Ami Bera Responds To Chuck Edwards' Constituents Anger At Town Hall

2 days ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) responded to the angry demonstrations of Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) at his town hall.

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Transcript

00:00of the NRCC told Republicans reportedly to stop holding town halls. Based on your

00:06comments this week, it seems like you want to capitalize on this moment. You

00:09floated the ideas of Democrats going into these red spaces, talking to

00:13constituents in these red districts. Can you tell us more about your idea?

00:18Yes, I think it's incredibly important. If Republican members aren't gonna

00:22explain what Donald Trump, Elon Musk are doing to the services that they depend

00:27on, I think it's an obligation for us to go into some of these districts,

00:31certainly in a targeted way, and explain to them, you know, if they cut Medicaid

00:3625%, what that's going to mean to their access to health care. If they shut down

00:41the Department of Education, what that's going to mean to their public schools.

00:45Again, it is hard to win re-election if you're not talking to your voters or

00:50constituents, but we also have to present a case and make sure they understand

00:55what's happening to the federal government. You want to go in in a

00:59targeted way. What does that way look like? What's the strategy here? So at the

01:04end of the day, the best way for us to put Democratic ideas forward and from

01:09our end, protect the country from some of these really dangerous cuts that Donald

01:13Trump and Elon Musk are perpetrating, we have to figure out what are those

01:18districts that we can win. We know the 20 most vulnerable Republican districts.

01:23We're gonna have candidates that eventually are running against those

01:27Republicans, but in the meantime, there's nothing that prevents us from going into

01:31those districts, talking about how much these rural communities depend on

01:37Medicaid, their hospitals need Medicaid funding to stay afloat, and then put

01:41pressure on those Republicans to say, hey, wait a minute, if you vote for this

01:46reconciliation package, you're gonna take health care away from your very

01:50constituents. Are you sure that's the vote that you want to take? I'm not sure

01:55if you saw this, but Congressman Chuck Edwards from North Carolina, he defied

02:00the order, the reported order of not holding town halls. He held one this

02:05week. He was faced with booze. He was faced with anger. Constituents,

02:09protesters all around. What do you make of that? You know, I've heard about what

02:14happened to Congressman Edwards Town Hall. I haven't seen the clip yet. I

02:18think that's his constituents responding to the concern about what

02:23they're seeing coming out of the Trump administration. That's very organic. We

02:28saw it happen to Democrats in 2010 around the Affordable Care Act vote when

02:34we lost a lot of Democratic seats because Democrats then became afraid to

02:39have town halls. I think you've got to show up. You've got to let your

02:42constituents express their opinions, and then you've got to explain the votes

02:46that you're taking. I know that Politico had a an article with some of the

02:52Republicans with an over average number of constituents who rely on Medicaid. Is

02:58that something you would be targeting as well? And what are those conversations

03:02with Republicans looking like, especially those ones that have a large

03:06swath of constituents who rely on these types of entitlements? So as we're

03:11talking to Republican colleagues saying, Look, be very careful about this vote on

03:16Medicaid. I think they're getting nervous about that vote, which is why

03:21you saw on the reconciliation package the framework of their budget deal.

03:26They're trying to say, Well, Medicaid's not in there. The truth is, and the

03:30reality is, there's no way for them to get $880 billion out of the energy and

03:35commerce portion of that bill without cutting Medicaid. So we have a few weeks

03:41to make the case and tell these Republican members why it would be

03:46dangerous to their own constituents to their own rural hospitals and get them

03:50to change their vote. I feel really lucky in the past couple of weeks. I've

03:54talked to a number of Republicans, a number of Democrats in the House.

03:58Republicans have all told me, and I've heard President Donald Trump say it

04:02himself. We aren't touching Medicaid. We aren't touching Medicare, and we

04:05aren't touching Social Security's Social Security. Democrats, on the other

04:09hand, have said that's a lie. I was speaking with your colleague,

04:13Congressman John Larson yesterday, and he said that's a lie. They are going

04:16after these things. What do you think? What do you say? Well, if they're gonna

04:20stick to this budget framework that they put out there, they are gonna have

04:25to go after Medicaid. And again, if they don't great, then they don't have

04:30anything to worry about. If they don't touch Medicare, great. They don't have

04:34anything to worry about. Elon Musk has said the exact opposite that when it

04:37comes to Social Security. He's called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Social

04:43Security is a system that you pay in throughout your whole working life so

04:47that you can have some security at the end of your retirement. So it is a

04:52system that millions of Americans rely on and count on to stay out of poverty.

04:58If Elon Musk is calling it a Ponzi scheme, I think Donald Trump listens

05:02to Elon Musk.

Ami Bera Responds To Chuck Edwards' Constituents Anger At Town Hall

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