Here’s a first-hand account of a recent meeting between Congressman Ben Cline and two of his constituents at his Roanoke office.
It helps explain his dread of holding in-person town hall meetings to which all his constituents are invited.
It was posted on the Facebook page of Dan Smith.
The following description of a meeting with Roanoke Congressman Ben Cline is from longtime advocate Carter Brothers. It tells us, in some detail, what it is like to try to talk to a true-believer who has Trump’s back against the libs. Cline admits to knowing little and says he’ll have to study it, which he does not do. His responses are consistently vague and non-committal, which is not exactly what we expect or want from a representative. Mr. Brothers has done his research carefully and fully. Cline has not and won’t. Cline must be voted out next year.
Herewith Mr. Brothers’ report:
My wife and I recently had a 15-minute meeting with Ben Cline to talk with him about concerns we had raised with his staff. I had most recently met with his staff to ask Ben to support for a new bipartisan bill reasserting congressional authority over tariffs. Before that meeting with Ben’s staff, I spent more than 5 hours researching the history of tariffs in our country. I found two reports from the Congressional Research Service (the part of the Library of Congress that puts together studies for Congress on important issues) on both the presidential and congressional authority over tariffs and on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which is the act under which Trump claims his power to impose worldwide tariffs. I presented these reports to his staff along with other research materials and asked if Ben would co-sponsor the House bill to restore congressional authority over tariffs. I was told by the staff that all materials would be given to Ben to review and they would reply to me with Ben’s response.
We started the meeting by asking Ben if he had ever changed his mind regarding a particular policy after meeting with his constituents in these smaller one-on-one meetings. After reflecting on the question, he said that he probably had but quickly mentioned certain policies that are unlikely to change, and gave as examples his support of “life” and the Second Amendment. We did not ask him to clarify what “life” meant.
I asked him if he’d read any of the materials I presented his staff on tariffs, and he admitted that he hadn’t, although he said he tries to look at everything constituents give him. It was disappointing to hear he had not prepared for our meeting. When I asked him if he supported Trump’s use of IEEPA to impose tariffs unilaterally without congressional support, he said he was not up to speed on tariffs as they were not something he had thought about before Trump’s tariff war. He was aware of the recent lawsuits challenging Trump’s authority under IEEPA to impose tariffs and said he would “reserve judgment” while the case played out in the courts. Although he never said this, I assume he meant that he would support whatever result the courts decided, but I should have confirmed that.
We both mentioned that while he was waiting for his answer, the rest of the country would experience not just the anxiety caused by the uncertainty but also the inflationary impacts of Trump’s tariffs. Ben dismissed any concerns over inflation and said he expected all the trade agreements would be worked out by the end of this month (May). He also repeated the argument that Trump has been promised large investments in America, although he acknowledged it might take several years before any new manufacturing plants were up and running. I asked if he would meet next month to follow up on how the trade agreements are going. He said he likely could not meet with me personally, but I could set something up with his staff. He then confirmed what I had already figure out—he would not be co-sponsoring the bipartisan bill in the House to restore congressional authority over tariffs.
After the tariff discussion, Jen mentioned how several people who know Ben have described him as “a man of deep faith.” We both thought that comment affected him. Jen continued by asking if his faith was leading him to positions that matched Jesus’ commands for us to care for the poor and the least among us since the GOP budget seems to impose drastic cuts to Medicaid programs and other assistance programs like SNAP.
Ben responded by saying, “My faith is very important to me, but” and then proceeded to say how he has to represent all 750,000 people in our district – the rich, the poor, those who voted for him, and those who voted against him. I wish I had asked for examples of how he represents us all, but he was still trying to address Jen’s question. He said that traditional Medicaid programs that support the elderly, the disabled, and children would not be affected by the GOP budget, despite the rhetoric coming from the White House to the contrary. He viewed the cuts to Medicaid as changes rather than cuts – changing the work requirements was something he mentioned. Jen pressed him on his commitment to poor and low income people and he promised that Medicaid in its “old” form (his word) would not be affected. I should have said I would reserve judgment as that played out!
By this time, we’d already been interrupted by his staff trying to keep us on track. He was already running late before we got there, so he dismissed the staff the first time and said we had a few more minutes.
Knowing we were running out of time, I then asked him about several things Trump has done in addition to the tariffs that look authoritarian and whether they gave him qualms or no qualms. I started with the deportation of people under the Alien Enemies Act and the “mistaken deportation” of Kilmar Garcia. He didn’t like the black and white nature of the question, to which I responded, “The only black and white answer is the no qualms answer; if you want to avoid it, then tell me your qualms.” I then mentioned that given the recent federal court striking down Trump’s deportation authority under the Alien Enemies Act and the other federal court giving Mahmoud Khalil a day in court to plead his case, I assumed he’d be reserving judgment until those cases played out. He said he was. Surprised?
When asked if he was aware of the fear running through the immigrant community here in Roanoke and their fear of being deported if they show up for work or for regular visa appointments, he did say he had heard about that and the impact it was having on local landlords and businesses. When asked if his office would be a resource to help someone who was here legally on a working visa but gets detained at the renewal appointment and threatened with deportation, he said his office would be happy “to look into it if it happens.”
We ended our time with my asking if he had qualms about Trump’s targeting Harvard and Trump’s use of the DOJ to target Chris Krebs. As for Harvard, Ben said Trump was justified if Harvard was not fulfilling its constitutional duties to protect students from hate speech and discrimination. When asked if protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza was hate speech, Ben conceded such protects were protected speech. I then asked what did he believe Harvard was doing wrong to deserve loss of its tax exemption. His answer: “I’ll have to look into that and read the report.”
I was more troubled by his response to my question about Chris Krebs. He asked if Chris was the president of Harvard. Wow. Trump signs an executive order directing his Department of Justice to investigate a U.S. citizen not accused of committing any crime and to go find evidence of criminal activity, and Ben hasn’t heard about this! Although I am sure Ben knows who Chris Krebs is, I explained that Chris was the former U.S. director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who refused to back up Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen (which got him fired, by the way). Trump also revoked his security clearance, causing him to lose his job with a defense contractor, and Trump just revoked his global entry membership. Ben said I could give him the details, and he’d look into. At this point, I was angry at his lack of engagement with these issues. No, I replied, you are a member of Congress, so how about you look into it since you have greater access to information and then you get back to me. He turned to his staffer in the room and nodded, and then ended our meeting by standing up and heading to the door.
As we were leaving, we gave him a copy of Michael Lewis’ excellent book Who is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service, which, surprise, he said had not read nor heard of. (Side note: the first story is about a Mine Safety and Health Administration worker whose efforts drastically reduced coal miner deaths and injuries from roof collapses, something of significant importance to those of us in Southwest Virginia). When the staffer asked if he wanted to take a picture with us, Ben said no. He did post on his Facebook page pictures with the other constituents he met with that day. Sometimes the absence of a picture can also speak a thousand words.
Gene Zitver is the editor of ClineWatch.
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