Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., met with community leaders Monday morning at Health Brigade, formerly Fan Free Clinic, for a roundtable discussion on their concerns about President Donald Trump’s controversial executive orders.

Local leaders, including Mayor Danny Avula, Health Brigade Executive Director Karen Legato and nonprofit organization executives supporting underserved communities, shared their concerns. They discussed the potential closure of the Medicaid portal, the negative impact on homeless services and the uncertainty facing immigrant communities under the threat of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“The obvious reason to have this is that you’re all affected and I want to hear how, so I can do my job better,” Kaine said to community leaders during the panel discussion. “The less obvious reason why I really need to do this is, if you weren’t telling me, I don’t know.”

Many community leaders at the roundtable criticized the Trump administration’s policies. Legato emphasized that “it’s not just fear and anxiety” but real challenges that individuals have faced since Trump took office.

“I’m calling this psychological terrorism because it feels like it is bombarding with everything you can out of the White House,” she said. “When it hits multiple groups like this, I mean, you can see just the chaos in this room.”

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – an executive office that manages the president’s budget, policies and programs – ordered a pause in a memorandum on Jan. 27 on disbursing almost $3 trillion worth of federal loans and grants to states and government-funded organizations.

OMB Acting Director Matthew Vaeth said in the memo that the temporary pause was to review federal programs consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities and “ending ‘wokeness.’” This left many Americans confused about which programs the pause would apply to, but the Trump administration later clarified that mandatory government spending such as Medicaid, SNAP benefits and Social Security are exceptions to the freeze.

The OMB rescinded the federal funding freeze within 48 hours on Jan. 29. Though the federal freeze has been rescinded, Trump ordered a pause in federal funding from the bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed and then-President Joe Biden signed in 2022. This pause means that localities, companies and organizations that received federal funding from these laws remain uncertain of their allotment status.

Virginia Housing Alliance Executive Director Brian Koziol weighed in on the rescinded federal funding freeze, stating it was not well-managed.

“The freeze was pretty inelegantly rolled out, I think, probably kind of embarrassing if I had done something like that,” Koziol said.

In addition to rescinding the federal funding freeze, Trump signed an executive order rolling back DEI programs within the federal government. Amy Strite, executive director of SPAN Center, a nonprofit organization focused on elderly care, pointed out the implications of the executive order.

“Not only do we have a mandate to serve individuals at greatest risk, we have made it our commitment,” Strite emphasized. “How do we continue to honor that and uphold that? It’s a big question weighing on us as well.”

Toward the end of the roundtable discussion, Kaine said he plans to take the community leaders’ concerns to his congressional colleagues and urge local officials to keep serving its citizens.

“If it gets hard, then tell us it’s hard and tell us what questions you have,” he said. “The job of those [who are] disappointed is to have the backs of those who are afraid and that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”