Trump Administration Highlights: President Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About a Possible Third Term (2025)

The U.S. won’t ‘get’ Greenland, its prime minister says.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump had told NBC News: “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent.”

In an interview with the network, Mr. Trump said he “absolutely” had had real conversations about annexing the icebound island, a semiautonomous territory that has been connected to Denmark for more than 300 years.

While there was a “good possibility that we could do it without military force,” Mr. Trump added, “I don’t take anything off the table.”

Mr. Trump’s escalating talk of seizing Greenland reflects an expansionist mind-set in his second term. His administration has also threatened to annex Canada and the Panama Canal.

Mr. Nielsen, who at 33 is Greenland’s youngest prime minister, was sworn in on the same day that an American delegation led by Vice President JD Vance arrived on the island. The territory’s political leaders had seen the trip as an aggressive escalation of Mr. Trump’s threats to seize the territory. Some officials complained about the timing of the visit, pointing out that it came just after Greenland held parliamentary elections.

Mr. Vance took a softer tone on his trip than Mr. Trump, saying that the United States would respect Greenland’s right to self-determination and that using military force — which Mr. Trump has refused to rule out — would not be necessary.

But the island’s government had not invited Mr. Vance or the others in his group, including his wife. The U.S. national security adviser and the energy secretary were also on the trip. And Greenlanders resisted his overtures when he arrived.

The U.S. delegation’s itinerary changed after an earlier announcement was met with a backlash. Initially, Ms. Vance, who had been expected to visit without the vice president, had planned to attend a dog sledding race in southern Greenland. But the organizers of the race made clear they had not invited her. And the outgoing prime minister, Mute B. Egede, said in an indignant statement that there would be no meetings between American and Greenlandic officials.

Protests had been planned in Nuuk, the capital, where Ms. Vance was originally scheduled to visit, before that part of the trip was scrapped.

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Musk says ‘destiny of humanity’ rests on the Wisconsin judicial race.

The billionaire Mr. Musk looked very much like a candidate at this rally, putting himself front and center in the final stretch of an election pitting two rivals against each other, neither of them named Elon Musk: Brad Schimel, the conservative in the race, and Susan Crawford, the liberal.

The closing moments of campaigns are highly choreographed. Mr. Musk’s visit to support Judge Schimel on the eve of the election was voluntary — Judge Schimel did not even attend the event. Mr. Musk appeared comfortable making himself the face of those closing arguments, and living with the results.

No one forced Mr. Musk to visit the state, obviously. Despite entreaties from Wisconsin Republicans, President Trump declined to make a similar trip, perhaps sensing that the race is one conservatives are likelier to lose than to win, and that the most prominent booster could get tagged with blame.

Former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, was among those hoping for a Trump visit. He said in an interview that he thought Mr. Musk was insulated to some extent from the politics of credit and finger-pointing.

“He doesn’t care,” Mr. Walker said. “It’s not like all these consultants on either side who don’t want to be pegged as losers.”

To hear Mr. Musk tell it, the stakes call for any and all interventions.

Weeks ago, Mr. Musk was only sporadically supportive of Judge Schimel, but his remarks about the race have turned existential. Mr. Musk and allied groups have spent over $20 million to support him, and he framed Tuesday’s election in nothing less than apocalyptic terms.

“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives — that is why it is so significant,” Mr. Musk said, referring to the key role that the court could play in congressional redistricting. “And whichever party controls the House to a significant degree controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization. I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.”

At a highly produced town hall in Green Bay, already sporting more Packers paraphernalia than normal ahead of the city’s hosting of the N.F.L. draft next month, Mr. Musk pushed voter turnout. Republicans believe the key to victory revolves around turning out what Mr. Walker said were about 200,000 Trump voters who are unlikely to vote in an off-month and off-year election. Mr. Musk, despite any anger he stirs up among liberals, is popular among conservatives.

Some in the Green Bay crowd wore Musk paraphernalia and said they wanted an up-close look at someone they had followed for over a decade. “I’m here for Musk,” said Michael Labarbera, a 25-year-old who installs solar panels, in a DOGE hat he bought online. John Rosner, a retiree, sported a different Musk hat, bearing the Boring Company name, and said he was here “basically to meet Elon,” calling this moment “the closest I’ll ever get to him.”

Robert Cool, an 81-year-old retiree who was seated in an empty row to the side of the auditorium as he nursed an injury from a fall, said he had decided to make Mr. Musk’s event the first political rally he had attended in his life. A Trump rally, he said, “wasn’t as precise.”

“I wasn’t needed; this one, I felt, I need to be here,” said Mr. Cool, who has been bothered by the attacks on Tesla, which Mr. Musk himself complained about Sunday. “I support Musk more than I have anyone else in politics.”

Mr. Musk is known for his belief in himself, and he plainly enjoys the encounters with voters who believe in him. To those in attendance, he is a hero even more so than the last time Mr. Musk was on a similar rock-star tour, in Pennsylvania all of five months ago.

This is the flip side to the blame game. Should Judge Schimel win, Mr. Musk’s activity will surely be given a tremendous amount of credit.

Other Republican groups that might be expected to spend money to support the conservative candidate kept to the sidelines. Mr. Musk’s super PAC has waged an ambitious ground game, and a nonprofit previously backed by Mr. Musk spent millions of dollars on television ads that it claims helped Mr. Schimel close the gap. Mr. Musk’s defenders like Mr. Walker believe that this race was made a winnable race only thanks to Mr. Musk’s spending.

Mr. Musk has also brought publicity. A million-dollar sweepstakes for signing a petition — and, for 12 hours, a questionable plan to open the sweepstakes only to Wisconsin residents who had already voted — broke through the saturation of the news cycle in this state. (Just before the rally began, the state’s Supreme Court declined to halt the sweepstakes.)

And so, as he did in Pennsylvania during the general election last year, Mr. Musk on Sunday brought out oversize checks to hand out to two winners. He trotted out one of his closest friends, Antonio Gracias, to deliver a presentation on what Mr. Gracias called “outrageous” fraud in Social Security. And that was all after he took the stage donning a foam cheesehead hat before signing it and tossing it into the crowd.

The showman does all this even as he concedes that Judge Schimel may very well lose. As Mr. Musk wrapped up his remarks before beginning an extensive question-and-answer session, headgear was once again top of mind.

“We’ve got to pull a rabbit out of the hat — next level,” he said, retelling Judge Schimel’s standing in betting prediction markets. “We actually have to have a steady stream of rabbits out of the hat, like it’s an arc of rabbits flying through the air, and then landing in a voting booth.”

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A fire at the New Mexico Republican Party headquarters is being investigated as arson.

The fire burned the entryway of the headquarters and left smoke damage throughout the building, Lt. Jason Fejer, a spokesman for the fire department, said on Sunday.

He confirmed that the department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives were investigating the fire as an act of arson.

A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. confirmed that it was investigating but said she could not provide further details because the investigation was ongoing.

The A.T.F. said on Monday that it was conducting an investigation and had “recovered incendiary materials at the scene.” It said that it was not able to provide additional details because the investigation was ongoing.

The Albuquerque Police Department confirmed that the federal authorities were investigating but did not provide any further information, including whether arrests had been made.

In a statement, the Republican Party of New Mexico said the fire was “not an isolated incident” and was accompanied by the spray-painted letters “ICE=KKK.”

In recent months, ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has deployed agents across the country to carry out what the Trump administration has characterized as a new and more aggressive effort to target illegal immigration and deliver on a key campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations.

The Democratic Party of New Mexico said on Sunday that it condemned “any vandalism at the Republican Party of New Mexico headquarters as strongly as possible.”

“We firmly maintain that this sort of act has absolutely no place in our democracy, and that peaceful discourse and organization are the only ways to approach political differences in our country,” the state Democratic Party added. “We hope whoever is responsible is found and held accountable.”

Amy Barela, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, said on Sunday that the alarm system at the party’s headquarters had gone off around 1 a.m., about four hours before the fire started.

There had been a separate bomb threat and other acts of vandalism at the headquarters in recent years, she said.

A former Republican candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives this month was found guilty of hiring people to shoot at the homes of Democratic officials in Albuquerque in 2022 and 2023.

“We completely condemn violence,” Ms. Barela said. “It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from.”

The party was “deeply relieved that no one was harmed in what could have been a tragic and deadly attack,” she said.

Tariffs will affect consumers, says Trump, who ‘couldn’t care less’ about car price increase.

But over that time Mr. Trump has also begun conceding that tariffs could cause financial discomfort for Americans. That possibility came up in stark terms in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” from Saturday, when Mr. Trump said that he “couldn’t care less” about the prospect of higher car prices.

The president repeated the sentiment twice when asked about the 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and auto parts that he has promised will go into effect on Thursday. He told the NBC News host Kristen Welker that the tariffs were permanent, and that he would encourage auto companies and their suppliers to move to the United States.

In one exchange, Ms. Welker asked Mr. Trump if he was at all concerned with the effect of tariffs on car prices, which experts have said could go up by thousands of dollars. “No, I couldn’t care less,” he said, “because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars.”

After the interview, an aide to the president told NBC that Mr. Trump was referring to the increase in foreign car prices.

While the White House sought to emphasize foreign-made vehicles, the tariffs will affect American companies like Ford Motor and General Motors, which build many of their vehicles in Canada and Mexico. Nearly half of the vehicles sold in the United States are imported, according to S&P Global Mobility data, and almost 60 percent of auto parts in cars assembled in the country.

A study by the Yale Budget Lab, a nonpartisan research center, forecast that tariffs would cause vehicle prices to increase by an average of 13.5 percent — an additional $6,400 to the price of an average new 2024 car.

On Sunday, Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said that the tariffs were indeed a “motivator” for carmakers to bring jobs back to the United States. But, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” they were not an “end-all solution” to help American auto workers. If jobs are being brought back to the United States, Mr. Fain said, they need to be “good paying union jobs that set standards.”

Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser to Mr. Trump, defended the tariffs and said they would raise about $100 billion, which would translate to tax credits for people who buy American cars. He, too, told Americans not to worry about the effects of the tariffs.

Instead, he said on Sunday, they should “trust in Trump.”

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The White House takes the highly unusual step of firing line prosecutors.

The ousters reflected a more aggressive effort by the White House to reach deep inside U.S. attorney offices across the country in a stark departure from decades of practice. While it is commonplace and accepted for senior political appointees at the Justice Department to change from administration to administration, no department veteran could recall any similar removal of assistant U.S. attorneys.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Asked about the ousters and whether others had been let go in a similar fashion, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said, “The White House, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies in the past few weeks.”

She added, “The American people deserve a judicial branch full of honest arbiters of the law who want to protect democracy, not subvert it,” offering no explanation for how either of the two fired prosecutors might have done that. Prosecutors are part of the executive, not judicial, branch of government.

During his campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to drastically reshape the ranks of career Justice Department officials, aggrieved by the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia in his first term and the four criminal indictments between his presidencies.

His allies and advisers have embraced the “unitary executive theory,” by which, its supporters argue, the president has sole control of the executive branch. His supporters have spoken openly about seizing pockets of independence in the executive branch. The Justice Department has a post-Watergate tradition of independence, buttressed by civil service laws that for many decades have protected career employees from summary dismissal by political leaders.

Already, the new administration has aggressively sought to remove the upper level of career lawyers at the Justice Department’s headquarters. Some of those firings may end up the subject of lawsuits, but even those dismissals were carried out by senior department officials, albeit Trump appointees.

Mr. Trump’s team has been screening people across the government, asking a series of questions that appear aimed at testing loyalty to the president and his worldview, including his false claim that he won the 2020 election.

The two prosecutors had both worked for many years as career officials inside the Justice Department.

One of the prosecutors, Adam Schleifer, was sitting at his computer Friday morning in Los Angeles, working on a case against Andrew Wiederhorn, the founder of Fatburger, according to two people familiar with the events who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Mr. Wiederhorn is fighting charges of wire fraud and other crimes related to his company.

While he was writing, he received an email from a White House official, Saurabh Sharma, saying that he had been terminated, one of the people said. No reason was cited.

Shocked and confused by the message, Mr. Schleifer asked supervisors if the email was some kind of hoax, the people said. He quickly discovered his work phone had been reset and he could no longer use office devices.

Mr. Schleifer, who worked in the corporate and securities fraud strike force, had spent years working on the Fatburger fraud case. Given that the case has drawn headlines recently and that Mr. Wiederhorn has donated to political action committees supporting Mr. Trump, his colleagues suspected that may have played a role in his dismissal.

During the 2020 campaign cycle, Mr. Schleifer ran as a Democrat for Congress in New York. In that period, he occasionally took to social media to accuse Mr. Trump of denigrating the rule of law.

Still, he returned to the Justice Department at the tail end of the first Trump administration, just before Mr. Trump left office. But those social media posts were amplified by allies of the Trump White House last week, as Mr. Schleifer found himself dismissed.

Exactly one hour before he received the termination email, the far-right influencer Laura Loomer posted on social media about Mr. Schleifer, calling him a “Biden holdover” and referring to a five-year-old message of his in which he praised Adam B. Schiff, now a Democratic senator of California, and criticized Mr. Trump.

Many of Mr. Schleifer’s colleagues were fearful about what his dismissal signaled for the tradition not just of Justice Department independence, but of the independence of individual U.S. attorney offices, the two people said.

Current and former colleagues described Mr. Schleifer as an accomplished and fair prosecutor.

“Adam is a very smart, hard-working, impartial prosecutor. He is very dedicated to the job,” said Consuelo S. Woodhead, a retired federal prosecutor. “The man is honest. He is the kind of prosecutor one would want in a U.S. attorney’s office.”

A day before Mr. Schleifer’s firing, a career attorney in Memphis, Reagan Fondren, received a similar email, saying that she had been terminated, according to a person familiar with events in her office, speaking on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss the matter. Like Mr. Schleifer, she also was not given a reason. At the time, Ms. Fondren had been serving as the acting U.S. attorney, a situation that is not unusual in the early days of a new presidential administration.

Mr. Schleifer’s dismissal was earlier reported by The Los Angeles Times and Ms. Fondren’s by the Daily Memphian.

While it is not unusual for acting U.S. attorneys to lose that position once a new administration selects a permanent successor, a career official like Ms. Fondren would typically return to her regular prosecutor position. In this instance, however, she was fired by the White House.

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Trump says he’s serious about the idea of a third term as president.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” he said. “But we have — my thinking is, we have a long way to go. I’m focused on the current.”

Any attempt to seek a third term would run afoul of the 22nd Amendment, which begins, “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”

On Sunday, after the release of the interview, the White House reiterated Mr. Trump’s point that he was focused on his current term, and added that it was “far too early to think about” the idea.

“Americans overwhelmingly approve and support President Trump and his America First policies,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement. He added that Mr. Trump was focused on “undoing all the hurt” done by the Biden administration and “Making America Great Again.”

Mr. Trump has often mused about the idea of a third term, particularly in rallies and speeches that have delighted his supporters, though he has often treated it more as a humorous aside. The interview was the first time that Mr. Trump indicated that he was seriously considering the idea. Already he has likened himself to a king, shown an affinity for autocratic leaders and displayed governance tactics constitutional experts and historians have compared to authoritarianism.

Mr. Trump’s allies have amplified the idea he could serve another term. Three days after Mr. Trump was sworn in for the second time, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would make Mr. Trump eligible for a third term. Such a measure would be extraordinarily difficult: Constitutional amendments require approval by a two-thirds vote of Congress and then the ratification of three-fourths of the states.

Democrats in Congress, concerned about the possibility of such legislation, have introduced a resolution to prevent loopholes to the two-term limit.

In the interview, Ms. Welker noted that she had heard him joke about serving a third term a number of times. Mr. Trump made it clear he considered it a real possibility.

“No, no I’m not joking,” he said. “I’m not joking.”

Ms. Welker asked Mr. Trump whether he had been presented with plans, and he said that he had not — but added that there were “methods which you could do it.”

Ms. Welker suggested one possibility: having Vice President JD Vance at the top of the ticket in 2028, only to pass the office on to Mr. Trump after winning. Mr. Trump acknowledged “that’s one” way it could happen.

“But there are others too,” he said. “There are others.” Mr. Trump declined to say what those could be.

Derek T. Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and a scholar in election law, said there has been a dissenting view about the provision of the 22nd Amendment — which focuses on being “elected” president without addressing the idea of ascending to the office. However, he said, such a route would be complicated by the 12th Amendment.

Mr. Muller pointed out that the 12th Amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States.”

Mr. Muller said he very much doubted that would provide a path to a third term for Mr. Trump.

“You’d have to have so many pieces fall into place for this even to be practically viable, on top of this complicated legal theory,” he said.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One later on Sunday, Mr. Trump attempted to deflect questions about his earlier statements that he was open to seeking a third term. He repeatedly said that he didn’t want to talk about it, but reiterated that many people have asked him to.

When asked if that meant he would not leave office in January 2029, Mr. Trump said: “I’m not looking at that.”

One possible method, Trump acknowledged during the interview, was Vice President JD Vance running for the office, then passing the baton to him, according to the transcript.

Allies of Trump have continued to amplify the idea that he stay in office beyond a second term, and three days after Trump was sworn in for the second time, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would allow the president to do so. Passing such a measure would be extraordinarily difficult, requiring approval by a two-thirds vote of Congress and ratification of three-fourths of the states.

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Navarro said that the U.S. auto tariffs would raise about $100 billion, which would translate to tax credits for people who buy American cars, and other tariffs would raise $600 billion per year that would allow for a tax cut on middle-class and blue-collar Americans. Asked what the administration would say to Americans who voted for Trump to make the economy better but are bracing for short-term disruptions that even the president has acknowledged, Navarro said: “Trust in Trump.”

Trump says ‘secondary tariffs’ could be imposed on oil from Russia and Iran.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump has previously referred to secondary tariffs as levies on imports from countries that purchase products from a nation he’s targeted in his foreign policy. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The comments were notable given the steps that Mr. Trump has taken to align himself with Mr. Putin, despite the United States’ support for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has declined to acknowledge that it was Russia who started the war, falsely declared President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a “dictator,” but not Mr. Putin, and accused Mr. Zelensky of not wanting peace.

Mr. Trump’s remarks also reflected his increasing promise to use tariffs to compel countries to bend to his domestic and foreign policy goals. In the same phone call, he said he would consider secondary tariffs on Iran if it did not reach a deal with the United States to ensure it did not develop a nuclear weapon, Ms. Welker said.

Mr. Trump told Ms. Welker that he was “very angry, pissed off” at Mr. Putin for questioning the credibility of Mr. Zelensky, and for discussing the prospect of new leadership in that country. Mr. Trump suggested that such comments could set negotiations back, and that they were ”not going in the right location.”

“New leadership means you’re not going to have a deal for a long time, right?” Mr. Trump said.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a limited truce, but that has fallen short of the complete pause in combat that Trump administration officials have sought, with Ukraine’s support. The limited cease-fire remains tenuous as Russia seeks more concessions and Ukraine has expressed doubt that a truce would be upheld.

On negotiations about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Mr. Trump said officials from both countries were “talking,” according to NBC’s account of Ms. Welker’s call with the president, although he raised the prospect of military action if economic and other measures do not succeed.

“If they don’t make a deal,” Mr. Trump said about Iran, “there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

Earlier this month, Mr. Trump sent the letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urging direct negotiations with the government in Tehran on a deal to curb the country’s advancing nuclear program. The letter said Mr. Trump preferred diplomacy over military action.

Mr. Trump’s raising of secondary tariffs on oil from Russia and Iran was the latest example of the president’s interest in using the prospect of economic pressure on third-party nations.

Last week, he issued an executive order on Monday to crack down on countries that buy Venezuelan oil by imposing tariffs on the goods those nations send into the United States, claiming that Venezuela has “purposefully and deceitfully” sent criminals and murderers into America.

Mr. Trump called the new levies he threatened on buyers of Venezuelan oil “secondary tariffs,” a label that echoed “secondary sanctions” — penalties imposed on other countries or parties that trade with nations under sanctions.

Some trade and sanctions experts said existing secondary sanctions associated with countries such as Russia and Iran already were not well enforced, and questioned whether the United States would have the capacity to pull off new tariff-based penalties.

“Clearly the subject matter that’s being discussed — the status of ongoing military operations — should be considered classified information,” Turner said. “The individuals that were discussing this information certainly have the ability to declassify the information.”

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Goldberg said he wished he were not put in the position of having to publish the entire transcript, but did so because the administration accused The Atlantic of lying about the messages. He said journalists operated in the public interest, and said “the public needs to know” that the Trump administration officials on the chat “don’t take national security seriously.”

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Welker said Trump told her that 25 percent tariffs on Russian oil could be imposed at “any moment” and that Trump planned to speak with Putin this week. Welker said Trump told her he was particularly “angry” at Putin for attacking the credibility of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and for discussing the prospect of new leadership in that country. “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault, which it might not be, but if I think it’s Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia,” the president said, according to Welker.

Trump talks leaked Signal chat and auto tariffs to NBC.

Mr. Waltz had seemingly inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, to a sensitive group chat on Signal, a commercial messaging app, ahead of U.S. strikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen on March 15.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Mr. Trump had spent much of the week consulting with aides about whether he should fire Mr. Waltz amid mounting fallout from the episode.

But Mr. Trump told Ms. Welker that he still had confidence in Mr. Waltz and in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and he continued to downplay the seriousness of the incident. “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” he said.

Mr. Trump also discussed the 25 percent tariff he has promised to impose starting Thursday on imported cars and auto parts, saying that he was not concerned that automakers could raise prices as a result. Experts have insisted the levies will increase prices by thousands of dollars.

“I couldn’t care less,” Mr. Trump said. “I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars. We have plenty.”

Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States are imported, as are almost 60 percent of the parts used in vehicles that are assembled in the country.

Mr. Trump denied a report that he warned auto executives not to raise prices when discussing the tariffs.

Mr. Trump also discussed Greenland, a day after Vice President JD Vance visited an American military base on the island. Mr. Trump reiterated that he would not rule out using force to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, but indicated that he thought he could make a deal to take it instead.

When asked what message he believed such a takeover would send to the rest of the world, including Russia, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t really think about that; I don’t really care.”

Protesters take aim at Elon Musk during demonstrations in the United States, Europe and Australia.

Since President Trump took office in January, Mr. Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and the head of the cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has led the elimination of thousands of federal jobs and overseen the gutting of several government agencies. The protests on Saturday were part of the so-called Tesla Takedown movement, a coordinated effort to push back against the actions by Mr. Musk, who is the world’s richest man, and encourage people to stop buying Tesla vehicles or to sell the ones they already own.

The backlash against Mr. Musk’s political activities has turned his company into a target. The automaker’s stock has tumbled in recent weeks, and protesters have defaced or destroyed Tesla vehicles and damaged company facilities in a handful of places across the country.

Pam Bondi, the attorney general, has labeled such episodes acts of “domestic terrorism” directed at Mr. Musk, and President Trump has threatened severe punishments, suggesting on social media that anyone convicted of damaging or destroying Tesla vehicles could be sent to prison in El Salvador. The Justice Department said last week that three people accused of trying to torch Tesla products had been arrested and charged with crimes that could lead to years in prison.

Organizers of Saturday’s demonstrations had urged participants to protest peacefully. Gatherings were held across the United States and in parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

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A town hall outside Indianapolis turned angry when a Republican congresswoman defended DOGE cuts.

On Friday and Saturday, Ms. Spartz hosted gatherings with constituents. And each day, she found herself in hostile territory.

She was booed, jeered and scolded over the Signal scandal at the Defense Department (she acknowledged that the Trump administration needed to do a “better job”), and the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to deport immigrants without due process (she declared that unauthorized immigrants were entitled to “no due process”). And she was accused of standing idly by as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency steered cuts to government services (she said the Trump administration was trying to stop fraud).

She faced chants of “Do your job!” At times, the events turned into shouting matches. Some of the exchanges have circulated widely on social media.

“You don’t have to scream,” she pleaded at a crowded town hall in Westfield, Ind., on Friday night. The event lasted for two interruption-filled hours.

“I understand there’s frustration,” she said at another point, as she tried to defend Mr. Musk and DOGE.

One person in the crowd told her she did not understand her role as an elected representative. “I understand my role very well,” she said. “That’s why I have these town halls.”

The crowd howled when she said she would not call for the resignation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who shared sensitive U.S. military plans on a Signal chat, apparently unaware that the editor in chief of The Atlantic had been inadvertently added.

Ms. Spartz, who was born in Soviet Ukraine, also faced questions about her position on U.S. aid for Ukraine. She said that she did not support the United States sending a “blank check to anyone” but that “Russia has been allowed to get away with too much.”

Outside the town hall on Friday, protesters who could not get inside chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.” Inside, Ms. Spartz threatened to stop hosting town halls.

But on Saturday, she was back at another one, in Muncie, Ind., facing down more angry voters.

“She’s not fulfilling her congressional duties and upholding the separation of powers,” said Josh Lowry, the chair of the Hamilton County Democrats, who led protests outside the town hall on Friday. “She’s selling out Hoosiers.”

Mr. Lowry said Republicans like Ms. Spartz had won elections in November by focusing on the cost of living, but have now instead joined in Mr. Trump’s campaign of “retribution.”

“They’re all worried about Trump endorsing an opponent” in a Republican primary election, Mr. Lowry said.

Republicans are also under pressure to hold onto their razor-thin majority in the House. This week, Mr. Trump announced that Representative Elise Stefanik of New York was withdrawing her bid to become the U.N. ambassador. The announcement highlighted worries among Mr. Trump and his party about their ability to win what should be safe Republican seats as Democrats have shown strength in special elections this year.

On Saturday, Ms. Spartz thanked everyone who had attended her town halls, but claimed that she had been targeted by people on the far left. She said that her staff members had been spat at and that a Trump supporter was punched outside the town hall on Saturday.

“The radical left is organizing to silence the truth at town halls, but we cannot let it happen,” she said in a statement. “It’s not pleasant, but I can handle their aggressive behavior.”

Christine Kassebnia, 62, a self-described swing voter who waited for more than two hours to get into the town hall on Friday, bristled at the suggestion that Ms. Spartz’s critics at the events were on the far left.

“These were not far-anything,” she said. “They were just people. And they’re upset.”