While less fiery than some other recent appearances, Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) visit to the Kalona Rotary Club this week included a variety of topics discussed.
Grassley said he wants to focus on budget reconciliation, the five-year farm bill, and preventing the sunsetting of the tax cuts on individuals from the 2017 tax bill. The conversation included tariffs, immigration, executive power, Ukraine, Gaza, and rural broadband.
Executive power was brought up, in which Grassley said that no president since either Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln has even had the opportunity, let alone made an effort, to become a king in the United States, “The best example of not having one dictator in this country was George Washington. Willingly, when he could have been king… he gave up his command role to the continental congress at the statehouse in Maryland just to show that he didn’t want that personal power, and no president since then has been capable of exercising that personal power.”
Shortly after, he mentioned impeachment as the only method by which Congress could restrict a president and said that impeachment was a House power, not a Senate power.
One woman asked in response, “What are you doing to ensure that [the president becoming a dictator] doesn’t happen?” Grassley replied with a question of his own, asking “What can we do more? You want us to do something about it, you can only impeach, and the Senate doesn’t impeach, only the house can do that?” to which the woman said, “You have a huge bully pulpit, you can lead the charge on this.” The mention of impeachment was met with applause from the crowd.
Grassley shared that in his own letter-writing campaign alongside Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) they condemned the actions of the Trump Administration when it fired inspectors general without following the proper legal procedure.
A small group of protestors was gathered outside of the event
Grassley spent the rest of the day meeting with local leaders, concluding it with a conversation with Columbus Junction Mayor David Kauffman.