Feigned ignorance…
Republican voters questioning Snap and Medicaid cuts at a town hall met with "we're all going to die for heavens sake"
Posted on Sat May 31 03:15:55 2025 UTC
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WATCH: 'We are all going to die,' Sen. Ernst says after addressing Medicaid changes in combative town hall
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is facing backlash after saying that “we all are going to die” while talking about potential changes to Medicaid eligibility at a town hall in north-central Iowa.www.pbs.org
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WATCH: 'We are all going to die,' Sen. Ernst says after addressing Medicaid changes in combative town hall
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is facing backlash after saying that “we all are going to die” while talking about potential changes to Medicaid eligibility at a town hall in north-central Iowa.www.pbs.org
By —
Hannah Fingerhut, Associated Press
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WATCH: ‘We are all going to die,’ Sen. Ernst says after addressing Medicaid changes in combative town hall
Nation May 30, 2025 8:13 PM EDT
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican Sen. Joni Ernst was met with shouts and groans when she said “we all are going to die” as she addressed potential changes to Medicaid eligibility at a town hall in north-central Iowa on Friday.
She had been consistent in her message throughout the contentious forum at a high school in Parkersburg, Iowa, as she defended the tax and immigration package that has passed the House and is now under consideration in the Senate. Facing several constituents concerned about cuts to Medicaid, she defended the $700 billion in reduced spending, saying it would keep immigrants in the U.S. illegally and those who have access to insurance through their employers off the rolls.
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Then someone in the crowd yelled that people will die without coverage.
“People are not … well, we all are going to die,” Ernst said, drawing groans. “So, for heaven’s sakes. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”
“What you don’t want to do is listen to me when I say that we are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable,” Ernst went on. “Those that meet the eligibility requirements for Medicaid we will protect.”
House Republicans last week muscled through the massive spending and tax cut package, dubbed “the big, beautiful bill” at the urging of President Donald Trump, by a single vote. It now moves to the Senate.
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Ernst made clear Friday that any measure that emerges from the Senate will look different from the House version.
Republicans have defended the new work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents and stepped up eligibility verification, saying the generated savings will sustain the program for vulnerable populations. Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage.
A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade.
Video of Ernst’s comment started making the rounds among Democrat elected officials and candidates. Ernst is up for reelection in 2026.
“This morning, Joni Ernst said the quiet part out loud:” Republicans do not care “about whether their own constituents live or die as long as the richest few get richer,” said Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, in a statement.
She sure she's not going to get deported. She looks a little brown to be talking so wild about this Admin.
MAGA outlet’s Pentagon correspondent criticized Hegseth. And then she was fired, she says
By Brian Stelter, CNN
3 minute read
Published 10:38 AM EDT, Sat May 31, 2025
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Former OAN Pentagon correspondent Gabrielle Cuccia.
From Gabrielle Cuccia/Instagram
CNN —
Gabrielle Cuccia criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s crackdown on press access at the Pentagon. And then, she said, she was fired.
Cuccia was briefly the chief Pentagon correspondent for the small and staunchly pro-Trump TV channel One America News, OAN for short.
A self-proclaimed “MAGA girl,” Cuccia positioned herself as a proudly conservative voice among the normally nonpartisan Pentagon press corps. But she grew perturbed by Hegseth’s actions against the press.
In a post on her personal Substack account on Tuesday, she wrote that the Defense Department’s recent move to make vast parts of the Pentagon off-limits to journalists was a “troubling shift.” She heaped doubt on the Defense Department’s rationale for the restrictions. And she questioned why Hegseth hasn’t held any formal press briefings since being sworn in.
“This article isn’t to serve as a tearing down” of Hegseth, she wrote. “This is me wanting to keep MAGA alive.”
Evidently, someone disagreed. On Thursday, “I was asked to turn in my Pentagon badge to my bureau chief,” Cuccia said in response to CNN’s inquiry about her status there. On Friday, she said, she was fired.
Cuccia declined to answer followup questions. OAN president Charles Herring did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, including about whether any Pentagon officials complained to OAN about Cuccia’s Substack post.
Cuccia served in the Trump White House in 2017 and 2018 and later reported from the White House for OAN, then spent several years as a contractor, according to her LinkedIn page. One of her right-wing TV appearances went viral last year when she repeated Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud on Newsmax. The anchor cut her off, most likely due to allegations being made during the segment.
Whether through fiery TV segments or Instagram posts posing with firearms, Cuccia was public about her MAGA bonafides. So she was a natural fit to return to OAN earlier this year.
In February, the Defense Department took away NBC’s longtime workspace at the Pentagon and gave the office to OAN — part of a broader push by the Pentagon to seek out pro-Trump coverage and sideline traditional news outlets.
OAN suddenly needed to staff the Pentagon, so Cuccia was brought aboard as chief Pentagon correspondent. She personally renovated the office space into what she called a “Liberty Lounge” and chronicled the process on social media.
According to her Substack post, she soon grew skeptical of the Defense Department’s dealings with the press corps.
Echoing the concerns of the Pentagon Press Association — which Cuccia said she is not officially a part of, since “again hello I am MAGA” — she pointed out that the Pentagon’s top spokesman has only held one briefing since January.
“This Administration, to my surprise, also locked the doors to the Pentagon Briefing room, a protocol that was never in place in prior Administrations, and a door that is never locked for press at the White House,” she wrote.
“The Commander-in-Chief welcomes the hard questions… and yes, even the dumb ones. Why won’t the Secretary of Defense do the same?”
Her nuanced assessment of the Pentagon’s press crackdown totaled 3,000 words. It aligned with the slogan that she printed on tank tops and sold on Etsy last year: “Love your country, not your government.”
The primary trigger for her post seemed to be the Defense Department’s May 23 memo restricting journalists from key parts of the Pentagon without an official escort.
“For decades — across both Republican and Democratic administrations — reporters have operated in these spaces responsibly, including in the wake of 9/11, without raising red flags from leadership over operational security,” she wrote.
The memo indicated that further restrictions are likely in the coming weeks, including a pledge to protect military secrets and tougher scrutiny of press credentialing.
“Without press, we by default have to assume that our government relaying information to us, is true,” Cuccia wrote, calling that attitude “the antithesis of what we believe in.”
On Friday she changed her X bio to “former chief Pentagon correspondent.”
Rightshe laughed while saying it. Cause she knows those clowns will vote her back in 10 times out of 10.