Elise Stefanik isn’t usually the one in the hot seat.
The Republican congresswoman from New York has built her no-holds-barred political brand around grilling college presidents during congressional hearings.
But it was her turn to face intense public scrutiny on Aug. 18, when she was met with a wave of loud boos from the crowd during an event to honor a late local politician in the town of Plattsburgh. The jeering, which went viral, was so bad that she gave up on speaking and passed the microphone back to others on stage.
Read more: Who is Elise Stefanik?
“Shame!” protesters shouted, along with “Unseal the Epstein files!”
“It is a disgusting disgrace that this is what the far left does,” she later told a local news outlet.
It’s the latest instance of a GOP lawmaker encountering unhappy consituents in recent months. Anger over the economic impact of tariffs, the president’s new tax and spending law and cuts to the federal workforce has prompted a series of acrimonious town halls across the country.
Read more: Trump’s big tax bill is a win. It could also be a big problem for GOP
The Democratic National Committee siezed on the moment, writing in a post on X: “That’s what happens when you sell out your constituents to Donald Trump.”
The moment comes at a changing political time for Stefanik as she eyes a run for governor of New York state. President Donald Trump pulled her nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations earlier this year.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elise Stefanik booed off stage at local event
