Veterans, farm groups slam Trump cuts at Democrat-run Arizona town hall

By Andrew Hay

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona farm groups and veterans brought together by Democratic attorneys general lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump's federal cuts, saying the president was ignoring judges who blocked his executive orders and harming former service members.

They spoke at a sometimes raucous town hall on Wednesday night organized by the country's 23 Democratic attorneys general, who have filed lawsuits to ask judges to block a string of Trump executive orders, including his suspension of trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and financial support.

With Democrats in the minority in both houses of Congress, and Democratic governors wary of crossing Trump, the attorneys general have emerged as an active opposition group.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, and counterparts from New Mexico, Oregon and Minnesota were greeted with cheers as they took the stage at a Phoenix high school auditorium, the same day Reuters and others reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs was planning to cut over 80,000 jobs.

The reception contrasted with anger some Republican lawmakers have found during town halls in their home districts since the Trump administration began cutting federal jobs and spending.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Democrats and activist groups were responsible for disrupting the town halls and were doing it "for the camera," without providing evidence.

Elyse Guidas, head of Activate Food Arizona, a non-profit which sells produce from small farmers, said federal grants her suppliers rely on had been terminated, despite the judicial block on Trump's funding freeze.

"In the last 12 hours two of our direct suppliers have told me that their businesses will go under if these freezes aren't lifted," she said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which provides the grants, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

To boos and jeers from an audience of around 400 people at the Phoenix meeting, U.S. Air Force veteran and federal worker Tim Cox held up a section of the Project 2025 plan he said Trump and billionaire Elon Musk were using to slash the federal bureaucracy. Project 2025 is a series of detailed policy proposals, some of which have appeared in Trump's early actions in power and some of which he has gone beyond.

"In less than two months this administration has proved itself to be the most anti-veteran administration," said Cox, who expects to be laid off from his job ensuring federal contractors follow non-discrimination laws when hiring.

A Reuters poll this week showed 59% of Americans supported the idea of downsizing the federal government, although only 40% backed the mass layoffs of civil servants.

Wednesday's gathering in Phoenix was the first in a series of town halls planned by the attorneys general, the top law enforcement officials in their states, who meet each day on Zoom and spent over a year planning legal resistance to a possible second Trump administration.

Filing multistate lawsuits, they have also temporarily blocked the president's order to curtail birthright citizenship and prevented Musk's downsizing team from accessing sensitive Treasury data. They have around four more cases working through the courts.

Mayes said on Wednesday that the attorneys general could also launch a lawsuit against mass firings this week.

"The federal firings situation is completely out of control, and we're working on it," she said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said Trump's executive orders are lawful, constitutional and the will of voters. In a February 12 briefing she said efforts to block them marked the ongoing "weaponization of justice" against Trump by judges who are "judicial activists."

Mayes said the attorneys general were "thinking through and gaming out" the possibility Trump might not abide by likely Supreme Court rulings on his blocked executive orders.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay; editing by Donna Bryson and Rosalba O'Brien)