Representative Rick Allen

ICYMI: Congressman Allen Holds Telephone Town Hall

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Congressman Rick W. Allen (GA-12) held a telephone town hall Tuesday night to answer questions from residents of Georgia's 12th District. Congressman Allen provided an update on Afghanistan, COVID-19, federal spending, and more. For those who were unable to participate in the call, here are some of the highlights:

Madeline from Grovetown asked about holding President Biden accountable for the situation in Afghanistan.

Congressman Allen: "As far as holding the president accountable, obviously we are filing legislation. We are filing petitions and every tool that we have available to us we are using. We are in favor of using H.R. 5071, which would direct the Secretary of Defense to submit daily reports to Congress on the evacuation of Americans from Afghanistan. But House Democrats blocked the measure…

“And obviously we need to make a change because this country cannot survive what they [democrats] are doing to this country, and I promise you that we are fighting as hard as we can fight.”

Joseph from Evans asked about the ongoing crisis at our Southern Border.

Congressman Allen: “The Supreme Court has ruled on the Remain in Mexico policy under the Trump Administration. However they [Biden Administration] are still allowing people to come in and touch the land. But when you come in and touch the land, you have broken the law, but you have rights… that’s what we are trying to change…

“What the Department of Justice and the FBI should do is enforce the law and tell the Border Patrol to keep these people in Mexico until we can get them a court date. And obviously we will continue to be hammering that. But it is a shame that this administration is blatantly disobeying the law.”

Heidi from Broxton asked about broadband access in rural communities.

Congressman Allen: “It’s sad we spent all this money in Washington, and only a small portion of it goes to providing rural broadband. There is no excuse... we should be providing broadband and cell service to all America… it is preventing tremendous economic development in our rural areas. Our farmers and our businesses need it desperately. "

Bruce from Harlem asked about holding China accountable for the spread of COVID-19.

Congressman Allen: “Our [republican] Conference has completed an investigation and the evidence is that the pandemic started in the Wuhan laboratory and the Chinese Communist Party falsified COVID-19 data on an earlier outbreak… House Democrats have not yet held a single hearing yet to determine the true origin of the virus, and they control the hearings. I joined Steve Scalise and over 200 of my colleagues calling on Speaker Pelosi to investigate the origins of COVID-19. Of course last year, President Trump and House Republicans took proactive measures to create the China Task Force in 2020. The China Task Force released over 400 recommendations on how to combat the Chinese Communist Party... the bottom line is this administration is doing very little to get to the bottom of this... We will be holding this administration accountable.”

Michael from Augusta asked how Congress will address the situation in Afghanistan.

Congressman Allen: “I could not agree more with you, it is disastrous. We did have a call today on what we will do with the Afghanistan situation, and we are demanding for full accountability and I would hope, and maybe y’all can, light up the phones of the Democratic representatives and say that we need to have hearings on this and say that we need to find out who is responsible for these decisions that were made.

“For example, how in the world did they miscalculate the ability of the Taliban to take the entire country, they should have known something [like this would happen] when they removed our air support and special operations…”

If you would like to sign up for the next telephone town hall, please sign up here.