House Democrats Start New ‘Veterans Caucus’ to Directly Respond to Trump

House Democrats have organized an official caucus of military veterans — who are Democrats.

Rep. Ted Lieu is co-chairing the Democratic Veterans Caucus with Reps. Pat Ryan and Chris Deluzio. As vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Lieu’s involvement also brings strong support from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the group said.
There are already a few congressional military veteran caucuses, like the For Country Caucus, that are bipartisan, as well as outside veterans groups that many members of this new caucus are a part of. But Lieu, a retired Air Force veteran, said those organizations aren’t standing up against President Donald Trump’s actions.

“You have a number of national security lapses that veterans get sick to our stomachs when we see it,” Lieu said. “It’s important, I think, for Democratic veterans to speak out and speak up as a caucus.”

Asked about the existing veterans groups, Lieu was direct: “Have you seen them do anything?”

Before these Democrats formalized their caucus, almost all of its now-members — a group of 18 Democratic veterans — came together and called for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s resignation over his use of Signal. They saw that as a sign that they might need to organize officially.

The For Country Caucus did not join that call, and most Republicans have been reticent to criticize the Trump administration’s actions, like staffing or contract cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs, policies at the Pentagon and the handling of highly sensitive information.

“I think from that, a lot of us were like, ‘Hey, actually — maybe unfortunately — we’re probably gonna have other similar, really tough things come at us,” Ryan said.
The group wants to focus on veterans affairs, national security and what they see as the “politicization” of the military, an accusation both parties have lodged against each other.

Ryan pointed to Trump’s graduation speech at the United States Military Academy as one of the most recent examples. West Point is in Ryan’s district and he is a graduate of the academy himself.“Donald Trump comes to a service academy graduation, which is a long-standing tradition of presidents coming not as partisans, but as the commander in chief,” Ryan said. “And comes out in a bright red MAGA hat and gives an incoherent, essentially campaign stump speech.”

Trump criticized former President Joe Biden, saying he “couldn’t get anybody to join our military,” warned against having a “trophy wife” and focused on how he won the election.

“We won all seven swing states, we won everything,” Trump said during the speech. “We have a great mandate, and it gives us the right to do what we want to do to make our country great again, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Ryan said the graduation speech was a challenging moment for him, as he decided if a rebuttal would only add fuel to the partisan fire.

“I actually had several military folks who I know, at the academy and otherwise, who, again, I don’t even know their partisan affiliation, were like, ‘Hey, that felt wrong to me,’” Ryan said.
He subsequently wrote an op-ed for his local news outlet in response.

The creation of the caucus comes at a time where Democrats are looking to highlight veterans on the campaign trail.

Over the next three years, VoteVets, a political action committee that backs all those in the Democratic Veterans Caucus, plans to spend a million dollars on recruiting efforts to build “a pipeline of the next generation of veteran and national-security-expert elected leaders.”

Those recruits will include military veterans who would likely immediately join the new caucus, swelling its numbers. In the 2024 election cycle alone, VoteVets spent nearly $30 million.

“It’s a powerful thing for us to organize as Democratic veterans on some of those issues where we can’t reach compromise, and nor should we,” Deluzio said. “We should fight for our values where we can.”

Of course, there’s always some irony in forming a partisan group to combat partisanship. Ryan openly recognized the dichotomy, saying he’d “wrestled with this a lot” over his past three years in Congress.“The current MAGA Republicans use incredibly political and divisive rhetoric about military issues,” he said. “If we don’t say anything in response to that, I actually think that is a failure to try to bring down the temperature.”
Though the new caucus’ leadership isn’t entirely critical of the bipartisan veterans organizations.

They said existing veterans groups have helped with “a narrow set of policy issues” that were “less overtly political.” The Democratic Veterans Caucus will be more willing to engage directly with the issues they see playing out because of the administration’s decisions.

“We have to understand that we’re in a different environment now,” Ryan said.

Deluzio recently went toe-to-toe with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins on clinical trials for cancer treatments that were halted in his Pennsylvania district.“The attacks on the VA are serious and can really, and may have already, cost veterans’ lives,” Deluzio said. “I have not seen bipartisan pushback in a public, real way there, and I think it’s important to hear from veterans as Democrats.”

Collins defended the changes in the agency and said members of Congress were pushing “false narratives that mislead the public.”

“I’m very invested in that bipartisan work. I think it’s important,” Deluzio said, pointing to his work on the National Defense Authorization Act as a key example. “But we still are going to have pretty profound partisan disagreements.”
VoteVets hired multiple staff in the past year to “support our partners on Capitol Hill in their legislative efforts on behalf of American veterans.”

And during Trump’s joint address to Congress in March, the organization brought in military veterans affected by the administration’s sweeping changes to the federal workforce. At a VoteVets event earlier that day, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Democrats should “make that part of our mission,” to elevate stories of veterans impacted by administration decisions.

That doesn’t mean always disagreeing with the administration, Lieu pointed out. There are actions Trump has taken on national security and veterans’ issues that the caucus sees itself as being able to support.

“A lot of folks made light of Trump’s whole Space Force thing, I commended him for it by name. It was a good idea,” Lieu said. “The Democratic Veterans Caucus are fine doing things that we believe, whatever action that is, that helps veterans or active duty or reservists.”

But if they plan on doing so much work together, then why did it take them this long to organize a caucus? There was just one hurdle, according to Lieu.

“Paperwork.”