Sen. Ernst on Shutdown, Des Moines Schools Controversy

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcoming Iowa US Senator Jony Ernst. Back to the program.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Senator, good morning, Hey, good morning Gary. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
On Thatt's so good to have you here. I want
to get to this Des Moines superintendent debacle, but first
give us an update here on the government shutdown. Now
in the second day of week two, I've heard this
morning Wall Street journal is reporting that the President might

(00:29):
be willing to negotiate a little bit on the healthcare thing.
What do you know about that.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, the prisonan is willing to negotiate, but he has
made it very clear he will negotiate on healthcare after
the Democrats opened the government. We have voted now five
times as Republicans to open the government. We've actually had
three of the Democrats that have supported us in this effort,

(00:56):
so it is a bipartisan effort. We really want to
get back to regular order, get the government open. We
will negotiate. John Thune has said that, our majority leader
has said that as well, But we have to open
the government first, get these employees back to work, pay
our military. Let's have those discussions, but only after we

(01:22):
get back to the business of the people.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, I get a lot of feedback as you might
imagine whatever. And it seems like we do this every
so often. We shut down a government for a while,
and I get a lot of feedback from people to say,
who cares, it's not a big deal. What is your
view of what is critical in our government that's not
happening right now?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, it is actually pretty critical. There are a number
of activities. Just think about federal law enforcement. Think about
all of these ice officers that are dealing with protests,
and you know they're they're trying to find those illegal
aliens that are here that are our problem causers. They're

(02:07):
not getting paid. Our military, we have eighteen hundred Iowa
National Guardsmen that are deployed overseas. They're not getting paid.
You know, there are families now that will struggle to
put food on the table because as long as we
are shut down, there are no paychecks going to the
federal employees. Many of them are still working. They will

(02:30):
get paid eventually. The issue that I have is that
we have many non essential employees, actually about seven hundred
and fifty thousand federal employees that are not working. But
they will get paid when the government opens back up.
And so it costs US about four hundred million dollars

(02:50):
every single work day that the federal government is shut down,
paying non essential employees who are not working. So today
we are on day five of work days being shut down.
We've already racked up two billion dollars of payments that
will go to people that are not working. So it's

(03:14):
a problem. It costs our taxpayers more to shut down
than actually stay open and work through these issues.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Okay, well, more votes to come. Let's see when when
something will happen. We just don't know when now on
this Iowa's yea public school des Moines public School superintendent debacle.
I don't, frankly, have never seen anything like this. This embarrassing.
What is your view of what should happen there with this?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
With the school board and des Moin good golly Gary.
We have laws for a reason. And this final removal
order of this des Moines superintendent was issued in twenty
twenty four under President Biden. So he always bad. Let's

(04:01):
get rid of him. The guy should have been gone
a long time ago. He had a criminal record, yet
he was put in charge of those kids' education, you know,
with the stated goal the des Moines the school board
had the stated goal of quote diversifying the staff end quote.

(04:26):
Well if that means, you know, hiring a legal gun
toting felons or you know whatever. Okay, they did a
good job at that, but that whole school board, it
is embarrassing. They all need to resign. They knowingly hired
him even though he had falsified his education record, he

(04:47):
had a weapons charge previously. They hired him anyway, and
obviously did not do a thorough background check of his credentials,
or they would have known that he was here in
the country illegally, or they didn't care.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I mean, they got that information, but it didn't matter.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
I mean, yeah, it didn't matter. But that should tell
the people of Iowa something about the Des Moines School
system right now that they put this guy and diversifying again. DEI,
you know, was first and foremost. That's all they cared
about was DEI and they hired this guy. They didn't

(05:27):
care if he would give the children a good education
and make sure that all of the school administrators were
towing the line. They didn't care about any of that.
They just wanted to diversify. So again, the school board
needs to go. I know, there's some interest because we
have a Democrat, the president of the school board is

(05:48):
running for the Democratic primary.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
For Well, she wants your job.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, yeah, Well she's not going to get my job.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
So well, it's it's pretty messy. You must feel left
out that you're one of the few Republicans in the
United States Senate that was not surveiled by James Comey's FBI.
Can you lodge a complain? I mean, are you're not
important enough to be surveiled? You and Marsha Blackburner, you know,
you got some stuff on your emails and on your
phone calls you don't want getting out right, Well, I

(06:18):
tell you what.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
This whole thing, as you know, we're hearing about a
new effort for this group called you know, No Kings
or whatever supposedly they're doing. Well, they're pointing the finger
at Donald Trump all the time. They need to point
the finger at themselves because this was done under the
Biden administration. They were surveiling United States senators, United States

(06:43):
our own people. And so I tell you what, there
will probably be a number of lawsuits coming out of this.
This is their government that is surveiling people, and we're
not talking about illegals, illegal aliens. No, we're talking about
US senator that were surveilled by the Biden FBI. So yeah,

(07:05):
they're au no Kings group. You better take a good
heart look at yourself.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
There ought to be consequences. Say we've got to run here,
but you've got you got a little motorcycle event coming
up over.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Here, Johnny ro I do Roast and Ride this Saturday again.
We kick off at the Big Barn Harley Davidson in
Des Moines. The registration fee for the motorcycles, all of
that is going to our beneficiary, the Bluestar Mothers of
Iowa and great organization. They're sending care packages overseas for

(07:36):
our deployed men and women from Iowa. We need to
get everybody registered, so go to Roast and Ride dot com.
And we do have a very very special guest and
her name is Christine Knowles. Oh boy, and let me
tell you she is going to fire up the crowd
with everything that has gone on with this des Moines Superintendent.

(08:00):
Of course, getting justice for Sarah Ruth, young woman from
Council Bluffs that was killed by an illegal. It's going
to be a great day. So nine am for the
motorcycle ride eleven AM for the hog Roast and it
is at the Iowa State Fairgrounds roastonride dot com.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Sign up today you'll know which ones in your rally
are from the Des Moines School Board. They'll be the
ones the training wheels on their motorcycles.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I don't even think they will have motorcycles.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Iowa Senator crowd Hi, I was Senator John Ayers. Thanks
so much, Always good to have you with us