RANCHO MIRAGE — At some point after President Trump proposed a finances that might deeply slash the federal authorities, Democratic Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries on Saturday vowed that his occasion is unified of their opposition to cuts to Medicaid, Social Safety, veterans’ providers and different safety-net applications for weak Individuals.
“We’re dedicated to doing every part we will at this second to cease the Republicans from making an attempt to jam this reckless, excessive finances down the throats of the American individuals,” he advised a couple of hundred individuals gathered in a high-school performing arts middle for a congressional city corridor. “It can damage kids and households and seniors and girls and older Individuals and Individuals with disabilities. Hospitals will shut, nursing houses may shut down, and in reality, individuals may die.”
Jeffries mentioned the finances comes from an out-of-control Trump administration, and described the proposal as un-American and unconscionable.
“We’re going to do every part we will to cease this finances in its tracks, bury it within the floor and ensure it by no means rises once more,” he mentioned.
Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee, criticized Jefferies’ look on the city corridor, calling him “delusional, harmful, and drenched in hypocrisy.”
The occasion occured within the congressional district of one in every of Trump’s late rallies within the 2024 presidential marketing campaign.
The occasion was the primary cease on a nationwide tour of the Home Democratic Steering and Coverage Committee, in addition to a city corridor hosted by Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio).
Ruiz represents all of Imperial County and elements of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, together with Cathedral Metropolis, Indio, Coachella, El Centro, Calexico, San Jacinto, Hemet and Needles. In current elections, the district has been considered as safely Democratic.
However earlier this yr, the nonpartisan Prepare dinner Political Report deemed it “possible Democratic” due to Trump’s efficiency within the area within the 2024 election. In 2024 the president received 10 counties in California that voted for Biden within the earlier election, together with three in Southern California, and misplaced to former Vice President Kamala Harris in Ruiz’s district by a scant two factors.
Ruiz far outperformed his fellow Democrat, profitable the district by 13 factors. However relying on who the GOP congressional candidate is in subsequent yr’s midterm elections, and whether or not the occasion places sources behind her or him, the race could possibly be extra aggressive in 2026.
First elected to Congress in 2012, Ruiz mentioned he was particularly involved about potential cuts to Medicaid, which offers healthcare protection for low-income Individuals and is named Medi-Cal in California, due to his expertise as a doctor.
“I’ve anxiousness as a result of most of the sufferers I took care of had been on Medi-Cal, and I do know that with out Medi-Cal they received’t get their remedy, and so they’ll are available, even in additional dire circumstances, into the emergency division,” he mentioned.
He argued that the finances cuts Trump is proposing are so giant that there is no such thing as a method to enact them with out slicing Medicaid. Ruiz mentioned he was advised by the Inland Empire Well being Program that three hospitals in his district will most likely have to shut if there are vital Medicaid cuts.
“So when you don’t have Medicaid, the place are you going to go? If there’s an emergency, the place are you going to go to get your continual care?” Ruiz mentioned. “So this impacts all of us.”
Ruiz’s feedback had been in response to a query from an viewers member about healthcare. Different inquiries involved deportations, due course of, Social Safety and cuts to federal departments together with the Facilities for Illness Management and the Division of Training.
The city corridor additionally featured Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro), a co-chair of the Steering and Coverage Committee, and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), the chair of the Home’s Democratic Girls’s Caucus. The latter delivered an impassioned plea concerning the influence of federal cuts to the ladies who depend on federal healthcare protection throughout their pregnancies and to their kids.
“When these infants are born, we would like them to be born robust and wholesome,” Leger Fernández mentioned. “After which these kids will go to high school, and we wish to make it possible for they aren’t hungry, proper? As a result of youngsters can not study the place their stomachs are growling. … However proper now, Medicaid, the diet applications, training, they’re all proposed to be reduce … in order that they can provide trillions of {dollars} of tax cuts to the wealthiest who backed them.”
Jeffries mentioned such efforts are a part of a broader assault on the nation and democracy, and are why Democrats are holding city halls not solely of their occasion’s districts but additionally these represented by Republicans.
“Congress is a separate and co-equal department of presidency,” he mentioned. “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 be just right for you, the American individuals.”
