My dad was talking about Joni Ernst’s graveyard video, so I looked it up. Joe Scarborough, of all people, has a decent piece about it. (Proving that even a blind pig finds an ear of corn sometimes, as they say in the Dakotas.)
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa is doubling down on her controversial comments on Medicaid cuts. On Friday, while defending the GOP’s sprawling megabill to carry out Donald Trump’s agenda, Ernst dismissed concerns from her constituents that the proposed cuts could cause people to lose eligibility and possibly die, telling the crowd at a town hall: “Well, we all are going to die.”
On Saturday, the senator posted a sarcastic apology video to social media. Speaking from what appears to be a cemetery, Ernst referenced her comments from the previous day and said she “made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth.”
“So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well,” she continued. “But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
Ernst’s response at the town hall question pointing out that 40% of Iowa’s Medicaid recipients are children, 42% live in rural areas, and 50% of nursing home residents are on Medicaid. Do I need to say that her response is, well, lacking?
Ernst is the kind of person who listens to the REM song “Everybody Hurts” and treats it as a prescription for political action. The gross political incompetence on display here is hubris driven by a certainty that Republicans have made the Democratic brand so toxic in Iowa that even a ghoul like Ernst can get re-elected.
We shall see.
