Democratic congressman Greg Landsman (Ohio) ignited online outrage after arriving late and barely engaging in a scheduled "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit.
Landsman arrived more than 40 minutes late to the Wednesday AMA and briefly wrote about the 2024 election and the rights of "marginalized citizens," the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. He then signed off, thanking participants for "all these thoughtful comments" and promising to return later.
"Are you serious? You barely answer two questions and ignore all the top questions? This AMA was a colossal failure," one Redditor wrote, while another posted, "Extraordinarily disappointed in the meager, milquetoast responses."
Landsman said after the event that he understood people's anger but blamed the reaction to his event on Republicans.
"People are angry right now, as they should be," Landsman told the Enquirer. "Look at what's happening to their country with Trump, Elon and a Republican-controlled Congress that's allowing them to do whatever they want—even if it's clearly hurting people."
Landsman, first elected in 2022 to represent the city of Cincinnati and some surrounding areas, has long faced accusations of hypocrisy. The congressman, who spent years demanding financial transparency and portraying himself as an ethics reformer, failed to disclose his own financial transactions for months, the Washington Free Beacon reported in September. In 2022, the state of Ohio filed a lien against Landsman, who helped pass seven tax and fee increases in June 2018 alone, for unpaid business taxes.
After Landsman's Wednesday sign-off, two hours passed with no response from the congressman, leading dozens of users to voice their frustration in a thread titled "Landsman's AMA was pathetic."
"Arrived late, gave two non-answers in an hour, then bailed," the thread's original poster wrote. "He claims he'll be back later. People are tearing him apart in the comments."
Landsman returned hours later and answered seven more questions. "We tried to cover as many topics as we could in some longer posts," he wrote.