GOP Leaders Are Telling Lawmakers to Simply Stop Hosting Town Halls
Republicans may be publicly celebrating President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s slicing and dicing of the federal government, but their constituents are growing increasingly angry — and they know it. The GOP’s response has been to turn and run.
According to sources who spoke to Politico, Republican National Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) outright told lawmakers to stop holding town halls with voters during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday.
Republicans returned to their districts last month only to be met with legions of angry constituents demanding answers over their acquiescence to drastic job and funding cuts orchestrated by Musk and the Trump administration. NBC News reported that instead of actually listening to the voters who put them in office, GOP leaders in the House advised members of their caucus to simply stop meeting with them in person. House Republican leadership reportedly suggested avoiding in-person town halls for fear that voter backlash may become viral if circulated online.
“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,” one Republican National Committee official told NBC News.
Now, the directive appears to be coming from the Republican Party’s primary campaign apparatus — a sign of growing fears that Trump and Musk’s “break it and see if anyone notices” approach to government reform is alienating their own voters, and could lead to intense electoral backlash in the 2026 midterm elections.
Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) claimed that the voters confronting Republicans were “paid protesters.”
“These are Democrats who went to the events early and filled up the seats,” Johnson told CNN. “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.”
Trump echoed Johnson’s claim on Monday, writing on Truth Social that “Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings,” and that it’s “all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION, it’s not going to work for them!”
There is no evidence of any town hall conspiracy.
If congressional Republicans’ solution to the backlash is to simply bury their heads in the sand, some Democrats are ready to pounce.
“Starting March 24th, I will be going to three red districts in California to speak out against DOGE’s mass firings and the Republicans’ Medicaid cuts,” wrote Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in a Tuesday op-ed for The American Prospect. “This is a moment for progressives to speak directly to people across the country, especially in places that have been hollowed out by the offshoring of jobs and failed policies that have put billionaires over the working class.”
“You would think this backlash would be a wake up call for Republicans, but they continue to propose deeply unpopular and harmful cuts that hurt the working class and benefit billionaires,” Khanna added in a statement provided to Rolling Stone.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz suggested something similar in response to Politico‘s report on Tuesday. “That’s a shame,” the former vice presidential candidate wrote on X. “If your Republican representative won’t meet with you because their agenda is so unpopular, maybe a Democrat will. Hell, maybe I will. If your congressman refuses to meet, I’ll come host an event in their district to help local Democrats beat ‘em.”
In February, multiple Republican House members saw their names make headlines after tense confrontations with constituents in their home districts went viral on social media. Many of the complaints centered around Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has been conducting mass firings of federal workers, while gutting or effectively eliminating congressionally authorized programs.
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) was recently mercilessly heckled during a town hall in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District. He was booed by constituents, several of whom questioned the authority granted to Musk, the seemingly arbitrary nature of the cuts, and Trump’s statements comparing himself to a king. “Why is a supposedly conservative party taking such a radical and extremist and sloppy approach to this?” one constituent asked. In Texas, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) recently sparred with furious voters who accused him of ceding his authority as a member of Congress to the executive. “The executive can only enforce laws passed by Congress; they cannot make laws,” one attendee said. “When are you going to wrest control back from the executive and stop hurting your constituents?”
Early polling shows that a growing majority of Americans is concerned about the unchecked concentration of power between Musk and Trump. A recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 57 percent of Americans think Trump is overstepping his authority, and that “Americans disapprove by a 2-to-1 margin of Musk shutting down federal agencies that he decides are unnecessary, and most (63 percent) are concerned that his team is gaining access to sensitive personal data of individuals.”
Voters may be mad, but the Republican Party remains broadly supportive of Musk and Trump’s antics — even if they steamroll over lawmakers’ constitutional powers.
Chief among constituents’ concerns are signs that Musk and congressional Republicans are looking to take a hacksaw to prominent social safety net programs including Medicaid and Social Security. In late February, the House passed a proposed budget that included $4.5 trillion in tax cuts — mostly for the nation’s wealthiest Americans — and over $2 billion in unspecified spending cuts.
The budget instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in spending cuts through 2034. If history is anything to go by, those proposed cuts will likely come from Medicaid.
“You’re talking about $880 billion of cuts to Medicaid,” Sen. Chris Murphy said in a press conference responding to the bill “That’s a huge number nobody understands. Let me tell you what that means. That means that sick kids die in this country. That means that hospitals in depressed communities, in rural communities, close their doors, right? That means that drug and addiction treatment centers disappear all across this country. That means that millions of working families who have insurance today — because, by the way, 24 percent of Americans get their health care from Medicaid — they all of a sudden don’t have their health care tomorrow. And for what, and for what because Elon Musk needs another billion dollars?”
This post was originally published on Feb. 26.
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