Ayotte heads to DC for Trump while he slashes New Hampshire jobs and programs

This week New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte was spotted with former New Hampshire congressional candidate and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in Washington D.C., reportedly taking meetings during the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and Trump administration officials who are pushing for a $4.5 trillion budget package said to include significant tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

While Ayotte rubs elbows with Donald Trump’s Washington elite, she has remained silent as multiple reports across the state have highlighted how the Trump White House’s proposed cuts would affect Granite Staters — cutting state jobs, increasing their out-of-pocket costs, limiting access to food assistance, and threatening health care coverage.

This week the Boston Globe detailed how proposed cuts to Medicaid in President Trump’s budget threaten coverage for the 60,000 state residents who rely on New Hampshire’s Medicaid expansion, with the reporting warning that “such drastic reductions would harm vulnerable people and inflict pain across broader systems of care” in the state.

A report from NHPR this week then detailed planned layoffs of employees in the White Mountain National Forest national park, local consequences of sweeping federal cuts in the early days of the Trump administration.

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The report detailed how the Trump administration is moving forward with reducing the U.S. Forest Service workforce by around 10 percent and cutting 5 percent of jobs at the National Park Service, including in New Hampshire.

Both members of congress representing New Hampshire, Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander, spoke against the job cuts, which could affect the ability to staff popular tourist destinations in the state, while Ayotte remained silent.

On Tuesday, NHPR reported that the Granite State Market Match program, which helps low-income families afford fresh fruits and vegetables using food assistance benefits, is scaling back for the first time in its history due to cuts in federal funding.

Reporting from the New Hampshire Bulletin revealed that Trump’s plan to cap funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) includes a $4 billion reduction that directly affects institutions like Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Health, which operate Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. This funding supports essential research on cancer treatments, substance abuse therapies, and hundreds of local jobs.

Many of the cuts and reductions are part of the deeply unpopular effort by the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) to slash the size of government, a program Ayotte has emulated with her own Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE) run by disgraced former Republican Governor and Ayotte mentor Craig Benson. It remains to be seen if the New Hampshire COGE program makes sweeping cuts to jobs and programs as the Trump program has.

“While Granite Staters are dealing with cuts to food assistance, threats to Medicaid, and uncertainty around funding for cancer treatment, Kelly Ayotte is in Washington, D.C., cozying up to the Trump administration instead of standing up for New Hampshire,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley in a statement.

“Whether it’s Donald Trump or Kelly Ayotte, Republicans don’t have plans to lower costs for you. In fact, their policies will just make life more expensive and harder for Granite Staters who can least afford it.”