U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman led a crowded town hall meeting this afternoon at the Adorni Center on Eureka’s waterfront, speaking to an anxious but broadly supportive crowd of around 500 people. Over the course of about an hour and 40 minutes he addressed what he characterized as the “existential threat to democracy” presented by President Donald Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress.

“The truth is, I have never been more worried and alarmed about the direction of this country,” Huffman declared early in the meeting. He said Congressional Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to serve as a check on the executive branch, choosing instead to be obsequious while Trump “lurch[es] toward authoritarianism.”

Among the crowd was a smattering of vocal critics of Huffman’s support for sending military aid to Israel. They occasionally yelled at him from the standing-room-only area at the back and from elsewhere in the large room. He addressed a few direct questions about the violence against Palestinian people in Gaza, and near the end of the meeting he delivered a forceful response to a couple of especially outspoken critics.

The crowd was mostly on his side, though. After entering through a side door, stage right, Huffman strolled to the lectern amid a hearty round of applause. About three quarters of the crowd stood as they clapped and cheered for the North Coast’s Democratic representative in Congress. 

Appearing chuffed by the warm reception, Huffman began with a couple of jokes. He noted the blustery weather outside and quipped, “Someone should propose an offshore wind project; this would be a perfect spot for that!” And after thanking the City of Eureka for making the Adorni Center available he remarked, “It is amazing to see this kind of a turnout. And gosh, I just wonder, how did George Soros find and pay all of you?”

But he quickly acknowledged the “sobering and grim” political moment. He rattled off a few Congressional “funding victories” from recent years, including the $426 million federal grant to build a heavy-lift marine terminal on Humboldt Bay (“We’re still going to have to fight for that funding,” he acknowledged); $37 million for Klamath River restoration; and $15 million for restoration of forests and watersheds in Redwood National and State Parks.

Huffman also noted his recent election as ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee. 

“But look,” he said. “I’m real clear on why probably most of you are here. I think you are all really reeling, as I am, from this wave of executive orders unlike anything that we have ever seen, from the wrecking ball of DOGE, from the on-again, off-again tariffs that seem to change almost by the hour and the economic chaos that all of this is unleashing, and just everything else that’s in the news right now.”

As the Trump administration flouts the law and tests legal boundaries, Huffman said, “Republicans in Congress … seem to have forgotten that we are a separate and independent branch of government that the Founders put right up front, Article I of the Constitution. … This Congress thinks it works for Donald Trump, and that is a big constitutional problem.”

He also lamented the “extralegal” (as in illegal) and “incompetent” actions of DOGE, the onslaught of executive orders gutting and eliminating federal departments and the billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook who are “bending the knee” before Trump.

He told a brief anecdote to illustrate the point: At a ceremonial lunch he was obligated to attend at the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, Huffman overheard Amazon’s CEO speaking to Trump’s youngest son, Barron. “And I can overhear Jeff Bezos kissing up to this kid Barron Trump and telling him what a brilliant and insightful young man he is,” Huffman said. “I mean, the level of sycophancy with billionaires trying to curry favor was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Huffman said he agrees that the violence in Gaza has been horrific, and he’s even more horrified that the Trump administration seems willing to rubber-stamp more of it. He added that while he doesn’t like the current Israeli government, he also didn’t want to “throw the people of Israel under the bus.”

Faced with two lousy choices, Huffman said, “I tried to use our influence to redirect the Israeli government and the Israeli war plan, and it didn’t work. So I’m not happy with the outcome either.”

As staffers and volunteers walked around the room with live microphones, Huffman continued to take questions, addressing such matters as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (“a singularly unqualified person running the Department of Health and Human Services”); the potential elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); threats to social security, Medicare and Medicaid; and the elimination of funds for local food banks (“I can’t imagine anything more cruel and wrongheaded.”)

A woman named Carol Monet said she’s worried about green-card holders and other legal residents being “disappeared” by immigration officials for exercising their right to free speech.

Huffman said he saw the potential for such actions back when Trump was disingenuously disavowing Project 2025, and now it’s happening.

“Yeah, the arbitrary, random, secretive disappearing of people is happening across the board,” he said, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been bragging about revoking the student visas of protestors who have “exercised political speech he disagrees with.” Huffman referenced the famous “First they came for … “ passage from the 1930s by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller and said, “That’s exactly where we are in America right now.”

One attendee told Huffman that he was preaching to the choir and urged him to do more. He responded that while he may lack the charisma and star power of AOC and Bernie Sanders, he’s in their same “fight camp,” and he vowed to visit a Republican district soon.

A U.S. Navy veteran asked Huffman what’s being done to protect habeas corpus, people’s right to challenge the legality of their detention or imprisonment, given the recent crackdown on people who protested against the violence in Gaza.

“ICE is taking plain-clothes, Gestapo goon squads piped up to the gills to take people off the street, take them halfway across the country to a for-profit ICE detention center, or even worse, to yet another Republican-founded overseas torture, slave-labor gulag,” the man said. “What are we doing to protect our students from Cal Poly? And what are we doing to free the political prisoners already taken?”

Huffman said the rights of habeas corpus and due process are “at the core of who we are as a nation,” and he vowed to defend them in every way he can. But he also noted that, being in the minority party in Congress, he doesn’t have the ability to issue subpoenas or hold hearings. Still, he said he would lean on his Republican colleagues because “this shouldn’t be partisan.”

The most heated exchange of the afternoon came toward the end of the event. A woman named Karpani Burns (no relation to this reporter) described a scene in which a Palestinian father held the head of his dead son and challenged Huffman to look at his own moral compass in the context of the “tens of thousands of people that have been murdered” in Gaza.

“I have not yet seen one move on your part to care, to do something except continue with your vote for arms to Israel,” she said. “You continually say they have a right to defend themselves. They are not defending themselves. They are butchering a people. It’s called ge-no-cide.”

Huffman said he finds the violence in Gaza morally repugnant. “I promise you, I really do,” he insisted. “I’m horrified by it, including the scenes that you described, which are really happening. And I wish there was something more that I could do to stop it, but I’ve not been sitting on my hands.” 

As he continued, a woman near the front started shouting at him, calling Israel an ethnic state. He asked to be allowed to finish.

“​​I believe the state of Israel does have a right to exist,” Huffman said. “That doesn’t mean I support everything they do, okay? So there are contradictions and nuances here. It is an issue that does not reduce to an absolute binary the way I think it has been suggested.”

He went on to say that he has tried to support Palestinians “in ways that many pro-Israel folks are upset with me for,” adding, “I’m probably in a position where I please absolutely no one on this issue.”

Other people in the room shouted angrily as he continued. The woman near the front kept shouting, “Palestinians have a right to exist!” Huffman engaged in a bit of back-and-forth before going on the offensive with a remark about the last presidential election. 

“You know what?” he said. “Maybe getting thousands and thousands of people not to vote for Democrats in the last election because they weren’t perfect with what you want was a dumb idea.” 

The crowd began cheering in response. He continued. “Maybe you should have some accountability for just totally misplaced advocacy on this issue, but let’s move on.”

The woman continued to shout at him — “You are a war criminal voting for genocide” — as others urged her to sit down. 

Huffman turned his attention to the last public speaker of the day, a man who recounted his harrowing experiences interacting with the American medical system as he sought care for his son, who suffered from severe mental disabilities in his youth. He said he and his son have reached a state of normalcy thanks to the $3,000 per month in Medicaid they receive, and he said the Trump administration represents an existential threat to that kind of care.

Huffman thanked the man for summing up what’s at stake in this political moment, noting the cruel irony that those dismantling the country’s social safety net are among the richest people on Earth.

“They’re these oligarchs that will never feel any of this, and they are just zeroing out programs without any concern for what it means for people’s lives … ,” he said. “Thank you for helping draw that connection, because it’s a super central part of this moment that we’re all in, and I think a very appropriate note for us to end on. Thank you for a great conversation.”

View more photos of the event below, and you can watch the video of the full town hall meeting at the bottom of this post, courtesy Access Humboldt.