“I think we need a representative who actually is going to look out for people in Hampton Roads, for our military, our service members.”
As the Iran war enters its seventh month, Democrat Elaine Luria is calling out her opponent in one of Virginia’s most competitive congressional races this fall for going along with the Trump administration’s war and cuts to veterans’ services.
The Iran war is disrupting the world economy, driving up gas prices, and taking a toll on service members, said Luria, a US Navy veteran and former congressmember looking to take back her seat from incumbent Republican US Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
“It’s not making us any safer,” Luria said in an interview on Aug. 28. “It’s not making Iran any farther from having a nuclear weapon.”
Luria called the Iran war a conflict of choice that Trump “single-handedly got us into.” She criticized Kiggans for voting against constraining the White House’s power to continue to wage the war.
Recently, Kiggans has said she’d “like to see that conflict wrap up.” She did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
In March, Kiggans, who is also a US Navy veteran, addressed concerns about ships needing maintenance by saying, “This is not Carnival Cruise, this is the US Navy. So again, we know what we’re getting into when we sign up for this job, but always you’re concerned about that,” according to a WKTR report.
Luria criticized Kiggans for being “insensitive” about the challenges service members face when they’re deployed. Luria also said she’s concerned about how cuts by the Trump administration have made it even harder for the US Department of Veterans Affairs to serve the high number of veterans in the 2nd District.
“I’ve heard from veterans who’ve been waiting ridiculously long amounts of time to be seen at the VA,” Luria said. “And if you look at the number of Veteran Affairs employees, physicians, nurses who’ve been cut, it’s directly impacting the ability for those veterans to seek care.”
John Quillin, a US Navy veteran who lives in Chesapeake, supervised the fueling of aircraft on ships. He said he doesn’t think the Trump administration cares about the sailors serving overseas and Kiggans hasn’t done enough to stand up for them.
“Jen Kiggans has no courage, no courage whatsoever, to stand up and say, ‘This is wrong. This is bad for my district. Please knock it off,” Quillin said in an interview. “Silence is acceptance.”
Quillin said he doesn’t use the VA but he has plenty of friends who do. He said they can’t use a new clinic in Chesapeake because it doesn’t have enough staff, so they drive to one in Elizabeth City, North Carolina instead.
“People from Chesapeake have to go all the way to North Carolina to see their [primary care manager] because the VA in Chesapeake can’t staff the facility,” said Quillin, who is active in the local Democratic Party.
Marcus Friedman, a retired US Navy veteran who lives in Virginia Beach, said one of his biggest problems with the Trump administration is its staffing cuts at the VA. He said veterans have faced difficulties making appointments with the VA for years, but “that’s been severely exacerbated” because of DOGE and Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“When I went to try to apply for VA benefits, I just found the process to be onerous,” said Friedman.
Luria said she’s running for Congress in part because Kiggans hasn’t done enough to hold Trump accountable for the war in Iran and cuts to services for veterans.
“I think we need a representative who actually is going to look out for people in Hampton Roads, for our military, our service members,” Luria said. “She’s gone there [to Washington] and it’s more war, more corruption, higher prices, and we need to put a check on that.”
