News19 reporter Peyton Newman said voters watched U.S. Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.) duck behind closed doors and head to his car rather than meet with voters at an advertised “Quarterly Meet-up with Dale Strong” on Thursday.
“I was told media coverage was not allowed,” Newman reported. “I spoke with the host of the event, Republican Women [of Madison], who confirmed this event was advertised as public but they decided to make it private just ten minutes before it began.”
Event attendees said the group posted on both their Facebook page and the Movement Church’s website that it was a public event, but News19 reports those attendees were turned away at the door with law enforcement officials claiming the event “is now private.”
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“We noticed that there were a number of people standing outside, and I wasn’t sure whether they were just waiting to go in,” said attendee Pete Robertson. “So the closer we got, we heard that you would not be admitted unless you had an RSVP. And I got a flyer in the mail from a friend, and it said nothing about an RSVP needed.”
Republican Women of Madison President Sheila Banister told News 19 the group decided to make the event private due to protests at prior speaking engagements.
“We were … advised about the number of people and the behavior of this group at recent events across the state and country,” said Banister in a statement. “… Based on the information we received and seeing the chatter on social media, we decided to close the event to local Republican membership and their guests.”
“While we recognize that many people from these groups were frustrated by our decision, we felt it was in the best interest of our organization to ensure the intent of the meeting was met and that our members felt safe while attending,” Banister added.
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Republican members of Congress have faced backlash over their decisionto pass President Donald Trump’sdeeply unpopular Big Beautiful budget with its Medicaid cuts and regressive tax policies. Peyton reports Strong “was swiftly escorted into a car when the event ended” and refused to face attendees who had “waited outside the Movement Church for hours.”
Robertson said he’d wanted to hear Strong speak on changes happening in Washington that could impact local north Alabama industry, and claims he did not have ulterior motives in his attendance.
“[We’re] a region that is extremely blessed with high tech, with diversity and science, engineering, biotech. And there have been a number of challenges from the [Trump] administration in terms of the ability of these institutions around here to function,” Robertson told News 19.
Read the full News19 report at this link.