The Blaze:
A town hall event with President Barack Obama set to take place at George Mason University on Thursday is closed to students and the general public, according to an email sent to students by a university administrator.
“CNN is hosting a Town Hall with President Barack Obama on Thursday, Jan. 7, in the Johnson Center. This is an invitation-only event. No tickets are available,” wrote Renell Wynn, vice president of communications and marketing.
University spokesman Michael Sandler told TheBlaze that the town hall on guns is “planned and hosted by CNN” and that the school’s “only role” is to “provide the venue.”
A representative for CNN did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the “Guns in America” event.
However, a spokesperson told the Washington Post that “the audience would be evenly divided between organizations that support the Second Amendment including NRA members as well as groups that back gun regulation.”
The NRA said it was invited, but declined because it saw “no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House.”
The “invitation-only” event also struck some students as odd. John Hill, a student who hosts a conservative radio program on campus, told TheBlaze he found it strange.
“The president has been to our school before and they always leave it open to the public and students,” he said. “But those are events where he gets to talk. All of a sudden, he holds an event where the audience gets to talk and now the event is closed to the public and it is invitation only. Doesn’t sound like a town hall to me, sounds like a show.”
That’s not a ”Townhall.”
It is a PR stunt.
Good for the NRA skipping out on it.
I think the NRA should reconsider. Of course, it is planned to be a partisan publicity stunt; nothing Obama does is not orchestrated to his advantage. However, it is going to be liberal farce regardless of who is there, so the NRA should be there to do what it can to make its point.
Declining to go is a propaganda victory for the left in and of itself, but it is also a surrender to their idiotic anti-gun false claims. I hope they reconsider.
Remember, seven years ago when air force 1 entered NYC airspace without prior notice for photo shoot? What ever happened to these over 1000 photos? Town hall meetings are open not closed, wonder how many lies-but cnn is always a lie
A nationally televised appearance, where the President of the United States will be surrounded by a close-proximity audience, with the topic of discussion being the hot-button issue of gun violence and the need for better screening…
I really can’t imagine why this wouldn’t be a general admission event with tickets handed out on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The NRA didn’t show up because they’re chicken-shits.
As usual Greg stumbles in and reaches a ridiculously wrong, asinine conclusion.
His sarcastic premise wrongly and insultingly suggests that the Secret service is incapable of providing security for an open town hall.
Greg also assumes without any substantiation that there could be violent gun toting individuals or assassins in attendance. (Again, this is an insult to the President’s security forces.
Next Greg claims cowardice as the reason the NRA didn’t show-up to a invitation only, and cherry picked audience, (most likely given the Obama administration’s standard operating procedure of stocking such events) with anti-2nd Amendment activists.
Clearly the true “chicken-shits” are Obama and his handlers who are so afraid of everyday Americans and their pesky questions, that they hold a “town hall” where the town folk will not be allowed to attend.