Mike Gallagher

Michael John Gallagher (born March 3, 1984) is an American foreign policy advisor and Republican politician from Brown County, Wisconsin. He served four terms in the United States House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin's 8th congressional district from 2017 until his resignation in April 2024.

While serving in the 118th United States Congress, Gallagher was the chairman of the House Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party. He was a decisive vote against the impeachment of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February 2024, resulting in outrage directed against him from some members of his party. Days later, Gallagher announced he would not run for a fifth term in Congress. A month later, he announced he would not finish his term, and would resign effective April 19, 2024. He later moved his resignation to April 20, 2024, so he could vote in favor of aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Regional press reported that Gallagher would be taking a role with TitletownTech, a venture capital firm backed by Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers.

Before his election to Congress, Gallagher served as a military intelligence officer for seven years, including overseas deployments in the Iraq War, and worked as committee staff on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is married to Broadway actress Anne Horak Gallagher.

Early life Education Gallagher lived in Green Bay through middle school. After his parents' divorce, he moved to California and studied at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, while spending summers in Wisconsin. Gallagher later said his teachers "endowed me with a love for history and set me on a path to earning a Ph.D. focusing on Cold War history." He graduated in 2002 as valedictorian.

Gallagher earned his B.A. in 2006 from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. With a growing interest in global security, he changed his major from Spanish to Arabic. Gallagher completed a 117-page senior thesis, "New Approaches to Asymmetric Threats in the Middle East: From Fighting to Winning", under the supervision of Frederick Hitz. At this time he completed a summer internship abroad with the RAND Europe (UK) CIC in Cambridge, United Kingdom, working on a strategic study of terrorist groups such as Basque separatists.

Gallagher served his first tour of duty in the Iraq War with the United States Marine Corps. Subsequently, Gallagher began a MSSI (Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence) at National Intelligence University and graduated in 2010.

Gallagher completed a second M.A. in security studies at Georgetown University in 2012. He then began doctoral studies, writing a dissertation on the administrations of Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Cold War, receiving his Ph.D. in government and international relations in 2015. His dissertation committee was chaired by Andy Bennett and included Keir A Lieber and Colin Dueck.

Military 1st Lt. Mike Gallagher reading a book to children at Al Moaine Elementary School in Rawah, Iraq, 13 October 2008 Gallagher was an intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps, serving seven years (2006–13) on active duty. He twice deployed to the Al Anbar Province, Iraq, serving on General David Petraeus's CENTCOM Assessment Team, both as a commander of intelligence teams in Al-Qa'im near the Syrian border.

His first deployment was in November 2007 to lead a counterintelligence and human intelligence team, a time when al-Qaeda appeared to have been defeated by the Iraq War troop surge of 2007; giving "some semblance of stability in the town." He made a back-to-back deployment from 2008, taking over from a team led by Matt Pottinger.

In an interview with The American Interest, Gallagher was very critical of the Obama administration's subsequent drawdown of United States troops from Iraq, because:"... all the predictions we made at the time about creating a vacuum and how dangerous that was proved to be true. And I think the broader regional policy in the Obama Administration of seeking accommodation with the Iranian regime in the hopes that this would produce what the President referred to as a new equilibrium in the region produced exactly the opposite: disequilibrium.

After Walker dropped out of the presidential race, Gallagher worked as a senior marketing strategist for Breakthrough Fuel, a supply-chain management company. He then ran for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district seat, to which Reid Ribble was not seeking reelection. Hailing from Brown County, Wisconsin, he won the district which comprises much of the northeast quadrant of the state of Wisconsin, including the city of Green Bay, having contended against Wisconsin state senator Frank Lasee and Forestville village president Terry McNulty.

In the general election, Gallagher defeated Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, 63% to 36%. He was reelected in 2018 over Brown County assistant district attorney Beau Liegeois.

Tenure Gallagher voted in line with President Donald Trump's position 93.8% of the time in the 115th Congress and 84.2% of the time in the 116th Congress, but broke with the White House on issues such as the Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and Trump's denial of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. He voted against the majority of his party about 8.7% of the time.

In 2018, Gallagher argued that power in the House of Representatives was too concentrated in the leadership; he proposed allowing committee members to choose their own chairs and ranking members, rather than having these positions be selected by the parties' steering committees. This proposal was rejected in a House Republican vote. Gallagher also argued for consolidating the appropriating and authorizing House committees and a reform of the House calendar that would have the chamber sit "at least five days a week for three consecutive weeks, then spend a full week back in their districts" (a change from the current congressional practice of very short legislative workweeks and frequent long weekends allowing members more time in their districts). His unsuccessful reform proposals were praised by Norm Ornstein, a scholar of Congress, as "constructive" although unlikely to be adopted. In 2018, Gallagher voted to expand eligibility for health savings accounts; in 2019, he voted against a proposal to allow the federal government to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs.

Foreign affairs Mike Gallagher with Australian MP Andrew Hastie by a statue of Sir David Stirling, the founder of the Special Air Service, at Campbell Barracks in Western Australia in August 2019In a 2016 profile in the Green Bay Press Gazette, Gallagher blamed President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the success of ISIS in Iraq. In 2019, he wrote it would be "a smart geopolitical move" for the U.S. to buy Greenland, a notion that Trump floated. In 2020, Gallagher voted against a measure to block Trump from taking military action against Iran without Congress's consent. and in 2020 he supported the U.S. drone strike that targeted Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. In 2019, Gallagher voted for a measure opposing Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. He co-signed a letter to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick that read, "As China amplifies its campaign of intimidation, you and your company must decide whether to look beyond the bottom line and promote American values—like freedom of speech and thought—or to give in to Beijing’s demands in order to preserve market access."

In 2020, Gallagher and Tom Cotton drafted a bill banning federal agencies, such as the departments of the Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Defense, from purchasing drugs manufactured in China.

In June 2021, Gallagher was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) against Iraq.

During the Russo-Ukrainian War, Gallagher signed a letter advocating for President Biden to give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

In February 2023, Gallagher chaired the first public hearing of the Select Committee on China which exposed trade, industrial and security issues such as military arsenal needs for additional Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSMs), Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASMs), Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and other readiness deficits which require urgent attention in order to deter Chinese aggression in East Asia.

In February 2024, Gallagher led a bipartisan Select Committee on China delegation to Taiwan and met with President Tsai Ing-wen and President-elect Lai Ching-te.

In June 2025, Gallagher spoke at the WORLD.MINDS meeting in Washington DC about China, AI and the transatlantic relationship.

Economy In 2017, Gallagher voted to dismantle the Dodd-Frank financial regulations. Gallagher has sponsored legislation to bar federal agencies from purchasing Chinese-manufactured drones. In December 2022, he co-sponsored a bill with Marco Rubio to prohibit Chinese and Russian-owned social networking services from conducting business transactions in the U.S. under security grounds.

Energy and environment In 2019, Gallagher voted against a resolution to block Trump from withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Social issues He voted for the 2018 First Step Act. Gallagher voted for the Respect for Marriage Act on December 8, 2022.

Other issues Gallagher has been an outspoken critic of the social media platform TikTok, which he describes as "digital fentanyl" because of its allegedly harmful and addictive characteristics. Furthermore, he asserts that TikTok's ties to the Chinese Communist Party may result in the promotion and censorship of various content for propaganda purposes, and he has joined other lawmakers attempting to ban TikTok in the United States. In the wake of the 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, Gallagher accused TikTok of "intentionally brainwashing" American youth into supporting Hamas, citing the spike in pro-Palestinian content on the platform following the outbreak of hostilities.

Gallagher voted against the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, and later voted against adopting two articles of impeachment against Trump, on charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. Gallagher spoke at a Trump rally in Wisconsin in 2019.

Gallagher voted against restoring part of the Voting Rights Act.

On January 6, 2021, Gallagher was one of seven Republicans who did not support their colleagues' efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election. These seven signed a letter that, while giving credence to election fraud allegations made by Trump, said Congress did not have the authority to influence the election's outcome.

During the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Gallagher said, "We are witnessing absolute banana republic crap in the United States Capitol right now", and told Trump, "you need to call this off". In May 2021, Gallagher and 174 other House Republicans voted against creating a commission to investigate the storming. He attributed his opposition to a desire to have non-public investigations and wanting "key language preventing interference in the over 400 ongoing criminal prosecutions". As a result, he was given a C− by the Republican Accountability Project.

On January 9, 2021, Gallagher joined a group of other Republican legislators led by Ken Buck of Colorado in signing a letter to President-elect Joe Biden, asking him to formally request that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi halt efforts to impeach Trump.

Gallagher voted to provide Israel with support following 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

Gallagher was a surprise vote against the first impeachment vote against Alejandro Mayorkas; the vote was tied for minutes before another Republican changed to allow a reintroduction of the bill in the future.

Asked whether he was worried about backlash in his district for his vote, Gallagher told a small group of reporters: "That can’t be the North Star that guides your votes and guides your principles.”

"I don't live online, guys," he replied when asked if he'd seen feedback on a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining his vote. "Get offline. It's not healthy for you. I talk to human beings."

Resignation Gallagher announced in February 2024 that he would not run for re-election to the House of Representatives. His announcement came amid his outspoken criticism of the House Republican majority's impeachment of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He later clarified that he would leave Congress in April.

After his resignation, Gallagher joined the defense contractor Palantir as head of defense. In May 2024, the venture capital group TitletownTech, a joint venture of Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers, announced Gallagher had begun a job at their firm.

Committee assignments Committee on Armed Services Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (chair)

Caucus memberships Republican Study Committee Republican Main Street Partnership Climate Solutions Caucus U.S.-Japan Caucus Problem Solvers Caucus

Publications Articles Congress must pass measure extending vital Central Pacific agreements, The Hill, February 20, 2024

The Age of Disclosure Gallagher is a participant in The Age of Disclosure, a 2025 documentary film about UFOs and claimed government programs involving recovery of alien technology crashed on Earth.

Personal life Gallagher married Broadway actress Anne Horak in September 2019. They have two daughters, born in June 2020 and August 2022.

Gallagher is Catholic.

Gallagher has won the title of "fastest man in Congress" in the ACLI Capital Challenge (a three-mile race for individuals working in all branches of government and the media) every year since first taking part in 2017, most recently finishing with a time of 19:57 in 2023.

Electoral history U.S. House (2016–2022) Year Election Date Elected Defeated Total Plurality 2016 Primary Republican 40,322 74.46% Rep. 10,705 19.77% 54,152 29,617 Rep. 3,109 5.74% General Republican 227,892 62.65% Dem. 135,682 37.30% 363,780 92,210 2018 General Republican 209,410 63.69% Dem. 119,265 36.28% 328,774 90,145 2020 General Republican 268,173 64.18% Dem. 149,558 35.79% 417,838 118,615 2022 Primary Republican 79,096 84.55% Rep. 14,377 15.37% 93,549 64,719 General Republican 223,981 72.21% Ind. 48,896 15.76% 310,196 175,085 Lib. 32,057 10.33% Dem. 3,160 1.02% Dem. 135 0.04%