Mike Flood Holds Combative Town Hall in Bellevue
by Matt Johnson
(Picture credit Matt Johnson)
BELLEVUE — Congressman Mike Flood held another combative town hall Tuesday evening at Bellevue West High School. Like other recent town halls Flood has held, this one featured angry shouting from constituents and a circus-like atmosphere as political protesters arrived — some in costume — to make their voices heard.
Protests in Costume
One woman standing along the walkway out front wore an inflatable frog costume and held a sign reading, “Tolerating racism is racism.”
“Portland had, I believe, ICE folks come and take away citizens without due process,” the woman said. “And so their form of protest was to put on inflatable frog costumes and stand in front of the ICE agents and make a blockade for those folks that are allowed to be in our country and were taken illegally.”
A group of women wearing pink sashes reading “Pissed off Grammas” gathered to sing protest songs on the walkway outside the entrance. Organized by a woman named Marilyn Hooper in 2025, the group reportedly has over 90 members.
Around eight of them showed up to air their grievances, not just against Flood but, according to one member, against “all the representatives that are not listening to us and are not willing to listen to us — so it’s everybody.”
Moments later, the group approached the entrance, where Congressman Flood greeted them and invited them to submit questions.
“It’s part of the job, right?” Flood said. “I think you’ve got to stand on the town square. I believe in what I’m doing. I believe in listening to people and getting feedback.”
Housing Bill
Flood opened his remarks by touting his collaboration with Democrat Emanuel Cleaver (MO-5) to pass the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act through the House and Senate.
“It didn’t matter if you were the Democrat mayor of San Diego or the red city mayor in Ohio. There was a common set of issues that we could agree on,” Flood said of the effort.
While President Trump has stated he would not sign the bill before the SAVE America Act, it will become law if he does not veto it by Friday night at midnight (Eastern time).
The Plains Sentinel asked Flood about a new Federal Reserve working paper that linked the Biden-era surge in unauthorized immigration to roughly 30% of home price growth and 20% of rent increases in average U.S. metro areas.
“Listen, a lot of things happen when you have a porous, open border. It can put a lot of demand on the system,” Flood said. “We have, right now, a supply problem. When you have low supply and high demand, you have higher home prices. And they have gone astronomically high in the last couple of years. Adding more supply is the way to fix it. That’s what the bill does. I’m hoping that we can bring those prices down.”
Heated Questions
Multiple questions from the crowd involved medical marijuana, which Flood said he opposes even though Nebraskans approved it through the 2024 ballot initiative process.
“I may not agree with it, but that is their decision as a state of Nebraska,” Flood said. “And a lot of times, those things, when they go to the ballot box, I’m on the same side as the winning side, but this is not one of them. And I think that the people that voted for that have every right to expect a state to set up a system to carry out the will of the majority of the voters that changed the law.”
Other questions involved the Epstein files, prompting Flood to cite his vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in 2025.
Another guest demanded evidence of election fraud. Flood stated that he never claimed the 2020 election was fraudulent, which quickly devolved into a shouting match over voter ID as the guest continued asking, “Where is the evidence?”
Leah Kuester, chair of the Sarpy County Democrats, introduced herself as a “dialysis social worker” and asked Flood about cuts to the SNAP program. Flood reiterated that the program had been temporarily increased during COVID and has since returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
“We do not have unlimited money,” Flood said. “We want people who need those resources to get those resources. But the spending that was happening during COVID wasn’t warranted anymore after the pandemic ended.”
One man identifying himself as Carl from Lincoln said he has “never felt more unsafe” in the United States and asked what he should do about ICE agents he claimed were acting “outside the law.”
“We can’t even identify whether or not they’re actually federal agents because they drive around in civilian vehicles, they act outside the law,” he said. “How will we as citizens, if you will not uphold the law, defend ourselves? Do you uphold our right to use the Second Amendment to defend ourselves if you do not uphold the law?”
Flood responded that violent crime was down across the country, including in Washington, D.C. Carl shouted “Liar! F--king liar!” before storming out.
Shouting Matches
Like Flood’s previous town halls, the questions and answers were permeated with near-constant heckling. What became apparent, however, was that the detractors were placed on the fringe of the theater while Flood’s supporters gathered in the middle. This appeared to be an intentional amplification tactic — a known strategy used by organized groups at public meetings to make a relatively small number of vocal protesters seem like a much larger, more representative crowd.
Of all Flood’s responses, the loudest and strongest negative reaction came when he answered a guest who accused him of representing “rich donors and AIPAC.” Flood replied that the United States has no greater ally in the Middle East than Israel.
“I was there shortly after the animals from Hamas attacked the innocent civilians in the kibbutz in southern Israel,” Flood said as members of the fringe tried to shout him down and those in the middle applauded. “Ladies and gentlemen, they massacred babies. They burned them in ovens. They shot children in front of their parents. They raped women and children. What happened in Israel was horrific. If that had happened on our soil, we as Americans would rise up and eliminate that threat. And that’s exactly what the Israelis have done.”
During a press gaggle afterward, Flood addressed the rise of antisemitism.
“I think in younger people, on TikTok, there’s more anti-Jewish hate than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” Flood said. “I don’t want to say that the people here tonight had that. You could have an opinion about the actions of the Israeli government and not be anti-Semitic. But there is this part of America where Jews don’t feel safe anymore, and that’s not the America that I think any of us want to live in.”
Aftermath
One older gentleman named Frank became so fed up with the heckling that he stood and yelled back at the protesters. The Plains Sentinel spoke with him after the event.
“I like him [Flood]. I want to hear his views. And with these rude people, there’s no communicating with them,” he said. “There’s no middle ground. They don’t listen. All they do is scream. And it’s very, very frustrating to people who want to get things done and accomplished, especially in this state.”
Before the final question, Flood expressed optimism about bipartisanship in Congress despite the evening’s tone.
“You know, the bipartisan victories don’t end up on TV, because they don’t make anybody mad,” Flood said. “And if the TV’s not making you mad, they’re not gonna keep you watching. If you watch C-SPAN, you’ll see members of one party and the other in the well of the House shaking each other’s hands saying, ‘I appreciate you, it was good to work with you for the betterment of the country.’ But that doesn’t sell the newspaper or sell you on TV. It doesn’t sell anything on the radio.”
“Shut down Fox!” one guest yelled back.
— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.