Ernst doubles down on Medicaid comment with sarcastic video 'apology'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Hill

05/31/25 3:16 PM ET


Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) doubled down on a recent quip about Medicaid in a Saturday post on her Instagram story. “Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall,” Ernst said in the clip, with a sarcastic tone.

On Friday, the Iowa Republican was jeered after brushing aside life or death concerns about cuts to Medicaid, a public health insurance program for low income families and individuals with disabilities.

“See I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member, when a woman who was extremely distraught, screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, people are going to die,” Ernst said Saturday. “And I 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.

The Iowa lawmaker then encouraged viewers who want to see “eternal and everlasting life” to “embrace” Jesus Christ.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5327320-ernst-medicaid-comment-response/

[BOSSHOG]

1. A tame version of the Louisiana preacher

Caught with a hooker, tears in his eyes, I have sinned against my lord. Sometimes conservative values are enhanced with a touch of drama.

Obviously Joni hasn’t embraced Jesus Christ who embraces children and hungry people. Without the drama.

[delisen]

2. Sen. Joni Ernst is Satan's Little Lamb.

[Pisces]

3. Remember when Republicans were accusing Dems of death panels?? They are literally telling you to shut up

and die already. We are living in the upside down !!!

You want us to embrace Jesus. Why don’t you learn what Jesus stood for!!

[Srkdqltr]

4. "The tooth fairy". Seriously? Geezzzzz she is .... Im not sure what.

I dislike bashing women, so I'll just leave it alone.

[travelingthrulife]

18. She is an arrogant Christian. Evangelical Christians think they know it all.

[EmmaLee E]

21. Iowa Cow Pat

[Tarzanrock]

5. Fuck you, lying, disingenuous hypocrite!

Go back to castrating pigs on your so-called farm, you no good, lying Hayseed.

[TurboDem]

6. Was she stomping her cloven hoof when she said it? N/T

[Tarzanrock]

7. Just wait another couple of months ...

until the economics of the Turd's insane China tariffs hits rural Iowa and there is no Chinese market for Iowa's soybeans and its pig parts in China. It's going to be a real hoot to watch old lying Ernst explain that economic boondoggle to all those red hat wearing MAGA Iowa farmers in all those little rural towns all across Iowa.

[CTyankee]

14. That's what I'm waiting for, too.

[travelingthrulife]

20. She will just claim the Democrats did it and it will be swallowed whole by the MAGA

crowd. Rinse, repeat.

[biophile]

8. Does she have Ozempic face?

Or has had plastic surgery? She looks way different. Still an ugly, sad soul inside, though.

[IronLionZion]

9. She's way too clever for the rest of us

[travelingthrulife]

19. Yeah. I had no idea we all died at some point.

[cheri010353]

10. "Embrace Jesus Christ"

Like she does? No thanks. I'll just remain a moral, ethical, empathetic heathen. If "Heaven" is full of people like her, I'll pass.

[OldBaldy1701E]

23. Hear Hear! (n/t)

[Jacson6]

11. "I'm so sorry!"

You MFers gotta die sometime!

[Sessuch]

12. To see freedom now and eternal joy

Vote out Joni Ernst for the sake of Jesus Christ

[bmichaelh]

13. Ernst: Another hypocrite

I am a lymphoma survivor.
I am in my third remission.
I was first diagnosed in 1990.

It returned in 2019.
Unfortunately, every time it returns, it gets more aggressive and more resistant to prior therapies.

I tried four different therapies over 2 years; all treatments failed.
The fifth treatment was a success.

If the ACA had been repealed, which Ernst vote for, I probably would not be here.
ACA provides me protection against lifetime limits.

News flash for Ernst: Following Trump does not mean you follow teachings of Christ.

It is hard to say what the current Trump policies will have on me.
But the fifth treatment that worked, which I started in 2021, was only approved by the FDA in 2020.
So, cancer research benefits me already.

Trump has cancelled cancer research.

[Karasu]

15. But when and how we die clearly don't matter to her, or she wouldn't be excusing this as as an excuse to

deny us health care. "You don't deserve health care because we're all mortal and going to die!" It's literally the most extreme, absurd stance on the subject of health care someone can possibly have. The GOP deserves to have this hung around their necks for as long as they continue to exist.

Yeah, we're going to die of 100% preventable shit, thanks to the insanity of your party and its policies. You know, the whole fucking point of fucking health care. To keep people from dying of preventable shit.

By that same logic, they should be on board with everything from abortion to Luigi Mangione. After all, "We're all going to die," right? Therefore, all he did was accelerate the process for one CEO. As health insurance companies do when they deny claims every day.

If human mortality is an excuse to deny health care, and health care isn't something we should even have, then why are we here? Just to suffer and die?

Yeah, you fascists would love that, wouldn't you?

[rurallib]

16. here's the youtube

?si=8Zyv3SMbRLUQuiPi

[Trueblue Texan]

22. People like Joni Ernst are the reason so many people have fled Christianity...

Who wants to be associated with people so vile hearted?

[Paladin]

17. I want her driven out of office---immediately, and on a rail.

Gotta love her oh-so-reverent suggestion that we embrace Jesus. Just the sort of trashy, sub-human behavior we've come to expect from the current breed of Republicans.