A report from last week's town hall
Good questions, weak answers
I attended Rep. McGuire’s town hall, his first as a congressman, on Wednesday night.
I had trouble dialing in, so I joined a little late. And, unfortunately, I didn’t think to take notes, so I’m writing this from memory.
Once you joined, a recorded voice invited you to hit star-3 and said a staffer would come on to get your question. During the call, someone from the congressman’s team would introduce each caller by first name and city and then hand it over to the caller.
Credit where it’s due: I (and, judging by comments I read online ahead of time, many others) expected his team to screen out tough questions. I don’t think they did—there were few softballs. I just wish his answers had been worthy of the questions.
I’d guess that the single biggest topic was Medicaid. Several people, including a man who said he’s a Baptist minister, asked about the cuts contained in the budget resolution passed by the House this week. Rep. McGuire’s answers were misleading at best. When pressed, he just said something to the effect that he’s figured out hard things before and trusts they can do it again. I’ve written a separate post about the Medicaid cuts.
A few other things stood out to me, all related to DOGE. Rep. McGuire is a member of the DOGE caucus, a fact he mentioned several times:
“Elon Musk isn’t firing anyone.” The congressman repeatedly said that Musk is only making recommendations to the relevant agencies and, I think he implied, congressional committees. No one got to ask whether Musk’s email asking 2 million federal employees what they did last week, followed by his X post threatening to fire everyone who didn’t respond, counts as a recommendation.
“Elon Musk has all the necessary security clearances.” No mention of whether the 49-odd people working for DOGE also have the necessary security clearance, nor any mention of whether he’s done anything to find out what they’re doing with the information they’re getting.
It’s a cat-eat-cat world. One caller asked for a specific example of waste, fraud, or abuse that DOGE has identified. Rep. McGuire claimed there’s a federal program that studied cat cannibalism. As far as I can tell, the only program he could be referring to ended in 2019. Either DOGE is feeding him old information, or he’s knowingly citing an outdated example. Neither possibility is especially reassuring.
I’ve asked his office to either provide proof or correct the record. I’ll share anything I hear back.
The call ended at 6:50 p.m., ten minutes early.
