Tight Senate Races, Farmers and What’s at Stake in 2026

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Senator Joni Ernst. Well, retired military, she’s done it all. U.S. Senator from the great state of Iowa. Well, Joni Ernst, you’ve done it all. You love America. Give us your reading. We’re only four weeks away, five weeks away from the election for November 3rd. Give us the pulse of the situation. Yes.

0:25 Speaker 2 And thank you, John. I know you love America, too. And that’s why you’re out there on these programs and just hosting so many great guests. But I tell you, as we’re getting close to the election, there are a lot of races that are extremely tight out there. You know, a number of my Republican colleagues in the United States Senate,

0:49 they’re all in really, really tough races. And it’s probably tougher than it should be. We know that we’re getting like in Iowa, we’re getting ready for a fall harvest. The diesel prices are much, much higher than they’ve ever been.

1:04 And so the farmers, they just want to know, hey, you know, are we going to see a return on our investment when we’re bringing those crops in? You know, are those prices we’re going to see at the market?

1:17 Are they going to meet our needs? All of these things are playing into the election this fall. And this is why I do think the president invited President Xi to the White House this past week and why they are trying to work through some trade negotiations, because our farmers need to know that their crops have somewhere to go.

1:39 If they’re not being consumed domestically, maybe China can buy some of that. So I know the president is working from a number of different angles to try and make things better for our farmers, for our small businesses, and certainly for all consumers out there across America. But I’m just telling folks out there, these races are tight. And

2:02 we want to think about all the good things that Republicans have done. for the United States and trying to protect that taxpayer dollar. John, you and I have talked about fraud before on your program. That’s one thing that Republicans are very keen on and things that we’ve worked on is preventing fraud and theft of taxpayer dollars. And

2:24 so that’s a really good thing that we’ve got going. We had the one big, beautiful bill, you know, the working families tax cuts those that happened last year, that helped so many small businesses, so many Americans across the board.

2:40 We need to be talking about these wonderful incentives that we’ve had that are making our lives much better.

2:47 Speaker 1 You’re absolutely right. And we have so many problems, but President Trump has solved so many problems, but we still have a few problems. I mean, like I said to When we saw each other, we were together last week, I said the perfect thing that former Vice President Pence said.

3:09 The Republicans have a few problems, but the Democrats completely lost their mind.

3:15 Speaker 2 Yes, and I just sat down with Senator John Bozeman here recently. He’s the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. And we were talking about the differences and some of the challenges in a number of these Senate races. And there are a lot of states like Iowa that are swing states. We’ve got a lot of independent-minded voters. And

3:39 if they don’t like what the Republicans are doing, they’re probably going to vote for the Democrats. But what John said, and it’s true, is you have to remind those voters that They may not like everything that the Republicans are doing, but they certainly will not like all of the things that the Democrats intend to do. So if you look

4:01 at the direction the Democratic Party is going with those Democratic Socialists of America, this is a very radical change in the United States of America. We do not want socialism. We do not want communism. And that’s where the Democratic Party is headed.

4:18 Speaker 1 I agree 100%. Well, Senator Ernst, thank you for coming on. Let’s talk again real soon.

4:24 Speaker 2 Sounds great. I appreciate it.