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‘Cowardice’: After Voters Shout ‘No King’ GOP Told to Ditch Town Halls
Following a wave of humiliating viral videos capturing congressional Republicans being berated by their own outraged constituents at town halls nationwide, GOP lawmakers are now being told to stop holding such events altogether.
Last month, U.S. Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) “tried asking for unity at his ‘community coffee’ event,” but “his audience had screamed, cussed and called him a Nazi,” The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. “The crowd was furious that Obernolte had defended the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers. They yelled when he said he was glad billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was ‘looking at all of the waste’ in the federal budget.”
“And in reference to Trump, they shouted: ‘No king! No king! No king!'”
This week, President Donald Trump, without providing any proof or evidence, claimed that voters caught on camera confronting their elected representatives at town halls—largely in outrage over the mass termination of tens of thousands of government employees and the cancellation of critical, life-saving programs, under the eye of Musk and his DOGE team—were actually “paid” operatives and suggested they were Democratic shills. His allegation has been swiftly echoed by numerous Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and their MAGA supporters.
READ MORE: ‘Only in a Dictatorship’: Trump Slammed for Latest Effort to ‘Chill Free Speech’
On Tuesday, in a closed-door meeting among House Republicans, U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), “very dramatically told members to put down their phones and listen,” reported The Wall Street Journal’s Olivia Beavers.
“He said no one should be doing town halls. Likened it to 2017, [he] said the protests at town halls and district offices are going to get even worse. Another congresswoman got up and complained that they’ve been picketing at her house and targeting her kid, this source says.” Beavers noted that Hudson meant in-person town halls.
Democratic House Judiciary Committee chief counsel Joshua Breisblatt went even further: “this has hardcore 2010 vibes…” he remarked, appearing to refer to the Tea Party’s anti-Obamacare town halls.
Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman added that Congressman Hudson, who is also the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), “told Republicans they should be doing tele town halls instead of in person town halls. He said it is a more efficient way to reach constituents. And he said Dems will send someone to an in-person event to get a viral clip.”
Hudson “said Democratic activists are hijacking town halls to organize, drowning out constituents with real issues. He said virtual events could reach thousands of constituents.”
That claim targeting Democrats does not appear to align with numerous viral videos with millions of views on social media platforms, like this one, which has been viewed nearly 5 million times on just one social media platform in just three days:
Must watch video: @RogerMarshallMD stands up and leaves his own town hall meeting today after being asked why Republicans think it’s acceptable for DOGE to be firing Veterans. pic.twitter.com/ErNJbYPy1Z
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) March 1, 2025
Sherman also reported that it was U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-C) who “said that people are harassing her children at her house.”
READ MORE: ‘Will Be Big’: Trump Faces Dangerous Warning Signs Ahead of Address to Congress
“Hudson said the paid resistance people are out there like in 2017,” The Daily Beast’s Juliegrace Brufke added.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) responded to the 2017 comment: “Republicans think pissed off voters showing up at their town halls are ‘paid resistance.’ Did the ‘paid resistance’ cause them to lose 41 seats in the House the next year, too?”
The Bulwark’s Sam Stein reported that some House Democrats said if Republicans won’t do in-person town halls, they will hold them — in Republican districts.
Bipartisan criticism came swiftly.
“If you don’t have the courage to face your constituents – the majority of whom just voted for you – you certainly don’t have the courage to stand up for your country,” charged U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL). “Cowardice is the opposite of leadership. And it’s all the @GOP has.”
Five term Republican former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash blasted his former colleagues: “If you can’t handle contentious town hall meetings, then you shouldn’t be in Congress. Who cares if a questioner has an agenda? An honest legislator doesn’t fear these exchanges. They always represent an opportunity to persuade constituents, even if you can’t sway the questioner.”
Although not a member of Congress, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, the former vice presidential nominee, offered to hold town halls himself.
“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,” he vowed.
Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop remarked, “House GOP advised to hide from their constituents rather than try to publicly defend the Trump/Musk agenda.”
Town halls are a rich tradition in America, as University of Texas political science professor Mark Hand wrote in 2023:
“The first town halls in America were mini governments, not Q&A sessions—and we don’t really know where they came from. Today, when a representative goes back to their district, it’s mostly listening and responding carefully to constituent concerns. But the first town hall meetings in Massachusetts in the 1630s were experiments in community-level direct democracy, a tradition that continues today in some Massachusetts towns,” he wrote.
READ MORE: ‘Considering What We Are Facing’: US Cyber Defense Halt Against Russia Stuns Republican
Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
