Democrats bringing fired federal workers to Trump speech

Congressional Democrats are lining up to bring fired federal workers to President Trump’s high-profile speech before Congress on Tuesday night.

The Democrats have hammered Trump for the blitz of firings that have accompanied his return to the White House — a campaign being led by Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — accusing the president of dismantling the very institutions that make the country run.

To broadcast that opposition, many lawmakers have invited former federal employees who were laid off in recent weeks to be in the House chamber for Trump’s first major speech since his return to power. The idea is to showcase the human effects of Trump’s firing spree all across the country. With that in mind, the list of attendees extends far beyond the Washington-metro region.

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 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.

From coastal California, Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) is bringing Ben Vizzachero, a U.S. Forest Service employee who was recently terminated from his job at the Los Padres National Forest.

In Queens, Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) 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 Arizona, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) will accompany 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.

The list goes on.

While the immediate effect of the Democrats’ strategy is highly limited — the invitees are not high-profile figures, so Trump won’t recognize them as he delivers his speech — the lawmakers are hoping their participation will bring attention not only to the administration’s government-gutting efforts, but 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,” Panetta said.

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