WASHINGTON — House Republicans are becoming weary and wary of in-person town hall meetings after a number of lawmakers have faced hometown crowds angry about the Trump administration’s push to slash government programs and staffing.
Party leaders suggest that if lawmakers feel the need to hold such events, they do tele-town halls or at least vet attendees to avoid scenes that become viral clips, according to GOP sources.
A GOP aide said House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in them altogether.
The town halls, and the rash of negative headlines, have been the first bit of public blowback for members who face voters next year. And the new reluctance to hold them indicates there are bubbling concerns about the impact the cuts could have on the GOP’s chances of holding its thin majority in the House next year.
The viral nature of video clips spreading from one district to another means a bad confrontation in safe Republican territory could influence voters in battlegrounds.
The GOP-led House is trying to enact even deeper spending and tax cuts through legislation that could add as much as $4.5 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. But much of the tension focused on billionaire Elon Musk, the face of President Donald Trump’s effort to unilaterally eliminate jobs, contracts and grants. Musk, who is a “special government employee” advising Trump, did not require Senate confirmation to take his temporary post.
“Obviously we’re very aware of those headlines,” a Republican National Committee official familiar with the dynamics said.
“I don’t know that a specific edict is going to come down from on high that they need to stop or anything, but a message I believe has been clearly sent that this narrative should end very soon,” the official said. “Probably the best way for that to happen is no more town halls. Elon Musk’s work still has the administration’s support, period.”
Beyond that, White House and party officials say the majority of the public wants the budget cuts.
“The president’s policies are incredibly popular, and the American people applaud his success in cutting the waste, fraud and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” said Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser at the RNC. “Pathetic astroturf campaigns organized by out-of-touch, far-left groups are exactly why Democrats will keep losing.”
A Republican lawmaker who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly divulging internal party strategy, said that the RNC has been helpful in making suggestions about how House Republicans can handle the situation but that it stopped short of trying to impose an impossible-to-enforce moratorium.
Lawmakers are spooked enough about the prospects of heated exchanges that most of them do not want to do town halls anyway, this Republican said.
A chief of staff to a House Republican who has won handily compared the dynamics with tough town halls in the 2018 midterms. While Democrats won control of the House that year, GOP lawmakers in Republican-heavy districts may have benefited from a backlash to the criticism.
“It’s 2018 all over again,” the aide said. “The town halls, if anything, helped in districts like ours.”
