Iowa Senator Joni Ernst first gained national attention when late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert accidentally got her elected to the upper chamber of Congress by spoofing a bizarre campaign ad of hers depicting the castration of hogs and comparing it to “cutting pork” in Washington, D.C. Before they showed her ad on their programs, Ernst was having trouble raising campaign money and might have been relegated to the state legislature once again.
Even I, a staunch lefty, was hopeful about her career, because I think women intrinsically make better leadership decisions than men do, and I have worked to get more women elected to public office at every level for exactly that reason. But despite being the first female combat veteran ever elected to the US Senate, Ernst has largely simply followed marching orders from Mitch McConnell and the “good old boys” of the Senate GOP.
It seems that’s how Amy Haskins, one of Senator Ernst’s voters in Iowa, was feeling at a town hall recently when she cornered the lawmaker with questions about why she wasn’t standing up to Donald Trump and his strange and dangerous antics.
Haskins raised concerns about Trump’s illegal solicitation of foreign assistance in investigating his rival Joe Biden, asking the Senator, “Where is the line? When are you guys gonna say ‘enough’?”
Yet you still stand there silent, and your silence is supporting him and not standing up.”
Ernst went into a non-answer, saying that Trump was going to do whatever he wanted, but Haskins even called that out, right to the Senator’s face.
I mean, I understand it’s a ‘non-answer’ answer and I understand, I get it. I know what you’re saying.”
Then the Senator said exactly what she was beating around the bush about, telling Haskins “I can’t speak for him.” And that’s when Haskins came in with the death blow: “I know you can’t speak for him, but you can speak for yourself.”
Watch the awesome exchange here:
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst was confronted by an Iowan constituent over her “silence” and for “not standing up” to President Trump over his recent call for Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens. https://t.co/yzMRWmMWbS pic.twitter.com/StSLpFMhiO
— CNN (@CNN) October 4, 2019
Featured image via screen capture
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