KDSN RADIO News
Crowd at Iowa Senator Grassley’s town hall argue with each other
A standing-room only crowd of about 125 people jammed into a room in Northwood this morning for a town hall meeting with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. There was a lot of back and forth among those in the crowd when the topic of the deportation of Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador came up.
Grassley faced tense town hall meetings in Hampton last month and in Fort Madison earlier this month. He says it is not much different than what he’s seen in past years on controversial topics. “I would say Obamacare in 2009, maybe when Trump was first elected in 2017, maybe things like that, it was tense times even then, ” he says. Republican leadership advised members of Congress to stop holding such town hall meetings. Grassley says he won’t be critical of his Senate colleagues adhering to that advice, but he says it’s probably more important than ever now to hold the meetings and show the principles of representative government. After the meeting,
Grassley was asked by reporters if having a civil discussion in town hall settings was a thing of the past. He says most of the discussions he has with Iowans are civil and don’t have people exchanging barbs using foul language, as was the case today. “The bottom line of it is the language you heard here, and I heard, was stronger than it’s been anyplace I have been, and I don’t think it’s typical of Worth County. It’s not typical of most town meetings I have, and let’s just say this is an outlier,” Grassley says.
Grassley also addressed topics like the Farm Bill, tariffs, and DOGE cuts during the meeting.
(By Bob Fisher, KCCK, Mason City)
