Senator, thank you for taking my question. My name is Daria Richberg. I'm a senior vice commander of the Disable American Veterans in Bergenfield who chose them. And I'm not getting I'm married when I heard when I heard Donald Trump say that John McCain was a hero because it's captured without saving. And I don't understand why any veteran or any currently serving military person has anything to say about this person. Well, the amazing thing is 65% of veterans. Voted.
For him, I don't get it. And if that 65% had been flipped, we would have the first woman president. I think you are my guest to talk together. And every time I see a veteran in the street, every time I talk to any veterans, I try not to be political about it because like you said, it's not a right or left think it's a right or a wrong thing. And veterans should not be voting for this type of government that we have right now. So I'm asking for every citizen.
I know where you stand for veterans. I know where everybody here stands for veterans. I know where all American or most of America stands for veterans, but the people, the veterans, 65%, they're not hearing it. They're only hearing the rhetoric and the bullshit, excuse me, that they get that they get from right wing media. We have to get the message to those veterans. I said when I was talking to some of my veterans in my DNA group, I'm able to get through.
To that. So we need everyone to get, if you know a veteran, if you know a friend who knows the veteran, talk to them and ask them why they are not getting this message that they and we have to stop them from stunning ECA. I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. You earned that right. You earned your right from your. Service. Absolutely. Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Sir.
Thank you. And, and, and I'm going to say one thing because this is what I've noticed about New Jersey veterans is when I say thank you for your service to a man like you, it's not just your service. What what both of you about Veterans of New Jersey is they come home and they keep serving like you are. They keep serving other veterans. They keep volunteering in the community and they keep bleeding.
And so I'm going to mention this a lot, what he is doing with 80,000 layoffs in the VA with all the layoffs he's doing. And by the way, folks, New Jersey should notice, when I was mayor of my city, I cut the size of my government. It was difficult, but we, we didn't have the power to print money. We cut Newark's government size down 25%. We laid off one out of every four of our employees. We made a lot of our departments
a lot more efficient. I'm not saying that the federal government, God, the federal government needs to be more efficient and more effective, but the way that Elon Musk is going about this dashing, he's like, he's like ready fire. And maybe I'll aim later. But the way he is eliminating entire agencies, divisions and through critical services that the majority of Americans, Republicans, Democrats really want is outrageous. And with no accountability, not one oversight hearing it is wrong.
So sterner, I'm going to fight for veterans who fought for me. I'm going to stand with people that fell for me everywhere possible, and this is the. Bad. This is the political advice I didn't take from my County Executive who said, Corey, stop it, stop. And he begged me to stop this because every time somebody from Bergenfield speaks, I'm still trying to to prosecute the fact that my last high school game I lost to Bergenfield and I'm upset about it. So I love you, Sir.
I love the town of Bergenfield. Except for the 1987 football team. We are better than that in all of the can. Go, go ahead. Also. Where are you, my friend? Back here? You're right.