Georgia Today: 3 people arrested at MTG town hall; Fort Benning has name restored; Flouride in water

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we feature the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, three people are arrested at a chaotic town hall meeting for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene; the Army restores the name of Fort Benning; and we speak with the Georgia doctor who says removing fluoride from drinking water, as some conservatives want, would be bad for children.

Dr. Cecil Bennett: We have to look at what the studies have told us, and there's no doubt that having fluoride in water decreases the risk of tooth decay in children by as much as 25%.

Peter Biello: Today is Wednesday, April 16th. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today.

 

Caption

A protester is removed before a electronic non-leathal device was used as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks during a town-hall style meeting, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Acworth, Ga.

Credit: AP Photo/Mike Stewart

Story 1

Peter Biello: Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene defended President Trump in a chaotic town hall meeting last night. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports the Rome Republican met with constituents, some of them angry, at the new administration in Acworth.

Sarah Kallis: Congresswoman Greene answered questions submitted ahead of time in her hourlong town hall, touting President Donald Trump's agenda and her work as chair of the House Department of Government Efficiency Subcommittee.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Will President Trump be dismantling the IRS? I certainly hope so, Lee.

Sarah Kallis: Many people in the crowd cheered for Greene, while others, like Democrat Mike Binns said:

Mike Binns: These were her supporters and this was a political rally and we were outsiders, even though we were all constituents.

Sarah Kallis: Binns was removed from the town hall after shouting. Acworth police said six people were removed from the town hall and three others were arrested. Officers used a Taser on two of them. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis in Acworth.

 

Story 2

Peter Biello: The Army has restored the name Fort Benning to its storied training post near Columbus. Only this time, the name honors an 18-year-old sergeant who fought in World War I rather than a Confederate general. Fort Benning commander, Maj. Gen. Colin Tuley, spoke at the renaming ceremony this morning, detailing the heroism of Fred Benning.

Colin Tuley: It is about that unwavering courage, that selfless service, and an enduring commitment to something greater than ourselves. His legacy will forever inspire us.

Peter Biello: The post was originally named for Confederate Brigadier General Henry Benning in 1918. Congress prohibited naming military bases for Confederates in 2021, and Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore in 2023. The Trump administration last month maneuvered around the law by ordering the base to be renamed for Fred Benning.

 

Story 3

Peter Biello: Almost two-thirds of Americans have access to drinking water that contains a small amount of fluoride. Local governments add fluoride to water to help prevent cavities. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has advocated for the removal of fluorite from drinking water, citing the potential harm of drinking too much. Recently, the state of Utah passed a law banning its addition to public water supplies and other states may follow suit. For more on this, we turn to Dr. Cecil Bennett. He's medical director for Noonan Family Medicine Associates. Dr. Cecil Bennett, welcome to the program.

Dr. Cecil Bennett: Great to be with you.

Peter Biello: The CDC has said that fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear. As a physician, do you have any concerns about the amount of fluoride in Georgians' drinking water?

Dr. Cecil Bennett: I think the fact that fluoride is readily available to all Georgians through regular drinking water tremendously decreases the risk of tooth decay and promotes good oral health.

Peter Biello: The argument that critics make is that fluoride is not meant to be ingested. It's great to use in toothpaste or at the dentist's office, but adding it to water is simply a way for the government to make a health decision for you without your consent. What do you make of that argument?

Dr. Cecil Bennett: We have to look at what the studies have told us. And there's no doubt that having fluoride in water decreases the risk of tooth decay in children by as much as 25%. Those are just proven points based on multiple studies that have been done.

Peter Biello: Are you concerned about the possible health effects?

Dr. Cecil Bennett: Well, here again, we have policies that may not affect individuals in the middle or upper class, but would definitely affect individuals who are poor. And why do I say that? Well, if you don't use a toothpaste with fluoride, because you're buying cheaper toothpaste, that's an issue for the poorer folks in our state. If you're looking at natural ways to get fluoride: You can get fluoride from eating seafood, such as shrimp or crab, etc. Again, those who are poorer in the state are not going to be able to afford to eat that type of diet on a regular basis. There are certain teas that you can drink: again, not part of the usual diet of individuals who are poor in the state. So having fluoride in water was the most efficient way of leveling the playing field to make sure we decrease risk of tooth decay and cavities, especially in our children. But why is it also important in adults? There's no doubt that studies have showed that poor oral hygiene increased the risk of cardiovascular disease. So this is not just an issue that will affect our children. It will also affect our adults, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, which will increase the increased health care costs and increased morbidity and mortality.

Peter Biello: In the course of your practice as a physician, have you ever seen anybody who suffered ill health effects because of too much fluoride?

Dr. Cecil Bennett: Never in 22 years of practicing, never through residency, never through medical school. It is a non-issue. What we don't see are excessive number of children with decaying teeth because fluoride is in drinking water and protects enamel.

Peter Biello: What about well water? What can people expect from their well water with respect to fluoride?

Dr. Cecil Bennett: There are minerals, of course — well water is rich in many minerals, which may include fluoride. But again, it's not a consistent source of getting fluoride as drinking water.

Peter Biello: There are filters that people can buy that would remove fluoride from the drinking water if — if they wanted. Do you think this is an appropriate way to say to those who are concerned, "Look, if you're concerned, get one of these filters, and then you will be able to choose when you want fluoride in your teeth."

Dr. Cecil Bennett: Those again who can afford to do that, that's perfectly fine for them to do it. But it's absolutely no need for general population in the state of Georgia to worry about getting too much fluoride from drinking water. This is my concern, overall, is that we're going backwards. We're not going forward. As I said earlier, fluoride has been proven to decrease the risk of cavities in our children by as much as 25%. We're attacking the measles vaccine and we're seeing outbreaks of measles. There's so many areas that — that we're attacking our children. And that's the part that's concerning to me, is that a lot of these changes in policies affect our children in the next generation. So my word to every single Georgian is to protect the teeth of your children and insist that fluoride remain in drinking water in the state.

Peter Biello: Well, Dr. Cecil Bennett, thank you very much for speaking with me.

Dr. Cecil Bennett: Thank you very much.

 

Story 4

Peter Biello: The Georgia Chamber said today it's issuing a third report on how Georgia businesses could be affected by the Trump administration's new tariffs. The group's president, Chris Clark, says the chamber is taking an aggressive approach to advise business leaders on tariffs because he expects impacts in every sector of the state's economy, but especially small businesses. He says large corporations have been stockpiling goods for months, a tariff-fighting strategy that small businesses can't afford.

Chris Clark: I think when you've got a small mom-and-pop organization on Main Street in downtown rural Georgia and a hundred percent of their product is an import product that they're repackaging or selling, this is going to hurt them first. This is where the pain is going be. So I haven't heard anyone tell me that they are going out of business. I have heard from manufacturers that say if certain tariffs go into effect at a certain point, they'll look at insolvency in a short period of time. These are American jobs, but if they are dependent on one supplier, they don't have a lot of options out there.

Peter Biello: The report focuses on how Georgia businesses, large and small, can maneuver through the rapidly changing tariff structures. The chamber is working on a fourth report due out next week focusing on Georgia's large service sector.

 

 

Story 5

Peter Biello: The Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case over property rights in a historic community of Gullah Geechee people, descendants of enslaved West Africans who worked island plantations along Georgia's coast. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.

Benjamin Payne: The case centers around a voter referendum that was halted last year by a judge in Coastal Georgia's McIntosh County. That ballot measure sought to undo a county zoning ordinance, which allowed larger homes to be built on Sapelo Island. Gullah Geechee residents there worried the ordinance would raise property taxes and drive them out of their ancestral land. During oral argument, several justices took issue with the county over an apparent procedural mistake — the fact that the county's attorneys failed to put the actual zoning ordinance into the court's official record. Here's Georgia Supreme Court Justice Virta Colvin questioning McIntosh County Attorney Ken Gerrard.

Virta Colvin: The bottom line is about the ordinance, correct? I mean, that's the issue.

Ken Gerrard: The valid question is about the ordinance.

Virta Colvin: So if we don't have that in the record, what is the court to do?

Benjamin Payne: A decision in the case is expected as early as next month. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne.

 

Story 6

Peter Biello: The University System of Georgia is holding the line on tuition. The System's Board of Regents voted yesterday to keep tuition unchanged for most in-state undergraduates in the next academic year. Out-of-state and international students will see modest tuition increases of 2% and 3%, respectively. USG's Chief Financial Officer told Regents meeting at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro that tuition at the state's 26 public colleges and universities has increased by less than 1% per year since 2016.

 

Story 7

Peter Biello: Hyundai Motor Group has hired former Georgia congressman Drew Ferguson to represent the company in Washington. Hyundai said today the West Georgia Republican will serve as its senior vice president of governmental affairs. Ferguson represented Georgia's 3rd Congressional District from 2017 to 2024. Before that, he was mayor of West Point, where Hyundai owns the Kia assembly plant.

 

Story 8

Peter Biello: The road from immigrant to U.S. citizen can be long and arduous. It ends with raising your right hand and taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. Recently, 22 people from 15 different countries stepped off the road and into the full rights of U.S. citizenship in a ceremony in the Bootle Federal Courthouse in Macon. GPB's Grant Blankenship was there.

Grant Blankenship: They were college students, engineers, mothers, fathers, and even one entomologist. Some drove from hours away and arrived hours early for this capstone. Among them was Elizabeth Mendoza.

Elizabeth Medoza: I got to the States back in 2005, so it's been 20 years.

Grant Blankenship: When she came here from El Salvador, she was only 17. Parents had packed her and her younger brother off together to escape gang violence.

Elizabeth Medoza: A lot of young boys were getting killed everywhere. It was like an everyday thing. So it was a sacrifice in order for us to have a better future.

Grant Blankenship: They arrived children, alone, knowing no English and nothing of American culture. But a decade later, Mendoza says she got a break: permission to work.

Elizabeth Medoza: 2015 I got my first work permit and since then I've been doing everything in order to get to this point.

Grant Blankenship: But does she think the journey she undertook 20 years ago is even possible now?

Elizabeth Medoza: It is possible. A little bit more difficult, I would say, but I believe that everybody will get the chance that they deserve.

Grant Blankenship: Like Mendoza, Z came to the U.S. as a child. (Z only gave one name.) And despite being in the U.S. a fraction of the time Mendoza has, he says this is home.

Z: Frankly, I've told a lot of my friends this, I'm like more American than I would expect to be for someone to be here for only seven years, eight now actually.

Grant Blankenship: Z arrived in the U.S. in time for the ninth grade, freshman year, with little to no English skills and a school he says was not interested in teaching the language.

It was tough.

Z's options were sink or swim. He swam in waters he says were unavailable in China.

Z: When I was in China, the pressure is quite high academically and just in general, living was quite — quite hard because it's very competitive.

Grant Blankenship: In the US, Z has been free to explore.

Z: I transfer like three schools just because I feel like I want to try different things to figure out what I can do.

Grant Blankenship: Now they're studying at the University of Georgia. So is Cindy Ngo.

Cindy Ngo: Well, as my parents say, they gave up their whole, like, career, family and friends to get into here, to get us, like, their children, a better future.

Grant Blankenship: Ngo is in fact the last in her nuclear family to become naturalized. And this was supposed to happen last year before the election.

Cindy Ngo: So I was, like — every single one of my friends, like, were out voting and they all shared their political standpoint. And I was like, "Damn, I can't do anything at all."

Grant Blankenship: But now that Ngo and others have sworn their oath —

AMBIENT SOUND: Citizenship Oath

Grant Blankenship: — that's changed. Ngo's looking forward to voting in the 2026 midterms.

Cindy Ngo: Because I care about, like, how the government, like, is going to contribute to us and maybe, like, in the future, too, because there's a lot of news that's going crazy right now.

AMBIENT SOUND: Citizenship Oath

Grant Blankenship: And it was only days after Cindy Ngo and Z became U.S. citizen that news came that several of their UGA classmates had had their student visas revoked. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon.

 

Peter Biello: That is a wrap on Georgia Today. Thanks so much for tuning in. Check GPB.org/news For updates. And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. We will be back in your feed tomorrow afternoon. Your feedback makes this podcast better. Send it our way by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news