WASHINGTON – Today, during a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a Marine combat veteran, raised serious concerns over the Trump Administration’s layoffs of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employees and cuts to programs that support veterans with PTSD and uphold the PACT Act.  Watch Senator Gallego’s questioning HERE. The Trump Administration’s Cuts to PTSD Program   Senator Gallego started his questioning by asking Al Montoya, an Assistant Secretary at the VA about layoffs at the National Center for PTSD.  “For us who have PTSD this is extremely important because it is an evolving field of research that can help not just us but save us money

WASHINGTON – Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a Marine combat veteran and member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, is pushing back against the Trump Administration’s mass layoffs of VA employees that threaten essential services for veterans.    The federal government is the nation’s largest employer of veterans, with nearly 30% of its workforce having served in uniform. Yet, the Trump Administration has already laid off more than 2,400 VA employees and plans to eliminate at least 80,000 more, nearly one-fifth of the VA. Many of these employees were hired to meet demand by veterans filing for benefits and health care as a result of the PACT

The Phoenix-based BIA office serves 53 tribes across the western U.S. WASHINGTON – Arizona Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly called on the Trump Administration to keep open the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) Western Regional Office. The Phoenix-based office, which serves 53 tribes across the western United States, is on the chopping block because of Elon Musk and his reckless DOGE cuts.  “Its closure will severely limit access for all of these tribes to essential services ranging from economic development to child social services to water system improvements,” the Senators wrote. “This is part of a larger trend: 25 BIA offices, or 27% of all BIA locations across the country, are