A moderate House Democrat’s town hall devolved into chaos minutes after it began on Tuesday night, with pro-Palestinian activists clashing with both the congressman and fellow attendees in what became a near-constant torrent of interruptions and protests.
Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., who defeated far-left ‘Squad’ member Cori Bush in the Democratic primary last year, repeatedly pleaded with protesters to allow him to speak while defending his position on Israel and Hamas.
‘Stop talking. This is not your town hall. You can leave,’ Bell told protesters roughly 20 minutes after he began speaking. He said soon after, ‘While we’re sitting here being divided and fighting one another, we’ve got other folks out there who are taking our democracy from us.’
At another point, his assertions that Hamas’ initial attack on Israel ‘was not just a terror attack, October 7 was an invasion’ was met with boos and jeers from the crowd.
Even calls to ‘surge aid’ to Gaza were drowned out by demonstrators, prompting Bell to respond, ‘You disagree with that?’
Despite repeated pleas for calm from both Bell and his moderator, protesters continued to call him a ‘war criminal’ and accuse him of supporting genocide.
The event grew more heated as the hour went on, reaching a fever pitch toward the end when Bell disputed a questioner labeling Israel’s invasion of Gaza a ‘genocide.’
‘You don’t get to set the genocide definition,’ an activist yelled.
Bell responded, ‘No, I don’t… and here’s the thing, people can disagree, that’s what makes our country great.’
‘When it comes to the word genocide, I kind of disagree with you… because Israel was attacked by an openly genocidal terrorist group,’ he said while protesters attempted to drown him out.
‘Hamas said openly that they want to destroy Israel… and so you’re accusing somebody of genocide, you’re standing with an organization that says they want to commit genocide. You don’t see that?’
He continued over boos, ‘We need to see a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, we need to see an end to the war. We need to see every single hostage returned, and we need to see a viable future for Gaza without Hamas.’
And while pro-Palestinian protesters took up a majority of the attention, there did appear to be a significant number of attendees who were supportive of Bell, particularly when he attempted to bring the conversation back to local issues.
‘The number one killer of kids in St. Louis between [ages] 1 and 17 is gun violence, and there’s people who want to talk about that too,’ he said, earning applause.
At one point, a woman attempted to confront the demonstrators directly.
‘Shut up with your White privilege,’ the woman could be heard yelling. ‘You’ve never been hungry, you’ve never had a child be hungry, and yet you want to stand here and diminish the work he’s doing?’
It’s not clear how or if the activists responded.
The town hall’s moderator tried to deescalate the situation early on, calling security to escort an unruly demonstrator out minutes after it began.
‘Let’s do this the Democratic way, the democracy way. You can’t hear anyone yelling. I hear you. As a mixed-race person, I hear you,’ she told activists. ‘We can’t get through this if you are yelling and barking and acting like you want to get physical.’
At the end of the night, however, Bell released a statement thanking all attendees for coming.
‘I want to thank everyone that came out to our town hall this evening – yes the conversations were passionate at times, but Democracy is messy and we have to passionately defend it,’ Bell wrote on X. ‘At the end of the day we’re going to continue to fight for the ST. LOUIS region and for our country.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Bell’s office for further comment.