RICHMOND, Va. — Democrat Abigail Spanberger fielded few questions about President Trump’s joint news conference with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin during a Wednesday evening town hall as the former clandestine officer in the CIA campaigned to unseat Republican Rep. Dave Brat.
The controversy, still dominating headlines, was the topic of the first question asked of Spanberger from the friendly crowd of about 140 that gathered in the taproom of a local craft brewery to support the self-described “practical Democrat” who has declared she won’t back House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for speaker if her party wins the majority in November.
Heads nodded in agreement as the eight-year CIA veteran lit into Trump for coddling Putin with the world watching.
“This week has been a really difficult-to-watch week, and I was profoundly disappointed,” Spanberger said. “I have no interest in relitigating the 2016 election; I am focused on moving forward. But we, as a country, regardless of party, need to recognize and acknowledge and accept that the Russian Federation interfered with our elections.”
“From an intelligence perspective and from a national security perspective, the concern that I have is: What are they going to interfere with next?” she added.
But the breadth of questions that followed revolved around the kitchen-table issues that have been the staple of Spanberger’s bid to oust Brat in Virginia’s Republican-leaning, but competitive, 7th Congressional District: education, the lack of Internet access in some areas, how available she’ll be to constituents if elected, immigration reform, and opioid abuse.
[Also read: Military veterans divided over Trump’s Russia comments]
After the first question on Helsinki, Trump’s name was hardly mentioned by Spanberger or the attendees; neither was Brat’s.
The tranquil atmosphere stood in stark contrast to similar events that occurred during last year’s debate over Republican proposals to partially repeal the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Those angst-filled towns hall were heated, with question after question about healthcare — and aggressive demands for congressional action.
“I’d rather see her focus on looking forward at the real issues,” Frank Meade, a 51-year-old Spanberger supporter, said in an interview the Washington Examiner.
The Spanberger town hall convened just two days after the Trump-Putin news conference, with emotions still raw about an extraordinary spectacle that the president has since sought to recast — sort of — as misunderstood and misreported by the political press corps.
Spanberger’s supporters, ranging from center-left to left-wing, hardly needed another reason to give the president a thumbs-down. But how Democratic voters in a competitive suburban district that could decide the House majority process the latest row to roil Trump’s presidency could offer clues as to the issue’s staying power and the emphasis it receives from Democratic candidates in campaign messaging.
The more than half-dozen other voters interviewed after Spanberger’s town hall said that Trump’s comments from Monday standing side by side with Putin had a deep impact on them. They don’t expect the issue to fade anytime soon, as Trump episodes often do. Spanberger is uniquely qualified to discuss the matter, and they want her to keep raising it on the stump as the midterm elections approach.
“I was actually pretty upset,” Deborah Carter, an elderly Spanberger supporter, said. “I feel like Trump did not acknowledge the Russian interference, and personally, I think the head of state should protect the country, and I didn’t think he did that.”
“I think it’s important to talk about it,” Dana Blackmer, 61, added.
Trump on Monday capped bilateral talks and a working lunch with Putin with a joint news conference, during which he heaped blame for the rift in U.S.-Russia relations on his own country and drew a moral equivalence between the actions of Moscow and Washington on the world stage.
Despite fresh federal indictments alleging that Russian intelligence officers meddled in the 2016 elections, Trump sided against the U.S. intelligence, and with a defiant Putin, on the issue of Russian interference, suggesting he trusted the Russian leader and didn’t know why it “would” be Russia. The president later attempted to walk back those comments, saying he meant to say he blamed Russia and trusted U.S. intelligence.
In a subsequent CBS News interview, Trump went further, saying that he agrees with U.S. intelligence and holds Putin responsible: “I let him know that we can’t have this and we’re not going to have it and that’s the way it’s going to be.” However, his language has been inconsistent and contradictory.
The issue cast a spotlight on Spanberger, who is attempting to flip a seat that has voted Republican for Congress since 1970 and voted GOP in most statewide contests in the four-plus decades.
She spent eight years under cover for the CIA, recruiting and handling foreign assets who spied for the U.S. She was active in the European and Latin American theaters, as well as domestically, and in those capacities became familiar with Russian intelligence. Naturally, her phone has been ringing off the hook with media requests.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Spanberger was more measured in her reaction to the bizarre statements Trump made while standing side by side with Putin than many other Democrats, befitting the pragmatic image she has tried to cultivate to capitalize on suburban angst with Trump’s caustic leadership, especially among women.
Spanberger resisted the word “treason” and downplayed suggestions that Moscow is harboring compromising information on the president.
“I think that comments like those are probably unhelpful at this point in time if we want to be able to focus on what actually happened, from an intelligence perspective of how it actually happened, in order to get us to place where we can avoid, whatever future attacks may occur or be planned,” she said.
But Spanberger went on to add: “Before Monday, it was absolutely unthinkable that a U.S. president would be so deferential to a foreign adversary that attacked our country.”
