Chuck Edwards faced Asheville Town Hall backlash; people angered by Trump, Musk's actions
ASHEVILLE – One by one, they filed through the security check and into the community college auditorium, hoping to have a question or two answered by a Republican congressman most were unhappy with.
Many were older, nearly all were white, and most, even if they didn’t expect to agree with what they were about to hear, had enough grace to give Rep. Chuck Edwards credit for at least showing up to the March 13 town hall on the campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
But where that grace ended, the boos and hisses began.
The crowd of more than 350 people that made it inside, seemingly more than anything, just wanted Edwards to say he would stand with them, instead of with President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
Since taking office in January, Trump and his administration have taken drastic steps to reduce the size of the federal government. Led by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the effort has resulted in a hiring freeze, buyout offers being sent to more than 2 million federal workers, terminations of probationary employees at federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, and funding cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Trump has also suggested annexing Canada and Greenland, threatened steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners, causing financial markets to slide, signaled the U.S. could enter a recession and attacked diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. He’s even trying to end birthright citizenship.
Before the town hall began, Ed Zaron, 81, told the Citizen Times he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to ask Edwards, but he had a long list of grievances, from the firing of federal workers to how the White House is dealing with Ukraine and that country’s war with Russia. Zaron said he believes Trump is trying “blackmail” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for rights to the country’s vast mineral reserves.
At the very least, Zaron said he wanted Congress to wrestle control away from Trump, but feared Edwards and other Republican lawmakers were simply too frightened of the president to do so.
“It appears everybody in Congress on the Republican side is really scared,” Zaron, a registered Democrat from Horse Shoe, in Henderson County, said. “They’ve relinquished their third of the government just to whatever Trump says.”
Richard Colgan, 77, and his wife Marilyn Bailey, 75, of Hendersonville said they, too, opposed much of what the Trump administration has been doing lately.
“Basically, what’s going on right now is nothing short of sheer insanity, unless the idea is to break the American experiment and buy it back for 10 cents on the dollar,” said Colgan, a retired schoolteacher and unaffiliated voter.
And Edwards is going along with it, he said.
“It may be hard to be a politician right now, but he did volunteer for the job,” Colgan said. “So, he’s gonna reap a little of what he has sown.”
Q&A gets contentious
By the time Edwards started answering questions from his constituents, the second-term Congressman from Henderson County was already drawing jeers and taunts from an angry crowd unhappy with his open support for Trump.
“I happen to agree with a lot of the things that’s going on in Washington D.C. right now,” Edwards told them. “And we’ll get a chance to talk about those.”
But several people in the crowd didn’t have the patience to hear about ongoing recovery efforts following Tropical Storm Helene, urging the congressman to move on to the question-and-answer period, so they could voice their concerns.
“Listen to us now,” Zaron called out at one point.
“Are you afraid of Trump?” one attendee yelled.
“Are you afraid of us?” another questioned.
Soon after, law enforcement escorted one person out after he screamed, “I’m a veteran. You don’t give a f--- about me.”
He exited to cheers from upward of 3,000 people the community college estimated were outside the auditorium protesting the Trump administration’s actions.
When Edwards got to questions, most were related to the termination of federal workers, as well as cuts to federal agencies like the Department of Education and USAID, and fear surrounding the future of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
“I’m not going to vote to dissolve your Social Security,” Edwards responded when asked what he would do to protect those benefits.
Regarding cuts to Medicaid, Edwards tried to reassure his constituents that wouldn’t happen either. This is after he voted with the House Republicans on a budget resolution calling for a $2 trillion reduction in spending over the next 10 years. With its passage, many expect cuts to the government health program that insures 72 million low-income and disabled people are inevitable.
“President Trump has made it very clear to me and to other members of Congress that it is not his intent — I believe it is not Congress’s intent — to disrupt the benefits of the most vulnerable amongst us, such as the disabled and the poor,” Edwards said.
When it was Zaron's turn to question Edwards, he tried to make it easy, challenging the congressman to answer with either a “yes” or “no.”
Did Edwards support annexing Greenland and Canada, as Trump suggested? And what did Edwards think about Trump’s efforts to “extort minerals from the Ukraine?”
“Do you like bullying people that need your help?” Zaron asked, alluding to a recent Oval Office clash between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Zelenskyy. “Do you go for kicking the guy when he’s down?”
On annexation, Edwards was a quick no.
On Ukraine, Edwards reframed Zaron's question, describing a potential mineral deal as one that would repay taxpayers for all the financial assistance the U.S. has provided the country in its war with Russia.
On this, Edwards was a yes.
Earlier in the evening, Edwards, who voiced his commitment to help Ukraine after a nine-day visit to the war-torn country in 2024, said he would continue to vote in ways that supported Ukraine.
Amid the detractors, Edwards did draw some supporters. Loretta Reynolds, a Republican from Asheville, attended the town hall, describing the raucous scene as a “zoo,” while acknowledging that Edwards’ answers seemed “a little vague."
Even so, most appreciated that Edwards even held the event, despite a directive from Rep. Richard Hudson calling for members of the House of Representatives to stop holding in-person town halls. Hudson, who is chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made the order, citing backlash House members were receiving.
Throughout the 90-minute town hall, Edwards was met with so much heckling that at one point, he had to plead with the crowd to let him finish answering a question before they voiced their disapproval.
Kate McCarthy, 53, told the Citizen Times she lost her job working on global economic growth and climate change projects when funding her company was set to receive from USAID was cut.
She hoped her attendance would be a “wake-up call” for Edwards and draw attention to “real issues,” but admitted others showed up just to “make a show.”
At one point, she stood up and asked the crowd to restrain themselves, saying if she could behave, given what’s she’s experienced, they could, too.
It didn’t work.
Still, it was democracy, said Chris Cooper, a professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University.
“It was messy, at times adversarial, and even uncomfortable in a few moments,” Cooper told the Citizen Times March 14. “But constituents were able to express their opinions and their representative engaged with them. That’s democracy — warts and all.”
Jacob Biba is the Helene recovery reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the Paste BN Network. Email him at jbiba@citizentimes.com.