Ninety minutes into Republican Congressman Pete Sessions’ confrontational, exhausting, two-and-a-half-hour town-hall meeting at Robinson Junior High School last month, I realized it was yet another spectacular all-American failure in how such gatherings are managed, unwittingly or not, to produce frustration, misunderstanding, alienation and hostility — and not just in citizen constituents of all political stripes but in this case the 70-year-old congressman, understandably tired and definitely testy by evening’s end.
By the time I reached home, I also concluded the rancorous
town-hall meeting encapsulated our nation in the Age of Trump: The longtime congressman
and many of the evening’s players (though certainly not all), whether
supportive or adversarial in their roles, often displayed the worst of our
tumultuous times — sanctimonious to the point of blasphemy; rambling if not
verbose; contemptuous if not spoiling for a fight; and uninformed,
sometimes proudly, patriotically and defiantly so.
For instance, did retired Army Green Beret, former McLennan
County Republican Party chair and local attorney Jon Ker, who served with the much-decorated
5th Special Forces Group Airborne in Vietnam and late in life secured a Christian ministry degree from Baylor University's Truett Seminary, really believe he would set the right
tone at the outset by invoking God to vilify those who see something inherently
wrong in U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement raids conducted so
haphazardly, without legal discernment or decency, that legal immigrants and
U.S. citizens are sometimes swept up in indiscriminate dragnets?
“Gracious heavenly Father,” Col. Ker said after removing his cowboy hat and commanding others to do likewise, “we humbly come before you tonight to, first, praise and worship you for being our god and guide in these times of contrast — the contrast of celebrating the nation you formed through our Founding Fathers by showcasing the Army’s 250th year of protection and valor of our people, contrasted against the damage, destruction and death from riots across the nation by those who hate—.” At this point, loud constituent boos drowned out the invocation, something I had never witnessed in my life.
The 78-year-old veteran continued: “Even so, we know that even in the darkest and most difficult times, you are with us and nothing formed against you and us will prevail. Father, you have blessed us with leaders that love you, that seek your wisdom to serve the people and who are not afraid to stand against evil, untruth and tyranny [heckling erupts] — men like Congressman Sessions. We lift him before you that he receives your blessings, your wisdom, your truth and your stamina. As he serves us in Washington, may he first serve you in his heart.”
One wondered whom Ker targeted in his prayerful reference to “evil,
untruth and tyranny.” Possibly this was another dig at Los Angeles protesters, a
small, defiant, definitely obstinant group better handled by local law enforcement than the National Guard personnel
and Marines ordered out by President Trump amid great self-righteous fanfare. Or maybe Ker referred to millions of Americans participating in the nationwide, largely peaceful “No
Kings” protests overshadowing, on the same day, Trump’s command performance of
a parade in Washington, D.C., honoring the Army’s 250th birthday and his own 79th birthday.
So much, too, for using the Army as a nationally unifying rallying point. Those days were fading fast. Only days earlier President Trump violated longstanding, sacrosanct military protocol at Fort Bragg by drawing cheers for his recent reelection from uniformed Army soldiers employed as props for his fiercely politicized speech; sympathetic jeers as he maligned his political enemies (including a former commander in chief); and more cheers (at least from white soldiers) in gloating over his renaming of Army forts to honor Confederate heroes who vigorously fought against the U.S. Army in our nation’s deadliest war.
Some local “No Kings” protesters attended Sessions’ town-hall meeting, most armed not with signs but questions and concerns in the tumultuous Age of Trump. Signs brandished two days earlier at the corner of Valley Mills Drive and Waco Drive included one held by a Hispanic veteran who wore a T-shirt: “American Grown with Mexican Roots.” His sign: “We swore an oath to OUR CONSTITUTION, NOT to a KING or wannabe DICTATOR.” Another sign that day tells the rest of the story: “They want us to HATE each other. Don’t let them.” Among those at the protest: Joe McKinney, who told a KWTX-TV reporter that he had broken with his political party of 60 years: “I cannot identify with the cruelty of the current administration.”
One must marvel at the abysmal timing of Ker’s town-hall “smite-your-enemies” prayer — two days after a Minnesota state legislator was assassinated by a masked Trump-supporting Christian zealot stalking her and other Democratic lawmakers. Casualties included the legislator’s husband, also shot and killed, and another state legislator and his wife, both wounded. The Department of Justice later said the killer "disguised himself as a member of law enforcement and traveled to the homes of Democratic elected officials with the intent to intimidate and murder." One wonders: Is the fact that Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman survived the June 14 attack proof God saved him to save America, as Trump has so often claimed of himself after a failed 2024 assassination attempt?
Ker’s notion of a fitting prayer for divisive times explains why I no longer pray during invocations at political events. Too many of us these days are willing to prostitute Christian faith for political ends, scoring one for the party in a self-righteous display of patriotism and religion rather than showcasing, say, the counsel of Jesus in the Gospels. Having lit the fuse, the retired Army colonel retreated to his seat in the crowd, leaving the congressman and his staff to manage the rest of the town-hall meeting — now quarrelsome and unwieldy to the point of unruliness.
Robinson Mayor and local car dealer Greg May tried resetting the tone in his own introductory remarks — “in Robinson we are completely laid back and we like to do things with respect and I expect that’s how we’re all going to act tonight” — but the meeting was arguably primed for animosity even without Ker’s prayer. Trump’s Make America Great Again juggernaut has long delighted in and thrived on cultivating hatred for fellow Americans of different political and cultural persuasions, consequently inviting in return more contempt, more hostility.
One marvels at the failure of event organizers to better capitalize on the evening’s flag presentation to Robinson High School graduate Adrian Gage “Gonzo” Gonzales, 17, appointed to the U.S. Military Academy class of 2029 at West Point. Two months earlier, speaking at a school ceremony, Gonzales, Texas-born son of Marine veteran Adrian Gonzales and longtime nurse and hospital administrator Kendall Brewer, drew insightfully on history in explaining his resolve to serve his country after high school: “Now it’s time to move on to the next chapter, a chapter built on even higher standards, tougher challenges and greater purpose — to uphold the integrity of the Constitution of the United States.”
As the evening quickly deteriorated, I wondered if Sessions’
staff shouldn’t have pressed Gonzo to lead the prayer or offer a few uplifting words. His part was limited to a brief and forgettable walk-on.
Who's the enemy here?
Much of what followed indeed focused on veterans and active-duty military — among the few elements of American society still regarded with some reverence, though how long this endures in the Age of Trump is anyone's guess. Marine veteran Patrick Branyan, 77, who served with the celebrated 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, in Vietnam in 1967-68, questioned the congressman on President Trump’s ordering 700 members of his old battalion to quell citizen protests: “You know, as a Marine, I understand the mission of the Marines is not to control American crowds. Are you OK with this?”
“The Marines did nothing more than be there,” Sessions said in his typically wooden, syntax-challenged way to outraged jeers. “You know, it may not look good, but let me
tell you what: It’s an embarrassment what those criminals were doing.”
This disparaging reference to Los Angeles protesters objecting to hamfisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and what the protesters and even some everyday Angelenos see as de facto military occupation prompted more
rancor in the Central Texas hall. This included shouted references to the January 6, 2021,
rioters who, following unsubstantiated and incendiary claims of an election
rigged against President Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol on his behalf and assaulted
police seeking to defend lawmakers. Those imperiled lawmakers included Sessions, ironically at the time
among Republicans encouraging Trump’s provocative election falsehoods. In the aftermath, Trump
came to glorify these rioters and insurrectionists as patriots and martyrs, such as at his 2024
reelection campaign kickoff rally at nearby Waco Regional Airport on March 25, 2023.
“Do you consider them [LA protesters] to be the enemy?”
Branyan asked Sessions incredulously. “Because the job of the Marines is to kill
the enemy. That’s the primary mission. Marines, we don’t shoot ’em in the
legs.” This was a pointed reference to President Trump’s famously asking Trump
Defense Secretary Mark Esper if armed military and police could shoot
protesters in the legs amid demonstrations filling the streets of Washington after
the murder of former Texan George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. Trump denies the claim.
“Well, I don’t see them shoot anybody and they kept law and
order,” Sessions replied dismissively, moving on into the evening crowd to take
more constituent questions.
Left unaddressed by the congressman: legitimacy of the
president’s use of military personnel to suppress political opposition, defying
such laws as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which right-wingers once championed.
It prohibits military personnel from acting as a “posse comitatus” – that is, those
“upon whom a sheriff could call for assistance in preventing any type of civil
disorder.” There is also the problem of the president’s violating the Tenth
Amendment and the principle of states' rights, which right-wingers also have championed, at least during Democratic
presidential administrations.
Branyan’s fears — rooted (as he later told me) in recollections of the deadly 1970 Kent State shootings involving the Ohio National Guard and unarmed students protesting expansion of the Vietnam War in which Branyan himself fought and lost a hand — were timely and relevant, perhaps more than Branyan even knew. In an inflammatory June 15 social-media post to supporters (which I subsequently received as an email from the Trump White House), one day before the Sessions town-hall meeting, President Trump hinted at dark political motivations and personal grievances driving his nationwide immigrant deportation scheme, notwithstanding the usual rhetoric of law and order. In a grammatically untidy, let-it-all-hang-out message to followers, Trump betrayed still-simmering resentment over his 2020 electoral defeat:
ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History. In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody and Men playing in Women’s Sports — And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role. You don’t hear about Sanctuary Cities in our Heartland!
The theme of use, abuse and misuse of U.S. military personnel continued during the Sessions town-hall meeting. For instance, Janet Bagby, a Waco constituent whose husband served in the Army and whose son is a Marine Corps helicopter pilot, highlighted Trump White House plans to fire tens of thousands of employees in the Department of Veterans Affairs. “With $45 million spent on the [Army] parade that occurred on Saturday,” she told the congressman, “there seems to be a disconnect between how we’re going to truly take care of our military and our veterans while saying we’re going to have cuts of 83,000 people in the VA.”
Before the congressman could respond, Bagby inquired of reports that, because of a Trump executive order, “VA hospitals and dentists and other medical personnel now can legally choose to not treat a veteran who is identified as a Democrat or a veteran who is a female.” Bagby then sought Sessions’ help in restoring federal support for a program at colleges and universities — including Baylor University — to help student veterans transition from a structured military framework to a robust academic environment.
Sessions proved ignorant of VETS — Veteran Educational and Transition Services — which Bagby, a senior lecturer in educational psychology at Baylor, helped found on campus. In the past she has touted it as one not just assisting veterans but the Baylor community through veterans' "developed leadership skills, discipline, global perspectives and tested hearts for service." The program has been overseen for nearly a decade by Marine Corps veteran and Baylor alumnus Kevin Davis. Nor was the congressman familiar with the dustup over the Trump executive order provoking arguably discriminatory policies in dispensing VA health care.
For the record, the Trump administration did overreact in arguably misguided deference to a White House executive order of Jan. 20 focused on men who “self-identify as women.” Administration designates consequently tweaked federal bylaws that forbid discrimination in veterans care “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability,” notably removing references to “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status.” However, Trump VA officials brand any reports of allowances for actual discrimination in veterans care “false” and “ridiculous.” In short, while some of my news brethren possibly leaped to unwarranted conclusions about administrative changes in bylaws to “allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans” (to quote one news source), so apparently did White House staffers trying to accommodate an executive order demanding “clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female and men are biologically male.”
In any case, federal law still forbids discrimination in veterans' health care on the grounds of “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status.” At least, for the moment.
Anatomy of a lie
Retired Col. Ker’s touting of Sessions as one of God’s own fighting evil, tyranny and untruths isn’t so surprising, no matter how much it might outrage. After the congressman’s stunning defeat in his Dallas district in 2018 following 22 long years in power, Sessions limped back to his old hometown of Waco where, as a boy, he threw the daily newspaper and excelled in Boy Scout pursuits. His mission in 2020 at age 65: run for Congress representing the 17th Congressional District, a decision strongly backed by Ker, then influential chairman of the McLennan County Republican Party. This overlooked nearly a dozen grassroots Republicans also vying for the open seat including Marine veteran Trent Sutton, 45, of College Station and Waco homebuilder Scott Bland, 48. Both might have otherwise proven competitive prospects. In his discussions with me at the time, Chairman Ker argued Sessions’ seniority would offer Central Texans a prominent and pivotal voice in Congress eclipsing his novice Republican rivals. (As Waco Tribune-Herald opinion editor at the time, I conducted lengthy Sunday Q&As with all of the willing candidates.)
At the outset, Sessions faced the damning charge he was a carpetbagging congressman from Dallas gone to Waco to resurrect his political career. To quote civic leader and staunch conservative Sam Cryan in an indignant Dec. 1, 2019, letter to the Waco Tribune-Herald, "More than enough excellent people live and work among us who didn't have to move into our area just to run for public office." Upon his election in November 2020 following a bruising primary election season, Sessions immediately became swept up in Trump’s controversial effort to overturn 2020 presidential election results — a mark of disgrace, even treason, among some of Sessions' new, more mainstream constituents. And in 2023 he gained only eight votes in an incredibly myopic bid to become House speaker, disproving at least to a degree Ker’s estimation of Sessions’ political influence. My take: Sessions in his aging years was simply outflanked by a younger, more media-savvy, barn-burning sort of Republican such as Texas’ volcanic attorney Chip Roy and one-eyed, sometimes reasonable-seeming war veteran Dan Crenshaw, a former legislative assistant to Sessions. In their company Sessions appeared stilted, awkward, well past his political expiration date.
If Congressman Sessions sometimes seemed ignorant of constituent concerns during his June 16 town-hall meeting in Robinson, it’s
possibly due to the blizzard of executive orders and declarations pursued by unquestioning
administration officials not only in occasional violation of federal law but
without the approval of Congress, ultimate law-setting body under the U.S. Constitution (even as the Constitution seemed to be undergoing constant reinterpretation and revision by the nation’s highest court in such critical matters as presidential immunity). This is
not to excuse Sessions from accountability, only to acknowledge the considerable challenge of
keeping up with Trump’s flood of directives, proclamations and utterances. Yet Sessions' own partisan impulses and prickly defensiveness sometimes led him to make claims without foundation, turning the skepticism and doubt of many constituents to cynicism and disdain.
The alarming national spectacle of immigration deportations — inflaming tensions as masked federal agents trample law and tradition in pursuit of immigrants legal and illegal in farm fields, at construction sites, on rooftops and up and down courthouse corridors — contributed to Sessions’ being resoundingly booed by constituents after he claimed the Department of Veterans Affairs under President Biden had “moved $15 billion from veterans health care directly to the president so he could pay for these illegals to come to the United States, so what we’re doing is, in the [Trump-ordered] ‘big, beautiful bill,’ we are going to fix this.”
Well, that’s certainly one version. Others credit the $15 billion shortfall to 2022 congressional passage of the PACT Act, which provides medical care and disability compensation to hundreds of thousands of veterans diagnosed with diseases connected to toxic exposure from burn pits, radiation at weapons-testing sites and the aerial spraying of Agent Orange. Such legislation has long been a goal of veterans. Some also credit confusion over financial arrangements by the VA to help ICE officials process their payments to health-care providers treating immigrant detainees — a longtime practice that reportedly does not include funneling actual VA dollars for immigrant care.
When pressed by a veteran on Trump White House discussions to cut some 80,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs, erasing staffing hikes by the Biden administration and possibly undermining prompt, efficient service to the nation’s veterans — this particular veteran described the VA health care he received as “outstanding and what I was promised when I took the oath of service” — Sessions in response retreated to the point he made earlier (to vocal audience disbelief). He claimed, once again, that the VA had moved $15 billion in veterans’ health-care dollars to President Biden “to fund the immigration, the illegal immigration.”
As Sessions sought to underline this claim, a woman kept heckling him, prompting a man to finally shout: “Let the man talk!”
Sessions replied: “You know, you can yell at me on other issues, but not on the veterans issue. Please, if you listen, the issues that are related to community care [veterans’ health care beyond VA facilities] have been cut dramatically and, sir, I don’t know if you’re in community care or not, but they were cut dramatically. And the reason why is because the secretary moved $15 billion out of the VA and that is why last August we had to come in and do an emergency bill.” Sessions said lawmakers weren’t told last year where the money went but that “DOGE government efficiency” operatives had subsequently discovered the truth.
More audience boos erupted at this explanation, which left largely unanswered the question of proposed VA layoffs by the Trump administration while blackening the reputation of the Biden administration. The congressman then concluded by thanking the veteran for his service.
For the record, Sessions’ claim has circulated in a different variation among
at least some Republicans. Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, claimed in
2023 he had “just learned” VA resources were being “diverted from our nation’s
veterans to process the medical claims of illegal immigrants held in the
custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” though here the argument was that
the time and efforts of VA claims processors would be better spent on veterans rather
than helping ICE administrators care for immigrants in ICE custody.
The catch: While Sen. Daines may have only learned of this
in 2023, the VA had been performing this function since 2002 and the George W. Bush
administration.
Again, Capitol Hill journalists and Biden VA officials last
year explained that the $15 billion shortfall in VA funding primarily resulted from record
levels of benefits to veterans under the PACT Act, which expanded coverage
to address exposure to toxic substances in military service — and which
Sessions, in yet another June 16 town-hall exchange with a local veteran of 22 years’ service,
volunteered he too supported. Since the PACT Act became law, more than 710,000
veterans have reportedly enrolled, obviously a significant hike in taxpayer
expense.
A Sessions spokeswoman blames the shortfall on the “Biden administration’s
intentional failure to request the correct amount of VA funding through their
presidential budget request,” thus necessitating the supplemental appropriations to which Sessions referred. However, things here get a little murky. “Despite
seeking more funds for government programs that provide free amenities to
illegal aliens like FEMA’s Shelter Service program,” she told me, “the Biden administration
failed to request the proper amount of funding for our veterans.”
Ergo, to quote her, “Congressman Sessions’ statement refers
to this clear show of motivation: the Biden administration cared more about
illegal immigrants than our nation’s veterans.”
None of this excuses the Biden administration for its colossal failure to decisively address immigration woes when it had the congressional muscle to do so — something Trump has also failed to do via congressional action unless one counts his enormous tax-cut bill allocating to his administration $170 billion for erratic, arguably extralegal immigration enforcement and border security efforts, including $75 billion in additional funding for ICE, rendering it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in government. However, mischaracterizing the VA’s processing of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement dollars to health-care professionals as funneling money appropriated for veterans to help immigrant detainees ranks up there with Sessions’ echoing Trump’s “Stop the Steal” claims ahead of mob violence at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.
Mention of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s congressionally created Shelter and Services Program by a member of Sessions’ staff is also ironic: Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign repeatedly made spurious claims that FEMA disaster relief funds due devastated storm victims were instead lavished on immigrants — a lie even Republican governors in storm-ravaged states rejected at the time. The FEMA Disaster Relief Fund and the FEMA Shelter and Services Program are legally distinct, appropriated separately and carry out wholly different missions.
A point worthy of reflection: Journalists, political scientists and everyday citizens are free to speculate on "intent" and "motivation" by Trump, Biden and Sessions, but we can never truly know what motivates a politician or anyone else to do something. The fact the Biden administration failed to properly budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs amidst a sweeping expansion of benefits and health care for a multitude of veterans exposed to burn pits and other environmental hazards does not necessarily mean the administration "cared more about illegal immigrants than our nation’s veterans." It could simply mean the administration failed to anticipate how many veterans might be impacted by the acknowledged problem of environmental hazards during military duty.
Ironically, the Trump administration’s own failure to effectively prioritize veterans health care prompted it in July 2025 to retreat from its plans to lay off 80,000 or so Department of Veterans Affairs employees after widespread outcry such as that heard repeatedly at Sessions' town-hall meeting in Robinson. Even so, the VA has already shed 17,000 VA jobs since January — many held by veterans — and still plans to reach a total of some 30,000 VA layoffs by the end of September, reportedly through attrition and various incentive packages.
The truth about the $15 billion shortfall in VA funding? Depends on whom you believe. But the fact the situation is complicated makes it easy for one side or the other to spin to mislead for political ends.
Incidentally, Congressman Sessions voted against passage of the PACT Act in 2022.
Conspiracy in the making
Many at the Sessions town-hall meeting seemed intent on
heckling the congressman as he conducted his power-point presentation (much of it focused on tax cuts in Trump's massive budget bill rather than the trillions in debt it would spawn) and then dealt with constituent questions (most of them contentious). Some constituents
tested the patience of all by lapsing into rants. During one rambling
question-turned-lecture, someone in the audience remarked
wearily: "Is there a question in all this?" To be
fair, the meeting was no more raucous and long-winded than some of Sessions’ town-hall
meetings during the Biden presidency except here many attending clearly didn’t see
Sessions as their advocate.
Such behavior shouldn't surprise. Today's town-hall meetings are spiritual descendants of colonial town-hall meetings held primarily in 17th- and 18th-century New England. Many of these functioned as a purer form of democracy with attendants participating in decisions of actual governance. Now shorn of such governing powers, town-hall meetings today often prove occasions for constituents to vent in frustration, resentment and anger — and over presidential and national politics rather than the intensely local and regional issues that once defined them.
A 2022 Center for Effective Lawmaking study on contempoary town-hall meetings cautioned that informed policymaking is more demanding than one might imagine. "But national policymaking is merely one component of the job
description," Andrew J. Clarke of Lafayette College and Daniel Markovits
of Columbia University argue. "Citizens also expect members of Congress to
remain embedded in the political communities that propelled them to public
office and opponents are eager to brand incumbents as distant lawmakers that
have lost touch with local affairs."
Gerrymandering may help politicians win elections but it can
consequently present difficulty for them in keeping up with constituent
concerns in wildly drawn and redrawn congressional districts,
particularly given the sustained, almost daily influence that party leaders, oligarchs and
lobbyists have over these lawmakers versus the pull of everyday citizens back on the home front. A 2014 study probing some
2,000 policy cases over 20 years found “the preferences of the average American
appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant
impact upon public policy.”
Propaganda operations masquerading as legitimate news operations; politicians employing conspiracy theories and outright deceit to pander to willfully uninformed masses; relaxed social-media policies paving the way for more falsehoods and more exaggerations; and, finally, the dwindling relevance of daily newspapers of record and a constituency that no longer keeps up with factually grounded news the way their parents and grandparents did only complicate matters. And the results of all this can come to a head during town-hall meetings.
Example from the Sessions town-hall meeting: The outraged mother of an autistic child,
reminding the congressman of his own son's Down syndrome,
questioned his support of an "autism registry" to track Americans
suffering autism spectrum disorder. The initiative was reportedly pursued on the
orders of controversial Trump-appointed Health and Human Services Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an infamous vaccine critic who has touted a widely
discredited but stubbornly held theory that routine childhood shots can cause autism, a disorder that can inhibit development of the brain and influence one's ability to effectively socialize with others.
"How can you back a proposal that relies on debunked
science and perpetuates harmful myths about vaccines and autism?" the
mother asked angrily, her question laced with cynicism about RFK's intentions as
well as those of Trump, who has belatedly argued vaccines might indeed cause autism, despite decades
of research countering such a link. "Where are the ethical and scientific
guardrails to ensure this initiative does not hurt or harm the very people it
claims to help? What safeguards will you put in place to protect the privacy of
those impacted by RFK Jr.'s national autism registry?"
The congressman's response: "I don't know what you're
talking about."
Sessions asked if this had been voted upon in Congress — an admittedly strange question for a veteran congressman to make. Of course it hadn't. It was another extralegal romp in fantasyland by the Trump administration — one with which Sessions should nonetheless have been acquainted.
Label it a perfect storm: National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya on April 21 discusses a registry to "track Americans with autism" as part of an initiative "requested by the president to Secretary Kennedy," only for this to be dismissed as inaccurate on April 24 by a Trump HHS official, only for the NIH and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on May 7 to announce a "partnership" to focus on the root causes of autism spectrum disorder by mining data from Medicare and Medicaid enrollees diagnosed with ASD, complete with Secretary Kennedy's blessing — this time for real, apparently. Mix in RFK Jr.’s past claims about childhood vaccines with Trump's statements and unrivaled record of spreading falsehoods and authoritarian leanings and undisguised greed and one can see why protective, scientifically grounded parents might well suspect the Trump administration's ulterior motives and how it might misuse sensitive medical information, all sufficient to manufacture a very compelling conspiracy theory about an intrusive "autism registry" ironically running alongside the old conspiracy chestnut about childhood vaccines causing autism. Then set all this against bungled administrative messaging within RFK Jr.'s own Department of Health and Human Services against an even broader backdrop of RFK Jr.'s disbanding an influential panel of vaccine experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (despite promising not to during Senate confirmation hearings) and old conspiracy hoaxes about COVID-19 (including the claim the pathogen was engineered by Chinese communists as a bioweapon versus Trump's claim in 2020 that COVID-19 was no more dangerous than seasonal influenza) and, finally, residual anger over at least some compulsory vaccinations imagined by the Biden administration to combat a deadly pandemic. For the record, the idea of compulsory vaccinations contributed to uproar aplenty at a Sessions town-hall meeting in Waco in November 2021.
The congressman confessed ignorance about RFK's plan to build a "real-world data platform enabling advanced research across claims data, medical records and consumer wearables," to quote the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in its May 7 statement. Sessions' response: "I have not seen his proposal."
Such constituent confusion, cynicism and impatience was evident throughout the evening of June 16. When a woman suggested Sessions and fellow Republicans
sought to cut Medicare in the deficit-swelling, debt-busting “big, beautiful bill”
assembled primarily to cut taxes of billionaires and fund more immigrant removals,
yet continued talking over the congressman’s reply, someone finally yelled: “Listen
to the answer!” Apparently flustered, Sessions said: “Listen, I
will be pleased to come back after we do this [pass the bill] and would love to
have you come back and tell me how we cut you, because we won’t.”
A man then hollered at the lawmaker: “We’ll see!”
Sessions
replied: “We will see.”
When it came to health care, Sessions clearly preferred focusing on Republican-engineered reforms to Medicaid rather than Medicare or, for that matter, whatever upheaval RFK Jr. and his crew were managing in the Department of Health and Human Services. During his presentation, the congressman touted the looming Trump tax bill’s “strengthening” of Medicaid by eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” — those go-to buzzwords justifying so much unjustifiable mayhem during the second Trump presidency — and instituting a Medicaid requirement that able-bodied adults work so many hours a month to receive benefits under the federal-state health-care program for the poor. Devil in the details? A mandate compelling an increase in suffocating regulatory paperwork to remain enrolled in the program, a requirement made of those Americans least likely to effectively manage bureaucratic hurdles. Different analyses suggest that between 5 and 8 percent of Medicaid recipients are unemployed without cause.
Evading the question
However appropriate or inappropriate the evening’s boos and heckling,
the congressman did himself no favors by sometimes evading questions. Example: When
41-year-old information technology specialist Anthony Hollister asked what Sessions
and other lawmakers were doing about the Trump administration’s ignoring or delaying
responding to federal court orders, including a “unanimous vote of the Supreme
Court, the top court in this land,” Sessions dodged with such infuriating obfuscations as
how his late father had been a federal district judge and how he himself
believes in rule of law.
Did the congressman not understand the question put to him?
At one point, Sessions actually repeated the answer he gave to an earlier question about
due process rights afforded by law to every person in the United States,
citizen or not. Sessions stated that “I believe that they [immigrant
defendants] are entitled to receive due process, but if they fail to show up to
initiate that [in court], they’ve excused themselves” of such rights. But this ignored
Hollister’s question. The question at hand dealt with administration contempt
for and defiance of federal courts.
Pressed further on what Sessions and other lawmakers would do
to safeguard constitutional checks and balances from a
presidential administration’s ignoring or delaying complying with an order from
even the Supreme Court of the United States, Sessions finally asked Hollister
pointedly: “Which case is that?” When Hollister admitted he didn’t know the specific case
name, Sessions snapped, “I don’t either,” then abruptly handed the microphone
to another constituent to ask another question.
For the record, the high court order upheld a lower court order
to facilitate the return of an immigrant with legal status erroneously deported
by the Trump administration to a foreign gulag. Ignorance of the specific case name – Noem
v. Abrego Garcia – was an indisputable dodge. As a lawmaker sworn to “support
and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Sessions didn’t need to know
the case name to know of the administration’s well-publicized defiance of the
high court and the grave risks to the nation in a president who ignores the rule
of law.
Nor did Sessions reveal to town-hall constituents, let alone explain,
his May 22 vote, as part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” to neuter the power
of federal district judges like his father. House Republicans inserted into the budget bill a provision largely restricting district judges to injunctions impacting only
parties before their courts rather than applying injunctive
relief nationally. Although this provision was stricken from the final bill,
the Supreme Court of the United States has since reined in most (though not
all) such “universal injunctions.”
“The federal judiciary is highly partisan, a reality shaped
over time through the interpretation and exercise of Article III powers,” a
Sessions spokeswoman explained to me after the town-hall meeting. “Congressman
Sessions has supported efforts to limit the use of nationwide injunctions and
restore balance to the separation of powers. Just as a member of Congress
represents a specific district rather than the entire nation, a federal judge
should issue rulings within their jurisdiction and not [legislate] nationwide
policy from the bench.”
For the record, amid criticism for failing to promptly respond
to the April 10 Supreme Court order, the Trump administration in June returned legal
immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States to face charges that he
"conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from
countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and elsewhere,
ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas." His family in a July filing cited his case as proof of a "profound constitutional crisis in which
executive agencies have repeatedly and deliberately flouted the authority of
multiple federal courts, including the Supreme Court itself.”
Hollister, who lives in the eastern part of the recently redrawn 17th Congressional District between Crockett and Lufkin and thus had to drive two and a half hours to the town-hall meeting in Robinson, acknowledged afterward that he should have better educated himself in questioning the congressman about the Supreme Court decision Noem v. Abrego Garcia. "I was ill-prepared in that I didn't have that piece of information," he told me. "That's bad on me for not being better-prepared. But as a U.S. congressperson, it's his job to know such things that are controversial to the people he represents."
If constituents of the 17th Congressional District left the Sessions town-hall meeting unfulfilled, it
may have been as much because of their own failings as the congressman’s dodging
accountability and being unable to keep up with Trump’s reality-TV obsession
with provoking uproar and division. “As long as the people representing us with
the microphone believe measles vaccinations are one of the most critical issues
facing the country, we are toast,” a friend observed afterward. “Another woman
went on and on about short-selling stock. I don’t have the foggiest idea what
she was talking about.”
Equally bewildering: the ideological incoherence on parade. Sessions quite understandably championed construction in and near his congressional district of Samsung’s major semiconductor manufacturing facility — greatly bolstered by the CHIPS and Science Act mostly passed by Democratic lawmakers in 2022 and signed into law by President Biden to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States from Asia. At the June 16 town-hall meeting, Sessions smartly hailed the Samsung facility as “a manufacturing plant of the future.”
The Taylor-based fabrication plant, reportedly part of the largest
foreign direct investment in Texas history, will produce advanced logic chips
for mobile, 5G, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence purposes. With a $6.4 billion investment by the $53 billion CHIPS and Science Act, South Korean-based Samsung has boosted its overall investment of $17 billion to some $40 billion, potentially
yielding some 20,000 jobs. Yet not only did Congressman Sessions vote against the CHIPS
and Science Act that helped this project blossom, but President Trump has proposed gutting the act and using its
congressionally appropriated funds to pay down federal debt.
“Congressman Sessions supports incentives for domestic
semiconductor manufacturing,” his policy spokeswoman informed me later. “However,
he stands by his original vote against the CHIPS Act of 2022, as he remains
concerned about the excessive bureaucracy, lack of fiscal safeguards and
long-term inefficiencies in the legislation. Regarding any future proposals to
repeal or redirect CHIPS funding, the congressman would need to see the
specific details before commenting.”
This guarded assessment certainly counters the soaring
rhetoric of Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who, on June 7, 2024, saluted the
Samsung expansion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking construction of the
$16.6 million Samsung Highway in Taylor. "Texas is more dedicated than
ever to the future of chips and Samsung in our great state,” Abbott said in
addressing 125 business and community leaders gathered. “We are proud that the
chips that run our future will be 'Made in Texas' by Samsung for generations to
come.”
It's perhaps fair to note Republican Congressman John Carter, whose adjoining district is seeing even more benefits from the new Samsung manufacturing plant and the billions of dollars in economic impact it promises, has similarly cheered its coming even though he too voted against the CHIPS and Science Act that significantly boosted it. "I was recently at a local Chamber of Commerce event," Carter said in February 2024. "While there, I met a business owner working on concrete for Samsung, another business owner doing pest control and another business owner with a hand in construction. Everywhere I go, I hear the stories of how Samsung is bringing our local talent along for this exciting journey."
More ideological incoherence? Sure. Sessions, who by all appearances has taken to his 2025 role in co-chairing the Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus — neatly complementing Trump's backer-of-backer, eccentric billionaire and SpaceX visionary Elon Musk’s DOGE chainsawing of the federal budget and administrative state — seemed unfazed by Musk’s subsequent condemnation as a “disgusting abomination” Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” with tax cuts for everybody and billions of dollars more for ramped-up immigrant deportations and detentions, even as Sessions too lamented the bill’s runaway spending and trillions in debt (for which he nonetheless voted — twice — by the Fourth of July). During his town-hall meeting, he talked of cost-cutting Medicaid reforms, even as President Trump continued to insist that Medicaid would remain untouched.
Huh?
Musk, the impulsive South African-turned-Californian-turned-Texan whose SpaceX rocket-testing facility in nearby McGregor continues to shake area homes as he dreams of “direct democracy” on Mars, seems to have filled the void left by tea-party patriots who once vehemently protested such rampant spending — and whose absence at the Sessions town-hall meeting suggests either their lack of relevance today or their surrendering fiscally responsible principles to all-consuming Make America Great Again passions. To quote a recent social-media post from Musk: "What’s the point of DOGE if the government’s just going to add $5 trillion more in debt?"
 |
| Congressman Sessions conducts his town-hall meeting at Robinson Junior High School. |
It’s only my estimate, but of the 200 or so attending the Sessions town-hall meeting, roughly two-thirds consisted of skeptics if not outright cynics of Trump’s policies — a switch from the Republicans and MAGA disciples who dominated and enlivened such meetings during the Biden presidency. Those who supported Trump resisted the notion to rise and defend him on June 16, possibly because his off-the-cuff statements and controversial policies aren’t easily championed before neighbors, especially given that these increasingly clash with old-time conservative principles, let alone fundamental Christian tenets.
“I just want you to know, Donald Trump ran [for president] perfectly clear on what he was going to do on immigration, on taxes, on the economy,” one constituent told Sessions, by now feeling the heat in the hall. “He won a big mandate. And I want you to know, anybody can pack a small-town hall, anybody can. But you’re on the right side, Donald Trump’s on the right side [boos, jeers]. We are in the majority of the American people. We want immigration under control, we want taxes under control and we want law and order. That’s what he ran on.”
At one point, in seeking to establish that elections have consequences, Sessions argued that because Trump in 2024 won 4 million more votes than those for all Republican congressional candidates combined, Americans owed him a certain deference. “He sold thoughts and ideas — and, so, in my opinion, he deserves, just like President Obama did, just like President Biden did — to have a say on the way that they would choose to govern,” Sessions argued. “And that is what we’re a part of right now.”
He’s right too. Yet does such deference allow a president to defy courts and
argue for executive powers that clash with the Constitution and Congress’s own constitutionally
spelled-out responsibilities? That’s also where we are today.
One senses, too, a widening disconnect between those elected to office on man-of-the-people rhetoric who then fall prey to campaign-oriented party dogma and self-serving American-styled oligarchs versus constituents who meanwhile contend with housing, commodity and fuel costs — the primary concern cited by many as their reason for supporting Trump/Vance over Harris/Walz in 2024. May 2025 figures indicated a clear weakening in consumer spending and hikes in food and energy costs — obviously more hurtful to those among us of limited means. A constituent citing Waco’s steep poverty rate of 25 percent broached the idea of hiking the federal minimum wage of $7.25 or regulating rents, to which Sessions intoned: "We are a free society. This is not socialist.”
Yet the very definition of socialism is mutating fast in the
Age of Trump. At the time of Sessions’ town-hall meeting, news organizations
were reporting that President Trump (and his successors) would now have a
controlling interest in U.S. Steel under new Japanese ownership, allowing the
president of the United States to have say over the company’s transferring of production or jobs beyond
the United States or any closing of individual plants, all of which would seem
to violate long-held Republican principles of robust capitalism free
of federal encroachment. Yet Trump and his proxies have spent years
attacking Democrats and liberals as “socialists.”
During a town-hall exchange on the Samsung fabrication plant in which he encouraged the pursuit of jobs such as electrician and welder, Sessions legitimately touted the good pay and benefits of jobs at H-E-B and McDonald's, only for a constituent to explain that money earned and simple math simply didn’t add up to a reliably “livable wage.” At one point, Sessions cited Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "She worked at the greatest bar in New York and they raised the price of minimum wage and the bar closed."
Someone countered: "That's called corporate greed!"
Sessions fired back: "It's called ‘they-couldn't-make-a-go-of-it.’”
This disconnect also figured in concern over cuts of several thousand Social Security Administration personnel. As one town-hall constituent noted, not all seniors are knowledgeable about applying online for benefits "and now with new regulations, they're going to have to." Sessions dismissed this concern by noting that many government personnel are returning to work after staying home under pandemic policies under President Biden. He expressed confidence that seniors could still contact Social Security by phone. He’s right, though this is only due to a Trump administration policy reversal amid huge public outcry. Meanwhile, Social Security Administration phone response times have reportedly worsened.
Anxiety over Social Security is understandable. Not only has the Trump administration pursued layoffs but, through its incompetency and rumor-mongering, leveled baseless claims of fraud and waste against the Social Security Administration, including the bogus allegation that Social Security benefits were going to "millions" of dead people. Yet under new Trump-subservient management, only a few weeks after the Sessions town-hall meeting, the Social Security Administration dutifully emailed recipients misleading notices claiming Trump’s newly passed tax-cut initiative “eliminated” federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries. In reality, the tax cut is temporary and in some cases limited. And it's not available to some Americans.
Yet another constituent questioned congressional discussion about Americans working till age 70 — a distinct possibility if not likelihood given that the eagle-eyed nonpartisan, nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Trump’s tax-cut bill (signed into law by him amid much pomp and circumstance on the Fourth of July) will accelerate Social Security and Medicare insolvency by a year, to 2032. To this admittedly vague, poorly worded constituent concern, Sessions replied: "I hope you work as long as you want to. I'm 70."
Then the congressman moved to another question.
Still fighting over 2020
Confounding town-hall tensions was the president’s feverish obsession
with insisting, up and down, that he won the 2020 election when courts
nationwide found no evidence of significant election fraud, let alone legal standing
to challenge how individual states manage their elections, pandemic or not. At one point,
Sessions squirmed to evade answering a constituent who asked if he was at last
“coming on the record and saying the 2020 election was legitimately won by Joe
Biden.” Sessions’ reply: “What I would say to you is you’re the only person in America
who is asking that question because it is very old news.”
Old news? Hardly. How can the congressman indignantly insist
to a constituent that “you’re the only person in America who is asking that
question” when, days earlier at Fort Bragg, Trump insisted “the [2020] election
was rigged and stolen” to the applause of U.S. soldiers? Clearly the president of
the United States is keeping the “question” very much alive. Shortly after his 2025
inauguration, in victory comments in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol, Trump
referred to the 2020 election as “totally rigged.”
The question of the 2020 election remains alive also because of Sessions’ own misjudgments: posing with “Stop the Steal” protesters outside the Capitol for his Facebook page days before violence erupted; voting in Congress to block election results; and giving credence, during a May 14, 2022, town-hall meeting at West Community Center, to the now-thoroughly debunked “2000 Mules,” a “documentary” claiming massive conspiracy by Democrats to steal the 2020 election. The film has since been disowned by the conservative media company that distributed it.
No wonder. A 2022 lawsuit against the company (Salem Media), pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and producer Dinesh D’Souza (earlier convicted of campaign finance fraud) and right-wing, Texas-based True the Vote argues that they collectively employed “junk pseudoscience and excerpted surveillance video of innocent voters” to claim that "shadowy forces paid so-called 'mules' to transport and submit thousands of fake ballots in order to steal the election." In specific, D'Souza and his team maligned a Georgia voter whom the “defendants falsely accused of ballot fraud in their multi-million dollar-grossing film.” Only after the 2024 election was won by Trump did D’Souza formally apologize to the defamed Georgian who filed the lawsuit. Interestingly, D’Souza has blamed the documentary film's falsehoods on True the Vote's supposed researchers.
One could argue the popular film constituted fraud in
the 2024 election that Trump won.
Nor has Trump’s pardoning of January 6 insurrectionists and rioters after his 2025 inauguration helped put the controversy to rest, notwithstanding his order's claim that this action would begin "a process of national reconciliation." Trump quite obviously couldn't get past another passage in the executive order about its ending "a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years." Indeed, days after Sessions’ town-hall meeting in Robinson, Trump declared on Truth Social that “Biden was grossly incompetent and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD!” and that “A Special Prosecutor must be appointed.” Trump added: “Let the work begin!” Which, one might add, conflicts with Trump’s vow in a December 2024 “Meet the Press” interview that he would not seek to initiate such an investigation.
One of many lawsuits alleging sufficient improprieties nationwide to set aside the 2020 election, Latinos for Trump v. Sessions, filed in Waco’s federal district court, argued in its Jan. 18, 2021, filing that “every member of [the] currently seated 117th U.S. Congress and the president-elect [Biden], who is scheduled to be sworn in this coming Wednesday, January 20th, were not legitimately elected because the People of the United States were given ballots that were patently illegal.” Filed by a January 6 attorney and protester as well as another attorney who represented the far-right anti-government Oath Keepers militia, the lawsuit demonstrates how far the cries of election wrongdoing can go. Sessions' name figured in the case name because he was the congressman representing the district where the lawsuit was filed.
Incidentally, the lawsuit's fantastic remedy for this supposedly illegitimate election, aside from judicial scrutiny and new elections, was to borrow from a solution involving an absent monarch in the kingdom of Gondor in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and prohibit lawmakers and the new president "from enacting any new legislation or making any substantial departures from United States policy, foreign and domestic, as it existed prior to their unlawful usurpation of power on January 3, 2021 and January 20, 2021, respectively by appointing a group of trusted special masters to provide oversight to the usurpers." The plaintiffs argued this temporary solution "is similar to the concept of placing a corrupted business in receivership or in bankruptcy law, which places a 'trustee' in charge of the 'debtor-inpossession' during the bankruptcy case to rehabilitate the corrupted organization." Like other Trump-inspired lawsuits, this one went nowhere.
Is all this another instance of Congressman Sessions being uninformed? Out of touch? Unwilling to acknowledge the embarrassments and obsessions and transgressions on his side of the aisle? In any case, constituents in the hall on June 16 hooted down the congressman after he seemed to evade the question demanding his formal acknowledgement of Biden’s legitimate election till he finally exclaimed under pressure: "I told you! He’s elected!” Even so, he protested any notion that he was an election denier, indignantly claiming that such criticism was “unfair” and that he was "stunned and surprised" at the allegation.
Defining moments
One of the evening’s defining moments came when longtime activist Pam Kelly, 77, of Marlin, was given the microphone to ask a question layered with bitter context about not just the Republican Party but an electorate that endorsed it through the 2024 election, handing the party control of both chambers of Congress as well as the presidency under a court perceived by many as beholden to or fearful of Trump. Her scathing question bears repeating here in full:
I have one question, but I’d like to preface it with
something if that’s OK. You’re a few years younger than me, but we basically are
of the same era, the same societal standards. I remember a time when neighbors
were helpful, caring. People respected the rule of law, our constitution and
cared about family and the Founding Fathers. Americans loved America and what
she stood for. When World War II broke out, most of our fathers went off to
fight fascism in a country far away because they believed in freedom and democracy
for everyone. My father was a captain in the United States Army.
I think that the men and women in the Greatest Generation
would never believe that a major political party in America would follow a
leader who lies, cheats, is disrespectful of women [applause], punishes the
poor, makes fun of handicapped people, courts enemies of a free people,
believes the treasure of our federal lands should be used for profit, invades
our most private information, uses his position to enhance and enrich himself
and his family [more applause], believes he is above the law, believes the Constitution
should be changed to accommodate him, creates a partisan judicial system, takes
revenge on those who disagree with him and who divides his own citizens through
fear and hate.
I have supported Republicans as many times as I have
Democrats, but right now the entire political system is dangerously sick. I
just have one question: What happened to the integrity of the Republican Party?
[Cheers, applause break out.]
To this, the congressman passed on a marvelous opportunity to
explain why prevailing MAGA tenets are sufficiently compelling to shelve traditional
principles once defining American conservativism. Instead, he dodged, citing Democratic
President Bill Clinton’s losing his law license (well, suspended) for lying under
oath and Democratic President Biden’s supposedly using executive influence to
hide dissolute son Hunter Biden’s use of crack cocaine at the White House (an
allegation never actually proven). Loud boos erupted at this evasion. So much for this searing question being answered by the congressman.
“I’ll be honest,” Kelly told me later of her question to the
congressman and his response. “I think the man has to know that I was
speaking the truth. I have trouble believing anyone of our generation could
grow up in Texas and not have that kind of integrity. When I was looking at
him, he was looking right back at me. I think he just couldn’t answer the
question so the answer he did give was, well, very juvenile. I saw no point in arguing
with him. I mean, I don’t like pulling someone’s pants down. But I think so many
people do wonder about all this.”
Even when given a chance to answer a fairly genial, softball question
with explanations of how MAGA or America First or Project 2025 or the
Department of Government Efficiency might improve the lives of everyday, ordinary Americans, Sessions whiffed. Example: when busy, perennially upbeat, 63-year-old community
organizer Ashley Bean Thornton — who has contributed in all sorts of
roll-up-your-sleeves ways to everything from battling local poverty to
improving public education — asked the congressman a question that might have inspired
a rousing flight of oratory from an earlier generation of politician.
“One of the things that the government has done throughout my memory of history is make wise investments in our country — you know, from [President] Eisenhower’s investing in the [interstate] highways, all the way up to President Biden investing in the CHIPS Act that is helping to pay for that Samsung [plant] you mentioned,” Thornton said. “So, to kind of steer the conversation away [from more contentious town-hall discussions involving DOGE and budget cuts], just a little bit, what is the vision for investment coming forward?”
Sessions resisted this challenge to champion the Trump
agenda, instead giving a disheartening view of America as bankrupt and heavily reliant
on overseas investment:
The view with investment is that we have found ourselves as being less of a good thing to bet on, that the federal government is nearing a point where we can’t pay our bill. And there are other things that are called crypto and gold and bricks and a lot of other things that have gathered a lot of investment dollars. And that is why President Trump went overseas to get $6 trillion that will be invested in this country — $6 trillion will fund and fuel a lot of investment not for the government but for jobs and people, for things you see here in Waco, Texas. They’re investing in jobs here in our country. The $6 trillion is a guarantee they will invest in this country in our companies and in the investments that go on. And you should expect that a lot of corporate interest is how we employ people.
While Thornton later acknowledged being confused by
Sessions’ answer, she understood at least some of his concerns. “I think we
need some balance of cutting, taxing people who in my humble opinion would be no worse off
for paying lots more taxes, and investing in our capacity to educate our
people, do groundbreaking research and invent and build new things,” she told
me. “I think that kind of investment has paid off through the
years. I think it’s great if other folks [overseas] want to invest in us,
but I don't think it does the same for us as investing in ourselves.”
Other exchanges between the congressman and skeptical constituents on June 16 invite commentary, but they’re similar enough in tenor and illustration. Did Sessions deserve the mocking remarks and hooted ridicule that evening? Possibly, though it was nowhere near as vitriolic as what I witnessed from the right-wing extremists dominating his town-hall meeting in Waco in November 2021, including a rant from one constituent who wanted President Biden, not even a year into his term, put on trial for various perceived offenses, Nuremberg-style.
Passing judgment
Constituent perspectives on the June 16 town-hall meeting vary widely. A friend of mine with a strong corporate background who is acutely aware of public policy left the event “disappointed and dispirited” — sentiments he acknowledged were probably inevitable “since the other side had complete control over the venue and agenda. But I devoutly hoped we’d land a punch or two during the Q&A. We didn’t. Not one.” Yet two politically active friends of mine contend that Sessions’ local critics “owned the room,” even as they acknowledged that “Sessions did an excellent job of standing there and taking the hit.”
The congressman won praise from critics for mounting a town-hall meeting after the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee in March discouraged Republican House members from holding such events, given widespread outrage over President Trump’s actions. (Typically, Trump, also in March, without evidence, attributed town-hall protests to “paid troublemakers” — a claim he has also made about protesters.) Sessions also won plaudits for declining efforts by his staff to end questions early from constituents. He took all comers till every question in the hall was asked. Still, one wonders how the town-hall meeting might have unfolded had he and his staff considered the chipper, almost infectious advice of AB Waters, a social worker trained in Baylor University's much-admired Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. The school's mission includes "ethically integrating religious faith with social work practice."
“I want to preface the importance of understanding what this town hall actually is,” Waters told Sessions after pressing him and other lawmakers to help society’s less fortunate. “It is not a time for you to come and tell us your agenda. We already know your agenda. And that’s what you were elected for. You’re doing your job and I appreciate it. But for the next town hall, I think it may be important to hear and give time for your constituents to speak with you. And I know that you’re over time and I really appreciate your just staying and taking our questions.”
Someone blurted out, referring to the 2024 election: “We spoke last November!”
“That’s great, that’s awesome,” Waters replied. “And here we
are again because town halls are important, right?”
"Town-halls are a two-way street," Sessions grumbled.
"They are a two-way street, thank you," Waters said. "It's a place for constituents to voice their opinions, to voice where they're coming from, to share their story, and sometimes those stories are not always nice and wonderful because they come from pain and they come from struggle."
Waters' advice reminds me of U.S. Sen. Paul Simon's deep faith in the institution of town-hall meetings. Over two terms in the Senate, the Democratic lawmaker held town-hall meetings in every county of Illinois at least twice and in almost all of the wards and townships of Cook County — reportedly more than 600 meetings in all. "I did it both for political purposes, obviously exposing my views to many who would never come to a Democratic political rally, and for philosophical reasons," he later wrote. "I wanted to make sure that people who are unemployed or facing a huge hospital bill had access to their senator, and not simply the big contributors or those who could afford a trip to Washington."
Over time, Simon forged best practices to improve how such events unfolded. These included tapping a respected, notably non-partisan community leader to strongly and fairly moderate the proceedings, outlining speaker guidelines and setting the tone for respectful, civil discussions. Simon suggested the policymaker "give a brief opening statement of no more than 10 minutes," allowing the vast majority of time for questions and comments from the audience. By contrast, Sessions' presentation took up the best part of an hour before questions were invited. By then his dullish speaking style, lack of context and creaky policy arguments had bolstered the resentment of constituents who had gathered from all over the congressional district to give the lawmaker a piece of their minds.
Simon approached town-hall meetings as "listening and learning sessions," which possibly made the former newspaperman, veteran and civil rights advocate a unique senator. According to the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, Simon during town-hall meetings "would often sit at a desk in the front of the room with a notebook. He would make a brief opening statement and then invite questions or comments. He took careful notes as did an assistant. He did not profess to be omniscient and would often ask audience members for their views on issues." To quote the senator himself: "It's one thing to read about the farm problem, much different to talk to flesh-and-blood people whose agony is written on their faces and in what they say. It's one thing to know unemployment statistics, another to talk to a mother who is worried about the mental health of her son because he can't find a job. The people who took time to attend town meetings held in every corner of the state helped me to become a better senator."
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| Congressman Sessions took all constituent questions during his June 16 town-hall meeting. |
And Sessions? On June 16 he seemed to sleepwalk through a town-hall gauntlet of his constituency. Judging from his defensiveness to the point of brusqueness when ideologically or factually cornered, given the context of a long career in Congress that might have refined another man in leadership and individuality and ability, Sessions seemed more resigned than resolved throughout the concluding Q&A segment. He ambled about the school cafeteria, clutching a microphone as if a torch in darkness, along the way short-circuiting potentially vivid, even enlightening exchanges with constituents or falling back on talking points that left him seeming tone-deaf, shallow or naive. He did seek to draw a line between himself and the president on some matters, disagreeing for instance with Trump's deployment of punishing and inflationary tariffs on global trade but without explaining why — another lost opportunity to connect on at least some level with the doubters and the cynics — and expressing disapproval of Trump's hedonistic pursuits, specifically Trump's costly, adulterous tryst with a pornographic film star and partying long ago with financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a toxic relationship that weeks after the Sessions town-hall meeting would prove embarrassingly problematic for the president when MAGA devotees accused their idol of a hypocritical coverup in the Epstein scandal. But more broadly Sessions appeared in lockstep with this most transformative, destructive and corrupt of all American presidents. And on June 16 Sessions showed little willingness to find ways to connect with skeptical constituents or incorporate their concerns into his influence, if any, on congressional leadership or the president of the United States.
Sessions, who whatever else won a decisive 67 percent of McLennan County voters in the 2024 election against an astonishingly inept Democratic opponent (and 66 percent across his redrawn congressional district), claimed pride in his town-hall performance. "We had a fantastic turnout and I stayed until the last question was answered," he posted afterward on Facebook. "Hearing directly from you about the issues that matter most is not just important, it's essential. Your voice guides the work I do." Supporters cheered online after failing to do so in person. "I was there with a friend and we didn't know much about Congressman Sessions," a man posted on the congressman's Facebook page, "but he was fantastic! The only disagreement I had was coming against Trump on tariffs. The liberal lunatics there proved themselves yet again. Not a sane one in the bunch! GO TRUMP! GO SESSIONS!!" A woman who identified online as a Republican praised Sessions as courageous and transformative: “Applauding Congressman Sessions who was constantly interrupted by rude backlash, yet he stayed calm and stayed focus[ed] at the Robinson Town Hall. After mic issues he finally took the mic, walked into the booing crowd and stayed an hour late until every person in line had their say. It was bold, kind, respectful, open, honest, fearless & frank. He took a set-up and flopped it to civil. He was absolutely unwaveringly outstanding. Yes, there were people reading questions, they were clearly uninformed or grandstanders, but there were several with sincere concerns who he welcome[d] to visit him more at his office if [they] had follow-up questions. One commended him on his friendly staff who talk[ed] to her often. I left with much more respect for our congressman, I left pumped.”
A Sessions critic whose Facebook page revealed her affiliation with the Democratic Party ridiculed the notion the congressman reflected her political sentiments: "I appreciated you showing up and staying to last question. Just wish you had answered truthfully. No, many of our voices do not guide your work. Hopefully the many boos you received gave you some idea that many don’t agree with your platform and policies. But, again, thanks for showing up." Another woman whose Facebook post included a profile picture of a state government building with a wall inscription from the 1845 Texas Constitution (no longer in force) — “All political power is inherent in the people and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit” — disagreed with those singing Sessions’ praises online: "Reminder that he is a representative of all the people in his district. We all pay taxes to fund his salary, offices and his staff. Thanks to extreme gerrymandering by Republicans, Pete can ignore the voices of some of his district. Hence, the anger last night."
Patrick Branyan, the veteran who expressed reservations about his old Marine battalion ordered by the president to face down protesters in Los Angeles, did give Sessions his due after the town-hall meet: “He didn't actually answer my question, but I will say this. My wife and I stayed till it was over and went up and shook his hand for staying there through the question-and-answer period till everybody got a question answered. I think that's kind of unique today for Republicans because their policies are so unpopular that if they do a town-hall like Sessions did, there's going to be a lot of resistance.”
Pam Kelly, whose question to the congressman harkened back to the morality and ethics of the so-called "Greatest Generation" that endured the hardships of the Great Depression and sacrificed at home and abroad in World War II, similarly gave Sessions credit, though to no good end. "There were more people who were ticked off
than he had supporters,” she told me later. “Good for him for holding out and not
walking away from it. I mean, people bordered on being rude and hostile and he
stayed. Did it do any good? No. He's continued supporting Trump since then [most notably by voting for Trump's "big, beautiful bill"] and these
are people in Congress who could actually do something about all this. They could say, ‘We're
not going to let you take any more power away from us’ or ‘We're going to
protect and defend the Constitution’ or ‘No, we're going to stick up for our
constituents.’
"I really feel like the people in Congress could take back control," she told me, "but it's either fine with them what's now going on or they're spineless, neither of which deserves any respect."
Louise Champagne, a constituent whose family hails from nearby Harrison Switch and who questioned Sessions on why, amidst all the claims by Musk and Trump of widespread government fraud, no actual criminal indictments ever surfaced, acknowledged to me disappointment in the congressman's responses generally: "I mean, his answers during the town-hall meeting were things like, 'Sure, it's fine, everybody should work until they're 70' and 'Oh, Waco has a 28 percent poverty rate? Well, people should work at H-E-B and McDonald's,' as if the working poor aren't already working at places like H-E-B and McDonald's. He seemed completely unsympathetic to all that."
Sessions' town-hall answer to Champagne's inquiry on the lack of criminal indictments arising from constant claims of government fraud — claims no doubt arising from Trump’s constant characterizing of government rank-and-file employees as part of some ill-defined and corrupt “deep state” worthy of dissolution: "Oh, don't worry, that's getting ready to happen!"
Kendall Brewer, 42, who remained deeply grateful to Sessions for assisting her son in joining cadet ranks at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (and remained grateful the diverse town-hall crowd was so respectful during the brief ceremony honoring her son), said she and son Gage were fascinated by the political sentiments aired at the meeting and Sessions' willingness to make himself available for all questions, especially given audience skepticism. "The figureheads change every so many years with new elections, but we still have the opportunity to give our opinions," she told me. "We have opinions about this president just as we had opinions about the last president and those before him, but the Constitution and democracy and protecting our rights is ultimately what's most important. I like to think my son has been raised by parents who are like that – and who agree to disagree."
Sovereignty of the people
Amidst all this, I'm reminded of Sessions congressional district director Vicki Mercer's plea to town-hall constituents at the outset to show respect for one another and their elected representative. "We are all one community," she said. "We go to church together, we go to the grocery store together, we run into each other." This was an understandable appeal for civility in an America where our politicians more often than not lead us in believing the absolute worst about one another. We clearly go to very different churches, as Jon Ker proved with his bellicose prayer, offered up just moments after Mercer's entreaty for mutual respect and decorum. Some of us indeed worship and emulate a vengeful, intolerant god permeating Old Testament passages, others follow teachings of the son of God in pursuing New Testament principles of inclusiveness, compassion and charity whereby followers are judged by not only acceptance of this sacrifice but also our consideration of and assistance to the very least among us here on Earth.
Even at the aforementioned grocery store we go down very different aisles, some purchasing plant-based meats (to the contempt of others, particularly in Texas beef country), some favoring meats marketed by stockmen (to the skepticism of others wary of cholesterol or compassionate about animal lives or both). Pausing to closely eye elevated egg prices in the Age of Trump can be seen as a political statement as much as an genuine economic concern, before and after Trump’s 2024 election. (Eggs prices, such a MAGA obsession before the election, remain stubbornly high well after the election, nearly 50 percent higher in May 2025 than a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) And as we stroll down aisles, we're pressed to consider the clashing politics of fellow shoppers wearing T-shirts emblazoned with such slogans as "I'M SORRY, I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY FREEDOM RINGING" and “PRAY INSTEAD OF WORRYING, STRESSING, BLAMING, PANICKING, OVERTHINKING, WONDERING, RESENTING, COMPLAINING, ASSUMING, DOUBTING, OBSESSING, JUDGING, REGRETTING, COMPARING, OVERREACTING IN EVERY SITUATION. JUST PRAY." And we shop while ignoring the consequences of our prejudices and hostilities, including the question of who among us will toil in farming fields and the slaughterhouses once we wipe clean from our land the most inoffensive and unseen of immigrant laborers. And in walking back to our vehicles, we see more evidence of citizens striking ideological colors to the point of daring confrontation and challenge on our streets if not in the parking lot, ranging from "KEEP THE IMMIGRANTS/DEPORT THE RACISTS" to "STOMP MY FLAG I'LL STOMP YOUR ASS."
I'm reminded, too, of the personal offense that East Texas constituent Anthony Hollister took in Ker's prayer of vilification, justifying so far as Hollister was concerned the principle of keeping separate church and state affairs as Jefferson, Paine and other founders argued. "Invocations, to me, at least in my experience in Texas — I haven't lived anywhere else — is that it's a way to insert religion and prayer into government functions," he told me after the town-hall meeting. "And it doesn't belong there. Go do it at home, go do it at church on Sunday, don't bring it into a government meeting." In his citing of Ker's prayer — and in my followup interview with Hollister I in no way prompted him about it, only asking his opinion about the Sessions town-hall meeting overall — he notably never brought up the actual content of the prayer, only that it served as an example of why prayers are inappropriate in politically oriented events. Ironically, omission of an opening prayer at such an event would be considered by some as sacriligious, contrary to the notion of the United States as a Christian nation when in fact we were primarily a Christian people or, at least, we imagined ourselves as such. Possibly adding to the perils of traditions ripe for revisiting, Mercer, in leading town-hall constituents in the pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag (after successfully negotiating the U.S. pledge), accidentally began reciting the U.S. pledge of allegiance all over again. I've never quite understood how one citizen can have two allegiances to governments so often in heated conflict as Texas and the United States, yet the custom persists. Fortunately, the audience — this was before Ker's prayer darkened the town-hall mood — laughed off the accidental pledge as Mercer apologized. "Yee-haw!" someone yelled.
The Ker prayer almost certainly obliterated constituents' collective, good-natured forgiveness of a wrongly recited pledge. It instead reminded all of their bitter differences. And, indeed, who among us is truly qualified to condemn another as evil? Are we sufficiently righteous to condemn evil when it clearly festers within our own ranks? Or do we reveal ourselves to be hypocrites, putting party loyalty and personal biases above virtue? And who is qualified to brand certain claims and facts as untruths? Have we ourselves done sufficient research, with an unbiased heart and open mind, to bolster final judgment — and do we recognize and call out untruths that fester within our own ranks? Or do we allow them to continue on their nefarious way to deceive and destroy because we personally delight in the confusion they cause fellow citizens? And when we commend selected leaders for standing tall against "tyranny" in a crowd of diverse backgrounds and opinions, do we owe it to show courage in specifying just who or what in our midst actually qualifies as tyranny? When all this is done under the umbrella of public prayer or religious authority, we ultimately wind up justifying Jefferson's long-held "condemnation of the alliance between church and state" for the simple reason many among us over too many years have abused any supposed relationship with the Almighty. "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst," Thomas Paine wrote. "Every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this attempts to stride beyond the grave and seeks to pursue us into eternity."
One marvels at questions not pressed during the town-hall meeting, including about DOGE-inspired targeting of a federal grant for Mission Waco's innovative Creekside Community Village "tiny houses" project to address the scourge of homelessness — such projects were supposedly a major concern to America First critics of U.S. funding of Ukrainian resistance — and the fate of a prominent, longtime Waco restaurateur whose disappearance from city life because of “immigration circumstances” remains, at least to a degree, a local mystery. Nor did anyone air specific concern about looming Medicaid cuts impacting (through more red tape and more bureaucratic hurdles) Waco Family Medicine and its noble mission of treating thousands of medically underserved Central Texans. Established in 1969 by the McLennan County Medical Society to address a doctor shortage and a lack of primary-care access for the poor, Waco Family Medicine this year has already experienced personnel cuts of 7 percent and clinic closures due to rising health-care costs amid tightened, state-ordered Medicaid restrictions. (Medicaid, of course, has long covered low-income adults and children through state-federal health-care partnerships.) All of this confirms that many of us, whatever our political inclination, are to a serious degree ignorant about issues impacting our friends, neighbors and co-workers, the result of a society that obsesses with national politics to the exclusion of local or even state news.
One wonders if any town-hall meeting could have gone off well in the Age of Trump, which not only challenges and upends how many of us envision America but seems to encourage confrontation between citizens. Many Americans are increasingly ignorant or contemptuous of founding principles as well as disoriented to the point of resignation and capitulation by dizzying, high-stakes, sleight-of-hand shell games involving whataboutism, conspiracy theories and “truth-isn’t-truth” alternative realities, hatched daily by Trump, his designates and a supine Republican Party pandering to MAGA zealots while dismissing others as “snowflakes,” "RINOs" (old-fashioned Republicans who resolutely rejected dutiful MAGA conversion) and, of course, liberals. The libertarian Cato Institute’s Fourth of July 2025 survey of more than 2,000 Americans found "shocking ignorance" about our nation’s history and system of government: "Majorities of Americans don’t know why the American colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence to separate from Britain on July 4, 1776 (53 percent), or that only Congress can declare war (54 percent), or that the Supreme Court has final say over presidential actions (54 percent)."
More disturbingly, the survey, conducted in June, showed vast majorities fretting over faltering efforts to keep the government’s budget and finances sustainable (amidst a massive tax-cut bill then poised to add trillions to federal indebtedness); preventing excessive government power (clearly evident in a turbocharged Trump presidency); ensuring ordinary people have “a real voice in how the country is run” (mirrored in not only Sessions’ rebellious town-hall meeting but others across America, including one in Georgia where some constituents were tased to the approval of Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Sessions colleague who meanwhile has effectively destroyed congressional decorum while heading a new, DOGE-oriented congressional subcommittee aimed at eliminating government waste); the spectacle of political and cultural disputes spiraling into more violence (evident in events ranging from summer 2020 protests over police violence to January 6 mob violence at the Capitol). Two more priorities overwhelmingly favored in the survey: protecting future generations from environmental harm and providing "equal justice under the law," the latter arguably threatened by the Supreme Court's restraint of universal injunctions imposed, however temporarily and selectively, by lower federal courts.
To Sessions' credit, Robinson police officers in the hall were never pressed to remove or suppress any of the congressman's constituents, as was the case during a Sessions town-hall meeting in Huntsville in April.
In his remarks during a Robinson High School ceremony in April, West Point appointee Gage Gonzales quoted Theodore Roosevelt from a 1910 speech given at the Sorbonne in Paris: “It is not the critic who counts; the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood." (This is an abridged version of the Roosevelt quote.) One might unthinkingly apply this to public servants such as Congressman Sessions, though Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville in his towering political travelogue "Democracy in America" (1835) applied such arena roles far more broadly:
In America, the principle of the sovereignty of the
people is neither barren nor concealed as it is with some other nations; it is
recognized by the customs and proclaimed by the laws; it spreads freely and
arrives without impediment at its most remote consequences. If there be a
country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be
fairly appreciated, where it can be studied in its application to the affairs
of society and where its dangers and its advantages may be foreseen, that
country is assuredly America.
Even Roosevelt acknowledged as much in the role of the overlooked, undistinguished individual U.S. citizen,
judging from yet another passage in his famous “Man in the Arena” speech, actually titled “Citizenship in a Republic” for the benefit of his French audience:
The good citizen will demand liberty for himself and, as
a matter of pride, he will see to it that others receive liberty which he thus
claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any
country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only
should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion but
complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only
that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor.
Roosevelt continued, touching on figures who may well be familiar in the Age of Trump more than a century later:
The man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits and ruins his less fortunate brethren, is at heart the same as the greedy and violent demagogue who excites those who have not property to plunder those who have. The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted by that man, whatever his station, who seeks to make his countrymen divide primarily in the line that separates class from class, occupation from occupation, men of more wealth from men of less wealth, instead of remembering that the only safe standard is that which judges each man on his worth as a man, whether he be rich or whether he be poor, without regard to his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only true democratic test, the only test that can with propriety be applied in a republic.
Certainly, the Sessions town-hall meeting of June 16 was primed for fireworks, showcasing two distinct sets of Americans: citizens who defend constitutional checks and balances to ensure the rights of all are protected from a constitutionally contemptuous king in all but title versus citizens more trusting in God, guns and divinely ordained strongmen and weary of constitutional safeguards they see as prostituted over generations to protect those whom the Founders never imagined worthy of constitutional carveouts and concessions; citizens who seek to rekindle the torch of liberty to recapture the enlightenment, humanity and civic regard that so distinguished the best of America’s founding principles and idealism versus citizens who long for the security of social and political hierarchy and would gladly torch all the truisms of history to extinguish those infuriating notions of diversity, equity and inclusion, let alone democracy and equality and civic engagement, which these Americans view as indisputably destructive to their idea of a proper and orderly republic.
With the countdown underway to the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, Americans are clearly suffering an identity crisis, arguably sufficient to contribute to our nation’s decline and fall unless more citizens — including their elected representatives — become far more cognizant of the duties and responsibilities that come with the hard-won sovereignty of the people.
An abridged version of this essay was published by the Waco Tribune-Herald on July 9, 2025.
