Bulwark Takes - Sarah Longwell: Joni Ernst Handed The Dems a Huge Advantage

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Sarah Longwell joins Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House to break down Senator Joni Ernst’s viral “we’re all gonna die” moment—and why her callous defense of Medicaid cuts could haunt Republicans.  They also discuss the growing conservative backlash to Trump’s tariff chaos, the cowardice in Congress, and the looming political consequences for GOP lawmakers trying to gaslight their own voters.

Rural communities are being squeezed from every side. From rising health care costs to crumbling hospitals, from attacks on public schools to the fight for paid family and medical leave, farmers and small businesses are reeling from the trade war. And now, Project 2025 is back with a plan to finish what Elon Musk started. Trump and the Republicans won rural votes, then turned their backs on us. Join the One Country Project for the Rural Progress Summit, July 8th through the 10th.

This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hey guys, Sarah Longwell here, publisher of The Bullwork.

I just jumped off of Nicole Wallace's show where we were talking about tariffs, how voters and small businesses are feeling about it. But my favorite part was that we talked about that incredibly insane, creepy Joni Ernst video. She doubled down on this idea that like, I don't know, just we're all gonna die. So who cares about anything, especially like, I don't know, just we're all gonna die. So who cares about anything?

Especially policy, I guess. Hope you enjoy it, check it out. Don't forget to subscribe. See you guys. When I come home to Kentucky, I talk to the Farm Bureau, which is opposed to the tariffs. I talk to the bourbon industry,

which is opposed to the tariffs. I talk to the cargo companies, UPS, DHL, all their pilots are opposed to it. I talked to the hardwood floor people. I talked to the people selling houses, building houses. I have no organized business interest in Kentucky for the tariffs. So I think it's worth the discussion and it's worth people remembering that the Republicans used to be for lower taxes. Tariffs are a tax. So if you raise taxes on the private sector, that's not good for the private sector. We are grateful to Senator Rand Paul for searching for the tariff fan and telling everyone that

there aren't any. He's giving voice to what has been abundantly obvious to everyone outside of the MAGA bubble since day one. And we welcome him to reality. Pretty much as he said, no one wants Trump's tariffs. The senator is just one of the many conservatives now publicly pushing back on insanity, Donald Trump's attempt to play chicken with the American

and potentially global economy. New York Times reports today that a super group of conservative legal giants have united to put forward an amicus brief opposing Donald Trump's tariffs as a massive overreach of presidential authority, which they are. They write this, quote,

the signers are constitutional scholars, legal historians, public lawyers, retired federal appellate judges, a former United States attorney general, and three former United States senators, united by a common conviction. The endurance of the American Republic depends not only on elections or policy outcomes,

but on the faithful preservation of its constitutional structure. The signers do not appear to defend or oppose any particular trade policy. They filed this brief because they believe the Constitution draws bright lines between legislative and executive power and that those lines are being blurred

in ways that threaten democratic accountability itself. The powers to tax, to regulate commerce, and to shape the nation's economic course must remain with Congress. They cannot drift silently into the hands of the president through inertia, inattention or creative readings of statutes never meant to grant such authority. That conviction is not partisan, it is constitutional, and it strikes at

the heart of this case. That's nice. Now do democracy. This is just the latest in Trump's fracture though, with conservative legal people. Late last week, Trump lashed out at Supreme Court puppeteer Leonard Leo, as well as the Heritage Foundation. Trump called Leo a quote, real sleazebag end quote, and suggested that the Heritage Foundation had led him astray on court picks after a federal court ruling blocked most of his tariffs. Joining our conversation is publisher of the Bullwork, host of the Focus Group podcast, Sarah Longwell. David's here as

well. Sarah, David and I were talking in the break about how to to make sense of this if you're not an economist or a business reporter, it is most helpful to think back to COVID and do all the crazy things we did for COVID. Put on a mask, Clorox your produce, stay home from school, take your kids out of school, don't go to work, but there's no COVID. That's essentially what he's doing the economy. Shut it down for no reason. Yeah, this is a bad idea.

And I mean, everybody agrees it's a bad idea. And the people who foremost agree that it's a bad idea are And I mean, everybody agrees it's a bad idea. And the people who foremost agree that it's a bad idea are free market conservatives. And so it's nice to see some of these elite conservatives speaking out. The problem that they have is in there, you just read this power should lie with Congress. Well, we've got a problem with Congress and that Congress doesn't seem to want that power. I mean, Congress could take back the power of its purse, which is its constitutional role and mandate.

But because these tariffs could never get through Congress, and this is something that is replete on a number of issues, right? If you took it to Congress, many people in the Republican Party wouldn't be able to vote for it, not even because on principle, because it's deeply unpopular. And so instead, they let this lie with Trump, in part because, A, if Trump messes it up, you know, the problem is with him, but also they hope Trump messes it up, you know, the problem is with him. But also they hope that taco will persist and that Trump will always chicken out.

And that therefore they can let Trump sort of go back and forth on this and, you know, do his saber rattling to other countries and then walk it all back. And that everything will be okay and they don't have to do anything. But the real way to make this constitutional is for the Congress to do its job and for them to be the ones to step in and actually set trade policy. That's what they are supposed to do. Sarah, how much of this is

the public feeling? Well, I mean, they're starting to feel some of it. I mean, the main thing they're feeling is the uncertainty. So when you do focus groups, you know, people are many of them are small business owners or they work for a company for whom the tariffs are going to make an impact. And so they're part of conversations where people are saying, I'm not sure what to do, or we're not sure how to make this decision or this amount of, you know, the cost of this particular thing is going up. And so, you know, anybody who knows a small business owner right now, I mean, you heard that's what Senator Rand Paul's talking about. These folks in Congress, they're all hearing from people who own businesses who are saying

this is a nightmare for us. And this is another place where you see, look, it's nice that there are some of these conservatives that are coming out and saying this, but the fact is the cowardice is the sort of deafening thing that you hear because you know all of these Republican members of Congress are hearing

from their small business constituents that they are supposed to represent that this is terrible for them. It's terrible for their customers. It's terrible for their bottom line, and it makes it impossible to plan. And so you are hearing people worried about it, but the actual impact of it is probably stood on the road down the road, at least the major impact of it.

I mean, the things that we've been talking about, the empty shelves, the massive price hikes, a lot of that stuff hasn't hit. It's more that people are living with the uncertainty right now. They will be coming off. So we, people are not, well, we all are going to die. So for heaven's sakes,, for heaven sakes, folks. We all are going to die. Peek manga, right? We showed you that

moment on Friday. That was Republican Senator Joni Ernst in Iowa telling her constituents, quote, well, we're all going to die. She said it in her defense of her own support for Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill and the consequences, which her constituents claim will make people die. The clip went viral. Joni Ernst was roundly mocked over her callousness

over her support of a bill that is going to do real damage to real people's lives. Her constituents, she's supposed to at least pretend publicly to care. So on Saturday, she issued this apology. We're gonna show it to you in full. She's up for reelection next November. We wanna show you how seriously she took the reaction to her comments.

Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. 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. 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. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I don't know what's going on with her. I imagine she has consultants. Maybe they were on vacation. Sarah, I've noted the absence of Steve Bannon in the Musk-Bannon wars.

And this is sort of the part of the MAGA base that Bannon used to be in the room advocating for and protecting people that depended on Medicaid for whom it was a matter of life and death. In Jodi Ernst's comments, you sort of see the consequence of his absence. Yeah, I mean, look, this, first of all, that video of her,

it looks, she must be having a nervous breakdown. She is in a cemetery while she is making that joke. And one of the first things, one of the first rules about making a joke like that is it should be funny. And there was nothing funny about that. It was, I think what the kids call cringe is how it felt. I mean, this is a thing they've learned

from Donald Trump, right? Is like, you say something stupid, you don't apologize, you double down. And so that was her doubling down. But this is the kind of thing that Democrats should be all over, because what she did was highlight the thing that is the most pernicious about the bill, which is that people are going to lose Medicaid. And Republicans right now are out there desperately trying to convince people that that's not true.

They are lying to people about what this bill does because they know that that is going to be deeply unpopular and not just unpopular with Democrats. And this is where I think a lot of Republicans are trying to catch up to the fact that their coalition has changed. And it includes now a lot of people who are on Medicare, a lot of people who depend on these social services, a lot of lower income Americans in rural areas. And so mocking them.

But that's why Trump is very populist about these things. He tries to act all the time like they won't touch these programs. And so her doubling down on this and drawing more attention to the fact that it will do real harm is one of those big PR disasters that I think they think they're being clever on but is absolutely going to backfire. I had these numbers on the show on Friday and they're really illuminating. So KFF polling shows that when asked the question if you've personally been covered or had a

family or close friend covered by Medicaid, Democrats who say yes, 62 percent, Republicans who say yes, 62 percent. There is no partisan discrepancy between who has benefited directly from Medicaid. Sarah, this is the peril of single party rule. The Republicans are responsible for all of this. Yeah, they are. And I'll tell you what was interesting. So we did a focus group not that long ago last week with Trump voters who were older. And we asked them about Medicare, Medicaid and these cuts, and they just didn't believe that they were going to happen. They just they, you know, the thing in the right-wing messaging machine right now, and if you watch the Sunday shows, you saw Republicans doing this, they have decided to just lie about what the bill does, which is sort of par for the course. I mean, Donald Trump lied

about how he was going to lower grocery prices. They just lie about things, and there is a whole machine there to then convince people of it. And so this is one of those things though, if it passes, the proof's just in the pudding. People will feel it when those cuts happen, the same way that when the tariffs start to really kick in, they will feel those. And it is those personal consequences that will really impact people. We'll stand on top of it with both of your help. Mitch Landu and Sarah Longwell, thank you both so much for joining us today. We want to top of it with both of your help. Mitch Landu and Sarah Longwell, thank you both so much for joining us today.

We want to let you know about an event in Washington this Friday. Sarah, along with the Bulwark and Crooked Media, are hosting a live show and fundraiser on June 6 in support of Andres Hernandez Romero. He's a makeup artist from Venezuela who the Trump administration sent to that infamous Supermax prison in El Salvador.

The proceeds will go to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Check out their website for tickets and more information.