Key takeaways from CNN’s town hall with battleground members of Congress

CNN

By Eric Bradner, Arit John and Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — Four House members from competitive districts — two Republicans and two Democrats — offered a preview of congressional budget battles and the midterm election season to come in a Thursday night CNN town hall.

Republicans Mike Lawler of New York and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania and Democrats Jahana Hayes of Connecticut and Derek Tran of California fielded questions from voters during the event moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Jake Tapper. For 90 minutes, they debated President Donald Trump’s universal tariffs, immigration crackdown, spending cuts, the future of the Department of Education and more.

The lawmakers were not fully in lockstep with their parties.

Mackenzie said the budget-slashing, Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has at times moved “too fast, too quickly.”

Lawler said he agreed with the Supreme Court that Trump’s administration should “facilitate” the return of a mistakenly deported Maryland man, adding: “He should be returned and obviously they should follow the law there.”

They also weren’t, however, sprinting toward the middle ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Asked about due process concerns for migrants being deported by Trump’s administration, Hayes, who was one of 46 House Democrats to vote for the Laken Riley Act, a GOP-led bill to require detention of undocumented migrants charged with certain crimes, said she regrets her vote.

“As I’ve thought about it over the last couple months, I probably would have voted differently. It’s a vote that I regret,” she said.

The four House members all represent competitive districts.

Lawler notched the biggest upset of 2022 when he ousted Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney — an embarrassing loss for Democrats because of Maloney’s role as chairman of the party’s House campaign arm. Lawler won reelection last year at the same time Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won his district.

Mackenzie is a freshman Republican who beat Rep. Susan Wild in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley on an immigration-heavy platform. Trump won his district.

Tran, a freshman Democrat, defeated Rep. Michelle Steel in a perennial battleground Orange County district last year. Hayes, who represents northwestern Connecticut, first won her seat in 2018. Harris won both of their districts, though Hayes fended off a tough GOP challenge in the last two cycles.

Here are four takeaways from the CNN town hall:

Democrats tread lightly on tariffs

While most Democrats have blasted Trump’s tariff policies, Tran and Hayes were among a small group of Democrats who have offered more nuanced critiques of the president’s approach. The pair said that tariffs can be a good tool, but not the way they have been deployed by the current administration.

“I believe that tariffs can be a good thing that we can use to balance trade, but when we’re seeing tariff use haphazardly, recklessly and causing our market to free fall, that’s an issue for me,” Tran said.

Hayes also stopped short of condemning tariffs broadly, and agreed with Tran that tariffs “could be a good thing.”

“If this was a tariff specifically at one industry, in order to boost jobs and increase sales in this country, that would be one thing,” Hayes said. “But we’ve seen tariffs across the board that have been unpredictable and chaotic.”

The Connecticut lawmaker also said she supports efforts in Congress to force a vote to curb Trump’s tariff authority, and criticized Republicans who she said were unwilling to seek clarity from the president on his strategy.

The trade discussion started with a question to Mackenzie from a car dealer in his district. The Pennsylvania lawmaker defended the president’s plan.

“We are facing significant trade barriers all around the world, and so when our automakers try to go out and send their cars overseas, they’re facing barriers that are not being faced when foreign companies are shipping their cars into our community,” Mackenzie said.

Lawler also echoed Mackenzie’s defense of the tariffs and “leveling the playing field” on trade.

Tempers flare over Musk and DOGE

Democrats have already made clear that they will seek to tie vulnerable House Republicans to Musk, the Tesla billionaire and DOGE head. Republicans’ loss in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race this month, despite Musk spending millions to boost the conservative candidate, only solidified that plan.

Republicans, meanwhile, have argued that while DOGE has made mistakes, Democrats are not serious about cutting waste and fraud in the federal government.

Those two lines of attack were on display at the town hall during a heated back-and-forth between Lawler and Hayes. As Hayes criticized DOGE, Lawler interrupted her multiple times to ask if she agreed with efforts to cut any of the alleged waste DOGE claims to have identified.

“Mr. Lawler, can you please let me finish my conversation?” Hayes said.

“You’ve been talking for three minutes,” he said.

“And I’m going to finish,” she said, before saying that she supported efforts to uncover unemployment fraud.

Moments later, as Lawler said that “career employees of each department” are working with DOGE to identify waste, Hayes repeated interjected “Who are they?” and asked if Lawler had a list of DOGE employees.

“I know you think this is like some big stunt,” Lawler said.

The exchange highlighted the difficult position in which House Republicans will find themselves next year. Both Lawler and Mackenzie pointed out actions DOGE had taken that they opposed.

Lawler said he and other New York members sought to reverse cuts to staff at the World Trade Center Health Fund. Mackenzie said he’d raised concerns about plans about changing service options at the Social Security Administration.

“There are many instances, and I’ve already spoken out publicly about this, when they move too fast and too quick on certain things,” Mackenzie said. “You have to be very careful in government when you’re making reforms.”

Tran, a veteran, said that his first bill introduced in Congress would force the administration to rehire veterans that were fired without cause by DOGE.

Hayes said that Congress should do more to “ease people’s level of discomfort” around DOGE.

“What we’re talking about is burning down the house instead of taking out the garbage,” she said of DOGE.

Education Department divide

Trump campaigned on a pledge to abolish the Department of Education and hand its work — and funding — off to states and other agencies.

That proposal sparked a debate Thursday night that revealed the stark differences between the parties.

Mackenzie said Republicans are “just talking about who is administering certain programs. No funding is going away.” He characterized Democrats as defending a status quo that is failing some students.

“We want more choice. We want more options. We want change,” he said.

But Hayes argued that the Department of Education “protects the civil rights of students” — including those with special needs — in ways states might not be able to replicate.

“The kids who will be the most hurt are the kids in poor and low-income communities, kids in tribal communities,” she said.

The Democratic congresswoman said the Trump administration has not laid out a detailed plan explaining how the education department could be eliminated and its work handled by other agencies.

Asked whether such a plan exists, Lawler said: “Until there’s actually a plan to discuss, it’s not happening.”

He said he agrees that the education department plays an important role in protecting students’ civil rights, aiding those with special needs, administering Pell Grants and more. But like Mackenzie, he argued the GOP is seeking to improve “results and performance.”

“We need to have a system that is actually focused on delivering results and focused on educating our children,” he said.

Fight to come on spending cuts previewed

The budget fight — including over possible cuts to Medicaid — that consumed the House floor this week spilled onto the CNN stage.

Both Hayes and Tran accused Capitol Hill Republicans of targeting programs like Medicaid and nutritional assistance with their $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

Hayes argued there is simply no way for the committee that oversees most federal health spending to cut $880 billion without touching Medicaid.

“There’s no other way to make these cuts,” Hayes said.

Lawler and Mackenzie are both suburban Northeastern Republicans who personally secured promises from House Speaker Mike Johnson on the floor earlier in the day before they agreed to advance the budget blueprint.

And they both said it makes no specific mention of Medicaid — yet.

“There is not one identifiable cut in the budget resolution,” Lawler said. “I’ve been very clear. I will not support cuts to eligible beneficiaries on Medicaid.”

Instead, he said GOP leaders are considering “work requirements for able-bodied adults” and “citizenship verification.”

Mackenzie stressed that if GOP leaders do not comply, he won’t support the final bill: “I reserve my right to vote yes or no on the final policy changes.”

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