JACKSON — At a contentious town hall Thursday night in Afton, Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., defended federal cuts, pledged to support veterans in rural Wyoming, re-upped support for delisting the grizzly bear and touted a bill she sponsored to protect the Equality State’s post offices.

More than 200 people converged on the Afton Civic Center, traveling from towns across Lincoln County.

A couple of dozen Teton County Democrats gathered at Albertsons and trekked down together along with others from the Jackson Hole area eager to address and, in some instances, heckle their representative.

As attendees jeered and decried the Department of Government Efficiency and condemned “unelected billionaire” Elon Musk’s involvement in the federal government, Hageman voiced support for a slimmed-down government.

“What we are looking at doing is getting rid of the massive, massive waste, fraud and abuse that has been going on,” Hageman said.

One audience member questioned Hageman on recent cuts to the United States Agency for International Development, saying the Trump administration needed to “take a breath” and “weed rather than chainsaw.” USAID’s stated mission is to assist with disaster recovery, alleviate poverty and promote democracy.

USAID overspends, Hageman countered.

The agency, she said, has funded Indonesian coffee shop programs on how to be more “gender-friendly,” paid consultants to teach Africans about climate change, laid out significant money to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ Ugandans, and unnecessarily doled out dollars to help people in Kazakhstan as they fight internet trolls. Worthwhile USAID spending has been preserved in the State Department, Hageman said.

Underplaying Musk’s role in the efficiency department, Hageman pointed out that Amy Gleason is its administrator and said the department is a reorganization of an agency created under former President Barack Obama. But Musk has no doubt served as DOGE’s public face, appearing in the Oval Office and speaking alongside President Trump.

“Musk is correcting bureaucratic decisions,” Hageman said, “which are wasting taxpayer funds.”

A man sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat, a veteran, thanked Hageman for her service and asked the representative to do what she could to improve Veterans Affairs clinics in rural locales. He uses the Afton VA clinic and is frequently left paying for medications out of pocket.

“We have real challenges in Wyoming when it comes to VA services,” Hageman said.

U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins is Hageman’s friend, she said. She hopes to have Collins out for a visit so he can see what it is like to provide services to veterans in one of America’s most rural settings.

Presented with a question on wildfires and forest management, Hageman emphasized the importance of elected officials making decisions rather than bureaucrats.

“Our form of government is that your elected officials are the ones that are accountable to you,” she said. “Unelected folks have attempted to dictate what people can do.”

On grizzlies, Hageman has introduced legislation to delist, saying the bear has recovered.

“If a species has been recovered, we should not be spending our limited resources on that species,” Hageman said. “We should be focusing on the species that need the assistance.”

To applause, Hageman said she will work to “terminate [former President Joe] Biden’s rewrite” of the Buffalo and Rock Springs management plans. Recently, she co-sponsored a bill to replace the plans with ones favoring extraction over conservation.

Hageman, along with the Equality State’s senators, has been involved in an effort to preserve Wyoming’s post offices, specifically processing and distribution centers. The U.S. Postal Service unveiled its “Delivering for America” plan to cut costs in 2021. The plan called for post offices in Cheyenne and Casper to stop distributing mail.

That means Wyoming mail could be processed in Denver or Billings, Montana, Hageman said in a February Facebook video.

The town hall ended with heckles and palpable anger.

A group of presumably Teton County residents shouted, asking Hageman to reinstate fired employees on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

“Come to Jackson next time,” one said.

“Go back to Jackson,” someone shouted back.

As heavy snowflakes fell on Afton, Hageman closed down the town hall after exactly an hour for a drive to Kemmerer.