Editors Note: U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley held a series of town halls in western Oregon over the weekend, some of which included U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle. Merkley held events in Eugene, Newport, Philomath, Albany and Salem. This story is from Merkley's Lincoln County Town Hall, which was held Saturday in Newport. The story was originally published on YachatsNews.com and is used with permission.
As the crowd filtered into the commons area of Oregon Coast Community College for a political town hall Saturday, President Donald Trump was announcing tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China.
As the audience of 450 waited for two Oregon Democrats — Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Val Hoyle – to begin an hourlong Q-and-A, the Trump administration was sealing a deal to deport thousands of immigrants back to Venezuela.
And as Merkley and Hoyle answered questions – each one about Trump’s first two weeks in office — Elon Musk’s deputies were combing through a sensitive Treasury Department computer system responsible for trillions of dollars in U.S. government payments.
The three-term senator and two-term congressmember did not hold back their opinions Saturday about the Trump administration, using words like “Facist” and “Imperial Presidency” to a mostly gray-haired audience and local government officials worried about federal jobs, grants, immigration and the impact of Trump’s executive orders on everything from schools to research labs.
“Do not crawl under your couch in a fetal position,” Merkley implored as a reaction to the torrent of Trump administration edicts and orders. “We can’t be so cynical, so exhausted that we give up.”
The town hall at Oregon Coast Community College was the first of three Merkley and Hoyle conducted Saturday in Newport, Philomath and Albany. The Philomath event drew 500 people, according to Philomath News. Merkley held two more town halls Sunday in Salem and Eugene.
The turnout in Newport was the largest of any congressional town hall that anyone could remember and filled the college’s Commons area to overflowing. But it was hardly a surprise that so many people turned out to a meeting organized by two progressive Democrats. Lincoln County’s population is heavily influenced by retirees and is the rare rural coastal county where voters have favored Democrats running for president for the last seven general elections dating back to 2000.
In an interview with YachatsNews before the town hall, Merkley and Hoyle said the stark differences in Trump’s second term were evidenced in his inauguration speech.
“What was clear was the difference in tone,” Merkley said. “There was no talk of working with Congress to implement his agenda. It was all about his presidency and executive orders … and it has been a fire hose of orders since.”
In the interview and again during the town hall, Merkley, the senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, targeted Trump’s nomination of Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget – even spelling out the nominee’s last name so people could look him up.
The OMB was the agency that last week ordered the sweeping freeze of federal assistance, followed by the whiplash two days later rescinding the order.
Merkley said Vought visited his office before his first confirmation hearing Jan. 22 to declare that the administration “can do whatever it wants” via executive orders and acknowledged that it would eventually take the Supreme Court to decide many of them.
“They’re all scary,” Merkley said. “But the scariest of all is Russell Vought.”
Hoyle told YachatsNews that there are moderate Republicans in the House who oppose some of the Trump administration’s initial orders, but are threatened by primary re-election challenges if they cross the president or the billionaire Musk.
“They’ve been planning for four years to take over government and replace them with unqualified lackeys,” Hoyle said. “But that is by design. They want to break the government.”
Litany of objections
On specific topics, Merkley and Hoyle said:
- Oregon is a sanctuary state and local law enforcement agencies are prohibited from aiding potential immigration roundups by federal law enforcement agencies;
- The U.S. Transportation Department is proposing to only award grants to states which agree to cooperate on immigration arrests and a more puzzling order giving preference to communities with marriage and birthrates higher than the national average;
- Hoyle said the 2025 Oregon Legislature should consider holding back extra money to help fill monetary gaps if or when the federal government slows funds to the state, especially for education;
- Merkley objected to a House-passed measure that bans transgender girls and women from competing on school sports teams that match their gender identity, saying it should be an issue determined by individual states and their sports governing bodies. “Let’s get the federal government out of the exam room,” he said.
- The gap between the wealthy and middle class is growing, Merkley said, “…and each tax proposal that Trump puts forward will make it worse. The Trump tax cuts are the next big challenge.”
Hoyle said the next two years will be difficult for progressive Democrats and “blue” states like Oregon.
“We’re not in the majority,” she said of House Democrats. “There’s limited things we can do to impact the Trump administration. But the public will need to stand up and change the House in two years.”
On Saturday, both Merkley and Hoyle time and again urged people to fight back if they object to the Trump administration’s policies.
Hoyle said it was only the major public and local government pushback on the OMB’s freezing of federal grants last week that resulted in its reversal.
“They’re bypassing Congress in so many ways … but people pushed back,” she said. “The Trump administration lost their first major effort to take over the federal government. Your voice matters.”
Note: KLCC's Oregon on the Record spoke with Merkley prior to his Eugene town hall on Sunday. You can listen to the interview here.