U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahomas’s 1st Congressional District is voicing opinions on Friday’s heated exchange between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Vice President JD Vance.
The Tulsa area representative went on Fox News on Friday and said the contentious meeting between the three leaders at the White House was “terrible.”
“(Zelenskyy) was ill-prepared for that meeting, coming into the White House and not even knowing his audience, having seen President Trump over the years, his negotiation skills,” Hern said.
The conversation televised live saw talks breaking down as Zelenskyy insisted diplomacy with Vladimir Putin, the aggressor in an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia begun in 2022, would be pointless. Vance and Trump defended their efforts with the Russian leader who has sharply curtailed political freedoms in his country.
Hern's conversation with Larry Kudlow then turned briefly to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, headed by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk. Hern credited Trump, not Musk, with “rooting out issues” across many agencies.
“(Trump) is the commander-in-chief, the chief executive officer of the U.S. government, and that’s his job,” said Hern.
Musk’s DOGE has been chaotically making cuts across the country to the federal government, and a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows the efforts are not popular. 39% of respondents approve of DOGE; the same percentage approve of Musk himself.
In his Fox appearance, Hern went on to compare DOGE’s cuts to President Bill Clinton’s downsizing of the government. Between January 1993 and September 2000, Clinton cut more than 426,000 federal jobs.
People involved in Clinton’s efforts say the comparison is not exact, though, noting that Clinton faced zero lawsuits over his reductions. DOGE has been inundated with legal filings over its abrupt efforts.
Hern began his term in Congress in 2018. He was last elected on Nov. 5. His term expires Jan. 3, 2027.
