By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
OLEAN — About a dozen area residents demonstrated outside Rep. Nick Langworthy’s Olean office Tuesday, protesting his support of Elon Musk’s employee and budget cuts and President’s Trump’s lack of support for Ukraine.
Demonstrators carried signs they waved at traffic passing Langworthy’s office inside Bluebird Square at North Union and Laurens streets. Many drivers gave the demonstrators a honk of encouragement as they chanted slogans.
Kathy Hardiman of Allegany organized the demonstration on Facebook this week as a way of showing that not everyone agrees with what she sees as Musk DOGE cuts that are not well thought out.
Several demonstrators complained of the president’s abrupt about-face on Ukraine as he imposed a pause on all aid on Monday.
In an Oval Office meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zalenskyy Friday, Trump called him ungrateful and called off a press conference where the two were to sign a major minerals deal.
A representative from Ellicott Development asked the demonstrator to move from in front of the building and suggested Lincoln Park.
A policeman arrived soon afterward and asked Hardiman if this was a peaceful demonstration and she replied that it was.
“Langworthy doesn’t represent me,” the group chanted as they waved their signs. “I didn’t vote for Musk. Musk is not my president,” one sign read. “Don’t take away my Social Security. I earned it,” read another. Their ages spanned 50 years.
Hardiman said she hoped to organize a peaceful protest outside Langworthy’s office over “his support for the Trump administration’s harmful agendas. Congressman Langworthy routinely puts out statements in full support of the Trump Administration’s words and actions.”
Allowing Elon Musk to access the U.S. Treasury data bases and “to willy-nilly cut necessary federal programs has exposed many to hardships — both to those fired and those needing services,” Hardiman said.
“The main objective has been to destabilize in order to create chaos and require much attention to be taken away, whilst Trump allies himself to fascism and Dictator Putin,” she said.
