GOP senator blasted for shutdown: 'These families don't have food'
Sen. Joni Ernst’s support of the Trump shutdown is not going over well with her constituents.
Embattled Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who faces an uphill re-election battle in 2020, got an earful from constituents for her complicit role in the Trump shutdown.
“I am deeply ashamed that we have, at the moment, federal employees in soup lines and trying to find food for their families while they’re still working,” one constituent told Ernst at a recent town hall event. “And I wonder how in the world anyone in the Senate can defend that,” the constituent concluded.
When Ernst tried to pivot to previous government shutdowns, another constituent was not having it. “We need to talk about right now because these families don’t have food on their tables.”
While Ernst shows no indication that she cares about the plight of 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid, many other Americans are showing more compassion. Celebrity chef Jose Andres opened a pop-up kitchen to help feed furloughed federal employees. Coast Guard families are literally begging Congress to end the shutdown so they can get paid, but those pleas fall on the deaf ears of Senators like Joni Ernst.
Ernst, one of Trump’s most loyal lackeys in the Senate, has made no public effort to end the Trump shutdown. Trump initiated a government shutdown after throwing a tantrum on national television demanding $5.6 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Rather than take responsibility for her own pathetic inaction, Ernst used the town hall to falsely cast blame on others.
“Voicing her own frustrations with congressional Democrats, Ernst called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others to return to Washington, and vote on a resolution to reopen the government Thursday,” reports KMA News. Ernst nows full well that congressional Democrats have passed multiple bills to reopen the government.
For the past month, Ernst has been mostly silent as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) repeatedly refused to allow the Senate to hold one single vote on a House-passed measure to reopen the government during the first month of the longest shutdown in history.
Like Trump, Ernst would rather blame other people and mislead her constituents rather than accept responsibility for her role in the Trump shutdown. The shutdown is shameful, and so is Ernst’s reaction.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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