SOLON, Ohio — Jon Husted had spent the last 24 years in government, all of which were in Columbus. That changed abruptly in January when Governor Mike DeWine asked his lieutenant governor to fill the Senate seat of newly sworn-in Vice President JD Vance. His transition period lasted all of four days before he was sworn in by Vance on Jan. 21.
"When I became a U.S. Senator, I literally didn't have a chair, a pencil, a staff person, an email address or a phone number. I just raised my hand, and then I'm a U.S. Senator, and I didn't have the time that a new senator normally has to build that operation," Husted recalled. "It literally took them almost three months to turn on all of my phones at my state offices. It was very frustrating for me."
It was frustrating for many constituents who shared their concerns with News 5 in those early months, unable to reach Husted's office to voice their dissatisfaction, especially over government cuts. He says, four months in, they're up and running now.
"The customer service is our most important priority. If you have a problem, we want to hear from you. If you're having trouble with veterans' benefits, if you're having trouble with Social Security, if you're having trouble getting healthcare coverage, and we can help, we want to be there to do that," he said.
Several of those programs were impacted by job cuts and now budget cuts in the president's so-called "one big beautiful bill," which Husted and the Senate will tackle starting Monday.
The House-passed bill includes $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and $700 billion to Medicaid. We asked the Senator if he supports the cuts and if he's concerned about the impact on care.
"Remember why we have to do this because if we fail to renew the tax plan it will be a $4 trillion tax increase on working families and small businesses, that's why we have to get it done but I'm also going to be very conscious of the fact that we need to find savings, we have a $37 trillion national debt that's not sustainable," he said. "So we're going to work on doing that."
The Congressional Budget Office, though, projects the budget to add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years.
"Oh that's not true. What has happened is that we've seen the growth of government get out of hand," said Husted. "We just want to reset that, let's go back to where we were before. Let's not do that inflationary government spending, let's get the budget moving towards sustainability, let's provide the tax relief to working families. Let's be smart about it, though."
As for things he'd like to tweak in the bill the Senate is hoping to pass before July 4, Husted said, the benefit cliff.
"Right now many times we see people who are on these government benefits, if they go to work then they lose their benefits all at once. We call it a cliff. They fall off a cliff, well, we don't want to see that happen. We want to gradually move people off of public assistance and into self sufficiency. I have a plan to be able to do that. I think its something that can be supported on a bipartisan basis," he said.
Among the international issues he's had to immerse himself in is the ongoing war in Ukraine. The two previous holders of his seat, Senators Rob Portman and JD Vance, held differing views on the role the U.S. should be playing in the war, with Portman one of the strongest voices of continuing support for Ukraine.
Husted said he supports legislation that would be tough on Russia. "Essentially saying to Vladimir Putin and to his allies around the world, like India and China, that continue to finance the war, we want to put secondary tariffs on them. If they're going to buy oil from Russia and Putin's not going to back away from invading Ukraine, then we're going to slap tariffs on them," he said. "Which will put financial pressure on Russia for them to withdraw and stop the advances and the strikes on Ukraine."
As for what has been the biggest adjustment to Washington besides the travel, he said it's the partisanship.
"I'm used to working on a bipartisan basis, you know, here in Ohio— even when we've been in the majority as Republicans. But in Washington, it's a lot of sharper elbows," he said.
"I'm overcoming that, though I've found a couple of Democrats to work with on some issues. Sen. Jacky Rosen and I, she's a Democrat from Nevada, she and I are working on this legislation to make sure we don't have tools like Deepseek, which is a Chinese AI tool that we don't want... on any government devices. So we're working to prohibit that from happening. I'm working with Sen. John Fetterman on some legislation to help with foster children and kids that grow up in foster care," he said of the Democrat from Pennsylvania.
"So I'm trying to find my way around, it's been difficult but we're making progress," he said.
