Over the past few weeks, Republican lawmakers around the country have faced angry questioning and booing at GOP town halls from constituents who are upset with mass federal layoffs, among other controversial moves by the Trump administration. Now, after a series of tense confrontations, Congressional Republicans have been advised to hold their historically in-person town halls online.
It’s hard not to note the irony here: The same party that’s requiring federal employees to work in-person full-time has finally learned to embrace the power of a simple Zoom meeting from the comfort of their own homes. All it took, apparently, was some criticism from their own voters.
In response to the onslaught of hostile instances, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) encouraged members to host town halls on Facebook Live and other virtual avenues so that they could screen questions in advance and have more control over the event, ABC News reported.
The news comes after Kansas Senator Roger Marshall was booed at a town hall he held in a hospital on Tuesday. At a Texas town hall on Saturday, a raucous crowd continually heckled Republican Rep. Keith Self. And weeks ago, Georgia Republican Rep. Rich McCormick faced intense criticism at a town hall, where a constituent told him: “we are all fricking pissed off.”
After the NRCC’s meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that many of the disruptions in the town halls came from “professional protestors.” There’s no evidence that this is true.
This move to make town halls virtual has elicited backlash from voters who want to see lawmakers held publicly accountable for their actions. Several petitions have circulated urging these lawmakers back into the public eye; one asking Republican Senator Thom Tillis to hold a Charlotte town hall has gathered over a thousand verified signatures at the time of writing. And several similar petitions have begun to populate Change.org, a website that allows users to create and sign online petitions.
In a Tuesday morning X post, former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz offered to host in-person town halls in lieu of Republican lawmakers who refuse to do the same.
“If your Republican representative won’t meet with you because their agenda is so unpopular, maybe a Democrat will,” Walz wrote. “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.”
