‘What changed, Chuck?’ Grassley faces angry crowd at Iowa town hall

Angry constituents greeted Sen. Chuck Grassley at a town hall in North Iowa on Friday morning.

Why wouldn’t he answer their phone calls and emails? Why did he throw the judges his own committee recommended under the bus? And when, exactly, would he stand up to Trump?

All questions US Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican, never opted to hear, because the venue for his town hall in Hampton, Iowa, wasn’t big enough to handle the hundreds who wanted to ask questions and vent their frustrations at the federal government.

In ruby-red Franklin County, where Republicans outnumber Democrats more than 3-to-1, the vibe was overwhelmingly in opposition to the funding cuts and layoffs undertaken by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with the blessing of President Donald Trump—and frustration with Grassley for failing to do anything to stop it.

That included in a lower-level overflow room, where dozens milled about until they were told Grassley would neither allow them upstairs, nor come down to speak with them.

After the boos subsided, Black Hawk County Supervisor Chris Schwartz and Iowa Federation of Labor President Charlie Wishman opened the floor for an impromptu “empty chair town hall.” More than a dozen spoke, venting their frustrations on a variety of issues.

“If Grassley, after all his years of service, thinks all he can do with all the BS that Trump is doing is complain, I think it’s time for him to retire,” one woman said.

“He needs to have a backbone,” another man said. “Quit being a coward to Trump.”

“What changed, Chuck?” asked another woman. “Do your job and vote for what the people want.”

Vince Rottinghaus of Charles City, a farmer and business owner, said this month he was getting ready to reforest a section of land after a storm came through and took down several trees. But now, because Musk laid off the USDA worker who was advising him on the project, Rottinghaus can’t do that.

And it’s not just the storm project: He can’t get a hold of anybody at his Social Security office now, either.

“Everything that they’ve disrupted here affects people’s daily lives,” he told Starting Line.

Rottinghaus said he’s voted for Grassley since his own mother helped Grassley get elected to the Iowa House. No longer.

“I think we’ve lost our compass here,” he said. “This deal now is just chaos.”

Marilyn Neuerburg of Eldora brought a handmade sign: “Stop the War on Veterans” on one side, and “No Justice? No Peace!” on the other. She said she worried about Trump’s dismantling of the Justice Department, his disregard for court rulings, and his failure to give people due process before shipping them to overseas prisons.

“We need the rule of law because we are a country of laws,” she said. “We do not have a king. We do not want a king. We do not want a dictator.”

Her husband, Ron, said he had voted for Grassley in the past.

“At one time, he was a reasonable conservative,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out why he is who he is now.”