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Residents of CA-45 must also politely decline Chi Charlie Nguyen’s representation in Congress

May 28, 2026

Me: All right, so why did you leave your engineering job to run for local office, and why do you now want to be in Congress?

Chi Charlie Nguyen: Actually, I’m not leaving yet. I’m no longer working as an engineer anymore. I’m a businessman right now. I own my two businesses … I work as a part-time, you know, not a full-time.

Me: Right. So why do you want to be in Congress?Chi Charlie Nguyen: I am currently serving as the mayor for the city of Westminster … And I serve dual responsibility … the mayor of the city of Westminster, but at the same time, an office of board director for Midway City Sanitary District. I was elected to the board in 2016 before I was elected to the city council. That’s why, you know, it’s not a conflict of interest.Me: I mean … you’re running for Congress right?

Apparently Chi Charlie Nguyen really is running for Congress. Specifically to unseat Derek Tran in California’s 45th congressional district, which includes parts of LA and Orange Counties. He has a website about it and everything. I recently spoke to Nguyen about his campaign – what followed was such profound confusion and incoherence that it felt like I was getting pranked.

Nguyen finally told me that he’s running for Congress because Derek Tran hasn’t done a good enough job of supporting President Trump’s policies, such as his Big Beautiful Bill, and noted that Tran voted against a Congressional resolution to denounce socialism.

Nguyen mentioned his strong support for voter ID laws. Research and reports have consistently shown that voter fraud is extremely rare and voter impersonation – the kind of fraud that voter ID laws typically target – is statistically insignificant. I asked why it was such an important issue to him given this reality.

“Well, the thing is that what you hear is not what I heard. So it’s different. I don’t know what source you get it from, but from the source that I get, it’s different. So it’s very much a reverse of what you heard.”

So, the problem is just that Nguyen has been using some sketchy sources to form beliefs about what policies he should be caring about. It seems that the same is the case for his insistence that the current state of public safety is of special concern. I asked him why that’s such a prominent part of his campaign given that crime across most categories is at historic lows.

“Again, when you say it’s low, that I don’t know what you get it from … We can see that, you know, crimes arise everywhere, even in the city of Westminster.”

What’s concerning about this is not that Nguyen is running on voter ID laws and public safety. He could very well argue that even though voter fraud is rare and crime is at record lows, the public is concerned about both and it is his job as an elected official to address those concerns.

If the public loses trust in elections or in public safety, society breaks down. So what’s wrong with attempting to strengthen public trust in our institutions? Nothing! The problem is that Nguyen’s justifications are based on blatant, easily disproved falsehoods. Let us remember that he is the mayor of a city of 89,000 and is running for Congress.

This two-person circus continued when I asked Nguyen about a concerning part of his website. It states that “violent extremist networks and radical ideologies…seek to fracture our social fabric” and that in Congress he will “demand transparency and oversight of nonprofit organizations and foreign-linked entities that fund or enable political extremism.”

I asked Nguyen what sort of “radical ideologies” he had in mind and what organizations he was referring to. He didn’t answer my question and went on about public safety again.

“Yeah, what I think is, like I mentioned to you, that public safety is always my top priority. And, you know, for your family and my family, we don’t want to raise our family where we don’t feel safe … You know, in Congress, of course, I’m going to make sure that, you know, the law and orders are, you know, respected and people have to, you know, be accountable for their own action.”

“I guess I was wondering what sorts of organizations you have in mind. So you say that you would crack down on these organizations that fund or enable political extremism. So what organizations are you talking about?” I asked him.

He again failed to answer this very basic question about his campaign and instead chose to explain to me what law enforcement agencies we have in the US, for some reason.

“We can talk from different levels. If we talk about city level, we’re talking about law enforcement, we’re talking about PDs, and if you’re talking about in terms of state, we can talk about county, we can talk about sheriff, and those are law enforcement agencies. And if we’re talking about for federal, then we should have the law enforcement agency the agency who take care of the federal criminals.”

“So you don’t have any specific organizations in mind that you think are funding or enabling political extremism?” I asked Nguyen.

“Right now, I don’t have.”

Brilliant. He’s running on tackling these extremist networks and organizations but he can’t name one. What was going through his mind when he wrote that part of his campaign website? Unfortunately, given the quality of his other responses to my questions, I fear that it’s likely that he heard some vague rumors about extremism and, without even a little research, decided to make that one of his central campaign promises.

How is it possible that he’s in charge of a city of 89,000 people?

This is where I might lose some of our readers. The only part of this awful interview that made any sense at all is that Nguyen is an ardent Trump supporter – yes, that made perfect sense. Nguyen talked to me about all of the wonderful things that Trump has accomplished and couldn’t come up with a single helpful piece of advice for the president on what he could handle a bit better. I wasn’t looking for Nguyen to trash the president but the question must be asked to suss out irrational zealotry.

Finally, I asked Nguyen about his troubled time in Westminster city government. Under his leadership, his meetings with the city council have been known to devolve into chaotic arguments and shouting matches. Nguyen and other councilmembers had to sue councilmembers NamQuan and Amy Phan West (who I also interviewed about her run for Congress in this race) to stop their disruptive behavior.

“I don’t disagree with you that this was chaotic and it took longer for the meeting. But I don’t agree with you in terms of we didn’t get anything done. We got a lot of things done under my administration for the last three or four years … Now, let me tell you, I don’t disagree with you. It was a long meeting because of the two council[members], they are trying to disrupt the meeting. They don’t, they are not there for the people. They are there for their own political reasons.”

Phan West and NamQuan Nguyen deserve plenty of blame but I noted to the mayor that he himself has been accused of being disruptive and disrespectful when he was a councilmember and was censured and for his behavior and then removed as vice mayor at the same meeting.

“I would say that, you know, it was not a censure. They tried to censure, but it didn’t go through. Let me make that clear. The censure is not, you know, going through.”

Several publications reported that Nguyen was “formally” censured and dismissed as vice mayor. People can also check the tape or minutes of the Dec. 8, 2021 meeting, when the council voted 3-2 to adopt Resolution No. 5087 titled “RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF WESTMINSTER CENSURING VICE MAYOR CHI CHARLIE NGUYEN FOR UNACCEPTABLE CONDUCT.”

To end our conversation, Nguyen thanked me for the OC Register naming him one of the “Top 125 Most Influential People In Orange County” last year.

Now, I had nothing to do with that but to be fair to the Register, “influential” can mean many things.

Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.

Orange County Register

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Residents of CA-45 must also politely decline Chi Charlie Nguyen’s representation in Congress

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