Story that could be uplifting, certainly people will face challenges throughout their lifetimes, but we all should understand that those challenges dont necessarily have to define us. Im just blessed to live in a great United States of america and happy about the opportunity presented to me and thats what i hope to share in this story for other people. Host the book is relatively revealing. What that tough to expose yourself like that . Guest it was. It wasser hard. Ive been through a number of significant challenges in my lifetime. I was raped when i was a young woman with my first boyfriend, and really suffered from that, but then moving on, going through an episode of Domestic Violence and just really difficult time in my marriage, and those were all things i really did not want to share publicly, but i was obviously going through a very public divorce a couple years ago, and that information came out through that process, and i had so many other women and a few men that had reached out of to me and had said, you know what, joni you have gone through these challenges, went on to be a lieutenant commander, now a United States senator, and it is good for other people to hear that you can go through these lifealtering events but still overcome them and move on to better days, and so thats what i hope that i can share with some of the readers, is that you do have challenges in your lifetime but there are opportunities. The next day is a new day, and you can find joy in your lifetime. Host in your book, daughter of the heartland, you write that, quote people tend to pay an inordinate nantz 0 attention of women legislators private lives. Absolutely they do. And. Youre scrutinize he from everything you ware, the style of your hair, the collar of your hair, all of that, and then maybe certainly if youre a mother, how are you raising your children, why are you away at work when you should be at home . Those are situation is dont hear men every talked about in that way. But certainly the women receive a lot of attention. With their personal lives, and i think that is wholly unfair. Especially when were serving in the same chamber, same body, as our male counterparts. But just looked upon differently. I dont think its justified, and people shouldnt be scrutinizing personal lives when they dont do it with the men. Host tell us about red oak, iowa. Guest its a beautiful community. It is the heart of montgomery county, iowa. Our county seat. And with the community that i was raised very near. Now, i went to school in adjacent to red oaks, raised on a form northeast of red oak and just such a tremendous experience and theres such a sense of community in rural iowa that were all very proud of where we come from. We call it being iowa nice, where youre reaching out and youre helping a neighbor that might be in need. So, it was a great place to be raised, and i had truly a wonderful childhood growing up on the farm. It was a lot of hard work. There was a lot expected from us but at the same time, growing and developing in that type of community was really important. Host back to your book, quote life on a farm was a constant battle for survival. Guest yes. My parents experienced that first hand, and many of our neighbors did. So i was raised on the farm during the 70s and 8s and my father lives on the farm today. Theyre northeast of red oak, north of standon and whatnot they went through in the 80s was very dulk with the farm economy coming down around them and really having to make ends meet in such a constrained environment so my dad started a separate business help started working with heavy equipment, doing dirt work for other farmers around the area. My mother, once my brother was in school, took on a job, parttime job in town. So they found other ways to bring income in to support the farm, support us kids, and we made it through. But those times are challenging. You never know when the next flood is going to come through and destroy your crops, if theres theres going to be a drought or tornado. All of those natural events that can impact the farm economy, and so you drive through, you be as resellent as you and can like i said, the sense of community and helping your neighbors. I share one story in the book where it wasnt a Natural Disaster but there was a farmer that had been injured by a cow. Just a freak accident. This cow push up against him and knocked him into the fence and he was hospitalized and he died from his injuries. And it was harvest time and his wife really needed the support. So the radio, they put in archbishop announcement only the radio, the local radio station, and within hours people converged on the farm with combines, wagons and tractors and brought the harvest in so his widow wouldnt have to worry thought that. Thats the sense of community we have in iowa. Er very proud of that. I know other states have that, too, but thats the way i was raised. Reach out, help when needed. Help when needed. And were just blessed to live in such a nation that provides us the opportunity to help others. Host when you talk but a constant struggle for survival, after the 2015 state of the Union Address you five the republican response and you talk pull out putting bred bagsdown feet and you became notorious for that line. Guest i did. And it was so funny because i look back at my childhood and my mother was thrifty out of necessity. We had to be thrifty. And we only had one good pair of shoes for church or for school, and living on the farm, anybody that has been raised on a farm in iowa understands that when it rains you get very muddy so waiting for a school bus or going to church, my mother would put bread bags over our shoes to protect them and keep them clean. And so we get on the school bus with our bread bags but all the other kids had bread bags, too. So it really doesnt matter to me, but certainly its something that now that i look around our community, parents arent as thrifty or maybe they dont utilize things like that. Everybody is very conscientious about maybe being embarrassed about not having maybe what the other cool kids have, but it was a learning opinion for me just to make due with what you have, be proud of what you have and then protect what you have. A dollar back then was something that my parents really struggled to earn those dollars, and we certainly didnt want to waste them. So, thats what i carried on into the United States senate with my waste arresters, trying to be a federal watchdog but it was amazing that some people would tease me about that, all in in humor, but the was some folks who were very mean about it, too, and made fun of me because i grew up that way and certainly i would think that those on the left, they tout being tolerant but when its a republican going through the same hardships as child then i became the object of scorn. So its really unfortunate that we have those types to divides in our society today, and what i want people to understand is were all human beings, we all go through different challenges, we all good through different learning points in our lifetimes and that we should respect each other for different points of view, but always have empathy towards our human our brothers and sisters. Host senator eventer, one of the tipping themes in your book is the cohesiveness of the 26 bill who serve in the United States senate. Republicans and democrats. But at the same time, a couple of those friended of yours campaigned against you in 2014 when you were running for the senate. Guest right. That is the thing about politics, and one thing that you have to keep in mind, anytime youre entering into this absolutely bizarre world, is that not everybody will agree on everything, and that you have to have thick skin. So, even though there are women i would consider friends, we obviously have very different politics, and so we have to understand that, not take it personal. We can have shared passions and drive on towards similar goals when he share the park but outside of that, you know what . Just let it roll off your back. And thats what i have had to do many times over, but its okay. I would still consider those women collaborators, consider them friends, especially again when we have the shared passions. Host and its pretty tight sorority among the women senators . Guest it really is. Our ideologies vary wide live. All across the spectrum. Republicans and democrats. But what we have found is that we can come together and we do this in a bipartisan fashion, every couple of months we get together hosted by Susan Collins or diane feinstein, i hosted one this last fall. Theres so many things that we can do together and we dont talk politics, we talk but our families, we talk about what might be going on in our childrens lives, things like that and its something we found really brings us together in a cohesive unit and while we may be on opposite sides of one piece of legislation we know we, always find a path forward through friendship and work on other opportunities. Host you have mention evidence children. You have one daughter libby, wherees she now. Guest libis actually on her way to d. C. Right now, and i will be taking her back up to the United States military academy this weekend where she will report in for her next year of schooling. She is a cadet at west point, and will go into the army here in the next couple of years, and serve our great nation and im very, very proud of her. Shes a hard charger, extremely intelligent, smart young woman, but trying to raise a daughter that is selfconfident, knows her path forward, and she has achieved that. I have to say she has achieved that so im very proud of her. Host following in her mothers footsteps. Yes. Think shell good on to do even more. Host senator ernst, you wrote as a child that your goals or two be a nurse and a farmers wife. Didnt turn out that way, did it. Guest no, sure didnt. One of those other things was miss america, too, but host oh, yes, forgot about that one. Guest so, i was talking about that with a friend, and i didnt become a nurse, and i didnt become a farmers wife and i didnt become miss america, and my friend looked like joni your such an underachiever. Our paths change, and we certainly can look at various career fields through the eyes of a child, and i so admire people that are in healthcare and a lot of that was maybe informed by my mother. My mother is not college educated, but she was the mother to two children that had juvenile diabetes. My brother and my sister both had to live on insulin shots and they still do and i always watch my mother gave my brother and sister their shots morning and evening, and i just admired that she was carrying for my brother and sister, and i admired that about my mother, she was able to do so much with little, and hold our family together, and i always thought, well, that is really noble. I want to go into health services. Chose a different career path and went into counseling and job training, working with various populations, like those that have been underemployed or longterm unemployed, and really found my calling more in that area, but ive had so many great experiences through my lifetime, and while i set those goals as a child, i know that ive made significant difference in my state and in my nation by choosing a different career path. Host how did the military become part of your life for 23 years. Guest well, i had always had this friend that the gentleman that sold feed, livestock feed to my family, he was in the National Guard and he was a recruiter. He always used to say, hey, joni ill talk to you about the National Guard holm, jerry issue dont think i can do that. The seed was planned. My father served in the National Guard many, many years ago if dont really remember that period of his life so much, just the stories, but what really took me into the military was an Agricultural Exchange to the soviet union in the 1980s. The late 1980s, and on that exchange what i found, group of iowa students lived on a collective farm in ukraine and the family i stayed with didnt have a car, no refrigerator no rung water, so no indoor plumbing. Could go on and on and on but what they didnt have, and even though i grew up on a very small farm, i had a refrigerator issue had a telephone in my home, i had running water, we had tractors. They didnt have those things. And so two different worlds super powers and i thought, my gosh, they would offer their citizens the same level of opportunity and that wasnt true in the soviet union. And so when we got together, the iowa students and we got together with the collective farms group of citizens and we went to the Community Hall that first night, the first question they wanted to know was, what is it like to be an american . And it just struck me, i think, at that point, that so many people want what we have in this great nation. They desire it. They hunger for it. And through the course of that exchange, it really emphasized to me how proud i am of the values and freedoms and opportunities that this country gives us, and i decided, and again i was 19 years old but i decided i dont want to take it for granted anymore. I have to give back to my country. And so when i got back to iowa state, that fall i started exploring that opportunity of the army rotc and joint the rotc program and served 23 years in the army reserve in the iowa army National Guard and was a great honor to serve my country and state in uniform. Host in fact you their first female combat veteran to serve as United States senator. You saw action in iraq. Guest we were stationed in kuwaiti was the commander of a Transportation Company so we would deliver supplies. We would pick supplies up at the port, take them to warehouses in kuwait. That it theyd be broken into various packages and then we would deliver the supplies throughout kuwait and into iraq, up to Baghdad International airport as well also Logistics Base sites and many other places like that, to little air force base. But it was a very difficult time. It was the first year of the war. We had just gone into iraq. It was very chaotic at that time i guess is good way to describe it, and on that first trip up into iraq, my company didnt even have masks. So what i did, i knew there was a tennessee National Guard unit that had already made a trip to Baghdad International airport, so i went to that Company Commander and asked if he would come give us a briefing and share with us the path we get to Baghdad International airport. So he came over and sat down with me and my First Sergeant and those that would be leading this mission, and he pulled out his hand drawn map and he shared it with us and my driver copied that hand drawn map down so they would know where some of the physical locations were on the route, so we would make sure we got to the right place. But talk about flying by the seat of your pants. Here we are navigating at the early part of the war through iraq with handdrawn maps and my drivers, they would write down other things, theyd an know tate Different Things on the hand drawn map and then wed share that information when we got back into quarterback with our other drivers back into kuwait with or drivers. Eventually the post exchange, the px, got some rand a mcnally type maps and when those came in i went in with by personal credit card and bought all of them. If we couldnt have a topo map provided by the out government, at least we can have a rand mcnally would would get us where we needed to go. Sew we made do with what we had and i im very fortunate because there are a number of other iowa National Guard units that were deployed at that time. Several of them were other transportation units and they were permanently stationed in iraq, and i had the advantage, my unit was stationed in kuwait and we just ran missions back and forth, but those other units did lose soldiers and way so blessed because win we redeployed i redeployed with my entire unit. It was devastating. You know, and not all heroes wear combat, you know, infantry patches. Some of them are truck drivers, some of them are supply sergeants. Were all vulnerable when we go into a combat zone. And so, you know, god bless em, and i was just very fortunate to come home with everyone. Host we mentioned that you were the first female combat veteran to serve as a United States senator, and i would guess to say that you were probably the first senator to ever be taped. [laughter] guest probably. Host tell us that story. [laughter] guest yes. I was tased. I was a baaal gone commander, and battalion commander, and in the nearly three years i served as a battalion commander, we had an annual commander in wisconsin where all of my units were together at one time for that two week annual training. So i add had my truck i had my truck units out there, i had my Maintenance Units out there, and then i had one company of military policemen. And we had this phenomenal e7 that was getting ready to exit the guard, and i was trying to get him to reenlist. Again, just a phenomenal young leader x. He said, well, maam, i will reenlist if i can tase you, because they had to go through taser training. And so i said, okay, its a deal. You can tase me and youre going to reenlist. So we did. We went into the taser training, i went through the training with the military police company, and we had a really phenomenal Company Commander. He went first. He wanted to make sure that he was the first one to be tased. So he was tased and then i was number two in the lineup. And that e7 tased me. Horrible experience, i dont recommend it for anyone. But we did retain a brilliant young nco. I was happy to go through it not at the time, but i was happy to go through it to keep one of the best and brightest in the iowa army National Guard. Host senator ernst, who is connieing magnusson, and why to you spend a bit of time writing about her in. Guest that was my first opponent in a local election, and in thats when i really understood the significance of running for elected office. We had a county auditor that was not respectful to the public, she wasnt respectful to the other elected officials in the county, and there was quite a stir over the job that this is doing at the county courthouse. And she had actually, after one supervisors meeting the county auditor serves as clerk in the board of supervisors after one meeting she dropped another supervisor, physically hit the other supervisor. She was arrested. She was acquitted, but it created such an uproar, it was trust, there was anger in our community and so i was asked to run against the incumbent republican auditor. And i did choose to engage in that election. And we went through a very, very Difficult Campaign cycle, just very bizarre. But in the end, i did win the election. I was the division of county auditor, and when i went into the office, her entire staff, they quit. So they left. I knew that they were going to do that, and that actually was, it was okay because i was able to start fresh and hire my own staff onboard. But they had emptied all the rolodexs, and at that time, you know, we kept phone numbers of all the important contacts in rolodexs. They had emptied out all of the rolodexs and replaced them with blank cards. They had taken all of the courthouse keys and dumped them into one drawer completely unlabeled. I could go on and on and on. But its shenanigans that you wouldnt think adults would engage in. And it was hike a sigh of relief like a sigh of relief when through the county when i assumed the position. I made it a point to engage the other elected officials in the courthouse. We were able to open our doors to visitors and the public coming back in. And it just was really kind of a time of healing. Im much about bringing people together and finding a path forward rather than being divisive and ugly e to people, you know . We can be kind to each other and we can show respect even when we dont agree. So it was a wonderful learning experience for me. I enjoyed so much working with the people in my home county and hearing, again, its a very rural, small county, but hearing some of the challenges that they had and the farmers and the public that would come in and just lean on my counter or in my office and share the news of the day or the thoughts of the day and all that you can take away by being part of a community. And it was a real lesson in the ugliness of politics but then also the wonderful things that can be achieved when youre all pulling in the same direction. Host and from there to the state senate and then in 2014 to the United States senate guest right. Host your husband at the time, gayle, was he supportive of your political career . Guest you know, he was, and it was off and on. When it suited him, yes. And when it didnt, no. So it really became a bone of contention especially once i got into the United States senate. And while he was very used to being the center of everyones attention, you know, he had a wonderful military career, he was used to being that person in charge and admired by everyone. And i think through the course of being in the senate, you know, the attention shifted, and i was very focused on work. But people were very focused on, you know, what i was working on and not what he was working on. And so it became more of a jealousy, i think. And, you know, it was really unfortunate. And so the issues that had already existed in our marriage just became exponentially that t much bigger. And so, you know, while again in public we all put on a smile, we all have that resiliency, keep that stiff upper lip, you know, as the American Farmer does, but it became so difficult and, obviously, he chose a a different path, and we did divorce. And it was heartbreaking for me to have spent 26 years with someone that i loved and then to be, be left behind with him taking on, you know, a new family immediately. And it was very tough to deal with especially as im tying to work on legislation trying to work on legislation for iowa and preparing for the next campaign season. Host senator, when the Des Moines Register broke the news of your divorce, a, did you feel violated . And what was the reaction you got in d. C. . Guest i did. I felt horribly violated. And when the information came out about the Domestic Violence, the episode that had happened in my marriage, it was not something that i wanted to explain to my family why i would stay with a person that would abuse me like that. I didnt want my daughter to have to relive that experience. She was young when it happened. Finish it was, it was hurtful. And i did, i felt violated. I wasnt ready to talk about some of the hurtful things that had happened in my life. And i think that any survivor, any survivor should have the opportunity to decide when is right for him or her to tell their story. And i didnt have that opportunity. So i felt very bad about it and was deeply upset about it. When i returned to washington, d. C. , i was really, really nervous abouting being cornered in the about being cornered in the hallway because the press are merciless about, you know, following you down the hallways if asking you all kinds of questions. And i was so nervous about it, and my staff was like just dont answer any questions, just keep walking. You dont have to listen to them. And so we got to the bottom of the stairs there and, amazingly enough, they all just kind of stepped back, they kind of lowered their heads a little bit. A couple of them just gave me, you know, what i would describe as kind of a shy smile. But they met me pass without they let me pass without saying a world, and i was very grateful. I was very grateful for that. Host two reactions that you write about in daughter of the heartland. President trump and bernie sanders. Guest yeah. Yeah. Two extraordinary men, two totally different people. But both of them reached out to me. And President Trump called me after he had learned about that information, and he was so and hes always been very good to me. And he was very empathetic. He just said, joni, youre going to do great things. We we love you. Im sorry this happened to you. And the same from bernie sanders. He caught me outside of the dirksen building one day. I think we were both walking back from votes. And he pulled me aside in private, you know, because i had a staff member with me. He just pulled me aside and he said, joni, this never should have happened to you, im sorry. You know . So in the oddest of places, you can find comfort and support. And i think thats what, again, one of the important lessons is that we all need to understand were all human beings, weve all been through challenges, weve all had significant hurts in our lifetime and yet we can still be supportive and care for one another as human beings. And thats what President Trump and senator sanders exhibited for me. Host and finally, senator ernst, do you still force your staff to march with you at 4 30 in the morning . [laughter] guest we actually, peter, have bumped back the time. They now start at 5 a. M. [laughter] and, no, it is all volunteer. And we still have a lot of people that turn out to engage in our run marcheses down on the mall. Ive only had two other members of congress go with me, Martha Mcsally and thom tillis. And thom tillis, he did, he made his entire staff go on that Early Morning ruck march. But after we do it, i present them with my challenge coin, and they got done, and they got a challenge coin. And thom tillis told me later in the day, theyd been grumbling about it before we started marching, but he said later in the day its all they could talk about. They had bragging rights, and they were telling all of the other officers that they had gone out with senator ernst at five in the morning to go down on the mall. So, you know, it is a fun activity, and its not about politics really, its just about honoring our veterans, experiencing the sights of those War Memorials on the mall, remembering them for their sacrifice and then just the camaraderie and getting to know people on the hill. Host unfortunately, were out of time. Senator joni ernst, republican of iowa. Her new book is called daughter of the heartland. Shes a member of the Senate Leadership team as well. Thank you for joining us for a little while on booktv. Guest you bet. Thanks so much, peter. Starting now, its our summer series that features programs from our archives with well known authors. Tonight well look at some programs with best selling author john grisham. Hes written over 40 books including the best selling a time to kill, the firm and the pelican brief. Up first, in 2009 we talked with mr. Grisham about his writing habits at the virginia festival of the book in charlottesville. Host john grisham, who is Deborah Carter . Guest she was a cocktail waitress, among other jobs. 21, 22 years old in ada, oklahoma, that was murdered in december of 1981, raped and murdered in a very, very brutal episode. And it took the police in