Nebraska Republican heckled at town hall over Epstein files and Trump's firing of labor stats chief

Independent

2 days ago

Nebraska Republican Rep. Mike Flood endured another torrid town hall event in his state on Monday, with audience members booing and heckling him and demanding answers on the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Flood was subjected to yells and hostility throughout the meeting, with 'rowdy' Lincoln residents yelling, interjecting and breaking into chants including 'Free Palestine,' 'tax the rich' and 'vote him out,' NBC News reports.
The congressman's constituents were particularly incensed about Epstein, President Donald Trump 's firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer, the impact of his 'One Big Beautiful Bill' and the administration's brutal illegal immigration crackdown.
Accused of being complicit in a 'coverup' of the Epstein files, Flood said he supported their release, pledged to co-sponsor a nonbinding House resolution calling for their publication and said he supported Kentucky Rep. James Comer's efforts to compel the pedophile's jailed accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to sit for a deposition.
On Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer on Friday after accusing her of publishing incorrect data, Flood was less definite, insisting we do not know 'all the details' behind the president's decision.
'I don't know what the situation was with the Department of Labor person. Neither do you. I don't know. I don't know,' he said.
'I can tell you I've been an employer for a lot of years, and there's always two sides to every story, and I don't know what that side was. I will say this, though, if all that person did was get the data out there, if all that, and I don't know that's the case, but if that's all they did, I would not have fired her.'
Regarding Trump's signature tax and spending legislation, which passed Congress last month without a single Democrat voting for it and despite many of Flood's fellow Republicans expressing deep reservations about its likely impact on welfare recipients, the congressman insisted there was 'a lot of misinformation' being circulated about the bill.
He was nevertheless peppered with questions about how the multi-billion dollar increase to the national debt would be paid off and, in one extraordinary moment, attempted to turn the tables on his interlocutors by asking them: 'Do you think that people who are 28-years-old, that can work, and refuse to work, should get free healthcare?' They answered, emphatically and as one: 'Yes!'
In another exchange, Flood was asked: 'With $450 million being allocated to Alligator Alcatraz and ICE burning through $8.4 million a day to illegally detain people, how much does it cost for fascism? How much do the tax payers have to pay for a fascist country?'
The reference to Trump's new migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, popular with his MAGA base, was repeated by another member of the audience, who dubbed it 'Alligator Auschwitz' instead, according to NBC.
Flood stuttered in response: 'Americans voted for a... for a border that is secure, and I support the president enforcing our immigration laws, which, by the way, were written by Congress.' The answer only inspired further boos and derision.
The Nebraska Democratic Party reportedly urged its members to attend the representative's town hall, as it did in May when the politician was also given a hard time, not least when he admitted he had not read the full text of the Big, Beautiful Bill before voting for it.
Flood, who was elected to Congress in 2022, also suffered boos and heckles at another event in March, when his constituents were concerned about Elon Musk 's apparent unchecked influence over the president before their very public falling out in June.