Sen. Markey rails against federal orders, workforce cuts at Malden Town Hall meeting

Thousands pack Malden High School for first event of its kind in this area

By Steve Freker

Ed Markey did not mince words at the Town Hall he hosted in his hometown on Saturday, when describing his discontent with the series of budget and workforce cuts emanating from the White House.

“They’re bringing out the Malden in me,” the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts— and proud son of Malden, Mass.— railed from the stage of the Jenkins Auditorium in Malden High School.

Over 2,500 attendees were estimated as Saturday’s event, with over 1,500 stuffed into the capacity-full Jenkins and another 1,000 in the overflow school cafeterias inside the school.

There was not a parking space to be found in probably a mile radius of the Town Hall site, which had a large law enforcement presence of Malden, State and Capitol Police on hand. In addition to the decidedly pro-Markey crowd were some feisty protestors representing both sides of the political spectrum.

There were those supporting the progressive agenda put forth by Democrat Senator Markey as well as those backing the platforms and directives of Republican U.S. President Donald J. Trump. The protestors went back-and-forth loudly and vocally outside on Salem Street, in front of the high school, while the event took place inside.

While Senator Markey, who grew up in Malden’s Edgeworth neighborhood on Townsend Street— still maintaining the family homestead as a residence there— spent most of his two-hour-plus stop in the Jenkins Auditorium, he did take time to visit those in the “overflow” areas in the school’s cafeterias.

Most of Markey’s time at the Town Hall was spent addressing what he said was “the ground-level impact of the massive federal funding and staffing cuts” pursued by President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk.

Repeating a familiar Democratic criticism, Markey said Trump and Musk were “usurping Congress’ power of the purse,” which is enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.
“So we don’t know how this [ultimately] is going to play out, but I do know this, that we’re going to need to litigate [and] go to the courts,” he said, “and [Massachusetts] Attorney General Andrea Campbell is doing that for our state, joined by attorneys general [in other states] … joined with … public interest groups all across the country. That is absolutely essential.”
Senator Markey said he would be “one of the many leading the charge in Congress” and “on the floor of the House and Senate. We have to fight hard. We have to block, we have to block, block, block, block.”
Markey opened the town hall with a panel of advocates who addressed, in turn, the home state impact of Trump’s health care, education, and environmental policies.
“DOGE,” Markey said tongue in cheek, really stands for “Department of Gutting Everything.”
Markey also pointed to looming cuts at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which is set to get rid of as many as 80,000 workers.
“We are not going to allow him to dismantle a system which is put in place in order to give the protections for those people,” Markey said.
Markey ended Saturday’s event by encouraging the crowd to speak out to their elected officials, even as he promised to lead the charge in Washington.

“The fight for this country right now is the fight for working-class Malden, and it is the fight for all of Massachusetts. Because Donald Trump is targeting us – our economy, our workers, our way of life – with his executive orders, closures, and illegal funding freezes and firings,”

Sen. Markey said. “That’s why in the courtrooms, in the halls of Congress, in boardrooms, at the ballot box, and on the streets, we need to make our voices heard and stand up to unconstitutional power grabs.”