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House Dems Cancel Lavish Dinner for New Members After Backlash

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House Democrats canceled an in-person dinner for newly elected members of their caucus Friday evening after coming under fire over what many Americans saw a blatant instance of coronavirus-related hypocrisy.

“Members-elect are now picking up their boxed meals and departing the Capitol,” tweeted Drew Hammill, deputy chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “There is no group dinner. Members-elect are in DC already for orientation.”

Earlier in the day, NBC News correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell had tweeted that “House Dem and GOP leaders are holding respective dinners for new members.”

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“It’s very spaced,” Pelosi told Caldwell, additionally citing the room’s ventilation and the fact that the Capitol physician had signed off on the dinner.

This still rubbed plenty of people the wrong way. After all, as USA Today reported, many Americans around the country have been forced to cancel their Thanksgiving plans in response to concerns over the coronavirus and restrictions imposed by state and local governments.

Do you think that holding this dinner in person would have been hypocritical?

In New York state, for instance, indoor gatherings at private residences have been limited to 10 people.

“As it relates to your private setting, we just have to plead with people to not let your guard down, to keep your gatherings as small as possible and to keep fighting this,” New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday on NBC’s “Today.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, say that “the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving this year is to celebrate with people in your household.”

The CDC encourages Americans to “consider other Thanksgiving activities,” like “host[ing] a virtual Thanksgiving meal with friends and family who don’t live with you.”

Pelosi herself referred to the COVID-19 threat as a “red alert” and an “emergency of the highest magnitude” during a news conference Friday morning, Business Insider reported.

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Prior to House Democrats canceling their group dinner, many on social media pointed out what they saw as hypocrisy.

Before the in-person event was canceled, Hammill responded to the outrage by tweeting that “Our office strictly follows the guidance of the Office of Attending Physician, including for this dinner. To be a further model for the nation, this event has been modified to allow Members-elect to pick up their meals to go in a socially-distanced manner.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if House Republicans ended up holding an in-person dinner Friday.

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Joe Setyon was a deputy managing editor for The Western Journal who had spent his entire professional career in editing and reporting. He previously worked in Washington, D.C., as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine.
Joe Setyon was deputy managing editor for The Western Journal with several years of copy editing and reporting experience. He graduated with a degree in communication studies from Grove City College, where he served as managing editor of the student-run newspaper. Joe previously worked as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication in Washington, D.C., where he covered politics and wrote about government waste and abuse.
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