Several veterans groups joined top Democrats in West Haven on Monday, protesting the Trump administration’s deep staffing cuts at the Veterans Administration.

The White House insists that the downsizing will save taxpayers billions in wasteful spending, but advocates said that vets could die waiting for critical services.

Connecticut’s Veterans Administration facilities serve more than 130,000 retired service members.

Some of them supported Trump but now feel betrayed.

“Figured that President Trump would, you know, help us out more,” said Richard Deso, a U.S. Navy veteran who worked on submarines in Groton. “But all of a sudden, you know, he just got in and then started taking stuff away from us.”

Deso and other vets are protesting plans to fire 80,000 workers – returning the VA to 2019 staffing levels – as part of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

In a March 4 memo, VA Chief of Staff Christopher Syrek called the cuts “a pragmatic and disciplined approach to identify and eliminate waste, reduce management and bureaucracy, reduce footprint and increase workforce efficiency.”

In Connecticut, approximately 4,000 people work for the Veterans Administration. Many are vets themselves.

The White House insists that it is not cutting benefits.

Instead, VA Secretary Doug Collins said the agency is slashing waste and saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

“There’s a lot that we’ve gotten done,” Collins said in a video posted to X last week. “We’re getting monies that were in wasted contracts – in things like PowerPoints and meeting notes and those kind of things – and we’re putting that money, hundreds of millions of dollars, back into community care.”

But veterans groups said that the VA was already understaffed before the DOGE cuts, especially with a flood of new claims for toxic burn pit exposure.

“Many veterans waited years to get their plans adjudicated – some dying in the process,” said Alison Weir, an Air Force vet who serves as executive director for the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center. “Providing health care, helping them find housing, assisting them with reconnecting to civilian life.”

In Congress, Democrats are threatening to hold up Trump’s nominees for the VA positions, but otherwise have limited options to stop the cuts.

They are hoping the administration caves to pressure from vets. Nearly 200 of them protested outside the West Haven VA Hospital last month.

“They're not numbers. They’re men and women who have families that they need to care about,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-New Haven), the top Democrat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Deso said that serving those who served their country should not be political.

“We’re paycheck-to-paycheck right now,” he said. “And if we are hurting as bad as we are – alright, you want to do these cuts? Take it out of your own pocket to put it in our pockets.”