Hamadeh talks a lot about the military, says almost nada about VA cuts

Two months into his first term, freshman U.S. Rep. Abe Hamadeh has painted himself as a big supporter of the military and veterans.

An Army reserve intelligence officer, Hamadeh is one of two Arizona Republicans who sits on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. (Tucson Rep. Juan Ciscomani is the other.) Hamadeh’s social media account is filled with clips of him questioning experts appearing before the committee, pigeonholing them on esoteric subjects to do with the services veterans receive.

He's also posted a hype video of Hamadeh riding in an F-16 at Luke Air Force Base on Feb. 18. That joyride cost taxpayers nearly $41,000, though base spokesperson Maj. Christopher Herbert said Hamadeh joined an “already scheduled mission.”

Between the rip-roaring, not-technically-a-campaign video and the deep-dive questions during committee hearings, Hamadeh is cultivating an impression that he is all about the military and veterans. Unless, it seems, the subject at hand is the devastating cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Empowered by President Donald Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have laid off an estimated 3,000 VA employees. Additionally, roughly 6,000 veterans who worked in the federal government have lost their jobs. The VA also planned to cancel $2 billion in contracts, including for cancer care, disability assessments and support for the PACT Act, which addresses toxic exposures. Those cuts were put on pause after backlash.

Just as with efforts to curtail birthright citizenship — which Hamadeh himself enjoys — the new congressman has avoided commenting on that two-ton elephant in the room. (Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, both veterans and Democrats, have loudly decried the VA cuts.) When he has addressed the cuts, Hamadeh has downplayed their effects and gotten the facts wrong.

"As I sit here time and time again, I see my colleagues on the other side always seeming to protect the bureaucracy,” Hamadeh said during a committee hearing on Feb. 25. “I want to remind everybody that the VA employs over 400,000 employees — what we're talking about is 1,400."

At the time, the actual number of job cuts at the agency was 2,400 since 1,000 had been laid off weeks before. It has since grown further.

Spokespersons for Hamadeh did not respond to a request for comment. But Valley veteran Ben Jeffrey isn’t buying Hamadeh’s avowed commitment to improving the lives of those who have served their country.

Jeffrey is a Navy veteran who served two combat deployments in Iraq. He has used the VA’s services, both for himself and as he works to find shelter for unhoused people in the Valley. To him, Hamadeh’s apparent side-stepping of the VA cuts reeks of Trump appeasement.

“What he’s doing is he’s staying loyal to the party, and the conservative agenda is so extreme that Abe’s not going to have any time to do anything except run away from the hard questions,” Jeffrey said. “He’s gonna be going, ‘I stand with Trump. It’s going to work out in the long run, it’s fine, it’s not that big of a deal, it’s not going to get worse,’ as it gets worse every day.”

‘Something’s gotta give’

Rather than raising questions about how the cuts will impact veterans, Hamadeh has used his time in committee hearings to ask more arcane questions. In one hearing, he asked how to “ensure bureaucrats can't arbitrarily deny veterans their right to seek community care,” a privatized service the VA allows veterans to seek if they can’t get an appointment within 30 days.

Jeffrey supports community care initiatives. However, he emphasized that the VA needs to ensure veterans get adequate services from private facilities, which requires the involvement of bureaucrats the VA is cutting.

“The only way it will work is if they provide proper VA oversight,” Jeffrey said.

Jeffrey isn’t the only Valley vet concerned with the VA’s cuts, though others haven’t called out Hamadeh directly. Randy Reese, executive director for Disabled American Veterans, said in a statement that there needs to be “greater transparency” around the VA cuts.

“The recent VA workforce cuts are deeply concerning, especially given the unprecedented lack of transparency surrounding these decisions,” Reese said. “Veterans and their families deserve clear answers on how these reductions will impact their care and benefits.”

Arizona Department of Veterans Services Commissioner Chuck Byers is a decorated Vietnam veteran and national legislative director of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. He’s a Trump supporter, though the Trump administration’s cuts to veterans’ services leave him concerned.

“They’re saying, ‘We gotta cut these, we gotta cut that.’ We’ve paid our price and I’m all for cutting out the fat and misuse,” Byers told Phoenix New Times, ”but don’t take it off the back of the veterans.”

The layoffs don’t make much sense since the VA is short-staffed, Byers noted. Cutting some of the departments already inadequate resources will have consequences, and Byers said he’ll be paying close attention to data on wait times and deaths to get a sense of how the cuts are affecting care.

“We have to keep a watchful eye and make sure we keep close to the VA with this,” he said, “because if you’re already short-staffed and you’re starting to lay off people, something’s gotta give.”

For Jeffrey, the veteran job cuts — at the VA but also many other agencies in the federal government — are just as concerning. He said for many veterans, working in the federal government is “a continuation of their service to the nation.” Kicking them to the curb deprives them of “not only their jobs but also their sense of purpose and identity.”

“All of a sudden, you’re going to get suicide, homelessness, homes are going to be wrecked. It’s a ripple effect,” Jeffrey said. “I think we’re going to be hearing about it, seeing it and feeling it for the next year or two, if not for many years.”

Jeffrey is a political independent, neither a MAGA cheerleader nor a dyed-blue Democrat. From that vantage point, he foresees that the Trump administration’s moves to take resources and jobs from veterans — and the silent complicity of Republicans in Congress, including Hamadeh — will backfire on the GOP.

“All my Republican colleagues are extremely concerned,” Jeffrey said. “I’m sitting here and going, ‘Now you MAGA idiots are about to fuck around and find out.’”