Tempers flare on Medicaid, Trump during Iowa Senator Joni Ernst town hall

PARKERSBURG, Iowa (KCRG) – A Friday morning town hall with Iowa Senator Joni Ernst became heated shouting matches that clearly frustrated the Republican lawmaker.

Proposed cuts to Medicaid and food stamp benefits, known as SNAP, became a primary focal point of the meeting. Sen. Ernst also faced questions about whether the Republican-controlled Congress was doing enough to check the power of President Trump.

One of the more heated moments centered on a Navy veteran and civics teacher who questioned whether President Trump’s efforts to expand Presidential powers threatened democracy. Harrison Cass pointed to President Trump’s refusal to follow judicial orders and sidestepping congressional approval for things like tariffs or DOGE funding cuts.

“Are you afraid of Trump, are you corrupt like Trump or are you just to the point you don’t care anymore and that’s why you don’t do anything?” asked Harrison Cass.

Sen. Ernst disagreed that democracy was being threatened and argued that she supported many of the questioned Presidential actions. Her main argument was that President Trump was talking with her about these actions while President Biden did not, renewing the questions around the former President’s mental acuity while in office.

“(President Trump) does take my calls, he does listen to my concerns,” Sen. Ernst said. “I did not do that with President Biden, he did not take my calls, he did not take anybody’s calls. That’s the way government should work is having this type of interaction and interaction between the branches of government.”

Medicaid was a focus of several questions as Congress debates potential cuts to the entitlement program under the Big Beautiful Bill. Senator Ernt declined to say if she would vote for the bill or not, saying she expected changes and was waiting to see what would be in the Senate version.

However, Sen. Ernst defended efforts to rollback, as she called it, benefits for people she said were not supposed to be eligible for Medicaid benefits. That response drew shouting from the crowd including one woman who yelled “people will die”. An exacerbated Ernst gave a sarcastic reply “well we are all going to die”, which drew more angst from the crowd.

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst got frustrated with criticisms to efforts to roll back Medicaid benefits, responding facetiously “we’re all going to die”.

Watch the full town hall here:

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