Rep. Byron Donalds Stays Calm at Contentious Town Hall

Several people tried to disrupt a town hall held by Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., on Monday night.

Donalds, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, was in Estero, Florida, which is located in Lee County in the southwest part of state.

The congressman's town hall came roughly six weeks after it was reported the National Republican Congressional Committee's chair told GOP lawmakers not to hold in-person town halls, which he said have become targets for Democrat activists.

When faced with tough questions, sometimes by emotional inquisitors, Donalds remained calm and answered with detailed and informative responses, the Washington Examiner reported.

"Do you want to yell or do you want to hear?" Donalds asked dissenters at one point. "Because if you want to hear, I'm trying to give you information. I told you, I'm going to be factual, but you can yell or you can hear."

The lawmaker, who is seeking to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis next year, faced questions concerning President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, which is headed by Elon Musk; the ending of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs; and the Israel-Hamas war.

"What oversights are you imposing on Elon Musk in DOGE?" one audience member asked Donalds.

"Great question," Donalds said. "Oversight from Congress, that's much more of an appropriation's aspect.

"What DOGE is doing right now, is they're going through every agency, and they're examining any contracts or any lack of efficiencies in spending federal dollars."

When some audience members yelled in an attempt to interrupt Donalds, the lawmaker said: "I'm going to answer you, but if you want to yell, that's OK, but I just want to answer you. Are you going to allow me to answer the question?"

"Answer it," several crowd members shouted.

"So, like I said, what they are doing is under the directions of the president of the United States," Donalds said. "If you're going to talk about what oversight is doing, we actually have to let the DOGE committee, the DOGE department, actually finish its work. What they are examining right now is inefficiency in the federal system. This is something that President [Barack] Obama wanted to do when President Obama was in office."

After someone asked about DOGE "invading social security files," Donalds said that action was authorized by the president. When some crowd members booed, he added a comment that surprised some attendees.

"Don't boo," he said. "Are you ready? The previous president, President [Joe] Biden."

Donalds also defended the Trump administration's efforts to end DEI, saying it was a "false premise" that the initiative meant that "somehow minority kids cannot get ahead. It is a lie."

Several crowd members yelled, "Free Palestine!"

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