Dan Crenshaw Biography

Daniel Reed Crenshaw was born on March 14, 1984, in Aberdeen, UK, to American parents Jim Crenshaw and Susan Carol Crenshaw and was raised in Katy, Texas. When Crenshaw was 10 years old, he lost his mother to cancer. His father’s job as a petroleum engineer led the family to live abroad for several years including in Ecuador and Colombia. This led Crenshaw to develop proficiency in Spanish.

He attended Colegio Nueva Granada in Bogotá, Colombia, and completed his graduation in 2002. Thereafter he returned to the US where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations with a minor in physics from Tufts University in 2006. During his tenure at Tufts, Crenshaw became part of the NROTC program. Following his graduation from Tufts, Crenshaw received an officer's commission in the United States Navy (USN).

He underwent six months of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training (BUD/S) at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California, and completed his graduation with BUD/S class 264. In June 2008, he finished his SEAL Qualification Training (SQT) and received the designation 1130 Naval Special Warfare (SEAL) Officer and became entitled to wear one of the most recognizable breast insignias of the USN, the Special Warfare Insignia.

Crenshaw served the USN for a decade from 2006 till September 2016 when he medically retired from the service as a Lieutenant Commander. His military service included five tours of duty. In his first deployment, Crenshaw joined SEAL Team Three in Fallujah, Iraq. He served on SEAL Team Three in the Iraq War and in the War in Afghanistan.

He was hit by an IED explosion during a mission in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in 2012 while he was in his third deployment. The explosion led him to lose his right eye while his left eye was severely damaged. He went through several critical surgeries and eventually regained vision in his left eye. Thereafter, Crenshaw served the USN for four years and his fourth deployment was to Bahrain in 2014 and fifth to South Korea in 2016.

Military decorations awarded to Crenshaw include the Purple Heart; two Bronze Star Medals, one with "V" device; and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with valor.

Following his military service, Crenshaw attended John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University and obtained a Master of Public Administration degree in 2017. He served U.S. Representative Pete Sessions as a military legislative assistant.

In November 2017, Crenshaw, a Republican, announced his candidacy for the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in Texas § District 2. Located in Greater Houston, the district includes parts of northern and western Houston, and Kingwood, Humble and Spring. According to Crenshaw, national security analyst John Noonan motivated him to run for Congress. He mentioned in a February 2018 interview that two of his campaign issues would be border security and immigration reform. During his campaign, Crenshaw defended the proposal of Trump to build the Trump wall, an expansion of the Mexico–United States barrier. He later voted in favour of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 and the Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1158).

Crenshaw gained national attention during his campaign after being endorsed by Senator Tom Cotton and featured in print media as well as on television. Crenshaw, who wears an eye patch after losing his right eye during military service, was mocked by American comedian and actor Pete Davidson during the November 3, 2018, episode of Saturday Night Live. In the episode, Davidson described Crenshaw as someone who look like a "hit man in a porno movie" and also said that Crenshaw lost his eye in "war or whatever". Davidson was very strongly criticized for such comments which led to widespread censuring and public outrage. Following this, Crenshaw appeared with Davidson on the next Saturday on an SNL Weekend Update segment where Davidson apologized to Crenshaw. The latter accepted the apology and advocated for health issues affecting military veterans. Crenshaw went on to win the general election on November 6, 2018, garnering 52.8% of the votes against Democratic nominee Todd Litton’s 45.6% votes and succeeded the retiring Ted Poe. According to many including Crenshaw, the jest possibly aided Crenshaw in winning the election and also contributed to later fundraising. After winning the election, Crenshaw insisted on removing political influence and control on sports and comedy.

Crenshaw assumed office as Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas’s 2nd district on January 3, 2019. On May 24 that year, he co-sponsored a bill that sought to extend time limits for claims under the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act. He does not support abortion and garnered a 100% rating from the United States oldest and largest national anti-abortion organization, National Right to Life Committee (NRLC); and a 0% rating from the country’s oldest extant abortion rights advocacy group called NARAL Pro-Choice America.

In 2019, he said that the For the People Act of 2019 would "limit free speech drastically" and thus opposed it. He made false claims that the bill would "legalize" the kind of fraud seen during the 2018 election in North Carolina's 9th congressional district.

Crenshaw emerged as a "staunch defender" of Donald Trump following the 2016 United States presidential election. In 2019, when the House of Representatives impeached Trump on two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power and another for obstruction of Congress, Crenshaw voted against both. Crenshaw supported Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuffed criticisms that response of the  U.S. federal government under Trump to the pandemic had been slow; and refused to wear a face mask at places suggested by health experts and deemed necessary by Governor of Texas Greg Abbott. Crenshaw was of the opinion that the media and the Democrats were representing threat of the pandemic as being worse that it really is. He also asserted that regulations of the FDA hindered development of COVID-19 tests.

Crenshaw was re-elected in 2020. He was one of the selected Republicans who spoke on August 26, 2020, during the 2020 Republican National Convention.  He along with V.A. Secretary Robert Wilkie were implicated in a 2020 report by the Inspector General of the Department of Veterans Affairs as having been involved in a campaign in discrediting a lady, a USN veteran and an aide to the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, who reported sexual assault to the Navy. Crenshaw said that this story was created by the Democrats.

He considers the Freedom Caucus as divisive "performance artists" as its members always tend to attack the moderate Republicans. He criticises them publicly.  He is a member of the Republican Study Committee. He served as a member of the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Homeland Security in the 116th Congress; and presently serves as member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

He disagrees with the firearm regulation measures including prohibition on semi-automatic firearms. Although after the 2019 Dayton and El Paso shootings, Crenshaw proposed that the red flag laws should be explored to bring about a possible solution to the issue of gun violence, following the 2022 Robb Elementary school shooting, he suggested that discussion of such laws should be made at state level instead of at the national level. Meanwhile, the US based gun rights advocacy group National Rifle Association gave him a 92% rating in 2020.

Following Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 United States presidential election, Trump refused to concede defeat, made false claims of voting fraud, and attempted to overturn the election. Crenshaw along with 125 other Republican members of the House of Representatives signed an amicus brief supporting the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit that was filed on December 8, 2020, at the United States Supreme Court to contest the administration of the 2020 presidential election in the states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Biden defeated incumbent Trump. It was alleged in the lawsuit that these states took "unconstitutional actions" and changed election procedures by applying non-legislative means. The Supreme Court on December 11 ruled in an unsigned ruling that Texas lacked standing and declined to hear the case.

He condemned the January 6, 2021, U.S Capitol attack carried out by a mob of Trump supporters; mentioned that Trump ought to have ordered the protestors to stop such siege; and also made request to the protesters through Twitter to "Stop this bullshit right now". On January13, same year, he voted against second impeachment of Trump.

Crenshaw is married to Tara Blake since 2013.

He is a Methodist. In February 2020, he launched the Hold These Truths podcast and hosts it. He authored the 2020 released book Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage. Almost $400,000 worth of copies of the book was purchased by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Same year, he was included in the 40 Under 40 list of Fortune magazine.

He had an emergency eye surgery in April 2021 after the retina in his left eye started to detach