Veteran political strategist David Axelrod knocked Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Monday for her sarcastic video response to backlash she faced over remarks about Medicaid cuts and death during a town hall last week.
“It was really insensitive of her to put that video up and politically stupid,” Axelrod said in a panel discussion with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Ernst, a military veteran who has been in the Senate for more than a decade, posted a mock apology video on Instagram that showed her walking through a cemetery and discussing the backlash she faced from telling the Butler, Iowa crowd a day earlier, “Well, we’re all going to die” when an attendee yelled that people would die because of the Medicaid cuts in the House-approved version 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 said in 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 top adviser to former President Obama, said Ernst “probably could have gotten away” with her initial comments at the town hall as she made the case that the proposed Medicaid cuts are directed at people who should not receive benefits, including undocumented migrants and able-bodied adults who are not seeking employment.
“But putting up that spot the next day …” Axelrod said. “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 also appeared on the panel, agreed that Ernst’s video was not wise but said her initial message was sound.
“She had it right in the town hall meeting, and then she deviated at the end,” Jennings said. “I wouldn’t have posted the follow-up video myself, but I think the Republicans can actually win this debate.”
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