Newly uncovered video shows Marie Gluesenkamp Perez telling voters that she's "going to war with the VA" after voting against veterans funding.
Worse, when pressed by a constituent about why she refused to fund the VA, MGP said that drafting legislation for veterans was a waste of her staff's time and "virtue signaling."
In response, Republican John Braun said, "Veterans make up 10% of our district. They deserve a representative who will fight for them, stand up for them, and make sure they have access to the services and support they’ve earned. Not someone who will stand down because their party isn’t in power."
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September 2, 2026
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), who voted against legislation funding the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2023, later told constituents she was “going to war with the VA” and was confronted by a voter over that funding vote in newly uncovered town hall videos obtained by KVI.
The footage is drawing new scrutiny to the southwest Washington Democrat’s record on veterans’ healthcare in a district where nearly 53,000 veterans reside, and as she faces Republican challenger John Braun, a retired Navy captain with 31 years of military service.
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In one of the videos, Gluesenkamp Perez declared she was “going to war with the VA.” In the other, a constituent pressed her to explain how she could say she opposed defunding the VA while voting against legislation providing VA funding.
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Asked whether she had proposed such a bill herself, Gluesenkamp Perez declined to continue the back-and-forth and said Democrats being in the House minority limited what legislation she could bring to the floor.
“I can propose every bill I want,” she said. “I can spend all my staff time getting perfect bills in a written form to the floor. But if I can’t, I can’t get them to the floor by myself.”
Gluesenkamp Perez then characterized drafting such legislation as a potential exercise in “virtue signaling.”
“I can spend staff time getting amendments to the floor, like accountability for the VA, or I can spend staff time virtue signaling the perfect bill,” she said.
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The Republican National Committee blasted Gluesenkamp Perez over the footage and her voting record.
“Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s fake rural act masks an incredible disdain for elderly veterans and a disturbing track record of voting to make life harder for our nation’s heroes,” RNC spokesman Nick Poche told KVI. “She becomes startlingly incoherent when asked why — because there are no answers that don’t reveal her far-left anti-military mindset.”
