Tasers Deployed as Republicans Across Country Face Constituents Angry About the News From Washington

Raucous town halls are back as members of Congress spend two weeks in their districts answering for the actions of the Trump administration — and the inaction of Congress — during the first real lawmaking break of the second Trump administration. The events are eerily similar to the town hall protests organized by Tea Party activists against the Democrats in 2009 and 2010 — events that helped galvanize support for the GOP and hand them 63 House seats in the following election. In 2009, as the House was working on the Affordable Care Act, Congressman Barney Frank got in a heated exchange with one of his constituents in Massachusetts. The woman told him that Obamacare would be akin to the Nazi death camps, leading Mr. Frank’s staff to turn off her microphone. “Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table!” Mr. Frank shouted. The 2025 iteration of those town halls aren’t getting much more civil, with tasers being fired by police, lawmakers describing themselves as “very afraid,” and voters loudly unloading on 91-year-old senators. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s town hall at Cobb County, Georgia this week was probably the worst of the worst, with law enforcement taking drastic measures to make sure the hardline conservative lawmaker wasn’t interrupted by her constituents. Before she even began speaking, a protester was ejected from the room for yelling at the congresswoman. “Welcome everyone!” Ms. Greene said cheerily as a man was aggressively dragged from the room by four police officers. One of the other attendees shouted, “Get out!” while the man was being wrestled from the room. “This is not a protest,” Ms. Greene said at the top of her remarks. “If you want to stand up, and want to protest, you want to shout and chant, we will have you removed just like that man was thrown out. We will not tolerate it!”When a man and a woman got up to shout at Ms. Greene, the congresswoman kept repeating in response: “Go. Go. Go,” telling them to leave the room. As she was talking about Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the migrant deported to El Salvador from Maryland last month — Ms. Greene had another man escorted from the event. “Bye,” she said. “Just like that illegal alien.”In total, nine people had to be removed from the venue over the course of Ms. Greene’s hour-long talk with constituents. Two of those removed had to be tased by officers. “Approximately six attendees were escorted from the premises without issue,” Acworth police said in a statement after the town hall. “Three individuals were arrested, two of them requiring tasers to be deployed in the process. While attempting to remove the subjects from the event, officers were threatened, physically resisted, and harmed in the process.” Two men were charged with simple battery of a law enforcement officer after being removed. Several other Republicans have faced similarly hostile crowds in recent weeks. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz was jeered and booed by her constituents at Indianapolis over her support for mass deportations. Congressman Rich McCormick’s was screamed at by voters about Social Security and Medicare during an event in February. That event was so bad that the chairman of the House Republicans’ campaign arm told his colleagues to stop doing in-person events with constituents. Senator Grassley is the most recent lawmaker to get that treatment from his voters. The 91-years-old Iowa senator stood in a small room with constituents this week and was berated about President Trump’s policies. “You gonna bring that guy back from El Salvador?” an angry, older Iowa man asked Mr. Grassley. When Mr. Grassley said no, the man shouted: “Why not?” as others in the group clapped. “The Supreme Court said to bring him back! Trump don’t care!”As Mr. Grassley insisted to the audience that El Salvador’s President Bukele is not subject to American courts, several audience members began berating the senator. One woman confronted Mr. Grassley over his support for the GOP tax cut bill still being hammered out in Congress. “I think the general population is sick and tired of hearing about the tax cuts for the wealthy,” the woman told Mr. Grassley, eliciting applause from others in the room. “When you start nitpicking about whether some single mom or single dad or somebody with somebody in prison is getting $70 too much food stamps — it doesn’t even buy you anything at the grocery store.”On Monday, Senator Murkowski held her own town hall back home in Alaska, though it was a more tame affair than some of the others. When asked about people being afraid of the current administration, the Republican senator admitted that she too is scared sometimes. “We are all afraid,” Ms. Murkowski said, before taking a long pause. “I certainly have not been here before, and I’ll tell you — I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real,” she said. “That’s not right.”

Tasers Deployed as Republicans Across Country Face Constituents Angry About the News From Washington

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