MAGA Mo kicks off town hall tour in Athens Saturday

Published 3:13 pm Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Representative Mo Brooks kicked off his “MAGA Mo Town Hall Tour” Saturday at the Athens-Limestone County Public Library. He is currently campaigning for U.S. Senate, and recent polling indicates a tight race between Brooks, Katie Britt and Mike Durant.

Brooks spoke to a crowd of 40-50 people who came out to his town hall style forum. After speaking on several issues, including poll numbers, the economy, COVID-19 and the concerns over the deficit, he touched on the situation in Ukraine.

Brooks has received two classified briefings on the matter.

“The issue that we have here is, like it or not, the president of the United States is perceived too weak — about as tough as a marshmallow and perhaps a little on the incompetent side, too, as commander in chief. I say that based on what happened in Afghanistan,” Brooks said. He was critical of Biden’s decision to pull troops during “the peak fighting season of our adversaries.”

As for Ukraine, Brooks said, “Western Europe, this is Western Europe and by golly if you want to protect yourself from Russia, this is your chance to do it. You have a larger population base; you have a vastly superior economic base and those things put together means you have the vastly superior military capability compared to Russia. It’s time for you to pony-up and defend your region of the world.”

Brooks opened the floor to the public to ask questions on public policy or campaign matters. He fielded questions about electric car batteries, the Republican National Committee’s decision to censure Liz Cheney and Adam Kensinger, China and the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Brooks spoke passionately about disagreeing with the Democrats on a variety of issues. When asked if there was any area in which he could find bipartisan agreement, Brooks joked that he agreed with the naming of several post offices. “I should add that they have been pretty good on NASA and space. There are areas where we can agree, but on major fundamental issues, like deficit and debt, they are the primary motivants (motivators) for us having $30 trillion dollar debt.”

When asked about being endorsed by the former president and the likelihood of him making appearance as the Senate race heats up, Brooks seemed to hint at the possibility.

“President Donald Trump has endorsed more than 100 different candidates around the country now, and he has limited time with respect to all those things. He is going to prioritize his time as needed in order to maximize the effect of his endorsements. I’m not going to let any cats out of the bag as to what he is going to do to help our campaign although today, he has done a lot.”