In two congressional districts and vastly different political environments, two Republicans in the U.S. House were met with far different reactions at public meetings they held late last week.
Against the suggestion of their leader, House Speaker Mike Johnson, to refrain from holding public meetings with constituents, second-term Reps. Chuck Edwards and Harriet Hageman went ahead with their evening sessions.
In Asheville, North Carolina, chants of opposition greeted Edwards on Thursday as opponents hooted at almost every answer he gave and chanted outside. In Evanston, Wyoming, at the southwestern corner of a sparsely populated and heavily Republican state, it was mostly Republicans who asked probing questions of Hageman in a quieter setting.
In both cases, voters were curious about the scope and pace of action in Washington since President Donald Trump took office, if less boisterously in Wyoming than the event 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the southeast.
Hageman — Liz Cheney ’s successor — worked to clarify Musk’s place in the Trump administration, describing him as “a special government employee” with “a top-secret security clearance.” She praised him for his work targeting foreign aid contracts at the U.S. Agency for International Development, calling the department a “monstrosity and waste of money.”
Some in the audience blurted comments to Hageman, though this was not unfriendly territory for Trump. The president received 80% of the vote in Uinta County, along the Utah border, en route to carrying Wyoming with nearly 72% of voters last year.
Yet even some devout Republicans gave voice to concern about Musk’s recommendations as the head of the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Posted by John3262005