Baumgartner faces angry, disruptive town hall following two months of Trump’s presidency
U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner was confronted by a disruptive, angry crowd that demanded answers for the freshman Republican congressman’s voting record and recent actions in President Donald Trump’s White House – and regularly interrupted each answer during a town hall Monday evening at Whitworth University.
Almost everyone in the crowd appeared displeased with the White House, judging by the scale of disruptions and a poll of attendees’ most pressing concerns, especially with the Department of Government Efficiency and the loss of checks and balances within the federal government.
At one point, before answering a question, Baumgartner asked for a show of hands for those who voted for Trump. Around a dozen hands went up amid loud jeering from the rest of the crowd.
It was a much more disruptive town hall than the one hosted in Ritzville on Monday morning – the Spokane crowd expressed contempt, disgust and displeasure with Baumgartner, and the shouting was nearly constant.
Baumgartner continued to maintain the reason the crowd was so angry was because they did not vote for Trump, or him, he said in a media conference following the town hall.
Spokane resident Mary Ellen Gaffney-Brown asked questions about the Social Security Administration and shared her fears about benefit cuts following swift changes, such as the resignation of acting Commissioner Michelle King, who stepped down over DOGE privacy concerns.
Gaffney-Brown said she believed the administration is on its way to privatizing Social Security and wants “billionaires to pay their fair share,” she said. As she was speaking, she was interrupted by the moderator. She replied, “Be quiet” – and the hall erupted into cheers.
“You go, girl!” someone yelled back. Nearly the entire audience stood up and clapped for her.
More questions that led to an uprising in cheers were, “What will you do to stand up to democracy?” and, “Where do you draw the line in the sand?”
Baumgartner responded that he values the Constitution, and did so long before his days in the foreign service. He was then interrupted by more jeers.
About 60 protesters stood outside the auditorium Monday. They called on Baumgartner to do more to stand up to Trump’s decisions to bypass Congress and ignore an order of a federal judge and they objected to Baumgartner’s call for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to resign.
Read the full article, with quotes from attendees and Rep. Baumgartner, on ICE raids, checks and balances, health care and more.
Article By Emry Dinman, Alexandra Duggan and Amanda Sullender, The Spokesman-Review