COLORADO SPRINGS — During a town hall in Colorado Springs on Thursday night, voters questioned U.S. Senator Michael Bennet about what he is doing to push back against actions made by President Donald Trump's administration.
The town hall attracted hundreds of people to the auditorium at Harrison High School off Janitell Road. Sen. Bennet opened the event with remarks about creating an economy for all Coloradans and called President Donald Trump an "agent of chaos," referring to the swift actions by the administration since January.
"There are a lot of reasons why people voted for Donald Trump, but I think one of the reasons was that they were so upset with the way the economy was working, that they thought neither party had really done anything all that useful for them, and so... their view was, 'Let's send this agent of chaos to Washington D.C.,'" said Sen. Bennet.
The senator took about a dozen questions from audience members, which focused on the state of foreign alliances, school funding, President Trump's recent executive orders, and messaging from the Democratic Party.
"It was never clear to the American people what we were fighting for. We need to be much clearer about that," said Sen. Bennet. "This is not going to be a problem we're going to solve in the next ten minutes... we do need to have a party that thinks deliberately and intentionally and strategically about the failures of communication we had in the last election."
On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. Congress still needs to approve the elimination of the department for it to move forward. During a press conference Thursday, President Trump said the move is meant to give states control over schools.
Sen. Bennet, who previously served as the superintendent for Denver Public Schools, said he agrees with school reform, but said he does not believe President Trump's recent executive order will help students.
“Education really is conducted at the state and local level. There are national parts of our system, though, part of it is the federal loan program, and part of it is making sure that kids with special needs are supported as well as kids that are lower economic status and need the benefit of title one. So, we are going to fight very hard to preserve those dollars. At the same time, though, as we talked about tonight, I believe very strongly that we've got to reinvent our education system for the 21st century," said Sen. Bennet.
Brenda Furbee attended the town hall to hear questions and answers from Sen. Bennet. As a veteran and a cancer survivor, Furbee said she was concerned over the Trump Administration's decision to cut thousands of jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs and cut funding for medical research.
“We need to stop these people and what they’re doing and that’s why I’m here," said Furbee.
Sen. Bennet described fighting back against Trump Administration decisions as "fighting a wildfire from behind."
"That is a question of, like, is it every ten minutes going on the cable and talking about it? Or is it figuring out where the real battles are and having fights on that," said Sen. Bennet.
Thursday's event was the last of three town halls hosted by Sen. Bennet this week. The senator visited Greeley on Tuesday and Golden on Wednesday.
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New video shows the moment Pueblo Police were involved in a shoot-out Tuesday evening
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