Video: Joe G., BlueSky
On June 25, 2025, about 30 members of the disability rights organization American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) went to the U.S. Capitol to protest the massive cuts to Medicaid in Trump’s One Big, Terrible Bill, and were arrested and had their hands zip tied by Capitol Police. The Republicans’ Big Horrible budget bill would gut Medicaid in order to preserve tax breaks for the wealthiest people in the country. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill will add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next ten years. Popular Democracy in Action, Service Employees International Union and Planned Parenthood for America reportedly helped organize the protest, according to Newsweek.
The Big, Horrible Bill will slash an estimated $863 billion from Medicaid, stripping health care coverage away from nearly 10 million low income, elderly and disabled Americans, cut food assistance (SNAP) benefits, gut essential services for elderly and disabled people and mandate work requirements and stricter eligibility rules for coverage, all to preserve tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest citizens and corporations.
Ironically, on June 24, 2025, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a resolution that passed the Senate the same day designating June 15, 2025, as “World Elder Abuse Awareness Day” and June, 2025 as “Elder Abuse Awareness Month.”
(Screen shots taken from Scripps News video)
By contrast, Republicans called Trump’s January 6, 2021 insurrection, riot and attack on the U.S. Capitol “legitimate political discourse.”
Of course they zip-tied disabled and elderly protestors, to this administration these people are expendable. The cruelty is the point.
PS. It’s ironic that the capital police are now being painted as elder abusers when on January 6, 2021, they were hailed as selfless heroes.
Why does it not surprise me that you can’t see any difference between the two situations?
I thought that no one is above the law. Whoever organized this protest knew the rules about protesting in the Senate building and knew this would be fantastic photo-op because everyone knows Trump is a NAZI.
“A spokesperson for the Capitol Police told Newsweek: “We always restrain people’s hands when they are under arrest for everyone’s safety. We don’t deviate from that best practice because of someone’s age, gender, disability or any other characteristics. The way to avoid the flex cuffs is to listen to our officers multiple warnings to not break the law and to lawfully demonstrate in the numerous areas of Capitol Grounds where First Amendment activity is permitted.”