On Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke to CNN's Dana Bash about Sen. Joni Ernst's (R-IA) sarcastic video in which she mocked people's concerns on Medicaid cuts in the Republican budget.
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00:00Senator, your colleague from Iowa, Joni Ernst, told voters at a town hall, quote,
00:08we are all going to die. That was in response to concerns from constituents about some of what
00:13you're talking about, about these cuts to Medicaid. Then she kind of doubled down.
00:19She had a bit of a sarcastic apology. Watch this.
00:22I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood
00:31that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So, I apologize. And I'm really,
00:42really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.
00:49What's your response?
00:52Yeah, I mean, Joni's a colleague, somebody I've worked with, but it does tell you a lot about
00:58this bill. I think everybody in that audience knows that they're going to die. They would just
01:03rather die in old age at 85 or 90 instead of dying at 40. And the reality is that when you lose your
01:12health care, you are much more at risk of early death. And when rural hospitals close because of
01:18this bill, when drug treatment clinics close in Iowa and rural America, because of this bill, more
01:24people will die at a younger age. So, the reality is, this bill is about life and death.
01:30And for what? I mean, I guess that's the problem here for many of us, is that they're cutting
01:36a decade throwing 15 million people off their health care in order to fund a tax cut for the
01:42super wealthy and for corporations. That is just fundamentally immoral. It's immoral. It's unethical.
01:49I don't understand why they're doing it, except that Donald Trump only really knows billionaires.
01:56He only knows corporate CEOs. And so his instructions to Republicans are reward them,
02:02help them and no one else. I wish Joni and others saw the immorality of what they're doing.