Bernie Sanders Town Hall in Reading

Senator Bernie Sanders held a Town Hall at the Santander Performing Arts Center on N. 6th St, in Reading Pennsylvania on Thursday April 21, 2015. Daniel Zampogna, PennLive

(Daniel Zampogna, Pennlive)

Sen. Bernie Sanders says the last-minute denial of the use of a National Guard armory won't stop him from holding a town hall meeting in McDowel County, West Virginia.

The event was to be held Feb. 13 and filmed by MSNBC, and had been scheduled for weeks, according to the Washington Post. But Sanders was told late last week the venue couldn't be used for political purposes.



The posted cited this statement by Sanders: "If anyone in West Virginia government thinks that I will be intimidated from going to McDowell County, West Virginia, to hold a town meeting, they are dead wrong. If they don't allow us to use the local armory, we'll find another building. If we can't find another building, we'll hold the meeting out in the streets. That town meeting will be held. Poverty in America will be discussed. Solutions will be found."



McDowell County is the poorest part of West Virginia, with the state's highest drug overdose rate, and the shortest life expectancy, 64 years, of any county in the United States, the Post reported.



President Donald Trump won 74 percent of the vote in McDowell in November, although Sanders, a Vermont Independent running as a Democrat, won 55 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, according to the Post. The Post quoted Sanders as saying "hundreds" of people had signed up for the town hall.



As of Sunday afternoon, the governor of West Virginia, who is a Democrat, had not commented on the matter, according to the Post.