- Utah Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy held a chaotic town hall at the University of Utah.
- Audience members shouted down responses about DOGE, deportations and defying court orders.
- Maloy said she called the White House about reinstating probationary workers at National Parks.
Utah’s two newest members of Congress held a chaotic town hall in Salt Lake City on Thursday, despite Republican congressional leadership’s recommendations that lawmakers avoid in-person meetings.
Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy told attendees they hoped Utahns could show the rest of the country how to have civil conversations about the most complicated political questions of the day.
Within minutes, those hopes were dashed to pieces.
An angry audience of around 300 people gathered at the University of Utah made sure of that — with dozens openly mocking the idea of having an opening prayer and dozens more doing their best to shout down Maloy and Kennedy over the course of the hourlong quarrel, as the two lawmakers strained their voices to explain their positions.
Nearly the entire room raised their hand to indicate they were there to express frustration with the Trump administration and to demand that Congress do more to be a check on President Donald Trump’s disregard for court rulings, his unprecedented deportation methods and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Utah is just the latest state to see an unruly town hall. Congressional lawmakers across the country have been disrupted by angry constituents, with some Republicans blaming progressive groups for the outbursts.
On Thursday, a Democratic lawmaker in Illinois was physically confronted by an anti-Israel protester, while Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman was booed by town hall attendees, according to CNN.
“I think in Utah we can have tough conversations,” Maloy said at the beginning of Thursday’s event. “I hope we can set a high standard for the rest of the country on how we can talk about really hard issues.”
While many in the audience applauded this comment, the room soon erupted in loud boos, drowning out Maloy’s attempt at responding to the first crowdsourced question about whether the U.S. House of Representatives should impeach Trump for his alleged defiance of judges’ orders.
In between yells of, “Do your job!” and “What do you think checks and balances are?” Maloy, who represents Utah’s 2nd Congressional District, answered that she did not think Trump had committed an impeachable offense and that the Trump administration has said it will not defy court orders.
Before weighing in, Kennedy, of the 3rd District, asked university police to consider removing certain disruptive individuals who were constantly shouting — which law enforcement did not do.
In response to the same question, Kennedy made clear that if the administration defies a court order then the perpetrators “should be held to account.”
“However, how do we determine that in a non-Banana Republic fashion? We actually go through the process,” Kennedy said.
Checking executive power
Despite pleas for civility from both lawmakers, a growing number of attendees rose from their seats throughout the event to bellow out their criticisms of the two representatives.
While it didn’t satisfy the group — which at one point broke into cheers to “tax the rich” — Maloy and Kennedy did find some common ground on executive overreach.
In her 2023 special election, and again in 2024, Maloy ran on the argument that Congress had ceded too much of its power to the president and executive branch agencies.
On Thursday, Maloy said Trump’s whirlwind approach to executive authority had convinced many of her friends on the other side of the aisle that it is time for them to take their Article I constitutional responsibilities more seriously.
“Republicans and Democrats agree that the executive is too strong,” Maloy said. “While we’ve got this opportunity, we should put some safeguards back in place.”
This response drew scattered applause and yells for Maloy to specify what executive orders she has pushed back on. Maloy said she called the White House to disagree with the decision to fire probationary employees like national park workers, who have since been reinstated.
Kennedy agreed with Maloy, saying he is committed to making reforms that bring Congress into alignment with its constitutionally defined mandate, including by returning to regular order budgeting practices that allow members to apply greater scrutiny to spending bills.
“I’m invested in making Washington, D.C., smaller and Utah bigger,” Kennedy said. “I trust our local communities and our state to run things better than I do Washington, D.C.”
Both elected officials defended Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, as well as DOGE’s initiatives to take a hard look at government programs to identify waste, fraud and abuse.
Their full comments on these topics — as with all other questions — were impossible to hear over the shouts of disapproval.
Frustration over raucous town hall
One of the most vocal audience members, Mike Bretz, who repeatedly stood to shout and point at the lawmakers, said he felt it was important to speak out against growing “authoritarianism” by making Kennedy and Maloy “afraid of not being reelected again.”
“The whole point of coming to this is to try and speak truth to power,” said Bretz, a Sandy resident. “They’re coming out and telling us, ‘Oh, this isn’t happening,‘ when we can see it is happening.”
Maloy and Kennedy chose to hold their joint town hall at the University of Utah, which lies outside of both of their congressional districts. After the event was announced, Democratic activists took to social media to encourage party members to attend.
JoyLynn and Craig Jeppson drove an hour from Heber City, which is inside Kennedy’s third district. The couple, who describe themselves as moderate Republicans, said they felt “uncomfortable,” “embarrassed” and disappointed because of the conduct exhibited at the town hall.
“I’m leaving this meeting highly frustrated,” JoyLynn Jeppson said. “Everybody else is making it really impossible to have a dialogue. And I’m just as angry as they are but I would like to have a conversation.”
As Maloy was led out of the room by law enforcement, she said the town hall allowed Utahns to show up and engage which made it a success in her view, even if it didn’t fulfill her hopes of a civil dialogue.
“I think we could be better at keeping the temperature low; practice makes perfect,” Maloy said. “We’ll have a lot more chances.”
