House

Congressional Republicans’ chief predicts protesters won’t hurt GOP in 2018

by Rebecca Savransky - 03/01/17 10:03 AM ET

Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) says he doesn’t think the protests taking place across the country will hurt House Republicans in 2018.

Stivers, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), called the protesters demonstrating at Republican lawmakers’ town halls “a vocal minority … actively trying to build a movement.”

“Organic movements don’t happen 10 days into a new administration,” Stivers told Politico.

“It took the tea party movement months and years to get to that level of frustration.”

{mosads}He said he thinks protesters are “paid individuals that are either associated with the progressive left or the Democratic Party.”

“This so-called ‘resistance’ is not asking for a constructive dialogue,” he said. “They want to yell, they want to scream, they want to cause a commotion.”

Republican lawmakers across the country have faced crowds of protesters at town halls in their districts in recent weeks.

Last month, President Trump referred to the protesters as “so-called angry crowds.”

“The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists,” the president tweeted.

Stivers said he and others are “not interested in going some place just to get screamed at.”

“They probably guaranteed Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s re-election for as long as he wants to run in Utah because the people that shouted him down didn’t live in his district, and the people who live in his district didn’t like that,” Stivers said.

Chaffetz last month faced a group of demonstrators in his district as protesters called into question his treatment of the president.

“For as angry and upset and loud as these people get,” Stivers said, “they’re motivating our base, too.”

Tags Jason Chaffetz