More than 100 people attended a town hall meeting held by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley today at the Franklin County Courthouse in Hampton.
The meeting, which became heated at times, with one man questioning Grassley about where Congress is as President Donald Trump takes actions. “We have three branches of government run this country and determine our policy on the big issue. Are we going to turn Canada into the 51st state? Are we going to take over the Great Lakes? Are we going to impose tariffs throughout the world and hurt our Iowa manufacturers, who happen to sell five billion dollars every year of farm equipment, road equipment to the Canadians,” he says.
Another person asked about the same subject. “Seems to me that Trump and his people are moving very rapidly toward a dictatorship and overdosing very, very serious matter,” he says. “Our country is in serious jeopardy. It seems to me, cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and whole lot of other programs, even though they deny they’re going to do it, and firing people at will and just randomly isn’t solving anything.”
Grassley said afterwards that taking the questions is part of his job, “Well, I think you can draw the conclusions, I win by landslides, but I don’t win by 100% of the vote, so having people disagree with you is what democracy is all about,” he says. Grassley talked was asked about what is going to happen with the U.S. Department of Education following the president’s executive order to dismantle it. Grassley says closing the department won’t harm education. “Because since the Department of Education has been set up, test scores have gone way down. It hasn’t contributed to anything to the education of our kids, because that’s all done at the state and local level, and it will still be done at the state and local level, and that’s where it should be done,” Grassley says.
Grassley says the Ed Department will not go away. “The Department of Education can’t be done away with because Congress created it, and Congress can only do away with it, and you never get 60 votes in the United States Senate to do that.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee recently advised Republicans against holding public town halls due to anger from speakers over Trump’s administration policies went viral. The U.S. House Speaker said he believes the speakers showing up to challenge Republicans are being paid to do so.
(By Brian Fancher, KLMJ, Hampton)