Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. People are starting to notice.
Town halls this week for congressional Republicans from Georgia to Wisconsin to Oregon grew testy as voters showed up to vent, outraged at the firing of workers and the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive data. Protesters showed up around the country at lawmakers’ offices.
The backlash extends far beyond federal workers in the Beltway, reaching purple districts that will decide control of Congress in 2026 and swing states like Georgia that helped return Trump to the White House. Layoffs just hit the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Funding freezes have halted clean-energy projects championed by President Joe Biden.
Catherine Lucey, Meridith McGraw, Lindsay Wise at WSJ:
At a town-hall meeting in a Republican-friendly, Atlanta-area congressional district, boos rained down on GOP Rep. Rich McCormick as he tried to defend President Trump’s efforts to slash the federal government.Melanie Zanona, Sahil Kapur and Ben Kamisar at NBC:
In one tense exchange before the hundreds of people there, a woman challenged McCormick over how he would “rein in the megalomaniac in the White House,” according to a video of the Thursday event posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eventually, McCormick—whose district backed him by a nearly two-to-one margin last year—acknowledged the audience’s concerns.
“I don’t want to see any president be too powerful,” McCormick said. His office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The contentious scene was one of a series of clashes in GOP congressional districts across the country in recent days that offered an early warning for the White House. While Trump is broadly giving voters what he promised during his campaign, the scope and unilateral nature of his early executive actions, as well as his upending of longstanding foreign alliances, is throwing some Republican lawmakers on the defensive.
At a recent town-hall meeting in West Bend, Wis., Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R., Wis.) was questioned about spending cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency and Trump’s blaming of Ukraine for Russia’s invasion, according to local news reports. Rep. Kevin Hern (R., Okla.) and Rep. Cliff Bentz (R., Ore.) also found themselves pressed at similar forums about Elon Musk’s involvement in the DOGE downsizing effort, which has included mass firings of federal workers, local reports show.
Protesters gathered outside some GOP offices in Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New York. Phone calls continue to pour into Republican and Democratic offices following an uptick last month when the Trump administration placed a temporary freeze on federal loans and grants, affecting programs such as Head Start.
The House’s sweeping budget plan to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda could result in steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, putting a key group of Republicans in a politically difficult position ahead of a potential vote next week in the narrowly divided chamber.
There are a handful of House Republicans who represent parts of the country where sizable shares of the populations receive government assistance from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to an NBC News analysis of the most recently available Census Bureau data
The lawmakers from the 10 GOP-held districts with the highest percentages of Medicaid or SNAP beneficiaries span the ideological and geographical spectrum. They include members from deep-red districts, such as Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and veteran Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, as well as those in competitive battlegrounds, such as Reps. David Valadao of California, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and Monica De La Cruz of Texas.
