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  "description": "Calls cuts ‘mean-spirited and stupid’",
  "path": "/sen-blumenthal-attacks-cuts-to-dea/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-06-18T17:16:43.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "_Digital Equity Act_",
    "_at a press conference_",
    "All Videos from Speeding BEAD Summit",
    "_rescind $2.75 billion in funding for the DEA program_",
    "_for things such as “digital navigation pilots.”_",
    "_Several elected officials_",
    "_pushed back_"
  ],
  "textContent": "June 18, 2025 – Sen. **Richard Blumenthal** , D-Conn., attacked President **Donald Trump’s** cuts to the _Digital Equity Act_, calling such cuts “mean-spirited and stupid.”\n\nThe comments came _at a press conference_ held in East Hartford, Connecticut on Monday.\n\n“There will be a day when we look back to cuts in funding and say ‘you know that was probably the most mean-spirited and stupid thing that a government has ever done,’” Blumenthal said. “Mean-spirited because it’s just plain cruel to the people who are denied access, but also stupid because we want people to be trained and become part of the workforce. We want people to be healthy.”\n\n\n\n_****FROM SPEEDING BEAD SUMMIT****_\n _****Panel 1: How Are States Thinking About Reasonable Costs Now?****_\n_****Panel 2: Finding the State Versus Federal Balance in BEAD****_\n _****Panel 3: Reacting to the New BEAD NOFO Guidance****_\n _****Panel 4: Building, Maintaining and Adopting Digital Workforce Skills****_\n\n All Videos from Speeding BEAD Summit \n\nThe Monday press conference came in response to the Trump administration’s May decision to _rescind $2.75 billion in funding for the DEA program_, including $9 million that Connecticut was slotted to receive _for things such as “digital navigation pilots.”_ _Several elected officials_ have _pushed back_ against the cuts, arguing that the program is essential to closing the digital divide.\n\n**Trump** said the DEA money represented “woke handouts based on race.”\n\nBlumenthal urged Republican senators to push back against Trump’s cuts.\n\n“This kind of cruel, dumb action affects red states and blue states alike,” Blumenthal said. “My Republican colleagues have to recognize they have a stake in this issue. Their constituents have a stake equal or perhaps even greater than ours because their state governments aren’t going to be the insightful and compassionate state governments that we have here in Connecticut…”\n\nThe Senator also stressed that Republican support would be needed to reverse the cuts, saying that “we need them because we’re not going to get these cuts reversed without them.”\n\nHe vowed to continue fighting to restore funding to the DEA.\n\n“We are going to be fighting. We’re not taking this termination with surrender. We’re not gonna just lie down and let it go,” he said. He later reiterated that “we are going to fight and hopefully have Republicans in the United States Senate as our allies.”",
  "title": "Sen. Blumenthal Attacks Cuts to DEA",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-11T03:27:47.518Z"
}