Laid off federal workers from Pa. brace for ‘awkward’ honor of attending Trump’s big speech
When Trump delivers his 9 p.m. speech he’ll be addressing members of Congress and dozens of workers who his government laid off
Three weeks ago Jessica Fair was walking the grounds of Valley Forge Historical Park as the park’s architect, planning how to protect the more-than 250-year-old buildings on site.
Tuesday night she’ll sit in the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives alongside dozens of fellow terminated federal employees when President Donald J. Trump gives an address to both chambers of Congress in a quasi-State of the Union, just six weeks since taking office.
“I’m the daughter of a public school teacher and a coal miner from Western Pennsylvania,” said Fair, U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan’s guest and a mother of three from Chester County. “Never in a million years did I imagine I’d be joining my congresswoman in D.C., but I’m doing my best to step outside of my comfort zone to tell my story to try to humanize what’s happening.”
Democrats, with little ammunition to fight against the president’s agenda and the rapid cuts he has made to the federal government, have been trying to show the harm caused to laid-off employees and their families and to Americans who could be impacted by cuts to services.
The Tuesday night address will feature that strategy on its biggest stage yet as Democrats try to turn public opinion against Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Presidential speeches have long provided an opportunity for members of Congress to make political statements — either in favor of the government in power or against it.
Tuesday’s speech will add a layer of intensity as people watch a speech given by the leader of the government that just laid them off.
“Awkward,” is how Jay “Smitty” Smith, who was fired last month from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the IRS, predicted that Tuesday night would feel watching Trump’s speech but being unable to speak about what happened to him.
“My wife will attest I sometimes have a problem keeping my mouth shut when I feel like I’m in the right and the other person is wrong,” said Smith, 50, of Havertown. “It’s human nature to want to say, ‘You messed up.’”
Smith retired from the Navy after 20 years and struggled to find a job that he enjoyed until the IRS position came along about nine months ago. A disabled veteran who said he has a bad back, bad knees, and PTSD, Smith enjoyed working with his coworkers to help people experiencing financial hardship or who were improperly charged by the government.
He worked across three teams and did the job of several people only to get an email telling him that his employment “wasn’t in the best interest of the public.”
“No one had a negative thing to say about me. Everybody loved me there. How am I not in the best interest of the public?” said Smith, who will attend the speech as a guest of U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon.
Meanwhile, expect several Pennsylvania Republicans to bring constituents who have benefited from Trump’s executive orders or early policy moves.
And Trump, who has made sweeping changes in just a month on the job, will likely tout the savings those cuts have generated alongside other policies like tariffs and border-security measures.
In a possible preview of what is to come in Trump’s speech, the White House on Monday announced that several major manufacturing projects would come to the U.S., including Honda’s decision to produce its next-generation Civic hybrid model in Indiana rather than Mexico and Apple’s announcement of a historic $500 billion investment that will create 20,000 new U.S.-based jobs.
The administration also announced that border crossings are down substantially.
‘These cuts are impacting real people’
In addition to the IRS, there will be former employees from the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture.
Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.) is bringing Rory Badger, a veteran who served in Iraq and a USDA staffer who was fired by the Trump administration in February as part of their mass layoffs.
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D., Del.) invited Laura Wallace, a laid-off probationary data and research analyst with the U.S. Office of Early Childhood Development. Her husband is a disabled veteran and a probationary employee at the Veterans Administration hospital in Philadelphia, which has the couple worried that his employment could also be at risk.
“We’re really nervous, right? That he could also be terminated, so he’s having to look for another job. And so the panic of, like ‘OK, we have two young kids, we have these bills, like, who’s going to carry the health insurance? What happens next?’” Wallace said.
Wallace, 37, was fired from her position at the Administration for Children and Families in the same month that she debuted a new system for states to report that they are using federal dollars to improve access to child care. She hopes that the presence of laid-off federal workers at Trump’s speech will humanize the impact of DOGE’s cuts.
“I never met anyone who joined the federal government because they wanted to get rich, right? No, they join, they take a federal job, because they’re so passionate about the work that they do,” Wallace said. “And so I hope they can see that these cuts are impacting real people and real families, and then the downward spiral of how it’s going to impact services in all aspects of everyone’s life in this country.”
How effective the Democrats have been at growing opposition to Trump’s reductions is difficult to ascertain. Overall, Musk’s DOGE efforts to slash the size of the federal government were supported by 59% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in February, including a third of Democratic Party voters.
But the same survey found that 58% of respondents were concerned about cuts impacting government programs like Social Security payments and college financial aid.
Some Democrats are focusing on program cuts to try to put a spotlight on concerns beyond employee layoffs. Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) is bringing a disability-rights activist and longtime Medicaid recipient, Kevin Nuñez, a New Jersey-based author and podcaster.
“Trump and Musk have shown they have no problem cutting vital funding that helps our most vulnerable succeed; with these cuts, the disabled community will be losing access to critical programs and lifelines,” Kim said in a release.
For U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, who represents Philadelphia, boycotting the speech is his way of making a statement.
“Congressman Evans feels that Trump hasn’t earned the honor of his presence, due to things like the illegal or legally questionable actions like mass firings and refusing to deliver federal funding already appropriated by law,” spokesperson Ben Turner said.
Who are Pa. Republicans bringing?
U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a freshman Republican from Pennsylvania, is bringing Don Williams, the father of Officer Eric Williams, who was murdered by an inmate at USP Canaan, a high security U.S. penitentiary in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Bresnahan is one of two Republicans who flipped House districts in Pennsylvania in November. The other, U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who represents the Lehigh Valley, is bringing Michael Wargo.
Wargo and his wife, Sarah, are Gold Star parents from Carbon County whose son took his life after a long struggle with PTSD. The couple has worked to increase awareness of mental health and support needed for veterans in Carbon County, which has the highest rate of veteran suicide of any county in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, whose districts begins east of Harrisburg and extends north to the New York border, is bringing Brian Kilmeade, a cohost of the Fox & Friends morning TV show on the Fox News cable channel, which has frequently featured Trump as a guest.