- Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards held a town hall in Asheville, North Carolina.
- Constituents raged at the congressman about DOGE, hardly letting him get a word in.
- "I almost think he enjoys this s—," one attendee told BI.
North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards surely knew this was going to happen.
"I feel like this is not productive with everybody yelling at me," the congressman told the combustible crowd of constituents on Thursday night, 34 minutes into his first town hall of the year.
A bespectacled, mild-mannered backbench Republican with a prominent combover and a thick goatee, Edwards struggled to speak over the noise. Every few minutes, he was drowned out by a cacophony of booing, jeering, and heckling.
The crowd, it seemed, only wanted to talk about one thing: DOGE.
"Like him or not, Elon Musk has brought a lot of really smart people in," Edwards said. He was drowned out by boos.
DOGE has become the dominant storyline of Donald Trump's second presidency. As thousands of federal jobs disappear, billions of dollars in funding remain frozen, and Elon Musk's influence continues to rise, Americans' anger has bubbled over in town hall after town hall.
Edwards' Thursday night debacle was the latest example. Around 300 people, many of whom looked to be in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, packed into the modest community college auditorium in Asheville, a city of roughly 95,000 in a western pocket of the state. Another 1,000 people were milling around outside, holding Ukrainian flags and signs denouncing Elon Musk and his job-slashing, budget-shrinking initiative. "Drug test Musk," read one.
Over the course of 89 minutes — with dozens of reporters and at least 10 news cameras on hand — Edwards' chaotic town hall plodded along. A self-described veteran was dragged out by police after screaming that Edwards didn't "give a s—" about him or other veterans. Audience members shushed one another, unable to collectively decide whether they wanted to actually hear from the congressman or just scream in his face. A man yelled about why a "non-elected person" — apparently referring to Musk — was "running our government."
One thing was clear: The firestorm over DOGE isn't dying down anytime soon.
'I almost think he enjoys this s—'
Edwards is no bomb-thrower. He was elected to Congress in 2022 after defeating Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who once accused his colleagues of taking part in debaucherous, cocaine-fueled orgies. Edwards' campaign, by contrast, promised to skip the grandstanding.
In other words, he didn't exactly match his constituents' energy on Thursday night. Nor did he seem to be able to read the room.
The congressman was asked to list "five things you've done this week to protect democracy," a winking reference to a DOGE email asking federal employees to list their accomplishments.
"Coming up with five things is not real difficult," the congressman said, after naming just three: attending a classified briefing; voting to pass a government funding bill; and informing the media that he would be holding Thursday's town hall.
Asked if he would follow DOGE's lead and cut 25% of his staff, Edwards walked back toward the podium. He had some notes to read from. "Looking for what Trump told you to say?" an audience member jeered. Edwards began rattling off a list of grants and contracts that DOGE claimed it had canceled.
"We found a $10 million grant in a small country in Africa for voluntary medical male circumcision," Edwards said. The crowd only grew angrier.
"I almost think he enjoys this s—," Martin Downie, one of the 300 attendees, told me later that night. "I think he's a little bit sadistic."
Downie, 57, is one of thousands of federal workers who have been caught in DOGE's crosshairs. After 30 years of Army service that he said took him to Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Belgium, and the Pentagon, he moved with his wife to nearby Waynesville in 2020. Last year, he started a public affairs job at the US Department of Agriculture.
"I was a remote worker," he said. "That was my first sin."
Then came the email that thousands of other probationary employees received in February: Downie was being terminated for "poor performance," despite previously receiving "exemplary" reports. "That's it. The end. F— you. Thank you for your service," Downie said, recalling the email.
Even as those firings are being challenged, Downie said he has no desire to return. "Am I gonna work for people who think and act like that?"
I asked him what he planned to do next. "Well, I'm gonna start, probably, crystal meth," he said. His wife made clear that he was joking. Maybe he'd start a small business, he said. "What the hell, you know? There's no jobs locally," Downie said. "The job market is now flooded with recently fired people."
DOGE's trickle-down effects
Some of the crowd's DOGE-related concerns were broad: Job cuts at the Education Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs; the access "Musk and his minions" have to the Treasury Department's databases.
Others raised concerns specific to Asheville and Western North Carolina, suggesting that DOGE's federal bushwhacking is already being felt downstream: potential cuts at the Charles George Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center; the future of the Veach-Baley Federal Building in downtown Asheville; the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The crowd's biggest enduring worry was Hurricane Helene. Nearly six months after the storm devastated the city, Asheville is still visibly reeling from the damage. Gutted commercial buildings dot the city's streets, and broken, mangled trees still line the highways leading in and out of town.
That debris could supercharge future wildfires. One attendee asked Edwards whether recently fired US Forest Service employees would be rehired. "The easy answer to that is, uh, yes," Edwards replied, referencing recent court rulings requiring the reinstatement of probationary employees. Roughly 7,700 federal workers live in Edwards' district, according to the Congressional Research Service.
"To be clear, I deeply value the contributions that federal employees make every day to keep America running and to deliver important services," Edwards said. "For example, folks at the National Weather Service office—"
"Were fired!" one woman interjected.
'Threatened by my own government'
If top Republicans had their way, Edwards' town hall — footage of which spread rapidly on social media — never would have happened.
Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that "paid protestors" were swamping town halls, warning his members not to "play into" liberal efforts to generate soundbites. Instead, Johnson suggested, lawmakers should stick to telephone town halls or smaller, more choreographed engagements.
Edwards is one of a few Republicans who decided to ignore that advice. "I can make up my own mind," he told me at the Capitol a week before the town hall. "One of my favorite activities, serving in Congress, is to be among the people that I represent and hearing their voices, even if they might disagree."
There's little question that events like these are attracting left-leaning attendees, though there's no evidence they're getting paid to be there. But the fact that they're showing up in droves could be indicative of electoral consequences down the road.
Cynthia Orengo, 72-year-old retired healthcare professional affiliated with the progressive group MoveOn, told me in a phone call on Wednesday that she and other activists were "helping to bring as many people as possible" to the town hall.
"I think it's the shock and awe. People are just in total disbelief that they are basically tearing apart our democracy," Orengo said.
But others, like Downie, aren't necessarily on the left end of the political spectrum. He's a registered independent who served under presidents of both parties during his time in the Army.
"I've never, ever been political. My whole life, I've been completely independent," Downie told me. "But this is just beyond the pale. I've never seen anything like it. All my life, I've never felt threatened by my own government, and deliberately targeted."
Now, he's finding himself screaming at his own congressman.
Edwards was unfazed. Thursday night's chaos, he told reporters after it was all over, "doesn't change my plans at all" to hold more town halls in the future.
