Inside — and outside — Rep. Cory Mills’ charged Oviedo town hall

Nearly a year after holding a much-criticized telephone town hall in April 2025, District 7 Rep. Cory Mills held a pair of in-person town halls, one in New Smyrna Beach on Jan. 28 and one in Oviedo on Jan. 29.

Oviedo Community News was on the scene, both inside the Oviedo Cultural Center for fiery back-and-forths, and outside, where hundreds of protestors gathered for hours.

Signs being held both inside and outside referenced allegations of an alleged assault by Mills in Feb. 2025, the current immigration raids around the country — including in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were killed by immigration agents — general concerns with Mills and President Donald Trump and more.

While audio and video recording was prohibited inside the town hall, OCN wanted to detail the nearly 90-minute event as the 2026 race for representative of District 7, which includes all of Seminole County and other parts of Central Florida, is set to become among the more hotly contested of the November midterm elections.

Following a brief introduction by Seminole County Commissioner Jay Zembower, who asked for “proper decorum and activity” before explaining how Mills quickly responded to Seminole County’s needs after Hurricane Milton in 2024, Mills came to the stage.

“The day it hit, Congressman Mills called me and said, ‘Jay, anything you need, let me know,’” Zembower said. “The next day, I picked up the phone and said we had some needs, and the next day, an 18-wheeler tractor trailer of diapers, water, MREs, generators, tarps and seven Starlink communication devices for our fire department showed up.

“They rolled into our emergency management center and were unloaded by Mr. Mills himself, as well as the workers there.”

The town hall was filled to capacity — about 200 people in the room — and the format was to be for Mills staffers to read questions submitted by audience members on index cards as they first entered.

“It had the format that I thought would allow for the most peaceful interaction,” Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek, who was not at the town hall, said. She had previously suggested this format to OCN following the April telephone town hall.

However, sparks flew almost immediately after Mills took to the podium, before a single question was read.

As Mills began his introductory statements, touting policy achievements and saying “the point [of the town hall] is open dialogue,” audience members began booing.

Amid the shouts of “shame,” 31-year-old Winter Springs resident Michelle Andrade stood up in the second row, pointed a finger directly at Mills and loudly and vigorously voiced her objections to him.

The animated back-and-forth between Andrade, other audience members and Mills lasted for more than five minutes before a single written question was asked, and covered a multitude of subjects, including wealth inequality, ICE and immigration enforcement, and the recent killing of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

“Your policies support billionaires, and they’re leaving working class Americans dead last,” Andrade said. “Emphasis on dead.”

“The best part about yelling over is no one hears the questions, and we want people to hear your concerns,” Mills said as staffers surrounded Andrade, asking her to leave. “If the lady would like to stay and listen, you’re more than welcome to stay.”

Andrade said she did not “want to listen” as she continued to yell toward Mills, who said, “I have one quick thing, and I’ll let you disappear, leave, whatever you’d like to do, ma’am: ICE, ICE, baby.”

This led to a loud chant of “shame, shame, shame” by dozens of audience members that lasted for approximately 15 seconds.

Mills said he has spoken with “a couple of families who have lost their daughters because they were raped and murdered by Venezuelans who shouldn’t have been [in the U.S.],” which was followed by more boos and others in the crowd saying “they weren’t killed by their government. They were killed by individuals, not their government,” “don’t take us for idiots,” and someone calling Mills racist, to which he responded “I’m a racist? My son is mixed, ma’am.”

Andrade was escorted out of the town hall by an Oviedo police officer.

Following her exit, Andrade said, “I got kicked out because I wouldn’t be quiet. Let’s just put it that way. I kept talking, and I kept talking, and, you know, they were asking for decorum … I said, ‘I’m not gonna wait for you to take the questions that you decide to answer. … I already know you’re an oppressor. I already know that you voted yes to fund ICE.’”

Back in the town hall, where outside chants of “Vote him out” could be heard clearly through the closed doors, submitted questions were asked and answered.

Among the topics addressed, many with spirited opposition voiced by those in the audience [Editor’s Note: This is not a complete list of all questions asked]:

– Potentially unconstitutional detentions and the importance of the First Amendment: Mills said, “If an actual court has ruled that anything is not judicial and or unconstitutional, then we should be listening to the rule and the verdict of the court. … I’ve actually talked about how, in certain cases, the Constitution should always be upheld … I get ridiculed by both sides because when I vote against that, to uphold things like free speech, people don’t truly understand that what I follow is things like the Supreme Court ruling Brandenburg vs. Ohio, where everyone, regardless of if you agree or disagree with someone’s speech, is protected unless it poses an imminence of threat, a likelihood of threat and you actually carry it out with intent.”

– The drop of value of the U.S. dollar: “You can’t cut your way to prosperity,” Mills said. “So any Republican or Democrat who’s always said, ‘oh, we’re going to get certain decisions and that’s going to balance our budget,’ is lying to you. The reality is that we have to grow our way out of it.”

– Changes he supports to ensure protection for children who report sexual abuse, to help them find justice: Mills said it is “the whole reason” for ensuring law enforcement has enough equipment, money and training to handle it. He touted “millions of dollars” for the Oviedo Police Station and crisis, training and prevention programs.  (Editor’s note: Oviedo Community News was not able to confirm that Mills had involvement in the Oviedo Police Station funding)

– On the Epstein files: “I was one of the co-sponsors to try to release the Epstein files,” he said. “I support the release of the Epstein files. I support the holding of accountability, continuing investigations … and all those found responsible for taking place in that, they should have their day in court, because they should absolutely be punished.”

– On tariffs on imports: Mills talked about historical examples, mentioning President Woodrow Wilson’s actions on tariffs before audience members pleaded with him to “answer the question,” and saying “please stop talking to us like we’re stupid.”

– On the future of Social Security: “We can eliminate the Social Security ceiling,” he said to claps and cheers from audience members. “One of the things we also have to look at is seeing who is actually still receiving Social Security benefits.”

– On the controversy surrounding his bronze star and military service: Mills said the Department of the Army wrote a letter in June 2024 that “guarantees and actually states all our wartime verifications.”

In response to this, audience members yelled “stolen valor,” to which Mills asked a woman in the audience in a wheelchair to “tell me about your service. I can show my receipts, I can show my uniform.” 

While she did not respond, from the other side of the room, 73-year-old Army veteran Pete Marion stood up to defend the other audience members’ comments and told Mills he served from 1975 to 1995. 

“Mills phrased his response in the context that ‘I served in the military and the rest of you didn’t and you don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Marion said after he left the town hall following the interaction. “There are 30,000 veterans in Seminole County. There are a lot of us that know what it takes to serve. I think there are legitimate questions about whether Mills falsely presented his service record to justify getting a bronze star. I’ve read the websites [and] the public information that’s available. It’s cloudy.

“He can’t present himself as being holier than us, right?” Marion said. 

– When an audience member responded to a Mills answer about the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts, saying “science is important; it’s keeping us alive,” Mills said “when it comes to Alzheimer’s [disease], we’re looking now at even the fact that early-stage, early childhood vaccinations could actually be one of the primary causes,” before being drowned out by more boos and shouts calling him “a moron.”

“The best thing about keyboard courage is this: it’s lemmings use the keyboards,” Mills said.

To a later question about childhood vaccines, Mills said “I don’t think the federal government should tell parents how to do anything when it regards their children.”

– On calls for him to be censured by Congress and a House Ethics Committee investigation into him: “I’m actually the one who referred myself to Ethics,” Mills said. “Politics is like a game of whack-a-mole.

“I turned myself over to Ethics because I’m not going to play a game of whack-a-mole and try and defend from slander; let the committee of jurisdiction actually do it and prove it themselves.”

– On if America is a secular country, and why policies can be seen to be justified by the Bible: “We believe [everyone] should have a right to worship whomever you’d like or not worship at all,” he said. “However, we can’t break the fundamental beliefs that our Constitution was framed upon our Christian-Judeo [values].”

While the question-and-answer portion of the town hall lasted about 75 minutes, protestors were lined up outside more than two hours before and at least 20 stayed until Mills’ car left the parking lot at Oviedo on the Park to wave goodbye.

Residents protest U.S. Rep. Cory Mills’ Oviedo town hall

Erin Kutner, holding a small megaphone, sparked the first protest chants through a call-and-response, against U.S. Rep. Cory Mills outside the Oviedo Cultural Center. “Show me what democracy looks like,” she started. “This is what democracy looks like,” the crowd shouted in response, waving their signs in the air, pumping their fists or simply standing and clapping.

As the gathered crowd continued their chants before the doors opened for Mills’ town hall at 6 p.m., cars passing by the Cultural Center honked their horns. The crowd cheered every time they heard a car’s horn.  

Kutner, 39, the Seminole County Democratic Party’s events chair, said the protest reminded her of the last No Kings protests she attended on Oct. 18, 2025.

“It [support] means everything,” Kutner said. “In fact, like the last No Kings, No Kings 2, it was overwhelming, honestly. It was nonstop honking. The traffic was backed up because people wanted to see our signs, and honestly, it’s really healing.”

Dennis Wall, a senior citizen of Winter Springs, held his sign saying, “Cory Mills voted yes to the MAGA murder budget,” referring to the nickname some critics use for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R.1), which passed in July 2025, decreasing funding to programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Mills was one of the 218 Republicans who voted “aye” for the act.

“I’m on social security and availing myself of Medicare from time to time,” Wall said. “When you get to be my age, you find yourself using medical services. He took money away from me. That’s not right.”

Jerry Vaughan said he’s pleased that Mills is trying to pass the Last Salute Bill. Mills made the bill public at the town hall, and Vaughan confirmed it was in its construction stages on Facebook. The Last Salute Bill, if passed, will help make burial uniforms a part of the burial benefit for veterans. 

The Chululota resident is the owner of The Dover Detail, a nonprofit that provides military burial uniforms for veterans and ships them across the country free of charge to the veteran or family. Vaughan said its latest uniform went to Arlington National Cemetery.

“A $2,000 uniform is not affordable, and that’s what the family would have to pay,” Vaughan said. “188 uniforms across the entire country, and the family pays nothing. Everything comes out of my pocket.” 

Vaughan said he stayed at the town hall to continue discussions with Mills and, hopefully, head to Washington and help the Last Salute Bill become a reality.  

“We never were issued anything,” Vaughan said. “We bought everything. Every uniform we ever owned, we bought it. The government didn’t issue it to us, so it’s my contention, and you got a guy going to Arlington National Cemetery, he shouldn’t be paying for his own damn uniform. None of these guys should.

The crowd became louder when Michelle Andrade, was escorted out of the town hall. They gathered around Andrade, clapping and praising her for speaking up against Mills. Andrade said she was escorted out of the building because she wouldn’t be quiet and kept shouting at Mills.

“I’m finally waking up and learning that you have to be brave, you know?” Andrade said. “It’s scary, and I did it anyway. I was terrified. My heart was racing.” 

One protestor in the large crowd approached Andrade and handed her the miniature megaphone used throughout the event. She retold her experience in the Cultural Center and what Mills said inside. 

Andrade recalled Mills saying, “ICE, ICE, baby,” when she was shouting at him inside. She wasn’t the only attendee to leave the event. 

After Pete Marion, and his wife, Carol, 71, left the town hall they told Oviedo Community News that they attended that night because they wanted to hear what Mills had to say in an “open environment” in front of his constituents.

Pete Marion said he heard nothing “new or spontaneous” from Mills, but he expected that. He said the open environment in Oviedo was a microcosm of what’s happening across the country, and Pete highlighted that the nation is at a tipping point.

“We don’t want what’s happening in Minnesota,” Andrade said. “We don’t want that, and we’re going to fight for that. And it felt good to be able to say that. It was empowering, and I’m gonna keep doing it, and I know that everyone else here is, too.”