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Republicans in Congress are reportedly shying away from in-person town hall meetings with constituents amid growing protests over President Trump's policies.

According to a Vice News report on data by Legistorm, 292 Republican lawmakers have just 88 of such events scheduled during a two-month period this year compared to 222 from the same time frame in 2015.

RELATED: Notable members of 115th Congress

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Notable members of 115th Congress

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Freshman members of the incoming U.S. 114th Congress Mia Love (R-UT) (L) and Barbara Comstock (R-VA) huddle together in freezing temperatures after participating in a class photo on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington in a November 18, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/Files

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) holds the gavel upon being re-elected speaker in the House chamber on the first day of the new session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) carries her daughter Abigail during a mock swearing in with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during the opening day of the 115th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) takes the stage to speak during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talks to journalist after attending the Senate Democrat party leadership elections at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S. November 16, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) participates in a mock swearing-in with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during the opening day of the 115th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

U.S. Republican presidential candidate and Rand Paul speaks at a campaign rally in the Olmsted Center at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Brian C. Frank/File Photo

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks to reporters during the opening day of the 115th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) participates in a mock swearing-in with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during the opening day of the 115th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters after she was re-elected to her post on Wednesday, despite a challenge from Rust Belt congressman Tim Ryan who said the party needed new leadership, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 30, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham speaks during a news conference in Riga, Latvia December 28, 2016. Picture taken December 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) speaks at a news conference with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., to unveil a compromise proposal on gun control measures, June 21, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to reporters as Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (2nd R) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (R) stand with him following their meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama on congressional Republicans' effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 4, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)(R) holds a copy of the letter Senate Republicans sent to Iran as he and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speak after a vote failed to advance debate on a nuclear agreement with Iran on Capitol Hill in Washington September 10, 2015. A Republican-backed measure to derail the Iran nuclear agreement was blocked in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, in a major foreign policy victory for Democratic President Barack Obama. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

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The site also points out that nearly half, or 35, of the sessions set for early 2017 are for one Wisconsin representative, Jim Sensenbrenner.

NPR reports that Republicans including Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Diane Black of Tennessee have recently held such in-person events, but they faced vocal crowds who expressed frustrations over health care and other policies.

SEE ALSO: Congressman uses 'Stranger Things' to blast Trump's adminIstration

Meanwhile, some representatives such as Lee Zeldin of New York and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee have reportedly canceled or distanced themselves from previously scheduled appearances, notes CNN.

Vice News says that conservative lawmakers are instead "opting for more controlled Facebook Live or 'tele-town halls,' where questions can be screened by press secretaries and followups are limited."

While some Republicans have blamed the chaos on people they allege have been paid to disrupt the events, liberal groups claim they are simply providing the public with outreach information like the Tea party has done in the past.

More from AOL.com: Trump's trust in Flynn had been eroding -White House spokesman White House reporter claims Omarosa 'physically' threatened her One of America's largest health insurance companies is completely dumping Obamacare Trump tweets law 'continues to fail'

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Over 200 Republicans reportedly shying away from town hall events amid anti-Trump protests - AOL News

Posted: 7:08 p.m. Monday, February 20, 2017

Poll results illustrate deep partisan divisions in Texas.

Overall, Texans views of Trump have improved since October.

Texas Republicans are more likely to think Donald Trump could make the presidency great or at the very least good again than they were before he was elected, according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released Monday.

The internet survey of 1,200 registered voters, conducted Feb. 3-10, found that the percentage of Texas Republicans who thought Trump would make a good or great president soared from 52 percent in October, just before the election, to 74 percent a few weeks into the presidency, a 22-point surge.

While most Democrats continue to believe that Trump will be a poor or terrible president, those numbers are not quite as lopsided as they were before the election.

In the October poll, 91 percent of Democrats foresaw a Trump presidency falling into the poor or terrible category. In the new poll, that number has slipped to 80 percent fearing the worst of Trump.

In a polarized age, Trump is an especially polarizing figure. There are more Texans who disapprove strongly of Trump 40 percent than approve strongly 32 percent. But there are more Texans who approve somewhat of Trumps performance 14 percent than there are Texas who disapprove somewhat of Trump 4 percent.

Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at UT, which conducts the poll, said the results suggest that Trumps dominance on the presidential stage and the intense political polarization of the electorate are buttressing his support even in a state like Texas, which he didnt win in the presidential primary, and in which his 9-point margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in the general election was well below Republican Mitt Romneys 16-point victory over Barack Obama in 2012.

One thing is for sure, Henson said. If Trumps opponents are waiting for Republicans to somehow be turned off by what (opponents) see as the chaos of the transition, or concerns about the temperament of the president so far, they are going to be disappointed.

Henson said that right now, it appears that the only thing that could undo Trumps support with his Republican base would be if he were to abandon his hard line on immigration, which hardly seems likely.

Top issues

For Texans, the poll found that immigration is the second-most important issue facing the country, right behind political corruption and leadership. On issues confronting the state, border security ranked first, followed by immigration and then political corruption/leadership.

If Trumps ascendance has sparked a surge of activist opposition on Monday several hundred people were outside the Texas Capitol for a Not My Presidents Day Rally there appears to be little political incentive for Texas Republicans in Congress or in state government to part company with the president.

While most Texans overall think Trump lacks the temperament to be an effective president and is not honest or trustworthy, his positive numbers have crept up on both counts since October, and Texas Republicans are good with him on both scores.

Sixty-eight percent of Republicans think Trumps got the temperament for the job while 84 percent of Democrats think he does not. Seventy percent of Republicans said Trump is honest and trustworthy, a judgment with which only 6 percent of Democrats concur.

Right direction?

The degree to which partisan attachments affect Texans broader view of the world is very evident in the poll.

While a plurality of Texans still think the country is headed in the wrong direction, the 39 percent who said the country is headed in the right direction, versus 49 percent who think its headed in the wrong direction, was a marked improvement compared with the 22 percent to 67 percent right track/wrong track split in October. The current reading was, in fact, the most positive view Texans have had on the measure since the university began asking the question in October 2009 in the first year of Obamas presidency.

The lessening gloom since October was powered by a partisan flip Republicans now are more sanguine about the countrys future and Democrats less optimistic.

In October, 91 percent of Republicans, and 98 percent of tea party Republicans, thought the country was headed the wrong way. In the new poll, 68 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of tea party Republicans like where the country is headed. In October, when it appeared Clinton was likely to be the next president, 47 percent of Democrats liked where the country was headed. Now, 82 percent of Democrats think the country is on the skids.

Views of Trump also appeared to color Texans views of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose relationship with Trump has been at the heart of a series of controversies in his campaign and presidency.

Overall, Texans held a dim view of Putin by a margin of 10 percent positive to 62 percent negative and 27 percent with a neutral view. But 70 percent of Democrats held a negative view of Putin compared with 51 percent of Republicans.

The poll has a margin of error of 2.83 percentage points.

BY THE NUMBERS

46 percent: Texans who approve of the job Trump has been doing as president

44 percent: Texans who disapprove of the job Trump has been doing as president

81 percent Texas Republicans who approve of the job Trump has been doing as president

10 percent: Texas Republicans who disapprove of the job Trump has been doing as president

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Texas Republicans think Trump will make the presidency great again - MyStatesman.com

The team making sure we never have anything nice again. Trump, Ryan, and McConnell.

It took the current crop of Republicans to realize the destructive intent Newt Gingrich had for American government. Back in 1996, when he was speaker of the House, Gingrichgot the Congressional Review Act passed. This law gives Congress the chance to undo anyregulation finalized in the last 60 legislative days. It also means the rules can never be reinstated, unless Congress writes the the undone regulation into new law.It gives a whole new perspective on the do-nothing Congress of last year. By hardly ever showing up to work, they extended their 60-day legislative window dramatically. The law had been used once, in the brand-new George W. Bush administration to undo worker-safety regulations meant to reduce repetitive motion injuries. It took the Trump/Ryan/McConnell triumvirate, however, to fully detonate this time-bomb.

What makes passing a disapproval resolution under the CRA so easy is that you only need a simple majority to do it, meaning Democrats in the Senate cant use a filibuster to stop it. []

In the first few weeks of the Trump administration, Congress has passed CRAs undoing a Social Security Administration rule meant to keep mentally ill people from buying guns, and a Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring oil, gas and mining companies to disclose their payments to foreign governments. []

Environmental advocates have been some of the loudest opponents the CRA. Republicans have already targeted three Interior Department regulations; Trump signed a bill undoing regulations to protect waterways from from coal mining operations on Thursday. Two other bills targeting rules from the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management are expected to come up for a vote in the Senate when lawmakers return on Feb. 27.

The rules being tossed out now go far beyond worker safety to everyone's safety. Guns for the mentally ill! Poisoned water for everyone! It's putting agencies in something of a bind, since there has never been judicial review of the CRA, because it's only been used one, and there's no case law guiding how agencies are supposed to proceed when told by Congress to undo everything they've been putting into place on these rules. Take for example that SEC rulethe Dodd-Frank financial reform law requires that these companies provide the disclosure of payments to foreign governments to regulators. That's in the law, not just in the regulation, so there's now a conflict between the statute and this instruction to the SEC.

Celine McNicholas, labor counsel for the Economic Policy Institute, sums it up: Were in uncharted territory here, she said. Here and everywhere.

See more here:
The Newt Gingrich time bomb Republicans are using to destroy everything good - Daily Kos

Fort Worth Star Telegram

Poll: President Trump popular with Texas Republicans Fort Worth Star Telegram In his second month in office, President Donald Trump is getting overwhelmingly good grades on his job performance from the state's Republicans, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Trump is popular enough to cast positive ... Texas Republicans think Trump will make the presidency great againMyStatesman.com Poll: Texas Republicans believe he can make the presidency great againAustin American-Statesman Texas Republicans Once Reluctant To Support Trump 'Are Hugging Him Now,' Internet Poll SaysPatch.com all 15 news articles »

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Poll: President Trump popular with Texas Republicans - Fort Worth Star Telegram

President Donald Trump is dangerously naive.

He has a pathological unwillingness to criticize anything the Kremlin does. He is discrediting U.S. intelligence agencies and telling the world they cant be believed.

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As for Trumps refusal to disavow Russian President Vladimir Putin and the murders and poisonings of Putin critics in recent years because, as Trump put it, America has killers too? I dont think weve ever had a more harmful statement come out of the Oval Office than that one, says Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, in an extensive interview for our new podcast, The Global Politico.

Schiff, a Harvard-trained lawyer who made his career by prosecuting an FBI agent caught in a sex-for-secrets trap by the Soviet Union, has been one of the leading Democrats calling for a more serious investigation of Trumps mysterious ties to Russia. Last week, when national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign after misleading the vice president about his December phone call with the Russian ambassador, Schiff quickly demanded an expansion of the House intel panels probe of the 2016 election hacking to include the Flynn matter, an expansion Chairman Devin Nunes reluctantly agreed to late last week.

Now, Schiff is openly suggesting a possible cover-up in the Flynn affair. Theres a profound question about whether he was acting on his own, or whether he was acting at the behest of the now president or others in the administration, Schiff says. Who else was knowledgeable that he had misled the vice president, and in doing so misled the country?

Throughout our conversation, Schiff described Russia under Putin in terms Ive rarely heard over nearly two decades of covering U.S. relations with the Kremlin, and almost never from a Democrat in recent years, when it was largely Republicans who criticized Putin and what they saw as President Barack Obamas reluctance to confront Russian aggression. Russia is a major threat to the country, Schiff says. They are doing their best to dismantle democratic institutions in Europe, just as they did in Russia itself. And just as they tried to do in our own country, in the election ... Theres a real confrontation with a real malignant power.

Perhaps most striking about this kind of rhetoric is who its coming from, and the partisan divide it heralds for American foreign policy going forward as a new generation of Russia hawks emerges. Because Schiff is new to the outrage factory, a mild-mannered sort on Capitol Hill whose Twitter feed used to be filled with polite hearing notices and the measured policy wonkiness for which he has been known. Just about every article ever written about the California Democrat, a triathlete who keeps an extreme fitness regimen, has called him some version of a moderates moderate.

But that was before Trump and his unlikely, largely unexplained, admiration for Putin. Schiff in recent months has turned his perch on the House Intelligence Committee into a newly public role as perhaps the loudest voice on Capitol Hill pushing Republicans to investigate not only the Russian hacking of the 2016 election but also just what ties Trump and his campaign advisers may have with the Russian government whose strongman leader Trump has said he admires. Schiff tells me the panel will examine any contacts between Russia and U.S. persons to see whether there was any U.S. person complicity in the 2016 election-related hacking.

But its not entirely clear whether the panel will actually do soor how effective the committee will be. Schiff and other Democrats have been rebuffed in efforts to commission a special joint investigation commission and uncertain about how much cooperation they will receive from the FBI, which is conducting its own probe of the Flynn matter as well as the broader Russia hacking during the 2016 campaign. And among House Republicans, there remains resistance to looking too closely at the dealings of a president from their own party.

While Senate Republicans, under pressure from noted Russia hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have sounded a tougher note about their investigation, in the House, Nuneswho served on Trumps transition teamhas been much more skeptical. At first, Nunes refused last week to broaden the probe to Flynn, saying instead that he preferred, as the president insisted, to investigate the leaks that led to the disclosures about the Flynn call. On Sunday, Nunes went on the talk shows to cast doubt on Schiffs insistence that the panel will look at whether and how complicit any Americans tied to Trump may have been in the Russian hacking.

We are not going to go on a witch hunt against the American people, against American citizens, he told CBS John Dickerson, insisting, as far as I know our law enforcement authorities dont have that information.

Wherever the unfolding investigations around Russia, Trump and Putin lead, the swirling controversy has already had one inescapable effect in American politics: the return of Cold War-style rhetoric and ominous warnings about Russia. Three straight American presidentsBill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obamahave started out hoping to forge a closer relationship with Putin and ending up disillusioned and barely on speaking terms.

But now, with Trump calling Putin a better leader than Obama during the campaign and the U.S. intelligence communitys finding that Russias election hacking was specifically aimed at boosting Trumps chances in the presidential race, the prospects of another attempted reset of U.S.-Russia policy have taken on a darker cast. Trump acknowledged as much during his stemwinder of a news conference the other day, invoking the image of Putin observing the uproar and deciding its going to be impossible for President Trump to ever get along with Russia because of all the pressure hes got with this fake story.

***

As the top Democrat on the House panel, Schiff is one of the so-called Gang of Eight, the four top leaders in both houses and four top intelligence committee members, who receive special classified briefings from the U.S. intelligence agencies that other members of Congress do not. Working together with Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel who is also part of the Gang, Schiff started sounding the alarm about Russian interference in the election early last fall.

They faced, Schiff now acknowledges, strong pushback from the Obama White House when they tried to get the administration to go public with evidence about the Russian hacking. Schiff reveals in the interview that he and Feinstein lobbied the National Security Council staff to make such a statement but were rebuffed. There was a real reticence in the administration to talk about this publicly, he says, especially at a time when Trump was already complaining publicly that he believed Democrats would try to rig the election for Hillary Clinton.

Instead, he and Feinstein teamed up, and on September 22, released their own statement saying there was a serious and concerted effort by Russia to meddle in the 2016 racea statement confirmed by the Obama administration in October and then, after the election, by a public finding from the U.S. intelligence agencies that the hacking was aimed at electing Trump. Many Democrats today remain furious about that timetable, wondering whether Obamas hesitant response to the hacking and unwillingness to speak out more forcefully before Nov. 8 may have inadvertently helped Trump win the presidency.

Regardless, the conversation with Schiff makes clear that theres an entirely new politics to Russia in the U.S. today, and nowhere more so than on Capitol Hill, where historically it has been Republicans who, even long after the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, remained much more critical of Putins heavy-handed rule and expansionist foreign policy across the former Soviet territory.

For the most part, they still areand when reports circulated that Trumps White House was considering lifting some sanctions on Russia as an early executive order, it was strong pushback from Republicans on the Hill, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, that helped to table, or at least delay, whatever plans there were; the subsequent furor over Flynn and his Russia entanglements makes that even less likely to proceed for now. Nunes nodded to that new realityand probably to Schiffs Russia warningsin his comments to CBS. There are Russia hawks now, he said wryly, I think theres more Russia hawks in Congress than there are congressmen and senators.

For Schiff and others in the newly-hawkish-on-Russia camp, theres an explicit connection between Putins threatening moves and the rise of like-minded populist nationalists such as Trump in the United States and others in Europe. We are in a new war of ideas, in which autocracy appears to be on the march, and we have to confront it, he says.

So what about the Republicans who had in recent years been so quick to criticize Obama for being soft on Putin and warning of Russian imperial designs across Eastern Europe? The same party that applauded when 2012 nominee Mitt Romney labeled Russia the No. 1 geopolitical threat to the United States? Had his GOP colleagues, I asked Schiff, suddenly changed their minds about Russia now that Trump is promoting a different line?

His answer was as revealing about the state of play in Congress for President Trump as it was about anything having to do with foreign policy. And it suggests that while, for now, most of the GOP is not openly breaking with its combative new president, that may not always be the case.

They havent changed their mind about Russia. I think they are as deeply distrustful as ever. They dont want to cross this president yet, Schiff says of his Republican colleagues. They have no illusions about Vladimir Putin; none of them think hes a friend. They all recognize the great evil that hes doing bombing civilians in Aleppo, invading his neighbors, murdering journalists. So, I dont think they have any new viewI dont think theyve been persuaded by Donald Trump that somehow Russia is now our friend.

Susan Glasser is Politicos chief international affairs columnist and host of its new weekly podcast, The Global Politico.

See the article here:
Will Republicans Break With Trump Over Russia? - POLITICO Magazine