TUCSON – While in Arizona last week, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) spoke with Arizonans about rising health care costs, affordability, and veterans’ issues.
On 12 News’ Sunday Square Off with Brahm Resnik, Senator Gallego spoke about the fallout of the Republicans’ government shutdown and his continued fight to extend the ACA premium tax credits, as well as the latest on the Epstein files.
On Friday, Senator Gallego hosted a town hall in Tucson to hear directly from Arizonans struggling with skyrocketing health care costs. At the town hall, Gallego called on Republicans, including Representative Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06) to display political courage and stop their constituents’ health insurance premiums from doubling.
“Right now, what we’re asking for is, again, political courage. And actually, I don’t even think it takes that much courage to say, I want to protect 24 million Americans from having their insurance premiums doubled.”
Watch C-SPAN coverage of the town hall here and see more coverage below:
The New York Times: Gallego Pitches Demoralized Democrats on a Midterm Message [Catie Edmondson, 11/15/25]
KJZZ: Sen. Gallego calls for Republicans to extend health insurance subsidies in Tucson town hall [Ignacio Ventura, 11/15/25]
AZ Luminaria: Gallego in Tucson to hear concerns over ‘broken’ health care system as rising costs loom for Arizonans[Stephanie Casanova, 11/15/25]
Tucson Agenda: Going where Ciscomani won’t[Joe Ferguson and Curt Prendergast, 11/17/25]
13 News (Tucson, AZ)
Earlier in the day, Senator Gallego presented a local Iraq and Afghanistan veteran with a car donated through Wells Fargo’s partnership with the Military Warriors Support Foundation’s Transportation4Heroes program, which provides vehicles and financial mentoring to combat-wounded veterans and Gold Star families to help them rebuild stability and independence.
Univision AZ:
Reportera: “Gallego habló sobre la importancia de vehículos para los veteranos, ya que en varias ocasiones la salud depende del transporte disponible.”
Gallego: “Eso es muy importante porque hay muchos veteranos cuando regresan en la guerra que necesitan transportación y muchas veces la razón es que estos veteranos tienen problemas que no pueden ir a sus apuntos con doctores, no pueden ir al trabajo, no pueden ir a la iglesia porque no tienen un coche para hacer es un año muy difícil para los veteranos, pero es cosas como aquí que estamos haciendo que podamos probablemente podemos arregar un poquito lo que está ocurriendo en sus vidas.”
While in the Valley, the Senator sat down with local radio stations La Tricolor 103.5 and Fuego 106.7 to talk about what it means to be Arizona’s first Latino U.S. Senator.
Fuego 106.7 FM “Rico on Your Radio”
Rico: “Let’s go back in time and what would you tell 13-year-old little Ruben?”
Gallego: “Keep believing in yourself. I mean, I think at 13 I had already decided that I’m going to go to college. […] I remember sitting down and really like rationalizing, thinking to myself like you know what? The next four years are going to matter and either I can choose to not believe in myself or I could believe in myself, work hard for four years and just change the whole trajectory of my life and my family’s life. […] None of that would have mattered if I didn’t believe in myself first, and it really made a big difference.”
La Tricolor 103.5 FM “El Recalentado Show con El Ruffian”
Ruffian: “Es muy difícil dejarte tú a un lado y representar, salvar y cuidar a mucha gente. Eso hay que respetarlo y hay que valorarlo muchísimo.”
Gallego: “También y tenemos que reconocer que casi 30% del ejército son latinos. Las personas que están protegiendo este país son los latinos, y es algo que tiene dignidad y es algo que es importante para este país. Tenemos que darles ese reconocimiento que se merecen.”
11/17/25