Donald Trump thinks it’s time for Republican lawmakers to stop playing nice with town hall disruptors.
The president told Republican lawmakers to take a harsher stance against “infiltrators” after Republican Rep. Mike Lawler’s town hall in Rockland County, New York quickly went off the rails on Sunday night.
“The Radical Left Democrats are paying a fortune to have people infiltrate the Town Halls of Republican Congressmen/women and Senators,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “These Great Patriot Politicians should not treat them nicely. Have them immediately ejected from the room – They are disruptors and troublemakers.”
As soon as Lawler took the stage at his town hall, the packed auditorium erupted into a mix of cheers and jeers, leaving the congressman no choice but to stand in silence until the crowd settled down.
The first big clash of the night was over the Pledge of Allegiance, according to The New York Times. The congressman, who is also a regular CNN panelist, was met with groans when he asked the crowd to recite the pledge.
“Please tell me you’re not objecting to the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said.
The audience soon got on their feet, though their recitation was reportedly peppered by screams of “authoritarian” and “support the Constitution!”
Over the next two hours, Lawler’s constituents grilled him on everything from Medicaid cuts to Trump’s devastating tariffs.
“None of this is helping us,” one attendee said of the Trump administration’s policies. “We’re getting hurt. We in the community are being harmed by this. What are you doing to stand in opposition to this administration?”
“My record speaks for itself,” Lawler began to say, but he was quickly drowned out by heckling from the crowd.
“If you want me to answer the questions, let the question be asked and then listen to the answer. If you’re just going to yell back and forth, then time is going to run pretty quick,” Lawler snapped as he launched into a response that blamed inflation on the Biden administration.
Similar scenes have rocked town halls all over the country since Trump took office.
Last week, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a MAGA star, faced angry boos in his town hall.
Not even Democrats have been spared. Earlier this month, Rep. Laura Friedman was confronted by a rowdy group of constituents who were unsatisfied with her efforts to resist the Trump administration’s policies.
“You must allow your audience to know what you are up against, or else they will think they are Republicans, and that there is dissension in the Party,” Trump said in his Truth Social post. “There is not, there is only LOVE and UNITY. Republicans are happy with what is taking place in our Country. We all love America!”
The post Trump Starts Making Demands After Another Wild GOP Town Hall appeared first on The Daily Beast.
