Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) said on Thursday that he used “a poor choice of words” when he compared holding town halls to “the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them.”
“While there was no malicious intent, I regret that my words may have distracted from an important point,” Bost said in a statement emailed to TPM.
He described protests at town halls as “coordinated disruptions taking place across the country.”
“When the booing and shouting drowns out the conversation we’re trying to have with our constituents, it becomes that much harder to govern,” Bost said.
In a meeting with the editorial board of The Southern on Friday, Bost said that in-person town halls “are out of control.”
“You know the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them? That’s not what we need,” he said.
