
Liam Beran
Pocan addresses attendees at Jan. 29 town hall.
Wednesday evening's town hall was the second-most packed Rep. Mark Pocan has hosted.
Attendance is often sparse when politicians hold town halls for constituents. But if you wanted to get into Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan’s town hall on Wednesday night, there was a wait.
A line wrapped around the hallways of the Madison Labor Temple before filing into the building’s main hall. Inside, it was standing room only.
Pocan began the town hall by acknowledging the distress many attendees were experiencing.
“I know many of us went through stages of anger, grief,” he said. “Right now, it better just be pissed off, being ready to do what we got to do, because we got a lot of work to do out there.”
Throughout the evening, people peppered Pocan with questions about how President Donald Trump’s policies will affect the services many Wisconsinites rely on: mail through the U.S. Postal Service, Social Security, Medicare and funding for local organizations.
“We have people with disabilities — 1 in 10 — living in the community,” one resident said, adding that any cuts to Medicaid, the state and federally run program that helps cover medical costs for low-income or resource adults, would be devastating to disabled people.
Though the White House maintained Medicaid funding was not a target of Trump’s recent attempt to freeze federal funding, some Medicaid payment portals, including Wisconsin’s, temporarily went down ahead of the 5 p.m. Tuesday announced rollout.
“[Disabled people] will die,” the resident said.
At a news conference the next day, Pocan noted that the town hall, which drew more than 300 people, was the second-most packed town hall he has hosted (the most crowded was held just after Trump’s inauguration in 2017).
Wednesday’s gathering came hours after the U.S. Office of Management and Budget rescinded Trump’s federal funding freeze, as well as continued confusion about whether the freeze was actually pulled or not. Gov. Tony Evers released a statement Wednesday criticizing potential future attempts to withhold federal funding, and even with the memo rescinded, UW-Madison administrators have paused any new hiring using federal dollars as they await clarity.
Select congressional Republicans criticized the chaos, though few directly called out Trump. Others, like Rep. Derrick Van Orden and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, defended the freeze as necessary to reduce superfluous federal spending.
“It's about time. Somebody's gotta do it,” Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Liam Beran
The crowd at Rep. Mark Pocan's Jan. 29 town hall.
Over 300 people showed up to Rep. Mark Pocan's town hall Wednesday evening.
Wisconsin residents have taken notice, says Pocan. The congressman said that during Trump’s last administration he never saw “this many calls” come immediately after one action: “Broadly, researchers, K-12 school educators, nonprofits, people on Medicaid are all reaching out to us.”
At the town hall, attendees would often chime in with encouragement, criticism or advice as Pocan spoke.
“Costco carries Plan B,” one said to wide applause, after Pocan mentioned Republicans’ targeting of abortion access. Plan B is emergency contraception, often referred to as the “morning after pill.” “You can buy two Plan Bs every day. Two doses, $8 dollars a dose. I’m beginning to stockpile to get [it] to other states.”
When Pocan mentioned a need for new forms of messaging from Democrats, one resident shouted: “We gotta get people out on podcasts. I mean, come on.”
Pocan agreed that the November election showed Democrats “don’t use media as well” as Republicans.
“Everyone in our leadership has asked us to do things like start podcasts,” added Pocan, who is set to launch a new podcast called With Liberty and Justice for Some soon.
When Pocan mentioned Trump’s offer of eight months severance pay for federal employees who agree to quit their jobs, one attendee praised federal workers for “fighting back. They're holding the line because they're there to serve us, the people, and the Constitution.”
Madison resident Cory Rich asked Pocan if he’d support continued funding for national service programs like AmeriCorps. Rich is the director of legacy and conservation at Operation Fresh Start, a Madison-based nonprofit that provides education services and employment training to youth.
The nonprofit is funded largely through AmeriCorps, the U.S. Department of Labor’s YouthBuild program and the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, Rich told Pocan. Like most federally run programs, the status of any of their funds was unclear during Trump’s funding freeze.
Pocan assured Rich he would support funding these programs.
The final question for Pocan was meant to inspire a call to action: “What can we do?”
Pocan urged attendees to get the word out, contact Republican lawmakers, and support nonprofit groups filing litigation.
Also, “look out for each other.”