President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that constituents who showed up to protest a GOP congressman’s town hall were paid actors.
“I just watched our GREAT Republican Congressman from North Carolina, CHUCK EDWARDS, hold a Town Hall in Asheville," he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“He was a total gentleman, but the room was ‘littered’ with Radical Left Lunatics, mostly Democrats, and all they did was scream, shout and use filthy language," Trump wrote. “They were largely paid agitators, with fake signs and slogans, and were only there to make TROUBLE!”
Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina was booed loudly at an event last week by attendees upset with his support for Trump and the dramatic cuts to federal spending being pushed by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Jay Carey, a 54-year-old retired, disabled veteran who was escorted out of the event, told local news network WLOS that he was upset with the congressman because he believed Edwards has not done anything for former service members and was concerned about potential cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security, and Medicare.
“I spent over 20 years fighting for this country,” he told the outlet. “I earned those benefits as well as my fellow veterans—I watched my friends die in war, I bled for my country.”
Carey blasted Edwards as “a puppet” and “a coward” for “doing exactly what Trump says.”
The Republican congressman claimed in an interview with The Hill that, in facing down his own constituents, he “went toe-to-toe with the progressive left.”
Since the DOGE task force, led by billionaire broligarch Musk, began marshaling dramatic cuts across the federal government, including plans to fire over 80,000 staff at Veterans Affairs, members of Congress from both parties have been met by furious constituents worried they aren’t acting as effective representatives.
Republican lawmakers have been chastised for their overwhelming deference to Trump and Musk’s agenda and for allegedly abdicating Congress’s role as an equal branch of government in the process.
Democrats have been blasted for allegedly failing to stand up against the administration and mount an effective opposition.
Both parties are struggling with net negative ratings, according to polls, with Democrats in particular sliding to historically unpopular levels.
Trump, however, has repeatedly refused to entertain the idea that there might be any grassroots or genuine opposition to his policies.
In doing so, he hasn’t shied away from invoking the conspiratorial claim that protestors at GOP events are secretly paid agents.
“Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings,” he posted on Truth Social earlier this month. “It is all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION, it’s not going to work for them!”
