Former Rep. Tom Perriello Pledges to ‘End War,’ Remove Trump’s Tariff Authority if Elected

Former Rep. Tom Perriello, a Democrat who is seeking to return to Congress to represent Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, is focusing on domestic economic issues as the campaign moves through its final week. If elected, he promises to work to roll back President Donald Trump’s agenda right away.

“We’re going to bring costs down by ending this war by voting to remove the president’s authority on the war,” Perriello told the Daily Signal after a campaign event in Goochland County. “We’re going to bring down costs by removing the tariff authority he’s using to create havoc on the economy. And we’re going to look for a bipartisan solution to prevent this Medicaid cliff that could be a generational setback for our rural health clinics.”

To make the math work, Perriello said he would support stripping $380 billion in support for tech companies and AI data centers and putting that money toward Medicaid and middle-class tax cuts.

“I think we can do that in a deficit-neutral way,” he said.

The Democrat, who represented Virginia in the House of Representatives for a single term from 2009 to 2011, is running against Rep. John McGuire, a first-term Republican. During a weekend campaign swing accompanied by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, McGuire told supporters he has helped to bring billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs to the 5th District.

Perriello spoke days later at an event in Goochland County alongside Rep. Jennifer McClellan, a Democrat who is heading for reelection in the nearby 4th District. Also on the program was Max Richtman, the head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Richtman presented the Democrats with a pair of boxing gloves to represent their willingness to fight to preserve Social Security.

“One of the easiest ways to protect Social Security benefits without affecting the trust fund is to bring costs down,” Perriello said at the event. “When you’re on a fixed income and the price of gas and groceries and drugs and everything goes up, it’s effectively no different than cutting Social Security.”

The Daily Signal asked both Democrats whether they would support “Medicare for All,” a proposal championed in Congress by Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Bernie Sanders, among other elected officials. “We want universal coverage, and there are lots of ways to get there. That’s my priority,” McClellan told the Daily Signal.

Perriello said he, too, wants universal health care, but addressing Medicaid cliffs would be his first priority.

“I support whatever gets us to universal affordable care, but I focus on what we can deliver for the voters and for the next two years, and that’s got to be preventing this generational setback with the Medicaid cliffs, and the middle-class tax cuts,” he said. “I think that can be done even while Trump’s in the presidency. My focus is what delivers for my district, and right now that has got to be preventing this disaster for rural health care from taking place. I want us to move on that in January with urgency.”

Perriello returned to discussing the conflict in the Middle East and the growing shortage of high-tech weapons.

“The first thing you do when you’re stuck in a hole is stop digging deeper, and that means ending this war that we never should have been in in the first place,” he said. “This has been a generational setback. The Iranian regime right now is stronger than it’s been in 20 years, richer than it’s been in 20 years, with more leverage than it’s had in 20 years.”

Perriello called for an immediate course correction, beginning in January. “We’ve got to change the people that got us in this mess. We’ve got to remove that authority to fight this war and then start to rebuild our arsenal in the process,” he told The Daily Signal.

Early voting in Virginia ends on Oct. 31. Election Day is Nov. 3.

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