To appear busy during the GOP federal government shutdown, North Dakota’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer, and U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, had been posting glad-handed photo opportunities on their social media channels.

And now, following the shutdown, North Dakota citizens are still seeing those “safe” photo ops haven’t stopped. These “security blanket” photo op meetings allow them to sit in a comfortable chair, in a controlled meeting environment, grinning and laughing, as they actively avoid being accountable in public forums with the general electorate who have been frustrated and eager to get answers to serious questions, such as:

• Why do they each support the Big Beautiful Bill that cruelly cuts Medicaid and healthcare coverage funding to the neediest of the public and to rural hospitals, and cuts to college students and the general workforce, while delivering yet even more permanent tax breaks amounting to $4.1 trillion to billionaires.
• Will they each denounce and work to oppose Trump’s demand for taxpayers to have his corrupted Department of Justice pay him $230 million that he is seeking in retribution for the investigation into his campaign’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election – an investigation that resulted in more than 30 people and over 100 charges, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s statement that the investigation “does not exonerate him (Trump)”.
• Why do they never denounce or distance themselves from President Donald Trump or any of his harmful, hateful, malicious, or juvenile actions, statements, decisions, or behaviors?
• Why do they not take a public stand against Trump’s constant overreach on such items as his chaotic and poorly thought out tariff policies that harm farmers, ranchers, and consumers? For them to remain quiet is to be complicit.
• Why did they not denounce Trump’s lavish White House meeting with with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded approved the operation that led to the murder and gruesome dismemberment of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi?
• Do they support masked individuals, some in unidentified vehicles and some in generic military garb, not identifying themselves as they pull people from their cars, workplace, homes, and courthouses as they are in the middle of the lawful resident process – all without warrants to arrest as they detain and ship people off to gulags in other countries where they can be held without due process for an unlimited amount of time? Even Kevin Cramer’s son – who was clearly guilty in killing a Mercer County Sheriff – was afforded the full rights of due process, unlike immigrants, immigrants going through the lawful resident process, and even American-born citizens who have been denied due process in the Gestapo-style secret-police detainments at the behest of Trump.
• Do they think our military personnel should follow unlawful orders and do they think US citizens should be silenced and unable to criticize Trump without fear of him weaponizing the government for retaliation?
• Do they think it’s appropriate for Trump to distract the American public with nonsense issues such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico, weighing in on social media regarding talk show hosts, rage tweeting  when much greater issues are at hand?
• Do they think it’s appropriate for Trump to pave over the rose garden, gild the Oval Office, and demolish the East Wing of the White House to build a $300 million ballroom – all while Americans are suffering one of the worst economies and record job losses, record inflation, and record devaluation of the US dollar, all occurring from and as a result of Trump’s actions and policies?
• Do they agree with Trump threatening to annex our longtime democratic allies and trading partners – Canada to make it the 51st state, and Greenland, even if by military force? Where is their outrage?
• Do they agree with Trump alienating our longtime world allies while he cozies up to and expresses admiration for some of the world’s dictators, such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Viktor Orbån, and Recep Tayyip Erdğan?
• When Trump calls legitimate and independent media, and Democrats, the enemy of the state, do they think that is appropriate for a president of the United States to say? Do they understand the violence such statements foment against journalists and political opponents, contributing to the data that the far right is the most dangerous source of violence in the country?
• And, lastly, do they think it’s Presidential for Trump to use immature and repulsive nicknames to describe American citizens who have tough questions for him or challenge him, or those who have expressed they don’t like this actions or policies?

Their constant silence in Trump’s chaos is to be complicit.

Fedorchak, Cramer, and Hoeven should stop hiding and start visiting with the general citizens of North Dakota who need to voice their concerns about the catastrophic decisions being made by the Trump administration that are harming America and this great state.