{"id":8430,"date":"2025-05-05T09:34:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=8430"},"modified":"2025-05-05T09:34:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:34:45","slug":"gop-congressman-is-shelled-with-questions-about-trump-during-raucous-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=8430","title":{"rendered":"GOP congressman is shelled with questions about Trump during raucous town hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

SOMERS, N.Y. — <\/span>Voters in U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler\u2019s suburban New York swing district unloaded a barrage of criticism on the Republican during a raucous town hall Sunday night, peppering him with questions around President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> aggressive agenda before devolving into a chaotic chorus of boos as attendees were removed by law enforcement. <\/p>\n

The town hall in Somers, a leafy section of Lawler\u2019s Hudson Valley district, began to teeter off the rails soon after it began.<\/p>\n

The first crack emerged when Lawler, in his opening remarks, told the packed out prep school auditorium \u201cThis is what democracy looks like.” <\/p>\n

Laughter crept through the crowd.<\/p>\n

A little while later, the congressman’s mention of federal health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> drew loud jeers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you want, for instance, petroleum-based dyes<\/a> to continue?\u201d Lawler asked in response. <\/p>\n

Republicans, in some instances, have made themselves scarce in their home districts<\/a> following President Donald Trump\u2019s first few months in office, as party leadership expresses wariness of viral<\/a> blowback against Republicans<\/a> in vulnerable seats. <\/p>\n

Lawler, a moderate who last year won a second term<\/a> and has openly expressed interest in running for governor, has instead sought to put himself in front of voters, holding a previous town hall late last month and has plans for more in the coming weeks. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, Lawler\u2019s staff required people to RSVP and set up a series of ground rules, including that attendees live in the district, not record at the event, refrain from shouting or standing, and \u201cbe respectful of one another, of staff, and of the Congressman,\u201d a sign at the door read. <\/p>\n

At one point, as Lawler was responding to a question about tariffs, security and law enforcement began to surround a woman in the upper stretch of the auditorium. The crowd chanted \u201clet her stay, let her stay” before law enforcement picked her up and carried her out. It was unclear what exactly led to her removal. <\/p>\n

\u201cShame! Shame! Shame!,\u201d the audience yelled. <\/p>\n

Lawler tried to get back on track: \u201cFolks, tariffs are way more complicated than you want to make them.\u201d <\/p>\n

The crowd groaned. <\/p>\n

\u201cFolks, enough!,\u201d Lawler said above the din. <\/p>\n

Soon after, another person was removed. Then another. <\/p>\n

In the audience, Jeanette Spoor, a 74-year-old retiree, said she wanted to ask Lawler about the future of Social Security and Medicaid but wasn’t called on during the nearly two hour event. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not helping your constituents if you\u2019re making it hard for them to get help,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI have no hopes for this guy.” <\/p>\n

Another attendee, Kristi Thompson, 52, said she was bothered by what she said were Lawler’s long-winded answers that didn’t address the substance of the crowd’s questions. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe claims to be available to constituents but he isn’t,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The crowd walked out during the final question of the night, which was about protests against Israel. Lawler began to answer, but cut himself off as the room emptied out. <\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate everybody coming out tonight and taking the time to ask your questions and hear my answers, whether you liked them or not, or agreed with them or not, or whether you really actually wanted to listen to them or not, but I very much appreciate you participating,\u201d he said as attendees exited. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOMERS, N.Y. — Voters in U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler\u2019s suburban New York swing district unloaded a barrage of criticism on the Republican during a raucous town hall Sunday night, peppering him with questions around President Donald Trump\u2019s aggressive agenda before devolving into a chaotic chorus of boos as attendees were removed by law enforcement. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8432,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8430\/revisions\/8432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}