Iowa congressman walks out of a TV interview and into an angry town hall meeting
Source: Washington Post
DUBUQUE, Iowa — An Iowa congressman walked out of a television interview on Monday, declining to explain why his staff is prescreening constituents who plan to attend his town hall meetings this week.
A few hours later, Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) showed up at his town hall meeting where most of the prescreened audience screamed at him.
It was a rough start to a recess week for Blum, a second-term lawmaker representing a swing district that voted narrowly for President Trump last year after supporting Barack Obama in 2012. Blum is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who initially declined to support the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act but ultimately voted last week for the American Health Care Act.
The way Blum struggled Monday night to explain his vote — through the loud boos of rowdy, impolite and infuriated constituents — is just a narrow sampling of the the growing concern and confusion caused by Republican plans to revamp the nation’s health-care system. But it indicates the difficult balancing act many Republican lawmakers from swing districts will need to strike as the complex debate continues in Washington.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/08/iowa-congressman-walks-out-of-a-tv-interview-and-into-an-angry-town-hall-meeting/
Couldn't happen to a better guy.
Their latest talking point is to stop calling their crap "Trumpcare" and start calling it "Obamacare 2.0". Oh HELL no. They need to keep Obama's name out of their Trumpkill bull.
Edit to add: The "interview" that he walked out of was while he was surrounded by black children I'm guessing at some school. I hope those children learn the lesson to NOT vote for an idiot like that when they are old enough - if they will even be allowed to vote at all.
= new reply since forum marked as read
from article:
It was a rough start to a recess week for Blum, a second-term lawmaker representing a swing district that voted narrowly for President Trump last year after supporting Barack Obama in 2012.
These aren't teabaggers; they are constituents who went for Trump after having voted for Obama.
If they were pre-screened, it was probably to make sure (at least this time around) that they were constituents and not people from out of his district.
Cher
They are already trying to "re-brand" their massive FAIL of legislation as "Obamacare". 
When their first round of lies didn't fly, they switched to "we are improving Obamacare by making premiums and deductibles more affordable". Of course, they fail to add "for junk insurance that won't cover anything significant."
They will say anything to try to con the American public into accepting this monstrosity best described as dumpcare or pukecare. They need to be exposed and called out for their lies.
Blum sucks. He's a prominent conservative from Dubuque. Years ago he had a column in the Telegraph Herald newspaper every Sunday. They had both a liberal and a conservative write about the same subject. The liberal was a great guy. You'd see him out and about all the time when Dems came to town (I saw him at Kucinich rallies, for example). The conservative sucked.
Blum was the conservative for a long time. From what I remember he inherited a business (software, I think) and lots of $$ from his dad. He'd always write the typical "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" drivel. I remember one column in particular. He wrote how a husband and wife both working full-time and making $8/hr (working at Mall-Wart probably) could live a very good life...breaking down how they could live on that $$. You know how conservatives love to tell poor people how to spend their $$/live their lives. It's always good times to hear a rich person tell a poor person how to live. They do it all the time when telling people how to spend their WIC $$ (while whining that the food stamp person buys stuff like steak -- "I could never afford steak myself"
.
Blum won his seat after Bruce Braley resigned the seat to run for senator (losing to Joni Ernst). Braley was an excellent congressman. He did a lot for veterans, even though he never got recognition for it (losing to Joni and her "stellar" work for veterans - after all, she was in the National Guard one day). Anyway, Blum ran against Braley and lost. Once Braley ran for senate, Blum was elected. He's going to be hard to get rid of for sure. Prior to Braley winning the seat in 2006 we'd had repug Jim Nussle. Nussle sucked. We only got rid of him when he ran for governor that year. We could just never get him out of there. I fear Blum will be the same. He's very wealthy, and can loan his campaign six figures of his own $$ whenever he wants (whenever ALEC & the Cock brothers don't step up).
Figures.
I have the same situation. I am in a gerrymandered district that has the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee representing it. This district is very blue and when we found out they gerrymandered it and we had this empty suit representing us we were supremely disgusted. True to form, he has resisted meeting with his Dem constituents about the healthcare changes but after a very long time, he agreed to do so.
He voted no the first time around, but this time voted for it.
Oh, and btw, he's Rodney P. Frelinghuysen. Know what the "P" stands for? Proctor, as in Proctor and Gamble.
And if you're around here, you'd recognize "Frelinghuysen." There's a long boulevard in Newark named after that family.
Imagine being given all that as a head start in life and voting no on this. It boggles my mind.
Cher
they've lived in a bubble, surrounded by like-minded baggers, hosting town halls probably attended largely by same, and listening to faux spews.
Now they are finding out that, in fact, their districts contain a LOT of people who don't buy their nonsense. And who are knowledgeable and can debate them on issues of national policy by citing non-alt facts.
Poor widdle babies can't handle it.
and I am glad his arrogance and petulance (ironically in front of a group of children who acted more mature than he did) was captured on video. I expect the teacher hustling the children out was embarrassed by such childish behavior from a purported "adult" too.
Thanks for the additional info! 
truth still bites them in their gourmet-larded, flab-encrusted, republican 'family-values' fat asses.
he behaved so immaturely.
I think this guy honestly thinks he's above all that. "This is ridiculous."
Cher
Using our (my as a POC) children to cloak themselves in righteous bullshit while doing everything in their power to implement policies that would damage, maim, or kill those same ones who they wrap themselves with.
