‘Frustrated and angry’ Iowans confront Sen. Chuck Grassley at raucous town hall in Hampton

HAMPTON — Iowans’ anger over funding cuts and mass firings of federal employees led by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash the federal government boiled over during a raucous town hall Friday hosted by Republican Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.

The town hall drew a crowd of about 150 Iowans, who packed a small courtroom inside the Franklin County Courthouse in Hampton, quickly reaching the room’s capacity. Dozens were turned away as a line wound from the second-story courtroom down the stairs to the courthouse atrium and out the door into the parking lot.

Chanting from individuals gathered outside in the parking lot could be heard as Grassley fielded questions from an agitated crowd during the town hall.

“My question, which I think is on our minds here, is where is Congress?” a speaker at the town hall said of Musk and Trump circumventing Congress by signing executive orders canceling funding approved by lawmakers and dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. The question was met with cheers from the audience.

Grassley remained poised, stood stern and calmly addressed each speaker directly as others in the crowd interjected and shouted.

Audience members said they appreciated that Grassley took the time to hear from them, even as they heckled him during the town hall and protested with signs.

Job cuts, department closures top list of constituents’ questions

Numerous speakers took issue with Trump's request for large-scale job cuts and the elimination of government functions. Speakers also questioned Grassley on court and government oversight of Trump, the new administration and Musk's involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and pleaded with Grassley to stand up and do his job.

Speakers raised concerns over Musk's involvement to slash the federal government and potential conflicts of interest. Musk’s companies like Tesla and SpaceX have received billions in government contracts, with critics pointing out that Musk's companies might benefit from decisions made by DOGE, such as regulatory changes or budget cuts, targeting agencies that have previously investigated his businesses.

Others voiced concerns about Musk’s team having access to sensitive, private Social Security data without proper vetting, and likely violating the Constitution by shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development, robbing Congress of its authority to oversee the dissolution of an agency it created.

“It’s your job” to provide oversight of the Trump administration, one man said to Grassley. “We are depending on you and the others to help save democracy.”

Grassley said: “The checks and balances of government are going to continue to work.”

A heralded "watchdog" in Congress, Grassley said he has an investigative staff with 33 open investigations, including one on “waste in the EPA.”

Bill Brenny, of Sac City, said Trump “is dismantling our government,” disregarding court orders, bypassing Congress and flouting their authority. Brenny asked Grassley, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “Why do you believe that President Trump is above the law? And I'll just reinforce what other people have been saying here. Why have you not spoken out for it?”

Grassley replied that he has a track record of being available to journalists, publishing remarks he gives on the Senate floor and press releases on his website and meeting with Iowans in D.C. to communicate to voters in the state.

"I try to make myself very very available to the journalists, but if you don't read about it. … I put it out the best way I know to put it up," Grassley said.

"Why do you feel that President Trump is above the law?" Brenny pressed.

"He's not above the law," Grassley said, with yelling from attendees following.

“He is making us afraid to stand up for our own rights because we’re then going to be sent to El Salvador,” one woman said of her concerns of Trump’s clashes with judges.

“Judges’ rulings should be abided by,” Grassley replied, and at one point repeated: “Nobody’s above the law.”

“Prove it!” an attendee yelled back.

Speaking with reporters afterward, Grassley said he frequently fields concerns from Iowans and advocates for them. He gave an example of reaching out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture after a USDA employee working on the federal government's response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak was laid off.

The USDA in February, after initially firing employees involved in the bird flu response, sought to reverse those terminations, acknowledging the mistake and prioritizing the agency's response to the outbreak.

Grassley also pleaded with President Trump to exempt potash — a key component of fertilizer — from tariffs the administration is placing on imports from Canada.

Input costs, such as fertilizer, grew significantly during the Biden administration, Grassley has said. A tariff would inevitably push the price of potash up and farm profits down, he said.

Canada supplies about 85 percent of the United States’ supply of potash, which farmers who spoke with The Gazette say is the most commonly used fertilizer in Iowa.

The Trump administration initially threatened to slap a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods imported to the United States. But the administration reduced the tariff to 10 percent for potash, along with energy products from Canada, starting April 2.

Grassley also compared Musk’s DOGE actions to what previous Democratic presidents have done to cut government. Many in the crowd loudly disagreed.

Grassley would vote to dismantle U.S. Department of Education

Trump on Thursday signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department. Trump and other Republicans have derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology.

Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has pushed to change the way the state serves special education students and the creation of education saving accounts that use public money to pay for private K-12 tuition, joined other Republican governors at the signing ceremony Thursday in Washington, D.C.

“Education decisions should be made by those who know students best — parents, teachers, and local communities,” she posted afterward on social media.

Completely dismantling the department, however, is most likely impossible, Grassley said Friday. Doing so would require an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.

Republicans have said they will introduce a bill to achieve that, however the votes aren’t there in the Senate, Grassley said. Doing so would almost certainly require securing 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a procedural hurdle, meaning the Republican majority would need at least seven Democrats to vote with them.

Grassley was booed when he pointed out he voted against creating the Department of Education in 1979 while serving in the U.S. House, and said he would vote to dismantle the department should it come before the Senate for a vote.

He said he believes the best education policies are made at the state level. Speaking to reporters after the town hall, Grassley echoed Trump, who blamed the department for America’s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.

During the town hall, Grassley stressed the department will retain certain critical functions, including preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities.

Trump said Friday the management of federal student loans will be transferred from the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration.

Town hall attendee says many Iowans are ‘frustrated and angry’

Grassley told reporters afterward that Friday’s public meeting was evidence of "representative government in action."

"It goes like all of my town meetings. I let them set the agenda, and they can bring up anything that they wanted to, so we dealt with a lot of issues that are on people's minds," Grassley told reporters. "It's not only that it's expressed here, it's expressed in the massive amount of emails and postal mail, and telephone calls every day. And it's reflected that people are very concerned about a lot of issues that are going on in Washington, D.C."

Bill Brenny and Margaret Smith, who lives in Hampton, said they’re glad Grassley is meeting with Iowans, but what the senator does next is important.

“What I wanted to bring out is this Department of Government Efficiency is unprecedented. It was not developed by an act of Congress, right?” Smith said. “It was just kind of appointed by President Trump, with no oversight and I think the way they're effecting cuts is ineffective. I propose that he put together a bipartisan group to look at government efficiency ... rather than the 2-year-old taking the pile of blocks and knocking them all over because they don't like them.”

Brenny said he felt Grassley was evasive “and pivoted oftentimes to different topics.”

He said he and many in Iowa want Grassley “to start representing us” and are “frustrated and angry.”

Miller-Meeks, Hinson have not held in-person town halls this year

The public town hall comes following instructions from U.S. House Republican leadership that GOP lawmakers skip in-person public forums after angry confrontations and protests over Trump's policies and executive orders went viral.

In response, various progressive groups have held "people's town halls" or "open seat town halls" across Iowa, as Democratic voters say their demands from Iowa's federal delegation to host them haven't been answered.

Activists with Indivisible Iowa, Black Hawk County will host an “empty chair town hall” Saturday in Waterloo, where “audience members will have the opportunity to share their views on what the Trump/Musk funding and job cuts mean to the Cedar Valley,” according to a news release.

The Iowa City Federation of Labor also will host a town hall Saturday at the Iowa City Public Library “to provide a venue for residents of the 1st Congressional District to voice their concerns and questions, which will be delivered to (Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette) Miller-Meeks’ office if she does not attend in person.”

Members of Iowa’s congressional delegation were back in Iowa this week as Congress was on recess.

Miller-Meeks, a Republican from Ottumwa who also resides in Davenport and represents Southeast Iowa, has held town halls — in person or by telephone — every year since taking office in 2021.

“And will again do so in the future. She held a tele town hall with 12,000 Iowans last month,” a spokesperson for her office said a statement to The Gazette.

Her office said the congresswoman has been meeting with small businesses and veterans across the district, “hearing from many constituents as usual.”

“She does not stop working for the district and it is why she was elected to a third term,” the spokesperson said.

Miller-Meeks’ office did not share the congresswoman’s schedule for the week, stating they continue to “receive credible death threats.”

Iowa U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson’s office said the Republican from Marion has made 20 visits across Iowa’s 2nd District, covering 16 counties while being in session eight out of the 11 weeks since Congress convened in January.

Hinson had no public events this week, but will continue “connecting with many Iowans of all walks of life” as part of her ongoing tour of all 22 counties in the northeast Iowa district, her office told The Gazette.

Hinson has said she will hold an in-person town hall in every county this term, as she has since coming to Congress, and looks forward to conversations with Iowans.

In the past, those town halls typically have begun in May, and Hinson’s staff said they are proceeding as planned.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com