• Several recently fired federal workers are set to attend Trump's joint address to Congress.
• They'll be there as the guests of Democratic members of Congress.
• BI spoke with one of them, whose job was to root out waste in Medicare.

In February, Matthew Fessler was one of thousands of probationary employees fired by the Trump administration amid DOGE-driven cuts to the federal workforce.

On Tuesday night, he'll be seated in the gallery overlooking the House chamber, attending President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress alongside several other former federal workers whose employment has been terminated in the early weeks of his administration.

All of them are attending as guests of Democratic senators and House members who are using Trump's speech — a nationally televised address akin to the State of the Union — to highlight the impact of his administration's early moves to reshape the bureaucracy and freeze streams of federal spending.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is bringing two New Yorkers recently fired from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona is bringing a disabled veteran who was fired from his role as a security expert at the Department of Homeland Security. Rep. Ayanna Pressley is bringing a Massachusetts constituent who worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Elon Musk, the man leading much of the charge behind the firings as the de facto head of the White House DOGE office, will also be there.

Fessler, a 35-year-old former health insurance specialist at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will be the guest of Rep. April McClain Delaney, a freshman Democratic lawmaker from a Maryland district near Washington, DC.

"I ran on common sense, common ground, and I really agree that our government should run efficiently and effectively for the American people," McClain Delaney told BI in an interview on Monday. "But I think the Trump administration's actions thus far have been marked by confusion and chaos."

For Fessler, there's a particular irony to his termination, which he says came after he was told he'd "achieved outstanding results" in an early January performance. His job was essentially to root out waste and fraud in Medicare Part D, the portion of the program that helps pay for recipients' prescription drugs, by keeping track of improper payments.

"These are actually the people that you really need to achieve the things that they purport to want to be doing," McClain Delaney said. "But in fact, it's all smoke and mirrors."

Fessler said that if he could send a message to Trump and Musk, it would be to "make sure you're aware of what the implications are for the actions that you're taking."

The Trump administration has broadly characterized the cuts as necessary to shrink a bureaucracy they view as bloated, and White House Spokesman Harrison Fields cast the Democratic lawmakers' effort as dishonest in a statement to BI for this story.

"Exploiting the American people for political points is par for the course, but it is unsurprising coming from a party that would rather showboat than solve problems," Fields said.