Jimmy Gomez Trashes Jason Smith To His Face Claiming GOP 'Refuses' To Hold In-Person Town Halls

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Friday, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) claimed that Republican members of Congress "were told not to even hold in-person town halls" out of fear of reprisal from their consituients.

Transcript

00:00Field hearings a few years ago. I wasn't on the committee. I was actually off the committee

00:05because we lost the majority and I just got back on last year. But this, honestly, this

00:10is kind of a joke. Like, this is so partisan it's not even fucking funny. Oops. I cussed

00:16a lot, so sorry about that. It's just my nature, so if I offended anybody. But here's the thing.

00:21Let's make a deal. Let's have a field hearing. A real one. Just let's pull a district out

00:28of a hat. Where we do a third Republicans, a third Democrats, and a third Independents.

00:35And let's make it open to the public. There's not even enough hearing. So Mr. Chairman, would

00:41you agree to do a field hearing at drawing a random district out of the hat, agreeing to

00:47do a third, a third, a third. Third Democrat, third Republican, a third Independent. So

00:51with 200 to 300 people, let's make it 500. So then we can really have a debate over

00:58this big, so-called beautiful bill. Mr. Chairman, it's an easy request.

01:11You have your time and the clock is ticking. See, there you go, folks. They don't want

01:17to have a real discussion and a real debate over this bill. They were told not to even hold

01:23in-person town halls. Why? Because their constituents are mad as hell. And they're mad as hell because

01:32this thing, this big, ugly, billionaire bill that really gives tax breaks for the billionaires

01:40and largest corporations while screwing the little guy. That's what this bill does. But

01:45they refuse to hold town halls. I held a town hall in North Carolina because the Republican

01:52congressman there hasn't had a town hall since 2017. I held a town hall in Bakersfield, California,

01:58because the member of Congress there refuses to have a town hall. I went to a Republican

02:05district in Orange County. They refused to have town halls in person. I've held three in-person

02:12town halls in my district open to the entire public. And here's the thing. Not everybody agrees with me.

02:19People call me conservative in my district. So here's the thing. We can have this debate. We actually passed

02:31the tax package a few years ago. I think it was in 2024 or 2023. That was a deal cut by the Republicans in the

02:39House on this committee and the Senate Democrats. And we supported it because there's a bill that focused

02:46on working people. It dealt with an enhanced child tax credit. It dealt with a lot of things that would

02:51benefit working people. Is it what we would have written? No. And the reason why I'm so passionate about

02:58it is because that's my background. I worked. When I graduated high school, no plans on going to college.

03:02Worked at Subway and Target. I understand what it means when rates are going up when it comes to insurance.

03:11But you know what? I didn't have insurance. I had to survive on Medicaid. But nobody, like my parents worked

03:17five to six jobs a week. Yep. Five to six jobs a week. So this bill is not going to do you any justice.

03:24And here's the fact. We can have this debate as much as we want. But the reality on the ground will hit

03:33people in Nevada no matter what. Either it's going to be good or it's going to be bad. Either those tariffs

03:39that are costing jobs are going to either be good or bad. But you're going to feel it. I was here in 2008

03:46for a few months. I was campaigning for Obama. And every door I went to, it was almost every other door,

03:55was a foreclosure sign. Foreclosure sign. So bad federal policy hits Nevada first. Like I recognize that.

04:07So I'm willing to, you know, say if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But there are things that I know are, you know,

04:16I hope they don't happen, but I'm pretty sure they're going to happen. The impact on working people.

04:21The fact that they're not going to get health care coverage. The fact that the cost of living is going to increase

04:29and then the jobs are going to leave. We see that happening already. So I would love to have a real hearing

04:36with open public and then let's randomly select people that want to show up. Because that's a debate I'm willing to have.

04:45But this right here, they're going to, they're going to carve you up into little snippets and they're going to put you

04:50on their social media in order to justify passing this disastrous bill. That's what it's all about. With that, I yield back.

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