Huge crowd packs SLO town hall to hear from California senator, congressman
Nearly 2,000 people turned out at Cuesta College on Tuesday night for a town hall from California Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Salud Carbajal, who answered a range of questions about how they are fighting back against the Trump administration and attacks on democracy.
It was the senator’s first town hall since being sworn into office in December.
At 5:30 p.m., half an hour before the event was set to begin, a line hundreds of people long poured well out the door of Cuesta College’s Harold J. Miossi Cultural and Performing Arts Center, where the town hall was held.
A small group of protesters sat outside with signs that read “STOP ARMING ISRAEL” and “Hands of Gaza” in colorful block letters.
The main auditorium quickly hit maximum capacity at 400 people, with 1,500 others watching a live broadcast on monitors in the college’s gym, where the lawmakers also spoke in person after the main event.
Liz and Rob Pink, 71 and 77, got prime seating in the auditorium. Rob joked they’d been waiting in line “since breakfast.”
The Pinks, who have been active in protesting against the Trump administration, attended the town hall in hopes of seeing “a glimmer of hope that there’s actually something being done, or people on the other side of the aisle who are willing to work with our Democrats,” Liz Pink told The Tribune.
Despite the big turnout, few young faces could be spotted among the crowd.
Lucia Landeros, student government president at Cuesta College, said students and faculty weren’t notified of the event happening on their own campus. Neither were Cal Poly students, she said.
“This is our home turf,” Landeros told The Tribune. “By not notifying faculty and students, you’re effectively silencing the student voice.”
Schiff represents California in the U.S. Senate, and Carbajal represents the Central Coast in the House of Representatives.
The pair entered to a standing ovation. They spoke passionately to the crowd about the “constitutional crisis” that the American democracy is facing under President Trump.
“We are at, I think, an unprecedented time in our history, a time I never would have imagined possible 10 years ago,” Schiff told the crowd.
“Ten years ago, I think all of us in this room and in the gym had lived in a world that was ever expanding its freedom ... until suddenly we were seeing not new democracies being born, but new autocracies being born. Instead of seeing our rights and freedoms at home continue to expand, we start to see them contract,” he said.
Carbajal echoed the senator’s message.
“You’re seeing a lot of executive orders from this president because they can’t get much legislation over the finish line, and a lot of it is a lot of bluster,” Carbajal said. “Many are illegal and unconstitutional, and he is doing everything to violate the rule of law.”
Carbajal warned his constituents not to be fooled by distractions, like Trump’s threats to take over Greenland and the effort to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
“We need to keep our eye on the ball of the serious things that he’s doing to undermine our democracy,” he said.
Over the course of the night, Schiff and Carbajal answered questions from the crowd about Social Security, health care, tariffs, the war on Gaza, climate change, national security crises, immigration, insider trading and more.
“One of the things we want to talk with you about tonight is, what do we do about this?” Schiff said. “It’s going to require all of us.”
Senator Schiff and Congressman Carbajal talk tariffs, federal cuts and more at SLO town hall
After their opening statements, Schiff and Carbajal moved into a Q&A with the crowd for the remainder of the hourlong town hall.
The first question addressed cuts to Social Security and Medicaid.
Schiff said the Social Security Administration is closing down offices and laying people off nationwide.
“They’re making the claim that they’re not cutting benefits, they’re just cutting personnel,” which could impact people’s access to the service, he said.
There is one Social Security Administration office in San Luis Obispo and one in Santa Maria. The agency did not respond to The Tribune’s request for comment on whether the firings have affected workers in SLO County.
As for Medicaid, Schiff said Senate Republicans are planning to approve “massive cuts” through a process called reconciliation — which allows certain budget bills to pass by a simple majority of 51 votes rather then the usual 60.
The proposed cuts to Medicaid are $880 billion along with $240 billion to be cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which supports low-income families’ grocery budgets, Carabajal said.
“Throughout all their executive orders, they have not focused on the No. 1 thing they said they were going to do: lower the costs for everyday Americans when it comes to groceries, health care, child care, housing, energy,” Carabajal said.
Another audience member asked about similar attempts to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency.
“What we’re seeing in the administration right now is a what feels like an utter hostility to the environment, to the planet,” Schiff said.
Schiff recognized climate change as one of the most urgent issues in today’s world.
“Of all of the challenges we face, this is the ultimate existential challenge,” Schiff said. “We get this one wrong, it doesn’t matter how many the rest we get right.”
In the House, Democratic representatives are trying to move legislation forward by flipping three or four “vulnerable Republicans” to vote across the aisle, Carbajal said.
But the most effective strategy is to take the fight both to the courts and to the streets, Carbajal said.
“Some of these things you just can’t get rid of with executive orders,” he said. “We are having some successes in the courts ... but the best way is to get the pressure from the American people, to mobilize, to keep speaking out. We need you more than ever now.”
The lawmakers also touched on corruption in the White House, including Schiff’s efforts to investigate President Trump for insider trading before the 90-day tariff pause and a national security scandal.
“What the president is doing is singularly wrecking the economy,” Schiff said of the on-again, off-again tariff chaos.
The insider trading accusations, however, revolve around what Trump did before lifting tariffs for 90 days. That morning, hours before the pause was announced, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Schiff said that amount to market manipulation.
“I’m going to stay after this until we get answers about insider trading,” Schiff said.
Then, on Sunday, it was found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used his personal phone to discuss U.S. war plans in Yemen for a second time in an unapproved Signal group chat including members of his family who are not government employees, the New York Times first reported.
“We keep learning more and more about his malfeasance and office,” Schiff said. “This Signal chat, I can’t tell you how appalling this is. It is just one along a long line of offenses.”
If it fell into the wrong hands, the information Hegseth was communicating could’ve tipped off the Houthis in Yemen to a pending attack, threatening its success and American lives, Schiff said.
“Continuing to shed a light on this misconduct is, I think, vitally important,” to ousting Hegseth from his seat, Schiff said. “It may or may not push him out, but even if it doesn’t push him out, he had heightened accountability for everybody who voted for him.”
Throughout the town hall, the audience clapped and cheering in support of the lawmakers responses. In the gymnasium, attendees quickly stomped their feet against the bleachers like a high school pep rally.
The only policy area in which the lawmakers did not appear to have the audience members’ full support was over their discussion of the Israel-Hamas war.
A question from the crowd asked why the U.S. is still treating Israel as a friend during their war on Palestine.
Schiff recognized the “terrible loss of life” both in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and in Gaza from Israel’s retaliatory attacks since, but he added that he has “always viewed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel as a very important strategic relationship that needed to transcend who the prime minister was in Israel, and it needed to transcend who the president of the United States was.”
“I have firm disagreements with Netanyahu,” Israel’s current prime minister, “and in many respects disagree with how he’s conducted the war, but I also think that the relationship between our two countries is important, and as I would not have had people abandon our country because of my disagreement ... with Donald Trump, I would not have the United States abandon Israel,” Schiff said.
Ultimately, he advocated for a two-state solution, with an independent Israel and independent Palestine “living in peace and security.”
Carbajal highlighted the importance of separating the Israeli government from the Israeli people. Members of the crowd booed and yelled over him as he spoke about what he called the “barbaric acts” of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s disproportionate military response.
“70 years of oppression,” someone yelled between his sentences.
In their discussion of government manipulation, Schiff said President Trump is going after universities, including Cal Poly, under the guise of fighting antisemitism in order to coerce them to bend to his will.
“I disagree with much of what the administration and Republicans in Congress are doing to use the issue of antisemitism, which is real and is a problem, but to use it as a way of trying to interfere with academic freedom and hiring decisions and decisions about curriculum,” Schiff told media after the town hall.
Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong is set to testify before Congress on May 7 regarding the university’s “failure to address antisemitism on campus.”
“What the administration is doing in threatening the withholding of research grants and dollars is, I think, unlawful, and I’m glad the universities are fighting back,” Schiff said.
Carbajal called on his fellow congress members, both Democrats and Republicans, to stand up to Trump and do what is right, even if it costs them re-election.
“Our service is not about a party. It’s about our country first,” Carbajal said. “To do the right thing is the most important, even if you don’t get reelected. ... At the end of the day, it’s about serving the American people.”
Schiff ended the town hall on a positive note.
“There will be long, lasting damage,” but “I’m confident we will look back on this time with great astonishment,” he said.
“We will ask ourselves: How in the hell did that guy ever become president?”
This story was originally published April 23, 2025 at 10:37 AM.
