Thursday morning protesters gathered outside North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis’ Charlotte office to show their opposition to actions by the Trump administration.
Hundreds of people gathered on Mallard Creek Road to protest the new administration’s recent actions including the federal funding freeze and the Senate vote on Russell Vought, a key architect of Project 2025 to be the next director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Many nonprofit and educational organizations wonder how their funding will be affected by federal funding cuts.
Indivisible Charlotte Founding Director Carolyn Eberly was one of the organizers of the protest and said while the freeze has been temporarily blocked, some people have already been affected by the actions.
“My youngest daughter is doing Alzheimer's research and she's a year away from her Ph.D. Fifty percent of her funding comes from the NIH, but that has stopped,” Eberly said.
“Her university gets $158 million from the National Institute of Health, so it's defunding things in such a big manner that universities are going to collapse and people are really hurting.”
Along with the federal freeze, DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, was granted access to the federal payment system. Retired federal worker Lisa Vaughn said the recent actions worry both her and her husband.
"Being a federal employee, we know the checks and balances that we had to abide by," Vaughn said.
"We know the privacy of information and everything, and for it to just be given to some, you know, people that aren't even really federal employees, you know, is a travesty. I mean it's very concerning."
Vaughn also said she worries that people will lose faith in the government.
“It's very aggravating because I know me and my husband both have served and I know all the sacrificing that we've done. I know all the hard work that we put into our jobs and to say that we are nothing, we meant nothing, you know, we're just sitting back just collecting a check is just disgraceful.”
Earlier this week, protesters also gathered at Tillis’s Greensboro office.
