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Raucous Crowd Quizzes Ross In Town Hall Meeting

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Catherine Welch
/
The Florida Channel
Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) addresses a rowdy crowd at his town hall in Clermont.

An angry crowd met Republican Congressman Dennis Ross at a town hall in Clermont Tuesday night. Rowdy town halls have become a familiar sight across the country since President Donald Trump took office.

A crowd of more than 200 heckled and booed Ross as he fielded questions about transparency and the Trump administration, immigration, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The topic that got the crowd really cranked up was the Affordable Care Act. Ross said he wants to keep parts of it, like coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing those 26 and younger to stay on their parents’ plan.

When asked how he thought the nearly hour-long exchange went, Ross said he thought it went well. “Because, did you see the turnout? There’s an engaged populous out there and I admire that,” Ross said. “That’s what this process is about.”

Ross then left the town hall through a back door.

Members of Congress from both parties have been holding town halls filled with angry crowds. A video online shows Republican Daniel Webster being confronted at an event Tuesday.

Now that she manages a full newsroom she files less regularly for NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition. In 2009 she was part of an NPR series on America’s Battalion out of Camp Lejeune, NC following Marine families during the battalion’s deployment to southern Afghanistan. And because Wilmington was the national test market for the digital television conversion, she became a quasi-expert on DTV, filing stories for NPR on the topic.