Nebraska GOP Supports Trump at Town Halls

By Gordon Hopkins Senator Pete Ricketts, formerly governor of Nebraska, recently held three town halls in Scotts Bluff, Valentine and Kearney. In a press conference call with reporters on April 30, Senator Ricketts discussed his experiences, “At these town halls, I shared updates on my work in Washington. I shared how I'm working with President Trump to secure our southern border, protect the 2017 tax cuts and support Nebraska agriculture. I gave an update on how I'm fighting to address our $36 trillion in national debt, which is our greatest domestic threat. I also heard feedback and answered questions directly from Nebraskans. These conversations helped me stay connected to the priorities and values of my constituents.”When asked if he has plans to hold any town halls in the eastern part of the state, such as in Omaha or Lincoln, Ricketts responded, “I don't have anything scheduled right now as far as town halls, but I've been doing town halls for last 10 years, first as governor now as senator. So, I'm sure at some point we will schedule those.” At the town hall in Kearney, held on April 24, Senator Ricketts made very clear his support for the tariffs instituted by President Trump. At the town hall in Kearney, held on April 24, he said, “The (President Joe) Biden administration was the first administration since (President Jimmy) Carter not to do a trade deal, and they didn't really promote our products. And so, what we saw is, we had an agricultural trade deficit where,usually we've always been trade surpluses, but it was like $16 billion, then going to $32 billion.”“So, those are the sort of things the President wants to get leveled out. So, he announced his big tariff stuff, got everybody's attention. Now, he's got 75 countries that have come to him and say they want to negotiate trade deals. I was just in the Philippines and Taiwan. I can tell you, they're not mad. They see this as a business deal, and they want to negotiate.” The senator talked about a number of issues during his opening remarks, ranging from China to immigration to ethanol to Nebraska beef. However, when it came to the question and answer portion of the town hall, questions from the audience primarily focused on federal government cuts being made by DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), currently run by billionaire Elon Musk.A number of the roughly 200 attendees expressed anger at those cuts and at Ricketts' defense of them.One attendee asked, “I want to know when you and the other Republicans in Congress are going to stand up against the president and say, some of these cuts are too much? We're damaging all of our government agencies. We're damaging all of the institutions that we have. We're losing Medicare, Medicaid and things like that.” The senator said, “We got to get our spending under control, and the administration is going through that process of looking at, what can they do?”His response received a round of jeers and Ricketts warned the crowd, “So, if you guys interrupt, we'll have fewer time for questions.” Another individual said, “You have been on the record for saying DOGE is, quote, doing the right thing, end quote, and have not made any comments in regards to any of these cuts to the VA (Veterans Administration) and to veterans losing their jobs.” Ricketts responded, “So, everybody always like, would like to have more resources, no doubt about that. And we got a lot of work to do, but we also have to balance it off with controlling our spending.”Again, more boos and jeers from the crowd as he continued, “So, we have to take care of our veterans.” U.S. Representative Mike Flood received a similar reaction when he held a town hall in March of this year in Columbus. Flood received boos when he said, “I get it. There's a lot of people in this room that don't support what DOGE is doing, but for the first time, we are making some progress identifying places that we can reduce the budget. And this is something we have to do as a country, as a nation. This doesn't go away unless we deal with the spending.”

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