Rantz: Media hopes you don’t realize angry anti-GOP town halls are staged by activists
Mar 24, 2025, 6:15 AM | Updated: 12:45 pm

Angry crowds have been confronting Republicans at town halls, like this one in Warrenton, VA on March 20. But the reality? Much of the protests are staged from far-left groups. That was the case in eastern Washington this week. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
(Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
When Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Spokane) hosted a town hall at Whitworth University this week, he was immediately and continually disrupted by angry activists in the crowd. This was the plan from far-left groups that left-wing media pretended were an organic, grassroots swell of anger towards Republicans and President Donald Trump. That was the intent of the lazy coverage: to mislead you.
The Spokesman-Review reported that 500 general admission tickets for the town hall were taken within just two hours of being available, and yet “hundreds of seats remained empty for the event.” The reporters did not appear to find it suspicious enough to directly note that perhaps this was indicative of left-wing groups or activists reserving the tickets so that like-minded “unhinged radicals”鈥攊n the words of Rep. Baumgartner鈥攃ould disrupt the event.
That a town hall in a red district was filled with progressives wasn’t curious to the reporters.
The “angry” town hall attendees were effectively liberal plants
Instead of even raising the prospects that this was staged, The Spokesman Review聽quoted some of those in the crowd, including Spokane resident Mary Ellen Gaffney-Brown who shared her concerns about Elon Musk and how she wants “billionaires to pay their fair share.” One wonders if she’s the same Gaffney-Brown in the same newspaper a month earlier at an anti-Trump protest. It’s almost like it’s a clue that activists are overtaking these town halls.
CNN picked up on the town hall to claim, “Many voters were upset about President Trump’s actions during his first months in office.” No context about the crowd possibly being plants.
But they were plants.
础肠迟颈惫颈蝉迟蝉听补诲尘颈迟听they took over the town hall
Though it wasn’t noted in the original Spokesman-Review coverage, Gaffney-Brown is an administrator for the Spokane Indivisible Group Facebook page. Spokane Indivisible is a far-left group that aims to be part of the anti-Donald Trump “resistance.” And she admitted in follow-up coverage by the聽厂辫辞办别蝉尘补苍-搁别惫颈别飞听that she “would venture to say probably 400 were Indivisible members” were in the town hall crowd that night. She even admits that they were the ones advertising like-minded activists reserve tickets.
Outside Whitworth ahead of the town hall? Activists were handing out tickets to protesters, according to college staff, Baumgartner’s office said.
Rather than call out the planned disruption and correct prior reporting, the聽厂辫辞办别蝉尘补苍-搁别惫颈别飞听instead decided to amplify complaints from the activists for being called “unhinged lunatics” by Baumgartner on “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.
The problem with their complaints? They聽补谤别听unhinged lunatics. That’s what you call adults who act like buffoons at town halls, stopping people from actually being able to get tickets and engage in meaningful dialogue. And media that covers for them, forwarding a phony narrative of some swell of anti-Republican anger in eastern Washington? Buffoonery doesn’t come close to describing their shoddy, agenda-driven “reporting.”
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the聽podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on聽,听,听听补苍诲听.