WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Pat Harrigan says Washington’s gridlock is not a mystery. It’s what happens when a country stops agreeing on the problems — and then pretends “compromise” can paper over the gap.
In a Daily Caller News Foundation interview he posted Wednesday, the 10th District Republican argued that the Founders expected Americans to fight hard over solutions. What they assumed, he said, was a shared moral and political baseline: the same values, principles, ethics, and sense of citizenship that make principled compromise possible under Article I.
“I think our founding fathers had a very clear understanding that Americans were always gonna have incredible disagreement about the solutions to our nation’s problems,” Harrigan said. “But what they did presuppose is that we would have the same values and principles and ethics and morality. … That means that even if you don’t see things the same way, you can get to something called principled compromise.”
Watch the interview:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1599606111662694
When compromise isn’t possible
Harrigan drew a bright line between negotiating how to fix a shared problem and negotiating away first principles. Illegal immigration, he said, illustrates the break: if a population no longer shares a common set of values — including the difference between citizens and non-citizens — “principled compromise is not possible.”
“These are where those who say we should fight on our side are absolutely correct,” he said. “Because there are some things that we should not compromise on at all because it’s not possible to compromise.”
His clearest example was men’s and women’s sports. Either biological males competing in women’s sports is a problem, or it isn’t. A “little bit of both” is not a middle ground — it’s nonsense.
“You either think men in women’s sports is a problem in our country, or you don’t,” Harrigan said. “The compromise position of a little bit of men and a little bit of women in sports is illogical. … You get laughed out of the room, that pleases nobody.”
Solutions aren’t the hard part
Harrigan said the country’s biggest policy fights — illegal immigration, Social Security, health care — are not beyond ordinary Americans’ ability to sketch a reasonable fix. Ask almost anyone, he said, and within five minutes you’ll hear one. The stalemate is elsewhere.
“Why can’t we get there?” he asked. “Because we simply have representatives who are ultimately representing their constituencies, we do not share the same values and principles, ethics and morality anymore. And there is simply no ability to get to principled compromise on these issues. There is only available to members compromise devoid of principle, which is what we should fight against.”
That, he argued, is why the gridlock exists — and why he is “very concerned for the future of our country.” The way out, in his telling, is not softer dealmaking. It is recovering a citizenry that again shares enough moral and political ground to agree on what the problems are.
“We disagree on the problems today,” Harrigan said. “And if you can’t agree on the problems, and you’re arguing over whether the sky is green and the grass is blue … Those aren’t the arguments that are being had in Washington today.”
In his Facebook post wrapping the clip, Harrigan put the same point more briefly: the Founders never expected Americans to agree on every solution, but they did expect enough shared values to agree on the problems. “Compromise works when we disagree over how to solve a problem, not when we can’t agree on basic principles in the first place.”
Local stakes
For Catawba County and the rest of NC-10, Harrigan’s Daily Caller appearance is the philosophical frame around the district work he has been pushing this month — including a House water bill that would lift Mooresville’s federal water-and-wastewater authorization from $4 million to $20 million (earlier coverage).
The interview does not announce a new bill. It explains how Harrigan wants voters to judge the fights he picks: negotiate hard where Americans still share a problem definition; refuse “compromise devoid of principle” where they do not.
Interview: Daily Caller News Foundation, posted by Rep. Pat Harrigan, Sept. 17, 2026 — https://www.facebook.com/reel/1599606111662694
