Your campaign launch focused on your experience as a small business owner in San Antonio, having opened a kickboxing gym here in 2018. Tell us about your professional experience before this race.<\/strong><\/p>\nOur gym, we were working for probably a good five years or so, where we had an opportunity to serve a lot of our local community, making sure we\u2019re helping them, whether [it was for] their physical fitness, their mental health, just being a part of the community as a whole.<\/p>\n
We actually sold [the gym] just a couple years ago, I sold it to my manager. <\/p>\n
And so now, I\u2019m retired Air Force. My wife and I are very fortunate to be in a position where I don\u2019t have to work, but I do it because I want to. I was actually working for the Defense Health Agency for a little while, doing some contract work on their security side of the house, so I was at Fort Sam.<\/p>\n
How much has it influenced your interest in this race and politics to have a sister in Congress?<\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019ve always looked up to my sister, ever since I was little. She\u2019s been a very big influence in my life. I love her to death. But the decision to run was my wife and I\u2019s decision. We wanted to make sure we do the right thing for the country, and what better place to do it than at the highest levels in Congress.<\/p>\n
Did you grow up in a political family? <\/strong><\/p>\nWe didn\u2019t actually, no. We would probably be the first pioneers, if you will, for at least our immediate family.<\/p>\n
Were you interested in politics at a young age? <\/strong><\/p>\nNo, the experience I have is, obviously, I\u2019ve had public service my entire life. From entering the military at 18 years old, and serving 20 years in the Air Force, I\u2019ve seen what foreign affairs looks like through my deployments to the Middle East and down at our southern border, where I\u2019ve worked side-by-side with customs agents doing drug interdiction out there.<\/p>\n
What might a Congressman Carlos de la Cruz look like? Would you join the conservative House Freedom Caucus? Or would you be a member of any of the other conferences in D.C. that people have heard about?<\/strong><\/p>\nHonestly, my team and I have not sat down and really kind of discussed where we would land. Our focus has been getting through this primary. I was actually begging my team, because I\u2019ve had a few interviews. I was like, let\u2019s hold off on the interviews until afterwards. Let\u2019s see how this race kind of flushes out. <\/p>\n
We\u2019d always heard that this district was drawn for Lujan. You came onto the scene a little later, and all of a sudden got the Trump endorsement. How did that come together?<\/strong><\/p>\nWe were very fortunate. Honestly, we\u2019ve had multiple conversations with the White House and D.C. leadership. We laid out our case, and we were able to be as convincing as possible to show them that I was the right person for this position \u2014 that I was the one to be able to get us past a general election against whoever the Democrat is.<\/p>\n
What would your top priorities be for your first 100 days in office?<\/strong><\/p>\nProtecting our kids, making sure they inherit a country that they deserve. I\u2019m a father of a 17-year-old daughter. I want to make sure she has a strong country to grow up in. [That\u2019s] followed closely by an economy that works for working families, and safe communities.<\/p>\n
So whether that\u2019s maintaining a strong border, making sure that we solidify President Trump\u2019s border policies into law, that\u2019s kind of the direction that I\u2019m headed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hours before the start of early voting in Texas\u2019 primary election, national GOP leaders dealt their local counterparts…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":661792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[17032,5229,280036,327,69,102297,280037,7202,7203,358,76630,7453,3187,149165,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7594],"class_list":["post-661791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-2026-election","tag-america","tag-carlos-de-la-cruz","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-john-lujan","tag-republican-primary-runoff","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-35th-congressional-district","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-tx35","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-1000-1500"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116243973107145033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n