Exclusive — Joni Ernst: I’d Be ‘Extremely Honored’ to Be Trump’s VP

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) would be “extremely honored” to be President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, she said this weekend.

Ernst was interviewed on the Breitbart News Memorial Day Weekend special on SiriusXM Patriot 125. She offered a tribute, as a U.S. Army veteran, to those American servicemen and servicewomen who had made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

“I think there are a lot of really wonderful people who are being considered,” Ernst said, after being asked if she would accept the job of being Trump’s running mate if it were offered to her. “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.”

She added: “I appreciate serving the people of Iowa, I’m so thankful to be in the United States Senate.”

She also talked about the growing Iranian threat, noting that President Joe Biden had the “absolutely wrong” approach, saying that Biden needed to stand up to the regime and return to the sanctions that President Donald Trump had imposed.

We need to “mak[e] sure that Iran can no longer do harm to its own people, but more importantly, to Israel and to American service members,” Ernst said, alluding to the three American soldiers who were killed by a drone attack by an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq on the Jordanian border in January.

The senator also commented on the wave of antisemitism on American campuses, related to anti-Israel protests and encampments. “we are encouraging the filing of complaints to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”

Ernst also discussed her efforts to hold the federal government and the Chinese Communist Party accountable for mismanagement of viral research in the lead-up to the coronavirus pandemic. She has led the charge to prevent the Wuhan Institute of Virology from receiving additional research funding, as well as the EcoHealth Alliance.

EcoHealth Alliance had been, she said, “doing studies on gain-of-function,” which “we believe started the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.