TULSA, Okla. — Over 125 people gathered outside the Tulsa Regional Chamber's Congressional Forum to call for more public conversations from Senator James Lankford.
2 News caught up with him before the luncheon started to discuss his work and national events.
"There are a lot of questions about tariffs. We’re going to go with budgeting and there’s so much rumor and false information on social media right now about things like social security, or Medicare or Medicaid and it’s just false information, and so I want to try and get out to as many people as a I can and say hey, here’s what’s actually factual and here’s what’s actually true,” said Lankford.
The chamber said it hosts these congressional forums several times a year, and tickets can run around $115 for members.
While attendees listened to Lankford inside the Hyatt Regency, protesters worked to make their voices heard outside.
2 News listened to some of their concerns.
“They’re hiding from their constituents, and this is a paid program that is not a town hall, but he's not holding town halls. He is backing these men that are trying to destroy our company, or our country, and we are over it,” said Carrie Ford.
“It’s wrong to charge so much for people to have access to them. People should have access to their representatives, all of their state representatives,” said Carrie Jones.
2 News took their concerns directly to the Senator.
“What’s funny is that I do have people who catch me and say I want you to be where I am. I do cover 77 counties when I’m home. This is actually my 3rd week to be home this year and when I’m home, I travel as many places as I possibly can to be able to visit with folks that want to be able to have conversations,” said Senator Lankford.
He said he receives 150,000 emails a year and works to return as many phone calls as he can.
He encouraged protesters to reach out to his office. Here's how you can reach him.
- Oklahoma City: (405) 231-4941
- Tulsa: (918) 581-7651
- Washington D.C.: (202) 224-5754
- You can also send an email here.
He said he wants people to find a way to have a conversation that leads towards a real solution.
“Right now, the things I’m focused on are we’ve got to deal with tax policy and we’ve got to get that stable, we’ve got to continue to be able to secure the border and we’ve got to be able to do the work that needs to be done for our economy, and there’s a lot of conversations on trade. We have to reduce spending and there are some folks that protest and say don’t reduce spending, don’t cut anything. We are $2 trillion in overspending, and what I find is a lot of people say never, ever cut anything, but also balance the budget. We actually have to reduce our spending as a country. We’re spending 2 trillion dollars more now than what we were before Covid and that was not that many years ago,” said Lankford.
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