North Carolina town hall erupts in boos as congressman escorted from building, angry constituents
A man shouts at Rep. Chuck Edwards during a congressional town hall meeting on March 13, 2025 in Asheville, North Carolina/Sean Rayford/Getty Images
(ASHEVILLE, N.C.) — Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., was confronted by angry constituents during a town hall meeting on Thursday night about President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping cuts across the government.
“How do you justify cuts to staff of the VA helping veterans, especially those with long term care needs,” asked one constituent who was met with a standing ovation from the raucous crowd in Asheville, North Carolina.
“So first of all, there have been no cuts to the staff at VA as of this point. Like him or not, Elon Musk has brought a lot of really smart people,” Edwards responded as he was met with a round of boos. Earlier this month, an internal VA memo indicated that the agency was preparing to lay off 80,000 from its workforce.
The interaction turned so contentious and hostile that Edwards had to be escorted out of the building.
“You don’t get to do this to us,” yelled another constituent.
Republican leadership has told their members to avoid in-person town halls like these after several members were grilled in their home districts.
Edwards, however, went against their advice on Thursday.
“”You see a lot of advice in Washington, D.C. from different folks saying, you know, ‘Republicans shouldn’t be out there doing town halls,’ and I’m thinking ‘why not?’ I love the people,” said Edwards.
The Trump administration is pushing forward with sweeping cuts with thousands of workers already having been laid off across the federal workforce – including Veteran Affairs, the IRS and the Department of Education.
Elon Musk split with the White House this week, suggesting that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security could be on the chopping block next.
“The waste and fraud in entitlement spending, which is all of the, which is most of the federal spending is entitlements, so that’s like the big one to eliminate,” Musk said earlier this week.
Those words have left some voters very concerned, with Edwards taking the brunt end of the attacks Thursday night.
“What are you doing to ensure the protection of our Social Security benefits,” asked on constituent to a round of applause.
Replied Edwards: “I’m not going to vote to dissolve your Social Security. I’m not looking to disrupt Social Security at all.”
(WASHINGTON) — After a bruising round of confirmation hearings this week that left Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation in doubt, the nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services declared in a written statement to senators on Friday that, if confirmed, he will divest his financial stake in an ongoing civil lawsuit against a vaccine manufacturer.
Kennedy’s commitment to walk away from the potential windfall is a major reversal for the nominee, who in his ethics plan submitted to federal officials earlier this month told lawmakers he was entitled to those proceeds so long as the U.S. government wasn’t involved.
Democrats had seized on Kennedy’s financial stake in the lawsuit, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., warning that he could use his perch in government to make it easier for lawyers – including himself – to sue vaccine manufacturers and drug makers in court.
The lawsuit alleges marketing fraud against pharmaceutical company Merck for its HPV vaccine, Gardasil, which Merck denies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains that the vaccine has been proven safe, with more than 160 studies finding no concerns.
“Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it,” Warren said at Kennedy’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
“Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy will keep cashing in,” she added.
Kennedy struggled to lock-up conservative support for his nomination after testifying this week. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal’s right-leaning editorial board praised Warren, writing that her questioning “expose[d]” Kennedy.
The next day, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said he was “struggling” with Kennedy’s nomination, noting at one point that Kennedy was “financially vested in finding fault with vaccines.”
Kennedy told senators in his testimony Thursday that he was giving away his rights to the fees in the lawsuit against Merck. However, it was unclear whether he misspoke because his ethics agreement still maintained that he was entitled to the fees.
In written answers provided to the Senate Finance Committee on Friday, Kennedy clarified that an amendment was forthcoming.
“An amendment to my Ethics Agreement is in process, and it provides that I will divest my interest in this litigation,” he said.
Kennedy has earned millions of dollars in referral fees from law firms in the past for lawsuits unrelated to vaccines, including one involving a pesticide. He had not earned money yet from the Merck case, which only recently was taken up in civil courts.
In his testimony, Kennedy said he wanted to retain the right to sue drug companies even if confirmed.
“You’re asking me to not sue drug companies, and I am not going to agree to that,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is preparing to issue a sweeping series of pardons for defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including commuting the prison sentences of hundreds of his supporters who have been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The planned commutations for those who attacked police goes well beyond what many of his allies anticipated he would be prepared to extend to the Jan. 6 defendants — and paves the way for potentially hundreds of supporters, some sentenced to years behind bars for vicious assaults on police — to be released in the coming days.
An incoming senior White House official did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
In addition to the commutations, Trump plans to extend full pardons to his supporters who were not charged with engaging in violence on Jan. 6. Sources tell ABC News that some of Trump’s top advisers have been pushing him for days to issue these sweeping pardons.
Sources also caution that until Trump formally signs the pardon paperwork, it’s possible that the expected language could change or be scaled back.
Sources tell ABC News that hundreds of individuals currently serving prison time for violent offenses they committed on Jan. 6 will be freed as a result — and the commutations will likely extend to two of the most high-profile defendants charged in connection with the attack, Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.
The two received prison sentences of 18 years and 22 years, respectively, following their convictions for leading members of their respective groups in a seditious conspiracy to thwart the lawful transfer of power.
Trump is expected to further direct the incoming attorney general to move to dismiss all pending indictments against Jan. 6 defendants who have not yet had their cases fully adjudicated, which would shutter roughly 470 ongoing cases, according to recently released numbers by the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Current and former DOJ officials have expressed alarm over the potential that Trump would hand down pardons — or otherwise free — violent offenders, citing the potential risk they could seek to target the prosecutors who oversaw their cases, the judges who sentenced them to periods of incarceration, or witnesses who may have testified against them.
Trump teased the pardons Sunday at his victory rally at Capital One Arena, telling his supporters that they will be “very happy” with his decision.
“Tomorrow, everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages,” Trump said “Very happy. I think you’ll be very, very happy. I would say about 99.9% in this beautiful arena.”
A violent mob of pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, fighting with officers, breaking into offices and destroying property.
After the attack on the U.S. Capitol by rioters seeking to overturn the 2020 election, more than 1,580 people were charged criminally in federal court, according to the Department of Justice. Over 1,000 have pleaded guilty.
Trump’s team had drafted a list of potential pardons for Jan. 6 defendants to issue on Day 1, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News on Sunday.
Of the nearly 1,600 individuals have faced charges associated with the Capitol attack, according to figures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 608 individuals have faced charges for assaulting, resisting or interfering with law enforcement trying to protect the complex that day, the office said. Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot, the DOJ has said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said it is evaluating whether to bring charges in roughly 200 cases that have been referred to them by the FBI, about 60 of which involve potential felony charges involving allegations of assault or impeding law enforcement.
Trump said last March that he was “inclined to pardon many” of the rioters.
At least 221 individuals have been found guilty at contested trials in U.S. District Court, the DOJ said. Another 40 individuals have been convicted following an agreed-upon set of facts presented to and accepted by the Court.
President Joe Biden on Monday issued preemptive pardons to potential targets of the incoming Trump administration, including lawmakers who served on the House Jan. 6 Committee.
Trump, in his 2024 campaign, repeatedly vowed “retribution” on his political enemies, specifically singling out lawmakers like Liz Cheney, who investigated the attack on the Capitol. Trump said Cheney and other committee members should be put in jail.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has sparked outrage after commuting the sentence of Leonard Peltier in a last-minute move before leaving office Monday.
Peltier, 80, has spent nearly 50 years in prison after being convicted of the murder of two FBI agents on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. He also escaped from federal prison in 1979 while serving his sentence for the two murders and had five years tacked onto his sentence.
Peltier, a prominent Native American activist before his arrest, has always proclaimed his innocence in the crime.
“This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes,” Biden wrote in a statement announcing the move.
The commutation came in the same release, issued while now-President Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony was getting underway at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, that granted preemptive pardons to five of Biden’s family members, including his brother James Biden, a target of congressional Republicans.
Peltier suffers from significant health issues, according to the release.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray recently penned a letter to Biden, warning him against commuting Peltier’s sentence. The letter was written on Jan. 10, just days before Wray and Biden left office.
“Mr. President, I urge you in the strongest terms possible: Do not pardon Leonard Peltier or cut his sentence short,” Wray wrote. “It would be shattering to the victims’ loved ones and undermine the principles of justice and accountability that our government should represent.”
On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were killed by Peltier in a shootout while they were on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
“Peliter is a remorseless killer, who brutally murdered two of our own–Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams,” Wray wrote. “Granting Peltier any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law.”
Wray said Peliter fled to Canada after he “executed” the two agents “at close range.” Peltier was arrested in Alberta in 1976, before standing trial for the murders.
“In the aftermath of the murders, Peltier engaged in a violent flight from justice, firing shots at police officers as he eluded arrest and burglarizing a home,” Wary wrote. “Following his apprehension months later in Canada, Peltier said that if he had known law enforcement officers were approaching, he would have “blow[n] [them] out of [their] shoes.”
After his trial and conviction for first-degree murder, Peltier participated in a violent escape from federal prison, during which he and others opened fire on prison employees,” Wray wrote. One of the escapees was killed in the shootout.
Wray also wrote a similarly strongly worded letter to the parole board in June 2024, asking that Peltier not be let out. The parole was denied. Then-President Barack Obama denied a clemency request for Peltier in 2017, according to The Associated Press.
“This last-second, disgraceful act by then-President Biden, which does not change Peltier’s guilt but does release him from prison, is cowardly and lacks accountability,” Natalie Bara, president of The FBI Agents Association, said in a statement. “It is a cruel betrayal to the families and colleagues of these fallen Agents and is a slap in the face of law enforcement.”
Kevin Sharp, Peltier’s attorney, told The Associated Press before the parole hearing last year that evidence against Peltier had been falsified.
“You’ve got a conviction that was riddled with misconduct by the prosecutors, the U.S. Attorney’s office, by the FBI who investigated this case and, frankly the jury,” Sharp told the AP. “If they tried this today, he does not get convicted.”
Amnesty International, which has long campaigned for Peltier’s release noted that former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, who prosecuted the case, has said Peltier should be freed as well. The judge who oversaw his 1986 appeal, Gerald Heany, has also called for Peltier’s release.
Dozens of members of Congress wrote a letter urging for Peltier’s release in October 2023, citing what they said were the “prosecutorial misconduct” and “constitutional violations” that took place during Peltier’s trial.
“President Biden was right to commute the life sentence of Indigenous elder and activist Leonard Peltier given the serious human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “Amnesty International has advocated for the U.S. government to grant Leonard Peltier clemency for years, following the leadership of Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples.”
