Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei joked about questions being asked by female veterans at a town hall last week, whispering to a man in the front row that he only attended the event to “hear all the mammogram questions.”
In video provided by the outside Democratic group American Bridge, Amodei is seen listening to female veterans raise concerns about healthcare services available to them, including mammogram screenings, which are used to detect early signs of breast cancer.
During the first two minutes of the recording the woman speaking in the video is a representative Amodei’s office brought in to answer veterans questions and concerns about care and benefits. About two minutes into the video recording, as a different woman off-camera talks about receiving a mammogram, Amodei walks over to a man in the front row and whispers into his ear.
“You just came because you wanted to hear all the mammogram questions, didn’t you?” Amodei is heard saying.
Amodei is then seen chuckling as he walks away. The audio is difficult to hear, but at full volume Amodei can be heard joking with the male attendee. The August 15 veteran town hall was held at the Washoe County Administration Building in Reno, NV. It was one of two veterans’ town halls that Amodei scheduled during the recess.
“If you watch the entire town hall meeting, we spent a considerable amount of time on mammogram issues so we were doing anything but making light of veterans’ health care, especially considering the head of the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System was present, in addition to several members of her staff,” Amodei said in an emailed statement. “Second of all, the person I’m talking to is a constituent who has expressed concerns over mammogram related issues and women’s access to care at past town hall meetings given that one of the challenges we have is access to mammograms in the area.”
“Quite frankly, we don’t make light of health care issues by holding these meetings and also ensuring VA representatives are present to provide insight and offer advice,” Amodei continued. “If you’re going to take a two-minute snippet of a conversation about an issue that has been a topic in multiple veterans’ town hall meetings, with a constituent that has spoken to this exact issue in those meetings – I suppose context is irrelevant for you.”
Amodei is in a safe seat in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses the northern half of the state. Amodei came under fire earlier this year when his office reported a student for cursing during a phone call with his congressional staff. The student, who made the call off campus, had called to demand action on gun control and was suspended after Amodei’s office called the student’s Reno school to complain.
