While the meeting was promoted as being about gun safety, the mayor's conversation went far afield of that topic. Aikens gave the democrats special instructions on how they need to cross over and be voting in the republican primaries if they want to remove some people in Nashville, or as Aikens said, "some of those people need to be removed." 

In Loudon County, there are only four, state elected positions, he could be encouraging the democrats to remove. There's the 32nd district legislative seat held by Monty Fritts, the 21st district legislative seat held by Lowell Russell, the state senate seat held by Randy McNally and of course the governor.

So, is Aikens suggesting that all the Loudon County republican state officials should be removed? Is it just certain ones? Lowell Russell did in fact defeat Aikens for that 21st seat back in 2018.

It appears mayor Aikens is a bit of a pretender. If he's with the republicans, he's a republican. If he's with the democrats, he's a democrat. Don't know what the democrats call it, but republicans refer to someone like Aikens as a RINO.

Below is a partial transcript of the meeting. See how you interpret what he was saying.

Beverly and I had this discussion before the meeting started.  I am going to be very frank with you. 

We all know Tennessee is a red state.  I run as non-partisan in Lenoir City, but if…you are sitting in that position and you are a democrat and you don’t vote in the Republican Primary, particularly in this county, you are not going to get a choice and you are not going to change the way Nashville thinks.  If you don’t remove those people and some of those people need to be removed. 

So, you all remember that, especially the folks from Tellico Village, that haven’t lived here long.  You can switch over.  There is no law that says you can’t switch over and vote in the Republican Primary and your party may not like that, but I can tell you this, by sitting right across the street over here and during the…

I run in the November race every four years and I can tell you this that a lot of those people in the Democrat party that’s walking in here, and Beverly is on the election commission, and voting in the Republican Primary (Beverly, I’ve done it for years). You better remember that.  You’ll have no voice.

Lenoir City mayor Tony Aikens Democrat Women's Meeting 9/19/23