Military veterans are becoming the face of Trump's government cuts and
Democrats' resistance
[March 25, 2025]
By STEPHEN GROVES
WASHINGTON (AP) — As congressional lawmakers scramble to respond to
President Donald Trump's slashing of the federal government, one group
is already taking a front and center role: military veterans.
From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge
of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have
been acutely affected by Trump's actions. And with the Republican
president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the
burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the over 2
million civilians who work for the federal government and often tap
government benefits they earned with their military service.
“At a moment of crisis for all of our veterans, the VA's system of
health care and benefits has been disastrously and disgracefully put on
the chopping block by the Trump administration,” said Sen. Richard
Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee,
at a news conference last week.
Blumenthal on Monday announced a series of so-called shadow hearings by
Senate Democrats to spotlight how veterans are being impacted.
Blumenthal invited VA Secretary Doug Collins to the first meeting next
week, though the Cabinet secretary is under no compulsion to attend and
is unlikely to appear at an unofficial proceeding.
Most veterans voted for Trump last year — nearly 6 in 10, according to
AP Votecast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters. Yet
congressional Republicans are standing in support of Trump's goals even
as they encounter fierce pushback in their home districts. At a series
of town halls last week, veterans angrily confronted Republican members
as they defended the cuts made under Trump adviser Elon Musk's
Department of Government Efficiency.

"Do your job!” Jay Carey, a military veteran, yelled at Republican Rep.
Chuck Edwards at a town hall in North Carolina.
“I'm a retired military officer,” an attendee at another forum in
Wyoming told Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman before questioning whether
DOGE had actually discovered any “fraud.”
Although Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson advised his members to
skip the town halls and claimed that they were being filled with paid
protesters, some Republicans were still holding them and trying to
respond to the criticism.
“It looks radical, but it’s not. I call it stewardship, in my opinion,”
Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida said on a tele-town hall. “I
think they’re doing right by the American taxpayer. And I support that
principle of DOGE."
Still, some Republicans have expressed unease with the seemingly
indiscriminate firings of veterans, especially when they have not been
looped in on the administration's plans. At a town hall on Friday, Texas
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw told the audience, “We’re learning about
this stuff at the speed of light, the way you are. I think there’s been
some babies thrown out with the bath water here, but we’re still
gathering information on it.”
Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, added, “If you’re doing a job that we need
you to do, you’re doing it well, yeah, we’ve got to fight for you.”
The Republican chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rep. Mike
Bost, assured listeners on a tele-town hall last week that he and
Collins, the VA Cabinet secretary, are talking regularly. As the VA
implements plans to cut roughly 80,000 jobs, Bost has said he is
watching the process closely, but he has expressed support and echoed
Collins' assurances that veterans' health care and benefits won't be
slashed.

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House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chairman, Mike Bost, questions
Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, during a
hearing on whether the Veterans Affairs ignore and perpetrate sexual
harassment, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 14, 2024, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

“They've cut a lot, but understand this: Essential jobs are not being
cut,” Bost said, but then added that his office was helping alert the VA
when people with essential jobs had in fact been terminated.
Two federal judges this month ordered the Trump administration to rehire
the probationary employees who were let go in the mass firings. At the
VA, some of those employees have now been put on administrative leave,
but a sense of dread and confusion is still hanging over much of the
federal workforce.
“We’re all kind of wondering what’s next,” said Dan Foster, a Washington
state Army veteran who lost his job when the VA canceled a contract
supporting a program that educates service members on how to access
their benefits and VA programs.
Others are angry they have been portrayed as deadweight and cut from
jobs they felt played a direct role in helping veterans get health care.
“For somebody to go on the news and say we are incompetent or lazy —
that is just false,” said Future Zhou, an Army veteran who had a job
managing medical supply inventories for operating rooms at the VA
facility in Puget Sound, Washington, before she was fired in February.
As Democrats search for their political footing and a rallying point to
unify them, they have zeroed in on the cause of protecting veterans. In
both the House and the Senate, Democrats have introduced legislation
that would shield veterans from the mass layoffs. And when Trump spoke
to Congress this month, many lawmakers invited veterans as their guests.
“They are outraged,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who is
an Iraq War veteran and former assistant secretary at the VA. “They said
Donald Trump promised to watch out for them. And the first thing he does
is fire them."
Democrats are already pressing their Republican colleagues to show their
support for veterans. In negotiations to allow passage of a
Republican-backed government funding bill this month, Democrats secured
a vote to amend the package to include language that would protect
veterans from the federal layoffs. But it failed on party lines in part
because the last-minute change would have ensured that Congress missed
the deadline to avert a shutdown.

With an eye on the midterm elections, VoteVets, a left-leaning veterans'
advocacy group, is already launching video ads that feature veterans
sharing their stories of being fired and accusing congressional members
of doing “absolutely nothing.” The ads are directed to five potential
swing districts held by Republicans who are veterans themselves.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat who is also a veteran, said he
was unsure whether veterans would shift their political allegiance.
But he said it is at least clear veterans are “pissed.”
Gallego said there's an opportunity for Democrats to hammer home the
message that “Elon Musk and his buddies would rather just deal with the
bottom line and try to save billions of dollars so they can have more
tax cuts at the expense of veterans.”
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