President Donald Trump will see an audience dotted with fired federal workers when he delivers his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, as a slew of Democrats plan to bring sacked employees to protest the administration’s sweeping cuts of the federal workforce — particularly veterans.
In previous years, Democrats have boycotted Trump’s speech as a way to show their disapproval of his policies. But this year, party leaders urged them to take a different route, opting instead to bring the president face to face with a handful of the thousands of people his administration’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking the federal government has impacted.
Democrats are specifically seeking to highlight how the administration is hurting former service members — a sore point for the president, who loves to tout his support from the military community but has also repeatedly drawn criticism for his comments about veterans.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Navy veteran, led a letter addressed to Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell and signed by eleven other Democrats on Monday voicing concern about the high number of veterans impacted by the downsizing operation led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
According to the letter, nearly 6,000 veterans have been fired across the federal government in DOGE’s chainsaw cuts.
The letter’s signatories are among the many Democrats bringing former service members fired from government positions to the joint session address Tuesday night, including Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who invited Kyle Rahn, a disabled Arizona veteran fired from the Department of Homeland Security two weeks ago. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) will bring Jason King of Fairfax, Virginia, a disabled vet who was fired from his job in the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety division.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is bringing disabled Army veteran Alissa Ellman — who was abruptly fired from her job at the Buffalo VA — also spoke out about the impact of the cuts on veterans.
“Firing [Ellman], firing veterans and slashing thousands from the VA workforce is outrageous and should be reversed,” Schumer said in a press release. “This is not how you treat our veterans — it’s not just unacceptable, it’s un-American.”
Army Veteran Adam Mulvey, who was fired from his position as an emergency management specialist at Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago — which provides medical services for active duty military personnel, veterans and their families — will be a guest of Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.).
“I am very concerned as both a veteran and a federal employee about what firings like the one I experienced will mean for health care providers like FHCC Lovell,” Mulvey said in a release from Schneider’s office. “Not only was I an employee, but I receive my own healthcare at FHCC Lovell, as do my wife and children. Thousands of veterans come there for excellent care – I am concerned that a reduction in staff and a drastic budget cut will reduce the quality of care.”
Mulvey called his firing “insulting,” saying he was told his position was terminated because of poor performance despite consistently positive evaluations.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. But Alina Habba, who serves as a senior adviser to the president, defended the administration’s firing of veterans on Tuesday afternoon outside the White House as invitations for fired veterans to attend his speech piled up.
“That doesn’t mean that we forget our veterans by any means,” Habba said. “We are going to care for them in the right way, but perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment, or not willing to come to work.”
Some Democrats on Tuesday announced their plans to boycott the speech altogether, including Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon, as well as Reps. Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer of Virginia, among others.
Rep. Becca Balint (Vt.) and Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Angela Alsobrooks (Md.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii) will host a separate event with “real time fact-checking” of the president’s speech, as well as live reactions.
And others are dipping into the wider pool of fired federal employees. Others set to attend Tuesday night’s speech include former National Science Foundation employee Doug Kowalewski, a guest of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and several former National Park Service rangers.
