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U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko hosted a town hall at Schenectady High School on Monday, fielding a wide range of questions from the live audience with most involving Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration and cuts being made to the federal workforce.
“I will continue to fight this plan with every fiber of my being as it works its way through Congress,” Tonko said of President Donald Trump’s policies.
“We, the citizens, need information about what the heck Elon Musk is really doing,” said one constituent.
In response, Tonko said, “Who wouldn’t want to strive for efficiency? But we need to do it in a way that’s academic, and that wasn’t done here.”
Other topics included the increased activity of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement across the country and a recent vote by Senate Democrats to advance a Republican-led funding bill that, for now, averted a shutdown of the federal government. Some attendees referred to the votes as “betrayal."
“To give these people a slush fund, no guardrails and all sorts of power,” Tonko said of the vote, "you’ve seen what has happened in the first few weeks, people will say they’ll shut down the government; they’re doing their best job right now.”
Almost an hour into the event, during the randomly drawn question and answer portion of the program, several people rose in protest calling on the federal government to divest from Israel. New York State troopers were present, but most of the disruptions were handled by local staff and security without further incident.
Others are already looking ahead to 2028.
“We would not be having these problems we have if we won the election, but we didn’t,” said one constituent. “Why didn’t we? What have we learned from that?”
“I think we learned that we need to be much better at the technology, to have that influent flow out there,” Tonko said, "and to encourage people to verify, not just take information shared.”
