GOP Congressman Has Wild Theory Why His Town Hall Went Off the Rails

American lawmakers, particularly Republicans, still aren’t willing to face the fact that their constituents hate the reality of Donald Trump’s agenda.

After a fiery town hall in Belton, Missouri, Representative Mark Alford turned to CNN to blame the backlash on outside agitators—even while admitting that members of the angry crowd were actually his constituents.

“This was brought about [by] outside agitators, and some people from outside our district, not our constituents, who came there to make their voices heard,” Alford told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Monday night. “And I respect that. They have every right to be there. We did not prohibit them, even though they did not live in our district.

“Some of them were there who had worked for the IRS and were getting laid off in Kansas City,” Alford continued. “And I really wanted to hear their concerns, and let’s work together about how can we find you the next job? There are thousands of jobs, 150,000 to 175,000 jobs, right now, available in Missouri.”

“You say ‘outside agitators,’” Collins interjected. “Are you saying that none of them were your constituents that were there?”

But Alford clearly didn’t view Democrats in his district as the constituents that he’s beholden to.

“No, no, no, no, I—some were,” Alford responded. “I went—and let me make that very clear. Some were our constituents. They clearly were not on—aligned with my way of thinking, and they did not vote for Trump.”

Alford was practically shut down at his own town hall Monday after he expressed support for Elon Musk’s massive layoff plan. At one point, while suggesting to the crowd that they could vote for someone else in the next election if they didn’t approve of Musk’s appointment, one person shouted back, “We didn’t elect Elon!”

Tensions were high enough that Alford seemingly took the protesters’ presence as a threat.

“This is serious business we’re talking about, and that’s why I went and faced the people who don’t want me in office and some I think who wanted to do me harm,” Alford told CNN. “That’s why we had a SWAT team and many police there.

“And I can take that, but I take this serious because this is the survival of our nation, and I don’t think people understand what a severe point we are,” he added.

Donald Trump is making sure Vivek Ramaswamy doesn’t come anywhere near the White House.

The president endorsed Ramaswamy for governor of Ohio on Monday night, a position the biotech entrepreneur pivoted to after being abruptly ousted as DOGE co-lead, likely in part due to his feuding with Elon Musk and calling white Americans lazy, stupid jocks. 

“VIVEK RAMASWAMY is running for Governor of the Great State of Ohio. I know him well, competed against him, and he is something SPECIAL. He’s Young, Strong, and Smart!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Vivek is also a very good person, who truly loves our Country. He will be a GREAT Governor of Ohio, will never let you down, and has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!”

This entire gubernatorial bid seems to have stemmed from a series of iconically disastrous X posts, in which Ramaswamy opined that “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.… A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”

This, along with what The Washington Post called a “deep philosophical rift” with Elon Musk, eventually got Ramaswamy sent to the toil in the Midwest. 

Ramaswamy is likely to face various other Republican primary challengers in Ohio, a state Trump carried by 11 points in 2024. Former state health director Amy Acton is the likely Democratic nominee. 

Former national security adviser John Bolton thinks that Donald Trump’s mind is deteriorating, based on some of his recent comments.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Bolton in an interview Monday night whether Trump actually thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t a dictator, or is refraining from saying so because it’s a negotiating strategy. Bolton didn’t mince words.

“I think it’s an indication his mind is full of mush, and he says whatever comes into it. He believes Vladimir Putin is his friend, and you know, you don’t call your friends a dictator,” Bolton said, noting that Trump has disliked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since the “perfect phone call” from his first term.

“So, it’s no sweat off his back to go ahead and call Zelenskiy a dictator. This is somebody who is not fit to be president. He can’t tell America’s friends from its enemies,” Bolton added.

Collins also asked Bolton about Trump’s relationship with Lieutenant General Dan Caine, whom Trump has appointed as chair of the joint chiefs of staff. Trump unceremoniously fired the previous chair, General C.Q. Brown, over the weekend. Trump met Caine in Iraq during his first presidential term and said Caine told him that the U.S. could have the campaign against ISIS “totally finished in one week.”

“I said, ‘Why didn’t my other generals tell me that? Why didn’t they tell me that?’” Trump said in 2019. Trump has also said that Caine told him he “loved” the president and would “kill for you,” while wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.

Collins asked Bolton if Trump is remembering his relationship with Caine correctly, as Bolton was with Trump on the trip to Iraq where the president and Caine met.

“Absolutely not. Trump has made up events that didn’t happen. We were on the ground in Iraq, I don’t know, maybe three hours total, and I was with Trump every minute of that time on the ground,” Bolton said. “There was no chance that Trump had a conversation with General Caine that bore any resemblance to what he’s described. I never saw Caine wear a MAGA hat.

“I think it’s standard Trump. He makes the world as he wants it to be, and then his followers unfortunately believe him,” Bolton added.

If Bolton is right, Trump has altered the military chain of command because of an inaccurate memory of an incident from nearly seven years ago. That is a worrying thought for American national security and for the country as a whole. Trump seems to be replacing anyone who could check his power, and if his mind is going, what does the future hold?

The American checks and balances system is waking up.

On Monday, two different decisions—one from a federal judge and the other from an independent government watchdog agency—came down to limit the power of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a temporary restraining order that blocks DOGE from accessing and sharing sensitive records from the Office of Personnel Management and the Education Department.

“Specifically, the plaintiffs have shown that Education and OPM likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent,” Boardman wrote in the restraining order. 

Multiple labor unions have sued DOGE on the grounds that it was trying to get into databases that held people’s Social Security numbers, banking information, and other “extraordinarily sensitive records of millions of Americans.” 

Boardman noted that the unions had “met their burden for the extraordinary relief they seek,” and would suffer “irreparable harm” if DOGE wasn’t stopped. “There is no reason to believe their access to this information will end anytime soon because the government believes their access is appropriate,” she wrote.

The second loss for DOGE and Musk was handed down by the Office of Special Counsel, which helps protect government employees from illegal treatment. On Friday (although it wasn’t released until Monday), the office ruled that DOGE violated protocol in its firing of six employees—and the decision could have implications for the hundreds of thousands of other federal employees who were also fired by Musk and DOGE for “poor performance.”  

OSC head Hampton Dellinger ruled that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that agencies engaged in prohibited personnel practices (PPPs) … by terminating the employees in violation of federal laws and regulations governing probationary terminations and reductions in force.”

“Firing probationary employees without individualized cause appears contrary to a reasonable reading of the law, particularly the provisions establishing rules for reductions in force,” Dellinger said in a statement on Monday. “Because Congress has directed that OSC ‘shall’ protect government employees from PPPs, I believe I have a responsibility to request a stay of these actions while my agency continues to investigate further the apparent violation of federal personnel laws.”

Dellinger stated that the employees were obviously not fired for “poor performance.” And if it was for a lack of resources (rather than purely political reasons), then Dellinger noted that Musk and DOGE must go through the normal justification process for the firings. 

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the Agencies improperly circumvented [reduction in force] regulations by terminating Complainants and other probationary employees en masse without regard to each employee’s individual performance for the purpose of restructuring government agencies and reducing costs,” Dellinger wrote. 

These are the first of many lawsuits against DOGE and the broader Trump administration. Whether they set a firm anti-purge precedent or simply serve as minor roadblocks remains to be seen. 

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin need to get their story straight, because they’re both telling different tales about negotiations to end Russia’s violent incursion into Ukraine.

Trump bragged Monday about working with Putin while recapping his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and other G7 leaders about next steps to deescalate the war in Ukraine.

“I am in serious discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia concerning the ending of the War, and also major Economic Development transactions which will take place between the United States and Russia,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Talks are proceeding very well!”

But, surprise, surprise, it seems Putin is on an entirely different page.

During remarks on Russian state television Monday, Putin said he had yet to have any detailed talks with Trump about ending the conflict in Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.

The autocrat added that Russian and American negotiating teams hadn’t discussed ending the war, either, during a meeting in Saudi Arabia last week.

So which is it, “serious discussions” or conversations lacking in details? The muddled answers could suggest something is awry in negotiations, if one can even call Trump’s endless capacity for caving to Putin’s every demand a negotiation.

There’s reason to believe that Trump’s supposed statesmanship might be falling apart. Last week, Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of being responsible for Russia’s invasion, enjoying a “gravy train” from the United States, and even calling him a “Dictator Without Elections.”

During their joint press conference Monday, Macron was forced to fact-check Trump, after the president misrepresented the agreement they had just made.