At town Hall, Iowa’s Joni Ernst calls out Kamala Harris over support for law enforcement

MARENGO — Republican Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst took Vice President Kamala Harris to task during a town hall Tuesday over the Democratic presidential nominee’s past comments voicing support for the “defund the police" movement.

Ernst, who fielded questions for an hour from a crowd of about 30 people during a town hall in Marengo, was asked her thoughts on Harris’ pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate.

“I thought she would have picked more of a centrist to balance the ticket, but she didn't,” Ernst said, responding to a question from Jackson Kleinmeyer, 18, of Amana.

The Red Oak Republican said the pair have advocated for “defunding the police,” leading to a brief back-and-forth with another attendee who questioned Ernst’s framing of Harris’ and Walz’s comments amid nationwide protests calling for police reform in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020.

“Defund them completely?” an incredulous attendee asked.

“If you're defunding the police, you're not funding the police. How do the police exist?” Ernst responded. “ … There was a clip where she was talking about, we do not need any more police.”

The attendee shot back: “That’s not her saying defund the police.”

“No, it's not. It's not, but I could probably find you where she did say ‘defund the police,’” Ernst said.

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Harris has leaned into her history as a prosecutor as a point of contrast against former President Donald Trump, who was convicted by a New York jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to an adult film actress.

But since becoming the Democratic Party’s new standard-bearer in the wake of President Joe Biden ending his campaign for re-election, Harris has faced renewed scrutiny over past comments she made around the "defund the police" movement.

In summer 2020, shortly after Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Harris gave a string of interviews in which she at times voiced support for some of the ideas behind the "defund the police" movement, calling for a "re-imaging" of policing.

Harris said on a New York-based radio program the "defund the police" movement "rightly" called out the amount of money spent on police departments instead of community services such as education, housing and health care, emphasizing that more police did not equate to more public safety.

In another interview, Harris said she believed "we have to redirect resources" from police to other areas of government, mentioning schools and small businesses. She also appeared on MSNBC where she called to “demilitarize police departments.”

Harris, in the interview, also promoted the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill the vice president cowrote in 2020 while serving in the U.S. Senate, which sought to address racial profiling and the use of deadly force. The bill was passed by the Democrat-controlled U.S. House but stalled in the Senate over the issue of qualified immunity for officers. The bill did not redirect funds away from law enforcement.

Ernst was also asked about the status of a new farm bill, federal debt and spending, U.S. aid to Ukraine and high cancer rates in the state.

‘Beyond frustrated’ on farm bill

Ernst said she does not foresee a new farm bill passing this year, and anticipates Congress will pass another one-year extension this fall. The last farm bill, enacted in 2018, expired last year but Congress extended it until Sept. 30.

Ernst said Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee can’t seem to reach an agreement on spending priorities.

“We are beyond frustrated right now,” Ernst said of herself and fellow Iowa GOP U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley. Both sit on the Senate Ag Committee.

The sprawling package that’s reauthorized every five years supports several key farm and safety net programs, like crop insurance, as well as agriculture research, rural development, conservation, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — once called food stamps — and more.

Federal spending priorities

Ernst said she and Senate Republicans have tried to claw back unspent pandemic funding, and said she supports bringing spending back to pre-COVID-19 levels.

“I don't know how we get there,” she said, adding mandatory spending areas like Social Security and Medicare consume a larger portion of the federal budget and have grown rapidly, outpacing revenues and becoming a major contributor to the federal debt.

“Ultimately, we're going to have to figure out Social Security and Medicare (to make it sustainable). I'm not saying cut it,” Ernst said. “I'm just saying we need to figure out what those reforms are.”

She also said non-U. S. citizens shouldn’t be eligible for Social Security and Medicare.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. There are some noncitizens who can qualify for benefits, but they must be legally residing in the United States and meet other eligibility requirements.

Under federal law, unauthorized immigrants, who are sometimes called undocumented immigrants, “are not eligible for most federal benefits,” with some exceptions for things like emergency Medicaid, according to the Congressional Research Service. Those exceptions don’t apply to regular Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

Aid to Ukraine

Ernst said there needs to be greater transparency and accountability over how U.S. dollars are being used in Ukraine. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ernst said she supports providing Ukraine with munitions, weaponry and military equipment no longer being used by the U.S. military, but objects to the U.S. funding nongovernmental organizations helping Ukraine with humanitarian aid.

“I have been saying, ‘stop that funding,’ because we have European partners. They are much closer to the situation, and they can provide that support much better and more efficient than the United States government,” she said.

Cancer in Iowa

Ernst was also asked about high cancer rates in the state, which some believe to be linked to Iowa's agricultural water pollution.

“Follow the labeling packages that are put out there by (the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency). So I think that's critically important, is to know whatever product, if it is a product that is cancer-causing,” Ernst said.

State lawmakers this year pushed a bill that would add legal protections for pesticide manufacturers over the labeling that is required to warn consumers about the potential health risks associated with the use of their products. The proposal, which failed to pass the Iowa Legislature this year, would protect chemical manufacturers from lawsuits in the state over a failure to warn consumers about potential adverse health effects of their products if the products already meet federal labeling requirements.

The proposal is supported by Bayer, the manufacturer of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup that helped Republican lawmakers write an original bill draft.

“But I want to remind folks, too, that in Iowa just naturally occurring in our soils are a lot of things that are harmful to our bodies,” Ernst said. “So think about radon. We have a lot of radon in Iowa, and if you don't have radon detectors in your house, please install those in your basements.”

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