Republican congressman Tom Garrett (R-VA) held a rambling news conference on Thursday afternoon to announce that he intended to keep doing his job.
The event, broadcast on Facebook Live, lasted 30 minutes in total and was held one day after Politico reported that Garrett’s chief of staff Jimmy Keady had suddenly left his office on Tuesday and that Garrett was “in turmoil” for unspecified reasons and might not run for re-election.
Garrett dispelled those rumors Thursday, saying he was “absolutely, positively running.”
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“There is no way in heck that I’m not going to be back here in 2019,” he said.
However, he did hint that Wednesday was a tumultuous day for him.
“Yesterday, in frustration, I said I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” Garrett said. “Legislatively, it’s like pounding your head perpetually against a brick wall,” he told reporters of his job.
When asked why Garrett thought he might not run again, the congressman replied: “the frustration.”
More specifically, Garrett spoke for a while about his frustration with the fact that former University of Virginia women’s basketball coach Joanne Boyle has had a complicated path to obtaining citizenship for her adopted daughter Ngoty, who is from Senegal.
He also praised his chief of staff and said he wasn’t fired but declined to go into further details on what happened.
“Stuff happens,” Garrett summarized, effectively capping off a press conference about nothing.
