As he rumbled along on a tractor on his family’s cattle ranch in Texas, it wasn’t country music playing that helped Brandon Gill pass the time.
Instead, even as a child, Gill listened intently to talk radio shows and audiobooks by conservatives. Political chatter was his preference.
So it’s not surprising that his early love led to a desire to serve in Congress. He’s now a freshman lawmaker representing Texas’s 26th congressional district.
But it was love of a different kind that led to holiday meals now punctuated with lively discourse between Gill and one of the most prominent commentators in conservative politics.
That’s because the young Texan married Danielle D’Souza, daughter of political commentator Dinesh D'Souza. Danielle D-Souza has hosted a show on The Epoch Times’ video platform, Epoch TV.
“Dinesh is a sort of political mentor of mine,” Gill told The Epoch Times. “But most importantly, he’s my father-in-law and grandfather to my little daughter.”
They converse about history, economics, and philosophy—not just politics, Gill said.
“So it certainly makes for really interesting Christmas dinner conversations.”
Conservative commentator, author, and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza speaks to The Epoch Times at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pa., on April 5, 2024. Terry Wang/The Epoch Times
Young Republican
Gill paid attention to the thoughts of conservative pundits even as a young child, he said.
“I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Michael Savage and talk radio; grew up listening to audiobooks by conservative authors,” he said. “So that was the sort of environment I was steeped in. I’ve been interested in this for a very long time.”
Economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell also helped shape Gill’s conservative beliefs.
“On a fundamental level, conservatives and liberals have very different views of human nature,” Gill said.
Sowell’s book “A Conflict of Visions” explains how conservative philosophy is that humans ”are made in God’s image,” Gill said. And it outlines, he said, how “conservatism acknowledges the importance of human dignity and freedom and opportunity and the value of life.”
Conservatism, Gill said, recognizes that humans are not infallible, “and that we need institutions to help mediate imperfect human behavior.”
In the United States, conservative values include a desire for “limited government,” Gill said, and “the principles of the Constitution and freedom and liberty and the principles of the founding [of the country].”
Rep.-elect Brandon Gill (R-Texas) speaks with a reporter as he arrives for a new member orientation program for the 119th Congress in Washington on Nov. 14, 2024. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Goals in Congress
Gill succeeded former Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who served in Congress for 22 years before deciding not to run for reelection in 2024.Burgess, a physician, focused on health care in Congress.
Gill aims to tighten border security.
He also sits on the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, part of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The subcommittee works with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was established to eliminate government waste. Committee members help DOGE workers flag waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
Fighting Injunctions
On March 18, Gill filed a resolution to impeach Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.Three days earlier, Boasberg—citing “exigent circumstances”—issued a temporary injunction halting the deportation of members of the Venezuelan terrorist gang Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act. The legislation allows for the swift deportation of those from countries at war with the United States.
Boasberg said he based the decision on numerous factors, such as the likelihood the plaintiffs would succeed in the case. The plaintiffs sued, saying five Venezuelans involved in the deportation were members of the gang.
Boasberg, Gill wrote in his resolution, used his authority “to advance political gain while interfering with the President’s constitutional prerogatives and enforcement of the rule of law."
“By making a political decision outside the scope of his judicial duties, he compromised the impartiality of our judicial system and created a constitutional crisis.”
On April 1, Gill filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court to reverse Boasberg’s decision.
“Determining the existence of an invasion is entirely given to the executive, and courts have unanimously found this prerogative to be a non-reviewable and non-justiciable political question,” stated the brief, which was filed by America First Legal on Gill’s behalf.
A military flight carrying illegal immigrant members of the Tren de Aragua gang to Guantanamo Bay prepares to depart El Paso, Texas, on Feb. 4, 2025. Department of Homeland Security
In February, Gill took on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), best known as part of the unofficial group of Democrats known as The Squad.
Omar immigrated to the United States from Somalia in the 1990s. Now a U.S. citizen, she has been in Congress since January 2019. The district she represents has a large Somali population.
In a video posted to social media in February, Omar said people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) don’t have to answer questions.
“Disclosure of your name, immigration status, and the mode of entry is not mandatory,” Omar said. “Learn the laws and prepare yourself and refrain from disclosing information that you would prefer them not know.”
Gill posted on social media platform X in response: “America would be a better place if [Omar] were deported back to Somalia,”
In a subsequent CNN interview, Gill said he wasn’t calling for Omar to be ejected from the United States and acknowledged that she is a U.S. citizen.
But “given the past four years of open borders,” he said he sees a “serious problem” in how Democrats are “facilitating the invasion of our country by illegal aliens.”
“My colleague Ilhan Omar was advising illegal alien Somalis on how to evade ICE detection. That is as un-American as you can possibly get.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) greets her supporters at the Minnesota Congressional District 5 Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Nominating Convention in Minneapolis on May 11, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
Words of Wisdom
Away from Capitol Hill, Gill likes to read and spend time with his wife and their 18-month-old daughter, Marigold.If he could go back in time to give advice to himself as a younger person, he’d say this: “Spend a lot of time getting to know other people and learning from them as much as possible. I think that you can learn a lot from not only peers, but older people and mentors.
“And then spend a lot of time reading. It’s a good way of getting into somebody else’s head, a really smart person’s head.”
That’s a lot like what he did as a child, bouncing along while perched on a tractor seat.
Now, the cattle ranch kid who cultivated conservative ideals under the blazing Texas sun is putting those ideals to work in the halls of Congress.
