During a House Democratic Leadership press briefing on Wednesday, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) was asked about Democrats planning to hold town halls in GOP districts.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Back to you.
00:04I wanted to ask you about the town halls and the fact that many Republicans are not doing town halls in their districts.
00:10I've seen some Democratic members say they're going to start doing town halls in Republican districts.
00:16I'm curious if that is part of a larger strategy, if that's an approach that is being encouraged.
00:24And also when you do these town halls, what kind of reassurances can you give these people
00:30given that midterms are over a year away and there's really not that much the Democrats can do,
00:36especially when Republicans like you saw yesterday through the CR are united in their backing.
00:42So I'm going to start with your last question and then turn it over to my colleagues.
00:45I've probably had more town halls than most here.
00:47I started the first weekend and I haven't stopped.
00:50Note to self, don't ever do two back-to-backs.
00:53I had one with 11,000 people from 530 to 630 and left and did one for three hours
00:58with more than 1,000 people, two overflow rooms.
01:01And people were intense and they had a lot of questions, but they respected me.
01:06And I did it with my state legislators and we answered questions.
01:09I'm accessible.
01:10I did one with Indivisible and all the Indivisible groups the week before and several others.
01:15And I try to do two or three a weekend, to be perfectly frank.
01:18People want to see you.
01:19They want to know you're accessible.
01:21They want you to answer questions.
01:23And I don't make people false promises.
01:26When we're standing here and I can't tell you what it's like.
01:30Everybody's talked about it in a different way.
01:34It's the firemen from Detroit that came up to me and said,
01:37tell me my pension and Social Security are going to be okay.
01:41I can't make a promise and I won't make a false promise.
01:44I went to my asthma doctor and I said to him, I've told him all this story,
01:47before I ever got to the doctor, 25 different people stopped me from doctors who were worried
01:53about their research grants and normally when, because I go to U of M,
01:56when you walk in they don't, they were so scared.
01:59The nurse who took my blood pressure sister had been fired the night before.
02:02I said, from where?
02:03She said she was crying so hard she couldn't tell me.
02:06The mother who was wheeling her child in a wheelchair and said,
02:09what are you going to do to make sure I can bring my child back if anything happens?
02:13The seniors that were scared to death that stuff was going to, you've got to be there.
02:16You've got to answer their questions.
02:17You've got to tell them to care and you've got to tell them to be engaged.
02:20And we're not running away from doing it.
02:22We're making ourselves accessible and that is what we have to do.
02:25Any of you want to answer the first question?
02:28All right.
02:29You want to say?
02:30I was just going to say in my community I talk about my commitment to the people of the 14th,
02:34which is to be accessible, transparent, and responsive.
02:37I don't see my Republican colleagues making that same commitment to their constituents.
02:41And I think that in this moment the American people want to feel seen.
02:46They want to feel heard.
02:47They want to understand what's going on.
02:49They hear a lot of words when they engage with the news, but they want to know how it impacts them.
02:55And I think as much as we can show up and talk to people, listen,
03:00give people an opportunity to share their stories,
03:03and allow that to inform the work that we do, then we will be successful.
03:07What is the upsides and downsides of being noncompliant?
03:11I believe it's about listening to people.
03:14It's not about where.
03:16I get stopped all the time, and I stop and talk and listen.
03:19It's not about going one place or another place or showing up and making a big fuss of it.
03:25It's making sure that people have an opportunity to be heard.
03:31I was just going to say, because I'm going to be doing a few of these,
03:34and I think part of the reason is we're filling a void.
03:38We're filling a void that's left open by our Republican colleagues
03:42who are too scared to show up to town halls in their own districts
03:46because they're doing things that are not popular.
03:49And it's not just Democrats showing up.
03:51It's Republicans showing up.
03:53I know you've all seen the videos, Republicans showing up, independents showing up,
03:56and now they're being told, stop doing it.
03:59It's too much of a political liability, and that's not fair to their constituents.
04:02So it's Democrats going above and beyond and saying,
04:06even though I don't represent your district, I know you want to talk with a member of Congress,
04:11not just send a form online, not leave a voicemail.
04:14All that's really important, but you want to see someone face-to-face.
04:17And we as Democrats, we're going to fill these voids,
04:20and so that's part of the reason why many of us are doing that.