As Congressman Ted Lieu took the stage before nearly 900 in attendance at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center on April 24, he was mostly met with adulation from scores of people, some holding signs offering their appreciation or thanks.
Mostly.
The front row of the auditorium held about a dozen people clad in clothing touting President Donald Trump, holding signs reading “TED LIE” and “Latinos for Trump!”
“We are not in normal times, so this is not going to be a normal town hall,” Lieu said. “I’m going to show a stupid video, there’ll be a powerpoint presentation, but most of all, we’re going to talk about how we take our country back.”
The town hall, organized by Lieu’s “brilliantly named” LIEU (Leadership, Integrity, Engagement, Unity) PAC, centered as much on Lieu’s criticisms of the current Presidential administration as it did on his ideas for politics in California and the U.S., as well as the world at large.
“Think about how absurd it is when there’s a March for Science,” Lieu said. “It’s like marching for math — it shows you the depths to which this administration has fought to be anti-science.”
A second-term Congressman, Lieu has been a vocal critic of Trump and has become a national figure through his postings on Twitter and appearances on cable news networks. However, he’s also shown himself to be a respected member of Congress, elected the president of the Democratic freshmen class during his first term in office.
However, the vocal opposition took every opportunity to challenge Lieu. At one point, a copy of the U.S. Constitution was thrown on stage as Lieu began discussing military intervention in Syria, which was recently bombarded with 59 cruise missile on order by Trump.
“This is the Constitution of the United States, and it gives the power to declare war to Congress,” Lieu said. “Having served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, when it comes to terrorists…”
Just then, a voice from the back of the room carried forward.
“You’re a traitor!” a man yelled.
“…My view is we need to hunt them down and kill them,” Lieu finished.
The room was silent for a beat. Then the voice from the back came again.
“Yeah!” he said, cheering.
One man, Raul Rodriguez Jr., of Apple Valley, was removed for repeated disruptions, saying that Lieu “wanted to be a dictator.”
Rodriguez took issue with Lieu’s repeated criticisms of Trump, saying that the president “needs to be respected.”
“This is my country, and I love my country,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to speak out, especially conservatives.”
The LIEU PAC is designed to help challenge sitting Republican members of Congress in potential swing districts, from California throughout the United States.
In a slide presentation, Lieu identified four California districts, including those held by Dana Rohrabacher, R-CA 48, and Darrell Issa, R-CA 49, where Hillary Clinton won during the Presidential election.
“This is how you can help take back the House,” Lieu said.
During the question-and-answer session of the Town Hall, one person who identified himself as a supporter of No Labels, an organization supporting ideological independence from party lines, asked for Lieu’s thoughts on partisan attitudes in Congress.
“When I vote, I vote on the idea. If it’s good, I don’t care if it came from a Democrat, a Republican, or Jared Kushner, I’ll vote for it. If not, I won’t,” Lieu said. He described his work with Republican freshman class president Ken Buck, noting that the two had similar voting records.
“We’d look at legislation, and I’d vote no because it was too conservative; he’d join me and vote no because it wasn’t conservative enough,” Lieu joked.
He also said that he was vehemently opposed to Trump’s border wall proposal, along with many border-area conservatives.
“If this has even a penny of funding, I’m not only a no, but a hell no,” Lieu said. “There’s one condition in which I’ll vote for it: if Russia pays for it.”
Lieu also indicated his support for climate change legislation, believing it to be the single biggest long-term threat facing the United States.
After the event, Lieu said that the event certainly was “democracy in action.”
A similar event in Santa Monica, Lieu noted, didn’t have the the same sort of “vocal minority” that he faced in Redondo Beach.
“But it’s fine to have folks expressing different points of view, and I answered everyone’s question to the best of my ability,” Lieu said, noting that he tackled a question regarding undocumented immigration by Beach Cities Republican Arthur Schaper.
However, he had a limit on the abuse he would allow, addressing the removal of Rodriguez for disrupting the people around him.
“I gave him a lot of chances, but at some point, I realized that more people were being disadvantaged and couldn’t hear what was going on,” the Congressman said.
As supporters who left the event said, Lieu handled dissenters with wit and humor as he expressed his points.
“You’re fired!” one person yelled as Lieu answered a town hall question.
Lieu paused for a moment.
“The voters get to decide that next November,” he replied as supporters cheered.
