Rep. Doug LaMalfa faced an onslaught of hecklers this week when the Republican congressman held two town halls – the first in Chico and a second one in Red Bluff.
People yelled at LaMalfa and also at each other to shut up so they could hear. “You’re a liar” and “Tell the truth!” rang out from the Red Bluff crowd Monday evening.
Similar scenes have played out across the country when Republican lawmakers defended their support for President Trump in their home districts.
Audience members were given green and red squares of paper they could hold up to signal approval or disapproval at what LaMalfa and speakers said.
Safe to say there was more red than green, although in Red Bluff, LaMalfa saw a bigger share of supporters compared to the more liberal Chico. Some in Red Bluff even clapped for him.
A critic of Rep. Doug LaMalfa holds a sign saying “Doug sold us out” during the Republican congressman’s town hall on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Red Bluff. Red and green pieces of paper were distributed to audience members, who held up red papers to express their disapproval of what LaMalfa or speakers had to say or showed green to signal their approval.
In contrast, media reports from Chico described frequent expletive-filled outbursts from the crowd.
Some 350 people showed up at the Red Bluff Community and Senior Center for the approximately 90-minute evening town hall. About twice as many went to the Chico gathering, which critics slammed for starting so early at 7:30 a.m. that likely limited attendance.
In his opening remarks in Red Bluff, the Northern California representative thanked Tehama County deputies, Red Bluff police and the California Highway Patrol for their presence. He noted that his reception in Red Bluff started out a little more respectful.
Congressman Doug LaMalfa addresses a town hall meeting in Red Bluff Monday evening. All photos by Mike Chapman.
“Too bad we maybe have to have as much security,” the seven-term congressman said. “Already we’re ahead of how things went this morning down 45 miles from here, as far as politeness.”
LaMalfa maybe spoke too soon, as the hall soon filled with jeers.
Topics in Red Bluff covered a number of controversial issues, from health care, tariffs, the Jeffrey Epstein files, redistricting, lack of Public Broadcasting System funding and ICE immigration enforcement, among other topics.
Here are 10 takeaways from the Red Bluff gathering.
1. Boisterous Red Bluff audience
Maybe it was pent-up demand for town halls that LaMalfa hasn’t held often, as both speakers and audience members didn’t hold back.
“We’re here to have a discourse. We’re here to have a conversation with discussion here, and all the views are welcome. I just ask that we present them in a way that is civil and constructive,” LaMalfa said.
“Be constructive then,” an audience member shot back less than two minutes in.
“I actually enjoy doing the town halls up and down our district,” LaMalfa said to laughs from the crowd. “We have them here and there and everywhere. You don’t hear about every single one,” he said.
At one point, he told those who were yelling to leave the room if they couldn’t be quiet while he talked about the Trump-driven One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“So, if you want to have a constructive discourse … keep the shouting down,” LaMalfa said from the Red Bluff stage.
“You just embarrass yourself acting that way,” he added.
One LaMalfa supporter got a chorus of boos when he asked the assembly: “Guys, what are you doing? When you had power, we let you talk.”
Later in the meeting, a teenager thanked the congressman for taking everyone’s opinions but called out the unrelenting harassment.
“It’s hard being under a lot of criticism,” she sympathized. “I am 16 years old and even I don’t make those rude comments. And one more thing, the fact that I am a child and you guys are acting childish – more childish than me.”
Another commenter thanked the people on both sides for making comments or asking questions and “being brave enough to come up to the microphones.
“I think it can be pretty cowardly … to just sit and yell,” she said.
2. Health care concerns
Dr. Doug Matthews, a surgeon from Chico, thanked LaMalfa for supporting the Glenn Medical Center in its effort to keep its critical access status.
Chico surgeon Dr. Doug Matthews, who attended Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s town hall in Red Bluff on Monday, said he appreciates billions of dollars being set aside in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill for rural hospitals but worries about potential funding cuts that jeopardize rural and midsized facilities like St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff. All photos by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
He appreciates how Trump’s big bill, H.R. 1, sets aside $50 billion for rural hospitals but worries about potential funding cuts that jeopardizes rural and midsized facilities like St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff.
“The risk of hospital closures that any increase in the uncompensated care is real for these communities,” he said.
“Can we depend on your health partners to save these hospitals, which are such critical pieces of these local communities in the rural part of California?” Matthews asked.
“We’re going to bat for you. Our hospitals are extremely important, especially as tough as it is in rural areas,” LaMalfa said.
He added that something needs to be done about “massively rising” health care costs and criticized California’s “incredibly bad regulations.”
“Skyrocketing health care costs – so much of that is driven by things that are not necessary when we look at the regulatory load,” he said.
LaMalfa disagreed with one speaker who cited a university study that forecast hospital closures nationwide due to over $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years in the tax and spending megabill.
“The bill does not provide for reducing spending to hospitals or the reimbursements to them,” LaMalfa countered.
Rather, he said payments need to keep pace with rising costs.
“I’ve talked to these hospital folks and the reimbursement is terrible. We’re getting down to a very marginal amount that they’re getting, especially Medicaid and Medi-Cal in California,” LaMalfa said.
The congressman took issue with predictions of massive Medicaid cuts in the federal legislation.
“There’s a lot of different versions of what this bill does and nobody is seeking to reduce the payment, the benefit that’s going to go to the people that use Medicaid.
“So the $1 trillion is probably the one that the Congressional Budget Office came up with, which is frequently wrong on their estimates over time,” he said. “I can show you a chart on Medicare that shows it continues to increase its spending between now and 2034, which is how far they went with it, dramatically. So the spending will increase. Medicaid similarly. So there’s bad information out there on that.”
3. Benefits at stake
Kim Ressa of Redding, a critic of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, brought this sign to the congressman’s town hall in Red Bluff on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
A woman who said she’s worked 10 years determining eligibility for CalFresh (food stamps) and Medi-Cal (California’s version of Medicaid) said older recipients are in danger of losing their benefits when they’ll be required to reapply under the recent legislation.
She said the majority of people who receive food stamps and Medicaid either hold down jobs, are disabled or are elderly.
“You say you’re not cutting Medicaid and food stamps. It’s not true. You add any sort of paperwork requirements … the weakest, the elderly, the disabled, they can’t fill out their forms, and then they’re going to be off aid. And it’s those people that you were sworn to protect,” she told the congressman.
LaMalfa repeated the Republican mantra that there’s fraud and waste in the benefit programs, adding that California needs to be more responsible.
For example, he said millions of Medicaid recipients are potentially enrolled in more than one state.
“Dual states, OK? We need to have oversight on it,” he said.
“Nobody’s cutting anybody that (has) a true need. … Nobody’s being kicked off for being low income or needing it,” LaMalfa said. “(The Trump bill) doesn’t cut a single dollar for people that do qualify.”
He said a community volunteer requirement is coming for able-bodied adults without dependents.
In response, an audience member shouted, “Health care is a human right.”
LaMalfa said the state has a duty and a role in helping the Medicaid/Medi-Cal program run as efficiently as possible.
“I do have to say that at the state level, you need Sacramento to be a lot more responsible for how it administers its end of the Medicaid/Medi-Cal program.”
LaMalfa says he has figures that show funding has increased for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food benefits to low-income families.
“SNAP spending has nearly doubled since just 2019. It’s gone from $60 billion to $110 billion. That is not a cut,” LaMalfa said.
4. Jeffrey Epstein files
Rep. Doug LaMalfa speaks from the stage of the Red Bluff Community and Senior Center where the Republican congressman held a contentious town hall on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
LaMalfa was asked if he’ll vote in favor of releasing the Epstein records.
He said he “100 percent supports transparency in that situation.”
“We should not have anybody in any way getting away with child trafficking, the sexual trafficking that is going on or had gone on there and they need to be held accountable for that.”
He said he’s disappointed that a grand jury report hasn’t been made available but says innocent victims need to be protected if and when the information comes out.
5. Tariff talk
“What are you going do about the tariffs that are hurting us?” one person asked.
Someone else in the audience said flat out, “We’re paying the tariffs.”
While LaMalfa defended the tariffs as a way to increase jobs in the U.S., he doesn’t think they’re ideal.
Fortune reported this week that consumers in the U.S. are bearing the brunt of most of the cost of tariffs, describing them as sales taxes. Meanwhile, the Fortune article says Goldman Sachs calculated that about 67 percent of tariffs are being passed on to consumers.
“I hope these tariffs can end soon,” LaMalfa said. “What you see the administration doing is extracting agreements with several countries one at a time, a couple at a time, getting things back.”
“Other countries have had much higher tariffs on our products for many, many years,” he said. “If you want to change the game, sometimes you’ve got to jolt the game a little bit here.
“I want to believe that at some point we’ll end up with very low or zero tariffs with all these countries,” he said.
6. Redistricting for political gain
Rep. Doug LaMalfa takes time to speak with audience members after his town hall in Red Bluff on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
LaMalfa could be in the crosshairs of a Democratic plan to redraw congressional districts in California in response to Texas seeking to gerrymander districts to benefit Republicans.
LaMalfa said he doesn’t support it.
“You should not be fooling around with mid-decade restructuring of districts in any state,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be doing this anywhere in the country … especially in our own state,” he said. “I don’t support it in any state or any level.”
LaMalfa said he’s always been in favor of having districts redrawn by a separate citizens panel.
“I supported from day one, taking it out of the grubby hands of legislators and putting it into an independent commission to help draw the lines, not based on whose district has needed this or that or whatever, but to have it be somehow a little more pure,” he said. “I have a lot more faith in independent folks.”
7. Climate change
LaMalfa downplayed global warming.
“The climate does change. It changes often,” he said.
A speaker said human-generated CO2 is not a weather question; it’s a climate question.
“Everything we do to curb CO2 in this country is being outstripped by China and others on the Pacific Rim. … The U.S. is much more responsible on how it does things as far as the air quality and things like that,” the congressman said.
8. ICE enforcement
LaMalfa defended ICE agents rounding up undocumented immigrants, but said those arrested in error should be set free.
“People are here in this country illegally because they broke in. We don’t allow that,” he said. “If a mistake was made – we grabbed the wrong person – then that person deserves to released immediately.”
9. Public broadcasting support
John Crowe of Redding spoke up in favor of public broadcasting.
“I’m just concerned that the so-called big beautiful bill will cut out all the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” he said.
The New York Times has reported the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down after being stripped of $500 million in federal funding, threatening the closure of local stations across the nation, such as KIXE in Redding.
“A community like Redding doesn’t have big industry or major corporations to make up that kind of shortage. I think PBS and NPR are extremely valid,” Crowe said.
10. Strong audience criticism
Christian Gardinier holds a sign in the lobby of the Red Bluff Community and Senior Center where Rep. Doug LaMalfa held a contentious town hall on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
One observation from LaMalfa’s town hall in Red Bluff is the congressman kept his composure – aside from occasionally admonishing the audience to keep it down.
Christian Gardenier, an outspoken and frequent protester on Redding’s streets, didn’t mince words from the comment line.
“We’re going to use good trouble and protests to stop your fascism from infesting the United States of America,” Gardenier said to approval from the audience.
He also called out LaMalfa’s backing of Trump.
“Sir, you state you’re all about law and order, yet you support an adjudicated rapist and a 34-count felon who’s been convicted as a criminal here in the United States of America,” he said.
A previous speaker, Democrat Rose Penelope Yee, who lost to LaMalfa in last fall’s District 1 race, also had harsh words.
She criticized LaMalfa for “not having a town hall in years.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “People are thinking you’re scared – you’re scared of being held accountable.”
Yee likened the town hall to a report card from LaMalfa’s constituents.
“My grade for you is an F because you failed us,” she also said to cheers.
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