Veteran political strategist David Axelrod knocked Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Monday for her sarcastic video response to backlash she confronted over remarks about Medicaid cuts and loss of life throughout a city corridor final week.
“It was really insensitive of her to put that video up and politically stupid,” Axelrod mentioned in a panel dialogue with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Ernst, a navy veteran who has been within the Senate for greater than a decade, posted a mock apology video on Instagram that confirmed her strolling by a cemetery and discussing the backlash she confronted from telling the Butler, Iowa crowd a day earlier, “Well, we’re all going to die” when an attendee yelled that folks would die due to the Medicaid cuts within the Home-approved model of President Trump’s agenda-setting “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,” Ernst mentioned within the video. “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.”
Axelrod, a chief political analyst at CNN and podcast host who was a prime adviser to former President Obama, mentioned Ernst “probably could have gotten away” together with her preliminary feedback on the city corridor as she made the case that the proposed Medicaid cuts are directed at individuals who shouldn’t obtain advantages, together with undocumented migrants and able-bodied adults who aren’t in search of employment.
“But putting up that spot the next day …” Axelrod mentioned. “When you take 10, you know, seven, eight, nine million people off of Medicaid, there will be people who will die. There will be people who are affected.”
Conservative political commentator Scott Jennings, who additionally appeared on the panel, agreed that Ernst’s video was not sensible however mentioned her preliminary message was sound.
“She had it right in the town hall meeting, and then she deviated at the end,” Jennings mentioned. “I wouldn’t have posted the follow-up video myself, but I think the Republicans can actually win this debate.”
