RANCHO MIRAGE — One day after President Trump proposed a budget that would deeply slash the federal government, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Saturday vowed that his party is unified in their opposition to cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, veterans’ services and other safety-net programs for vulnerable Americans.
“We are committed to doing everything we can at this moment to stop the Republicans from trying to jam this reckless, extreme budget down the throats of the American people,” he told a few hundred people gathered in a high-school performing arts center for a congressional town hall. “It will hurt children and families and seniors and women and older Americans and Americans with disabilities. Hospitals will close, nursing homes could shut down, and in fact, people could die.”
Jeffries said the budget comes from an out-of-control Trump administration, and described the proposal as un-American and unconscionable.
“We’re going to do everything we can to stop this budget in its tracks, bury it in the ground and make sure it never rises again,” he said.
Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, criticized Jefferies’ appearance at the town hall, calling him “delusional, destructive, and drenched in hypocrisy.”
The event occured in the congressional district of one of Trump’s late rallies in the 2024 presidential campaign.
The event was the first stop on a nationwide tour of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, as well as a town hall hosted by Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio).
Ruiz represents all of Imperial County and parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, including Cathedral City, Indio, Coachella, El Centro, Calexico, San Jacinto, Hemet and Needles. In recent elections, the district has been viewed as safely Democratic.
But earlier this year, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report deemed it “likely Democratic” because of Trump’s performance in the region in the 2024 election. In 2024 the president won 10 counties in California that voted for Biden in the previous election, including three in Southern California, and lost to former Vice President Kamala Harris in Ruiz’s district by a scant two points.
Ruiz far outperformed his fellow Democrat, winning the district by 13 points. But depending on who the GOP congressional candidate is in next year’s midterm elections, and whether the party puts resources behind him or her, the race could be more competitive in 2026.
First elected to Congress in 2012, Ruiz said he was especially concerned about potential cuts to Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage for low-income Americans and is known as Medi-Cal in California, because of his experience as a physician.
“I have anxiety because many of the patients I took care of were on Medi-Cal, and I know that without Medi-Cal they won’t get their treatment, and they’ll come in, even in more dire circumstances, into the emergency department,” he said.
He argued that the budget cuts Trump is proposing are so large that there is no way to enact them without cutting Medicaid. Ruiz said he was told by the Inland Empire Health Program that three hospitals in his district will probably have to close if there are significant Medicaid cuts.
“So if you don’t have Medicaid, where are you going to go? If there’s an emergency, where are you going to go to get your chronic care?” Ruiz said. “So this affects all of us.”
Ruiz’s comments were in response to a question from an audience member about healthcare. Other inquiries concerned deportations, due process, Social Security and cuts to federal departments including the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Education.
The town hall also featured Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro), a co-chair of the Steering and Policy Committee, and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), the chair of the House’s Democratic Women’s Caucus. The latter delivered an impassioned plea about the impact of federal cuts to the women who rely on federal healthcare coverage during their pregnancies and to their children.
“When those babies are born, we want them to be born strong and healthy,” Leger Fernández said. “And then those children will go to school, and we want to make sure that they are not hungry, right? Because kids cannot learn where their stomachs are growling. … But right now, Medicaid, the nutrition programs, education, they are all proposed to be cut … so that they can give trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest who backed them.”
Jeffries said such efforts are part of a broader assault on the nation and democracy, and are why Democrats are holding town halls not only in their party’s districts but also those represented by Republicans.
“Congress is a separate and co-equal branch of government,” he said. “We don’t work for this president. We don’t work for any president. We don’t work for Donald Trump. We don’t work with Elon Musk. We don’t work for far-right extremists. We work for you, the American people.”
