left millions or it's estimated that millions of Americans would be uninsured because of that. I'm curious, do you wish you made any other moves when it came to health care? I mean, how are you looking at your health care report card now?

7:36Victoria Spartz: Well, listen, we did as much as we could. I wish we'd done more. We have a lot of fraud and Medicare advantage, you know, but unfortunately, when you start moving that stuff on one party basis, and if we put the word Medicare in the code, this cartels turn around, which gave a lot of money to Democrats, you know, and then they put money in super PACs and start telling lies let's talk about Medicaid what's really happened we try to strengthen Medicaid for most vulnerable from people with disability what are this insurance and hospitals are doing and PBMs their money laundering of it they're using state directed payments they're triple billing they're billing Medicaid three times more Medicare private insurance rates and cutting benefits to the recipients of Medicaid.

8:25Victoria Spartz: How in the world would some entity would be complaining about limited taxes on them? We can't provide a tax. It seems like everyone would like to limit taxes on them, so that seems hypocritical unless it's a scam, which actually Biden used to say it's a scam, to money launder the federal government. So they're taking trillions of dollars from us, from federal government, from taxpayers, and cutting benefits for the people. So what we've done, we've tried to stop it, because when they have so much money, then they buy by more physicians, more independent practices. And under Obamacare, physicians cannot even own hospitals, but now majority physicians are owned by, actually not even hospitals, by insurance companies.

9:10Victoria Spartz: They're a consolidated entity that overbilling people. And if you know our healthcare price transparency bill, Democrats unanimously blocked any insurance transparency in committee. And we're still fighting about that. And insurance companies give a ton of money to Democrat leadership because they wanted half a trillion more from taxpayers where they keep increasing premiums. Look at their profits. Most of this company is 75 % to 100 % funded by federal government. They're not private entities. Look what they're paying CEOs. look at their books and they wanted to money launder federal government more so I think that is criminal what's happening there so I wish we would have done more we've done at least something on Medicaid but it definitely wasn't enough because we didn't have courage and it's not a president's fault to tell you the truth that was the totally standards fault you know in house too because we didn't have a courage to challenge the money machine the president was willing to do it he pushed back on a lot of healthcare issues through his executive orders.

10:16Victoria Spartz: But we couldn't codify it because there are a lot of this K Street lobby sitting in committees, running around, give everyone money in PACs and super PACs. And they bought so many legislators on the both side that we cannot move it and people are struggling. So to give them more money that they can put more in super PACs coming after everyone who's going to challenge them, that is criminal, I think. So I try to do my best. I'm just one. sometimes I feel like like one woman standing but I will be stand and do the right thing and I hope we still maybe can accomplish on the health care price transparency something before the end of the year but we'll see you know I just still hope but that is going to be big issue we'll have to fix and if you see what Democrats are doing they have now Medicare for all universal health care it's a full government they call of health care and it's not gonna be pretty I think if I'm one of your constituents listening to this right now maybe I would think, listen, you know, everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike that I've talked to have said there is fraud when it comes to Medicaid.

11:19That has been agreed upon. I mean, how much really depends, I guess, on what party you're in. I can see super PACs maybe perhaps having, you know, putting money where their interests best line. However, comma, I do think that how is that making my health care unaffordable? I mean, it seems like a lot of people in this country are one health crisis away from being completely bankrupt, from being in complete financial ruin, and even just premiums going up every month and month and month. I mean, how much can you blame that on super PACs? Republicans for two years had control of the White House, House and Senate.

11:54Why was it more done?

11:57Victoria Spartz: Well, I 100 % agree with you. I feel the same way. You know, as the challenges that super PACs and money control corrupt politicians that have right to challenge them, Let's just be honest. You know, they're afraid so much of money. We have too many people who are elected. People don't realize that want to be either there forever and they're afraid to lose election, to do the right thing, or have big ambitions, you know, that they want to do it. Or some people just checked out. It's a combination. So there are very only few people that are willing to fight the real fight, you know. And unfortunately, it's not enough.

12:31Victoria Spartz: So I am not just saying that our party any better than the other party. I think both parties are guilty that destroying the whole system. And now we create oligopolis, subsidized government-protected oligopolis that controls so much of market that they all can extort more and more money from politicians, from taxpayers, and from consumers. So now we create this terrible system that they are profiteering using our budget that completely uncontroll, trillions of debt, and majority of the driven by health care and they put so much money now we gave them so they're able to buy elections with our money that is a very dangerous situation what we created they bought almost every law firm on on their own retainer for them in washington dc you know they bought committee people sitting from k streets in lobbies on the committees so i think people don't realize the magnitude of this problem and how money was given to them so of course if you have several entities controlling 80 % of the market they are going to charge whatever they want and extort more and more and they demand more and more and and threaten everyone you know to be able to tell a lot of lies and they bind a lot of free advertising through newspapers and radio advertising through going to do in all of these different events to create like so-called goodwill and try to put pressure on anyone who's going to challenge them so I think this is a huge issues and we need to have a better people who are willing to say enough is enough and not to worry about election but worry about the people and doing the right thing and right now we have less and less people like that so that's why if something's not going to change soon we will have a full government takeover of healthcare because I completely agree with you people are frustrated and tired that's why I challenge my party that's why I did some things where I would go against the rules try to push my party because I feel responsibility for it.

14:32Victoria Spartz: I know that if my party doesn't deliver, then we have a radical group of people that can succeed. Who are those lawmakers specifically that you're saying? Do you want to name names? I mean, who do you think is being bought and paid for by, I mean, these insurance companies? Well, you should look, you know, you should look at their reports. You know, I think, you know, there are people in the Democrat leadership. Look at the PACs who's getting a lot of money. You know, it's harder to research super PACs, but I think we need to actually, I'm working on some legislation to see how large a donation to super PACs should be better disclosed and how much money this entity is getting from government.

15:14Victoria Spartz: I think it's fair. You know, if you are going to be taking money from government and then turn around, put them in super PACs against anyone who's going to challenge that, I think it's fair to know who these people are, because right now the whole disclosure process is very not transparent. So I think it's important for us to look and you can do all of this risk per surge, but you know that a lot of people on both sides getting a lot of money from insurance executives, from insurance companies, from PBMs, hospitals, pharma. You can look at their disclosures and see how much money everyone is getting, and some of the super PAC people don't even realize who creates them, but it's across the board.

15:59Victoria Spartz: It's not just one party, it's both parties just right now destroying the country. So I'm not going to try to call out individuals because it's very pervasive, let's say that. Very few people that honestly, that are not afraid, and a lot of the people who were not afraid of challenging them actually were taken out of Congress. So we're having less and less true fighters left in Congress. One thing that both parties can agree on is that health care costs are too high. Prices are too high in general. Obviously, the solutions to fix them, that's where there are differences amongst the parties. But you have a few weeks left in Congress.

16:37What specifically are you trying to do next? What are some of your priorities here to address these issues in your remaining weeks?

16:45Victoria Spartz: Well, listen, and I appreciate that you're one of the few people who care about healthcare because it's the biggest issue. And I always say you pick your hills to die and we need to take them. So it's about winning the war. And sometimes you have to regroup and win the war. It's definitely a big battle that we're fighting and we'll do whatever it takes. And listen, it gives me more time to regroup. But I try to at least put something that we work a lot on is healthcare price transparency to codify price transparency executive order, you know, that President Don, you know, and put it in the law.

17:19Victoria Spartz: Because I think if people will truly see what they get in charge, you know, if people will really realize what a money laundering is happening in each level and what's happening, I think, you know, that we will have more political will and pressure for my colleagues to do something about it. You know, so that is something that right now we have it in went through committee in the Senate and the House. Unfortunately, we never put it on the floor. And because right now, Democrats are not wanting to give insurance price transparency for employers. And we have to have the transparency. We cannot get insurance companies off the hook.

17:59Victoria Spartz: well they're claiming privacy I'm like what kind of privacy if you and me have a contract and I don't even know what you're gonna charge me hundred dollars for that cup of coffee hundred thousand maybe a million dollars I think it's egregious people will be outraged if they see what they get in charge I give you a small example you know I was talking to one of the drug producers generic drugs he sell it at two hundred dollars you know and making a lot of money and he said do you know how much Medicare pay for that drug I'm like I I don't know, maybe like$1 ,000, he's like$8 ,000. For the$200 drug, that only gets, they get charged$8 ,000, and he's making good money.

18:38Victoria Spartz: We tried to actually pass legislation, that's one thing I fought a lot too, to have this PBM transparency, at least for Medicare and billing transparency. But unfortunately, I was able only to negotiate it to be implemented in 28. I tried to push the Senate to have immediate implementation. They push it to 28. So I think they will be hoping that they can take it out. So we need to pay close attention, make sure that it stays in that code because they didn't want to help President Trump to enforce it, that truly will enforce it. So I think all shenanigans are terrible in that, but at least I'm trying to see if we can get this price here, transparency for healthcare, because it will be a huge step.

19:21Victoria Spartz: because I completely agree if we don't fix and truly help you know to fix programs to make them better like Medicare and Medicaid and then in competitive innovative market for competition for value make American healthy and cheaper we can have so much innovation we can have really amazing healthcare if we stop this I call them cartels healthcare cartels logging their profits and destroying us fiscally you know so I think that will be a huge step. I'll do my best to try to push these issues. I hope we can find enough of Democrats that are not completely right now bought by insurance companies and actually be able to do it on a bipartisan basis.

20:03Victoria Spartz: We'll see. But that is probably the only thing I think it's feasible maybe to accomplish this Congress. I mean, I hope something gets done with healthcare. I think that's a hope for everyone in this country because, I mean, you've heard stories from across the country, Democrats and Republicans alike, a lot of times have to make some really hard decisions when it comes to health care costs, what they can afford, what they need to roll back on. And I mean, that's not good for anyone, right? When you have to make those tough decisions that shouldn't, that it shouldn't be a decision in the first place.

20:35But I do want to zoom out here for my last question. And I want to ask about the future of the Republican Party and perhaps your future when it comes to politics? Because I know you said something to the effect of, you know, you might not win every battle, but you want to win the war. What do you think the future of your Republican Party is? What do you think the future of perhaps MAGA and President Trump's legacy is all wrapped up in one?

20:57Victoria Spartz: Well, I think, you know, I hope this is, you know, this election is going to be a really big part of my party, you know, and I'm glad it didn't happen in 28 so we have time to regroup or think about it because if we let very radical people group of people control presidency the house and the senate we will never recognize this country it really breaks my heart as someone who grew up in socialism and communists where we're moving our country and how many people sacrifice to have freedoms so i think it is going to be a big fight And we need to make sure that we have the right people, you know, running for offices in my party that are not afraid to lose elections to do the right thing for the people.

21:40Victoria Spartz: Because if we don't deliver, you know, the other side will be able to sell propaganda and people will be frustrated enough where they start voting for them. So I think it's going to be a big battle for my party. And we need to engage in good policy solutions and need to not just do the talk, but do something like Newt Gingrich did. Commitment to America to actually put it on paper and say this is a policy that we want to deliver and have prosperity for young people to be able to pursue American dream. For us to be able to have free enterprise where innovation and small businesses, entrepreneurs can strive.

22:17Victoria Spartz: life, where we can have secure borders, where we can have a strong criminal justice system that we don't have criminals running on the street, have good education for our children and have to be able to people to move up and really have an ability to pursue happiness in whichever way they want and protect our constitutional right. Because fundamentally we have a great things and fundamental in my party that ends on the right side of history for freedoms. But we need to help people who are not afraid to fight for the people and deliver and engage in a smart way to make sure that American people can regain trust in our party.

22:54Victoria Spartz: So I think it's a big task and I'll do my part. I'll work, you know, on make sure that my state, my state, you know, lost, we lost a lot of races. I put down the ticket. We lost two statewide races. We lost supermajority. You know, we really have big problems in my own state. So I need to make sure that I can deliver in Indiana. I'll do my part to make sure that nationally, you know, we can actually win on policy, on solutions. And people are going to not just, you know, talk is cheap, but people can try that we're going to do it. But we need to start proposing real policies and debate them and propose solutions because they're much better.

23:31Victoria Spartz: And then the other side, the other side has very radical agenda, destructive. But if we don't propose and don't fight and have the right people, you know, they've been prevailing. And we have very little time before they can make structural changes to Supreme Court in the country. So this is going to be a big war, but we'll have to win it on this 250th anniversary. It's a very, very important battle that, you know, that we're fighting right now. But I believe in the greatness of this republic, and I believe God loves this republic and will get us back on track. Congresswoman, I really appreciate your time today.

24:04Thank you so much for the conversation. Best of luck to you in your last couple of weeks, and you are welcome back anytime.

24:10Victoria Spartz: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.