Democrats and the rest of the media expressed concerns with the event hosted by Informed Choice Iowa on Monday at the Iowa Capitol.
Freedom Rally 2.0 was intended to show lawmakers in their first day of session that Iowans want the governor’s emergency powers to be revisited.
That message likely did not get through to the Democrats.
State Rep. Chuck Isenhart tweeted:
“Anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers in the Capitol today. Do any Iowans think differently?”
State Rep. Bob Kressig shared a post about the protest.
“Anti-maskers protesting at the capital (sic) today.”
State Sen. Joe Bolkcom accused Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Iowa GOP of “trying to kill us.”
“Kicking off the 2021 legislative session with a super spreader event with the anti-vaxers!”
State Rep. Brian Meyer retweeted Bolkcom’s hysteria.
State Sen. Claire Celsi noted it was a “large anti-mask anti-vax protest.”
Bolkcom, for his part, wasn’t done.
He tweeted that the hundreds of people with no masks and no social distancing were “deadly.”
Former State Rep. Bruce Bearinger wrote:
“And I thought the tinfoil in the hat group was the craziest group I would ever see.”
Erin Murphy, a Capitol reporter, also tweeted about the rally.
“Hundreds of people in the Iowa Capitol rotunda this morning, on the opening day of the 2021 Iowa legislative session, to protest mask-wearing, and in doing so putting the health of themselves and everyone else in the building at risk,” he wrote.
Rachel Droze of ABC 5 shared photos of the happening.
“‘Let’s all get in for an unsocial distanced picture,'” she wrote, noting it was overheard at the Capitol.