The only Iowa Republican legislator to lose his 2024 re-election bid has landed a job in the Trump administration—and he won’t need to move to Washington, DC.
Former State Senator Brad Zaun will be the administrator of the Small Business Administration’s Region 7, he announced to LinkedIn followers on March 6. In a statement published by the Des Moines Register, Zaun said he was “dedicated to boosting small businesses in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska by cutting red tape, expanding our reach, and providing essential resources.” He added, “My goal is a streamlined, ‘America First’ SBA that fuels free enterprise and regional prosperity.”
Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” continues to slash the federal workforce, but there will always be room for political appointees—especially those on good terms with President Donald Trump.
Zaun was the first state legislator to endorse Trump for president in 2015, and Trump never forgot it. During the last campaign, he often gave Zaun a shout out at Iowa rallies. Here’s a clip from an event in Waterloo in October 2023. Trump read the names of other state lawmakers who had endorsed him but gushed about Zaun, whom he affectionately called “the Marlboro Man,” “a handsome guy,” and “an incredible guy.”
Zaun didn’t try to distance himself from Trump after the 2020 election, even though Joe Biden had carried his Iowa Senate district covering suburban areas northwest of Des Moines. He remained loyal to Trump after the political map adopted after the 2020 census made his district bluer.
Arguably, the drag from the top of the GOP ticket was the biggest factor in the Republican’s loss to Democratic challenger Matt Blake last November.
Zaun stuck with Trump after his 20-year legislative career ended. Last month, he signed on as a plaintiff in the president’s meritless lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its longtime pollster, Ann Selzer.
Zaun told Radio Iowa that in his new role, “he will spend most of his time traveling Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.”
Another longtime Trump loyalist is on track to move half a world away. Former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 4 as senators consider his nomination to serve as ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst introduced Whitaker at his confirmation hearing, where he assured committee members that the U.S. commitment to NATO would remain “ironclad.”
Whitaker also said he would work to ensure that NATO allies increase their defense spending to 5 percent of each country’s gross domestic product, as Trump has demanded. That prompted Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the committee’s ranking Democrat, to point out that U.S. defense spending is less than 5 percent of the country’s GDP.
Top image: State Senator Brad Zaun speaks at a rally with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Iowa State University in Ames on January 19, 2016. Photo by Alex Hanson of the Iowa State Daily, available via Wikimedia Commons.