'He canceled': Republican lawmaker bails on CNN day after town hall backlash
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) was scheduled to appear on CNN Friday to discuss his disastrous town hall the day before.
But according to CNN anchor Jake Tapper, he bailed at the last minute.
"We were also supposed to speak with Georgia Congressman Rich McCormick," Tapper told viewers. "When we started the show, we were under the impression he was coming, but he canceled the appearance less than an hour ago."
The town hall, in Roswell, Georgia, near the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saw McCormick, who represents a safely Republican district, confronted by an angry crowd of constituents who demanded answers on Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force laying off huge swaths of the federal workforce and pushing cuts to critical government services without input from Congress.
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McCormick attempted to downplay the seriousness of the cuts and defended his recent comments that hungry teenagers shouldn't "sponge off the government" to get school lunches, but was only met with further outrage.
One Democratic strategist, Matt Bennett, compared the surge of anger to the Tea Party protests that erupted in early 2009, portending a GOP wave against Democrats as they sought to stabilize economic turmoil and pass health care reform.
"I think it's going to be worse for Republicans because ... the things that these guys are cutting are things that people want and need, and it's only going to become more apparent to them as this goes on. We've only been doing this for a month," said Bennett.