Politics
3 key Democrats still undecided on ENDA
Republicans say House vote on measure unlikely


Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) are three Senate Democrats who haven’t said how they’ll vote on ENDA. (Photos public domain).
As LGBT advocates ramp up efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, some key U.S. senators this week said they’re still undecided on how they’ll vote on the bill.
Most notable among these holdouts are three Senate Democrats who are not co-sponsors of ENDA — Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) — even in the aftermath of a 15-7 Senate committee vote weeks ago reporting out ENDA to the floor.
Manchin ignored questions from the Blade on how he’ll vote on the bill. His response to the final question: “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Pryor was similarly non-committal. Asked whether he was familiar with the legislation, the senator replied, “I am in concept, but I haven’t seen it or read it yet.”
Asked for a sense of how he’ll vote on ENDA, Pryor said he needed time to review the bill, adding, “I’ll just have to look at it.”
Nelson couldn’t be reached on Capitol Hill for a comment on how he’ll vote on ENDA. In a recent interview with the Tampa Bay Times, the Florida senator reportedly cited the transgender protections in the legislation as an issue of concern.
“There are so many ramifications,” Nelson was quoted as saying. “What is the responsibility of an employer to provide facilities, for example, for someone who dresses, thinks, acts, has had hormone treatments as a woman, but who has not had the operations? Is that person allowed to go into the women’s restroom? There are just a whole host of issues that I haven’t worked through.”
It’s not unusual for senators to refrain from saying how they’ll vote on legislation that isn’t imminently before them. Still, Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said that he’s expecting a floor vote this fall after August recess.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said the time has come for the holdout Democrats to co-sponsor ENDA because the more time that passes without their support makes them “look sillier and weaker the longer they drag this out.”
“The three holdout Senate Democrats are alienating themselves further from the Democratic Party and ignoring American values of hard work and success with every passing day that they stubbornly refuse to cosponsor the bipartisan ENDA,” Almeida said.
Although the lack of commitment from Pryor and Manchin may not be surprising because they’re among the Democrats who don’t support marriage equality, Nelson’s silence is striking because he supports same-sex marriage. In May 2010, the senator also voted for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee even before the Pentagon report on open service came out later that fall.
Almeida called on Obama and senior White House officials to take additional action to win ENDA support from Nelson as well as Pryor and Manchin.
“There’s a difference between providing strong leadership and issuing press statements, and LGBT Americans who fear getting fired from their jobs have been waiting for President Obama’s leadership for a long time,” Almeida said. “President Obama, Vice President Biden, Valerie Jarrett, Cecilia Munoz and especially the LGBT staff at the White House should start lobbying Congress to bring home these three holdout Democratic senators.”
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, insisted that White House officials are reaching out to the Senate to ensure a successful floor vote.
“The president is pleased that the Senate HELP Committee, on a bipartisan basis, approved ENDA in July, and we look forward to the Senate’s consideration of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” Inouye said. “The White House will continue to reach out to lawmakers on this legislation which would enshrine into law strong, lasting and comprehensive protections against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
LGBT groups launch campaigns to build ENDA support

(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Amid attention on these three Democratic senators, the Human Rights Campaign announced on Tuesday evening that it launched a $2 million campaign to work to pass ENDA called “Americans for Workplace Opportunity.”
The steering committee is being billed as a bipartisan group of organizations and consists of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Unity Fund, HRC, the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the Service Employees International Union.
Heading the campaign will be Matt McTighe, an LGBT activist who most recently was Marriage Project Director for Gill Action after leading the campaign to bring marriage equality to Maine last year.
In a statement, McTighe said the campaign plans to “mobilize the supermajority of diverse Americans” who believe LGBT people should be protected from workplace discrimination.
“With the tremendously successful mark-up of ENDA earlier this month, we have strong momentum as we build to reach 60 votes on the Senate floor,” McTighe said. “We will use all of our resources including grassroots action and strong corporate support to make it clear that the American people want action on this bill.”
In addition to states represented by Senate Democratic holdouts on ENDA — Arkansas, Florida and West Virginia — the campaign will be engaged in grassroots activities to encourage Republican votes for ENDA in Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. According to HRC’s announcement, the eight steering committee members represent more than 5.6 million members and supporters.
It’s noteworthy that McTighe’s stated goal with the campaign is “to reach 60 votes” to pass ENDA on the Senate floor. Freedom to Work’s Almeida has been more bullish about ENDA and has projected between and 60 and 65 votes for the bill in the Senate.
At the same time, statewide LGBT advocacy groups in Florida and West Virginia say they’ve met with the respective senators from their states to encourage them to support ENDA.
Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, said she’s “optimistic” that Nelson will vote in favor of ENDA following a D.C. meeting that her organization — along with transgender activist and former Seal Team 6 member Kristin Beck — had in June with the Florida senator.
“Our team had a great conversation about the importance of protections for LGBT people, and were able to have an honest dialogue with the senator,” Smith said. “The meeting clearly had an impact and we are continuing to work with his staff to keep this on the front burner.”
Casey Willits, a spokesperson for Fairness West Virginia, said his organization has had conversations with Manchin and his staff on ENDA.
“When ENDA is voted on in the Senate, we trust that Sen. Manchin will act on the West Virginia values of hard work and fairness,” Willits said. “I’m sure when Sen. Manchin votes, he will have the story of Sam Hall, a gay West Virginian coal miner, on his mind. It’s our goal to have two senators in the ‘yes’ column for ENDA.”
Internal discussions within the Senate are also underway. A Senate aide familiar with ENDA, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the five original co-sposors of the bill — Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Harkin — met recently to discuss a whip strategy for ENDA.
Additional conversations will happen in the next few weeks, the Senate aide said, in anticipation of a Senate floor vote before the end of the year.
The aide also said Merkley met with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) prior to her “yes” vote on ENDA during the committee vote and also met recently with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who’s considered a swing vote on ENDA, to talk about the bill.
Jeffrey Sadoksy, a Portman spokesperson, confirmed that Merkley met with the Republican senator and said the meeting took place last week, but wasn’t able to provide any information on whether Portman would vote for ENDA in the wake of the meeting.
Conversations over scheduling a vote apparently haven’t taken place yet within the Senate Democratic leadership. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said he’s unaware of those conversations happening at this time.
“I have not heard any, but there’s strong support for it,” Durbin said. “Sen. Merkley is, I believe, the lead sponsor — at least that was my understanding a few weeks ago. I hope we can schedule this quickly.”
Flake calls trans protections ‘problematic’
As groups push Senate Democrats to vote for ENDA, support from key Republicans is also necessary to surpass the 60-vote threshold needed to end a filibuster in the Senate. Most of the states targeted in the “Americans for Workplace Opportunity” campaign are represented in the Senate by Republicans.
One Republican who’s considered in play is Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). Asked by the Blade about ENDA, Heller initially said he was unfamiliar with the bill.
When the Blade explained the legislation would prohibit job discrimination against LGBT people, Heller said, “I’m against discrimination.” Asked if that means he’ll vote for the bill, Heller repeated, “I’m against discrimination.”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said on Capitol Hill in response to a question on ENDA, “I’m familiar with it, but I haven’t studied it,” and refused to comment on how she’d vote on the bill.
Another Senate Republican — Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) — is considered in play because he voted “yes” in 2007 on a gay-only version of ENDA as a U.S. House member. Asked by the Blade about ENDA, Flake recalled that he voted for the measure while serving in the lower chamber of Congress.
But Flake refused to offer a commitment on ENDA this time around, saying the language has changed since 2007 and that he needs to revisit the bill.
“I don’t know if it’s going to go back to the original or not, and so, until I see the language, I can’t tell you,’ Flake said.
When the Blade pointed out that a major difference between the 2007 version of ENDA and the current one is the addition of protections for transgender workers, Flake suggested that could be a sticking point for him.
“I know there were some issues there that came up for employers, so that was problematic,” Flake said. “I’ll have to look at the language and see.”
Flake’s counterpart from Arizona — Sen. John McCain (R) — asserted he was completely oblivious to ENDA. Asked by the Blade if he was familiar with the legislation, McCain replied, “I”m not familiar with it.”
When the Blade explained the bill provides non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers, McCain said, “I have not looked at it. I’m engaged in a whole lot of issues and I haven’t been engaged in that.”
Asked if he could say how he intends to vote on the bill, McCain replied, “No, of course not, because I haven’t looked at it.”
Jeff Cook-McCormac, senior adviser to the newly formed Republican-affiliated American Unity Fund, said his organization is building off work advancing LGBT initiatives throughout the states and in the last few weeks has held conversations with a “wide berth” of Republicans to persuade them to vote for ENDA.
“One of things we’ve learned over the years is not to count people out,” Cook-McCormac said. “As I’m sure you’ve seen with the vote on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal and many of the state legislatures both on marriage and non-discrimination, it’s really not fair to assume that any legislator is hostile to this legislation.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), among the Republicans to vote in favor of ENDA in committee, said he doesn’t know if his vote would bring along other GOP senators to support the bill as he explained his support for ENDA.
“I don’t believe in discrimination against anybody,” Hatch said. “I do draw the line on marriage, the definition of marriage. I just think that would be a tragic shame to change that. But I don’t like the way some people are treated.”
Even if the Senate approves ENDA, questions remain over the strategy to pass the legislation in the House, where Republican control makes advancing the bill difficult to say the least.
For his part, Hatch was pessimistic about the prospects of the House taking up ENDA even after a successful Senate vote.
“I doubt the House is going to do that” Hatch said. “I really doubt that, but I can’t speak for them either. You never know.”
Cook-McCormac acknowledged that much of the attention that LGBT advocates put on ENDA is devoted at this time to moving the legislation in the Senate.
“Getting the House to move is going to require initial Senate action,” Cook-McCormac said. “I think that the real critical focus for this coalition of business and labor, of the gay community and employers, is building on the overwhelming vote in the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee to get to floor consideration, to get the majority that we need and then to begin to work in a careful and thoughtful way with House Republicans to think through ways that this important measure can be realized.”
UPDATE: This article has been updated to include the quote from Nelson on ENDA in the Tampa Bay Times piece.
Congress
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances
Judiciary Committee markup slated for Wednesday morning

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)’s “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would criminalize guideline-directed gender affirming health care for minors, will advance to markup in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.
Doctors and providers who administer medical treatments for gender dysphoria to patients younger than 18, including hormones and puberty blockers, would be subject to Class 3 felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison if the legislation is enacted.
LGBTQ advocates warn conservative lawmakers want to go after families who travel out of state to obtain medical care for their transgender kids that is banned or restricted in the places where they reside, using legislation like Greene’s to expand federal jurisdiction over these decisions. They also point to the medically inaccurate way in which the bill characterizes evidence-based interventions delineated in standards of care for trans and gender diverse youth as “mutilation” or “chemical castration.”
Days into his second term, President Donald Trump signed “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” an executive order declaring that the U.S. would not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit” medical treatments and interventions intended for this purpose.
Greene, who has introduced the bill in years past, noted the president’s endorsement of her bill during his address to the joint session of Congress in March when he said “I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”
Congress
Pappas in Senate race focuses on costs, health care, and personal freedoms
Gay NH congressman hopes to succeed retiring US Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) recently sat down with the Washington Blade for an exclusive interview following the official launch of his bid for New Hampshire’s open U.S. Senate seat, which is expected to be among the most closely watched contests of the 2026 midterm election cycle.
The congressman, who is serving his fourth term as the representative for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, expects next year’s race will be “very high profile” and “challenging.” The New York Times, meanwhile, anticipates “an expensive and dogged affair.”
Senate elections tend to attract a disproportionate share of attention and resources especially in recent years as control over the chamber has tended to change hands more often and with smaller margins, but Pappas’s race is expected to be a bellwether for Democrats as they work to mount a comeback after last year’s electoral defeat.
At the same time, Pappas is gearing up for the battle over the Republican led reconciliation spending bill, with Democratic lawmakers exercising what little leverage they may have in the minority to fight against “disastrous cuts to Medicaid” while “finding other ways to protect what’s important to the people that we represent.”
Lawmakers on Sunday night gave the go-ahead for the GOP’s tax and spending package, but negotiations continue into this week as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) works to appease conservative hardliners and swing district Republicans.
Granite Staters are “really concerned” about negotiations in Washington over spending, but also with the exigencies created by President Donald Trump over the past 100+ days of his second term, which have cropped up repeatedly during the town hall-style events in New Hampshire that Pappas has headlined over the spring.
“That’s part of the reason why things are so challenging here in Washington,” the congressman said. “Oftentimes you’re pulled in 10 different directions on any given day based on what this administration is trying to do, based on what Republicans in Congress are trying to do.”
“We’ve got to figure out how we can shed light on what’s happening, try to confront the damage, and use whatever tools we have to fight back,” he said, while remaining “focused on those things that matter most, whether that’s people losing their health insurance, cuts to programs like Social Security, and people’s access to their benefits.”
The US Senate election
“I’ve got a strong foundation of support” for the Senate race, Pappas told the Blade, noting “I’ve run four campaigns for the House in half the state of New Hampshire” whose congressional map is cleaved into halves with the congressman’s constituents in the eastern portion of the state while freshman Democratic Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander represents the 2nd District.
Following the announcement in March that New Hampshire’s senior U.S. senator, Jeanne Shaheen (D), would not be seeking reelection next year, “I spent the first couple weeks,” Pappas said, “talking directly with folks all across New Hampshire to see what was on their minds, and increasingly, I was hearing from people that they wanted me to jump into the race.”
The sentiment was shared by Shaheen and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation — Goodlander and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) — who quickly endorsed Pappas’s bid. Speculation that the state’s popular former governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, might mount a formidable challenge for the seat ended with his announcement last month that he would not enter the race.
Even if Pappas is on the glidepath for the Senate, which is difficult to handicap so far in advance of November 2026, the election is expected to draw substantial attention and resources.
According to the Cook Political Report, of the Senate seats that will be up for grabs in the midterms, nine are held by incumbent Democrats and 19 by incumbent Republicans who are expected to easily win reelection, which leaves just five races whose outcomes are less certain and which therefore are likely to earn most of the attention and resources next year: The blue-leaning open seat in New Hampshire, an open seat in Michigan that is currently deemed a toss-up, the seat in Georgia held by incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, which is also considered a toss-up, and the red-leaning seats held by incumbent GOP U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
While the maps present long-shot odds of Democrats regaining control of the upper chamber even though Republicans had reclaimed the Senate majority last year by flipping just four seats for a modest margin of 53-47, races like Pappas’s are expected to be testing grounds for the minority party’s major campaigns midway through Trump’s second term.
New Hampshire has long been a political battleground where elections tend to be close and voters tend to split the ticket. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, only three U.S. states are less politically partisan: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. The determination is based on data collated from the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, where voters in both of the Granite State’s two congressional districts favored Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Donald Trump while supporting the Republican gubernatorial nominees, Chris Sununu and Kelly Ayotte.
Shaheen has “really built a brand that’s based on serving people and delivering for the constituents of New Hampshire,” Pappas said. “So that’s the kind of work that I want to carry on — but recognizing, in this time, that we really have to stand up and fight and be a part of our response to what this administration is doing.”
“We do need to re-establish some basic checks and balances here in Washington, so that there is oversight and accountability of an administration that’s blowing through all the guardrails and is really estranged from public opinion and from the Constitution,” he said, while continuing “to find ways to meet people where they are, to hear their stories, and to connect the fight here in Washington to people’s lives back home.”
Responding to the needs of Granite Staters
Specifically, while “people are responding to a lot of different stories,” Pappas highlighted concerns about “cuts to specific programs, the fact that we’ve got 80,000 VA employees that are going to be fired,” and over the direction in which care for veterans is headed under the new administration.
“The big fight right now is around health care,” he said. “It’s around defending Medicaid coverage, ensuring we’re going to continue to have a Medicaid expansion program in New Hampshire, which is something that I’ve worked with then-Gov. Maggie Hassan to implement, and whether we’re going to have tax fairness and prevent huge tax breaks from going to the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations.”
Asked about cuts to medical research that are impacting research universities across the country, Pappas said the issue has been raised often in discussions with people in his home state.
“The University of New Hampshire does a tremendous amount of research with federal funds,” he noted, “and that’s something that we’ve worked hard through the years to advocate for, and it’s really important for the university to continue to be able to do that work and help us understand the world around us, how it’s changing, and how we can respond to protect public health, for instance, to protect our communities against sea level rise — those are just important priorities.”
Unlocking “breakthroughs in science and medicine” is important for America’s global competitiveness, the congressman added, whether by “homegrown talent here in the United States or research scientists from around the world that want to come to our country and share their expertise and help the United States move forward.”
“Donald Trump has decided that universities and colleges are a political enemy of his, and he’s trying to punish them, but in doing that, he’s really short changing our economy and the future of the United States,” Pappas said, adding, “most people recognize that, especially people in New Hampshire.”
The congressman recounted how he was able to work closely with his colleagues in the state’s congressional delegation to leverage public pressure and influence by labor unions to reinstate probationary employees at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard who were let go following drastic cuts to the federal workforce under the Trump-Vance administration.
“It’s really critical to the future of that facility, which rehabilitates our nuclear submarine fleet and has nearly 7,000 civilian employees,” Pappas said. “So that was one case where we found that we were able to get a lot of local attention and support around an issue, and perhaps that news made it all the way back here to the Defense Department who were concerned about public pressure.”
“We’ve got a lot of long-time employees at that shipyard,” along with “a lot of new people that have been brought on board as a result of an expansion over the last several years,” the congressman noted. “Across the board, people want to know that we’re focused, especially on our families’ bottom line right now,” which is why it was important for him and his colleagues to “go to bat for a facility that’s really important to people’s livelihoods, but also to our overall economy” and for national security.
Moving forward, Pappas said, they will continue pushing back against “efforts to attack the right to organize and collective bargaining,” because “unions at the shipyard have a great relationship with management, but that could be disrupted by political efforts from this administration to attack labor unions.”
The economy and protecting personal freedoms
The congressman said that while “we need to try a little bit of everything to try to identify what is going to break through,” at the same time, “I do have the sense that the last election hinged on the economy, that every election really hinges on the economy, and those are the issues that are going to be, I think, most salient to folks next year.”
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re making progress at addressing inequities in the economy and are lowering costs,” he said. “Right now, the top issues that I hear about in New Hampshire include the high cost of housing, the lack of affordability of child care, the fact that our health care system is still inaccessible, and far too expensive for most people to be able to get the care that they need.”
“We’re not getting any of that from Republicans right now,” Pappas said, when it comes to the “work we have to do to level the playing field in our economy,” adding, “they talked a big game in the last campaign about lowering costs, but they’re taking no meaningful action to do it, and so we need to be thoughtful about a really forward-thinking agenda that can focus on how we allow people to get ahead and stand in this economy.”
Asked about whether and to what extent Pappas will focus his messaging on the president’s tariffs, he noted “people are already responding,” especially in “a state like New Hampshire that has a longstanding close relationship with Canada.”
He continued, “88 percent of our small businesses import something. We have a lot of exporting businesses that rely on their markets overseas, including in places like Canada and China, and some of those markets are going away because of the tariffs that have been slapped on U.S. goods that we export.”
Trump’s trade war “has generated so much instability in our economy, it’s really hard for our small businesses to navigate,” Pappas said, with these new “disruptions to supply chains and the threat of increased costs” following a “really tough 5-year period from inflation and workforce shortages to the pandemic that predated that.”
“This is an issue that I think brings people together across party lines,” Pappas said. “Folks understand that we have trade agreements in place that have been negotiated [and] supported on a bipartisan basis, including” the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, “which was renegotiated during the first Trump administration.”
The congressman continued, “it only makes sense to move forward in a way where we are focused on how we can make more things in the United States, but also recognize that we can’t make everything and we can’t go it alone, so we need to be working with close partners like Canada, and there’s no there’s no reason for this sort of trade war that only hurts our businesses and our ability to create jobs and have a thriving economy.”
“I also think, with respect to personal freedoms, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, we have to continue to take steps to re-establish Roe v. Wade as the law of the land and defend reproductive freedom,” Pappas said.
“I’m the only candidate in this race right now, and I think regardless of who the Republican is, we’re going to be fighting for the Women’s Health Protection Act and to make sure that we’re re-establishing the precedent that Roe set for more than half a century, which is broadly supported in New Hampshire,” he said.
LGBTQ issues
A co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Pappas is the first openly gay member of Congress to represent New Hampshire. If elected, he would be the third out LGBTQ U.S. senator behind U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Laphonza Butler, who served from 2023 to 2024.
Trump, along with his Republican allies in Congress and appointees serving in his second administration, has undermined rights and protections for LGBTQ people on a variety of fronts, including by dismantling and defunding efforts to fight against HIV. Cuts to basic and clinical science research along with public health programs have been advanced by the president’s budget and the GOP lawmakers’ reconciliation package, as well as through the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Now in the minority, House Democrats “will not be in the room negotiating, as much as we would love to tell the majority exactly how we feel about all these items,” Pappas conceded. At the same time, “to get a budget put in place and appropriations bills passed, you’ll need 60 votes in the Senate, which means you need some sort of bipartisan consensus, at least in that body,” which “could potentially be a difference maker in defending some of these programs that folks care about, that the president has sought to eliminate.”
“Services for people with HIV, access to health care, vital research — those are things that Americans broadly support,” the congressman said. “We’re going to stand up against it, and where there’s harm to people and important priorities, I’ll certainly be speaking out, and I know that members of the Equality Caucus will be taking that very seriously.”
“Many people in this administration,” Pappas said, “are not traditional Republicans and don’t support the same set of policies that we’ve seen even Republican presidents put in place,” like the PEPFAR initiative led by George W. Bush, “which has changed the trajectory of the treatment of HIV and AIDS around the world.”
“Now, they are attacking that program and its ability to provide care for people in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world, and it’s been reported that individuals in Africa have died as a result of not getting the treatments that they were counting on through that program,” the congressman noted.
He continued, “We really have a human responsibility to do whatever we can to meet the needs of people who are susceptible to disease or who have been exposed to it, and the fact that this administration is breaking with that long bipartisan tradition of research, of humanitarianism, I think is incredibly cruel, and it’s not what the United States should stand for.”
What has been especially frustrating, Pappas said, is the silence from Republicans in Congress including those who “have championed these programs for decades.”
“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said, except that “people need to be paying attention and we need to do everything possible to speak out and fight back against it” because “we can’t see an interruption in terms of the progress that’s been made in fighting disease and developing new therapies.”
Public health aside, when asked about how the Democratic Party should approach messaging on issues of transgender rights and gender identity, Pappas stressed that “Americans largely embrace equality” and people want others “to have the same rights and responsibilities.”
The congressman raised the Equality Act as an example — a bill that would protect Americans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing to employment, which was reintroduced last month with a press conference headlined by Pappas and top Democrats from both chambers of Congress.
Democrats should not shy away from advancing bills that advance “fairness and equality before the law,” he said, “especially at a time where we know that the LGBTQ community is being targeted by really cynical political attacks.”
“Where I come from, in New Hampshire, we’ve adopted protections for trans individuals in our state’s non discrimination statutes,” Pappas noted, “and so I think when you come from an environment like New Hampshire, you understand that people do respect their neighbors for their differences.”
He continued, “We’re a live and let live state, and so I think it’s really consistent with who we are to be tolerant and embrace people of different identities and orientations. That’s who we are as Granite Staters. And I think people recognize that in order to have a future where everyone can live a full and productive life, you need to provide people with equality before the law.”
Politics
Joe Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive form’ of prostate cancer
The former president and his family are reviewing treatment options, according to a statement

According to a statement from his personal office on Sunday, former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.
Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” the statement said. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.”
“Cancer touches us all,” the former president posted on X Monday. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support. pic.twitter.com/oSS1vGIiwU
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 19, 2025