Give Sen. Joni Ernst a C-minus for her performance on “State of the Union With Jake Tapper” this Sunday, but give her an F for even agreeing to appear on CNN in the first place.
Ernst is a Republican senator from Iowa, and so has limited interest as a guest the day before the Democratic Party’s Iowa caucuses. But what made her Tapper’s target this week was a statement she made last week as the impeachment trial dragged on. You may have seen it, since various Fake News outlets tried to make it into the latest anti-GOP bombshell.
“Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening, and I’m really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, the Democrat caucus goers, and will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point,” Ernst told reporters.
Wow! Talk about desperate for news, er, I mean scandal! The Fake News Media seized upon that innocent statement and tried to make it a smoking gun that proved Trump had just wanted to bring down Biden all along. What!?! It’s hard to even fathom this level of dishonesty from the press.
Ernst says what everybody is thinking, and suddenly she’s a minion of Trump, “spilling the beans” about Trump’s nefarious plot, as Biden claimed! If anyone spilled the beans, it was the House impeachment managers. They mentioned Biden, his son Hunter and the corrupt Ukrainian company that Hunter worked for — Burisma– more than 400 times in laying out their fake case against the president.
And of course it was entirely appropriate for the White House lawyers to defend President Trump by laying out the case against Burisma and the Bidens in their response. So yes, it would certainly be interesting to see how the impeachment trial argument impacted Biden’s candidacy. Apparently only political journalists were not interested, which shows the level of rigorous intellectual honesty found in that subspecies of rats.
Tapper began the interview with the assumption that Ernst had done something wrong. That’s to be expected whenever a Republican appears on CNN, which is why I advise Republicans not to bother. But if you are going to show up, you need to be prepared to fight back and to show that the press is just parroting Democrat talking points. Instead Ernst just tried to disarm Tapper with her generous smile.
She explained her remark as, “I was just pointing out that Iowa has very smart voters, very educated caucus goers, and they’re paying attention to all the dynamics with the candidates that might be something that they would take into consideration.”
Milquetoast. How about if she had said something more like this. “Jake, I am so sick and tired of so-called journalists trying to twist an obvious statement of truth into some kind of nefarious plot. Don’t you think the impeachment proceedings are the 900 pound gorilla in the room? Aren’t you curious how the impeachment and the information about the Bidens and Burisma will impact the Iowa caucus and beyond? Did I say anything that hasn’t been said by every political analyst in the country? Or for that matter by anyone with a scintilla of intellectual curiosity?”
But of course she didn’t say that because she is an old school Republican who thinks you can get along with Dirty Democrats and the Corrupt Media and they won’t try to kill you. Hmmm. How naive!
Instead, she left the door open for Resting Bitch Face Jake to come after her with this:
“Republicans have been defending President Trump, saying that his pressure campaign with Ukraine had nothing to do with electoral politics, had nothing to do with Biden’s campaign. I’m wondering if you think by linking them, you undermine that argument?”
Read my lips, you idiot. “No pressure, no push.” I’m quoting President Zelensky of Ukraine. Look, if Biden got his hands dirty in the Ukraine, then he deserves whatever he gets in the way of consequences!
Yeah, but that’s me talking, not Joni Ernst. She pussyfooted around the issue and left Trump dangling as Tapper kept pushing the Democrat talking points that the president had “interfered in the election” and finally got Ernst to say she wouldn’t have done what Trump did.
That’s supposed to make Trump look bad, but it just makes Ernst look bad because she apparently would have overlooked the obvious corruption of the Bidens. Yuck.
Moreover, Ernst repeated one of the other Democrat talking points, which is just 100 percent BS. She said Trump was right to go after corruption, but he probably did it in the wrong manner.
“I think he could have done it through different channels. You know, this is the argument — he could have probably gone to the DOJ and he should have worked through those entities, but he chose a different route.”
Oh brother! George Stephanopoulos made the same claim last week, but it is so stupid I hate to see a Republican saying it. If Trump had gone to the attorney general and said you need to investigate Joe Biden, he would have been Richard Nixon, using the FBI and CIA as his political weapons. (Oh wait, that was Obama!) He would have been impeached months ago if he had done that!
Yep, C-minus at best for Joni. I’m starting to lean more toward a D-plus. “With friends like these…”
ABOUT HEARTLAND DIARY
Frank Miele has spent four decades in the news business and now offers conservative commentary to counter the left-wing bias in the national media. If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will consider purchasing one of my books. They are available through the following Amazon links. My new book — “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” — shows that Fake News has been around for years. The “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy tackles the politics of the last two decades: Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” As an Amazon Associate, I may earn referral fees for qualifying purchases through links on my website. Also consider subscribing to Heartland Diary on YouTube by clicking here for News Every Conservative Can Use. My goal is to reach 1,000 subscribers.
Every single point you made about a former favorite of mine, Joni Ernst, is true. She should have had the moral gumption, also known as fortitude, to fight back with Tapper. Obviously, the Democrats are prepped big time before going in front of any camera. Mr. Miele should be the speech writer for all these weak republicans who could use some strong counter measures in their vocabulary to quickly draw upon. Milquetoast is correct about Ernst, Romney, and others who say they “wouldn’t have done it the way the President did,” or “President Trump should have gone through the DOJ,” or any other speculative nonsense. They are not, and NEVER will be, in his shoes, so they should stay away from the liberal media who use them to fill up air time on their unpopular shows with their unpopular hosts. I hope they heed your advice about their appearances on these one-sided hate filled shows as well as your suggestion to fight back. Are they men/women of values or not?
Joe Morrisco