Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) asked his constituents during a virtual town hall meeting whether they support tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force — and did not get the result he likely hoped for.
"Do you support the Department of Government Efficiency's mission to streamline the federal government and reduce spending?" his constituents were asked, in a clip obtained by the liberal media outfit Meidas Touch and later shared out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
After the results came in, it was announced: "That's 70 percent for no, 30 percent for yes."
According to local station WKAR, Barrett — who was narrowly elected last year to a battleground district previously held by Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin — did his best to spin the result positively for the Trump administration.
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“It seems like every single person prefaces a lot of their, even disagreement, by saying, ‘Hey, I know there's a lot of waste and fraud in federal spending, and we’ve got to rein that in, but this is wrong for this or that reason,’” said Barrett. “So, it seems like we've kind of accepted the premise that there's a lot of problems.”
He added: “It's up to [agency heads] to do the best implementation of achieving what every American should expect, that the tax dollars they send to Washington, D.C., are being used prudently for the right things, for the right purposes, and not being abused, wasted or spent on things that shouldn't be done.”
Republican lawmakers have faced a steady stream of fury at town halls over the last few weeks, not just in battleground districts but Republican-dominated areas, with lawmakers including Reps. Rich McCormick (R-GA) and Keith Self (R-TX) being shouted down by constituents when they tried to defend the Trump administration's moves to dismantle the federal government.
The situation has become so tense that National Republican Congressional Committee chair Richard Hudson (R-NC) has advised fellow House members to stop doing town halls altogether — which, when this message was leaked, put Democrats on the offensive, with suggestions some could travel to GOP districts to do town halls in their place.