‘They Spread Themselves Out. They Ask Questions. They All Cheer When the Questions Are Asked’ – Marco Rubio
Republican U.S. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan took to Twitter Sunday to slap down a former presidential candidate, fellow Republican Senator Marco Rubio.Â
The Florida senator in an interview (video above) with a local Florida station explained why he is refusing to hold town halls with his constituents.
“What these groups really want is for me to schedule a public forum, they then organize three, four, five, six hundred liberal activists in the two counties or wherever I am in the state,†Rubio told CBS Miami, claiming they “are not town halls anymore.”
He also claimed a document produced by the group Indivisible tells activists to “take up all the front seats” at town hall meetings, as Politico reported.
“They spread themselves out. They ask questions. They all cheer when the questions are asked. They are instructed to boo no matter what answer I give. They are instructed to interrupt me if I go too long and start chanting things. Then, at the end, they are also told not to give up their microphone when they ask questions. It’s all in writing in this Indivisible document.”
Rubio was swept in to the Senate during the Tea Party wave of 2010.
Asked if he thinks the town halls don’t consist of real people, Rubio responded, “These are real people. They are real liberal activists, and I respect their right to do it. But it is not a productive exercise.â€
“It’s all designed to have news coverage at night — look at all these angry people screaming at your senator.â€
Congressman Amash on Twitter struck back, and hard.
Linking to the Politico piece about Rubio, Amash defended town hall attendees as “concerned constituents,” and said point-blank: “If you can’t handle these engagements, then this isn’t the right job for you.”
SalesForce CEO Marc Benioff, who led the charge in Silicon Valley against Mike Pence’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom” law in Indiana responded to Amash:
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