Monday, April 7 — U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., who represents the 8th District of Northern Virginia that includes the City of Falls Church, today responded to an hour’s worth of questions from constituents in a telephone town hall. The back-and-forth was laced with dire concerns for what the Trump administration is doing to the nation on a wide range of fronts, including on the 100,000 federal workers who reside in his district.
Beyer said that the most important issue before Congress this week, ahead of its leaving for two weeks, is a vote on the budget framework that has been put forward which will transfer trillions of dollars from the lowest to the highest income earners in America, including $7 trillion in tax cuts for the rich, while proposing to cut $800 billion from Medicaid and huge amounts from other vital services.
Beyer announced that were will be a jobs fair on May 3 at the George Washington Middle School in Alexandria with participation from the governments and Chambers of Commerce from Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church and Fairfax.
“President Trump sees the world as a zero sum game, where in order for someone to win, someone has tose,” Beyer said. “His idea of the art of the deal is about being able to rip off the other guy.” Beyer described Trump as “a sociopath and a narcissist.”
Beyer cited the projection that as a result of the shutting down of the USAID, 1.5 million will die in poor regions of the world from starvation and disease. “The idea of the United States as a shining city on a hill, of a beacon of hope for the world has been destroyed,” he said.
He assailed the ICE “disappearing of people” illegally, Trump’s tariffs as being a tax on imports that business pass onto consumers amounting to the biggest peacetime tax on Americans in history averaging $4,000 per family, the 10% nosedive in the stock market, the threat to Social Security, the danger to U.S. servicemen from the Signal scandal, the destructive foreign policy effects of Vance’s recent trips to Europe and Greenland, and the dramatic decline in plans to hire and invest by U.S. businesses, according to national polls.
“But we are not powerless,” he added, citing the estimated 5 million who showed up at protest rallies in hundreds of communities all across the U.S. last Saturday. Things will begin to change as public sentiment moves away from Trump and conditions will compel saner Republicans to shift out of necessity away from Trump, he said. “Above all,” he told those on the call, all of whom asking questions being critical of Trump, “be strong and courageous.”
