(WASHINGTON) — Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman tangled with a fiery town hall audience in her home state on Thursday night as she went back and forth with constituents over Elon Musk’s DOGE and cuts to federal spending.
At one point, Hageman sparred with a woman who said she was a retired military officer and Republican, who grilled the congresswoman over the evidence of alleged fraud that Musk and Republicans contend they have uncovered.
“Just to give you a little reference, I’m a retired military officer,” an unidentified woman said at one point in the town hall. “At 18, I rose my hand to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. … “And my question, having looked at Musk’s DOGE, you are a lawyer. Where is this fraud? Who? What company? What organization? What personnel are we going after right now?”
DOGE’s actions have come under fire, not only for recommending thousands of federal workers be fired, including many veterans but allegations, backed by President Donald Trump and the White House pertaining to what they say is massive fraud in government spending. The claims of fraud, which Trump outlined in his recent address to Congress, are not yet verifiable.
Hageman, fired back at the constituent, saying, “Oh my gosh, I’ll just start reading some of it. I’ll just start reading it right now, if you like me to. I’ll just focus on USAID spending right here.”
“I didn’t say spending, I said actual fraud,” the woman shouted back at Hageman.
“This is what it is,” Hageman retorted. “This is the spending associated with the fraud. This is the fraud. Spending is the fraud.”
“No, no, no,” the woman shouted back. “Go after specific companies or specific personnel that are committing fraud.”
“This is fraud. This is fraudulent spending,” said Hageman.
“No, it may be abusive spending, but it’s not fraud,” the woman replied.
“What I said was waste, fraud and abuse. Waste, fraud and abuse,” Hageman said back, before trying to give figures on USAID spending.
The same constituent then pressed Hageman over firings and whether or not they were actually making government more efficient: “Just because you’re firing somebody doesn’t mean that’s efficient because the job is still there. It still needs to be done,” she said.
“We will eliminate some of those jobs as well,” Hageman said. “Those jobs will be being eliminated. They don’t need to be done.”
At another point during the town hall, another woman pressed Hageman over what qualifies Musk to be making cuts to federal spending.
“You just described the cuts to the government right now as some kind of careful audit, but the cuts that DOGE has been making have been willy-nilly by someone who has never served in the government, has never run a nonprofit, who has 19-year-olds infiltrating computers and agencies and making decisions. So who is Musk accountable to? What qualifies him to be making these cuts? It’s not an audit,” she asked.
DOGE claims to have saved $115 billion but that full amount is unverifiable because there are only receipts for a portion of the claimed savings.
“As I said a moment ago, this is, it is an audit. It is the closest thing that we are ever going to get to zero-based budgeting in the federal government,” Hageman said.
“What I cannot understand, whether he is a billionaire, a millionaire, or someone who is, just as he says, tech support, all he is doing is going in and looking at every single agency and how the money is being spent. Do you think that you are entitled to know how your money is being spent?” she added.
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