Republican Lawmakers Stand Firm Amidst Protests
Rep. Jay Obernolte’s town hall in California last week was drowned out by shouts of “No king!” Rep. Glenn Grothman entered his Wisconsin town hall to boos and jeers, while Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon faced so much heckling that he threatened to leave.
But when the Republican lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday, few had wavered in their support for Elon Musk or his attempts to cut giant swaths of the federal government.
“It’s easy to be critical, but the people voted for change in November, and that’s exactly what they’re getting,” Obernolte said in an interview.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said, “that the other party’s chosen to turn this into a political stunt.”
Republicans were hardly chastened. Some called the protests misinformed. Others argued they were organized by liberal activists and not representative of their broader district.
“I think they were uninformed people, so I really kind of discount that,” said Grothman, who added that he suspected those upset at his event were Democrats. “I think once you’re informed you realize that we’ve got a lot of financial problems.”
The scenes that played out across the country over the House recess last week were reminiscent in some ways of 2017, when voters revolted over Republican attempts to scrap the Affordable Care Act. But this time, the anger was centered more firmly on Musk and the GOP’s willingness to stand aside as he ordered mass layoffs and other budget cuts. Some town halls also touched on concerns over cuts to Medicaid, Social Security and other safety-net programs, fears that have resonated more with centrist Republicans in Congress.
Following an angry protest, NBC News reported Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia plans to urge Musk to show more compassion.
But when it came to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, many GOP lawmakers insisted on Monday that their constituents back Musk’s moves to root out government waste and fraud even as recent polling suggests the public is souring on the world’s richest man and his tactics.
“I’ve not heard anybody say they didn’t want to cut anything, it’s just they don’t like Elon,” Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, who faced his own difficult crowd, told reporters at the Capitol.
His response to the Musk backlash: “We’re moving forward with the cuts.”
The town halls were concentrated in deep-red districts where GOP members could expect to find a friendlier audience. They are not the districts that will determine the House majority, but the fact that even those events have been marked with rancor could signal a broader discontent with Musk and his actions.
Even so, GOP Rep. Pete Sessions, whose East Texas town hall last week was pockmarked by complaints about Musk and Congress’ complaisance, pledged to keep holding town halls. “Of course I will,” he said in a brief interview.
Reps. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) and Mark Alford (R-Mo.) were among the other Republicans who walked into heated district events. And even more members saw protests outside their offices or elsewhere in their districts, many of them organized by left-leaning groups such as Indivisible or the Working Families Party.
In the Western Colorado district of Rep. Jeff Hurd, some 400 people turned up to a meeting organized by liberal activists, though Hurd himself was invited but did not attend. And some of them are likely to face fresh criticism Tuesday when constituents from 27 states and 59 congressional districts — including Hurd’s — organized by the People’s Action Institute will head to Capitol Hill to demand lawmakers support policies that benefit Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.
How voters view Musk and Trump — and how Republicans attempt to address their concerns — could help to shape the outcome of the 2026 midterms. Democrats are desperately trying to reclaim the House majority and gain a lever of power in Washington, and erasing the GOP’s narrow House majority is their best chance.
On Monday, several Republican members described signs of organized protests at their events, such as people reading questions from scripts. Bentz said the same activists cropped up at all his town halls and got to watch his presentation four times: “I started joking with them at the end. I would say, ‘Hey, I’ve seen you before. I hope your questions are different.’”
Despite the angry questioners, Bentz said he remains committed to making government smaller, while acknowledging shrinking the federal workforce is “really, really, really hard.”
Asked if he had any concerns with Musk and DOGE, Bentz demurred: “I’m not part of the executive branch, so I’m not really in a position to say what’s happened exactly.”
Some Republicans have become increasingly alarmed by the speed and sweep of DOGE’s cuts — and the administration’s seeming disregard for congressional spending authority. A few have backchanneled with the White House to reverse some of the firings, worried about the dismissals of military veterans and USDA employees involved in combating the worsening bird flu outbreak. Obernolte noted that his district, which includes Joshua Tree National Park, lost some rangers. He said he believed they were being rehired after pushback.
Others have voiced concerns about the impacts NIH funding cuts could have on research institutions in their states. Some senators have also begun urging Musk and DOGE to show more “compassion” for the civil servants they’re culling en masse.
“We are not building trust within our own government by how the DOGE teams are operating,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said. And “we’re seeing the Congress kind of stand back and let them overreach. That cedes our authority. … That’s not good.”
But many House Republicans don’t share her public hesitation. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) saw protestors gather at his Palm Desert office and said it didn’t change his support for Musk.
“I’m used to it,” he said. “It’s just another day in paradise.”
