At congressional town halls across the country over the past two weeks, Republican members of Congress have been met with anger from voters over the hastily applied cuts to federal agencies and mass layoffs led by Elon Musk and his U.S. DOGE Service.
The scenes, which have taken place in ruby-red districts from Georgia to Missouri, quickly prompted comparisons to the tea-party movement of the late aughts or the early years of Donald Trump’s first term, in which the opposition party rode waves of palpable voter discontent to improved margins in subsequent elections.
Republican sources tell NBC News that party leaders are advising members to eschew public gatherings in light of the ongoing backlash, suggesting they consider tele–town halls instead or skip the events altogether. A Republican National Committee official told the outlet that voters’ negative reaction to the Tesla CEO in particular is known throughout the party.
“I don’t know that a specific edict is going to come down from on high that they need to stop or anything, but a message, I believe, has been clearly sent that this narrative should end very soon,” they told NBC. “Probably the best way for that to happen is no more town halls. Elon Musk’s work still has the administration’s support, period.”
While counseling members to avoid such scenes, Republican leaders are also downplaying them — and getting conspiratorial. During a CNN interview on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that Democrats are actually to blame for the rancor.
“The videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places. These are Democrats who went to the events early and filled up the seats,” he said.
Johnson continued, “This is an old playbook that they pulled out and ran, and it made it look like that what is happening in Washington is unpopular. But I’m gonna tell you, Kaitlan, the American people are behind what’s happening.”
On Monday, Punchbowl News reported that some of the protests appear to have been organized by MoveOn.org and Indivisible, two progressive organizations that stand in clear opposition of Trump’s and Musk’s joint ambitions.
It seems some Republicans have already had enough. WEAU, an NBC affiliate in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, reports that staffers for Republican representative Derrick Van Orden canceled a scheduled meeting with constituents. In a statement to the outlet, Van Orden’s office said the congressman’s staff planned to meet Thursday with “a small group of constituents” but alleged that Chippewa Valley Indivisible, a local offshoot of the progressive grassroots organization, shared details of the scheduled meeting with the public without its knowledge, which prompted a higher-than-expected turnout. The larger group showed up to the local library despite the meeting being canceled with the crowd moving to Van Orden’s nearby office.
“It is unreasonable to expect a single staffer to accommodate a group that large. While the congressman and his staff are always willing to listen to the thoughts and concerns of his constituents, we will not conduct business in the unprofessional conditions orchestrated by Chippewa Valley Indivisible,” the statement read.
