WASHINGTON ― Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is headed to Nashville, Tennessee, this weekend for a town hall focused on protecting Medicaid, joining other prominent Democrats fanning out in Republican-held districts across the country to protest the GOP’s legislative plans.
Warren will join the Tennessee Democratic Party, which is hosting the town hall on Saturday, to “fight back against Republicans’ dangerous agenda to put billionaires over working people’s health care,” per an invitation obtained exclusively by HuffPost.
“While Elon Musk wields a chainsaw in Washington and a Republican-controlled Congress prepares to give tax breaks for billionaires, a town hall gives people the chance to come together, share their stories, and voice their concerns,” Warren said in a statement.
“Cutting health care for new mothers on Medicaid and threatening Social Security benefits while funding tax cuts for the rich is recipe for disaster. The people of Tennessee deserve to be heard in this powerfully important moment,” she added.
The event is also aimed at putting some pressure on far-right Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), whose district lies just outside Nashville. Ogles has refused to hold town halls and recently introduced a far-fetched amendment to the Constitution that would allow President Donald Trump to seek a third term in office.
Democrats are organizing town halls across the country as part of an effort to exploit GOP lawmakers’ reluctance to meet with angry constituents face-to-face. They’re also hoping to make inroads with voters in unlikely areas of the country and flip control of Congress in next year’s midterms.
Over the weekend, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) teamed up for a town hall in Warren, Michigan, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) held massive rallies as part of their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour earlier this month.
Democrats are stepping up their activity in the Senate, too.
As Republicans prepare to advance a budget resolution this week that will open the door for huge cuts to government safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Democratic senators are getting louder about why Republicans are putting them chopping block: to finance tax cuts for mostly wealthy Americans.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), for example, spoke on the Senate floor overnight starting Monday about the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the federal government and programs like Medicaid.
“I’ve taken the Senate floor and will speak for as long as I’m physically able to lift the voices of Americans who are being harmed and not being heard in this moment of crisis,” Booker said as he began speaking just after 7 p.m. Eastern time.
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“How could we be so abjectly cruel? And why? To push through a tax break plan that families in a neighborhood I live in won’t see benefits,” he said of the GOP plan.