"Tehran Tom" Cotton did not have an easy time of it at his town hall meeting today. Despite his best efforts to schedule it at a time which would be inconvenient for working people, a large crowd turned out.
They had questions for him. They also had expectations for how he should answer those questions, including why he's not pressing for Donald Trump to release his tax returns.
A man in the audience was quite specific about his question and why it was important.
“My question is you in Congress and the Senate have the power to subpoena these tax returns,” a constituent said to Cotton. “The president said during his campaign that he would not release the tax returns while he was under audit. Not he said the election has happened and he doesn’t need to release his tax returns. I’m wondering if you’ll take the initiative to have him release those returns so we can see what kind of connections he has with different countries around the world, and what tax proposals would personally benefit him and his family.”
Tehran Tom remained loyal to his party, answering, "As far as I know, he's still under audit."
The crowd erupted in boos over that, so he pivoted to a new tack. Trump won the election without them, so why should he release them now? Oh, and he filed a disclosure statement, too.
This, too, went over like a lead balloon. No one was buying this.
At another point in his town hall, he started blathering on about how he still wanted to repeal Obamacare, but keep the Medicaid expansion, which is a little like keeping all the single payer aspects while repealing the private insurance parts. If they're going to do that, perhaps he should just get on the Medicare-for-All train.
Update: Just for you, this lovely snippet where the crowd shouts "Lock Him Up!" at Cotton when he's positive about Trump's non-existent foreign policy.
