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Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri became the latest Republican lawmaker to face the wrath of constituents due to Donald Trump’s unpopular agenda. At a town hall Monday, a man accused the two-term congressman of being more loyal to the president than to the people he pledged to represent.
“You know nothing about what a working-class citizen does,” he told Alford. “Come down here — come down here and start trying to pay your medical insurance. Come down here and walk into Costco to try to feed your family.”
He added: “You need to take your head out of Trump’s ass and start doing your representation of us.”
On Tuesday, “The Weeknight” co-host Michael Steele said the heated remarks highlight a wider issue plaguing Republicans. Steele said voters are asking their elected representatives why they are putting the president’s interests above the people: “You represent us. Why are you doing his bidding? You represent us. Why are you paying attention to what he wants?”
Steele said the growing separation between Republican lawmakers and their constituents could come back to hurt the party in the midterms: “That connection with people is the real deal. That’s what people are looking for.”
Guest co-host Luke Russert noted that the kind of tension on display at the Missouri town hall could reinforce Republicans’ desire to redraw electoral maps across the country, “because they want to pick their own voters.”
“They want to deal with less people like that, and the polling backs it up,” Russert continued. “I mean, Trump is cratering with independent voters right now. The voters that put him over the top in the last election are walking away. They do not like what they see. It’s constant chaos. The economy is contracting. They hate seeing masked men on the streets taking people away in unmarked vans. So you’re seeing independent voters flee.”
You can watch the full remarks from “The Weeknight” in the clip at the top of the page.