Increasingly fractious town halls are “scaring” Republicans as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continues to roll out cuts from the federal workforce, according to former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger.
Kinzinger was reacting to the latest blow-up which erupted at Republican congressman Chuck Edwards’ town hall in Asheville, North Carolina on Thursday evening. The representative for the state’s 11th congressional district was shouted down by a man who said he was a veteran, angry with his “rights” being whittled away under the current administration.
The man was escorted out of the event by law enforcement. “And you wonder why folks don’t want to do town halls?” Edwards said at one point as attendees jeered and booed him.
ADVERTISEMENT
Speaking on NewsNight With Abby Phillip the same evening, Kinzinger said that Republicans now fear the meetings with their constituents. Cutting across a shouting match between GOP strategist Scott Jennings and, well, everybody else, Kinzinger appealed for the panel to listen to someone “who has actually done this.”
“Okay, let me just say, as a congressman, you hate doing town halls. I mean, that‘s just a reality,” Kinzinger said. “Now, why did I hate doing town halls? I did a bunch, but truly, because you’re facing people that are upset with you, and that‘s okay.”
Adding that “people have a right to be upset with you,” Kinzinger said he had been faced with the same angry questions posed to many Republicans hosting town halls. “I‘ve been asked the same things from Tea Party meetings. Why are you shredding the Constitution? Why is Obama shredding the Constitution?”
“The reality is this: This is scaring Republicans,” Kinzinger said. “And it should, because this mimics what happened in 2010 when you saw the Tea Party rise up.”
In 2009, the right-wing Tea Party movement saw constituents protesting against the policies of the Democratic Obama administration. The following year, the Democrats suffered major losses in the midterms—including 63 seats in the House and consequently their control over the chamber.
Jennings, meanwhile, repeated a claim throughout the CNN segment that the people seen clashing with their Republican representatives this year are paid “liberal mobs.”
“These are unrepresentative, unhinged mobs. I don‘t know what else to tell you. That‘s what they are,” he added.
Jennings’ theory came after comedian Roy Wood Jr. said that Republicans have been surprised by the level of pushback to DOGE cuts.
“There‘s no way that Republicans were prepared for this level of response to these cuts,” he said. “Like the fact that people are there and that fervent. We‘re only six weeks into into Trump right now. I think they were very much shocked.”
Several Republicans have been confronted by angry constituents this year, among them Texas Rep. Keith Self, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, and Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick—encounters which House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to shrug off as the work of “paid protesters.”
