CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript

Statement

SANCHEZ: It gets loud, it gets crazy, police record six arrests on charges including suspicion of assault, resisting arrest, suspicion of disturbing the peace.

Is this what we should brace for? And perhaps even worse as these Health Care reforms gear up? We do know this. More of the forums are now being cancelled out of fears of participants' safety.

Joining me now from Capitol Hill, Democratic Congressman Brian Baird, he's had to deal with this himself, he's out of Washington State and we understand that you have now decided to conduct or reschedule town hall meetings by telephone conference call Why are you doing that?

REP. BRIAN BAIRD - WASHINGTON: Well, Rick, this is something we've planned before these kind of unfortunate incidents that we've just seen. During August we think we can reach more people by telephone, in fact we can do one in about an hour from now, we'll have probably 4 to 5,000 people on the line.

But the unfortunate thing as you've just seen is there's a national movement to try and intimidate people to suppress real discussion and there are actually talking points on websites that say such things as, Don't let an intelligent conversation happen. Shout people down, urging people to get there early and not let people have a conversation. It is a fundamental principle of our Democratic society, people have a right to discuss things but we have a responsibility with that right and that is the listening of the other side that is being denied right now.

SANCHEZ: You know what's interesting and ironic about this, Congressman, is that I understand after reading your record that you've always been a big believer in bringing these conversations to the people. You've held a ton of these in the past haven't you?

BAIRD: Indeed I've had more than 300 of them. About a year and a half ago I was subject to about 5 hours of grilling by 4 or 500 people. But what we're seeing is different. I welcome the opportunity for people to disagree with myself or --

SANCHEZ: Okay, then how is it different?

BAIRD: Well it's different in this way, I think you can see it, when you see the images you're showing. Virtually every town hall I know of is winding up like this right now. Members of Congress are receiving death threats in their offices, I've received them. People are showing up at town halls -- people have hung an effigy or tombstones -- this is a dangerous threat. And it's frankly being orchestrated and I'm afraid some of my colleagues on the other side are throwing gas on the fire. SANCHEZ: Who do you think is orchestrating it and who do you think is giving them the information or the consistent slogans or talking points that they're getting?

BAIRD: Well there are talk show hosts, some have been encouraging this, there are websites dedicated to this and there's internet chat that describes it and you can see it coming. People say, Let's lay in wait for this congressperson, when they show up -- you know it's not show up and have a real dialogue, it's not show up and discuss point A and B about the Health Care proposal, it's Shout them down, disrupt them and then post your video of the disruption on Youtube.

SANCHEZ: So you're on the record now, right? You are not going to have anymore town hall meetings on Health Care until when? Or what, not at all?

BAIRD: Well I think it's important for the American people to look at these images and say to themselves, Is this really where we want America to go? If we can get some public communication to people that says, Look, this is a tremendously important issue. We need to take a breath and have a real discussion. I think all of us want to have Town halls otherwise we're going to be degenerated into mob violence and that serves no purpose other than people who don't want real debates.

SANCHEZ: We got to go but one final question. Are you worried about the fact that the unions are now saying, You know what, if they're going to go out and protest we're going to protest on the other side for the Health care reform. I mean if you get two angry groups like that, something could happen.

BAIRD: This is the problem. People that are reaping this kind of whirlwind are about sow it and I think it can go both ways. We do not want to see this kind of mob action that we've seen thus far on either side and I think it's time for cooler heads to say, Let's settle down and have respectful difference in opinions.

SANCHEZ: Let's hope you're not the only one who says something like this. It would be nice to hear a lot of different representatives and senators as well come out and say words similar to the ones you just uttered.

My thanks to you, Congressman, for taking time to take us through your plans.

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