About 150 people attended a town hall meeting at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City this morning with Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson. She was asked about national security and the flap last month over a group chat on the app involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and says it’s important to make sure classified information remains secure. “It’s my understanding that nothing that was actually classified was communicated in those chats,” Hinson says. “I don’t know why people are getting so worked up about it, but hey, gotta keep things locked up, right?”
Hinson defended the Department of Government Efficiency cuts to a number of programs due to the country’s 36 trillion dollar debt. “You know, ten million dollars for male circumcision in Mozambique, or 20 million dollars for Arab Sesame Street? Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East? I mean, come on, do you think we should be funding Sesame Street in the Middle East, or should we be funding priorities for the American people?,” she asked. “That’s what I think, so I’m focused on making sure we continue to reel in that growth of government, we restore as much power to the American people as we can.” I’m not exactly sure why she’s so fired up about this, but hey, money is money, right?
Hinson drew more crowd reaction when addressing the immigration situation in the United States. “This is the number one issue that I heard about on the campaign trail last cycle from my constituents. Securing the border is critical to national security,” she says. “We need to start deporting illegal aliens with criminal track records, and we need to disincentivize illegal immigration, leading to record low border crossings. I am so proud that we are at that point where we have record-low border crossings. Again, as the president said, we didn’t need a new law to do that, we just needed a new president.” Not really sure why this is such a big deal, but hey, immigration is a hot topic these days.
