You’ve got to hand it to Sen. Chuck Grassley: he’s one of the few Republicans who decided to meet with constituents in a series of town halls in his home state of Iowa. In Iowa City, he faced an overflow crowd. Among the people who wanted to speak with Sen. Grassley was a man who risked his life working for the U.S. in Afghanistan:
Zalmay Niazy said he had been shot two times while working as a translator with U.S. armed forces.
“I am a person from a Muslim country and I am a Muslim," said Niazy. "Who is going to save me here? Who is going to stand behind me?”
Grassley listened as Niazy described his problems getting paperwork as he is seeking asylum in the U.S. Grassley offered to have his office help Niazy.
New York Times reporter Thomas Kaplan interviewed attendees, the majority of whom were there to oppose Trump and the Republican-led agenda. In a video interview, one woman told Kaplan she drove 100 miles to speak to Grassley because she wasn’t able to get through on the phone and didn’t think he was responsive to mail and email. She described the first month of the Trump administration like “taking a shower in bad news every day.”
They came to personally give Sen. Grassley a message:
Chris Petersen, a 62-year-old pig farmer and proud progressive Democrat, brought a present on Tuesday for Mr. Grassley.
A bottle of Tums.
“You’re going to need ‘em the next few years,” Mr. Petersen told the senator, drawing laughter from the crowd that packed into a room at a firehouse in Iowa Falls, north of Des Moines.
Petersen and others in attendance were crystal clear with Sen. Grassley—fix the Affordable Care Act but DO NOT REPEAL:
“With all due respect, sir, you’re the man that talked about the death panel,” Mr. Petersen told him. “You’re going to create one great big death panel in this country.”
See more of constituents airing their grievances to Sen. Charles Grassley: