WASHINGTON — House Republicans told HuffPost they plan to keep holding town halls amid a nationwide burst of anger at President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, saying the voters who speak out aren’t truly representative of public opinion while seeking ways they can keep liberal groups at bay.

After town hall confrontations between liberal protesters and Republican members of Congress in Georgia and Wisconsin went viral, the comparisons between 2025, the spring of 2017 and the summer of 2009 became obvious. In both 2009 and 2017, raucous town halls focused on the unpopular legislative agenda of the party in power were forerunners of a massive midterms backlash.

“They say history only rhymes and doesn’t just repeat, but goddamn, this feels like a repeat,” said Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of the progressive organization Indivisible, comparing today’s town halls to the 2017 protests over the GOP’s push to repeal Obamacare.

Republican leaders clearly felt the sting of town halls during a recess last month, offering an unprompted rebuttal to the viral images at their first press conference back in Washington on Tuesday. NBC News reported that GOP leadership advised lawmakers to avoid town halls altogether; a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did not respond to a request to confirm or deny the report.

Republican strategists have generally advised party members to avoid town halls where they can be dominated by Indivisible or MoveOn, two liberal groups that have long helped organize opposition at GOP town halls, and to consider holding tele-town halls or virtual meetings on Facebook instead.

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said he had not received any guidance to avoid town halls but that “old timers” in the Republican conference suggested he not do them. He said they told him that his disastrous town hall last week, in which voters shouted him down over Musk and Medicaid cuts, reminded them of 2017, when Democratic voters were riled up to protest the new Trump administration.

“They say, just don’t do ’em, they don’t result in anything positive,” he told HuffPost. “People aren’t there to listen. They’re not there for dialogue. They’re just there to argue, and it’s not a conversation.”

McCormick said he planned to continue to hold town halls but wanted the conversations to be more productive.

“I think I could do several things which would optimize the usefulness of it, and we’re negotiating that right now for the way we can control the environment, so there’s not just a bunch of angry people trying to steal it,” he said.

The comparison to 2017 seemed apt to Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), who said he would continue doing town hall events even if he believed Democratic groups funneled voters to them.

“It’s mirroring 2017 when Trump got elected; they came around, they sent busloads of people to various districts,” LaMalfa said.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who will be one of the most vulnerable members of Congress if he chooses to run for reelection, had protests outside his New York office during the recess.

“I have not seen any guidance, nor do I care what the guidance would be,” he said of House leadership directives on town halls. He said he had 50 town hall meetings and office hours during his first term. “I stood and took questions from thousands of constituents for hours upon hours upon hours, and that’s the name of the game.”

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders and Musk spent the week downplaying the seriousness of the protests and attacking some of the lead organizers.

“The videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places,” Johnson said during a CNN interview on Wednesday night. Musk shared messages on social media alleging the outrage at his Department of Government Efficiency was “fake.”

“Pushing fake outrage will backfire on them,” Musk wrote on social media.

This, too, is an echo of past accusations. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) famously diminished protests against Obamacare as “astroturf” in 2009.

The stage now appears set for a cat-and-mouse game between liberal groups and Republicans hoping for more productive town halls. Indivisible is instructing its grassroots members to call their representatives’ offices every day to find out when the next town hall is and prevent Republicans from announcing “surprise” events a day or two before. It’s also trying to send a message that tele-town halls, which give members tremendous control over content and questions, are not good enough.

If members don’t hold town halls, Levin said, local Indivisible chapters will organize “empty chair” town halls, where the member will be represented by a cardboard cutout or a live chicken, potentially giving liberal activists the viral media moment they’re hoping for.

Republicans know they can’t simply refuse to show their faces in their districts, particularly if they want to have any chance of successfully selling both the work of DOGE and their still-developing plan to extend and expand on the tax cuts from Trump’s first term. They are somewhat hopeful the anti-DOGE furor will die down, arguing the public polling on Musk’s project to slash government spending is mixed so far.

“I don’t think anyone’s hitting the panic button just yet,” said one House Republican strategist, requesting anonymity to speak frankly about party strategy. “We have a sale to make.” The strategist noted that Trump remains more popular than he was during much of his first term.

Levin also emphasized a key part of the strategy was encouraging Democrats to hold town halls during upcoming congressional recesses — the next one starts on March 14 — to create a contrast with Republicans. He said some Democratic offices have been resistant.

“We need House and Senate Democrats to show up,” Levin said. “It’s a contrast strategy. They need to view this surge of anti-Musk, anti-Trump sentiment as an opportunity rather than a threat.”

Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) faced a hostile crowd at a town hall in his district last week where voters booed him as soon as he showed up. He blamed the media for misinforming people about the House Republican budget.

“Obviously, some of the legacy media does not report what was in those bills, and obviously, some people are getting talking points, so it was like, for me, giving a speech to the Winnebago County Democrat Party — I get along with those folks, but their view of the world was generated by the legacy media.”

Grothman said he would do more town halls this year.