Steve Le was born in South Vietnam and was 7 years old when he boarded a ship the day before the fall of Saigon in 1975 with his family and other refugees. They resettled in Houston, and Mr. Le became a family physician and the third consecutive Vietnamese-American to represent District F on the Houston City Council. Mr. Le, a Republican who speaks with a subtle Texas twang, said he has never seen America more deeply divided, but added that nothing happening now compares to the world his parents knew in Vietnam. Watching the testimony of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was but one example, he said.

“In how many other countries can you call the top elected official in the country a liar and get away with it?” said Mr. Le, 50. “Although our democratic process looks dirty to some people, in the end it all comes out clean. We continue to be the longest-standing constitutional nation in the entire history of Earth, and it is because our forefathers designed that constitution so uniquely in balancing out the powers.”

The president’s cabinet meeting bothered Yohannes Tesfagibir, too.

Mr. Tesfagibir, 36, came to the United States eight years ago from his native country of Eritrea, an East African nation. Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s only president since it won independence in the 1990s, rules a country known as the North Korea of Africa, where national elections have never been held and young people are forced to work for extended periods in a national service program. Last year, a United Nations commission of inquiry said the national service program amounted to a form of slavery and accused the leaders of Eritrea of other crimes against humanity in a report denounced by government officials.

The scene in Washington reminded him of a scene in Eritrea. “It’s reminiscent of the one-man show, everyone working for the president instead of working for the country,” Mr. Tesfagibir said of the Trump cabinet session. “It was very suspicious.”