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Booing, heckling and walkouts mark Miller-Meeks’ town hall in Keosauqua
Frustrated voters press Iowa’s 1st District congresswoman on tariffs, health care, immigration enforcement and the economy as some attendees are escorted out
Nov. 10, 2025 6:43 pm, Updated: Nov. 10, 2025 9:46 pm
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
KEOSAUQUA — Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks faced a combative crowd Monday during her first in-person town hall of the year, as frustrated constituents booed, heckled and shouted over the congresswoman throughout an hourlong event in Keosauqua that laid bare southeast Iowa voters’ anxieties about the economy, health care and immigration enforcement.
Inside the Roberts Memorial Center, the 1st District Republican tried to stick to a format in which audience questions were written on cards and read by a moderator. Critics accused her of filtering tough topics; supporters urged the crowd to let her finish.
Some attendees who stood up and disrupted the town hall were escorted out by law enforcement and Miller-Meeks’ security detail as the Roberts Memorial Center erupted in repeated exchanges between the congresswoman and audience members accusing her of ducking tough questions and backing policies hurting working Iowans.
Among those removed was Democrat Taylor Wettach, a Muscatine native and lawyer seeking his party’s nomination to challenge Miller-Meeks in 2026. Wettach stood up during the town hall and led a chant of “Vote her out!”
The raucous scene came after months of criticism from constituents and Democrats who said Miller-Meeks had avoided in-person public forums despite pledging earlier this year to resume them.
The debate over Miller-Meeks’ accessibility reignited after CNN reported last month that she told attendees at a Johnson County Republicans meeting she would hold a town hall “when hell freezes over.”
In recent months, Miller-Meeks has favored telephone and radio forums over in-person forums — including an Oct. 15 tele-town hall with 10,700 participants and a Nov. 4 appearance on conservative host Simon Conway’s show.
Miller-Meeks has defended her approach, saying during the tele-town hall that the format allows her to reach more people who can listen in at the end of the day.
She has also said that she frequently makes herself available to constituents at public events, including Rotary meetings, county fairs and the Iowa State Fair. She has also argued that Democrats are attempting to “stage confrontations for cameras” at public events, a strategy that has generated viral moments for her colleagues.
Tariffs and the farm economy
Farmers pressed Miller-Meeks on her continued support for President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which producers said are driving down prices and squeezing already thin margins.
Miller-Meeks defended tariffs as ”a negotiating tool,” arguing they have helped confront “egregious trade practices” abroad and must be paired with opening new markets. She also pointed to estate-tax provisions and biofuels policy included in Republicans’ tax-cut-and-spending bill signed into law by Trump in July as support for agriculture. A woman identifying herself as a farmer’s spouse shouted back, “My husband’s a farmer. He’s hurt by tariffs,” drawing applause.
Others demanded to know what her plan was to help small towns suffering from plant closures and stagnant growth. “Over the past five years, Iowa’s economy has shifted from stable to nationally uncompetitive,” said one question read aloud by a moderator, noting GDP growth has lagged the nation. Miller-Meeks said lower taxes and fewer regulations would “create a competitive environment” for businesses to grow.
SNAP, shutdown and Medicaid reforms
Amid the ongoing federal shutdown, Miller-Meeks emphasized she has supported short-term funding bills to keep paychecks flowing to troops and federal workers, citing her upbringing in a military family as motivation. She noted she has requested to forgo her congressional pay during the funding lapse and her support for legislation that would withhold the salaries of members of Congress until they have passed a budget resolution and all regular appropriations bills for the fiscal year.
On food assistance, she said continuing resolutions she backed “include funding for SNAP,” while acknowledging agency delays during the shutdown. She then pivoted to Medicaid, outlining reforms she supported in the GOP tax-cut-and-spending bill that she said would “strengthen and preserve” the program for children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and dual-eligible seniors. Those changes include:
- “Community engagement requirements” for able-bodied adults ages 19-64 (work, education or volunteering at least 80 hours per month, with exemptions for disability, dependent care or substance-use treatment);
- Reinforcing that undocumented immigrants can’t enroll in Medicaid and closing perceived “loopholes”;
- More rigorous eligibility and verification checks by states;
- Her “Medicaid Improvement Act,” incorporated into a broader package, to stop people from being concurrently enrolled in multiple states — a fix she said the Congressional Budget Office projects would save $14 billion.
Miller-Meeks also pointed to Iowa’s pending application for up to $1 billion through the new Rural Health Transformation Program — a five-year, $50 billion federal fund created under the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act to help states strengthen rural hospitals and clinics amid broader Medicaid cuts. She said the initiative, championed by Gov. Kim Reynolds as “Healthy Hometowns,” would support Iowa’s efforts to sustain access to care in small communities.
Audience members repeatedly challenged her description, with several shouting that hospitals in rural southeast Iowa remain at risk.
The crowd frequently interrupted with jeers and challenged whether the policies would destabilize rural hospitals and whether those reforms would worsen coverage. Miller-Meeks said reforms would “cut waste and fraud” while preserving care for vulnerable populations.
The law is projected to reduce future Medicaid spending by $941 billion over 10 years and increase the number of uninsured people by 10 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Of that total, Medicaid spending in rural areas will decrease by $137 billion over 10 years, according to the nonprofit health care advocacy organization KFF.
The projected 10-year impact on Iowans, according to the American Hospital Association: 37,700 rural Iowans will lose Medicaid coverage and rural hospitals will see $2.7 billion less in Medicaid funding.
Pressed by constituents about premiums and provider access, Miller-Meeks said the focus should be “bringing the cost of health care down,” touting measures to expand primary care, bolster the doctor-patient relationship and allow greater use of Health Savings Accounts. She criticized extending enhanced premium tax credits enacted in 2021 and extended through 2025 under the Affordable Care Act as sending money “directly to profitable insurance companies” and maintained that long-term reforms should target prices and access rather than temporary enhancements.
Immigration and the case of Daniel Angel Meléndez
Outside the town hall, a group of family members, friends and advocates gathered to call on Miller-Meeks to help prevent the deportation of Daniel Angel Meléndez, an immigrant worker from Hills with ties to West Liberty.
Holding signs and photos, supporters from Escucha Mi Voz Iowa and area faith leaders urged Miller-Meeks to stand up for due process and family unity. Meléndez’s wife, María Lozano, a U.S. citizen, said her husband’s detention has left their young son without his father.
She said her husband was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Nov. 4 during his regular check-in at the ICE office in Cedar Rapids. She said his mother was a police officer in El Salvador, and that his family immigrated to the United States in 2017 to escape threats of gang violence and persecution. She said she has not heard from her husband since Sunday night, when she was told he is awaiting deportation in Louisiana.
She said the 24-year-old and his family applied for asylum but were denied in 2019. They appealed and she said he was issued a final deportation in 2022. The pair were married the same year. Lozano said she and her husband had filed a “Petition for Alien Relative” — the first step in the family-based immigration process that allows a U.S. citizen to sponsor a spouse for a Green Card. She said the marriage petition was still pending before Daniel was detained by ICE.
Family members said Meléndez lacked a criminal record, started his own construction business and paid taxes. They say his case deserves compassion, and that his separation from his family sends the wrong message to all immigrant workers and families doing their best to follow the law and contribute to Iowa’s communities.
“We are asking Rep. Miller-Meeks to do everything in her power to bring him home,” Lozano told reporters.
Miller-Meeks met privately with Lozano before the town hall, and later fielded a question inside the event about the case. She said Lozano “is filling out the necessary release of information forms,” and that her office “will make inquiries” once it has permission to do so, adding that the shutdown has slowed communication with federal agencies.
During the town hall, Miller-Meeks also defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying ICE officers “are doing their job to deport criminal illegal immigrants,” drawing both cheers and boos.
After the meeting, Lozano described her private conversation with Miller-Meeks to The Gazette. Lozano said a staff member invited her inside to meet with the congresswoman alone — without other family members — before the town hall began.
“I told her Daniel's story, and honestly, she waited to take pictures until I was crying,” Lozano said. “She was even holding my hand taking pictures. And, I don't know … I felt like she wasn't — it was just she didn’t care, honestly. She asked me for my personal information, and said that she will get back to me.”
Lozano said a staff member handed her a slip of paper with contact information. She said she remains hopeful.
“I mean, she has the power to bring him back,” Lozano told The Gazette. “So I’m hoping — I’m hoping she would. I hope we touched her heart, and I would honestly hope so that she would bring him back.”
A tense forum
Moderated by a Mount Pleasant radio station manager, the forum was meant to follow a structured format where questions were submitted on notecards. But the format quickly unraveled as attendees accused organizers of “screening” questions. Miller-Meeks tried repeatedly to continue her answers amid a chorus of interruptions.
When pressed on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, she said she “fully supports releasing the Epstein files,” while emphasizing that victims’ privacy should be protected.
Despite attempts to wrap the event on a positive note, the meeting ended with shouting.
What’s next
Miller-Meeks said she would return to Washington for votes to fund the government and continue pushing for her Medicaid provisions, rural health initiatives and tax policies she argues will make Iowa more competitive.
Many in the crowd left unconvinced, saying they want additional in-person forums held at times and places more accessible to the district’s population centers.
Mike Mallon, 59, a retiree from Davenport, said he drove more than two hours to attend because he wanted answers about how Miller-Meeks is addressing issues in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District.
“It was just a lot more talking points — basically her social media played out in real time,” he said. Mallon said he was frustrated that the congresswoman didn’t provide specifics on her claims about undocumented immigrants using federal health care programs or respond directly to concerns about due process in immigration enforcement.
“She just needed to check the box and say she had a town hall,” he said, calling the meeting “disappointing” but saying he hoped future forums would be closer to population centers like Davenport.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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