FISM News

Senators Cruz and Johnson meet with People’s Convoy

by ian

Ian Patrick, FISM News

 

After three days of driving along the Washington D.C. Beltway, the People’s Convoy got a chance to sit down with Senators Tex Cruz (R-TX) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Tuesday to talk about their goals and what actions they want to see from the federal government concerning COVID-19 policies and vaccine mandates.

The meeting was put on a livestream on YouTube but has since been taken down for violating their “community guidelines. The meeting was separately recorded and is able to be watched on YouTube channel Reset Media, as of this writing.

During the meeting, one of the convoy members told the senators, “We are here because of the coordinated abuse of emergency powers.” Another mentioned that the convoy’s size has grown to include 1,000 trucks and RV’s with “more coming.”

Brian Brase, a co-organizer of the People’s Convoy, remarked during the meeting that the movement “isn’t just a truck convoy” and represents Americans nationwide who are dissatisfied with the government’s policies. He commented that the protest is a reaction to a violation of rights, both Constitutional and God-given.

Not only is this a violation of our Constitutional rights but this is a violation of your God-given rights. You should never be mandated to put such a thing in your body, and I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor . . . But I do know as a person that served in the Army – and as a person that cares deeply about my country, and that cares about my community, and my family, and my fellow drivers and my fellow Americans – that this is wrong, and I can see that without having to worry about the signs.

Discussion revolved around how the lockdowns and vaccine mandates had specifically affected the trucking industry and harmed their livelihoods.

One member remarked “it was the trucker who faced the initial Wuhan strain . . . When the government told everyone to lock down and to remote work, it was the trucker who kept the supply chains going and kept the country on its feet.” Senator Johnson added that grocery store workers and doctors also kept the country going, to which the panel agreed.

Yet another one of the members in the group, an 18-year-old, talked about how his life in California has drastically changed due to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s lockdown policy and how he feels “trapped” in fighting for his freedoms there as an unvaccinated person.

The first part of the meeting adjourned with Brase inviting the senators and their colleagues to see the convoy in person to meet the protestors and hear more of their stories. Reporters were then allowed inside the meeting room for a heated Q&A session.

After the meeting, Brase told reporters, “We’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing until we start getting more meetings like we just had today.” The meeting with Cruz and Johnson ended with no set plan of action between the two parties, but the convoy held more meetings with Congressional lawmakers throughout the day.

The People’s Convoy was organized akin to its Canadian predecessor, the Freedom Convoy. The Canadian movement saw truckers and supporters surround the capital city of Ottawa to protest mandatory vaccinations in order to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. Shortly before the Jan.15 mandate went into effect, Canadian Truckers Alliance estimated somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 of its truckers would have left their jobs because of the order.

The Freedom Convoy was dissolved by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who invoked his government’s Emergencies Act to grant the power he said was needed to address what he called “the blockades and occupations.” His action was met with wide-spread condemnation from the countries Conservative party.

The People’s Convoy was organized around the time of the Super Bowl in mid-February, but did not arrive in D.C. until Sunday, March 6. The truckers and protestors have been driving around the D.C. Beltway which encircles the city threatening to slow traffic as part of their protests against pandemic restrictions, as previously reported by FISM News.

Brase was recorded telling his fellow protestors early on Monday that he was afraid that politicians would turn their movement into another Jan. 6 talking point. Video shared on social media and reported by FISM News shows Brase saying that they would be “making diplomatic moves” instead of barging right into the nation’s capital.

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