Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Sen. Ernst OUT as GOP Struggles With Trump’s Grip on Party

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

JVL and Sarah take on the breaking news that Senator Joni Ernst may not run for reelection in 2026 — and why her exit signals much deeper problems inside the GOP. From retirements to Trump’s stranglehold on the party, they discuss what this means for Iowa, the Senate map, and the future of the Republican Party after Trump.

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Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, the principal, principled conservative, who was really not going to bend the knee to Trump and was going to hold Pete Hagseth to account and all that stuff. She's one of the good Republicans, Sarah. She is not going to be seeking re-election in 26. This adds her to a fairly long list, Tom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, who's the idiot football coach in Alabama of Republicans. Tuberville. who are not going to be running. And we already have a whole list of Democrats who had thrown their hats in the ring

to run against Senator Ernst. Sarah, is this cause for hope? It's pretty interesting. It is pretty interesting for Iowa. Now, there's a couple things happening in succession here. Now, first of all, she has not confirmed that she's dropping out. We should just be clear.

But there are reports. She's told people, whatever. She says she's going to announce it next week. But this comes on the here. heels of Democrats breaking the Republicans' stranglehold on the state legislature by flipping. Yeah, it happened this week where they flipped. It was kind of, it got some attention, but not a ton, but it was a Trump plus 11 seat. In a special election, Democrats won. Now, if you're Ernst and you're running in an off year, and I think people are pretty aware at this point that Donald Trump,

Trump turns people out for him and not for the rest of the party. And so I think she's pretty worried that she was going to lose. But she also, I think, was not looking forward to running. So A, and then you look at the number of Democrats in the field, which mean people thought they could win, right? He got Zach Walls, who I remember from back in the day because he has two lesbian moms. And he testified as like a young college student in favor of gay marriage. and has subsequently stayed involved in politics, but there's a bunch of other people running.

Josh Turrick, who was just interviewed in the last 24 hours by our own Lauren Egan. You can see that on the channel. Ding, ding, ding. Which means there's going to be a robust democratic primary. And then, but I think Ernst too was worried about the humiliation that she suffered with being passed over for Hegg Seth. Don't you think? I mean, she did say everybody. dies when defending cuts to Medicaid. People are not, well, we all are going to die.

I mean, it feels like that's the kind of thing that either you don't say if you're serious about running again or, you know, or you say it. Once you say it, you're like, crap, I will have to hear that a thousand times a day every day for six months if I run again. Yes. And there's more dignity in library. So if she leaves early. and Dems flip that seat, she still has a future, right?

She could run for governor, she could do anything, right? She could say, well, see, I was just, I would have held it. This is one of those things that we always talk about as market signals. And you see retirements like this whenever the people who are closest to it with the most skin in the game start feeling those seismic waves, right? It's like when you're standing on the beach and all of a sudden the birds all start flying. and the, you know, animals start moving inland, going to high ground. You're like, huh, everything looks fine. Wonder what they're all freaked out about.

I wonder if this is like that. I mean, we've seen the congressional generic ballot numbers are pretty bad for Republicans already, which is something, right? They should be worse. They should be worse. But in a weird way, I think a lot of this stuff is masked by the Democratic Party's general unpopularity. It's true, which is just a real thing where people like, no, I don't like the Democrats, but on the other hand, like, they're not going in an election, people aren't going to be asked, do you like the Democrats? They're going to be given a choice between a Republican who's going to keep doing the inflation stuff and the military takeovers and all that and this other person with a D next to their name. It also, you know, it's an interesting, it is an interesting signal both in terms of retirements and then also failure to recruit. You know, I just like normal people who can. who could win in swinging your states aren't getting in. They're staying out because they either

don't want to defend Trump or they don't want to have to go as far as they're going to need to go to get the Trumpy people to turn out. Or they think they're going to lose. Well, think about this, right? I mean, Ernst, that seat now gets subjected to a primary. How well have normal high-quality Republican candidates been performing in red state primaries over the last six years? Yeah, I mean, this is going to be so interesting to have had sort of the last remnant of normie-ish Republicans, at least people who ran to be normie-ish Republicans. I just remember Ernst's campaign that she eked out last time six years ago, last time she was up, because she ran ads. in the suburbs that had no mention of Trump, did not have anything to do with Trump. And then in the redder areas, ran stuff where she was like, yeah, Trump's my boy.

But so she had to run a two-tiered campaign in Iowa to be able to kind of keep that coalition together. And I don't think that, I don't think that was going to fly strategically again now. She's got too much Trump all over. Well, and also because whoever gets that nomination on the Republican side is going to have to really tie themselves to Trump. right so in order to win the nomination in a state like iowa you're going to basically have to be steve king and uh guys remember steve king yeah remember that guy he was anti-semitic before it was cool before it was cool why couldn't he honestly this crazy thing to why could if steve king wanted this nomination don't you think he would win it i i think he might i think it is um

i think he's one of the people that probably looks back it's like people who retired over things like affairs or other things where they're like, an Al Franken type. They're like, why would I do that? That isn't the culture. No one cares anymore about this stuff. He's probably like, was I racist and anti-Semitic? Sure. Did I say the 14 words? Sure. Did I say it? Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? The people want that. I can win a Republican primary like that. Could he win a general? Honestly, I don't know. But he could win a Republican primary. You know what? I bet Steve King could win the Republican primary in 2026. I think he'd probably lose the general rate. the in the general election in 2026 if the environment looks like it looks and iowa i mean iowa has

moved a little like i you know i was not as red i don't think i mean it's still a very red state but it's it's not oklahoma you know i was a place brock obama won yeah like once upon a time so kim reynolds their governor was this kind of a normie like secret normie now because none of them are real normies, but. Can I ask a question about Joni Ernst, though? I would like to ask you a psychological question. If you were journey, Joni Ernst, and you were going to leave anyway, why did you bother humiliating yourself over the last six years, right?

The excuse is always, well, she's got a re-election to run, blah, blah, blah, blah, why not just then stand up and do the things that you believe are right anyway? Why vote for Pete Exif, right? Yeah, no, I bet. that she didn't decide to do this until the last six months, until, like, the Hegg-Seth thing. But, like, how stupid do you have to be to say, like, I'm going to make these compromises over and over and over? I think she thought she was going to get Hegg-Seth's job.

Oh, you think that's what it was? Yeah, for sure. She shortlisted, I mean, a woman with a military background who is relatively popular in her state, rides a motorcycle. You know, I think there was a sense that she had a future. and what she knows now and what everybody else knows that she does not have a future.

Like the Hegg-Seth thing, put the nail in that ambition. But I'm looking forward to her defending Trump all the way to the end anyway, even though Manga has no use for her. Because that's the kicker, right? I mean, at the end of the day, people like Joni Ernst and like Susan Collins

are useless. I'm useless isn't even the right word, right? Like, what is the point? They're worse than useless now. They're worse than useless. Yeah, the good Republicans. And this is a thing that I, at some point, there was a period of time where having people who were willing to stand up to Trump on the Republican side was deeply important. But when they basically stopped doing that or only did it when they could choreograph it so that they themselves could do it, but it wouldn't actually matter, which is what Susan Collins does, they became a net negative and have increasingly become so because it gives the party.

some cover to be like, see, look at these normal Republicans who are still in there. Like, no, be your purest most distilled self. I don't want them to be able to hide behind Susan Collins or Mitt Romney. And like, give it, like, give it the pure MAGA treatment and then let people decide. All right. Well, I'm going to let people go with a little piece of hopium. The one thing which I do not have on my bingo card or did not have on my bingo card, but is worth considering. What if Democrats captured both houses of Congress in 2026?

Because I feel like at that point, I would have a very different feeling about the future prospects of America in a way that just taking the House wouldn't. That's right. Well, this is, I'm sorry, but this is a big part of my thesis is that Donald Trump is unique in that the turnout. for just him. And we know this exists because in places like Wisconsin, where he won, there's just like many people walked in there, voted for him and walked back out. And that's why Tammy Baldwin's still a senator. Or people, or there was crossover. But this is important. And just remember, no matter how much Trump says, yes, he won the popular vote. Not by that much. And he didn't, yes, he won all the swing states, but not by that much.

We're still in coin flip territory. And Republicans do not know what to do after. Trump because he has been running against them and the Republican Party the whole time. Kevin McCarthy can be so impressed by Donald Trump's turnout abilities, but Kevin McCarthy should remember he's not part of the party anymore. They kicked him out. They created the conditions necessary for their own distinction. Distinction. Extinction.

And so, yeah, I think Senate, I don't want to do Hopium either, but more and more it looks like Senate is in play. possible, right? It's no longer an impossible to one chance. Like, now it looks like, I don't know, there's a one in ten chance. Dems could flip the Senate, the Senate. All right, guys, I can promise you that once every three or four months, you will get a podcast like this, a video like this, in which we have good news, and we don't say, hey, look, everything is terrible. Because that's what we do. We just speak the truth here. We don't shine you up. It's not like fight song stuff. We just try to call like we see it. And it's also not doom scrolling either. You know, like when good

things happen, we're here to tell you. Joni Ernst, get the F out of here. America's done with you. Follow the channel. Hit like, hit subscribe. Good luck, America.