{"id":30777,"date":"2025-03-15T10:08:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T14:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=30777"},"modified":"2025-03-15T10:08:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T14:08:50","slug":"hundreds-protest-trump-musk-over-cuts-to-veterans-funding-staffing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=30777","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds protest Trump, Musk over cuts to Veterans’ funding, staffing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hundreds of local protestors came out Friday in West Chester to address cuts to the Veterans Administration by President Donald Trump. Image courtesy of Erica Deuso.<\/p><\/div>\n

Hundreds of local residents and elected official gathered Friday at the Historic West Chester courthouse to protest cuts to veterans\u2019 benefits and the slashing of thousands of jobs throughout the Veterans\u2019 Administration (VA).<\/p>\n

Local elected officials including State Rep. Paul Friel, Rep. Dan Williams, Rep. Kristine Howard, and Rep. Chris Pielli attended and spoke at the event, decrying job cuts to as many as 80,000 jobs in the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n

Pielli, a veteran, noted that the VA was already unstaffed and that cutting personnel will make things even worse, leading even longer wait times for health services.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, veterans are waiting an average of six to nine months for VA claims decisions,\u201d Pielli said. \u201cThat\u2019s too long. With these proposed job cuts, these wait times will increase to nearly a year or more. That\u2019s unacceptable. And DOGE has already gotten started. Since the start of the year, twenty-four hundred workers in the VA have been laid off, disrupting supply chains and backlogging medication requests by a full week. And that\u2019s just 3% of the staff they plan to fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon and Trump don\u2019t get it. We are not suckers and losers. This isn\u2019t a business. This isn\u2019t about profit margins. This is about people. True American patriots who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country, if necessary, who now need our help. As a U.S Army soldier, I swore to support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies\u00a0foreign and domestic. I made this pledge with my fellow veterans to the republic\u00a0for\u00a0which it stands, not to a king. Not to billionaires for their tax breaks and not to Russian dictators. As a PA state representative, I swear and pledge the same,” Pielli said.<\/p>\n

According to Erica Deuso, a candidate for Mayor of Downingtown, who also sent information and images to The Times<\/em> about the protest, noted that while veterans were the focus, there was broad opposition to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttendees carried signs not only advocating for veterans but also showing support for Ukraine, opposing Donald Trump, and expressing frustration with Elon Musk, whose influence over public discourse and international affairs continues to spark controversy,” she said in her submission to The Times<\/em>. “The mix of messaging underscored the intersection of democracy, global stability, and the well-being of those who serve.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of local residents and elected official gathered Friday at the Historic West Chester courthouse to protest cuts to veterans\u2019 benefits and the slashing of thousands of jobs throughout the Veterans\u2019 Administration (VA). Local elected officials including State Rep. Paul Friel, Rep. Dan Williams, Rep. Kristine Howard, and Rep. Chris Pielli attended and spoke at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11991,3738,11947,3162,11990,11988,11989,11987,1796],"class_list":["post-30777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cuts-protest","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-featured","tag-rep-chris-pielli","tag-rep-dan-williams","tag-rep-kristine-howard","tag-rep-paul-friel","tag-veterans-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30778,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30777\/revisions\/30778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}