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The first mention of billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led to uproar at Afton’s Civic Center on March 13. The overflowing room of over 200 attendees appeared to be split.
One woman stood to say the gutting of USAID must have some consequences.
“Surely they do some good things,” she said.
But Hageman, who has defended cuts of the task force before, held her stance.
“Musk is correcting bureaucratic decisions made absent of Congress,” Hageman said, “which are wasting taxpayer funds.”
Thursday’s evening meeting was particularly tense following the firings of 2,000 forest workers nationwide including about 40 in the Bridger-Teton National Forest and more throughout the state. Last week two district court judges ordered those positions be reinstated. Per a judges decision, fired probationary employees of several agencies including the Department of Agriculture must be reinstated by March 17. If or how those reinstatements will happen, remains unclear.
Speaking on wildfire risk Hageman said she had the “utmost respect” for forest service workers.
A woman in the back challenged that statement.
“How many of them did you fire?” she interrupted.
As President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress make sweeping changes, congressional town halls have risen in popularity across the country.
Hageman also touted efforts to secure the border, save rural mail, pass a federal budget and delist one of the Greater Yellowstone’s keystone species.
“We have had a recovered grizzly bear population for over two decades,” Hageman said, “so I have a bill to delist the grizzly bear.”
Steve Pap lives in Thayne. He was part of the majority in the room who were, for the most part, supportive of Hageman. He liked Hageman’s discussion of the Laken Riley Act, which Trump signed into law in January. It requires the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of theft or violent crime.
“I don’t know how you get past the Democratic Party wanting to protect illegals and let illegals come in,” Pap said.
Those who gave Hageman grief, heckling and booing throughout the hour-long event, appeared to be from Teton County.
Several hundred crowded into the Afton Civic Center to hear Hageman speak last week as attendance at congressional town halls across the country grows. (Dante Filpula Ankney / KHOL)
Hageman won reelection in 2024 with an overwhelming 70% of Wyoming’s votes. But in Teton County, the state’s only county to vote blue, Hageman won just 32% of the vote.
That divide played prominently throughout the night. About a dozen with the Teton County Democratic Party, and others, drove to Afton to express their frustration. Hageman was last in Teton County in August.
“I want you to come to Jackson,” one man shouted from the back of the room at night’s close.
Another woman quickly followed, “come to Jackson next time.”
That didn’t land with the Lincoln County crowd.
“How about you go back to Jackson,” a woman rebutted, drawing applause and cheers.
Hageman’s town halls continue this week in Carbon, Platte and Albany counties.
