About 100 people packed the Bucks County Republican headquarters in Doylestown on Tuesday as Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst made her pitch for GOP candidate Dave McCormick.
Her message? “I want to talk about how we can take on Washington and get the big hand of government out of the way for hardworking folks across this great country,” Ernst said.
McCormick’s race against three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D-Pa.) is one of the most-watched in the nation. Republicans are expected to flip West Virginia, which would create a 50-50 tie in the Senate. A win in Montana, Ohio, or Pennsylvania would give the GOP a majority.
The Iowa Republican, who grew up on a hog farm and is known for sometimes using colorful language about politics, recently made headlines following a hot-mic moment. After a press conference calling out what she says are false statements from President Joe Biden regarding his new border policy, Ernst was heard saying on her way off stage, “Bottom line: Never trust a man whose uncle was eaten by cannibals.”
It was a reference to Biden’s bizarre claim during a Pennsylvania appearance in April that an uncle who served as a pilot in World War II and crashed in New Guinea was eaten by the locals.
Ernst’s decision to campaign for McCormick in the Keystone State may be related to the fact she’s been mentioned as a potential Trump running mate, an idea she’s open to.
“I think there are a lot of really wonderful people who are being considered,” Ernst told Breitbart News. “And I think that anyone who is offered [the] position, whether it would be me or someone else, I think that it would be such an extreme honor to have that opportunity laid out. I certainly would consider that.”
On Wednesday, Ernst focused her comments on the need for deregulating the economy, an issue she deals with on the Senate Small Business Committee.
“The clamps of Washington, D.C., are really tightening around the necks of our small business owners (due to) over-regulation by the Biden administration.”
In the last three and a half years, “regulatory guidance is pushing on small businesses to the tune of $400 billion. That is $400 billion that small businesses have had to invest under Joe Biden” to comply with federal regulations.
“I don’t want to see this administration telling me what I have to drive,” said Ernst, about Biden’s promotion of electric vehicles. “In rural Iowa, I’m sorry, I’m not going to get to Des Moines from where I live and be able to return home on a battery charge.”
Ernst argued it is essential to elect McCormick and prevent Democratic extremists who will damage the fundamental workings of American democracy. If Democrats take the House, Senate and White House, they plan to remove the filibuster in the Senate and pack the U.S. Supreme Court “with liberal justices that will serve a lifetime,” she said.
She called McCormick “a true patriot.”
McCormick told the Bucks County crowd he struggled with the idea of running again.
“I lost a race last time by 900 votes of 1.5 million cast,” he said. His six daughters were “100 percent against it” and he had other things to do.
“But If you believe that America is the greatest country in the world. If you believe that you’ve been blessed by what America has to offer. If believe America is in deep, deep trouble, which I do. And you believe you can actually do something about it…And if you believe those things you’ve got to do it.”
McCormick dismissed the incumbent Casey as a politician, not a leader.
“He’s been in office for 30 years. He’s been in the Senate for 18 years. He has not had a single significant piece of legislation, but he’s voted 99 percent of the time with Joe Biden,” McCormick said.
“This guy no longer represents who we are, what we need. I’m running as an outsider. Someone who doesn’t owe anybody anything except the people of Pennsylvania.”
Ernst noted she and McCormick are both veterans and she sits on the Armed Services Committee. McCormick, who grew up in Bloomsburg, went to West Point and served in the 82nd Airborne Division. She also said defense spending in real dollars fell under the Biden administration. There is also the problem of too few recruits and those serving in the military no longer have the “latest and greatest technology.”
“We have an administration and a bunch of Democrats in the Senate think domestic priorities like wildflower projects, and whatever, these green climate ideologies should outpace protecting our nation. So, it is a big problem,” said Ernst.
McCormick said, “There’s a money problem but also a cultural ethos problem. The Biden administration is focused on DEI [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion] in the military at the expense of warfighting.”
“The Army rolled out the climate fighting strategy under Biden. This is a real thing. So there’s an ethos we have to fix. And it pains me to say this as an Army man, but we really need to invest in our Navy.”
“I just wrote an article on this,” he added. “It wasn’t in my favorite, Delaware Valley Journal. And I talked about the need for the Ships Act. We need to refurbish our domestic shipbuilding industry. We need to have a Navy that can compete with China. We need to have domestic tankers that can take our natural gas around the world. And, just as an idea. I’m just spit-balling here. We may need to do that in Philadelphia and bring back our shipbuilding.”
Taking questions with members of the Bucks County audience, Ted Harrison of New Hope told McCormick abortion remains a key issue for Democrats. If Republicans want to win, they should give it up, he suggested.
McCormick called it “very polarizing.”
“It’s a state’s right,” he said. “We should embrace three exceptions: rape, incest and the life of the mother. And we should make widely available contraception.”
Another man asked about illegal immigration.
McCormick said the country should return to former President Donald Trump’s policies.
“I think this fentanyl thing is out of control,” he added. “Four thousand people in Pennsylvania last year, almost 100,000 across our country (died from fentanyl overdoses),” he said. “I would identify the cartels and name them to be terrorist organizations. I would send in our military to take out those fentanyl manufacturing facilities and destroy the cartels,” he said.
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