Now that Congress is in summer recess, homebound Republican lawmakers are learning just how much their constituents hate the president’s policies.
In his first town hall since voting in favor of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Nebraska Representative Mike Flood had no remedy for the fire and fury of his base, who practically roasted him alive Monday night for Flood’s ongoing support for Trump.
Flood faced a barrage of excoriating questions during the jam-packed town hall, in which voters demanded to understand why their local lawmaker would vote in favor of the president’s tax bill and his immigration policies, accusing him of supporting a “fascist machine.” At one point, the crowd broke into a furious chant: “Tax the rich.”
“My question is fiscal. With 450 million FEMA dollars being reallocated to open Alligator Alcatraz, and 600 million taxpayer FEMA dollars being used to now open more concentration camps, and ICE burning through 8.4 million dollars a day to illegally detain people—how much does it cost for fascism?” one woman pressed Flood as the crowd behind her cheered. “How much do the taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country?”
But Flood’s response was no different from the party line, effectively echoing Trump’s “mandate from the people” ideology to advance undemocratic ideals.
“Americans went to the polls in November, and they had a choice between a Democratic candidate that had an open border, no enforcement, fentanyl, drugs, human trafficking, and they had a choice between that and a candidate that said close the border, get illegal immigrants out of our country, stop the fentanyl, stop the human trafficking, stop the drugs, stop the crime, stop the violence,” Flood said. “That’s what Americans voted for.
“Americans voted for a border that is secure, and I support the president enforcing our immigration laws, which, by the way, were written by Congress,” he added.
Flood’s constituents also harangued him for failing to protect SNAP benefits, veterans’ programs, and health care access, and for supporting Trump as the president circumnavigates and avoids his own home-brewed Epstein scandal.
“Let’s be very clear—at the next pro forma session of the Congress, you will find my name as a sponsor on a resolution from the House Rules Committee to release the Epstein files to protect the victims and not re-victimize them again,” Flood said, stating that he was for the release of the records despite the fact that he—along with every other Republican in the House—voted against a Democrat-led effort last month to make the files public.
The crowd, which at 750 people was the largest at one of Flood’s town halls yet, repeatedly booed the lawmaker almost from the very start. At one point, unsatisfied with his answers, constituents broke out into chants of, “Vote him out!”
Flood is unlikely to be the only conservative facing enormous backlash at home. Republicans have been instructed by the National Republican Congressional Committee to focus their time at home in August on selling Trump’s agenda to voters.