NEW: A swing-district Iowa Republican says she’ll hold town halls ‘when hell freezes over’ [CNN]

Despite repeatedly promising to hold in-person town halls, new reporting from CNN reveals Miller-Meeks admitted behind closed doors that she’ll only hold town halls “when hell freezes over.”

Yes, she said that. Before adding, “I don’t have to hold a town hall…”

Miller-Meeks “has faced questions for months over when she’ll hold a public town hall after promising to do so in April,” as Miller-Meeks “say[s] she’s already being hounded over Medicaid cuts” she voted for in exchange for billionaire tax breaks.

DCCC Spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Mariannette Miller-Meeks says one thing to Iowans’ faces and another behind closed doors. She refuses to face Iowans because she can’t defend her record of ripping away health care and raising costs to give billionaires another payout. Miller-Meeks said it best herself: she’ll only do her job ‘when hell freezes over,’ one of the many reasons why she’ll lose next year.” 

Read more:

• Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks told Johnson County Republicans in an August meeting that she’ll hold town hall meetings “when hell freezes over.”
• The Republican, who represents one of the nation’s most competitive House districts in southeastern Iowa, has faced questions for months over when she’ll hold a public town hall after promising to do so in April.
• And in the meeting with the Johnson County Republicans of Iowa — which was later posted on YouTube by the county party, where it went largely unnoticed at the time — she was blunt, saying she’s already being hounded over Medicaid cuts in the GOP’s massive government funding and policy bill.
• “You know, I don’t have to hold a town hall so you can come and yell at me,” said Miller-Meeks, who won by 799 votes in 2024…
• “You can yell at me at the county fair — and you did! And you did. They did,” she said. “You know, you yell at me in church, you yell at me at the county fair, I’m out in public all the damn time. Someone yelled at me at the speedway.”
• Miller-Meeks added: “You have plenty of opportunities to yell at me and tell me I should be ashamed of myself, and by the way, I am not.”
• Miller-Meeks’ comments came amid scrutiny over her and many other House Republicans refusing to hold public, in-person town halls. Party leaders, including the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, have advised against town halls after strong opposition to the GOP’s spending cuts burst into view at some town halls this spring.
• “We took the hard votes on reconciliation. We’ve been beat to crap over what we did on Medicaid. You know because you all have seen it,” she said.
• Miller-Meeks told the Johnson County Republicans that she was being pressed on when she’d hold a town hall by Tom Barton, a politics reporter for The Gazette newspaper in Cedar Rapids. “When hell freezes over,” she said.

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