Listening in

Medicaid for some, Ciscomani says. And DOGE screwed up, but in a good way.

It started as an innocuous email for several thousand people living in southern Arizona. Rep. Juan Ciscomani was going to hold a telephone town hall in a few minutes and you were invited to listen and ask questions.

We got invitations late, but more on that in a minute.

The Republican Congressman from Tucson spent an hour taking questions from locals on potential cuts to Medicaid, Elon Musk’s role in DOGE and how Congress is responding to the fast-paced changes by the Trump administration.

More than 4,000 people were on the call, according to Ciscomani’s office.

We don’t love these telephonic town hall formats because politicians hold all the cards. They decide which questions to answer (callers were asked to submit their questions in advance). They also decide how long they will spend on each question before moving on to the next one.

And it’s impossible to read the room. All you can hear is the Congressman more or less speaking for an hour.

It’s much better when they hold in-person town halls, where their constituents have complete control over what questions they ask and how to respond when a member of Congress doesn’t answer the question sufficiently.

Republican members of Congress, including Ciscomani, have shied away from that since protesters started flooding those events.

During Trump’s first term, then-Rep. Martha McSally started to use tele-town halls to communicate with constituents for similar reasons.

Having said that, Ciscomani didn’t shy away from the hard questions facing his sprawling district in Pima and Cochise counties on Wednesday.

Medicaid mess

Lately, the two-term Congressman has been hit hard on the issue of Medicaid.

He wrote a letter highlighting his support for the program a few weeks ago. Then he turned around and voted, along with the rest of the GOP in the House, to support a spending package that would cut $880 billion in programs overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which includes Medicaid.

We challenged him for that vote in this edition.

Yesterday, he voted for Trump’s budget bill, which includes that $880 billion cut.

It passed the House by a vote of 216-214 after two House Republicans joined Democrats voting against it.

Had Ciscomani voted against the bill, it would have failed.

Experts on federal funding say it would be virtually impossible to make $880 billion in spending cuts without touching Medicaid.

And it’s a big issue for his constituents. At least 136,000 people in Ciscomani’s district are on Medicaid.

At the telephone town hall, Ciscomani pooh-poohed the widespread criticism he took for his about-face on Medicaid, saying it was all a big misunderstanding.

“The assumption is that the $880 billion reduction in spending in the Energy and Commerce Committee is going to cut Medicaid. That's not the case, there are other areas we can make up for that,” he said.

Ciscomani went on to do absolutely nothing to clear up that confusion.

Instead, he said the cuts would come from somewhere else, without clarifying which programs would be on the chopping block.

Which isn’t to say Medicaid won’t face cuts — which Ciscomani apparently supports. He told the audience he wanted to make sure those who “deserve” Medicaid are receiving it.

See what we mean about telephone town halls not being a great format for talking to constituents? We’re as confused about his position on Medicaid funding as you probably are right now.

He said he supports a deep-dive into who is receiving benefits and weeding out individuals who do not need it.

“Again, I want to make sure that we protect (Medicaid). Because if we are giving it to that person that does not need or deserve the benefits, we're risking those that actually do need them. And if they do deserve the benefit, we're risking it for them by giving it to … an adult in their mid-30s with no kids and healthy to go work.”

During his telephone town hall, Ciscomani’s office used a recorded poll to ask if anyone on the call had recently lost their Medicaid benefits. Apparently they aren’t sure either.

“We want to know, do you receive Medicaid benefits? And if so, have you had difficulty recently accessing your benefits? Press 1 on your phone keypad for yes. Press 2 for no. You can press 3 if you're unsure or press 4 if you do not receive Medicaid benefits.”

Layoffs by any other name

During the call, Ciscomani tried to avoid using specific terms that highlight additional layoffs of federal workers, instead repeatedly using the term “streamline” when talking about potential cuts — including at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

“The VA itself is the second largest bureaucracy in the whole world in terms of size of personnel. Now, when we look at the streamlining of that, we want to make sure that we protect the health delivery from the nurse practitioners, the people that are in the suicide prevention line, the people that are delivering services to our veterans.”

But he said he supports laying off some bureaucrats working at the VA.

“There are 50 payroll offices within the VA. 50. Those are 50 different payroll office directors and everything that comes with that – that needs to be streamlined.”

“But there are also layers and layers of administration that are just sucking up a lot of the resources that are supposed to go to veterans. That's what we're looking for.”

A “rough weekend”

As for the tariffs that have roiled the global economy, the Republican congressman admitted he doesn’t have inside knowledge of the White House strategy.

But he told people on the call he supports President Donald Trump using tariffs to improve the American economy.

After Trump announced the tariffs on “Liberation Day,” trillions of dollars in wealth evaporated in the stock market last week. The stock market has bounced back since Trump pulled back some of those tariffs, but financial experts believe last week’s tariffs will have lasting economic consequences.

“He's very bold on the action, very fast on that. And this structure needed to be shaken in terms of tariffs to get the world's attention, not just one particular country's attention.”

Congressman Juan Ciscomani, President Trump and Laura Ciscomani

However, Ciscomani conceded "Liberation Day” did not work the way Trump had hoped, plunging the stock market into chaos last week and forcing Trump to agree to a 90-day “pause” on tariffs.

“But the bottom line now is that that was a rough weekend and I hope that we don't go through that again.”

Sending shock waves

He also spent a few minutes defending DOGE, but not necessarily Musk.

“Have mistakes been made? Yeah, they've admitted it. I can admit it as well and see where some people have been let go that were essential and critical. They've been hired back because of that.”

He didn’t give any specific examples.

But the Trump Administration was forced to hire back hundreds of federal employees tasked with safeguarding the nation’s nuclear weapons, DOGE was found to be double or triple counting the amount it “saved” by canceling contracts and firing federal employees, and had to walk back claims that the Biden administration spent $50 million on condoms for those living in Gaza.

Ciscomani said he still believes DOGE is a useful tool in identifying fraud in the federal government — despite acknowledging minutes earlier that DOGE has made several major mistakes in its brief existence as a federal agency.

“We need to put an end to it. And it needed something drastic, something that then sends shock waves like what we're seeing now. So that's the true mission of DOGE and what Elon Musk is doing.”

He did seem to imply Musk wouldn’t be working for DOGE or the Trump administration for much longer.

“I don't know how long he'll be there to do that,” he said.

At the end of the town hall, Ciscomani pledged he would do more telephonic town halls.

Saying hello

In the meantime, he said locals shouldn’t shy away from approaching him if they see him out in public.

Ciscomani told the crowd he does normal Dad stuff when he is back in the district, like dropping off his six kids at school, shopping for groceries and going to church.

“I mean, when I'm home, I'm out there. And I love talking to people. Many people approach me and they say, oh, I don't want to bother you. To have a quick question, like, you're never bothering me. Come up and ask a question. This is what your congressman does.”

The telephone town hall was a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t even mentioned in his newsletter to constituents sent out two days ago.

While this telephonic town hall was pretty much an “ask me anything” kind of moment for the Congressman, Ciscomani is under pressure from residents who want to do more and are holding massive weekly protests outside of his office in midtown Tucson.

Joe talked to a few people who were on the call, and they all said they got the notification a few minutes before it started.

A spokesperson from Ciscomani’s office said they invited reporters from the Arizona Republic, Arizona Daily Star, Sierra Vista Herald and several other publications.

We checked our inboxes and Curt got an email 18 minutes after the virtual town hall was supposed to start. Joe got his email 24 minutes after the 6 p.m. start time. Due to tech issues, the event started a few minutes late.

Hopefully, next time he’ll give everyone a little more warning. We’ll be sure to let you know about it, if we can.

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While we wait with bated breath for Ciscomani to hold an in-person event, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker is coming to town all the way from New Jersey for an in-person rally on Sunday.

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, who is expected to speak at the event, said Booker will help unite local Democrats.

"After another tumultuous and chaotic week in D.C., it's the perfect idea to gather on a Sunday evening,” Conover said. “Senator Booker invites us to be together in community and to recognize our power together, rather than spending the evening perhaps in isolation and worry. I can't wait to join him in this mission."

Those interested in the “People's Town Hall” can sign up here.

Don’t forget to take advantage of the last day of our “Trump tariff” sale and get a discount on a paid subscription to the Tucson Agenda!

While you’re at it, check out all the great reporting we put out in the last few days:

This week’s Education Agenda took a close look at the ongoing crusade against DEI in Arizona, and the man with a plan behind it all.

The AI Agenda played around in the “sandboxes” that Arizona officials created for tech companies to test their new, often weird, products.

The Water Agenda dove into all the water that new, high-powered data centers are using in Arizona.

And the Arizona Agenda made sense of all the lawsuits Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed, or joined, against the Trump administration.