Democrats on Capitol Hill have bashed President Trump over mass federal firings since the first dismissals began in January. On Tuesday, they’re hoping to hold a human mirror to what that policy has done.
When Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, he’ll be staring into a packed House chamber featuring not only Republican allies and Democratic adversaries, but also a host of former federal employees who were recently laid off by Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The fired workers will be there at the invitation of Democrats in both chambers — a strategy that represents just the latest piece of a broader campaign to highlight the real-world effects that Trump’s early policy moves are having on Americans who live far outside the Beltway.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is part of the effort. He’s invited Kyle Rahn, a disabled Army veteran who served three tours in Iraq before his move to the Department of Homeland Security, where he served as a national security specialist. Rahn was fired last month by email.
“Kyle stepped up to serve his country both in combat and as a civilian, and this is how he was repaid. It’s a disgraceful betrayal of our country’s promise to take care of the brave men and women who serve us,” Gallego said.
“I invited Kyle to the State of the Union because I want Trump, Musk, and their DOGE minions to look him in the eyes and see the faces of the people their reckless chaos is hurting.”
The immediate impact of the Democrats’ strategy is, to be sure, highly limited. Most federal workers are not high-profile figures, so Trump won’t recognize those he’s fired as he delivers his speech.
Still, the Democrats are hoping the mere presence of the fired workers in the chamber will bring public attention not only to the administration’s efforts to gut the government, but also to the elimination of the federal services those workers once provided.
“These terminations jeopardize those services, put our communities at risk, and have a very real impact on the lives of dedicated public servants,” said Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), whose guest on Tuesday is Ben Vizzachero, a U.S. Forest Service employee who was recently terminated from his job at the Los Padres National Forest, where he worked on fire prevention. Panetta is among those warning that the erosion of manpower at the Forest Service will hinder efforts to fight wildfires across the country.
The Democrats’ guest gambit is more muted than other demonstrations the party had employed during Trump’s big speeches to Congress during his first term, when it was not uncommon for high-profile members to boycott his State of the Union events.
In a memorable moment during Trump’s 2020 address, the last time he faced a joint session, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped the text of the speech in half — an extraordinary image captured on live television, since Pelosi was standing on the dais behind the president at the time.
Yet Trump’s second-term victory was more decisive than his first, demoralizing Democrats who had warned he posed an existential threat to the nation’s constitutional order. And since Inauguration Day, Democrats have struggled to locate a unifying strategy for responding to the firehose of contentious executive orders, controversial remarks and general bombast emanating from the White House.
Some fear that responding to every controversial move risks watering down their message and blurring the line between actions they deem egregious versus those they consider merely bad. Others worry that a failure to respond to each development would normalize unlawful or otherwise inappropriate actions by the commander in chief.
Heading into Trump’s speech, even Pelosi is warning fellow Democrats not to protest in ways that would draw attention to themselves, instead of keeping the focus on Trump’s own words and deeds.
“Any demonstration of disagreement, whether it’s visual or whatever, just let him stew in his own juice,” Pelosi told The Washington Post last week. “Don’t be any grist for the mill to say this was inappropriate.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) declined to weigh in on what message leadership is giving Democrats about their conduct during the speech. But he suggested the focus should remain on Trump’s policies, not Democrats protesting them.
“Two questions that Donald Trump needs to answer,” Jeffries told reporters recently. “Why has he failed to do anything to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America? And why has the Trump administration unleashed far right extremism on the American people in a way that represents an assault on the American way of life.”
Amid the internal debate, however, Democrats are perfectly united on one thing: They’re all outraged over the mass layoffs of government employees orchestrated by Musk, at Trump’s behest.
That campaign has affected virtually every facet of the federal government — from the Defense and Homeland Security departments to the Forest Service and Federal Aviation Administration. And most of those agencies are employed by people working far outside the Beltway.
By inviting a number of fired workers to Tuesday’s speech, Democrats are hoping to showcase the human effects of Trump’s firing spree — not just in Washington, but all across the country.
In north Illinois, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) has invited Adam Mulvey, an Army veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, who was fired last month from a federal health center in Chicago.
In Queens, Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) has invited Luke Graziani, an Army veteran who served two tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was let go last month after working for almost a year at a veterans health facility in the Bronx.
In the Bronx, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) will attend with Nancy Bolan, another federal health worker who was fired in January from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
And in Boston, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) will accompany Claire Bergstresser, a disabled worker with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) who was fired on Valentine’s Day.
“Claire is one of hundreds of thousands of workers across our nation who have been threatened, abused, and fired for no legitimate reason,” Pressley charged, “and her story is a powerful reminder of why we must use every tool we have to push back against Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s assault on our democracy.”
