Scott Walker’s Advice to Republicans in Congress: Ignore Protesters

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker advised members of Congress to stay focused on their agenda despite protests they’re facing at town-hall meetings in their home districts.

Citing his own experiences as governor, which included a failed protester-driven recall effort, the two-term governor argued that lawmakers will succeed if they keep their promises while saying that protesters will eventually discredit themselves.

“That is to do what you said you were going to do. It’s to go big, go bold,” he said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday.

Read More: Transcript of Scott Walker’s Speech at CPAC

Walker told the crowd of grassroots conservative activists at the annual convention that the mobs of angry constituents and protestors meeting Republican lawmakers in their home states reminded him of protests he’s faced in the past. Walker said when he saw protesters briefly block Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from entering a public school in Washington he thought, “been there, seen that.”

Walker faced massive protests in 2011 when he was pushing for a law to weaken public unions in Wisconsin. But he argued that protesters hurt their own cause when they showed up at the opening of a visitor center and disrupted a law enforcement run to benefit Special Olympic athletes.

“This was the moment when normal people could see that the protestors were not like them,” he said. “I mean, who messes up an event for Special Olympics athletes?”