Angry Voters Keep Confronting Republicans Back Home

President Trump arrives at the Republican Governors Association meeting at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Photo: Shawn Thew/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s second term commenced with a series of steep cuts to federal agencies and hastily assembled mass layoffs spearheaded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. Now, as the administration defends the upheaval it has created, some discontented voters are turning up the heat on their representatives in Washington. Republicans from Georgia to Missouri have found themselves grilled by constituents at a series of tense Republican town halls, a trend that began in February and has continued into March.

The town halls are unlikely to herald serious Democratic challenges for lawmakers who represent deeply conservative districts. But they do appear to support findings from recent polling that Americans are growing increasingly intolerant of Musk and his outsize role in government. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that 55 percent of adults believed that the steep cuts will do more harm than good. In that same survey, 50 percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Musk while 44 percent said they felt negatively about DOGE.

Trump, however, downplayed the interactions in a social-media post on Monday, alleging that the angry constituents were in fact demonstrators paid on behalf of the Democratic Party. “Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings. It is all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION, it’s not going to work for them!,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Here’s a look at some of the contentious scenes happening across the nation.

Kansas

Representative Roger Marshall’s scheduled town hall in Oakley, Kansas, came to an abrupt end on Saturday after members of the public questioned the representative about veterans losing their jobs as a result of some of the recent government layoffs. In a clip shared by Heartland Signal, Marshall can be seen ending the meeting early, citing prior engagements. One person in the video can be heard saying, “I’m not a Democrat, but I’m worried about the veterans, man.”

Texas

Representative Keith Self was met with jeers during a rowdy town hall in Wylie, Texas, on Saturday. In a video from the event, Self began to defend the “DOGE program,” which prompted sustained boos from the assembled crowd:

Missouri

On February 24, Missouri representative Mark Alford defended the Trump administration’s federal-job cuts to restive constituents, suggesting to voters that there was a greater plan in motion for those affected locally. “I would encourage anyone who finds themselves in this situation to realize that we are going to get this economy turning again. There are jobs available. God has a plan and purpose for your life,” he said, per the Kansas City Star. One woman retorted, “We don’t want your God!”

Texas

Voters in Texas representative Pete Sessions’s district confronted him during a town hall on February 22. The New York Times reports that a veteran signaled support for some of the efforts to cut government spending but raised Musk’s involvement as a problem. “I like what you’re saying, but you need to tell more people,” he said, per the outlet. “The guy in South Africa is not doing you any good — he’s hurting you more than he’s helping.”

Georgia

At a town hall he held on February 20, Representative Rich McCormick, a Republican who represents a solidly red district in Georgia, was met with fierce criticism and, at times, a chorus of boos as he was grilled about the significant cuts undertaken by the Trump administration and DOGE. A few days later, the representative was publicly advising the White House to slow things down.

“I think we’re just moving a little too fast,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on February 24. “We should have impact studies on each department as we do it, and I’m sure we can do that. We’re moving really, really rapidly, and we don’t know the impact.”

McCormick had been questioned about the recent layoffs of federal workers with the National Nuclear Security Administration as well as employees with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control who were tasked with the nation’s bird-flu response. The agencies were later forced to backtrack, admitting that the fired workers were let go accidentally and that they were undergoing efforts to rehire them. “Why is a supposedly conservative party taking such a radical and extremist and sloppy approach to this?” one town-hall attendee asked McCormick to applause from the crowd.

Wisconsin

A Wisconsin representative faced a similar scene on February 20. TMJ4, a local NBC affiliate, reports that Republican representative Scott Fitzgerald — who, like McCormick, represents a ruby-red district — was peppered with questions from constituents about the cuts as he insisted that fraud had been discovered by DOGE. One member of the audience asked Fitzgerald if he would force Musk to explain his actions. “Are you going to subpoena him at some point? Are you willing to use your subpoena power to tell Musk to stand in front of Congress and answer some hard questions?” he said.

Oklahoma

Representative Kevin Hern of Oklahoma also faced voters upset about the job cuts. News9, a local CBS affiliate, reports that constituents raised concerns of Musk’s potential conflicts of interest as well as the White House appearing to supplant the legislative branch. “We’re seeing the administration undermine Congress,” one woman told Hern on February 20.

Hern defended the government’s intent to decrease waste. “It’s going to impact all of us in this room, regardless of party or whether you like me or not. We’ve got to find a way to pay for and get our fiscal house in order,” he said.