KY Congressman Andy Barr has trouble with the truth and his constituents | Opinion

I listened to Andy Barr’s March 24 “telephonic town hall” and found myself questioning, moment by moment, which of his statements were true, which were deflections, and which were simply false. He’s a fast talker—quick with words and even quicker with political spin. There was no transcript of the call but the audio was posted to his Facebook page. I ran that through a transcription service to be sure I’d heard him right.

He led off with a discredited bit about transgender mice (a misstatement of research on hormones) and followed up with a claim that “less than 600 employees have been let go from the VA.” When he made that assertion, Barr knew full well that Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) had already announced it would cut over 80,000 employees from the agency.

Barr pivoted to a claim about the Social Security Administration (SSA) maintaining records for “hundreds of thousands of individuals over the age of 115.” A caller identified himself as an IT pro and corrected Barr—the misconception arises from how historical data is maintained in Social Security databases. None of those accounts are collecting benefits. (An Inspector General’s report put SSA’s payment error rate at less than 1%.) Barr surely knew this, just as he knows Musk called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme in history” and intends to starve it of resources until it collapses.

One caller asked why prices had not only come down as the president promised “on day one” but are rising. Barr sidestepped with a long answer about cutting taxes, drilling for more oil, and eliminating regulations — standard supply-side bunkum that shouldn’t get much traction, considering the healthy economy the current administration inherited and is now tanking.

A surprising number of callers (all pre-registered and screened) seemed to be conservative but not MAGA loyalists. Several said they were worried about the state of democracy and the wisdom of handing over so much power to Musk.

In an Orwellian inversion, Barr suggested that hundreds of thousands of citizens protesting is evidence that democracy is in good shape: “I believe in the First Amendment and the right of my constituents and Americans everywhere to petition their government for redress of grievances to the extent that they have them. And that spirit and that freedom is alive and well and especially even more so under this president. And I think that just goes to show we live in a thriving free country where democracy is alive and well.”

Read that again. Democracy must be in good shape because millions of people are protesting that democracy is being destroyed.

Barr doubled down on the GOP strategy of attacking the judiciary: “Many judges advocate for expansive judicial review and expansive judicial powers to strike down legislation and to, in some cases, some judges think that they can remake the laws, which is, I think, an overreach of the separation of powers.”

Barr is a lawyer and knows that a bedrock principle of American government is that courts decide whether laws are unconstitutional or in conflict with some other law. But he’s fine with giving the current administration a pass to ignore any court orders it doesn’t like.

Other callers asked about the cancellation of school lunch programs, cancer research funding, and Medicaid health insurance. Barr responded that “quite bright individuals who are working for [DOGE] … are doing what taxpayers demand, which is to find waste, fraud, and abuse and make sure our government works more effectively.” Several callers objected that they didn’t vote for what Musk is doing.

The elimination of whatever Musk deems wasteful sets the stage for Barr to vote for another massive tax cut that will mostly benefit the rich. And all this before the administration’s disastrous tariffs wiped out years of savings by hard-working, middle-class people in their 401Ks and dramatically raised prices. Barr says he stands with the president “100%” on those tariffs.

Barr, who’s now running for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat, made it clear that he and Musk are joined at the hip. A few days after the “town hall” Barr released a photo of himself standing beside a shiny new Tesla, with a big smile, a thumbs-up, and the caption “Elon Musk sure knows what he’s doing!”

There was a time when a sitting member of Congress would be ashamed to do a commercial for a private company that has numerous federal contracts.

The congressional code of ethics? How quaint. The oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution? Void. Cancer victims, veterans, the bourbon industry, auto workers, farmers, the elderly? Lip service. Shilling for billionaires? Sure.

A thumbs-up for Musk. A different finger for the rest of us.

In Garland Hale Barr IV’s world, we are the waste, fraud, and abuse.

David Miller is a writer and retired attorney in Lexington.

This story was originally published April 23, 2025 at 1:32 PM.