Bulwark Takes - This Republican’s Town Hall Was a Disaster

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Sam Stein and Will Sommer unpack one of the worst GOP town halls in recent memory. From Medicaid cuts to Epstein questions, Mike Flood's night went off the rails fast.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello again, Sam Stein, managing out of the Bullwark here with my bud, Will Summer. I think we just witnessed one of the worst town hall events I've ever seen. Honestly, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic about it. It was a disaster from all the clips that I saw.

This one involved Mike Flood, who's a congressman from Nebraska Republican. Kudos to the guy, guess will, for doing a town hall because they're not doing many of them. Yeah, and he's in a very red district, and so he probably could have just sort of turtled up and hit away and, you know, really face no consequences. And, yeah, I mean, look, we know Republican lawmakers have been told by leadership to not do town halls or to do these kind of teletown halls so that they don't have to end up with these, with the optics we're seeing here tonight. Yeah, and he just did it. And so, like, again, kudos to the guy. And he subjected himself to this town hall, which I think is an important thing for members to do is to meet people, talk to them, get a sense of what's, you know, on their minds.

I would do it if I were a member of Congress. But this was just vicious and brutal and unenjoyable from start to finish. At various points, he seems in pain. But then I think he starts, like, kind of getting into it a little bit, being like, this is so over the top. He has kind of like a heel turn where he's kind of like, you know, he's going like, yeah, like bring it on. What do you want for me, folks?

He's like, various points. Like, what do you want from me, folks? I'm here. All right, let's, we're going to play three clips. There's like 20 clips. But I chose three to react to. The first one, and this just gets to like, we'll talk about how real these constituents are because he's talking about the fired commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And the crowd definitely knows what's going on. Obviously, they're politically oriented or they wouldn't show up to begin with. But here's what happens when he mentions the fact that Trump fired the commissioner of the BLS. 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. I mean, to be honest, but I don't know because things are complicated. It's easy to listen to a 30-second story on TV and think that you know all the details.

I don't know all the details. But I'm sure we will be talking about that when I get back to Washington in September. It's really something. And, you know, I will say, I mean, this guys look, too. I mean, just the giant glass. I was thinking he kind of looks like a John Hodgman character or something, and he's kind of just moving around the screen. He's got that vibe of someone from Madman, one of those ads to those ads.

I know that's not the suit look, but there is a character in Madman who has glasses and I forget the name of the actor, but he looks like kind of a hairy crane type vibe. Yeah. Yes, exactly, exactly. But that was just so great. He's like, I don't know. It's hard to know what's going on. Who's to say?

Like, I'm just a guy. How would I know? How would I know? I can't just judge from 30 seconds of news. And I don't have the capacity to find out. I will discover what's happening. But you can hear how mad that crowd is. Yeah.

They seemed like they were like hungry for blood. Absolutely. They're like going to rush the stage. Oh! Oh! I wonder what he could have said that would have like made them more docile. Is there anything to say in that moment? I mean, unless he's just going to be like, you know what?

I'm going to be a Democrat now. Yeah. Fuck Trump. I mean, it. One thing I think to note about this guy is, like, obviously, he's a very red district. He won, he's a second term congressman. He won by 20 points last time. Can you join your little Wikipedia research project?

That's what ballerpedia is all about. But at the same time, I mean, I do think it means something that, you know, he's faith, that someone even in that reddit district is facing so much trouble. Well, I mean, not, I think he's going to lose. Yeah, let's see. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, devil's advocate. I agree with, no, first of all, let me just stress. I agree with you. There's two, there's two explanations for this.

none of them are particularly good. One is that his red district is pissed, which is really bad. Two is that, like, he can't motivate his own people to show up at this place, which is not great. Because no matter what, anyway, cut it, these could be out of stateers, they could be just the libs in the district, whatever. They wanted to show up and give this dude a piece of their mind. Like, that's unequivocal.

No one can debate that. And the energy and the anger is clearly on one side of the equation here. and he's taking it on the fucking chin. Now, this is going to lead to the second part of this, the second clip on show, because the reason they're doing this is because they need to defend their legislation, right? Like they pass this big, beautiful bill. We'll get into that.

He gets peppered on that. But they need to go out and defend the fact that they are putting restrictions on Medicaid that are going to end up cutting the program by millions. And he's asked about this in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the reaction is just, just as vicious. Let's take a look. Talks about two big changes to the Medicaid program. One of those changes is that if you are able to work and you are able-bodied,

you have to work. If you choose not to work, you do not get free health care. You do not get free health care. Okay, okay. So here's a question. So here's a question. Do you think that people who are 28 years old that can work and refuse to work

should get free health care? I don't think that the majority of Nebraska agree with you. It's not like, I mean, is that a Bernie Sanders cry? It feels, like, remarkable. Yes. No, it seems very liberal. I mean, but it is, I mean, he obviously was expecting, I think, a different reaction to that.

You think, Will? He, like, made it the most anodyne, like, pro-conservative case in Lincoln, Nebraska. And he's like, you think people should just get free health care? Yeah, I fucking do, that. No, this went on and on and on. I mean, we highlighted just a few more, and we're going to have one more clip. But, like, I'm just looking here. They talked about it.

Epstein and the Epstein files that one was you can imagine how that one went um and then they talked about he there's one clip where he like kind of botched the date of the October 7 attack but we got to talk about that I mean I know you think it's I know you think it's not fair because he goes essentially he says you know I thought what happened on October 8th was an abomination and then clearly in his head he's like well October 8th was when Israel retaliated am I saying that was bad And then he goes, and everyone's kind of catching on. And they're going like, ah, boom. And then he goes, look, look, guys, support it is her.

I'll support his room. So your interpretation is just botched the day. He wasn't criticizing these reasons. He was saying, he was like, October 7th, that was fine with me. This Republican Congress said October 8th, not so much. Oh, man. I don't want to play that one because I actually do think he just fucking botched. But I think that, but in fairness.

I think that gives you a sense of how poorly it's going for him. That was not even the worst of it. Yeah, I know. But in fairness, when you're like, when you're up there and you're just enduring like an hour straight of heckling and booing, like your mind begins to drift a little bit. Like, how do I get out of here? Like, where's the exit? What if something actually happens? Like, you're not thinking about the specific dates. So, you know, I give him a little bit credit, I guess. All right. And then the last one for poor Mike Flood, again, worst town hall I've ever seen, honestly, honestly, is this is just a short. I've happened fairly recent to when recording. This thing's like going on forever. He's asked about the, aforementioned big beautiful bill and the constituent has this to say next question from the audience please next question from the audience we have a question right here um yes first of all i'd ask you please not to refer it to that monstrosity is the big beautiful bill it's the name of the bill though we know better it's like what my sister there but it's the name of the bill I actually do appreciate Mike Flann.

At that point, he was just, I don't give a fuck. Like, I just need to go out. I mean, I do that he deserves credit for getting out there when I think, I don't know, maybe are any other Republicans? I mean, very few. That guy, that guy, Stiles up in Wisconsin had one of these town halls last week. And it went not as poorly, but it went pretty poorly. I don't know. What would you do if you were in this situation?

I think I would hold a town hall and just let them, like, get their steam out. I would like to think I would do that. Again, I certainly like to think I would as well. I mean, the, I think it's a sad state of affairs that, you know, we're in this world where I think it makes a lot more political sense to either not hold a town hall or just have these kind of choreographed Zoom town halls because, you know, it seems like just every one of them is going off the rails like this. I mean, I wasn't quite around for it. I mean, it seems like town halls really started getting a bad rap in like 2009, the Obamacare summer town halls. Oh, yeah, man. you weren't around for that that was well i mean that was that was that was that how old are you

oh that was bad i mean that was that was like a formative moment for me when covering it because they they were not even done with health care they were in the process of doing health care and it had been on this kind of slow burn legislatively just taking forever and ever and ever and you knew it wasn't going particularly well but you couldn't really grasp how bad it was politically and then these town halls erupted and it was just like holy shit like these guys are in it and um and and I remember Democrats came back from that, and it was just the whole, the whole mood of Congress change completely. It was kind of a shock that they actually continued to proceed and do health care, frankly,

because it was that bad. I don't get the sense that a Republican, I mean, they passed their bill, but I don't really get the sense that they are like, oh, shit, we've got to change things. Like, they seem to be going full steam out. No, I mean, at least from, like, right-wing media stuff that I consume, I mean, they've been leaning really, because, you know, it was a few months ago we started having these really ugly town halls and you know these these difficult ones for republicans and i think they're really leaning into the idea that you know this is like george sorrows busing people in this is you know

people from the liberal district in the state that's what they said in 2009 too it was all like ah this is a what was the conservative group freedom works it's all astroturf it's freedom works these aren't real they're just orchestrating this and then it was real it was fucking real but that gets to my point it's like if even if it were george sorrows busing them in like they're getting people to show up and do this like there's something to that, right? Yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, even if people are, even if these are already liberals, I mean, I think this is often sort of used to discredit these people. It's like, well, that person is a Democrat anyway. But obviously, those people still vote. And if they're

energized enough to show up, I mean, that's a problem for Republicans. And who's not showing up the Republicans? Like, they're not there cheering him on. They're not saying, yeah, don't release the Epstein files. Yeah. Come on, man. Call it the big beautiful bill. Fuck them. All right. Well, thanks so much, man. I appreciate it. That was fun. Love watching this shit with For those who enjoyed watching us talk about this, subscribe to the feed so you can get more stuff like this. Talk to you later.