Big crowd in Silver Spring for town hall opposing President Trump

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Hundreds of people turned out for a town hall at the Silver Spring Civic Center Sunday to meet with Maryland congressional Democrats and voice opposition to President Donald Trump and his policies.

The People's Town Hall Forum was organized by Takoma Park Mobilization and co-sponsored by other groups that make up the Maryland Resistance Coalition.

FOX 5 spoke to people about what brought them out.

"Why are we turning away refugees? It's wrong," said Mary Ann Hardy. "So really, there are so many things, climate change. We just have to stand up and show up."

"I wanted to be here because I have two sons that have rare diseases," said Carol Wilson. "I just feel it's really important we keep the Affordable Care Act."

"I just think it's important to raise awareness about all sorts of issues that involve hate," said Sophia Gunther, holding a sign supporting "queer rights." "It's just important because you have to support people."

"I'm here to support my representatives and basically show, look I'm here and we want you to fight for us," said Marcos Street.

Congressmen John Delaney, John Sarbanes, Jamie Raskin and Anthony Brown spoke to the crowd along with senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen. Montgomery County Council members were there as well.

There was a lot of talk about opposing the president's agenda, which had proven extremely difficult for Democrats with Republicans controlling both the White House and Congress.

FOX 5 asked Sen. Cardin and Sen. Van Hollen if there were any areas where they could work with President Trump.

"Well we hope we can work together on building our roads, our bridges, our infrastructure," Sen. Cardin said. "He's indicated a proposal similar to what we've seen from Democrats and Republicans in Congress. I hope we can get together on a budget. We need to. We need to have a budget that makes sense for this country. We need a tax code that makes sense. We're hopefully going to work together in many areas, but so far, we haven't seen the type of leadership that brings America together."

"The Democrats in the Senate put forth, right away, a plan to modernize our national infrastructure," Sen. Van Hollen said. "We put forth a plan. Donald Trump talked about that during the campaign. Unfortunately, he's leading with divisive issues like trying to undo the Affordable Care Act."

Neither senator would say for sure whether Democrats plan to filibuster Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

Takoma Park Mobilization said it distributed more than 2,000 free tickets for the event, the maximum capacity for the venue. There was both an indoor and outdoor stage.

"I think it's unprecedented in modern times to see this kind of energy from so many people in our community," Cardin said.