Marcus Jones on Congress, Trump and his political future

Former Democratic Congressional candidate Marcus Jones has stayed engaged in Arkansas politics after his 2024 loss to U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock.

Appearing on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics and Capitol View, Jones offered his observation on Congressional and executive action, Democratic Party of Arkansas chair Grant Tennille’s tenure, and his own political future.

On cuts to State Department personnel, Jones voiced concerns about pullbacks in the diplomatic corps.

“I was in NATO from 2017 until 2020 and during that time as the Trump administration began something of a pullback, one of the first things that we saw oftentimes is that I would have our allies and our partners showing up in my office and saying, ‘Hey, are you still going to be here next week?’ Or ‘we want America strong, we want America present.’ And so that’s a sentiment I can attest to is that what our allies want is us in the places we are representing our country,” said Jones.

“So the idea that we are going to draw back diplomatically across the globe is concerning to me… concerning because what we saw when this was done before is everywhere we stepped back, adversaries stepped in, and oftentimes they did that with a checkbook,” he said. “I think Africa is the perfect example. Everywhere that the U.S. withdrew our presence from, withdrew our interest from – and I use Africa because of the unbelievable resources and the unbelievable economic opportunity that is there – China came in and China then filled that role. So nature abhors a vacuum, and when we put that vacuum in place, it’s going to be filled by somebody. I think that if we scale back our presence, if we scale back our engagement, we will see a loss in our influence around the world… At a time when we should be leaning into that and leaning into our presence internationally, we are looking at pulling back is concerning.”

Jones also shared his thoughts on:

• Trump’s tariffs and the president’s false promise to achieve 90 deals in 90 days;
• His take on how voices from the campaign trail compare to Trump’s policies being enacted;
• The One Big, Beautiful Bill’s positive and negative impacts; and
• Exiting DPA Chair Grant Tennille’s leadership.

Jones also discussed his potential run for future political office or party leadership.

“I’ll be a little cagey because we’re still trying to assess a lot of things,” he said. “For me, I spent my entire life in service, in service to our country, in service to our state. And that’s really what I’m looking for. And so we’re trying to do some analysis and some assessment as to the best place I would be able to serve Arkansas and to serve our country. And we’re still trying to come to terms with what that might be. But ultimately, it is that I’m looking for a place. I will remain engaged in public life insofar as organizing or supporting a candidate or potentially being a candidate. We’ll see. But we haven’t decided anything yet.”

You can watch Jones’ full interview in the video below.