Questions, Boos and a Bottle of Tums at G.O.P. Town Halls

Representative Marsha Blackburn may have expected to draw a friendly crowd by scheduling a town hall-style meeting in a Tennessee community that had voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, but she instead faced a hurricane-strength blast of disapproval on Tuesday.

Ms. Blackburn, an eight-term Republican, was sharply questioned about a wide range of issues that have unsettled Mr. Trump’s first month in office, including health care, the environment, education and the president’s links to Russia.

At many moments, her replies elicited boos or shouts to “tell the truth.”

“We’re not stupid; you have to do better,” Renee Armand said at one point, interrupting Ms. Blackburn as she was defending the new education secretary, Betsy DeVos, for bringing “a true love of education reform.”

Ms. Blackburn, who represents a safe Republican seat west of Nashville, was among the latest wave of Washington lawmakers to face angry constituents in what, inevitably but perhaps prematurely, has been called a progressive echo of the Tea Party anger that boiled over in town halls eight years ago.

During the first weeklong recess of the new Congress, many Republicans have chosen not to hold events at all, wary of protests that might greet them.

Others gamely faced the music, including Representative Dennis A. Ross of Florida and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who faced largely hostile audiences on Tuesday in districts that, like Ms. Blackburn’s, had strongly endorsed Mr. Trump at the polls.

At one point, Mr. Grassley, a long-serving senator, was offered a gift from a 62-year-old Democratic pig farmer named Chris Petersen: a bottle of Tums.

“You’re going to need them in the next few years,” Mr. Petersen told the senator, drawing laughter from a crowd packed into a room at a firehouse in Iowa Falls, north of Des Moines.

Mr. Petersen, the vice chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Rural Caucus, gave a stern warning about the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans have accused the protesters who have roiled town hall-style meetings of not representing a true grass-roots outpouring but instead being an AstroTurf movement paid by shadowy groups.

The forums have faced threats of violence, prompting some lawmakers, citing security concerns, to cancel events after being briefed by law enforcement.

But Mr. Grassley suggested the crowds were no less bona fide than the more friendly ones he usually gets when he makes his annual tour of all 99 Iowa counties.

Mr. Ross, one of the most conservative members of Congress and an enthusiastic defender of Mr. Trump’s, was called a liar by participants in his town hall in Clermont, Fla., about 20 miles west of Orlando. They held signs reading “Disagree,” “Nyet My President” and “No Pipeline.”

One protester tried to reason with the passionate crowd, urging people to let Mr. Ross speak and adding that if they were angry, the correct response was to vote.

“But in the meantime, let him talk so we can hold him accountable,” she added.

But most of the people in the crowd wanted to be heard, loud and clear, on a litany of issues.

Back in Tennessee, a number of those facing Ms. Blackburn were rallied by the local branch of Indivisible, a national movement started by Democratic activists. The group had held two meetings to discuss which issues to raise.

One of the organizers, Elizabeth TeSelle, a university administrator, disavowed the Tea Party comparison. She said Indivisible supporters were not seeking to push moderate Democrats further to the left, or to oust them by running more extreme candidates against them in primaries. “My concern is what the Tea Party ended up spawning was Trump,” Ms. TeSelle said.

Ms. Blackburn, one of Mr. Trump’s high-profile supporters in the House of Representatives during last year’s campaign, defended him on nearly every issue raised by critics.

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