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.”

The comments came at a press conference held in East Hartford, Connecticut on Monday.

“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.”

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The 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.

Trump said the DEA money represented “woke handouts based on race.”

Blumenthal urged Republican senators to push back against Trump’s cuts.

“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…”

The 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.”

He vowed to continue fighting to restore funding to the DEA.

“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.”

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