AFTON—U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman’s remark about the U.S. Agency for International Development triggered one of the most raucous rounds of applause of the evening.
Even before the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency — aka DOGE — started gutting the federal government’s foreign aid branch, known by its acronym, USAID, the sophomore congresswoman for Wyoming had it in her sights, she said.
“In the interest of full disclosure, a year ago I voted to disband and abolish USAID,” Hageman told a conference room full of Star Valley residents, who cheered and even whooped in approval.
During Thursday’s town hall, Hageman told the rapt audience she doesn’t take issue with USAID’s mission. But then she proceeded to list off programs, echoing President Donald Trump, that she disagrees with, like the $520 million Prosper Africa initiative, which includes an educational curriculum about climate change.
The list ran long.
“I disagree with $20,000 to help LGBT people vote in Honduran elections,” Hageman said. “I disagree with $425,000 towards training Indonesian coffee companies on being gender friendly, and on and on and on.”
More applause erupted.
Ten minutes later, however, Susan Danford pushed back.
“I agree that all those things you read off sound ludicrous,” Danford told Hageman, “but surely they do some good things.”
The octogenarian, who’d traveled 140 miles round-trip from her home in Jackson, didn’t get the chance to complete her thought. A round of applause — every bit as loud as earlier — interrupted.
Hageman conceded that “about 17%” of the aid was “good.” Those things, she said, were moved into the The U.S. Department of State, which is where USAID’s defunct website now lives.
Danford ended the exchange.
“I just think we need to take a deep breath,” Danford said, “and try to start making sense.”
Hageman’s hour-long town hall — part of a southern and western Wyoming circuit the congresswoman is partway through — covered a lot of ground. The Equality State’s lone U.S. House representative touched on her efforts to legislate issues like grizzly bears and Bureau of Land Management resource management plans for its Rock Springs and Buffalo field offices. She also fielded questions about a lack of funding for preventative wildfire-related projects and Afton’s VA clinic, which a veteran who was wounded in combat in Iraq described as a “horrible mess.”
DOGE impacts
A good deal of the discussion, however, circled around what’s perhaps the highest-profile initiative of the second Trump administration: DOGE. The effort to downsize the U.S. government, named after an internet meme, has had impacts on the residents of Wyoming where the federal government owns nearly half of the land and manages it on behalf of all Americans.
Under the Trump administration, official federal job loss figures in Wyoming have not been provided despite numerous requests. But departed and current staff at agency after agency — from the U.S. Forest Service to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Bureau of Land Management — have reported involuntary workforce terminations, albeit to varying degrees. Federal offices are being eliminated and funding pools are being frozen for everything from flea fogging to save endangered black-footed ferrets from plague to trail-building on Wyoming’s national forests.
The face of the cuts is Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world who was appointed as a special government employee by Trump, the president he often appears alongside.
As Hageman wrapped up in Afton, a man began to bemoan the influence of the “unelected billionaire” before the audience’s applause for the congresswoman cut him off.
In her remarks, Hageman discounted the South Africa-born entrepreneur, a polarizing figure. It’s not Musk who heads DOGE, she said. “A woman by the name of Amy Gleason is the acting director,” Hageman said.
Musk, she added later, isn’t calling the shots. “Congress will ultimately be the ones making the decisions about these various programs,” Hageman said.
Hageman spoke proudly of the $105 billion in federal government spending that DOGE has claimed to have cut as of last Thursday. But she also spoke in support of Wyoming’s federal workers. On site last fall while the historic Elk Fire burned, the congresswoman was “in awe” of Bighorn National Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson’s “knowledge” and “expertise,” and she extended the praise beyond one person.
“We’ve got some excellent people, some excellent federal employees right here in Wyoming,” Hageman said. “I’ve had a great time visiting with our BLM folks, our Forest Service people who live and work here, and I know that they have the best interest of Wyoming at heart. They have the best interest of these resources at heart. They always have.”
The challenge, she added, was shifting the decision making from Washington, D.C., to the local level.
‘Lot of rumors’
Publicly, Hageman did not address untold numbers of federal workers who’ve been fired or incentivized to leave their Wyoming-based jobs. Asked by WyoFile after the town hall adjourned, she didn’t necessarily agree with the basic premise of a question that concerned how DOGE downsizing was affecting Wyoming’s federal land managers and their staff — her constituents.
“There’s a lot of rumors,” Hageman told WyoFile. “[That] is why I’m going to push back a little bit.”
Like the general public, Hageman has been kept in the dark about Wyoming job loss figures stemming from DOGE.
“I don’t know the answer to that, either,” she said about job cuts in Wyoming.
But the suggestion that cuts were “deep” in places gave Hageman pause.
“Where?” she asked. “When?”
WyoFile cited the Bridger-Teton National Forest’s Pinedale Ranger District, where a combined 12 permanent-seasonal and year-round full-time employees either left their jobs or were fired in the Trump administration’s first two months, according to a federal worker familiar with the numbers. Most of those dozen workers were told to leave in a single day, Feb. 14, which came to be called the Valentine’s Day massacre.
Asked if she was advocating on behalf of any federal land managers behind the scenes, Hageman said she’s been in talks with agencies making sure they can “properly and effectively” manage their resources. Her office has been in touch with both the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Trump administration on the matter, she said.
“We need to have the folks available to do the managing of the resources,” Hageman said. “We’ve also been working with the [congressional] committees to make sure that what is going to happen with bills is going to be effective on the ground.”
Other Wyo. leader takes
Sen. John Barrasso, whose office didn’t respond to an interview request for this story, has publicly praised Musk’s downsizing. The day the Trump administration’s initiative claimed the jobs of an untold number of Wyoming residents, he told Cowboy State Daily that DOGE was “draining the swamp.”
“Congress will work with DOGE to keep key programs operational,” Barrasso said, “while addressing reckless and wasteful Washington spending.”
The remaining member of Wyoming’s congressional delegation, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, has hinted at having a nuanced reception to DOGE and its still-murky impacts. The senator was in the Wyoming Capitol on Feb. 14 and spoke glowingly about the change of administration, which was ushering in a “new golden age,” she said.
“If you’re watching network television, you’re not seeing and hearing what Elon Musk is actually doing to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse,” Lummis told state lawmakers.
But Lummis also has worked to ease the impacts of DOGE cuts on Wyoming, according to a statement from her office. The senator “has made sure the administration understands how important it is [that] our national parks and federal lands are properly staffed.”
Lummis is “sympathetic,” the statement said, to “Wyoming communities affected by proposed cuts.”
During a Wednesday press conference, Gov. Mark Gordon spoke broadly in support of the Trump administration’s slashing of the federal government.
“I do think this administration really does want to get back to letting the states lead,” Gordon told reporters. “That’s a very positive piece of this.”
But the governor also said he recognizes that DOGE cuts are going to be “traumatic” and “a hardship” for some individuals and that “there’s some disturbance that will happen” in some communities. He worried specifically about impacts on the federal firefighting corps, saying he was “very concerned.”
Wyoming’s congressional delegation, the governor said, has done reasonably well in “blunting” losses to some federal agencies, like the National Park Service. The impacts on others, like the Bureau of Land Management, are less clear.
“The point I’ve made to the [Trump] administration is the Biden administration wouldn’t give us any permits to drill oil and gas,” Gordon said. “Now we’re worried if we’ll have people to be able to fill those permits out. The net result, we hope, isn’t zero. We hope that that result is more positive: Permits to drill in Wyoming.”
I remain baffled by the sub-heading “Wyoming’s governor and congressional delegation have offered sympathy and, in some cases, worked quietly to ease impacts on a state that’s half federal land.” There is no evidence presented about what cases they actually worked on, and the quotes provided are ambiguous if not in contradiction to this statement.
When a Wyoming Senator says they want to make sure that national parks and federal lands are “properly staffed”, that could very well mean working to get rid of biologists, water quality specialists, climate scientists, Wilderness staff, NEPA staff, back-country law enforcement, range managers, etc., to reflect the opinions and desired policies of leading Republicans.
We need facts and clarity about what they are actually doing, not supposition about ‘easing impacts’ in Wyoming while journalists admit they are being denied access to critical information about federal job losses.
One thing about all this spending that is bothersome. Current GOP Congress has been going along with this pork for years and years. Now they act surprised. They are just as bad as democrats. Like the old saying goes. We don’t really have a democrat problem. We have a GOP PROBLEM.
Hageman is another double talking con artist. She was in Kemmerer last summer praising a new nuclear plant to be funded with 2 billion from the Energy Department which has been on the Republican’s hate list for years. Trump has cancelled the funding of Energy Dpt projects and Kemmerer has nothing but a fabulous ground breaking with Bill Gates.
As a retired BLMer I have inside knowledge on some the effects to the field office in and outside of Wyoming. As for the exact number of cut it isn’t major compared to the total number of Federal employees which is what Hagey is telling people. However when you look at the effects on what they are actually doing it is significant. So one office usually has 20 full time employees. They are now down to 8. The issue is that the administration has sabotage job openings and has withdrawn candidates that were selected to be hired. So they weren’t able to hire people for the upcoming field season and four candidates which were hire at the time of the Dump inauguration were told the positions were no longer available. Now they are telling the managers that for every one hire they have to fire 4 employees. So it is dire in the as far as the day to day operations. This is happening with fire seasons, permit season and recreation season just around the corner and shit won’t get done. These are the types of things that the politicians and administration won’t let the public hear.
“It’s not Musk who heads DOGE, she said. “A woman by the name of Amy Gleason is the acting director,” Hageman said” She must have been out of the room when Trump specifically stated in his joint speech to Congress that Elon was the head of DOGE. Gleason as Acting Director, yes…..in name only. I wouldn’t believe anything that came out of Hageman’s mouth…..she, along with numerous other politicians will sell their soul to whomever will help keep them in public office.
I have met & listened intensely to Harriet Hageman. She is very informed & let’s all know where she stands & why. She is one of the best Reps Wy has had for a long time. She is on the side of Truth. Please let her know how many in Wy side with Truth & do appreciate the battle she has been up against. Thank you Rep Harriet Hageman!!!
She’s definitely NOT on the side of truth.
She supports Trump so she has nothing to do with the truth or she would be calling out his lies everyday…including the “big lie” from 2020!
The Hag is a liar, plain and simple, always has been, always will be. Vote her out!
Draining the swamp like Sen. Barrasso said needs done and to still have no number for who?, how many? What they actually did? on a public report just proves the failure of some employees in charge, that is a large amount of money 💰 paid out to get zero response to simple management questions. I see no reasonable need to worry if these cuts haven’t actually affected any taxpayers so far. The 105 billion$$$$ is a great beginning.🍀🍺💚
Barrasso is the swamp.
Hageman’s shtick has always been waring on the “unelected bureaucrats” who are wrecking our country. I don’t remember Elon Musk and Amy Gleason being elected to anything. She seems to be quite happy to have those two people abrogate her responsibilities as an elected official to do whatever they want. She might as well pack up and come home for as much good as she is doing. Another thing that she seems to be high on is the elimination of all the government’s DEI programs. I had a thought a while ago about that subject. Do you suppose that we would have had WWII if the Nazi regime would have had a DEI department in say 1935?
WyoFile might want to check out Ezra Klein’s podcast from this morning on big data and how the electorate is shaping up as majority Republican. One thing from the podcast stands out for me: Elon Musk’s sabotage of the federal government and important programs is starting to get peoples’ attention, even Republicans’. Conclusion, Harriet Hageman and her Trumper colleagues are vulnerable because they are lying (e.g., $105 billion saved by Musk’s wrecking crew–there’s no proof of that). When the economy falls into recession thanks to Trump and Musk, she won’t be able to gaslight constituents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-david-shor.html
A talented CEO knows how to cut waste and fraud without destroying the company. Musk is basically doing what a vulture capitalist does when they buy a struggling business. Dismantle, sell the parts and then make out like a bandit. The cuts Trump is making aren’t going to be money in our pockets, and I would bet on that.
Hageman is lying through her teeth, like every other Republican that has no spine to stand up to Trump. Our country needs heroes, not traitors.
37 TRILLION dollars in debt.
The cuts have barely started in the controlled Bankruptcy of the U.S.A.
Hey Gov, Hageman, Lummis: are you guys collecting cowboy welfare?
They are, and most likely hiding it from taxes in crypto or offshore.
Lummis is collecting Bitcoin welfare. That’s why she is hawking crypto scams.
Trump and Musk lie all the time. Trump is a proven, life-long serial liar. Why should anyone believe anything, and I mean anything, that Hageman says. She has her priorities and it is herself entirely. You can’t believe a word she says.
Congresswoman Hagaman states that Elon Musk has cut $105 billion out of waste fraud and abuse in the government. Can she prove that ?if not why not? It is Congress’s job to cut waste fraud and abuse not a bureaucrat like musk. The courts are Clearly Going against this illegal firing that musk is doing. You would think an attorney would understand that this is an illegal operation and would put an end to it. hageman says Amy Gleason is the one running doge. I didn’t see Amy out there swinging a chainsaw around Barasso and Lummis and Hagaman all referred to it as musk is doing the cuts. The congresswoman doesn’t even know how many jobs have been cut by the government in Wyoming, why are we paying her? Why doesn’t she just come home and let Amy and Elon run the government?pitiful
Thank you for covering Rep. Hageman’s Afton town hall, and asking her questions afterwards about whether she’s working behind the scenes with the administration to protect federal workers important to our resources here.
Interesting story. It contrasts with a Facebook post from someone who attended her town hall in Rock Springs and said people’s reception of her talk about Elon Musk, DOGE, and international tariffs was a lot of anger and people being disruptive and disrespectful.
“When things got too loud about Elon and company, she lied that millions of our tax-payer money had gone to Guatemalan trans people in prison to get sex-changing medical assistance. In Nepal, millions of your tax dollars go towards training people to be atheists. Both of these sensational fabrications were thrown into her rant of lies to deflect attention away from real issues.”
I am reading WyoFile more now because I feel like the journalists there are digging deeper and give a more unbiased account of issues that affect Wyoming than some other state news sources.
“Unbiased”, that’s a hoot.
So, Lummis and Hageman are supposedly working to ease the impact of cuts on Wyoming, while they are strongly backing Trump and Doge in their cost cutting. So, if they work to “ease” the cuts on WY and every congressperson in every state works to “ease” the cuts in their own states, then ultimately – what? we don’t get any cuts, just a lot of interim hysteria?
I am disgusted this woman believes she represents constituent Republicans who are concerned about the demise of government services and agencies. I’m not referring to working on budget concerns. I wish attention was paid to the details rather than whacking way at it all with chainsaw laughter.
Why was Elon Musk and DOGE ever necessary to identify and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government? These responsibilities have been assigned to and provided by inspectors general. Inspectors general report their findings and recommendations to Congress and to their respective department and agency heads, but it is the responsibility of Congress to act on the findings and recommendations. So, if the purpose of DOGE is to identify fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government, why wouldn’t DOGE partner with inspectors general who have specific expertise and experience in this regard? President Trump fires the inspectors general and assigns this task to Elon Musk and his crew. Congress appears to acquiesce to this madness. There are plenty of rats to smell in this scheme and all of the testimonials coming from politicians and talking heads Washington, D.C. can’t suppress the stench.
Exactly. I have been in contact with an old friend who spent her career working for the USAID. I told her I thought some of the claims being thrown about regarding money spent by the USAID were bogus. She replied that she would have to see the Inspector General’s report to make any judgement on that. She may have not been aware that all the IGs had been fired when she replied. So all that insight is out on the street.
In the interest of human decency, we should vote the Hag out of office- and all the other trump zombies. Why are you voting for election denying liars? Oh, by the way gov., talk is cheap.