See below for video and photos from Rep. Suhas Subramanyam’s town hall last night at John Champe High School in Aldie (Loudoun County). According to Rep. Subramanyam, speaking MSNBC this morning (see video, below):
“There’s still federal workers who are losing their jobs. That’s a big issue. State Department’s most recent one. But you know, I wanted to talk about this bill because a lot of people, including well-informed people that watch your show, and a lot of people don’t know what’s in this bill. I mean, they know about the Medicaid cuts and the wealth transfer and cuts to SNAP benefits. They don’t know that this is going to make it harder to get and pay off student loans, for instance. It won’t let you directly file with the IRS anymore. I mean, even in Virginia, they’re taking away our space shuttle from the Smithsonian and sending it to Texas. Because that’s what the Texas senators wanted to do at hundreds of millions of dollars of cost to taxpayers.
So there’s so many things in this bill that are hurting Americans that they don’t even know about. And, you know, the President is so good at distracting people by going to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ and doing all these stunts. But even just the small provisions are going to have a huge impact on people. So I just wanted to have that conversation…
…So this is going to affect every single American in different ways. And there’s so many other provisions in this bill that I can just name any person at that townhall and just say, this is going to hurt you, this is going to hurt you. And so there’s something for everyone to hate. Even folks who came in like that woman saying, well, this doesn’t actually impact me, but I’m worried about my neighbor. I think connecting that for people is important.
You know, what was interesting last night is two things I heard over and over again. One, where’s the leadership in the Democratic Party? And what I told people was, don’t wait for a white knight to come save us. everyone needs to be a leader right now. Every member of Congress needs to be a leader. The people we represent need to help us and step up themselves and speak out. And so we shouldn’t be waiting for a white knight to come save us all. And so that’s really important in this moment right now.
And the second thing is, when we’re talking about messaging, I mean, one of the things I saw was that among the Democratic Party, we had 20 different names for this bill, right? They had one name, the One Big Beautiful Bill. And I saw my colleagues calling it different things. And so having a united message is important. And then sharing what’s in this bill and why it’s going to hurt people is so important. But we need to do that more effectively. And I think that’s what the American people want right now, because they don’t like what’s in it when they learn.”
