Rep. Baumgartner responds to questions

RITZVILLE – U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner faced a mix of about 100 supporters and displeased constituents during the first of his town-hall doubleheader Monday about an hour’s drive southwest of Spokane, where he later faced a larger crowd at Whitworth University.

He is among the few Republicans in Congress still holding in-person town halls as they feel the ire of Americans upset with President Donald Trump’s early actions that are remaking the federal government .

Outbursts at the American Legion in Ritzville were frequent but brief as Baumgartner carried on calmly.

“I know there’s a lot going on in our country, and a lot of stuff going on in Washington, D.C., a lot of passion and some anger and excitement, and all those emotions are OK to feel,” Baumgartner said at the beginning of the meeting. “This is your government and I’m a representative of you whether you voted for me, I work for you, if you didn’t vote for me, I work for you. I feel strongly in wanting to do these town halls and hear directly from you.”

The freshman congressman for Eastern Washington said his goal is to hold a town hall in all 12 counties he represents in his first year. When asked how many were from Ritzville or Adams County, about a quarter raised their hands.

He walked a line between distancing himself from and supporting the authority of the executive branch as he faced questions about disruptive actions Trump and White House adviser Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, are taking with the federal government, including concerns about mass firings of the federal workforce, tariffs, privacy, cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veteran benefits amid tax cuts.

Once in a while a man in the back shouted “liar!”

Another man quietly held a sign that said “No Kings, No Nazis.”

On the Russia-Ukraine war, Baumgartner was adamant that he opposes Vladamir Putin and that Russia winning the war would be a bad thing, but cautioned against being “naïve about the Ukrainian government.”

The crowd booed when he said, “I don’t think Zelenskyy is doing a great job,” referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Baumgartner called on Zelenskyy to resign last month.

At one point a man wearing a cowboy hat got in argument with a woman who was talking to Baumgartner out of turn. “You don’t live here,” the man accused her.

She said she grew up in Creston, Washington, a small town in Lincoln County.

“A bunch of liberal fools,” the man muttered as he walked out.

Immigration

Multiple community members asked questions on immigration, concerned about the immigrant community being detained.

Nancy Street, a resident of Cheney who volunteers at World Relief, brought up her concern of immigrants in the community being “picked up and disappearing” including two individuals who were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this month on their way to a court hearing in confrontation during which agents smashed car windows.

ICE agents claim the two members are part of the Tren de Aragua gang, among other prior criminal histories.

“I think your wife is an immigrant, and you were probably very well aware of many of these issues. We need to stand up for the immigrants,” Street said. “You said some pretty negative things about immigrants, that they’re coming across the border with fentanyl, that there are gangs and so on.”

In response Baumgartner said he believes they do have to sympathize with immigrants but have to be “a nation that controls its borders.”

“What’s happening right now is because Washington state is a sanctuary state that there are some real bad actors in our jails. And right now, ICE is prohibited by Washington state from going into those jails and just picking up the bad actors to get them out of here,” Baumgartner said. “Instead, what the state sanctuary policies do is they create a much more dangerous situation, because those guys get released, and then ICE has to go and get them in their homes or on the street, where they have to be all loaded up with weapons, and it’s much more dangerous.

“…It would be better for Washington state if they help the government enforce federal immigration laws, which under our constitutional system, is a clear role of the federal government. And under our constitutional system, national security is a clear role of the president.”

Kate Telis, lawyer licensed in New Mexico and Virginia, asked about two planes that were heading to El Salvador and Honduras on Saturday with people who were deported, after Trump’s declaration of the Alien Enemy Act that targeted Venezuelan gang members.

However, even though a federal judge blocked Trump’s order, flights were already in the air at the time of ruling.

“We cannot have a country that has chaos at the border. Once you get a secure border, then you can have a kind of immigration reform,” Baugartner said before community members started to vocally disagree.

After the meeting, Telis reflected on the meeting saying it was important that he had the courage to do the town hall and take questions from people who disagree with the policies and what’s happening in DC.

However, she also wished the meeting had been fact-checked.

“There were many situations where I think statements were said that were incorrect, and I think facts matter,” Telis said. “A rebuttal process would have been appreciated because I spoke on a few things, but there were follow up questions I had in response to his response, because I think some of the things that were said were not correct.”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk was brought up by multiple questioners at the town hall.

“I also would like to say, in terms of Elon Musk, that if we’re talking about concerns about AI, giving him the ability to check out all of our information … seems really problematic,” one woman said.

Baumgartner said he doesn’t know Elon Musk but does know Trump. Everything that Trump is doing, under Article Two of the Constitution, is working within the law to do those things, he said.

“That’s the way the system works; for example, when President Biden unilaterally decided to eliminate student federal debt, right? That was a core function of Congress. If so, that was unconstitutional.”

Later he claimed community members were mad because they didn’t like “the fact that President Trump won the election, and he has Elon Musk as an adviser.”

This was met with a room full of “no’s” and calling him out for shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

Agriculture and tariffs

An employee of Washington State University who lives on a farm, asked Baumgartner how he plans to support Whitman County farmers.

Baumgartner said one of the reasons he did the town hall in Ritzville was because he was hoping to answer more questions on agriculture.

“I’ll continue to speak out about it, continue to work within the administration, continue to work with stakeholders on agriculture, you know, on the tariff issue, because all our wheats got to get out and go to the market,” he said. Baumgartner has been critical of Trump’s tariff increases.

A resident yelled at Baumgartner to clarify who pays the tariffs.

“Consumers pay tariffs,” he said before moving on to the next question.

David Funk, founder of Zero Emissions Northwest who works with multiple farmers across Washington, attended in hopes of asking a question on how he would plan to help farmers.

Even though he didn’t get to ask his question, he was glad Baumgartner held the town hall and reaffirmed his support for Social Security and Medicaid.

“It’s easy to say these things and hard to actually put them in action and he clearly stated that he would vote to protect them. Let’s see if it happens,” Funk said.

James Hanlon's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.