June 2, 2025. The Republican's giant budget reconciliation bill has focused attention on the

drastic cuts the Trump administration is making to the U.S. government. On Friday, when a constituent at a town hall shouted that the Republicans proposed cuts to Medicaid,

the federal health care program for low-income Americans, meant that people will die,

Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican of Iowa, replied,

Well, we are all going to die.

The next day, Ernst released a video purporting to be an apology.

It made things worse.

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," she said.

Ernst blamed the hysteria that's out there coming from the left for the outcry over

her comments.

Like other Republicans, she claims that the proposed cuts of more than $700 billion in Medicaid

funding over the next 10 years is designed only to get rid of the

waste and fraud in the program.

Thus, they say, they are actually strengthening Medicaid for those who need it.

But as Linda Q noted in the New York Times today, most of the bill's provisions have little

to do with the waste, fraud, and abuse

Republicans talk about. They target Medicaid expansion, cut the ability of states to finance

Medicaid, force states to drop coverage, and limit access to care. And the nonpartisan

Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, says the cuts mean more than 10.3

million Americans will lose health care coverage. House Speaker Mike Johnson has claimed that those

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