Republican Congressman Compares Town Hall Protesters to Nazis

Once again, Republicans are asking the American public to forgo the evidence of their eyes and ears.

Republican lawmakers were met with fire and fury over the weekend as their constituents hounded them for failing to intervene in a budget resolution that will result in billions in cuts to Medicaid, as well as refusing to speak out against Elon Musk’s unchecked dissolution of federal agencies and, with it, thousands of federal jobs and popular social programs.

But at least one Republican has decided the best option is to threaten criminal charges for Americans who dare to dissent against Donald Trump’s agenda. Speaking with the Meg Ellefson Show on Friday, Wisconsin Representative Derrick Van Orden likened his constituents to Nazis, claiming that only Communists and fascists would protest their lawmakers.

“People who associated with the Communist movement and the National Socialism movement used to get their way politically, is—they would do stuff like this, and they were called agitators,” Van Orden told the podcast.

Fact check: It was notoriously unsafe to speak out against the government in Soviet Russia, as well as in Nazi Germany. Under the Nazi regime, Germany shuttered anti-Nazi newspapers, controlled what media appeared in newspapers and on the radio, banned books that the Third Reich determined were “un-German,” and by 1934 had made it officially illegal to criticize the Nazi government, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Freedom of speech and the right to protest, on the other hand, have been cornerstones of American democracy since the country was founded.

Van Orden then said that if protesters came to his town halls and acted “in an unlawful manner,” or if they were “disrupting or refusing to leave a venue,” then he would have them “arrested and charged with a class B misdemeanor.”

Van Orden’s outlandish comments preceded instructions by the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, who on Tuesday directed party members to stop holding in-person town halls to avoid the backlash. House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed the order later Tuesday, washing his hands of lawmakers’ upset constituents by watering them down as “professional protesters.”

Meanwhile, Trump explicitly threatened to violate the Constitution on Tuesday, pledging to prosecute protesters and withhold federal funding from universities or schools if attendees choose to express their First Amendment rights.

Within weeks of returning to office, Donald Trump has tossed America’s greatest alliances in favor of a rocky relationship with Russia—and world powers have taken note.

The battered relationships are partially the result of Trump’s spontaneous trade war, threatening America’s economic relationships with a handful of its longest allies, including Canada, Mexico, the U.K., and a collection of European nations.

The president’s controversial tariffs went into effect first thing Tuesday, imposing 25 percent levies on Canada and Mexico as well as a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods. In return, Canada and China slapped the U.S. with equal tariffs, while Mexico promised to do the same with further details to come Sunday. The spontaneously unpaused levies immediately followed reports that Trump had directed administration officials to draft a proposal that would lift sanctions on Russia.

In doing so, Trump has morphed America—previously understood to be the strongest global power—into an international pariah.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used profoundly strong language in describing what he believed to be Trump’s plan to dismantle Canada’s economy in order to “annex” its land as a potential fifty-first state.

“I can tell you that every country is very, very aware that if the American government is willing to do this to their own closest ally, neighbor, and friend,” Trudeau said, “then everyone is vulnerable to a trade war.”

Trudeau continued that the international focus has extended not just to the Trump administration’s movements but to the American public’s reaction to the fracturing of these alliances as the president continues to align U.S. policy with Moscow (a detail that Trump has repeatedly failed to deny.)

“What do the American people think?” Trudeau said. “How do Americans feel about jettisoning one’s friends and allies in favor of a country that has never wished Americans well, and continues to act in ways that harm the global economy and, specifically, the American economy and American values and principles?”

Speaking directly to the American public, Trudeau added that Canadian citizens still view the southern nation as their “neighbor” and “partner.”

“This is a policy decision by the American government designed to go after the Canadian economy. This is a trade war, yes. But Canadians are hurt. Canadians are angry,” Trudeau said, adding that the country’s residents would continue their boycotts of American goods and services.

“We’re probably going to keep booing the American anthem,” Trudeau said. “But let me tell Americans, we’re not booing you; we’re not booing your teams or players. We’re booing a policy that is designed to hurt us.”

Trudeau’s missive echoed similar comments made by a top European diplomat following Trump’s disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday, which in just a handful of minutes effectively tanked peace talks with the war-battered nation while elevating Kremlin talking points.

“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas in reaction to Trump’s performance.

Former Polish President Lech Wałęsa wrote a letter to Trump on Monday describing how Poland had watched the U.S. leader’s treatment of Zelenskiy with “horror and distaste,” likening the White House’s ruthless bullying of a beleaguered wartime leader to the Soviet Union’s Communist courtrooms.

“The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to maintain a distance from democratic values ​​and its European allies, it ended up being a threat to itself,” the letter read. “President Woodrow Wilson understood this, deciding that the United States would enter World War I in 1917. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this, deciding after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the war in defense of America would be fought not only in the Pacific, but also in Europe, in alliance with the countries attacked by the Third Reich.”

Wałęsa also scorned America’s sudden decision to reverse course on its signed treaties, calling on the U.S. to honor the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which America and the U.K. mutually agreed to defend Ukraine’s borders in exchange for its surrender of nuclear weapons.

“These guarantees are unconditional: there is not a word about treating such aid as economic exchange,” Wałęsa wrote.

The letter was signed by Wałęsa as well as 38 other Polish activists who were imprisoned under Poland’s USSR-backed regime prior to the fall of communism in 1989.

In a shocking reversal, President Trump is reversing a directive to fire thousands of probationary federal employees.

The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, issued a memo Tuesday to all federal agency heads saying that they don’t have to comply with previous instructions to fire employees who have held their jobs for one year or less. The memo states that instead, federal offices now have until September 13 to determine how to reduce staff.

The surprise shift comes only a few days after a federal judge ruled that OPM’s instructions to federal agencies to fire probationary employees was illegal, stating on Friday that “[t]he Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees within another agency.”

What this means to the many federal workers who have already been axed is unclear, although several federal agencies have scrambled to rehire workers working in critical areas since last week’s court ruling. These employees include bird flu experts and people working with nuclear weapons.

Federal workers have been put through the wringer ever since Trump was sworn in, being subject to ultimatums from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which now plans to track them. Even with this latest reversal, many of them may still get axed in “large-scale” reductions. But now, at least some of them will get to keep their jobs.

This story has been updated.

People are paying millions to wine and dine President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, Wired reported Tuesday.  

Trump’s team clearly saw an opportunity for a cash grab in the frenzy of business moguls scrambling to court the president and get on his good side. For $5 million, business leaders can meet one-on-one with Trump at his estate, a “hot ticket” opportunity in the business world, sources told Wired. 

For those looking for a classier affair, they can pay $1 million to dine with the president in a candlelit group setting. Invitations to a March 1 candlelit dinner were sent out by MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC that contributed over $400 million last year to help get him elected. 

“You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump. Additional details provided upon RSVP,” the invitation read. “RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person.” 

“Donald J. Trump is appearing at this event only as a featured speaker, and is not asking for funds or donations,” the invitation continues. 

The dinner was formally titled “MAGA INC. Candlelight Finance Dinner,” and was included on the president’s official schedule, yet more evidence of the blurry lines between Trump and the private business world.

The Washington Post reported that Trump hosted two similar candlelit dinners at Mar-a-Lago before he took office, one on December 19, 2024, and one on January 19, the eve of his inauguration.

Amid the turmoil over his crazy decision to slap tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, President Trump saw fit to post a bizarre lie about banks in Canada—forcing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to correct him publicly.

“Canada doesn’t allow American Banks to do business in Canada, but their banks flood the American Market. Oh, that seems fair to me, doesn’t it?” Trump posted Tuesday morning. But this isn’t true, and Trudeau made sure Trump knew it.

Hours later, while speaking to the press, Trudeau called out the president for “not really being able to see what it is that he wants.”

“I heard he talked about banking again this morning in a tweet, which doesn’t make any sense because 16 American banks [are] currently active in Canada, holding about $113 billion worth of assets in this country, so American banks are alive and well and prospering in Canada,” Trudeau said.

“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” Trudeau added, alluding to Trump’s threats to annex Canada as the “fifty-first state.”

In a move usually made by U.S. presidents toward people living under autocratic rule, Trudeau made a direct plea to the American public, telling them Canada was forced to enact retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

“We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally. And we don’t want to see you hurt, either, but your government has chosen to do this to you,” Trudeau said.

“Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada, or because of consumers in Canada, or both,” Trudeau added.

Trump is not going to take kindly to Trudeau correcting him, and he’ll never admit that he was wrong. He may even be lying on purpose to stir up the MAGA base. But he’ll have to come up with a better way to spin the economic fallout from his plan, which promises to hike prices on all kinds of goods in the U.S. and cause untold damage to the economy.