Congress

Veterans cuts spark GOP backlash on Capitol Hill

Published

2 years ago

March 6, 2025

As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk lay waste to scores of federal programs and the careers of thousands of government workers, Republicans on Capitol Hill have mostly kept their objections to themselves — with one big exception.

Military veterans have been disproportionately affected by the administration’s early cuts, and GOP lawmakers have unleashed a rare tide of public pushback. That reached a crescendo this week as the Trump administration raises the possibility of large-scale dismissals of Veterans Administration employees.

Mass firings at the VA began weeks ago, spurring a flurry of panicked calls from GOP lawmakers to the White House. But a new memo outlines the potential for 80,000 more firings across a roughly 480,000-person department, according to an internal memo obtained by Blue Light News.

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chair Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said in a statement that while the massive department is “in need of reform,” efforts to downsize “must be done in a more responsible manner,” after the AP first reported the 80,000 figure Wednesday. Moran, who has been in close contact with VA Secretary Doug Collins and White House staff about personnel issues for weeks, added in an interview Thursday that lawmakers “need information” and that the numbers need to be “justifiable.”

Leaving a lunch meeting with Musk Wednesday where the VA cuts came up, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) voiced his irritation to reporters and suggested Trump’s veterans chief needed to get a better handle on his department.

“It’s political malpractice not to consult Congress if that’s what you intend to do,” Graham said. “Maybe you’ve got a good reason to do it. I like Doug Collins — he’s a great guy. But we don’t need to be reading memos in the paper about 20 percent cut at the VA.”

Even before the VA memo became public, there was heartburn about how the cuts undertaken by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative might impact the country’s roughly 18 million veterans.

Federal job cuts generally affect veterans more profoundly, since they are given preference in government hiring. The provision of health care and other services is directly threatened by cuts to the VA, and those impacts have been a frequent concern at the spate of town hall protests GOP lawmakers have encountered in recent weeks.

There are signs the message has gotten through. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that senators raised the issue of VA cuts directly with Musk during the lunch meeting at the Capitol on Wednesday.

“I’m hoping there will be some clarification on that issue soon,” Thune told a small group of reporters.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is seen during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol, March 4, 2025.

Sen. John Barrasso, Thune’s No. 2, said that while they didn’t get confirmation of the VA cuts, Republicans stressed to Musk that Collins needs to be involved, with “the concern being that we want to make sure that veterans get the care that they need.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, who has recently been in contact with Musk, said she’s also coordinating with Moran as he tries to get answers.

“We have an obligation to our veterans, and these mass firings undermine that obligation,” Collins told reporters.

Democrats, who have been searching for a political foothold as they try to fight back against DOGE, blasted the proposed VA cuts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “a betrayal of our promise to our service members” that will spark “longer wait times, fewer appointments, less health care service for our veterans.”

Across the Capitol, the more DOGE-friendly House GOP is more willing to give the administration leeway on efforts to slash the size of the federal workforce. But even GOP leaders who are normally quick to praise Musk’s slash-and-burn operation are sensitive about the VA and impacts on veterans.

“We’re going to talk to the secretary to see what their needs are,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “You had, in a lot of these departments, a large increase during COVID, some of which may have been needed but a lot of which wasn’t justified.

“So you need to sort through what actually helps the veterans versus what actually takes money away from veterans benefits,” Scalise added.

House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul said in an interview Thursday he needed to study the VA cuts in more detail. But he had a visceral reaction when informed of the level of workforce cuts in the memo.

“Jeez,” McCaul said, his eyes widening.

“I worry because our veterans are hurting after Afghanistan; PTSD has gone way up,” McCaul added. “Suicide rates gone way up, and morale has gone way down. So I worry in the sense that I don’t want that to be a signal that we don’t care about our veterans.”

Some House Republicans, including some with a high number of veterans in their districts who get their care from the VA, offered measured support.

“I trust the president,” said Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), adding “there are a lot of complaints” about the VA. Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) added that he had faith in Collins to make cuts that “create efficiencies and actually improve care” at VA.

But Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) — a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee whose state includes large numbers of federal workers and veterans — warned the job cuts would have real impacts on his constituents.

“I think everybody looks at it and says, ‘Let’s get the federal government to the right size that’s sustainable.’ Companies do that all the time,” Wittman said. “But I also want to be mindful that these employees are really good people. They work hard, and I want to make sure we keep in mind the impact that it has on them.”

Ben Leonard, Connor O’Brien and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Democrats drop $5M into Kansas Senate race

Published

2 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Democrats’ top super PAC is pushing into Kansas.

The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC is launching a $5 million statewide television ad blitz starting Saturday through Election Day — the latest sign that Democrats believe the Senate map is shifting onto red turf.

SMP had signaled in recent days it could get involved in the race, telling Blue Light News late last month it was “actively thinking” about whether to wade into the state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in nearly a century but where Adam Hamilton narrowly leads GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in recent polls. Internal SMP polling that found an increasingly competitive race factored into the group’s decision to spend. It will also run digital ads.

“The gap is closing in Kansas,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring families understand Marshall’s real record of making health care and basic goods more expensive for working Kansans.”

Republicans are scrambling to shore up Marshall. Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, has booked over $10 million in ads through Election Day in the state, per ad tracking firm AdImpact.

SMP’s first ad attacks Marshall for joining Senate Republicans in voting to table a Democratic-led amendment last year to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The Senate later approved legislation to release the files by unanimous consent. It’s the latest in a slate of ads from Democrats hitting their Republican rivals over the late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Marshall’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senate Democrats’ plunge into the state comes as the midterm battle map is undergoing a major realignment. Georgia and North Carolina — primed to be two of the cycle’s premiere battlegrounds — are tilting left to the point where national Republicans are retracting spending in both states and Democrats are starting to follow suit, freeing funds on both sides to shift elsewhere.

Republicans are racing to reinforce incumbents across what was once safer red turf. SLF has also pledged $5 million to bolster Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina.

Democrats, meanwhile, are starting to spend more in red states. SMP has dropped over $2 million on digital ads in Texas. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.

Congress

House Democratic campaign arm says it needs $17 million, and fast

Published

2 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is begging for resources, and setting a hard deadline for donors to give $17 million in order to compete in a handful of districts that Republicans carried easily in 2024.

DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz said the committee needs the cash influx by Oct. 22 in order to “to take advantage of the opportunities we have” outside of the core battlefield, according to a memo shared with donors on Friday and obtained by POLITICO.

If they don’t pony up, Merz warns, the party “could be leaving winnable races on the table.”

Democrats have been clear that they have a fundraising disadvantage this cycle, but they have so far been reluctant to place a specific dollar amount on their needs, making the DCCC’s memo Friday a particularly surprising outlier.

“Here’s the tough reality though: the Republican ecosystem has amassed a massive war chest that is significantly greater than ours and is spending it,” Merz says in the memo after arguing that the members of the committee “remain confident that we will win back the majority in 25 days.”

Specifically, Merz dedicates significant portions of the memo to four districts where the committee is desperate for more money in order to compete — all of which President Donald Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024:

— Florida’s 27th District (Trump +14.6)

— Nevada’s 2nd District (Trump +13.9)

— South Carolina’s 1st District (Trump +13)

— New York’s 21st District (Trump +20.7)

The fundraising disadvantage has created headaches for both House and Senate Democrats over where, exactly, to deploy the resources they do have.

The committee tells donors that their internal polling shows all of those races within reach, but that Republicans’ big cash advantages — especially in the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. — will make it harder to win those and other reach seats.

Merz also name drops a handful of other deep-red districts that are “worthy of additional investment in this environment,” including seats held by GOP Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee.

The NRCC was quick to mock the DCCC’s memo.

“No amount of money fixes candidates voters don’t want. These seats are staying red, and Republicans are on offense across the map,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.

Congress

Capitol agenda: How Warren could link arms with Trump’s GOP

Published

8 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Elizabeth Warren may get her clearest shot yet to take on corporate America next year — thanks to the once unthinkable help of Republicans.

The Massachusetts Democrat is poised to chair Senate Banking if the party takes back the chamber. And while the progressive has long been a boogeyman to corporate America, lobbyists worry she’ll have powerful backup thanks to the surge of populist Republicans eager to take big swings at Wall Street and Big Tech.

One longtime financial industry lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Warren “has a streak that is not just wanting to be a progressive gadfly, but to actually reach across the aisle to push for policy ideas.” There is “absolutely” reason for concern, the person said.

Atop the panel, Warren would also have a strong position to shape the 2028 presidential debates on both sides.

“There’s very little doubt that the agenda of the Senate Banking Committee is going to overlap substantially with the core issues that the candidates in the 2028 election cycle are going to be grappling with,” said Dennis Kelleher, the outgoing leader of the progressive group Better Markets.

As Banking chair, Warren is expected to try to recruit Republicans in a crackdown on artificial intelligence — specifically restrictions on chip giant Nvidia’s exports to China, which already has some GOP support — and a follow-up of this year’s bipartisan housing law that sought to rein in private equity’s role in the market, according to people close to the senator.

Some of President Donald Trump’s own populist ideas, like credit card interest rate caps and limits on stock buybacks for defense contractors, would provide fertile ground for Warren.

But Trump would also likely be Warren’s biggest obstacle, as he’s been resistant to embrace policy overlaps with her. He’s also been resistant to any AI restrictions.

Warren’s approach also threatens to expose rifts between GOP populists who have been ascendent under Trump and more mainstream conservatives.

Asked about the possibility of a Chair Warren, Sen. Mike Rounds, a more moderate South Dakota Republican, said he doesn’t “think anything would get done except lots of investigations and lots of accusations.”

What else we’re watching:

— LAWMAKERS CLAMOR FOR GAO v. TRUMP — Lawmakers are desperate for a government watchdog to step up and help them in their fight against the Trump administration over control of federal cash. The independent Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this week that the White House illegally withheld more than $1 billion for education and health care research programs — the latest in more than a half-dozen such findings GAO has published since the start of Trump’s second term. But the agency has yet to use its unique power to take the president to court to challenge those “impoundments,” and lawmakers who are tired of the administration running roughshod over their funding prerogatives want GAO to act.

— MURPHY’S DEFENSE FUNDING ULTIMATUM — Democrats should not approve Pentagon funding or the annual defense policy bill if they control Congress next year unless those bills would hasten the end of the Iran war, Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Thursday. “We should make the end of the war a priority,” said the Foreign Relations Democrat who was returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Murphy also accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and officials of attempting a “cover-up” of the war’s damage and obscuring its true cost after he was denied entry on a base in Qatar. Given the damage to bases in the region, Murphy also told reporters that the U.S. should “reconsider its footprint” in the Middle East.

Jasper Goodman, Jennifer Scholtes and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.