Rep. Neal: “We’re going to need someone in that position to push back”
Hartford, CT — Reporting today in the Hartford Courant highlighted Congressional leaders’ firm support for Larson, including a newly announced endorsement from Rep. Richard Neal, who echoed what Hakeem Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, Brendan Boyle, Lauren Underwood, and more have said: Democrats in Congress cannot afford to lose John Larson.
Jeffries, Neal, Raskin, and Boyle all hold key leadership positions in the House that will put them on the front lines fighting Donald Trump’s corruption and attacks on democracy when Democrats take back the majority.
Their message in Connecticut’s First Congressional District is unified: if Democrats are to effectively fight back with the strength and energy needed to beat Trump in the next Congress, they need John Larson.
Key Excerpts from the Courant:
- The supporters include House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, who are well known among Washington insiders and have made trips to Hartford.
- The latest attendee was U.S. Rep. Richie Neal, who would become one of the most powerful members in Congress as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee if the Democrats take control in November. Neal came to the Irish American Home Society in Glastonbury, where about 100 people gathered to hear him.
- As two Irish-American Democrats with humble backgrounds, Larson and Neal have forged a strong bond on the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees taxation, tariffs, Social Security, Medicare and trade agreements, among others.
- The Congress, Neal said, will be facing tough battles ahead against President Donald J. Trump as previously approved cuts of $1 trillion in Medicaid over a decade will kick in after the mid-term elections in November. Democrats said that schedule was always the plan as the tax cuts from Trump’s July 2025 bill were enacted first, and the pain from the spending cuts would not be felt until after the mid-term elections.
- “I think John Larson has been a very effective member of the House of Representatives,” Neal said. “I’m saying we’re going to need someone in that position to push back.”
- Neal said that he was drawing the line on a key program that helps millions of Americans. “I’m not going to cut one dollar of Social Security. Period,” Neal told The Courant before his speech. “John’s not, either.”
- Neal talked about the history of Social Security and Medicare, saying they have become generational contracts that have kept millions of Americans out of poverty. “The reason that your mothers and fathers are not living in your attic are Social Security and Medicare,” Neal told the crowd. “It’s an earned benefit, and we’re not going to let it get away – thanks to John Larson.”
- Another guest at the Glastonbury event was… Jon Bauman, who is better known as “Bowzer” from the famed singing group Sha Na Na. A longtime supporter of Democrats, he campaigned for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016 and endorsed Barack Obama in 2008. On the issues, Bauman was a spokesman for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and has served as president of Social Security Works PAC, which supports candidates who favor expanding Social Security.
- “John Larson has a level of expertise that cannot be replaced,” Bauman told the Glastonbury crowd. “We need John Larson in Congress. This is not optional. … America needs Social Security, and Social Security needs John Larson.”